A Wrongful Death (5 page)

He laughed and poured more coffee for her. He had had his limit for the day.

"The question is," she said slowly, "if you decide for yourself which laws are allowable or for the good of most, but not all, people, who's to say that everyone else doesn't have the same right to pick and choose? And what finally does the law mean?"

He nodded. "Precisely the question. Did you come up with an answer?"

"No. I'm still wrestling with it."

Maybe just a little bit more coffee, he thought, pouring it, keeping his gaze on the carafe and his cup. Slowly, in a low voice, he said, "Bobby, no matter where you come down with an answer, you'll find the same question nagging at you decades from now. It doesn't go away."

"You gave up capital cases," she said, just as softly.

"Yes, I did."

That night in her apartment, sitting at her table, Barbara regarded a cardboard carton with distaste. It was nearly filled with mail — personal letters, flyers, credit card offers, invitations. She had started to sort through it all, only to stop and push it aside. It had waited all those weeks; it could wait a bit longer. Instead, she turned to look over the living room, then the small kitchen. It was bleak, all of it, cold and barren in appearance with hardly a sign of who lived there. Except for books on end tables it was as impersonal as the hotel and motel rooms she had been living in for weeks. The very nice gifts different people had given her over the years were for the most part put away in their own boxes, on closet shelves, even in her storage locker in the basement of the building. Too nice to keep out where it would collect dust, she had said of this or that, and packed it away.

But she could buy a few pillows, a colorful throw for the sofa, something to liven it up. Not a plant. They always died in her care.

Slowly she wandered to her home office and sat at her desk, and more slowly she took Darren's e-mail from her pocket and smoothed it out. Already frayed, it had been dampened at the Diedricks cabin when she took off her rain garb, and now the creases were starting to split.

My darling Barbara, I love you and it seems my fate to keep loving you. I got over the anger, and the hurt, and began to think, instead of just suffer gut reactions. You were right, Barbara. If that little bit of you was all I could have, I was content to live with it, or so I thought, without realizing what I was doing to you. How selfish we can be when we're in love — one of those mysterious puzzles we poor humans seem plagued with apparently. I want to be your friend, your companion, your lover. I want to be your husband, to marry all of you, not just the part I was too ready to settle for. I'm afraid it's all the way or not at all with us, isn't it? Will you marry me, Barbara? You can come home. I won't bug you, or call, or hang out on your doorstep.

She placed the e-mail message in a file folder on her desk, then sat with her eyes closed, remembering a session with Dr. Sanger. "When you confront what it is you fear, only then can you resolve it. But you have to find that elusive fear. No one can do it for you."

Abandonment? Betrayal? Unfaithfulness? She shook her head. Afraid of hurting him desperately. She knew that was part of it, but was it all? Marjorie Sanger had not thought it enough. Find a better answer, she'd said. Six weeks had not been long enough. She had brought home the same two problems that had resulted in her flight — her wandering, futile search for answers. Could she work within the law when she believed with every fiber of her being that the law often was wrong? What to do about Darren? What she had come home to face now was a possible warrant for her arrest, and finding herself suspected of aiding and abetting a kidnapper, or worse. And she still had no answers to anything, she added almost savagely.

Chapter 5

Maria and Shelley were almost giddy with joy at Barbara's return on Monday morning, both talking at once, hugging and touching, as if to verify that she was really back. Shelley had several interesting cases, two from Martin's restaurant, one a real paying office case, and Maria was apologetic about so much mail in the office, and in the box at the apartment. No bills, she added, smiling. She had taken care of the bills, paid the rent and they'd had to have a repairman do something about a computer glitch.

Laughing, Barbara walked through the reception room to her office with Shelley close behind. Fresh flowers were on the round table, and a new plant in a new cloisonné urn near a window. She looked at Shelley accusingly.

"Well, your father said you'd be back today, in all likelihood. I thought a little something special would be nice. I have to run. Court at eight-thirty, shoplifting, seventeen-year-old brat "

Barbara waved her out and went to sit at her desk. It was good to be back, she thought in surprise. Crazy, but it was good to be back.

Frank arrived minutes later. And promptly at nine Lt. Howard Janowsky appeared. He was a heavyset, middle-aged man with graying hair, wearing gold-rimmed eyeglasses, dressed in a bulky tweed suit and carrying a briefcase. His suit was too hot for indoors, Barbara thought, and not warm enough, or moisture proof enough, for outside. You wanted something you could shed inside, let drip, if necessary, or at the very least dry out a little before putting it on again. She imagined that heavy wool absorbed moisture and held it all day.

He nodded to Frank, and held out his hand to Barbara for a firm, no-nonsense handshake.

"Please," she said, motioning to the sofa and chairs at the low table. "I thought we would be more comfortable over here." She waited until he was seated in one of the chairs, then asked, "What can I do for you, Lieutenant? I understand you've been looking for me."

"That's correct," he said. "We have been asked to look into the assault you reported to the local authorities in Coos

County on November twenty-fourth of this year. Will you please tell me about it?"

She repeated what she had told the sheriff deputies and then Frank, Janowsky listened making occasional notes. Then he asked, "Who was she?"

"I have no idea. I never met her before that day, and didn't meet her then, since she was unconscious."

"Would you recognize her again?"

"Probably not. Her face was swollen, covered with dirt, mud really, and bloody. Her nose had been bleeding, and a head injury had bled, and was still bleeding when I moved her. Her hair was muddy, wet and also bloody. And she never opened her eyes, so I couldn't say what color they were."

"But you had seen her before, down on the beach?"

"Yes, twice, each time at a distance, when she had on a head scarf and a dark rain coat or something. We simply nodded at each other, and I didn't stay on the beach after I saw her and the child."

"How about down in California, did you meet with her there?"

Barbara shook her head. "I told you, I never met her, never saw her close until after she had been attacked. I don't know who she is or anything about her."

"You said her computer had been taken. How did you know she had a computer?"

"I assumed there had been a computer," she said steadily, although she could feel her anger gathering. He was noncommittal, almost robotic in his way of putting questions, but each additional question seemed to imply disbelief. "There was a computer cable still plugged in, and there was a printer cartridge in the wastebasket. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to assume that there had been a computer and printer to go with them."

"Did you look in the other room, the one with the other table and chairs?"

"Later, when Mr. Norris and I went back. That door was closed, the room unheated and there was dust on the table. No one had used that room for a long time."

"How old was the child?"

She shrugged. "Little. I don't know how old. I don't know kids that size and age." She held up her hand to estimate height. "Four, five, maybe six, maybe just three. I don't know."

"Would you recognize him again?"

"I don't know," she said. "His hair was wet, and he was so afraid, crying. I just don't know."

"What was he afraid of?"

"His mother was hurt, bleeding, on the ground in the rain. For God's sake, that's enough to terrify any child." Her voice was tight then, when she demanded, "Lieutenant, what's this all about? What are you looking for?"

"We think the child may be endangered, and we suspect the woman is, from your account. We're looking for them both."

"Well, obviously—" She caught a warning look from Frank and curbed her anger and impatience.

Imperturbably the lieutenant asked, "Is it possible that the child was terrified and trying to run away from something or someone when you caught him on the beach and took him back to the cabin?"

She shook her head. "I told you. He was looking for help.

He grabbed my hand and started to pull me back up the trail.

He said his mother was hurt, and he was crying."

"What else did he say?"

"Nothing. Not another word. He was shaking, soaked and freezing, staring at his injured mother."

"Where could he have found help on the beach if you hadn't been there, or if he hadn't expected you or someone to be there?"

The first time she had seen them, they had been down at the basalt stacks, scrambling on top of some of the shorter, flattened ones where there were many tide pools. He had been dressed in a yellow raincoat with a yellow hat, and high yellow boots, the kind of clothes she had seen little kids in Eugene wearing. She told him about it. "From up there you can see past the rocks and stacks, see the next beach with people and a few buildings. I think that's where he was heading that day, but the tide was coming in, and he couldn't have made it all the way before it caught him."

His questions continued with painstaking attention to the details, and then he asked, "Why did you leave the cabin the next morning?"

She glanced at Frank and caught his nearly imperceptible shake of the head. "I had rented it for a week only and decided to cut it short by one day since there was the possibility of a maniac in the area."

"Where did you go?"

She shrugged. "Nowhere in particular, up the coast."

"Did you meet up with the woman again?"

"No."

His questions went on for another hour until she finally stood up and said, "Lieutenant, I've told you all I can about that incident. What I did before and after it are irrelevant. I suggest that it's time to conclude this interrogation."

"One more thing, "he said. He opened his briefcase, brought out a folder, removed a picture and handed it to her. "Is that the woman you saw?"

The woman had regular features, lovely dark eyes and long sweeping dark eyelashes. Her hair was black, shoulder length, thick and glossy looking, with a slight wave. She was smiling. "I can't be sure," Barbara said. "Possibly, but I couldn't definitely say it is."

"How about this one?" He handed her a second photo, a five by seven, apparently a school picture of a sober-faced little boy with dark curly hair, and the same kind of long eyelashes as the woman's. He appeared to be holding his breath.

"He looks too young," she said after a moment. "And the boy I saw didn't have curly hair, but it was so wet. Maybe when it dried it would be curlier. But that child looks too young."

"The picture's a year old, a little more," the lieutenant said.

He replaced them both, closed his briefcase and stood up.

"We'll have to ask you to make yourself available for additional questions if it becomes necessary," he said. "Are you planning any more trips soon?"

"No," she said. "I'll be here."

He nodded, and didn't offer to shake hands again. She went to the door with him, saw him out of the reception area, then returned and said, enraged, "Good God! They think I'm either in collusion with that woman or that I attacked her! He thinks she may be in danger! Jesus! She was murderously attacked and left for dead or dying!"

"Simmer down " Frank said mildly and went to the door to the outer office, where he said, "Maria, we could use some coffee in here, and will you see if you can find Bailey. I want him."

When he closed the door and returned to the sofa, Barbara was pacing furiously about the office. "He thinks the kid was running away, maybe even from me, and I caught him and took him back!"

When Bailey arrived, Frank got right to the point. "I want everything you can find about that whole family, the ex-husband, his parents and the ex-wife and child."

Although Bailey often questioned what Barbara wanted, he simply jotted down the names Frank provided, and nodded. He did not ask if there was a paying client in sight, as he often did when Barbara sent him on his quest.

"And where she was just before she showed up at that cabin, and where she went afterward," Barbara added when Frank paused. To her annoyance Bailey glanced at Frank, who nodded.

"She might have needed medical attention," Frank said. "That could be a good starting place."

"She was wearing a lined hooded jacket," Barbara said. "The cut was about here." She indicated a place near her hairline over her eye. "I imagine she had the hood up when she was hit, and it probably saved her life, then came off when she fell. I think she needed stitches, and her face was swollen and discolored down to her jaw line."

After Bailey left, Barbara said, "Dad, you know this is going to cost a fortune, and I don't have a client."

"I do," he said.

Chapter 6

Barbara had spent most of Monday catching up with mail, and on Tuesday morning, as Shelley looked in before leaving for a court appearance, she felt the first twinge of guilt when Shelley said, "I'll go straight over to Martin's after court. If it isn't too late, I'll come back here, but if it's after four or so, I'll just head for home. Try to beat the fog."

Barbara knew how busy she had been during the weeks that Shelley had been away on her honeymoon, and apparently Shelley was just as busy now, doing double duty at Martin's as in the office.

She started to say she would take over at Martin's that afternoon, then left the words unspoken. One of the letters she had yet to respond to concerned the job offer at Reed College.