Defense for the Devil (16 page)

Barbara picked up the copy of Thelma Wygood’s diary. She had found it hard to read, and not because of the handwriting, which was small and precise. They were still in the getting-acquainted period—early seduction period, she corrected. She read: “I told him I can’t dance and he was delighted. He will teach me, he said, not in a public place where I might feel shy, but somewhere without an audience. ‘But you can dance. Anyone who walks like you do, with the natural grace of a princess, was born to dance. Let me teach you….’

“June 15. I met him at the Hilton Bar, as usual, and he said he had a car waiting. There is a restaurant he wants to share with me. I said no…. He said, ‘You won’t heal until you have struck back, stop feeling beaten, fight back’… I had my drink and walked out. He did not follow, as I thought he might. He is clever in a reptilian way. I won’t make another move until he does.

“June 17. Tonight I took a walk, then sat at a little café and had coffee. He found me there. He said he had a present for me. He left the present on the table. It’s the book
Don’t Get Mad, Get Even.
I think things will pick up speed soon.”

The phone rang, and Barbara turned over the last page she had read and stood up as Frank answered. “Right, Ruthie, she’s here.” He held out the phone.

“Mr. Trassi is on the line,” Ruthie said.

“Put him on.”

“Ms. Holloway?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Next Thursday afternoon at three, same place as before. I’ll have the material you require.”

“And I’ll bring the material you need,” she said. He hung up.

She let out a long breath. If anyone had told her just a couple of weeks ago how close she would be to the edge today, she would have laughed. If anyone had told her the bomb would explode and in the fallout there would be obstruction of justice, withholding evidence, trying to pull a fast one on the IRS, the real conflict of interest represented by Maggie and Ray, possible charges leveled at her, Barbara… She shook her head in bewilderment; at no time had she planned any of it to work out the way it was moving. But Thursday would see her take a step back from the abyss, not in the clear yet by any means, but not hanging by her fingernails, with any luck. She knew very well she would be at risk until after the IRS signed an agreement with Maggie, and Ray was set free by a trial of his peers or his case was thrown out of court or the cops took off their blinkers and found the killers…. But Thursday was a step in the right direction, away from disaster. She turned from the phone to see Frank regarding her; he averted his gaze swiftly.

“Thursday, three o’clock,” she said. “Federal Building.”

Going home, she considered the coming days and weeks. They would have Saturday and Sunday free, and next week, on Friday, maybe they could drive out to the coast together in the camper and spend the weekend after she talked to Maggie. She began to hurry.

This time when she entered the apartment, she called out instantly, “I’m home.”

He came from his office. “All wrapped up?”

“Pretty much. A little tidying remains, that’s all.”

“Great! Want to take a trip?”

“You’ve been reading my mind,” she said. “When, where?”

“Up to the Canadian Cascades first. It’s an all-day drive, get there Sunday night, do a little work for a few days, hike, camp, then swing down through Idaho for a couple of days.”

“I have a meeting I have to attend on Thursday,” she said, deflated. “Could I get to an airport from where we’d be?”

“No. It was just an idea.” He started to turn away, then stopped and faced her again. “Is it okay with you if I leave? You’re sure that other problem is settled?”

“Of course,” she said. “Just another afternoon meeting or two, and it’s over for now.”

“I have to make a phone call,” he said, and reentered his office. She could hear every word when he told someone he’d drive up on Sunday, arrive before ten at night, and hope the weather didn’t change.

One day to drive up, three or four days in Canada, a day to drive to Idaho, three more days, then a day to drive home, ten days at least. And the Staley mine was in Idaho.

15

Frank grilled dinner
on the back porch that night, and he had set up a table and chairs out there. The weather was turning hot again; it was pleasant in the shade scented by a blooming jasmine vine that spiraled up a wire mesh. Thing One and Thing Two apparently considered it an adventure, having the big people eat outside. They took turns trying to climb up on the table.

“Grilled veggies are the best,” Frank said contentedly. He had prepared eggplant, zucchini, brilliant orange peppers, new potatoes, tomatoes… all touched with a hint of garlic, olive oil, oregano, basil, a faint tang of lemon. There was a whole salmon with a spicy sauce.

She could do this, Barbara thought, then admitted to herself that, no, she couldn’t. There were secrets about cooking food to perfection. The secrets were jealously guarded by a cabal, a guild of cooks who had sworn never to tell all.

“How did you fix on geology?” Frank asked John. He poured more wine and leaned back in his chair, in no hurry to start clearing things away and get on to dessert.

“When I was a kid,” John said, as relaxed as Frank now, “one day it hit me that we were burning rocks. We had a coal stove. Most people around us did—coal was cheap, free for the taking if you knew where to go dig. Filthy fires, with clouds of sulfurous fumes, creosote in the flues, sooty dust in the house, but we burned it. What was available was low-grade bituminous coal, more junk than coal actually, but it was cheap. Anyway, I was putting coal in the stove, and it hit me, we were burning rocks. I tried to burn other kinds of rocks, until my dad made me stop, and when the fire was out, he made me clean up the mess I’d made. So I got to see the rocks that didn’t burn—some had exploded—and the ashes and clinkers. I thought it was a miracle that some rocks would burn and others would explode. Magic.” He laughed a low amused rumble of a chuckle. “It never occurred to me until years later that you could go out and study rocks. I just liked them and began picking them up everywhere I went.”

“When I was about nine I knew I’d be an Arctic explorer,” Frank said. “All that snow, the wilderness, Jack London, Byrd… That’s what I wanted to do.”

“When did you get sidetracked?” John asked. Frank didn’t answer immediately. He drank his wine, and put his glass down first. “I was about thirteen. Back in the thirties, a bad time, a very bad time. My father was lucky, landed a job with the Corps of Engineers, building dams in the West, and we were living in a small town in Oklahoma. Well, there was a killing and a black man was arrested, followed by a speedy trial. They hanged him. A few weeks after the execution there was another killing, same method, same everything. Same killer. I’d followed that first trial, just like everyone else, and it hadn’t occurred to me that the guy might not have done it. There was a big town party the night he was hanged. Soon after the second killing, we moved on and I never found out if they got the real killer, but after that I went around picking up trials the way you picked up rocks. I didn’t have any idea what I’d do with them, but I couldn’t leave them alone, either.”

Frank changed the subject then by asking John what he would be doing up in the Canadian Cascades. Barbara had not asked a question, refused to ask a question, but she listened intently to the answer.

“A mining company is trying to pull a fast one, get an approval during the winter months when no one can get near the mine they want to open. An environmental group got wind of it, and they’ve been lining up experts to investigate—a hydrologist, a forester, a biologist, geologist. I’ll tramp around the hills and pick up rocks, take some pictures, look at the hole in the ground, and by January, when they hold the hearing, we’ll have our reports ready to present. With any luck,” he added. “If it starts snowing, and it could, we’ll be limited in what we can find.”

Barbara and John didn’t stay long that night; he still had things to get ready, and he wanted an early start in the morning, by dawn. It was going to be a long drive.

After she saw John off on Sunday, she went back to bed, on his side, and dozed, fantasizing about being a photographer, taking the vital pictures for him, developing and printing them in her own darkroom. She drifted into sleep again.

Later she read the for-rent ads in the newspaper. All they needed was more space, she had come awake thinking, more separation while they worked, a place where words didn’t carry from room to room. Four bedrooms. Not too far from the university library and the public library. Not too far from Frank’s house and the courthouse, and Martin’s.

Frank called Monday morning to say he would wander over to the courthouse, see what was going on; she understood he would hang out, gossiping with old pals, and learn all there was to know about the arraignment of Ray Arno. “Also,” he said, “Lou tells me his escrow officer and the judge’s clerk will be here around three to take charge of that loot.”

She had a few things to attend to that morning. A visit to a realtor, another to a rental agency, and last, a bookstore to buy a cookbook for beginners. There was no point in trying to start anywhere else, she had admitted to herself; she had no idea of the basics, how to make white sauce without lumps, for instance. Or what a roux was.

By the time she arrived at Frank’s house, she was grumpy. The sales clerk had asked how old the child was who was showing an interest in cooking. Young teens, Barbara had said, feeling stupid. Although the cookbook was insultingly simple, it was exactly what she needed. How to make a stuffed baked potato. How to roast a chicken. How to steam vegetables. Four simple pasta sauces. Easy stuffed peppers. Just what she needed.

When Frank arrived, he was as grumpy as she was.

“Goddamn that man,” he said. “They had a meeting in chambers—assistant D.A., Stover, Jane Waldman—and among them they decided there wasn’t any reason not to set the trial date for December second. It was that or late February. December!”

Barbara groaned. December second! Not enough time to prepare a decent case. “Who’s prosecuting?”

“One of the new guys, Craig Roxbury. It’s a low-priority case: do it fast, send the guy up, or to his death, and be done with it. Speedy justice.”

“Bail?”

“No.”

“Shit! Stover must think there’s no defense; he’ll let Arno sweat it out in jail for a couple of months and then press for a plea bargain. He doesn’t think it will ever get to trial.”

Lou Sunderman and the escrow officer and clerk arrived; they counted money, examined bills closely, then made out receipts, which everyone signed. There were two rent-a-cop uniformed men waiting to escort the escrow officer back to his building.

“That’s a relief,” Frank commented when it was done. “Bailey called. If we’re free around four-thirty or so, he’ll drop by the house and tell us a funny story.”

She drove him home. He changed clothes, back into his slouch shorts and shirt, and they sat on the back porch watching the cats try to catch butterflies.

“May be the best present I ever had,” Frank said.

She had gotten him the cats for Christmas the previous year. When Bailey arrived, Frank brought him to the back porch, and they sat in the shade, sipping wine.

“Full report from superspy Sylvia,” Bailey said. He was grinning broadly. “She snagged Gilmore at Valley River Inn and practically dragged him back into the lounge, and demanded a window table, which they managed to provide, no doubt canceling someone else’s reservation. I wish I had seen her, how she was dressed.”

Barbara told him, and his grin broadened even more. “Isn’t she something else! I’d love to know what he thought. Anyway, they reminisced about the good old days, off-Broadway theater, directors, other actors, God knows what all. Then she suddenly remembered Joe, and dinner at seven-thirty, and things like that. So she dragged Gilmore home with her. Gave him an eyeful.”

He helped himself to more wine. “Gilmore didn’t say anything about why he’s in the area on the first day. She had Ralph drive him back to the hotel at about eleven or so. He must have done some homework then, and found out a lot about Sylvia and her past career as an actress, because he called her on Saturday and suggested lunch, and on Saturday, he talked about her acting, how great she had been, plays he had seen her in. And he confided that he’s here on a mission. A famous director is looking for a good location to launch a small intimate theater, like the good old off-Broadway theaters used to be. He’s had no luck finding the right place. Boulder, Austin, Taos, Ashland… now Eugene. The place has to be just right, you see, not too big, not too small, with a good sophisticated audience, a nearby university. Eugene looks good to him, so far.” He laughed. “Sylvia gets all fluttery just thinking about it.”

“What’s the scam?” Barbara asked.

“Matching money, probably. He’s being cagey. He hinted that his director, who might be Woody Allen, or maybe not, has to be kept out of preliminary searches. No names. But he’ll go for whatever Gilmore recommends, if the conditions are right. What he’ll probably come up with is that if Sylvia can put dough into a special account, to demonstrate strong local support, his director will more than match it, and they’re in business. He was talking about
Arsenic and Old Lace
as a possible production.”

“But that’s so blatant! Surely no one would really go for it,” Barbara said, somewhat awed.

“Honey, you’ve seen Sylvia,” Frank said. “Doesn’t she look ripe for the picking? And to dangle a part in a grand old play under her nose. If Sylvia was what he thinks she is, she’d be in his pocket by now.” He looked at Bailey. “Any idea when he’ll take the next step?”

“Soon, a day or two. Work it fast and get out of town, that’s the way to do it. Tomorrow, next day.”

“Then what?” Barbara asked.

“See, she’ll put the money in the special account, which he will have access to, of course, so he can deposit the director’s money. Sylvia will bring it up with her lawyer, one of her other lawyers, and if he doesn’t smell a rat, she’ll guide him to the rathole very gently. He’ll get in touch with the bunco squad, and they’ll watch Gilmore clean out the account and hightail it to the airport. They’ll wait until he’s ready to board the plane and grab him. He’s got a record; he’s done time. They’ll get him and throw the book at him, a smart New York con man trying to take our own Sylvia Fenton. Meanwhile, Sylvia’s having a ball! I might not be able to hold her back after this.”