Desperate Measures (10 page)

She shook her head. Let Frank worry about Daniel and Leona, she decided, and began to think of Ruth Dufault, Leona's sister. She and her husband had a furniture store in Roseburg, an hour out of Eugene. She had never lived in Opal Creek and wouldn't be likely to know anyone there, or at least not more than as an acquaintance. Maybe she would want to talk to someone not in the family, not grief-stricken.

The property looked different, she thought when she pulled into the driveway of the Marchand house. It was as obsessively neat as it had been before, but the feeling persisted that something had changed. Or was that what a death did? Strike and leave an uneasy feeling behind, something that hovered unseen and inescapable.

When she rang the bell at the front door, it was opened promptly by a middle-aged woman whose face was puffy from weeping, her eyes bloodshot.

“Mrs. Dufault? My name is Barbara Holloway. I just wanted to stop by and tell you how very sorry I am about your sister and her husband. Dr. Minick said you're a stranger here, and I thought you might need something.”

Ruth Dufault opened the door wider. “Dr. Minick? He's a kind man. He came by offering to help. Please, come in.”

What Ruth Dufault needed was to talk to a sympathetic listener. They talked in the living room, then out in the kitchen, where Ruth made coffee. “You can see the place where they put the skillet down,” she said. “It burned the porch. I can't bear to look at it.”

Barbara looked at the perfect black disk. Murder left its mark, she thought distantly. Everything else was scrupulously neat and clean, inside and out. White woodwork inside gleamed, the polished floors gleamed, the curtains at the kitchen windows were white enough to be dazzling. She turned her attention back to Ruth, who was talking nonstop.

Rachel was at a friend's house, she said. Her girlfriend's mother had come and picked her up, to get her mind off the tragedy. And Daniel was out with Mike Bakken, talking to him about the orchard. Neighbors had offered to help with the harvest, and Daniel said he had to stay that long. They would need the money, but after the harvest they would sell the place.

“I don't know what to do,” Ruth said, taking cups from a cabinet. “I thought they would go home with me, but Daniel has to stay for the harvest, and then he'll be at OSU, and Rachel just cries and cries and doesn't know what she wants to do. One minute she says she'll go with me, and the next she's crying or, even worse, just staring at nothing.” She poured coffee and brought the cups to the table.

“She was like that the night Leona died, just staring, dead white, in shock, I guess. Daniel was crying, he ran off to his room, crying, but she didn't say a word, didn't cry, nothing, not until I got some milk out for her, to take with a tranquilizer, you see. Then she broke down and ran to the bathroom over there and cried. But she does that now, stares and stares.”

She began talking about Leona and Gus. “She was such a pretty girl, just like Rachel. And so fun-loving, full of laughter all the time. My little sister. She was only twelve when I got married, and that's all she talked about afterward, how she wanted to get married and have children. I had my first a year after I got married, then two more. She wanted a baby more than anything. And Gus came along when she was seventeen. We tried to talk her out of marrying so young, but she knew what she wanted. And Gus seemed to be crazy about her those days. She was eighteen when they got married. She was such a beautiful bride. I don't know what happened. I just can't understand what happened to them. One time she said that he believed that women who enjoyed sex were depraved, that it wasn't natural, that was why she had such a hard time with pregnancies. She never talked about it again, and if I said something like that, she denied ever thinking such a thing. I used to think it was because of her trouble, you know, miscarriages. She had four, poor thing. It was hard to watch her trying to cope, and later it was like something in her curled up and died. But she blamed herself, never Gus. She said he was the best, most honorable man she had ever met, without any vices, never cruel to her. Oh, he switched the kids now and then, but that's all. You know how some people are clock-bound? Everything on time, everything in its place, no disorder anywhere. He was like that. No TV, except what he said was all right, and if it was over by ten. Because it was bed by ten, up at six, breakfast at six-thirty, dinner at six every day. Routine. He had to have his routine, I guess. It would have driven me crazy, but Leona said it was for the best, or life would get too chaotic. She said she owed him everything, that he had given her two beautiful children, and she was grateful. But she became a different person when he was around.”

She gazed out the window at the neat lawn, then said, “Gus never had any joy in him. He was a God-fearing man who worked hard and did well, and he got a lot of satisfaction out of that, but never any joy. I don't think he knew what joy meant.”

8

“Every year,” Cloris
Buchanan said, “we put up displays of the banned books, one for the children, one for adults. We feature the books that people are trying to keep out of the hands of the reading public. Kids who never cracked a book before now read Harry Potter. They're on the list. Witchcraft, spells, demons….”

They were making inroads on great Greek salads that were beautiful and luscious-and should be at eighteen dollars a pop, Barbara thought. She let Cloris go on vehemently for a time, then said, “How does your committee work? Monthly meetings?”

“No. We did for a time, but it was hard to get us all together at once. Those people are so busy. The ones who volunteer for committee work are overworked, you see. They feel compelled to volunteer for this and that, and pretty soon they start missing meetings. Now we meet quarterly, unless there's a hassle in progress.”

Barbara brought out her list of committee members. “I probably should talk to a couple of these people. Rudy Conroy! He must be eighty years old. Surely he isn't still doing battle!”

“But he is. He's a regular. He was at our meeting in April.”

“Hilde Franz,” Barbara murmured. “Familiar name. Oh, wasn't there a problem in a school where she was teaching? A few years ago, I guess.”

“She's the principal,” Cloris said. “Opal Creek Middle School. They've been fighting censorship for ages.”

“Opal Creek! That's where that murder was last week!”

After that she simply ate her salad and listened. Cloris knew all about the many battles Hilde had had with Gus Marchand, whose death had not come a minute too soon, she added. Not that she condoned murder, but… She told about meeting Dr. Minick, becoming friends.

“There he was, standing at the door with freezing rain pelting down, and I said, Why not call in or email me a list of books, and I'd be happy to pick them up and drop them off. I live just a couple of miles past Opal Creek, you see. It really wasn't any trouble for me. And after I met Alex, I could really understand why he wouldn't come in person. That poor guy. Anyway, that's what I did. And last week Hilde was in and said she hadn't seen them for a long time, and to say hello for her. I told her about my brother's wedding, and how I wouldn't make it out that week, and she offered to drop off the books. That's how she is. Always willing to help out.”

“Maybe I should talk to her,” Barbara said. “She certainly would know what a teacher is facing if she has a problem parent.”

“I don't know,” Cloris said doubtfully. “I think she's pretty busy. Like I said, she's on other committees, too, and I think they're more active than ours.” She leaned in closer and said in a very low voice, “And I think she has a friend. You know? A boyfriend? I hope so, anyway.”

Barbara laughed. “I think women can always tell. Don't you? Maybe the aura changes, or something.”

Looking pleased, Cloris nodded. “You
can
tell. I guess we're trained all our lives to read signs that guys don't even see. In April she was in and apologized for not making our meeting, she said a hospital committee had met that same night, and I thought then, Aha, maybe she's snagged a doctor! She was giving off rays or something, I guess.” Then she said, “Let me see that list. I can tell you who would be good to talk to.”

They chatted; Cloris marked a few names on the list, and then it was time for her to go back to work. After they parted on the sidewalk, Barbara decided that her money had been well spent.

Driving back to the office, she planned the rest of her day. Look up the members of the hospital committee. She knew pretty well what to expect there: a lot of fat cats, big names, important people, respectable people. And just possibly one who was having an affair with a school principal. Then, a very long walk. Miles and miles. Sleeping on the couch had destroyed her back.

When she entered her office, she could hear Shelley speaking. “I don't think it goes there. Let's try this one.”

Maria raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes, and Barbara went to Shelley's open door to see what was happening. Shelley and Alan Macagno were surrounded by boxes and computer cables.

“Hi,” Shelley said. “Wait till you see it run! Like lightning! Alan, I said not that socket, or whatever it's called. Look at the diagram!” She glanced at Barbara and said very innocently, “I told him he could come and see it for himself, but my printer doesn't seem to want to cooperate.”

Barbara nodded and withdrew, thinking, of course, her own desktop computer might be examined by someone like Alan, or more likely Bailey. He seldom told his minions to do anything really illegal; he did those chores himself. She would use her laptop from here on out and keep it with her.

She was busy making notes when Shelley tapped on her door later, then entered carrying two coffee mugs. “I thought you might be ready for a break,” she said. “I know I am.”

Alex and Dr. Minick liked the house, she said. The blue computer was there, set up. “It's a beautiful house. Five bedrooms! Huge. And he likes abstract art; it's everywhere. I don't think he really wants to sell, though. Two seventy-five. Pretty steep. And I have a domestic case, grandson hit his grandmother, and she doesn't want to call the police but wants him to keep out. I tried to talk her into pressing charges. By tomorrow she'll be giving him money again. Why do they put up with that?”

Barbara knew it wasn't really a question and didn't bother to answer. She told Shelley about her day. “So it looks like Hilde has a boyfriend, and he just might be too respectable to be caught having an affair. I'm not going to do any more with that for now. Time enough if Alex is charged. Then we'll have to get a private detective of our own. That's going to be stealth work. I don't think I can breeze in and start asking questions with the men on the hospital committee.” She drank her coffee appreciatively. Maria had made it. “And that's about all we can do for the time being. I'll finish my notes and you can read them tomorrow, and then it's a waiting game. I'll be in court most of the day tomorrow.”

When Shelley stood up to go home, she said, “Oh, I almost forgot. When Alan came in with me, he asked Maria, How's it going? And she said it was a nice sunny day, but she thought rain might move in by the weekend.”

Barbara didn't leave the office until after six. It occurred to her that she couldn't take her walk unless she carried the laptop with her. Frank had a key to her apartment, just as she had a key to his house.

“He wouldn't give Bailey the key,” she muttered under her breath, then cursed. “Oh, wouldn't he?” She decided to swim laps at the apartment complex instead of walking.

On Thursday night Frank mulled over what little he knew about the Marchand murder. Bailey said the son, Daniel, was in the clear. His buddies had timed him, with a warning that if he wasn't back in five minutes, they'd leave without him. He was back, huffing and panting, in four minutes thirty-two seconds. Bailey also said that the detective who ran the same route, a marathoner, took five minutes fifteen seconds to do it, and he had not stopped to talk to anyone or carry anything out to a car.

“Of course,” Bailey had said then, “the kid could have bopped his old man in passing, not even slowing down to see what the damage was. And wiped the hammer clean as he raced on by.”

It just didn't seem likely that Daniel thought he needed an attorney. But why else had Barbara gone there and stayed nearly two hours? And how the devil had she latched onto Cloris Buchanan so soon? God only knew what all she had learned over lunch. He knew that people talked to Barbara; she probably knew more Eugene secrets than anyone except Bailey. If she got hold of Hilde…

Bailey had not come up with anything about her affair, and that was good and bad. Frank wanted to know who the man was and exactly where he was when Gus Marchand was murdered, and Hilde wasn't going to tell him; it also meant that Barbara was as clueless about it as he was.

He had tried unsuccessfully to hide his grin when Bailey reported that Maria had given Alan a weather report. That was all anyone would get out of her, he knew. Maria was a younger version of his own secretary, Patsy; and the rack, wild horses, thumbscrews—nothing would worm anything out of either of them. He had laughed at the story of the blue computer. But now he wasn't laughing as he considered that story, and he cursed softly. Right under their noses, out and gone, and pretty little Shelley, as innocent as a buttercup, using Alan as her accomplice. No one had bothered to tail her. And then nothing, no activity, nothing out of the ordinary, just routine in Barbara's offices, as far as he could tell.

“Okay, Bobby,” he said under his breath. “Your points so far.” Then louder, he said, “Move, you bums, bedtime.” The two golden coon cats got up, stretched, and followed him out.

While he was brushing his teeth, the phone rang, and at that time of night, after eleven, he always answered, and would have denied that he was always afraid Barbara was in some kind of trouble. This time he reached the phone just as the answering machine kicked in; when he lifted the receiver, the line was dead. Wrong number. He waited a few seconds, then continued getting ready for bed.