Desperate Measures (31 page)

Frank regarded him without a word. Wrigley returned his gaze, apparently waiting for the advice he had said he wanted. Frank knew what Barbara meant by a hungry look.

“That's it,” Wrigley said.

“And you never told anyone,” Frank commented.

“Just my wife. It would have destroyed Hilde, totally ruined her to be called a stalker. We thought, Rhondi and I both, that it was like the fixation students sometimes get for a teacher. It happens quite often, but the student moves on and gets over it. We thought she would get over it. And it would have made me a laughingstock if I had told. She was quite a bit older than me, you know. I could imagine some of the jokes my colleagues would have made. We decided the best thing to do was nothing.”

He jumped up and started his restless roaming again, then stopped to say, “I told the police the salient part, that I took books in and put them away for her, and that she told me about seeing Feldman that day. I just didn't know if I should tell the rest. I still don't know.” He came to the desk and leaned forward. “Will you represent me, see me through this?”

“No.”

Wrigley drew back and straightened up. “I guess I'll just have to make up my own mind, won't I?”

“That's always true in the end. You make up your own mind.”

Wrigley turned toward the door. “Do I pay at the front desk?”

“There's no charge,” Frank said.

Wrigley nodded and walked out.

After a moment Frank opened his desk drawer and turned off the tape recorder. Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

“Ah, Hilde,” he murmured.

“I don't know what's on his mind,” Barbara said to Shelley and Bailey that afternoon. “He asked if he could sit in on part of our conference, and said he has something for us. That's all I know.”

At that moment Maria buzzed to announce Frank's arrival.

“Send him on back,” Barbara said.

Frank came in carrying a vase with flowers. He set it down on Barbara's desk.

“You're celebrating?” Barbara asked.

“Conceding,” he said. “I need a tape player.”

She got one from the closet and watched him plug it in and put in a tape. No one moved or made a sound as they listened to Isaac Wrigley talk.

“That son of a bitch,” Barbara said when the tape ended.

“Language,” Frank said mildly. “Mr. Wonderful himself.” He pointed to a new cabinet. “What's that?” He knew he had not bought it, and he had bought most of the furnishings in the office; Shelley's father had bought the carpet. Two proud fathers helping their daughters get a start.

Bailey stood up and ambled across the room to open the cabinet door, revealing bottles. He lifted the top to show a tiny sink. “Complete with a refrigerator,” he said, and opened the door to it. “It's mine,” he said.

“It's not yours,” Barbara said. “Company property. Dad, what's that all about?” She motioned toward the tape player.

“He called for an appointment, and that's the result. I think he wanted to make sure that I knew Hilde was a liar, that she misrepresented their relationship with a cock-and-bull story, and if she lied about that, no doubt she lied about other things. Or maybe he wanted to see if I'd reveal anything of what she told me. Or a warning about how far he would go if you ride him too hard. Also, he's covering himself in the eventuality that you dig up something incriminating.”

Bailey grinned, and Barbara said in annoyance, “Don't smirk. I would have saved my money, if I'd known he was going to blow his own cover. Bailey put him and Hilde in the same hotel in Detroit and in Philly,” she told Frank. “Someone must have alerted him to the fact that we were digging that deep. Or he found out that the nanny talked about him and his wife, their domestic scene.”

“Will his wife back him up?” Shelley asked.

“Who knows?” Barbara said. “No one's going to get a statement from her, not if he's just a witness for the prosecution. If he becomes a defendant in the murder of Hilde Franz, then they'll get her statement.”

Frank nodded. “He overplayed his hand today. After seeing him, listening to him, I can understand how Hilde could have been taken in. But a stalker? Never! Anyway, you can't believe anything he said. One lie's enough to turn it all to garbage. Well, I'll let you get on with it. By the way, Maria gave me a fine weather report when I arrived. Keep her.”

He started to rise, and Barbara said, “Dad, can you entertain the belief that Alex Feldman is innocent?”

“Who's the guilty party?”

“I don't know for sure. But I'm not gunning for Hilde Franz. I know she couldn't have done it.”

He sank back into his chair. “I can entertain such a belief. Why did you give up on Hilde?”

“The boys were still turning their car around when her car passed them. There wasn't enough time for Hilde to get to the house and back and pass the boys before Daniel returned.”

“She could have seen Alex or Minick going into the woods.”

“Not really. The Minick driveway curves away from the house, away from the Marchand property, and the growth is pretty dense. There wouldn't be any reason for anyone to stay in sight of the driveway, not if he intended to go to Marchand's place.”

“Okay,” Frank said, not entirely convinced. He was afraid this was coming down to the little man who wasn't there.

Barbara was taking photographs from a folder, spreading them on the coffee table. “I got the rest of the kitchen pictures today,” she said. “I knew there had to be more, and lo and behold, they found a few more. They said these are immaterial and got shunted aside.”

She separated the photographs. She put back the shot of Marchand's body sprawled on the floor, along with one of the stove, taken from across the kitchen. Then she pointed. “Okay, a closer look at the stove. I want the controls enlarged, enhanced, whatever your guy does to make them more recognizable. Is the oven still on? I don't think so, but it's hard to tell for sure. Next, this one of the table.” It was a sharp picture of the end of the table with a place mat, a place setting for one with a napkin neatly folded, a glass of milk, salt and pepper. “The question is,” she said, shuffling through the other photographs, “what's on the rest of the table? Here.” In the one she singled out, the whole tabletop was visible, and there was an assortment of things not in the other picture: a bowl of fruit, a newspaper, several pieces of mail, what appeared to be a prescription container, and a small package. She tapped it. “I think it's condoms,” she said. “Strange thing to leave on the kitchen table, don't you think?”

“Maybe that's what Daniel was in a tearing hurry to pick up,” Bailey said. “But Daddy found them first.”

“If so, why didn't he take them? Anyway, I want this enhanced, enlarged, whatever. The whole table, not just dinner for one.”

She handed the two photographs to Bailey and started to put the rest back in the folder, but Frank said, “Hold on a second.”

He was looking at another shot of the kitchen, one that showed the sink. “What was in that casserole? Do you know?”

“Vegetables,” Barbara said. “Something like a ratatouille from the sound of it. Eggplant, zucchini, green beans, peppers… I can find it, if you want to see.”

“That's okay. But Leona didn't go home at five-thirty and make anything like that. She must have done the cooking in the morning, put the dishes in the refrigerator, and then simply reheated them.” He handed her the picture he had been looking at. “Not a scrap of peel, nothing to show anyone had been cooking or washing up. There wasn't time to prepare that kind of food and clean up, too. What was in the skillet?”

“Two pork chops in gravy.”

He nodded. “Again, not enough time.”

“So she had more time in the house than we thought,” Barbara said after a moment.

“Well, some more, not a lot,” Frank said. “Even reheating, setting the table, all that takes time. And she had a bath and dressed. She didn't have a lot of extra time, just a little.”

“From all I've heard about her,” Shelley said then, “she was almost saintly. Everyone seems to agree about that.”

Even saints could break, Barbara thought, but a second thought followed swiftly: And ruin her daughter's big day, her graduation? It didn't seem likely. She shook her head.

“Next, I want an aerial shot of the property. And a photographer to take pictures of the entire back where the blackberries are, from the route Daniel might have taken that day. He should use the aerial map to locate where each picture was taken. Rachel has gone down to Medford with her aunt; she'll live with her aunt and uncle and go to school there, but Daniel is still at home and won't leave until classes start at OSU next week. I want the pictures taken before leaves start to fall and with the sun as close as possible to the same angle it would have been that day at six-thirty. After Daniel leaves, they will put the property in the hands of a real-estate agent, and it could get awkward.”

Bailey scowled. “I never did figure out how to hide a low-flying plane. Maybe it will come to me.”

“Work on it,” Barbara said.

They did not finish until after six, when Shelley and Bailey both got up to leave.

“I'll be on my way, too,” Frank said. “You want to come by when you're done here, have a bite to eat?”

Barbara saw Shelley stiffen, and she said, “I'd love to but, Dad, I have to tell you this. There are some things about this case that I promised not to reveal, and until I'm released from that promise, we might hit brick walls now and then.”

Shelley relaxed and Frank, who had not missed her reaction, nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. So he wasn't yet to find out what the blue computer business was all about, he thought, accepting it for now.

28

“It's just two
weeks before the trial, and there are still big blank spots,” Barbara said on Friday after their conference. ‘'I'm going to buy a cast-iron skillet and take it to Minick's house, see how long it takes to smoke up the place.”

“Not a new skillet,” Frank said. “It has to be used, crusted on the outside from years of grease getting burned on. It will make a difference. Goodwill, or St. Vinny's. I'll pick one up, if you'd like. You said pork chops and gravy? They should be in it, too. Mind if I tag along? Maybe it's time for me to meet your client.”

“Can I come, too?” Shelley asked.

“Sure,” Barbara said. Shelley was no longer avoiding Alex, and to all appearances was trying to act like a little sister or a best pal. She put on a good act, but the hurt was in her eyes, and she was not going anywhere with Bill Spassero. Alex had been right when he said if you're hurt, a year or two slips in between real time. She had been hurt, and she no longer looked like a little girl playing grown-up. The past few months had matured her; the past few weeks had solidified the changes.

They had few secrets from Frank now, if she didn't count the big ones, Barbara thought, and she nodded to him and to Shelley. They would all go.

Frank had filled her in with many details about the trial judge, Lou MacDaniels, whom Frank had known for thirty years. He was a stickler for details, Frank had warned, and if she had ten books to refer to, they had better pan out. If she estimated that it took twenty minutes for the skillet to create that much smoke, she had better be prepared with evidence to back it up. So they would smoke up Minick's house. Frank's house wouldn't do. He had a gas stove, and the Marchand house had an electric stove, as did Dr. Minick's.

“Okay,” she said, “tomorrow morning, ten, back out to Opal Creek.”

“Not me,” Bailey said hurriedly. “Saturday. I'm off.” He stood up, put his empty glass down on the table, and slouched to the door.

“Good work, Bailey. Thanks,” Barbara said as he left.

He had not only put Hilde and Wrigley in the same hotels, he had put them in the same bed-and-breakfast inn on the coast in Astoria, where there had not been a teachers' conference or a meeting of scientists.

After the others left, Barbara got out the photographs Bailey had brought her. The aerial was exactly what she thought it would be. Then the kitchen pictures. She had been right; the little package was condoms. Unopened. And the prescription container… She turned the photograph around to read the print, then caught in her breath. Dr. Minick had prescribed for Leona Marchand? Ovulen? Birth-control pills. She leaned back in her chair. Why hadn't he even mentioned that he was Leona's doctor?

Unbidden, Frank's arguments about Dr. Minick came to mind: he would do anything to protect Alex, just as Frank would do anything to protect Barbara. He had had plenty of time after Hilde left to walk over and kill Marchand and be back before the smoke alarm sounded. Maybe Hilde had told him something about Marchand that made it imperative to do it then. Maybe that was what Hilde had remembered the night she called Frank and hung up.

Barbara had had no good rebuttal to his speculative case, and she had none now. Disbelief was not a good argument; it had not been then, and it was worse now. But Minick should have told her he was Leona's doctor. He must know that it could be important.

She walked out, down the hall through the empty reception room, and tapped on Shelley's door. She was still there, working at her computer.

“When you finish that, drop in, will you?” Shelley nodded and Barbara returned to her own office.

While Barbara waited, she studied the other enlargement; the oven had been turned off. The skillet lid was on the counter next to the stove, and an oven mitt nearby. A dish towel hung over the counter. She put that photograph down, and went back to the one of the table, examined the other items on it: a window envelope from the electric company; a flyer for an appliance store… nothing of significance. The fruit bowl. Then she squinted. A belt or something coiled. The glass of milk… Shelley tapped, then entered.