Sleight of Hand (16 page)

Chapter 27

Barbara made her call at eleven on Saturday morning. "Ms. Breaux, there are a few questions I would like to ask you regarding the murder of your former husband."

"I don't see why," Stephanie said. "I don't know anything about that. I'll be at the shop all day. Maybe you could drop in around two?"

"No, Ms. Breaux. This really should be a private conversation. I'd like you to come to my office where we won't be interrupted."

Stephanie's tone became much more distant and formal when she said, "I fail to see why I should accommodate your schedule, Ms. Holloway. Saturdays are very busy for us. It really would be most inconvenient."

"I'm very much afraid this can't wait for a convenient time. I want to talk to you about a black van, Ms. Breaux. In my office."

There was a long pause. "I'll come by at one. Where is your office?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

At twenty minutes past one Stephanie arrived, and once again she was the cool and controlled woman Barbara had met a few months earlier. Not a sign of agitation was visible when she sat down and regarded Barbara with an appraising look. "I don't see why you thought this was necessary. I have already told the investigators everything I can, and I repeated it to you. I was home with my daughter the night Jay was killed and I know nothing about the matter." Her poise was perfect, her manner that of a patient shopkeeper dealing with an irritable customer.

"There are a few questions, however," Barbara said conversationally. "Why did you wait until Monday to take your daughter to the hospital? Were you hoping a bruise on her back would fade? Or possibly one on her arm? I can subpoena the doctor and the admitting nurse, you know, to testify about such bruises. They don't fade in a day or two, I'm afraid. Or should I pose such questions directly to Eve? Or petition the court to have her questioned by a psychiatrist?"

Stephanie's color faded, leaving her more ghostlike than ivory-toned. "I won't permit anyone to question my daughter," she said. "She is not to be approached by you or anyone else."

No longer the patient shopkeeper, her voice had an intensity Barbara had not heard before, each word clipped and hard.

"That may not be your decision," Barbara said. "This is a murder case. My client is falsely accused of murder, and I intend to know the truth about what happened that night. From you, here in this office, or from you on the witness stand under oath."

"She can't tell anyone anything. She has no memory of that Saturday, and her doctor will affirm that she had an attack on Saturday. They can tell by her state of dehydration."

"Which brings us back to my first question. Why did you wait so long before you took her to the hospital? Ms. Breaux, if the spotlight becomes focused on you for any reason, there will be very difficult questions asked, both of you and of your daughter, and, if forced, I will see to it that the spotlight is turned to you. The court will not accept the word of a private doctor in such a matter. They will want their own evaluation, made by a neutral psychiatrist, in their own facility. Your pleas will not change that fact. You were there. You drove a rented black van to Jay Wilkins's house the night he was murdered. That's the starting point of this conversation. We can conclude it here, privately, or through the courts in public."

Stephanie moistened her lips. "I was there. You're right. I used the van and went there. Eve fell off her exercise bike and I put her to bed. I knew she wouldn't move again and I went there to plead with Jay and Connie for financial help. He... he was on the floor dead, and I panicked and ran away."

Outwardly Stephanie was not very different from before. Her voice was the key, Barbara thought. Although her voice had dropped to a near whisper, she appeared unaware of the change.

Barbara shook her head. "They'll trip you up a dozen different ways with a story like that, and then they'll still want to question Eve."

Stephanie stood up and crossed the office to the window. She moved the blind aside and gazed out. With her back to Barbara she said. "I killed him. Connie wasn't there and I asked him for help. He laughed at me and said my crazy daughter belonged in the nuthouse. He was in my face, threatening, pushing me back into the bar. I hit him with the pitcher and he fell and hit his head on the stool. I wiped off my fingerprints with a towel and ran away." She sounded as if she were reciting lines from a play that held little interest to her.

"It might fly," Barbara said thoughtfully. "Of course, there are details that don't quite work, but it's closer." She went to Stephanie and took her arm. It was as rigid as steel. "Come sit down and let's really talk. She was there, wasn't she? How did she get there? Why did she go there? Did you take her?"

Stephanie wrenched away from her. "Stop it! As soon as anyone tries to ask her a question, that's the story I'll tell. They will accept it! I did it! I killed him! That's all they need to know! She was bruised when she fell off her bike. She doesn't know a thing about this!"

Stephanie looked desperate, even her lips were pale.

"How did you manage to leave the house without having it recorded by the security system? Why did you take a red Afghan out with you? The housekeeper's statement reported it missing. Stephanie, they'll trip you up over and over."

Barbara took her arm again, and this time there was no resistance. She nearly pushed Stephanie down into a chair. "Now, just tell me what really happened. Eve hit him, didn't she? Does she know?"

In a dull voice Stephanie said, "She doesn't know a thing about it. She had been so restless. For nearly two years she had been well, and she wanted a job, something to do. Just more and more restless and feeling capable of actually doing something besides stay home or ride with Reggie." Her voice broke and she said raggedly,

"She just wants a real life."

Barbara did not say a word and Stephanie drew in a long breath, then continued in what sounded like the voice of a robot, without inflection, dull and lifeless, the voice of complete despair. "Connie called on Friday to say she'd be there on Saturday and Eve was waiting for her all day, watching for her car, looking out the window for her.

She was so disappointed, she hardly ate any dinner. Nothing I said seemed to reach her, and she went out to the exercise bike. She was riding it when I went up to work on the store books.

"Then she called me on her cell phone, but all she said was that she was at Connie's house. He must have grabbed the phone away from her. He told me to come get my crazy kid. I could hear her calling for Connie. He yelled at Eve to shut up and she said, 'I came to see Connie.' And she called her name again. Jay was yelling at her, cursing her. He said, 'She isn't here! Can't you get that through your thick head?

She's gone. She isn't coming back! Stop that! I told you to stand still....' Then he said, 'Jesus Christ! She's taking off her clothes,' and he must have put the phone down on the bar. That's where I found it. He didn't disconnect. I heard Eve scream and Jay shouted something and she cried out again. I heard a crash. I grabbed my raincoat and ran out to the garage to get my car. I saw that her bicycle was gone. I realized she had ridden over there so I went to the shop. I had to use the van to take her and her bike home."

In the same lifeless way she continued as if the lines had played through her head repeatedly until one word followed another automatically.

"I pulled into the driveway and saw her bike against a tree. And I saw that the front door wasn't closed all the way. Her shoe was wedged in it. He always made them take off their shoes before going inside. She must have dropped it when he opened the door. The other one was by her side in the bar room. She was on the floor, still holding the pitcher. I had to loosen her fingers. .. He had fallen with his head against the stool. He was dead. She was soaked through. She had a head scarf, and it was soaked. She was shivering. I got her to her feet and wrapped her in the Afghan and took her to the van and put her on the backseat and covered her up. I was going to go back for her things when another car pulled in, and I ducked down out of sight.

Someone went inside. I couldn't see who it was, just someone in a long black coat. I was terrified, and knew I had to drive straight to the hospital where Eve would be safe, but before I got back in the van, the other person came out again. I didn't move until the other car left. Then I went in for her jacket and shoes and cell phone. He was holding her jacket. When I pulled it free, he shifted and fell down from the stool.

I nearly fainted when he moved, and grabbed onto the bar to steady myself, and that made me think about her fingerprints. I took a towel and wiped everything I thought we might have touched. I picked up her other shoe on my way out, got her bike inside the van and drove home and put her to bed. She had a bad bruise on her back, another one on her arm where he must have grabbed her, and he had slapped her. Her cheek was red and swollen. I was afraid to take her to the hospital because they would wonder how she got so beat up. But on Monday I couldn't wait any longer. I told them she fell off her bike on the patio. They accepted that."

As though exhausted, she leaned back with her eyes closed when she finished.

Barbara stood up and paced the office a minute or two, then she said, "It was clearly self-defense. He was attacking her and she defended herself."

"What difference will that make?" Stephanie said without opening her eyes. "You know they'll demand a psychiatric examination in a state institution, and that will kill her as surely as putting a bullet through her head. She won't be able to tell them anything, and they might even label her schizophrenic with homicidal tendencies and lock her up for treatment. If a single question comes up concerning her, I told you my story. I'll stick with it and make them believe it. I killed him in self-defense. I was afraid he would make Connie stop helping to support Eve. I wanted the money for her. I'll make them believe me, and I'll deny this conversation. I'll do whatever I have to do. They must not get near my daughter."

"What if the label fits? You weren't there. You don't know exactly what happened?

Only what you infer."

"You don't understand!" Stephanie cried, sitting upright. "She was fine throughout that, her call to me, calling Connie, taking off her wet jacket, all of it. She hit him when he attacked her, and she was still fine. Then he must have fallen on her, or lunged at her, or something. That's when her episode started. Until then she was just defending herself. It's the only hopeful thing about it, that she was in control until then."

Barbara stood up. "Sit still, Stephanie. I'm going to put on coffee."

And she needed a moment to think, she realized, measuring the coffee. She could easily visualize the scene she and Bailey had reenacted, the blow to the head, Jay falling, twisting. If he had fallen toward Eve, grabbing her jacket, that was enough to have set her off apparently. No matter what Stephanie confessed to, they would want to question Eve. It would seem too obviously a case of a desperate mother trying to protect her ill daughter. And Stephanie was right, they would demand an examination by the state. It was routine. Dr. Minnick's words came to mind. She could be forced to retreat even further, back so far she would be irretrievable.

When the coffee was ready she took it in. Stephanie had not moved.

"Does Eve accept that story, that she was riding her exercise bike and fell?"

"Yes. She never remembers the hours before an episode, during it and for a day or two after she comes out of it. We always try to tell her what happened, as much as we know anyway."

"And you can't ask her why she was out on her bicycle that evening?" Barbara murmured. "Why she went there?"

"No, I can't." She drew in a shuddering breath. "When the rain started, she might have been closer to Jay's house than ours. She knows that whole neighborhood well.

Maybe she just wanted to ask Connie for a ride home. I don't know."

"Have you talked this over with Eric?"

Stephanie shook her head. "I haven't told anyone." She picked up her coffee, then put it down without tasting it. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Barbara said. "An innocent man's life is at stake."

"My daughter's life is even more at risk," Stephanie said, in an anguished voice. "She is twenty-three years old! And equally innocent."

"Well, go on home, Stephanie. I won't do anything until I think a long time. I really don't know."

"Before you, I don't know, before you tell, before you subpoena me, I don't know what I mean. Will you tell me first?"

Barbara nodded. "Yes. I'll tell you." She knew that Stephanie would rush Eve to the hospital as soon as she heard that Barbara had to tell the authorities. And she knew that would not protect Eve. A private hospital could not resist a court order to allow questioning of a patient, questioning under the standard rules.

When Stephanie reentered her house that afternoon, she could hear Eve laughing on the back patio. She stopped moving and closed her eyes for a moment, then went up the stairs to wash her hands and face. Later, she told her image in the mirror. Later you can cry, but not now. By the time she went down and joined Eric and Eve, she was smiling.

"What's the joke?"

"We're playing school, the way we used to do when we were kids," Eve said. "He's the teacher and I have to do his assignment. I don't know what a dingo looks like, and he keeps telling me it's a cross between a dog and an evil dwarf. Liar!"

"What I told you, dear deaf pupil, is look it up in the encyclopedia or on the Internet, or go to the library. I've done the best I can with my description."

They were both in high spirits, with laughter ready to erupt any moment. Eric looked at Stephanie and said, "I start classes on Monday Or did I already tell you about it?"

"Several times," she said. "You're practicing being back in class, are you? Will you be here a while longer? I didn't get to shopping yet. Let's order something in for dinner, and I promise to cook a start-of-classes feast tomorrow." Inside her head, she kept hearing, Later, later.