The Best Defense (38 page)

“This is a good time of day,” Frank said after a moment.

“You’ve put in the hours, every muscle in knots, and then you sit out in the cool of the evening and feel the knots coming undone. Remember that little table we used to have out in the backyard, with the shade umbrella?

We’d sit there with a drink, a little cheese, and you’d play in your sandbox or on a swing, and I used to think if there’s a god in heaven, this must be what he had in mind for us.”

“We’d stay out until the sky turned dark enough to see the first star,” she said, speaking as softly as he had done.

“So you could make your wish,” he added.

“We all wished on the first star. You never would say what you wished for, secretive little thing.”

“I don’t even remember what I wanted in those days,” she said. She felt certain that what he had wished for was a little brother for her, a son. He should have had his son. Never by word or act had such a longing been expressed, but he should have had his son.

A long silence followed until he said, “What I wished for every damn night was just one thing. Never fudged, never cheated, went through the whole rigamarole—Star light, star bright … and always ended up with the same wish: Whatever it is she’s asking for, let it be. Please, let it be.”

She felt every muscle stiffen as if a synapse had fired, preparing her for flight. No more, she wanted to cry at him. It seemed that the still air had begun to vibrate with unspoken words. Just last year, at long last, all that wishing was coming true, they had both felt that, known that. Don’t you dare pity me! she wanted to say. She set her glass down hard, but before she could say anything, Frank shifted and stood up.

“Then,” he said brusquely, “wishing time over, bed for you, and back into the dragon mode for me—find a way to head them off at the pass, cut them off at the knees, mow them down one way or another.” He had not looked at her during this brief interlude; he didn’t look at her now.

“Were you ever sorry?” she asked, her voice hoarse with relief that he had stopped, that the unspoken words remained silent.

For a long time she thought he would not answer; he had never voiced any of the ambivalence that beset her.

Calling that other persona his dragon mode was the closest he had ever come.

Then he said matter-of-factly, “Yes, I was. Times you see that your case is cooked, that you missed the boat and nothing you’ve tried is going to make it work out.

You’re sorry. Times you smell something so rotten it takes your breath away. You’re sorry. Then you get mad again, and back you go. You can’t unscrew the universe and fix yesterday, but you sure, by God, can work on today and tomorrow. If not us, who? The Doneallys of the world?”

He started for the door, but paused to put his hand on her head gently.

“Honey, you’re so good, you scare me sometimes. If not you, who?” He went inside.

He would be doing something about dinner, she knew, and felt not a twinge of conscience. He liked to cook.

He could eat every meal out, or hire a cook, but he preferred to do it himself most of the time. The few times she had prepared dinner for them, he had been brave and excessively polite.

Then she thought about the things they had just said, the things they had not said, and she did feel guilt. For years after her mother’s death she had refused to talk about her, had not let Frank talk about her. She had not understood it, could not have rationalized it in any way, and she was doing it again, she knew, and felt helpless to act differently. Frank wanted to talk about Mike, he needed to talk about him, and she couldn’t.

The sky had darkened; if there had not been so much smoke in the atmosphere, stars would be visible. Would she have made a wish? She shook her head. Unscrew the universe, fix yesterday?

Abruptly she stood up. Bailey was late. She started to pace the length of the garden, and continued to pace until Bailey called hello from the back door.

“Where the devil have you been?” she yelled back.

He was laughing when she reached the house, and he had a glass of wine already.

“Haven’t they taught you not to throw rocks at the frog who might turn into Prince Charming at a moment’s notice? Not even verbal rocks.”

Frank stepped out of the kitchen down the hallway, and he yelled, too.

“I don’t mind cooking for you guys, but damned if I’ll do it while you talk out of hearing. Get in here.”

They sat at the kitchen table while he did mysterious things with pork chops.

“Okay,” Bailey said, “jackpot.

It was Bossert/Bossini that did it. Should have spotted him myself, but, hell, I’ve never done anything except lose money in Las Vegas. Anyway, here it is.”

Kay Dodgson, nee Kay Darling Barbara winced, and he said he was sorry—was a dancer at a club down in Las Vegas before she married Rich Dodgson. Exotic dancer, he added with a leer. Later, when Rich was on the road almost half the time, she took up her old profession after the boys started school, but only when Rich was not home. And the assistant manager of the club, he said, was Royce Gallead. Terence Bossini was the bouncer.

“Boy oh boy,” Barbara said.

“Wow!”

“What I thought,” Bailey said modestly.

“Threw me off because Gallead surrendered a California license when he showed up here. He took a roundabout way when he hightailed it out of Las Vegas, a couple of years down in LA.” and then here. Once I knew to put him in Vegas fourteen years ago, it was easy. He, at least, didn’t change his name.”

“So fourteen years ago Rich quit selling, Kay quit wriggling, Bossert quit bouncing, Royce quit managing, and they all ended up here,” Barbara said with satisfaction.

“What do you know about that? They all hit the jackpot at the same time, made a killing—enough to set up two businesses, buy property. How about that!”

“Lady Luck smiles on her favorites,” Bailey said, and got up to refill his glass.

Frank had made pork chops with rosemary and garlic, spinach with a yogurt dressing, and tiny red potatoes crisped in butter.

“If I had a cook like you,” Bailey said with pleasure, “I’d never leave the house. And you’d never leave the kitchen.”

“It was wonderful,” Barbara agreed.

“I don’t want to move, but I have to get to the office before it gets much later.”

“Tonight?” Frank asked in surprise.

“Yep, ‘fraid so. About an hour and a half at the most.”

He scowled over his glasses.

“You might have mentioned it before. We could have eaten earlier.”

“Have you rush dinner? Never!” She laughed.

“All right. All right. We’ll run you over there and then go on to Martin’s and pick up those boxes. Better take something to put them in, keep them out of sight.

When will you be done?”

It was almost eight-thirty.

“Ten,” she said.

“No later, I swear.”

“Right. We’ll come back at ten for you. Or thereabouts.”

> The office building had a small arcade on the street level with several retail shops, two elevators, and a stairwell. The upper floors were mostly attorneys’ offices, and were never completely unoccupied; attorneys often worked strange hours. Lights shone through windows here and there on all six floors; dim lights were on in the shops on the ground floor. The building was a block away from the courthouse. This area was deserted after offices closed, with few pedestrians, no open shops; the attorneys’ offices were the satellites around the center of government, and when lawyers worked at night, they worked alone.

When they emerged from the elevator on the third floor, there was a light on in one of the offices off to the left of the reception desk; Frank strode down the hall to see who was working late.

“Les Smithers,” he said, returning.

“He’ll be in and out of the library. If his whistling gets to you, tell him to cork it.” Les was one of the junior attorneys who had a habit of whistling between his teeth while he read.

Bailey and Frank left right away, promising to return at ten, and she went to Bessie’s office to collect the papers she wanted to reread. She took them back to Frank’s room and started, but realized that she could hear Les whistling in the library, a dozen feet or so from here. She closed the door, but in a second or two she heard something fall, and he called out, “Sorry.”

She gritted her teeth, gathered up everything, and marched down to Bessie’s office, around the corner from the library, out of hearing no matter what he did.

Les, of course, was working with the library door open.

His whistling followed her until she closed Bessie’s door.

Her student researchers had been so thorough, she marveled, reading her notes again. Three times in the past year the Weekly Valley Report had been late, al though the dates were right. She found the three papers, and the papers for the following weeks, searching for an explanation. In December, a snowstorm in the mountains had delayed delivery. In August of last year, a power failure at the printing plant had occurred. And one time there was no reason given. On Wednesday, April twenty-third, the paper had been delivered that had been due on Monday. She reread the editorial and the news stories, and then folded the paper and put it in her briefcase. Cork it, Bessie, she thought; don’t complain. I’ll bring it back.

She got up, turned off the lights, and went to the door; fifteen minutes before ten; good timing, she thought. She stopped after one step through the doorway, her hand still on the doorknob. Something was wrong. There was complete silence, and, she realized, the hall lights were off. She never had been here at night when the hall wasn’t dimly lighted. Even as she thought this, the light from the library was turned off, and now the only light that showed anywhere was a tracery around Frank’s door, which she had not closed all the way. She backed up and reentered Bessie’s room, and pulled the door almost closed, listening. Had Les done something stupid to the lights? She shook her head; he would have yelled out about it. Then a flashlight beam shone on the corner door, Frank’s door; it moved up and down, came to rest on the doorknob, and was turned off. She closed the door all the way, holding the knob, releasing it slowly to still a possible click. She backed away. She could not lock it; Bessie never had installed a lock. Some of the offices were locked each evening, others not. Her father kept his locked; Bessie didn’t.

Faint light seeped in through the blinds, but she did not dare turn on a lamp. She didn’t know if light would show around the edges of the door. She put her briefcase on the floor and groped in her purse for a tiny penlight, and, using it, she went to the desk and the telephone. She was starting to punch in the numbers of her father’s phone, when she shook her head and hung up. Not him. Not anyone from this room. Whoever had gone to Frank’s office knew she was not there; maybe he thought she had gone to the rest room; maybe he was on his way there. Or maybe he would start trying doors up and down the hall.

Rest room, she thought then, and played her light around the side wall. There, a door to a bathroom Sam Bixby and Bessie shared. She ran to it, and then had to go back for her briefcase; he mustn’t know she had been in here, if he looked in. Sam’s door would have a lock, she felt certain. It would have a lock, she repeated, and opened the door to the bathroom, as dark as a pit inside. She reached across the tiny space, found the opposite door, opened it, and drew in a breath of relief.

The bathroom doors both had simple locks in the door knobs. She locked the one to Bessie’s office and hurried across the room to try the hall door. It was locked.

Now she ran to the desk and fumbled in her purse, searching for her address book, still afraid to turn on a light, using the penlight sparingly. She had to keep it on when she opened the book and found Heath Byerson’s number. Everything was taking so long, she thought as she did the numbers, listened to a distant phone ring.

No answering machine, she prayed. Please no machine.

She had left Sam’s door open to the bathroom; her gaze was fastened on Bessie’s doorknob, which looked like a pale ball floating in the dark. Enough. She would know if it moved. Then a woman’s voice was in her ear.

“This is an emergency,” Barbara whispered.

“I have to talk to Heath. Is he there?”

“I can’t hear you,” the woman protested.

“Can you speak up?”

“No. Get Heath.”

He was there almost before she finished.

“Who’s that?” he demanded.

“Barbara Holloway. I’m at Dad’s office, and there’s an intruder. Can you hear me?”

“I hear you. Stay cool. Two minutes.” He hung up.

She replaced the phone, and then froze with her hand still on it. The bathroom doorknob turned, and turned again, harder. He could force it, she knew; those locks wouldn’t keep anyone out who really wanted in. With out a sound she pushed her briefcase under Sam’s desk, crawled in after it, and crouched as low as she could.

For what seemed a long time there was a profound silence, and then she heard the hall door being tried; the doorknob turned, turned. And silence again.

The offices were a labyrinth; he couldn’t know which ones were locked without trying them all. There was the library, and a larger file room, and the stenographers’ room, the secretaries’ rooms…. Two minutes, she told herself. Just two minutes.

Maybe he would realize it was hopeless, leave. Stay cool, she ordered when she realized she was trembling.

It had to have been five minutes or longer, she thought in despair. Where were they? Maybe Heath hadn’t called anyone. Maybe he was on his way. What if her father came first, surprised the prowler? She bit her lip and eased out from under the desk, crept to the door, put her ear to it, listening.

Then she heard someone shouting, “Ms. Holloway?

Where are you? It’s the police!”

She started to beat on the door, hesitated. A trick?

“Barbara! Barbara!” Her father’s voice sounded panic-stricken.

“In here!” she yelled.

“Sam’s office.”

The door was shoved open and Frank grabbed her and held her. He was shaking harder than she was.