The Best Defense (7 page)

she should put chairs on her porch, a few magazines, let her guests wait in comfort, she thought when she pulled up at her house. This time it was her father waiting in his car, reading a paperback book.

She tooted her horn and waved when he looked up.

He met her on the sidewalk.

“I thought you were out of here,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek.

“Why do you have an answering machine if you don’t intend to listen to the calls?” He looked her over.

“So you really were in court?”

“Not exactly. Come on in.”

“I went to the restaurant and Martin said you were tied up in court. I didn’t believe him. You look pretty good.”

She laughed and opened her door.

“Help yourself to some wine and pour some for me, will you? I have to make one call and then I’m free as a bird.”

She called Lucille Reiner and had to wait for a child to go get her, and by then Frank was standing in the doorway with a bottle of wine and a glass.

“This?”

“It’s perfectly good wine. Dad, honest.” Then she 56 spoke into the phone.

“Oh, Lucille? She’s off all medication and you can see her during regular visiting hours. I’ll pay a call on Monday.”

She listened to Lucille, grinning at her father, who was tentatively tasting the wine. He looked at it in wonder and, shaking his head, strolled away; by the time Barbara was finished with Lucille, he had gone out to the yard and was examining the dying rhododendron.

He came in as she poured wine for herself. His glass was on the table hardly touched.

“That rhody needs spraying.”

“I know. I’ll get to it. Now, why aren’t you back home? What was on your message?”

“What I thought. You don’t listen to the calls.” He lifted his glass and sniffed, then tasted it again.

“Drink able,” he said.

“A beverage, not actually wine, but drinkable.”

“Any time,” she said, sitting at the table There were several letters she had not got around to opening that morning; she started on them.

“And don’t read your mail. Takes a personal visit to get through to you,” he commented, going to the door, gazing out.

“What I thought I might do is stay in town and look around for a few things, for the house.

Thought I might talk you into hitting an auction or two with me, maybe do some looking around in a furniture store or two.” When he glanced at her, she nodded.

“

“Course, I’ll just move all your stuff over. If you want me to. Even if you don’t use the bed, in case I have company I’ll be able to offer more than the floor.”

She grinned.

“Move the stuff. Dad. Let’s talk about dinner. If I take you out, I can get out of these fancy duds, and we’ll go to Martin’s or Hilda’s. Have you eaten there?” He shook his head.

“Well, you should. It’s awfully good. Central and South American cuisine. And very nice Chilean wines. It’s on Blair, four blocks, walking distance. There are bleeding hearts and lambs’ ears in the yard.” She laughed at the sceptical look on his face.

“On the other hand, if you take me out, I won’t change.”

“Flip you for it,” he decided, and produced a coin.

“Heads it’s my treat.”

She laughed harder, got up, crossed to him, and snatched the coin from his hand.

“Cheat! You’ve been using that coin until it’s worn so smooth you can’t even tell it has two heads.”

She took him to Hilda’s, where, appropriately, they stopped to admire the flowers. The next day they drove the twelve miles to Junction City and an auction where he bought nothing, and then to an antique store in south Eugene where he considered a table for a long time and then shook his head. On Sunday, just as fruitless as Saturday had been, he said he might as well bring his own couch and other things from the Turner’s Point house.

He couldn’t sit on foam, he explained, made his butt sore; his couch had inner springs, the way God intended.

She nodded gravely. Then they went to a garden shop, where he seemed to go on a buying hinge-garden implements, gloves, a straw hat, even a tiller.

“Couldn’t you just have someone come in and till up garden space?” she asked.

“Could. But I want to do it.”

There had always been a garden when she was growing up; her mother and father had tended it together most of the time. After her death he had

sold the house, got rid of all the garden equipment, moved out to Turner Point, and he had not gardened since; Barbara never had gardened after her one childhood attempt at weeding, when she had hoed out every seedling carrot.

She experienced a stabbing jolt of memory: how they had laughed, holding each other helplessly. Not right away, but later that evening. And she, Barbara, had marched off indignantly. No jealousy flared with the memory, although in the not too distant past it would have done so; now she felt only a sadness for him, pity for his loss. She turned away before he could look up and decipher the expression on her face. He would take a lot from her, she knew, but not pity. Never that.

While he discussed tillers and delivery, she bought a potted red geranium to put on her porch to keep her visitors company if they got there when she was away.

He brought up the copyright case only twice, adding details each time, still pot asking her directly to take it She played innocent.

He was excited about the house, she thought fondly when he dropped her off Sunday afternoon. She was happy for him, and still undecided about moving in. After he got settled down again with his own familiar furniture and his garden out back, maybe then he would realize he really didn’t need her. He still was denying it, but she bet herself that within a year he would sell his house out on the river. And the garden would be his excuse He would say no one can tend a garden with a forty-mile-long hoe.

She went to bed early that night, but was still groggy with sleep when her doorbell jolted her awake the next morning. Eight o’clock, she groaned, and started to turn over when the bell shrilled again.

She tied her robe belt as she made her way to the door; when she lifted the corner of the blind she saw her father. He jabbed the bell again as she unlocked the door and pulled it open.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

He pushed his way in, slamming a rolled-up newspaper against his palm.

“You tell me. Barbara, are you mixed up in that Kennerman case?”

“What’s this all about?” she demanded.

“What’s that paper you’re mutilating?”

He thrust it at her.

“You were in Lewis Paltz’s chambers on Friday, weren’t you? That was your afternoon in court. Messing around with that baby killer’s case.”

“I’m not ‘messing around’ with anything.” When she opened the paper, a tabloid she never had seen before, the banner headline leaped at her: baby killer judge unfit I The story lead-in was in bold print: Baby Killer Kennerman, on the verge of confession, was put on hold as Judge Paltz and an old friend swapped fish stories in the judge’s chambers Friday.

“Oh no!” Barbara breathed.

“Christ on a mountain! You are involved!”

Barbara moved past him and put the paper on the kitchen table. Her hands were shaking.

“Go shower or wash your face or something,” Prank snapped.

“I’ll put on coffee.”

She stumbled from the room into the shower and let the water beat on her in full force for a long time. Why did he do it? she asked over and over. Why did Spassero do it?

Frank was at the back door facing out when she returned to the kitchen and wordlessly poured coffee before sitting down to read the newspaper. Every fact was followed by an explanation or opinion that was cruel, malicious, dangerous, and wrong. She, Barbara, had gone to see Paula Kennerman; the article added that her purpose had been to stop a confession that was in the works. She had objected to the doctor and his treatment the paper said she was insistent on bringing in her own private psychiatrist, who would declare Baby Killer Kennerman insane. Judge Paltz had made the only reference to his friendship with her father and a fishing expedition; the paper said she had used old loyalties and affection to wheedle out of the judge (who might be senile or at the very least was said to have an eye for a pretty face) a three-day period during which Baby Killer Kennerman’s court-appointed attorney could not speak with her. Time enough, it went on, for her sister, on orders from Holloway, to talk her out of confessing.

“Good God,” she said when she finished the article.

“There’s more,” Prank said.

“Back page.”

She turned the paper over and saw her own face, a picture taken a year or more ago. Over it was the question who is barbara holloway? She scanned the rest of the page swiftly, her stomach churning.

“A member of the law firm Bixby, Holloway … Dropped out of sight a number of years ago. Doing what? Organizing legal counsel for her ‘sisters’? … Sowed so much confusion and doubt an alleged murderess had charges dismissed, but only after two innocent men died in a meaningless and avoidable accident…. Who is she?

Single, never married, her father calls her Bobby, engaged in a man’s profession, chooses to wear male clothing, no makeup.

“Nuff said? One last item: She seems to believe no woman is capable of committing any crime more horrendous than marrying a man.”

“Who is this?” Barbara cried furiously as she yanked the paper open, searching for the masthead. She stopped at a picture of William Spassero, looking like a high school football star. His headline: rising public defender

OUTSMARTED BY FEMALE SHARK.

“With leSS than two years as public defender, where he was making a name for himself, William Spassero finally met the most predatory creature God saw fit to put on earth—a female shark hungry for blood. And he lost….”

There, the masthead. Publisher, Richard Dodgson; editor, Richard Dodgson; circulation, Kay Dodgson … The two of them apparently did it all. She frowned at the name, but could not recall where she had heard it recently.

“Judge Paltz is senile or a womanizer, Spassero is a wimp, and I’m a shark,” she said finally. The words fell flat.

“And don’t forget the defendant,” Prank said.

“She’s a baby killer.” He left the door and sat down at the table opposite her.

“You going to tell me anything?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Everything.” She did so, succinctly.

“A blue sweater,” he said in disbelief.

“All this over a damn blue sweater? For God’s sake, buy the woman a sweater and get out of it!”

“I’ll see if I can get an appointment to see Judge Paltz,” she said, nudging the paper away from her.

“That’s the dumbest thing you could do. What would you say? You didn’t talk, and Bill Spassero must be guilty? Lewis knows damn well it was one of you.

Write him a letter and hand-deliver it to his secretary.

No accusations, just express your dismay and include a firm statement that you talked to no one. That’s all.”

After a moment, she nodded. He knew Lewis Paltz, knew how he would react to all this, what he must be thinking. And Spassero would be there making his own case. Why did he do it? she asked herself again, and got no further than before with an answer.

“Thanks, Dad, that’s what I’ll do. I’m really sorry the firm got dragged in like this.”

He made a dismissive gesture.

“Look, Bobby, we want someone to handle that copyright case. It’s right up your alley, you understand. It’s got to be someone with stamina to make the trips to New York and Holly wood, and enough smarts to stay on top of those Hollywood shysters. In a nutshell, you.”

Another time that would have brought a smile to her lips: His office consisted of upright attorneys; in Holly wood they were shysters.

“And it would keep me occupied,” she murmured, and suddenly wondered. Who had told Spassero he called her Bobby?

“That, too,” he admitted.

“No, thanks. Dad. Let someone else make a bundle this time. Are you going to be late for your appointment for the house closing?”

He glanced at his watch and scowled.

“I’ll give you a call later on. If you have those papers for Kennerman to sign, I could drop them off for her. Not out of my way.”

She shook her head.

“Dad, does Bessie still keep all those local newspapers on hand?” Bessie was Herman Besserman, who must be going on eighty; he had been with the firm since it started.

“Sure. Why?” He glanced at the Valley Weekly Re port on the table and said, “Leave it alone, honey. You can’t win with a rag like that, and you’ve got a lot to lose if they fix their sights on you. You know that.”

“Just curious,” she said with a shrug.

“You know them, the Dodgsons?” Another name swam back into reach: Craig Dodgson, the man who claimed he had asked Paula Kennerman out on his yacht.

“Nope. I’ve got to go. Bobby, will you stay out of that mess? Please?”

“Go buy a house. Dad.”

After he left, she read the paper again, more carefully this time; there was no mention of Craig Dodgson, but there was a bit of information tucked into the recap of the murder: “Baby killer Kennerman left her husband and killed her child and thought she was rid of all obstacles to a life of luxury, free to pursue a wealthy man she believed would take her away on a yacht.”

She wrote a brief letter to the judge and then dressed today in a flowered skirt and blouse, panty hose even, and sandals. Just in case she ran into the judge, she told herself, tugging on the panty hose with some resentment. It was going to be a hot day.

She delivered the letter without seeing the judge or Spassero, and then returned to the jail for the third time.

Today there was no delay in taking her to the conference room, and they let her keep her pen. Paula was brought in almost immediately. The bandages had been changed, Barbara noted. They were no more than simple coverings to keep the wounds clean.

Paula was still pale, but her eyes were alive and there was a light flush on her cheeks when she greeted Barbara

“I’m glad you came back,” she said, taking her seat.

“What happened Friday?” Barbara asked.