The Unbidden Truth (16 page)

Thing One and Thing Two tried to get on Frank's lap, but that never worked. They were too big to share a lap, and one of them stepped down and went to Barbara and stepped up onto her lap. They didn't have to jump, they could simply step up without a break in stride. Automatically she began to stroke the cat, and it purred. Bailey finished his tape first, tossed it into the box Frank had brought in and reached for another one. His expression was sour.

Soon Frank added his tape to the box. He moved Thing One aside, stood up and walked out with both cats at his heels. Barbara started a second tape. When Frank returned he had a tray with wine and glasses, cheeses and crackers, a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey, ice and water.

Barbara had just poured herself a glass of wine and was reaching for cheese when Shelley pulled off her headset. “I've got something,” she said in a choked voice.

They all pulled off the headsets. Shelley adjusted the speed
and the volume and they listened to a woman's voice. “Great balls of fire and a red-hot poker, up the asshole and grind me down, lover…Deeper. Deeper. Ah, a little shit makes the cream sweeter.” Barbara closed her eyes hard and gritted her teeth as it got more and more lascivious. After another moment or two, she said, “Turn it off, Shelley.”

In the silence that followed, Frank muttered, “Christ on a mountain, he was into audio pornography.”

“We don't all have to listen,” Barbara said. “There may be a lot more of that filth, but we don't all have to listen to it. Now we know what to be on the lookout for. Start with music, something else, go back to music.”

Bailey had gone from gloomy to sour, and now he looked outraged. He probably was the most puritanical among them, Barbara thought, but she felt deeply embarrassed. You don't share pornography with your father. She avoided looking directly at Frank. “If we run into that kind of thing, let's just fast-forward it enough to make sure that's all there is to it, then put that tape aside,” she said. She remembered what Inez had told her, that Joe wanted her to talk dirty in bed.

Before they resumed listening, Frank said, “I ordered some dinner from West Brothers. It should be here soon.” He eyed the jumble of tapes on the coffee table and added grimly, “It looks like it's going to be a long night.”

 

When the bell chimed, Bailey waved Frank down and went to receive the food himself. They had a silent dinner, and afterward Barbara couldn't have said what it was.

It was a few minutes past ten when Bailey held up his hand and took his headset off. Three tapes had been added to the one that Shelley had set aside earlier, but he made no motion
to add his to that growing stack. “I think this is it,” he said. He adjusted the speed on his tape player and turned up the volume and they listened.

Nora's voice came in too low to make out her words. He adjusted the volume again.

“Do you always have conferences in the bedroom?” Nora asked. Her voice was not yet the sultry one she had since cultivated, but it was throaty and suggestive.

“Best place for heart-to-heart talks,” a man said. “Nice bedroom, isn't it?”

“Lovely. Joe, when are you going to stop pouting and come back to work? We miss you. I miss you.”

“Nora, darling, I told you and big brother. I'm officially retired. That's it. A life of leisure, that's for me. Have a seat here beside me.”

There was silence, a faint rustling noise, then a door opening and closing. “Bathroom,” Joe said. “And that's a closet. I told you Lexy won't be back for a couple of hours. We have plenty of time.” He sounded amused.

Her voice was faint, almost inaudible when she spoke again, as if she was moving about the room, or had her back to him. “Remember when you moved in with Larry and me? You were so young, just a kid. I could feel you watching me all the time, like burning holes in my skin. Sometimes I'd look at you and wonder if I should have waited, maybe I got the wrong brother. You were so sweet.”

“And now?”

“Maybe I should have waited,” she said huskily. “Larry's…He's not like you. For days and days he doesn't even see me. You wouldn't be like that.”

More silence, more rustling sounds, then Joe's voice was
there. “I always said you were built like a brick outhouse. You haven't lost a thing, have you?”

“We could have fun, Joe. You and me. Larry wouldn't even notice. A week at Vegas now and then, or Hawaii. Have you been to Hawaii? The two of us in a beach cabana…Don't do that. Don't mark me like that.”

“Why? Dogs and men like to mark their territory.”

“Stop it, Joe. Later…You're so overdressed. Let me help you get rid of some things.”

Silence and sounds of movement. Then, “Isn't that better? Now we're even. I always thought yours might be bigger than Larry's. I was right.”

“Tell me something, Nora, darling. I've always wanted to know. What did you do with their hats? Those great big sheltering sombreros?”

“That isn't funny!” The huskiness was gone, her tone sharp.

“I guess not. But I was curious. Did big brother hold a gun on them while you patted them down? Remember how they always pulled off their hats when you got near? How respectful they were? Did they pull off their hats when you patted them down?”

“Shut up! Don't start that.”

“It's just pillow talk, sweetheart. Just pillow talk. Something else I wondered back then. Were you putting out for H.L.? He always came back looking like the cat that had been at the cream.”

More rustling, then, “Hey, you aren't leaving already are you? We've just begun.”

“You can't do this to us, Joe. You measly little coward. We saved your ass and you turned tail and ran, and we covered for you. Not again. No cover this time. You're in or you're out,
but no games. Understand that? No fucking games! You get your ass back to work or you're out. Not another cent. Larry will gun you down before he'll pay blackmail, and I'll load his gun.”

He laughed. “You're so wrong, baby. That day when you guys came back with the empty truck, you know what I'd been doing, waiting for you? Playing with my tape recorder, mixing one tape with another. Remember how Larry used to yell at me for wasting all my dough on music and tape recorders, junk like that? I was buying an annuity, sweetheart, and it's come due. I turned it on that day, Nora. Can't tell you how many times I've listened to you explaining what you did, how you had to do it.” His voice became falsetto, mimicking her. “They found the stuff. We couldn't buy them all off, one or two maybe, but not all of them.'” In his own voice he said, “And then you barfed. Remember? That's not a pretty sound, you barfing. Who cleaned it up, Nora? You or big brother?”

“You pile of shit, you asshole! You think you can bluff us? If we go down, so do you.”

“Wrong. See, what I figure is if I don't get my monthly annuity check, I'll just go to the Feds and tell all. I'll be born again and repent and make the best witness they ever put on the stand. How big brother always liked to play with fireworks, how good he was at blowing up things, how H.L. called and big brother got busy in the garage playing with things that go boom in the night. I'm still taping stuff, you know. That's on tape, too, Nora, baby. Those little recorders come in smaller and smaller sizes, you'd never know a guy had one up his sleeve these days. And I do like to play with my toys. Multiple copies, that's my style. Stash one here, one there.” He laughed again. “Insurance and annuities, that's
what I learned in school. And I have insurance. Tell big brother I made sure that there's insurance just in case something bad happens.”

“We won't let you get away with this,” she said in a harsh voice.

“But you will. Oh, and tell big brother that every time he gives himself a raise, I want one, too. I'll come by and check the books now and then. I learned how to do that in school, too.”

She cursed, and he laughed over it.

“I'll send him a copy of my tape of our little heart-to-heart pillow talk,” he said. “Just so he'll know you really tried. Don't forget your garter belt.”

A door slammed, and after a second or two Jerry Garcia was strumming a guitar.

T
here was a prolonged silence after Bailey turned off his tape player. Shelley stood up, sat down again, and Frank got up and went to the fireplace, added another stick to the low fire and remained there facing the flames.

He spoke first. “There's too much to ignore and not enough to take to the police.”

Barbara shook herself. “Finish listening to it, Bailey. I'll transcribe it when you're done. I want to read their words in black-and-white. Tomorrow it goes to a safe-deposit box.”

“Make two printouts,” Frank said, turning. His expression was bleak and hard.

Bailey put his headset back on and adjusted the controls of his tape player, and after a moment Shelley returned to the one she had been listening to. Frank motioned to Barbara and walked out with her.

In the kitchen he said, “I'll tell Bailey to get Alan or someone to follow Shelley home, and tomorrow have him arrange for a groundskeeper out at her place.”

“Someone with a big dog,” Barbara said. “Seventy acres to keep an eye on.”

“A big dog,” he agreed. “And you and Bailey spend the night here. We'll go on from there after we think about this.”

She did not argue with him.

“We'll finish listening to the rest of them while you're transcribing that tape.” He picked up the carafe, found it empty and put it down. “I'll make coffee. You'll want it before this night is over.”

 

It was midnight before they were finished with the tapes and the transcription was done. Alan arrived, and he and Bailey went out to have a look around, and do something to the cars in the driveway so they could tell at a glance if they had been tampered with.

“I don't know what you can tell Alex,” Barbara said to Shelley as she was putting on her coat.

“Nothing,” Shelley said. “He knew what he was getting into, what I do. He won't ask questions.”

Frank walked to the door with her and kissed her cheek. The little pink-and-gold fairy princess with a spine of steel, he thought, watching her drive away with Alan close behind her.

Barbara was in the living room gazing at three bubble-lined mailing envelopes, one oversized with the innocent tapes in it, a middle-sized one with eight pornographic tapes and a small one with a single tape. Like Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear waiting for the intruder. When Frank and Bailey returned she said, “We don't even know if they were looking
for that particular one, or just trying to make sure they had collected all of them.”

Frank sat down heavily. “We have to assume they know and act accordingly.”

“Wenzel's going on that fishing trip on Saturday, and he'll be gone five or six days,” she said. “I'll breathe easier once I know he's out of town.” She looked at Bailey. “Is your guy going to be in place at Shelley's by Saturday?”

Bailey said he'd be there. He was drinking coffee, she realized, and in fact his glass still had over an inch of bourbon in it, untouched for the past couple of hours. When Shelley had said that Alan could use a guest room at her house, Bailey had said Alan wouldn't be there to sleep, and apparently he didn't intend to sleep either that night.

“We know Joe had two or more copies of various tapes,” she said. “He had a home safe and the safe-deposit box. I wonder if he had tapes like that—” she motioned toward the smallest envelope “—scattered in among others on his shelves. They say he had hundreds, an extensive collection.”

“Purloined letter,” Frank said. “Hidden in plain sight. Bailey, would tapes like that survive in a home safe with a fire hot enough to burn down the house?”

“Depends,” Bailey said. “You said he had a safe key?” he asked Barbara. She nodded. “So the house was built in the mid-seventies, and probably the safe was put in then, an old model, not computer operated or even with a combination lock, just an old-fashioned key. They probably would have melted down, fused together, something like that. Might even have burst into flames if they got hot enough.”

“And that would leave the ones he had stashed in his bank safe-deposit box,” Barbara said, frowning.

“Maybe that's what he went after that Friday, to get them out and make new copies,” Bailey said.

“And leave them in plain sight in the motel room, and then invite the killer in,” Barbara said scathingly.

“Remember they all had alibis,” Bailey said.

“Not Nora.”

He shrugged. “After listening to that tape I think she'd be the last person he'd ask in. If you can get her there in the first place. I can't.”

She ignored that. “I said before that I thought it started with his visit to the bank. Wrong. It started with the house fire. I think they had a plan that started with destroying the tapes in the house.” She gave Bailey a cold look. “Nora had a car hidden away in the shrubbery and used that.”

He shook his head. “They live in the Crescent Estates neighborhood, houses in the five hundred grand range and up, with their own private security patrols. No unknown car had a chance to stay hidden. A patrol saw the kid get home at three-ten. I talked to him. He's sure.”

“She rode her broomstick,” Barbara muttered.

Frank stood up. “I don't care what you two do, stay up and bicker all night, but keep it down. I'm going to bed.”

He went to bed, but not to sleep. He heard Barbara when she went upstairs, and he heard Bailey prowling around. The cats were unsettled, displeased having people up and about at all hours, no doubt, and they wanted in and out of the bedroom frequently. Usually they settled at his feet, and they all went to sleep and stayed there until morning.

Too much and too little, he thought again and again. He kept seeing those hot desert wastelands and desperate men without shelter, without water, without hope.

 

In her upstairs room Barbara tossed and turned, unable to stop the flood of images that flashed before her eyes: swirling dust devils, sand blowing over the road, ankle-high scrub that looked more like rocks than plants; a six-pack of water that she had emptied; the temperature gauge of the outside air with the needle off the dial at 120; men staggering, falling, praying; the child Carolyn running away from an exploding car, hit by debris, falling, catching on fire; Joe Wenzel dead in his motel room; the Wenzels in their expensive finery in her office, at ease, comfortable.

One down, two to go, she thought.

Pale light was seeping in around the drapes before she drifted into sleep.

 

“Guys who play with bombs and light fires like to work at night, between two and four in the morning,” Bailey said at breakfast. “You're spread out too much. Carrie in one place, Shelley in another, you over there, your dad over here. We can't do them all. Yours especially,” he said to Barbara.

He didn't look any worse for wear after a sleepless night, but Frank looked tired, and she was bone tired.

“She'll stay here,” Frank said. “Alan can be a house guest for the next few weeks.”

Barbara started to object, but remained silent. Her apartment and her car at the curb couldn't be watched all night. Bailey had made phone calls already, and a man and a dog were on their way to Shelley's house. She had instructions to stay there until they arrived in order to meet them both.

“I'll follow you to the bank, and then I'll take off and get some sleep,” Bailey said. “Sylvia has the pictures from the
party. I'll pick them up and see you at the office around four.” He gave her a sharp look. “And how about you knock off working late at the office for the next few weeks. Bring it home with you.”

“I have to swing by my apartment and get my safe-deposit key,” she said. She turned to Frank. “Where do you keep yours?”

“Desk drawer. Why?”

“Curious. Joe's key wasn't on his ring, and if it was in his desk when his house burned, when did he get another one?”

 

An hour later, entering her office, she thought, and this is how it's going to be until the damn trial is history and Carrie is safe somewhere out of range.

At her desk she resumed reading where she had left off the day before when her drop-in guests had arrived. She was still at it when Bailey entered at four.

“Pictures,” he said, tossing a folder on the table. “And more dope about the Wenzel sons. Alan's at your old man's house getting some sleep, and the guy's in place at Shelley's house.” He poured himself a drink and slouched into a chair. “Tell me something,” he said. “Why can't you hand that junk over to the D.A., have that pack of Wenzels hauled in and be done with it?”

He never would have dreamed of asking her father a question like that, she well knew, a little irritated that he didn't hesitate to ask her.

“It's corroborative evidence, not conclusive,” she said. “Like Dad said, too much and too little. You need all the background that goes with it for it to be meaningful, and we can't fill them in. We can't even hint of a connection between
the Wenzels and the Frye family, not until Carrie's out of the picture. With that tape the D.A. would have to conclude that Joe was blackmailing Larry, but that it's a separate issue, since as you keep reminding me, they all have alibis.”

He scowled. “And when you do fork it over they slap a charge of withholding evidence on you. And me.”

“So you hire a good lawyer to keep you out of the pokey,” she said. “Any more questions?”

He shook his head. “If I do, I don't want to hear the answers. Larry's fishing trip is still on, bright and early Saturday morning. Sylvia's having lunch with Nora Saturday afternoon.”

After he left, Barbara spread the party pictures on her desk. Each person had a small number, and there was a corresponding list of names, identifying them all. Some Barbara knew, some she had seen around, but they were mostly unrecognizable in their costumes and makeup. Little Bo Peep, Madam Pompadour, an anorexic woman dressed as Peter Pan…And Nora as Cleopatra. Her eye makeup was heavy, more like Elizabeth Taylor's than Cleopatra's possibly; she was wearing a tiara with twined serpents with emeralds for eyes and a beautiful, vaguely Egyptian necklace. There were tight little spit curls on her forehead, jet-black. Barbara sifted through the pictures until she found one showing Nora's back. The black hair was coiled intricately, with one long curling loop.

She studied the pictures for several minutes, then she dialed Sylvia's number. She had to go through a maid and wait for Sylvia to be found.

“Barbara, I can't tell you how grateful I am,” Sylvia said in a low conspiratorial tone. “This is so exciting. What's cooking?”

Barbara grinned and shook her head. “Are you alone? Can you talk?”

“Yes, of course.” But she didn't raise her voice.

“I got the pictures, and they're wonderful. Thanks. What can you tell me about Nora's hairdo? Her wig?”

“Wasn't it stunning! Absolutely stunning. It's real hair. Asian girls let it get long and sell it, a really valuable commodity for them. It probably cost two thousand or even more. What else do you want to know?”

“Bailey says you're having lunch with Nora on Saturday. If you can find a way to bring the conversation to the party and her outfit, find out when and where she got that wig. Was it arranged where she bought it? And who her hairdresser was if it was done somewhere else.”

“That will fit right in,” Sylvia said. “We're going to look at the pictures, and do a postmortem on the party and begin plans for next year. She wants it at her place next time.”

“Sounds good,” Barbara said. “Give me a call after you see her, will you? At Dad's house. You have his number?”

“Do I ever! Give that beautiful hunk a big smacking kiss and tell him it's from me.”

After she hung up, Barbara found a picture that had Sylvia in it and her grin became broader. Medusa to a T, she thought, and hardly different from her day-by-day appearance. It would not surprise her at all to see Sylvia with snakes on her head.