Barbara Holloway: Desperate Measures Part 19

When she went downstairs the next morning, Frank was at the counter chopping spinach. "It's the last of it," he said regretfully. "An omelette, filled with spinach, chopped tomato, scallions, and cheese. You up for some?"

"Are you kidding?" She poured coffee and took it to the dinette table. "Was the food awful?"

"No, of course not. It's one of those things. After a day or two of restaurant food, you just want something from your own kitchen."

"Not me," she said. "Your nose is sunburned."

"I know that. You want toast?"

"I don't think there's any bread. I forgot it."

"What were you planning in the way of a sandwich last night?" he asked with real curiosity.

"When I said sandwich, I remembered that I had forgotten to buy bread," she said. "I would have gone out to get some."

He shook his head. "Well, I don't want it for myself."

She understood that they were not going to talk about the book while he was preparing breakfast, and they would not talk about it while they ate. She picked up the newspaper and scanned headlines, turned to the comics, and waited for the real day to start.

After the omelette was gone and they were having more coffee, Barbara said, "What are you going to do now?"

"Call Hoggarth. Get an exhumation order, open the case again."

"What about Wrigley? You going to bring up his name?"

"No. I told you, I don't think he's the man. I'll give Hoggarth the fingerprints Bailey lifted, let him take it from there." Then he scowled. "d.a.m.n, I forgot. Patsy's off."

"We could meet in my office," she said. She did not mention that he would not need Patsy when he talked to Hoggarth; it would do little good to say something like that. He believed that if he was in the office, Patsy should be there also.

She cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher as he made the call to the police lieutenant. The dishwasher was full. Then she remembered that she had not turned it on yesterday, or maybe for several days. She turned it on.

"Twelve-thirty, your office," Frank said when he hung up the phone. "He's grouchy. He'll take a few minutes out of his lunch hour, if it's really important."

"Well, I'll be there. Now I'm off. See you later." Their meeting promised to be interesting, she thought as she headed out the door.

Milt Hoggarth arrived promptly at twelve-thirty. Barbara and Frank escorted him to her office, where they sat around the coffee table.

"This had better be good," Hoggarth said. "We're shorthanded, people out fishing, taking vacations, and I don't have time for any tomfoolery. Your nose is sunburned," he added.

"I know," Frank snapped. "I have a story to tell you, Milt. Won't take long. I told you at the beginning that I didn't believe Hilde Franz overdosed accidentally, and I sure as h.e.l.l didn't think she was a suicide."

"Frank, that case is closed. Is that what you want to talk about? Forget it."

"Sit still and listen," Frank said. He turned to Barbara. "Tell him what you learned about those capsules."

She told him, and watched as he did the arithmetic for himself.

He shrugged.

"You don't know how many she used up, how many she had left," he said.

"If you ever pulled a muscle, you know you want something to relieve the pain for several days," she said coldly. "Ask your doctor."

"Is that it? You counted pills?"

"Shut up and listen," Frank said. He told him how Bailey had photographed Hilde's house and lifted fingerprints.

It was interesting, Barbara thought, watching him, the difference it made where the red in the face came from. Frank's nose was red, and Hoggarth's face was reddening, but it was a different sort of coloration, coming from deep within, and not evenly. His red was blotched; Frank's nose was uniformly red.

"It could have been a doork.n.o.b rattler," Frank said. "But later the guy came back and broke in. I got a video from Hilde's safe-deposit box, made for her homeowner's insurance, and we compared Bailey's shots with it. These are stills taken from the tapes and Bailey's pictures." He handed Hoggarth the two sets of pictures of the books. "A book's missing."

"He took a book. Is that it? What are you getting at? You want it back?"

"I have it," Frank said. "We tracked down the author; I flew to Florida and bought a copy." He opened the ream box on the table, took out the copyright page and the t.i.tle page, and handed them to Hoggarth, who glanced at them and gave them back. Then Frank gave him a copy of the page of text with part of it highlighted. "It's a blueprint for murder," he said icily. "Read it."

No one spoke as Hoggarth read the highlighted section, then read it again. "Jesus Christ!" he said, flinging the paper down on the table. "She didn't have any knockout drops. It's a piece of a story!"

"Someone doctored those capsules, increased the amount of the drug in each one, and exchanged them that evening," Frank said. "A double dose would have rendered her unconscious, incapable of being roused, possibly. That person returned later and opened her mouth, lifted her tongue, and injected a vein beneath the tongue with a paralyzing dose of the drug. Her breathing stopped very soon after that, a minute, two minutes, and she died. He restored the original capsules, and was done. I called Dr. Steiner, and he agreed that the only way we'll know for sure is through another examination. He didn't look under her tongue."

"f.u.c.k!" Hoggarth muttered. "You're not serious, Frank. You're talking exhumation."

"If you don't call for it, I'll speak to the family, tell them what I've told you, and get them to do it. If I have to go that route, I'll have your hide before I'm done with this. Hilde Franz was my client and she was murdered."

After Hoggarth left, Frank stood up. "It's in their hands now," he said. Bailey would deliver a set of the fingerprints he had lifted; they would have copies made of the videotape and photos, and the novel; in the coming week Hilde Franz's body would be exhumed and reexamined.

Barbara had not said a word about the hospital committee, or about Wrigley. A mistake, she was thinking; she should have insisted on giving Hoggarth that also, and if the police cleared Wrigley, no harm done.

At the door Frank paused. "I have to say something else," he said in a neutral tone. "That's a long flight from Florida back home. I had a lot of time to think. I tend to agree with Hoggarth, that the fact that Hilde had a lover is irrelevant. I believe she saw something the day Marchand was killed, and she came to accept that Alex Feldman killed him. I think his doctor friend killed her to protect Feldman."

She stared at him, aghast. "No way," she said. "It just won't work. He didn't know about the book."

"She talked about it with someone," Frank said in that same flat tone. "Further, I think you should be prepared to deal with this because eventually the police will come up with the same scenario."

Later that afternoon she told Sh.e.l.ley and Bailey the whole story. Frank had always said not to hold out on Bailey; in order to do his job, he had to have whatever information was available. Although she did not tell him about X or Xander, she did not hold back anything else.

Sh.e.l.ley stared at her wide-eyed. "He can't really believe that Dr. Minick would do such a thing. And he said the guy who hit him had a key. Dr. Minick wouldn't have a key to her house."

"He doesn't know Dr. Minick or Alex. He did know Hilde Franz, and he can't believe she had an affair with a younger married man with children. That's what it comes down to. And he'll probably come around to thinking he might have left the door unlocked. But what it means to us is that we need to get the dope on Wrigley, all the way down. Sh.e.l.ley, I think you're due a short vacation, maybe to visit your pals in the Monterey area, get in a little gossip. And, Bailey, canva.s.s that neighborhood like a census taker. Hilde Franz's neighbors, the next block over, the medical complex. And I think it's time to go into some of those out-of-state trips. Were they together? Same hotel, separate rooms? What?"

When Bailey got up to leave, he said, "Barbara, you know this is going to start adding up to big bucks."

"I know that, d.a.m.n it. It'll have to come out of my fee, I guess. But don't worry about it. Just get me something on Wrigley." And he didn't even have a thing to do with her case, she added to herself, accepting that she had to go after him anyway. Bailey looked doubtful, and she said, "You get me something real, and I'll put in a wet bar here."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. Promise. But it has to be real."

"When isn't it?" he said. He saluted and left.

As soon as the door closed, Sh.e.l.ley said, "Would it help any if you could tell your father about X and Xander? I mean, if he understood more about Alex..."

Barbara shook her head. "I don't think so. He might just conclude they have more to defend than he realized. It's his d.a.m.n sense of loyalty, his propriety. He liked Hilde, that's what it boils down to, and he's unwilling to believe she did anything he thinks is shameful. He can go along with an affair, no problem; it's Wrigley, his age, wife, kids, all that baggage that stops him in his tracks."

Dinner with Frank was strained that evening. Barbara did the dishes, and then went to the living room, where he was channel hopping. "I think I'd better move back to my own digs," she said. He didn't argue.

26.

The days began to blur. August came in on a heat wave that made every real Oregonian grumpy.

Frank called to say that the new examination of Hilde Franz had revealed a puncture wound under her tongue. He did not chat after delivering the message. Reports were flowing into Barbara's office, and Sh.e.l.ley reported on her trip to California.

"Rhondi Dumont was kicked out of Bennington, went to New York to make her fortune, and had an affair or two, but no job or any prospect of one; then she met Isaac Wrigley. Poor professor, rich idler. They got together, got married, and eventually seem to have made a deal. He'd get a job on the West Coast somewhere, and she'd put up the money for him to go into the pharmaceutical-testing business. He had done some of it at New York University and knew what was needed."

Barbara nodded. "Nothing too damaging so far," she said when Sh.e.l.ley paused to glance at her notes.

"And all hearsay, gossip. Rhondi's parents are a couple of doozies, apparently. He's a chaser, and she has a new man every year or so. The speculation is that Rhondi was reacting to them, after a few years of catting around on her own. Anyway, no kids came along, and they adopted a boy four years ago, then a girl two years ago, and now she's pregnant, sick, and scared. She'll stay home with her mother until the baby's born toward the end of the month."

"Sick how?"

"Something to do with the pregnancy. She was rushed to the hospital two different times. That part's real enough, I guess."

"I wonder if they had a prenuptial agreement," Barbara said after a moment.

"Sure. When there's money on one side, the family insists on it. And in this case, if she fronted his business, there's bound to be a legal agreement." Very patiently she added, "You see, Barbara, those who have old money know how to manage it and keep it. All kinds of agreements come along, just as a matter of course."

Barbara thought about it, then said, "Sometimes you do kill to keep an affair secret."

On the last day of August Barbara received another discovery statement from the district attorney's office. Investigating Hilde Franz's death, they had questioned members of the hospital committee as a matter of routine, and then returned to Isaac Wrigley for a formal statement. She settled back in her chair and read the statement.

Q: Were you inside Hilde Franz's house on different occasions?

A: Yes. She and my wife both liked to read romance novels, and they exchanged them frequently. This past year, since Rhondi, my wife, has been ill, I was their errand boy and made the pickups and deliveries. Rhondi called them her bathtub reading.

Q: When was the last time you were in Hilde Franz's house?

A: A few days before she died. Rhondi went to California to stay with her parents until our baby is born; she left a stack of paperback books to be returned to Hilde, and I kept forgetting. I just picked them up that day and took them around to her.

Q: What did you do in her house?

A: She said since I had the books in my hands, I might as well put them back on the shelf they had come from. I did that. The shelf was in her bedroom. I think I washed my hands, and I know I got a drink of water.

Q: How did Hilde Franz appear to you?

A: Normal at the time, but she called me later, and she was upset.

Q: Can you explain what you mean?

A: She began to talk about the murder out at Opal Creek, and she said she knew who did it, but she was in a quandary about what to do. She said Feldman did it, but he had been goaded beyond endurance, and maybe Gus Marchand had brought it on himself. She felt sorry for Feldman. I told her to go to the police. I a.s.sumed she had done so, since Feldman was arrested soon after that.

Q: Did she say why she believed Alexander Feldman killed Gus Marchand?

A: Yes. She said she saw him entering the woods going toward Marchand's property as she was leaving that day. She said there hadn't been time enough for anyone else to have gone over there, according to the newspaper reports.

There was a little more, but only to sharpen the responses; as if they needed sharpening, Barbara thought. He was covering it all, she thought savagely: Hilde had not been his friend, but his wife's. He had explained the fingerprints, his presence in her house, and had tightened the screws on Alex.

And now he was in California; his son had been delivered that morning. He had explained to the investigators that he would be with his family in California through September, and fly to Eugene to attend to business matters for a day or two at a time when necessary. He hoped to get back permanently sometime in October and bring his family, when the baby was six weeks old, possibly.

He told them he could arrange to be in Eugene in time to testify, if it was important. It was not on the transcript, but she a.s.sumed that they had a.s.sured him that it would be very important.

That afternoon during their regular briefing, Sh.e.l.ley said, "I bet she never read a book in her life."

"I'd like that confirmed," Barbara said.

"They're all gone," Bailey said. "You know, down to Monterey, the family compound with high fences and guards, maybe even dogs with painted-on hair patrolling."

"I've been thinking of the nanny," Barbara said. "Lucinda Perez, from Guatemala. You must know someone from Guatemala, someone who can reminisce about old times in the old country with Lucinda."

He grimaced. "I got you Wrigley and Franz in the same cities on two different occasions, not the same hotels yet, but we're working on it. I got you a runner for Sunday morning. I got you Wrigley's financial records-the boy's done good. Do I see a bar in here yet? I see coffee and c.o.kes, tea for the fainthearted. No beer. No booze. Not even a gla.s.s of wine."

"Put Franz and Wrigley in the same hotel, and you get the bar," Barbara said. "Or get me something real from Perez. I'll settle for that."

She knew that if Wrigley testified under oath, if he stuck to the statement he had given, there was no way she could pull his wife out of California and force her to testify as to the truthfulness of his statements. And his statement was d.a.m.ning.

"Guatemala," Bailey mumbled. "Jeez, Barbara. You should be a labor organizer or something. And speaking of labor-day, I mean-Hannah and I leave in the morning for Seattle, a flower show she has to see, and I'll be back in harness on Tuesday." Then a thoughtful look came over his face, and he said, "Guatemala. I'll see what I can do." He ambled out soon after that.

"Well," Barbara said. "Another long weekend, another holiday. Dad asked me to dinner tomorrow night, and again on Monday. I mentioned that you were at loose ends, and he said to bring you along if you'd like to come. You up for that?"

Sh.e.l.ley shrugged. "Sure. It beats a cookout by the pool at the apartment."

She had cut her hair again, shorter this time, and it was more becoming than ever. If she was trying to achieve an androgynous look, it was a total failure. Over the past weeks, she had lost a little weight and with it her little-girl look; her face appeared more angular, more mature, and her prettiness was becoming a different sort of beauty, quieter and more reflective.

Although Barbara ached for her, there was not a thing she could do or say until Sh.e.l.ley brought it up, she told herself repeatedly.

"You did a terrific job putting together that file on Rachel Marchand," she said. "Of course, the prosecution will say that it doesn't matter; she believed Alex was stalking her, and he feared an investigation. But it's ammunition."

"And we don't have much ammunition, do we?" Sh.e.l.ley said. "Now, with Wrigley adding to theirs... It's frightening, isn't it?"

"It always is," Barbara said.

Later, walking by the river, she thought of her own words and knew them to be true. There was always the possibility of losing, of course, and she had lost cases, enough to make her super-cautious. There was always the possibility of an innocent defendant being found guilty.

The air was still and warm, too warm to be comfortable, and humid. But the bike path was well used regardless of weather, and it was busy that evening. She skirted a group of youngsters picking blackberries, eating them as fast as they picked them. Their hands were purple. Then she was visualizing the wall of blackberry brambles behind Marchand's house on the south-facing edge of the mowed area. Those berries must be dead ripe, she thought, and slowed her brisk walk so abruptly that a couple with a toddler b.u.mped into her, laughing their apology. The child was setting their pace. She moved out of the way and watched them continue up the path.