Barbara Holloway: Desperate Measures Part 22

On the way back to Eugene, Barbara told Sh.e.l.ley what they had learned. "What it means to me personally," she added at the end, "is that I'd better clean my d.a.m.n stove. If there had been grease in the burner well, or around it, that place would be ashes."

"What it also means," Frank said, breaking his long silence, "is that the stove in Marchand's house was turned on no later than twenty-five minutes before seven, and that doesn't allow time for anyone to park on Opal Creek Road and get there through the orchard after the boys left."

No one said another word all the way back to Frank's house.

29.

It was Friday, and Bailey had already left the weekly conference; Barbara had had nothing for him to do in the next few days.

Earlier that day, as part of discovery, Barbara had received the prosecution's statement from a psychologist, an expert witness who claimed that a severely disfigured, violent youth would in all likelihood be a violent adult, with violence sometimes suppressed for years but ready to erupt with the right provocation. It was a long evaluation, full of psychobabble, but that was the gist of it.

Sh.e.l.ley's hands were shaking when she put the report down on the coffee table. "He's full of s.h.i.t! He never even talked to Alex!"

"They'll try to show that he's violent, and I can refute that," Barbara said. "They don't have a case, d.a.m.n it! It's all circ.u.mstantial."

"And you know as well as I do that circ.u.mstantial cases are the norm, not the exception," Frank said. "A jury that becomes sympathetic to the defendant might want more than that, but Judge Mac has seen too much to be swayed by personal sympathy-or antipathy, either. And an awful lot of people are serving time based on the outcome of circ.u.mstantial cases."

She glared at the chart she had placed on an easel earlier; it showed the times that Daniel had run home, when he left, how long the boys waited, when the stove must have been turned on, when the smoke alarm alerted Bakken and the inspector....

"All right, I'll give Judge Mac something else to chew on," she said angrily. "Leona did it herself. Gus found out she was using birth-control pills and had a fit, and she ended the argument with a hammer."

Frank did not say a word, and Sh.e.l.ley looked embarra.s.sed. "Another alternative," Barbara said. "Daniel ran in and Gus screamed at him for riding around the countryside in a kid's car, and he ended the argument with the hammer."

"Or maybe Gus. .h.i.t himself in the head," Frank said.

"I like that one best," Barbara said. Maria buzzed then to say that Dr. Minick had arrived, and Barbara went to the door to admit him. She had asked him to come while Alex was at the computer in XandersRealm that afternoon. He came in carrying a magazine.

He nodded to Frank and smiled at Sh.e.l.ley, then seated himself on the sofa and put the magazine, The New Yorker, down on the table. "What happened?" he asked.

"Two things," Barbara said. She handed him the psychological evaluation. "Will you read through this, and then give your take on it?"

He glanced at it, then back to her. "Jacoby's a wh.o.r.e, you understand. A paid witness. You could have hired him to say the opposite of whatever he says here."

"I know. But read it."

He read it carefully, then put it down. "Statistically he's right," he said. "Violent youths often become violent adults. Without intervention-counseling and behavioral therapy, sometimes medication-that happens more often than not. Violence has to have an object-the self, objects, things, property, or other people-and there often is a progression from wreaking violence against objects or animals long before violence is directed at other people, or the self. But, Barbara, Alex had intervention, both therapy and counseling, and from an expert. He is not a violent young man."

"Can you refute that report, or should we find our own hired gun to do it?"

"I can, but would my testimony be considered unbiased?"

She was grateful that he had brought up the point himself. That would have been her next question. "Can you advise us about whom to get?"

He nodded. "I'll give you several names. You said two things. What's the other one?"

"Your name has been added to the list of witnesses for the prosecution. You will be called as a hostile witness."

"I won't testify against Alex!" he said vehemently. "They can't force a doctor to reveal doctor-patient confidences."

"They will call you, and you will be compelled to testify regarding the progress reports you made to the New York City authorities, and to the hospital where Alex was a patient. Those reports have all been subpoenaed, and you will have to testify concerning what you wrote in them."

"Why? They have the reports."

"It's always more effective to drag the answers from an unwilling witness," she said. "You and I have to go over those reports and that statement," she said, pointing to the evaluation. "I have to know exactly what's in them, what it all means."

Dr. Minick stood up and walked across the office to gaze at the time chart on the easel. After a few moments he turned back to face the group at the coffee table. "I never dreamed this would go this far," he said. He sounded hoa.r.s.e. "I thought, when you managed to keep Alex out of jail, that you would find a way out of this for him. A neighbor with a real grudge, perhaps. Alex didn't do it, but they'll convict him, won't they? Barbara, I have to go to the police and tell the truth. I killed Gus Marchand. I walked over; we had an argument, a fierce fight actually, and I lost control, picked up the hammer and swung it."

She stared at him, aghast, and furious. "You do that and you seal his conviction! They'll know he did it and that you know it and are trying to protect him! That's the most idiotic thing you could do!" She jumped up.

Before she could say more, Frank said very kindly, "She's right, you know. That's the sort of gesture a loving father would make to save his child. And they know that, too."

Dr. Minick didn't move for a few seconds; then he seemed to sag in on himself, as if their words had weighted him down. "That isn't why I know he's innocent," he said, gazing at a distant point. "I know him better than he knows himself. The violence is gone, sublimated in his art; he doesn't need it any longer. As soon as I learned that the fingerprints had been wiped from the hammer, I knew beyond any doubt that he had not done it. Alex wouldn't hurt anyone, and Alexander has been banished for many years. At one time Alexander might have lashed out, but he wouldn't have been able to think clearly enough to get rid of his fingerprints; it was blind, irrational fury driving him. Wiping the hammer was a very deliberate act."

Frank said, "Just how much weight do you think anyone will grant your a.s.sessment? You say he's not violent; Jacoby says he is, or can be. Are we dealing with a dual personality here, a Jekyll and Hyde? Is an evil twin in the wings hankering to get out? You say his art has compensated for a lot; I say his art is mediocre at best, and he must know that, or he's even more delusional than I thought. I think it's time to let me in on the secret of Alex/Alexander, and if I can't be trusted with it, I should excuse myself and go fishing."

Dr. Minick had not moved as Frank spoke; now he walked back to the table and picked up the magazine he had placed there. He opened it to a full-page cartoon and handed it to Frank. "It's an advance copy," he said. "That's Alex's work."

Frank studied the cartoon, then Dr. Minick's face. He turned to Barbara and she nodded. "I'll be d.a.m.ned," he said. "He's X?"

"And he draws the comic strip Xander," Dr. Minick said. He sat down again.

"Christ on a mountain!" Frank exploded. "Why haven't you revealed this? It proves he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. He's no longer just a poor reclusive freak who's probably psychotic, living the life of a hermit."

For the next several minutes Dr. Minick and Sh.e.l.ley explained Alex to Frank, who was not convinced.

Wearily then Barbara said, "Dad, can you imagine what it would be like? His face on the tabloids, People magazine? Low-flying aircraft with photographers using telephoto lenses, people sneaking in through the woods, sob stories, baby pictures, interviews with his parents, their reaction to the way he's drawn them, Baba Wawa laying her hand on his knee with big fat tears crawling down her face...." She shook her head. "He's seen that future and he prefers not to go there."

''I'm talking about saving his life," Frank said sharply, "not his vanity. He can buy a place farther out in the country, a place with hundreds of acres and a high fence."

"A prison isn't defined by how many square feet are enclosed," Sh.e.l.ley said. "He'll kill off X and Xander if he's exposed. Kids relate to Xander now, the hero, because he's like them-normal, fallible, vulnerable, idealistic. But if it's known that a freak draws that strip, if the artist becomes the center instead of the character, it would be worthless. He won't live in prison, one of his own or one chosen by the state."

"Dad," Barbara said when Frank waved Sh.e.l.ley's comments away angrily, "Alex has grounded himself through X and Xander. They are his whip and his chair to keep the beast in check. If he loses them, or has to give them up..." She spread her hands. "His real fear isn't of prison, and it isn't of dying. His real fear is of Alexander, that he might come roaring back to life."

Dr. Minick had been listening and watching. Now he nodded with a tormented expression. "Exactly so," he said.

Silenced, Frank leaned back in his chair.

After a moment Barbara said to Dr. Minick, "Can you come back tomorrow, spend some time going over Jacoby's statement? I have so much to do, taking an hour off to drive out and back is time I should use doing something else."

"Come out to the house tomorrow," Frank said. "Bring Alex, and I'll make us all something to eat. You, too," he said to Sh.e.l.ley.

After Dr. Minick left and Sh.e.l.ley returned to her own office, Frank regarded Barbara somberly. "You realize he still might confess," he said. "And I doubt he'd wait for a verdict to do it. He's no dummy. He knows what that time chart means."

She nodded. "And he will make it look good if he does. G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" She slapped a paper down on her desk. "I wish I knew what that stupid time chart means!" She walked over to glare at it.

An hour or two earlier Frank had known exactly what the chart meant, and now he no longer did. What one knows can change abruptly, he thought, as he had thought before. Only belief and faith persisted. "I wish I knew why Gus Marchand never filed a formal complaint against Alex," he said.

"What do you mean?" Barbara asked.

"If he really believed Alex was endangering his child, stalking her, why did he stop with a verbal threat to build houses? Something he couldn't have carried out."

"He knew it was a lie," she said after a moment. "He must have known it was a lie."

"Maybe."

"You stopped believing Alex was a murderer, and now, if I read you right, you don't believe Dr. Minick is, either. Why?"

"As for Alex, the pen is mightier than the hammer, too. He has a superior weapon to use in his own defense. And Graham? I think he would be capable of killing for Alex, and he's ready to sacrifice himself, but I don't think he would put Alex through the h.e.l.l of being charged and facing trial. He would have confessed months ago if he had done it."

She had not thought of Dr. Minick in those terms, but she nodded. Frank was talking about how a father would fight and die for his child, and Frank knew.

Frank stood up. "I'll leave you to get to things," he said. At the door he paused. "Do you really believe Alex would kill himself if he's found guilty?"

She nodded. "Also if he's exposed." Then she said, "If you looked like him, would you want to keep living in a fishbowl?"

"I don't know," Frank said slowly. "So help me G.o.d, I don't know."

Later, when Sh.e.l.ley checked in to say she was leaving, Barbara said tiredly, "I told you fifty-hour weeks. I lied. How many hours do you reckon you've put in this week?"

Sh.e.l.ley shrugged. "Who counts? Are you staying longer? Do you have anything for me to do?"

"I'm staying awhile, and nothing for you. But tomorrow, if Alex comes with Dr. Minick, will you two reenact Daniel's movements when he reached the house? He said he met his mother in the hall and carried a box out to her car for her, not running, I'd guess, and then ran back in and upstairs to get money from his other jeans. Back down and out the front door. Start and stop right at the door. Dad's house isn't exact, but close enough probably to what the Marchand house is like inside. Can do? Take the stopwatch."

"Can do. Alex will show up. I spoke on the phone with him; he'll come." She looked at Barbara curiously. "You don't really think Daniel had time to get into a fight with his father and kill him, do you?"

"Honey chile, I think the Wicked Witch of the West did the foul deed. There wasn't enough time for anyone to go in and start a fight, apparently. Maybe it was a fight of long standing and it just ended that day. Anyway, I'm going for the nanoseconds now."

She didn't know how many miles she had walked from her desk to the reception room, back, stopping now and then to make a note, walking again. She was in the reception room when there was a tap on the door, and Frank called out.

"Barbara, open up."

She opened the door.

"I saw your lights. Bobby, have you had anything to eat? What are you thinking of, skipping meals- What's wrong?" His voice went from irritable scold to concern in a flash.

"Come in and sit down. I'll tell you," she said.

She sat down opposite her father; her legs were aching and her back hurt. "I can't find anyone else to finger," she said slowly. "There were enemies, but I can't find one who had the free time that evening. Hilde is out. I think that's what she came to realize when she read their story in the newspaper, that the boys had seen her, and since they were there for under five minutes, she was home free. Maybe that's what she wanted to tell you. Maybe she called Wrigley and told him that. Anyway, she's out. And she couldn't have seen Alex or Dr. Minick go that way. Anyone leaving that house on foot would have been out of sight from someone on the driveway."

She stood up again and walked to her desk, back. Frank wanted to catch her and force her into a chair, but he knew better. He watched her and waited.

"I keep coming back to Daniel or Leona," she said, "and I can't make it work. Daniel was in the house less than a minute. Even if Gus was the tyrannical father he appeared to be, Daniel was on his way out with a scholarship. He would get a driver's license in a few weeks. What possibly could have happened in less than a minute that could result in murder? The condoms? I can imagine a scene over them, but a scene takes a little time to develop, and there wasn't even a little. Less than a minute. And if they had come up as an issue, why didn't Daniel take them with him?" She shifted a paper or two on her desk, not looking at them.

"Leona," she said. "All morning she was the dutiful housewife, then school for hours. Back home to heat the meal, make a salad, set the table, pour his milk. At least half an hour, maybe longer. Then a bath, dress, back down. Even if he had brought up the birth-control pills, that doesn't seem to be enough to start a fight that resulted almost instantly in murder. Wouldn't she have said, We'll talk about it later, or something like that? From all accounts his abuse was emotional, not physical; she had no reason to fear him physically. I keep thinking that if she had enough courage to protect herself with birth-control pills, she must have had enough courage to defend that decision."

She sank down onto the sofa and drew in a breath.

"Leave it alone for now," Frank said. "You're tired, and it's after ten. You haven't eaten, your brain is starved for food. Let's go to my place. I'll feed you and you can go to bed. Let it simmer until morning."

She nodded, stood up once more and began to gather up the stacks of papers on the table, then other stacks on her desk, everything in piles according to the subject.

She was putting things away in her safe when Frank said, "Sometimes no one ever finds out who did it, and all you can hope for is to keep the innocent from taking the blame."

She closed and locked the safe, thinking, And what if the prosecution proves that no one except the innocent defendant could have done it?

30.

After dinner Sat.u.r.day, Frank began telling lawyer jokes; he had an endless supply of them, Barbara well knew. "So Michelangelo is at the Pearly Gates and Saint Peter says, 'What did you ever do that lets you in?' 'I painted pictures, sir.' 'A lot of people paint pictures. Not good enough.' 'I did some sculpting.' 'You didn't even finish the Pieta. What else?' Michelangelo is getting desperate now, and he says, 'I studied law but I never practiced.' Saint Peter swings the gate open and says, 'Welcome, son.'"

Alex laughed, then said, "That was a wonderful dinner, Mr. Holloway. Thanks. I'll do the cleanup."

"See," Frank said to Minick. "Can't call me Frank. I think you know you're becoming a fossil when everyone under fifty calls you 'mister.'"

"I remember when he called me Graham for the first time," Dr. Minick said. "I was sitting on a rock over by John Day. We'd been hiking, looking at petroglyphs, and I was worn out. He said, 'Graham, don't move a muscle.' I thought he wanted to take a picture or something, but I didn't move, and then we both watched a rattlesnake slither within inches of my hand on the rock."

Sh.e.l.ley finished her coffee and stood up. "I'll help Alex." They both picked up dishes and carried them out. Frank and Dr. Minick watched them, and Barbara watched Frank. He knew, too, she thought. Frank glanced at her, and she nodded slightly; he drew in a long breath and shook his head.

"I wonder if Gus got past those Pearly Gates," she said.

"No way," Dr. Minick said. "Or at least not in any heaven I'd run. He was a misogynist, and that alone would disqualify him."

She hadn't thought of that, but it fitted in with what she had learned about him. First his wife, then his daughter, who had ceased being a s.e.xless child and had turned into a woman. It explained a lot, she thought. Suddenly she felt as if somewhere within her head a different gate had swung open, and jumbles of images and thoughts, snippets of statements came pouring out in a chaotic ma.s.s.

She was aware that her father and Dr. Minick continued a conversation, but she had no idea of what they had been discussing, when Frank's voice grounded her again. "Bobby, have you heard a word?"

She blinked, then looked in surprise at the table, completely cleared; Alex and Sh.e.l.ley had returned to the dining room, and Dr. Minick was standing by his chair regarding her with interest.

"I wanted to say good night," Dr. Minick said. "We'll be leaving now."

Hastily she stood up. "Me, too," she said. "Thanks for your help today. It really was a tremendous help to me. And, Dad, dinner was super, as always. I have to run."

Frank nodded. He knew that she would walk miles that night while she sorted through whatever idea had occurred to her. This time, at least, she was fortified with a good meal.

As soon as she left, Dr. Minick said to Frank, "I've seen that same kind of absence come over Alex, that same kind of going away, sometimes in the middle of one of my stories, in fact. The creative process, I believe."

Alex nodded. "I don't know how it is with her," he said. "But with me, it's as if the ghost of an idea casts a shadow over other thoughts, over whatever else is happening around me, and if I don't catch it immediately, it will vanish and probably never come back. At least, that's the fear that comes with it. Catch it when it comes, or lose it forever." Then he said quite candidly, "Will Thaxton's the only lawyer I've known until now. I never suspected an attorney would go through the same kind of mental gymnastics that I do."