Barbara Holloway: Desperate Measures Part 4

"Later," Barbara said. She was half turned, watching out the rear window. As soon as the house was out of sight behind trees, she said, "Go another few feet and stop. I have a sudden hankering for a walk in the woods."

When Sh.e.l.ley pulled to a stop, they both got out of the car and Barbara surveyed the woods. Dense, deeply shaded beneath the canopy with little understory in such dark shadows. Someone, Alex, she suspected, had kept the brambles cut down along the driveway. From here neither the house nor the road was visible. She started to walk toward Gus Marchand's property with Sh.e.l.ley following.

A few minutes later they came to the dirt track where the girl Rachel and her friend had parked, and then they reached the edge of the woods. Barbara looked at her watch, three and a half minutes. Before them lay the broad expanse of mown gra.s.s, and the Marchand house.

"Hilde Franz," Sh.e.l.ley whispered. "She could have done it." There were several cars in the Marchand driveway and as they watched, more cars drove in slowly. Barbara remembered reading that the funeral was today; they were coming now for the wake.

"Let's beat it," she said.

6.

They drove on Old Opal Creek Road past the waterfall with a trickle of water sparkling in the sunshine, and the place where Leona's car had gone into the creek. A small white cross surrounded by flowers marked the spot. The road was steep here, the curves very sharp, without guardrails; mammoth boulders were s.p.a.ced along the shoulder instead. Sh.e.l.ley crossed the old bridge and drove past the school.

They stopped at The Station. When they entered, a cl.u.s.ter of people at a table fell silent and didn't make a sound while they were there. The place looked like a hundred others that Barbara had seen with gas pumps out front and stocked with the same kinds of foodstuffs that convenience stores carried, as well as a small deli counter with prepackaged sandwiches and organic juices side by side with Dr Pepper and Coca-Cola. There was a grill, but no one manning it at that hour.

Barbara and Sh.e.l.ley bought sandwiches and juice and carried them out to a picnic table. "Flatland foreigners," Barbara murmured.

Driving back to Eugene after their hurried lunch, Barbara said, "The first issue we have to deal with is to preserve his privacy, keep his anonymity. I want to talk to Dad. Drop me off in town."

She had not been in her father's law offices for more than a year, yet the pretty receptionist knew her and smiled broadly when she approached the desk. To her shame, Barbara could not remember the young woman's name.

"Your father's in his office," the receptionist said. "I'll give him a call."

While she waited, Barbara gazed about. Sometimes she thought that her father and Sam Bixby had started this firm as soon as the Flood receded and had not changed a thing except to add s.p.a.ce. They had started with two rooms and now had the whole floor. Barbara had started her career here and might still be here if Sam Bixby hadn't kicked her out. When she said something like that to Frank, he had snorted. "He didn't kick you out. You walked."

"He was lacing up his kicking-out boots. I had a narrow escape."

Sam Bixby did not like criminal cases, did not like the riffraff she and her father a.s.sociated with. She was grinning at the thought of going to his office to say hi, and watch the worried frown cross his face.

The receptionist said, "He said for you to go right in."

Frank met her at the door and kissed her cheek. "That was quick," he said.

She saw Bailey slumped in a chair with a drink in his hand. "Hi, Bailey. Don't go away. I have something for you."

"Do I look like I'm going anywhere?" he said, raising his gla.s.s.

"Nope. But you never do, even when you're at full speed." He looked like the most disreputable person who ever entered these premises, she was certain. She turned to Frank. "What do you mean, quick?"

"I called Maria about half an hour ago, and presto, here you are. Come sit down. I have an interesting little problem."

She sat in one of his comfortable chairs and propped her feet up on his nice old coffee table. He didn't even raise an eyebrow.

"You read about the Marchand murder, I guess," Frank said, sitting down opposite her.

She felt the stirring of something very unpleasant in her stomach and hoped it was the sandwich she had eaten at The Station. "I read about it."

"Good. Yesterday an old friend, princ.i.p.al of the school out there, came to me for advice; she's afraid she might be a suspect-"

Barbara jumped up and walked away from the table. "Hilde Franz? She's an old friend?"

"How the h.e.l.l...? Yes. Hilde's my client."

"Dad, don't say another word. Stop right there. Oh, G.o.d!" She walked to his desk and stood with her back to him, hands pressed hard on the desktop.

"What is it, Bobby?" Frank demanded. He had stood up and drawn closer to her.

She was thinking furiously. She couldn't tell him the name of her client. He'd sic Bailey onto Alex in a flash, before they had time to cover their tracks. She bowed her head, trying to think. Now Frank touched her shoulder.

"Barbara, what's wrong? Are you ill?"

She straightened and turned around. "No. I'm fine. Dad, I have a client, too. Same murder. Different client. I guess we draw swords and meet at dawn or something."

He looked as stunned as his words had left her. "Who?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you." Looking past him at Bailey, who was regarding them both with great interest, she added, "I guess I don't have anything for you after all."

"Christ on a mountain!" Frank muttered. He turned and moved away a step or two, then faced her again. "Sit down and let's discuss this."

"You know we can't do that," she said. "I guess I should be going, let you and Bailey get on with it."

"Bobby-" He stopped, then nodded. "Yes, I guess you should." He did know they couldn't discuss it, not with different clients possibly at deadly risk. Barbara returned to the coffee table to retrieve her things and then went to the door. She looked back at him for a second before she left. Frank sat down heavily.

In the office after a few seconds of silence, Bailey said, "You know-"

"Shut up," Frank snapped. Bailey blinked in surprise and shut up. Frank was thinking hard. He had taught Barbara everything he knew, and she had gone far beyond that. She was a better litigator than he was, although he could cite better. Usually that didn't matter in a murder case. He knew very well that if the only way she could get a client cleared was by pointing her finger at someone else and making a d.a.m.n good case, then she would dig for that alternative. And that did matter. From what little he knew at this point, it wouldn't be hard to make a case against Hilde.

"Two things, and fast," he said. "Find out who her client is. And dig into Hilde Franz's life. She's hiding something; find out what it is." Barbara wouldn't have learned more than that, and he needed to see how well Hilde had covered her tracks.

"Barbara's already on the phone telling her folks to clam up," Bailey said plaintively.

"Find out," Frank snapped. And then he thought, Barbara had many advantages going into this, but he had Bailey, and that would make the difference.

Barbara had gone straight to a pay phone and then hurried to her office. Then, closeted with Sh.e.l.ley and Maria, she said, "Dad has Hilde Franz as a client."

Sh.e.l.ley looked stricken and disbelieving; Maria was simply bewildered. "What it means," Barbara said, "is that we can't talk to him about our case. Not to him and not to Bailey or any of his crew. Zilch, nada. Maria, if any of them come around, tell them you have orders to talk about nothing but the weather."

"Say that to your father?"

"Say exactly that and then don't talk about anything except the weather. Not about me, Sh.e.l.ley, Mama, nothing. Got that?"

Maria nodded and set her mouth in a determined way. "Nada. I get it, Barbara."

"Good. Sh.e.l.ley, I'll call Minick and tell him there's been a change of plan. He has to go ahead with the computer stuff now. Bailey hasn't had time to put anyone on this yet, but he will have done so by tomorrow for sure, and more than likely he'll get started as soon as he leaves Dad's office. And that means you have to gather up those games and deliver them now. Can you do that?"

"You bet," Sh.e.l.ley said.

"They don't know who our client is yet, and I want to keep it that way as long as possible. It might just be a few days, or maybe weeks or more. But as soon as they do know, Bailey will zero in on Alex."

She called Dr. Minick. "If you want to get in touch with me," she said, "call Will Thaxton and leave a message and a phone number where I can call you back. A pay phone number."

After hanging up, she went to the safe and stood regarding it for a moment. It had an electronic keypad lock that Bailey had insisted was state-of-the-art; no one but Barbara could open it once she set the code. She changed the code.

Then, seated at her desk, she called Will Thaxton. Like before, he answered in person.

"Barbara Holloway," she said. "I'm rushing your invitation to get together, I'm afraid. Buy you a drink when you knock off?"

"Love it," he said. "You have a place picked out?"

Again she heard a tinge of excitement in his voice. She named a hangout that students and their professors used, a place where no one would give her a second glance in her blue jeans and sneakers.

It was four-thirty, she realized, two hours to try to think herself out of this mess before she met Will Thaxton. She had done what damage control she could do for now. But what about tomorrow, next week? What about Friday, when Alex planned to come to the office to conduct his chat room? What about the blue computer in Sh.e.l.ley's office?

She started to pace. She understood how her father's mind worked; she had been watching him all her life, and he had been her best teacher, far better than any university cla.s.s. On the other hand, he knew how her mind worked.

Hilde Franz was not only his client, bad enough, but also his old friend. Frank would do just about anything for a client, and anything without qualifiers for a friend. That was a given. If he was convinced that Hilde was innocent, he would steamroll anyone in his way to clear her.

He would try to find out who Barbara's client was first thing.

Anyone who needed an attorney this early in a murder investigation was presumably in a lot of trouble. Her client and his, she added darkly.

Also he would advise his client to cover her tracks, get rid of anything incriminating, anything that could possibly be damaging. As she had advised Alex.

What could there be in Hilde Franz's past to make her go running to a criminal attorney? She could be a closet lesbian, or have a male lover, something like that. Not a criminal record, or she wouldn't have been hired by the school system. Nothing on record, something very secret. A lover who didn't want their relationship revealed? She glanced at her computer, then turned away. Later she would sift through whatever was available about Hilde Franz.

If there was a secret lover who desperately needed to remain secret, there was another suspect, after all. And this could be to her advantage even more than to Frank's. He would be constrained by his client's wishes to keep the secret, wishes he would feel compelled to follow unless her life was at stake.

He would expose Alex in a second to save his own client, Barbara knew. Could they hide his ident.i.ty well enough to elude Bailey?

Frank had not tried a murder case in years, but he had been her second counsel, and he had lost nothing in the intervening years. He knew far more law than she did and could cite endlessly. He knew every judge in the state and was friendly, if not a friend, with most of them. He had an in at the jail, and he could worm information out of a brick.

The worst part of this mess, she thought then, was Bailey. She had said once that if Frank told him to go get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he would grouse and complain and then slouch off, and in a few days, bedraggled and haggard, he would deliver it. And she couldn't use him, but Frank could and at this very moment probably had him out tracking the rainbow.

She had come to a stop outside Sh.e.l.ley's office. She tried the door, locked. That was good, but it wouldn't slow Bailey down a second if he decided to come have a look around.

Back in her office she eyed the sofa, then lay down, and said to herself, "Okay. I'll guard the G.o.dd.a.m.n computer, Xander, and X." Paranoid? she mocked herself, and shook her head in answer. She knew Bailey, and if Frank told him to find out who her client was, Bailey would do whatever it took to find out.

7.

Maxie's Place had a small parking lot and a long bicycle rack. Now, in early June, after the regular term had ended and before the summer cla.s.ses started at the university, neither the parking lot nor the bicycle rack was filled. Barbara spotted Will Thaxton on a bench near the entrance. He stood up and waved to her as she left her car.

"Hi," he said when she drew near. "Tables out back. Okay with you?"

"Just the thing," she said, and they walked around the restaurant to the back terrace. Dense shrubbery crowding a high fence defined the area; the late-afternoon sun slanted through a spruce tree, the perfect accent to enhance the feeling of being far away from the city, the school, books, study. Few other people were on the terrace.

"You've met them, Graham and Alex?" Will asked when they were seated.

"Yes, indeed."

They became silent as a waiter in shorts and a tank top approached.

"Margarita and nachos," Barbara said. "Lots of nachos."

Will ordered a local beer, and then as soon as the waiter was gone, he leaned forward and said, "Can you believe that Alex is the artist for Xander? Incredible, isn't it? Is he in real trouble?" His excitement was evident, also his anxiety. His brow was furrowed, his gaze direct and penetrating. She had forgotten how dark his eyes were, brown edging toward black. His hair, quite blond in high school, had darkened over the years.

"Maybe," she said. "I don't know yet. Will, before we go on, I have to know. Whose attorney are you? Minick's or Alex's?"

"Both," he said promptly. "Attorney of record for both of them."

"Good. I have two charges. First, and uppermost at the moment, to preserve his anonymity. Second, if he is charged, to defend him. If there's an investigation, they will want to know about his financial situation. And I need to know in detail how that has been set up. They said everything is funneled through you. How?"

"It's all legitimate, on the up-and-up," he said, smiling slightly. "Alex started to sell his art about eight years ago. They came to me a year later when he got syndicated. He has an agent who sends him a Miscellaneous Income form every year, and he files his taxes with a Schedule C. Nothing irregular about it. Our firm's tax attorney does the work, Alex signs, and the firm pays. His agent sends everything to me-contracts, payments, everything; I forward paperwork to him and deposit his money in the bank in his account. He's never been audited or even questioned."

"So if they look into that, they won't come up with Xander or X."

"No way. He doesn't have to reveal his customers, his agent handles that, and he doesn't have to reveal them unless he comes under a full-scale audit, which isn't likely. And even if he did tell, it's a corporation, a syndicate that buys Xander and X both. And, Barbara, believe me, they wouldn't reveal his ident.i.ty even if they knew it. That's a great advertising gimmick for them, the mystery about the creator of that strip and those cartoons. They'd fight like h.e.l.l to keep the secret."

The waiter came with a platter of nachos and their drinks; they were silent until he left again. The margarita was frosted, tangy, and very good, but the nachos were better.

"Now you tell me something," Will said. "What in h.e.l.l is going on?"

She told him about Gus Marchand, his charge of stalking, and the threat to build houses on his tract. "Could he have done that, put in houses?"

"No way. Not next to the state forest. He could have applied for a permit, but chances are a hundred to one against gaining approval."

She made a mental note to pull Sh.e.l.ley off the tedious task of researching land-use laws; that was Will's field. Then she told him what she had done about the computers. "I don't know what all Alex has on his hard drive, but enough to lead anyone to Xander and X. So we have it locked up in our office. He needs a place where he can come and go and not be noticed and where his computer will be safe from prying eyes."

"I didn't think the police worked that fast," Will said after a moment, watching her.

"Not the police," she admitted. "Bailey Novell. Dad has a client who might be a suspect, and he has Bailey working on it. Bailey will be after Alex like a shot when he finds out he's my client. If Alex can't scrub the hard drive, and he says he can't, then we have to keep it away from Bailey."

Will leaned back in his chair and whistled softly. "You and your father on opposite sides?"

"Looks like it."

"He wouldn't cut you any slack if you talked to him about Alex?"