Death Qualified Part 11

"Yes. I thought it through last night after the party. At first, it was just this flash of denial, something I knew as well as I know I didn't shoot him, but I realized that isn't enough. And I don't know if I can say enough to convince anyone else." She began to stir the coffee again; this time Barbara reached over and removed the spoon from her fingers. Nell looked embarra.s.sed, but she set her shoulders and began.

"I met him the first year we were in college. We were freshmen together, in several of the same cla.s.ses, and we liked each other from the first." She clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them.

"We were living together six months after we met. I brought him home with me, and Grampa liked him, and he was excited about the forest here, and the river. We made a little dam on Halleck Creek and swam in the water, and we went mushrooming together, and hiked. Everything was new to him. You know, he grew up on the desert, with junipers and some pine forests in the mountains but nothing like over here.

You saw how Travis was last night talking about going out with James to watch him take care of animals? Excited, everything new and wonderful. No value judgments, no reservations, just accepting everything. That's how Lucas was. We were both so happy. Everything was beautiful and funny and exciting. And that's how he looked that last day. His eyes were laughing, he was laughing all over, filled with the same kind of excitement and happiness. He couldn't have been like that if he had done something so horrible."

Barbara regarded her thoughtfully.

"You say that quality was restored, and that means that after the early years it was gone. What happened?"

Nell got up and walked to the low railing on the terrace, then turned to face them, outlined against the distant tree, with the gleaming water vanishing among them.

"Frobisher happened," she said in a low voice.

"Emil Frobisher killed something in him, and it came back to life for that instant, and then...."

Frank had not moved, hardly seemed awake he was so still, and Barbara waited also. She had seen people tell astonishing things that they had not intended to bring up at all, simply because someone had to fill in the silence.

"Emil Frobisher was a professor at the university," Nell said finally, and she returned to her chair, picked up the coffee that had become cold, and put it down without tasting it.

"Lucas and I had married that summer, and I was pregnant, and it was still wonderful. Then Frobisher put an ad in the paper. He wanted volunteer subjects for an experiment in perception. He was willing to pay, and we decided to go for it. We wanted a last weekend at the coast before I got too big. Anyway, I didn't work out for the experiment, but Lucas did, and he was more or less hired as a regular for Frobisher. And for a long time that was all right, nothing changed. Travis was born and Lucas was crazy about him, about being a father. He was so proud and still so happy. But he was putting in more and more time in Frobisher's lab, and he began to talk about a time when he would be a real a.s.sistant, and maybe something even more important, a coworker on some project. Frobisher was encouraging him to think this, and he was changing, week by week, month by month he was changing."

"You objected? Didn't you see this as an opportunity for him?" Barbara asked when Nell stopped talking. Now that the direction had been indicated, she was free to keep things moving.

"I objected," Nell said bitterly.

"Lucas simply wasn't like that a researcher, I mean. He didn't really like school, didn't like having to study, do papers, any of that.

I did most of his papers for him, or they wouldn't have been finished. He was smart enough, but not interested.

Not a scholar, or a brain, as we used to say. Anything abstract bored him, math bored him, science bored him."

She looked helplessly from Frank to Barbara.

"I'm not trying to make him out to be an idiot, or dumb, not sub normal, just not like that. And yet there he was talking about being a colleague of Emil Frobisher, a coworker on his project." She shook her head.

"It just didn't make sense, unless they were using him in some way, feeding his vanity to keep him interested. When I said something like that, he exploded and said I was jealous. That was our first argument."

"How long did that go on?"

"For two years. Then Frobisher got an offer from Walter Schumaker." She looked at them uncertainly.

"He got the n.o.bel Prize for some work in mathematics fifteen years ago, I guess. Anyway, he was the big time. He had read a paper by Frobisher and got in touch with him; he said they were working on the same material and should work together. Frobisher talked Lucas into going with him. He promised that Lucas would get advanced degrees out of the work, a doctorate, even, if he stayed with it. I tried to see Frobisher myself, but he was always busy, or some where else, and it never worked out. I tried to call him and never got through, and he never returned a call. In the end, Lucas went with him to Colorado."

"Travis was what? Two?"

Nell nodded and got up again, this time to pace back and forth with restless energy.

"Nell," Barbara said slowly, as if testing each word, "is it possible that Lucas was simply not ready to be a husband and father? That he was still growing up and not ready to settle into married life?"

"No. I could have understood that. Before he left he said they were going to change the world, that he was going to be part of the biggest change in all human his tory, that what they were doing would make people like G.o.ds. He believed that. He was excited about it, and scared, too."

"Okay. He left. Was there any possibility that you could have gone with him?"

"No. That was one of the things I wanted to talk to Frobisher about, but Lucas said that the work would intensify to the point where we'd never be together, and it would be too hard on Travis, and on me. What he was really saying," she added dully, "was that we'd be in his way, hinder him."

"Did you keep in touch when he was away?"

"Oh, yes. I wrote every day or at least twice a week, and he called pretty often. And then he came home, when Travis was five. And he was like a stranger. At first, it was the old Lucas, but within a day or two, he was a stranger. He wanted to cut down the walnut trees to raise money for the project. They had run into financial trouble, and Schumaker was talking about leaving. We fought again that time, and he took off again." She shrugged slightly and sat down once more.

"This time when he was gone, you didn't hear from him? Is that right?"

She nodded.

"Nothing. I wrote like before, but in just a few weeks my letters started coming back. He had moved, no forwarding address. When I knew I was pregnant, I sent registered letters, and his father did, and we both tried to call him through the university. No number for him." She looked at her hands, again tightly clasped in her lap.

"I could have hired a detective to find him, I guess, but ... I thought he just wanted out of our lives, that he had made that decision, and what would be the point of tracking him down? I wouldn't have asked him back if he wanted out."

"He abandoned you and your children," Barbara said.

"Why didn't you divorce him and get on with your life?"

Nell seemed to hunch her shoulders and draw herself into a tighter little ma.s.s.

"I don't know."

"I think you do. And it's something we'll have to know."

Nell glanced quickly at Frank, away again.

"I ... I.

thought that if I just waited, after enough years, he could be declared dead. Legally dead, I guess I mean."

Barbara studied her and finally shook her head.

"Were you afraid of him?"

"No! He wouldn't have hurt me! It was...." She looked at Frank again.

"One time, over at Doc's, we were all talking about a custody fight that was in the news. You probably don't remember, but I asked you if a parent could ever deny the other one visitation rights, and you said in some cases, of proven molestation, or criminal offenses, or if a morals case could be made. There might have been others, I don't remember. But I knew that I didn't dare raise the issue with Lucas. I didn't want him to claim visitation rights. I thought that if I started divorce proceedings he would have to know, and he would demand visitation."

"You were afraid for Travis?" Barbara asked in surprise.

Miserably, Nell nodded.

"The last time he was home, he said a new person was joining the research team, a psychiatrist who had written a book about how children's belief systems became frozen during adolescence. He said that when the project was done, Travis would be exactly the right age, that his age group would be the first to use whatever it was. And I knew he would try it on Travis if ever he could. Then, he came home again, and Travis is at that age, an adolescent, twelve." She moistened her lips.

"Anything I say just makes it look as if I'm adding motive on top of motive for wanting him dead."

Barbara agreed with her. She thought for a moment, then asked, "How was he different when he came home, when Travis was five?"

Nell lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture and looked from Barbara to Frank.

"I can't describe it. He ... he would be looking at me, and it was as if I wasn't there, as if he was looking through me to something else. For hours he would be quiet, not saying a word, and then he would start to talk so fast I couldn't even follow what he was saying. And his talk about the project sounded crazy.

I think he had lost faith in it, in his part, anyway. That's why he wanted money. He said if he could provide matching funds for a grant, something like that, they wouldn't be able to phase him out." Her misery seemed to deepen as she spoke.

"He was so unhappy that time, so worried, and distracted. Distracted," she said again as if she had made a discovery.

"I don't think he was ever really here after the first day or two, not until we had another fight the day before he left again."

Abruptly Barbara stood up.

"I'm going to make some fresh coffee. And then, if you can stand to tell it once more, I'd like to hear about that last day, the day he was killed." She didn't wait for Nell to respond but picked up the carafe and entered the house. No decisions yet, she told herself firmly. Keep an open mind. Something good might still come up, not just piling more and more d.a.m.ning statements on top of one another. Nell thought her child had been threatened, she found herself arguing, as if for the prosecution, and she shook her head. Stop. In any event Nell could not be put on the witness stand. She would tell her father that much. But even as she thought about telling him how to conduct this case, she accepted that she was kidding herself. He was right that he couldn't manage it. He was too close to Nell.

"And never practice law for your spouse, your family, or your friends." She heard the words in her head in the voice of the professor who had repeated them so often that it had been almost a joke.

The kitchen was positioned so that the working area was in the front of the house, the road side, and the dining s.p.a.ce overlooked the river. As Barbara stood at the sink waiting for the coffee to finish dripping through the automatic machine, she caught a glimpse of motion in the driveway. She went to the kitchen door to look out. A man was leaning against the hood of a Land Rover.

She stepped out.

"Hi, did you want something?"

He was tall and broad in the shoulders, with blond hair that was bleached out by the sun to nearly white in the front, and he was dressed in work clothes, tan trousers, a tan work shirt, boots. He s.n.a.t.c.hed off his sungla.s.ses; he had bright blue eyes surrounded by pale skin. Suddenly he seemed many years younger than he had with the gla.s.ses on.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt or anything. I'm waiting for Nell. She thought she might be done here around two. I'm Clive Belloc, a friend of hers."

Barbara glanced at her watch and was surprised to see that it was two-thirty.

"Sorry to keep her so long," she said.

"I'm Barbara Holloway. I'm afraid we'll be another half hour or so. Is there anything I can get you? Do you want to come inside?"

"No," he said hastily.

"I'm fine. You're Frank's daughter? Glad to meet you. And please don't mention I'm out here, will you? I wouldn't want her to feel rushed or any thing."

Barbara nodded and went back inside; the coffee was done. When she returned to the terrace, Nell appeared poised and steeled. Barbara poured the hot coffee for them all. Someone had dumped Nell's cold coffee, but this time she didn't bother with the spoon; she ignored the coffee altogether and started to talk as soon as Barbara was seated again.

She recounted the morning concisely through the time of the UPS delivery of the computer and her climb up the mountain to the sheltered clearing. Then her voice faltered, and she sipped her coffee for the first time.

"I saw him just before I got to the top, and I froze. I guess I was more shocked than anything. I shut my eyes for a second before I went up. Then I took the last step and looked around and saw him at the edge of the clearing He was laughing. And there was the shot."

"Why did you say before that he was happy? It seems you hardly had time to notice."

"But he was! He was laughing. He said, "Watch this!"

just like a child might say it, pleased, delighted even. Just happy."

"What did he mean, "Watch this'? What was he doing?"

"Nothing. Just standing there, laughing."

Barbara frowned at her.

"Did he have anything in his hands? Anything he might have wanted to show you?"

Nell shook her head.

"I'm sure not. I didn't see anything.

When he.... The shot threw him backward, and he jerked up both hands. I'm sure they were empty.

I didn't see anything." Her voice had become more and more strained, and now broke entirely. She drank some coffee and drew in one deep breath after another. Barbara waited, dissatisfied and deeply troubled.

"Okay, then what?" she asked finally.

"I ran back down the trail to my house and called Doc.

I knew he would be home on Sat.u.r.day. I said I was going to go look for Lucas and he told me to wait, not to do anything until he got there. That's what I did. He called the sheriff, and we went together to look for Lucas. We hadn't found him yet when the sheriff's deputies arrived.

They found him."

"And they found your rifle in the living room later," Barbara said slowly.

"Why was it out?"

Wearily Nell told her about the men who had started to cut the tree down, and about the beer can.

"I should have cleaned the rifle Friday night, but I thought I'd do some target practice on Sat.u.r.day, and then I forgot all about it."

Barbara knew there were many more questions she should ask, but, she thought wryly, she didn't know yet what they were. And Nell was looking pinched and pale, her hands trembling when she raised her coffee cup. Barbara leaned back in her chair.

"This has been hard, I know. But you've been fine, just fine. There's something I'll ask you to do over the next few days. Don't rush it, and don't try to make sense out of it, but jot down everything you can remember that Lucas ever said about the people he was working with, the project they were involved in. And what that first test you tried was all about, the perception experiment. Will you do that?"

Nell looked bewildered.

"Sure," she said.

"But they're in Colorado, you know. That's where they were working."

Barbara shrugged.

"It might not help, but at this minute I'm thinking we need all the information we can gather, and that's part of it." She glanced at her watch and saw that it was after three.

"I'm afraid we've kept a friend of yours waiting a rather long time. Clive Belloc is out front."