Death Qualified Part 12

Nell looked surprised, then mildly guilty.

"I forgot he was coming," she said.

"He's going down to Turner's Point to the bookmobile with me, and then out for a sandwich or something. I forgot all about it." She stood up and began to stack the books; there were a lot of them, ten or twelve.

"We'll drop in to leave Jessie's books after awhile," she said.

"Will you be over there?"

Frank said probably, then explained to Barbara, "Thursday, library-on-wheels day. Nell is Jessie's private librarian, pick-up-and-delivery service. And then we usually get together and gossip. Where are the kids?" he asked Nell.

"Out swimming with Tawna and Celsy, up at McKenzie Bridge Park. They won't be back until six-thirty." She had the books in her arms, ready to leave, but hesitated.

"Everyone been so good. Tawna and James, Celsy, Clive, Doc and Jessie, people in town.. .. They've been so good."

She appeared ready to weep, and Barbara said briskly, "Well, let's go relieve Clive. Now there's a patient man."

Actually, she thought cynically, she just wanted to see Nell and Clive together. Was he the one? She was thinking not when she returned to the terrace a few minutes later. Clive was perfectly aware of the invisible line Nell had drawn between them, and he had not violated it by as much as an inch.

"Well?" her father said, watching her over the tops of his gla.s.ses.

Why didn't he get contacts, or regular gla.s.ses, she thought irritably.

"It's a b.i.t.c.h, and you d.a.m.n well know it. She can't testify."

"I know."

"Did anyone else around here even know him?"

He shrugged.

"I never met him. Doc and Jessie might have. And he brought Clive around to give an estimate on the walnut trees seven years ago."

She made an impatient gesture.

"Accident? Someone out with a rifle let go a random shot, got him."

He shrugged.

"Could be, but wrong season. And target practice on private land? Not very likely. But it's possible."

"She doesn't believe Lucas killed that girl. The papers say he left the car on the other side of the mountains and hiked over here. My G.o.d! Why? What do you have about all that?"

"d.a.m.n little. That was over in Deschutes County. We can find out what they have." He looked thoughtful, then said, "Be better for her to believe he killed that girl, though."

"If she's going for self-defense," Barbara agreed.

"But she says she didn't do it, remember?"

"Yep. I remember. Just commenting."

"What about that professor who preyed on Lucas? Emil Frobisher? Anything?"

"Something. But not good. He's dead. Killed by a boy, a prost.i.tute."

"s.h.i.+t!"

Frank grinned.

"I missed my nap. See you later, honey."

"Don't be so d.a.m.ned smug. I haven't made any decisions yet."

She could hear his chuckle as he walked into the house behind her.

TWELVE.

frank and barbara strolled through the woods to Doc's at five-forty-five. He led on a narrow path, and, watching his easy gait, she thought she had never seen him so healthy, so vigorous. Country living had been good for him. All that walking every day, she added ruefully. Her own legs were aching from the second trip to town that morning. Maybe in a month or so she would be able to keep up with her elderly father.

The woods were wild and completely natural here; no one had trimmed anything except for the trail. This was old-growth forest, the trees ma.s.sive, the light dim under them; nowhere did visibility extend more than ten or twelve feet as the trail wound and snaked its way in and out of obstacles.

They entered Doc's property on the garage side and walked around the front of the house, which was very nice, she thought again. Wide redwood planks, and floor-to-ceiling gla.s.s, the broad deck, partially covered. The landscaping appeared to be professionally maintained; it had that precision look with broad plantings of azaleas and rhododendrons, and a velvety lawn that looked as if no human foot had ever trod upon it. The view was magnificent, forest and river and sky.

"h.e.l.lo," Jessie called out.

"Now I remember you. Of course, I do. Doc kept telling me we met you a few years ago, but I couldn't bring a face to mind. Now I remember.

How nice to see you again."

Doc said h.e.l.lo and what did they want to drink, and Jessie said come sit by me, please. A martini would be good, Barbara said, and when her father said wine she realized suddenly that he was completely off hard liquor.

She hadn't thought of it until that minute. He used to drink martinis at lunch, again before dinner. And all that walking, she thought; a thrill of fear coursed through her as she thought of the other changes--no cream, low-fat diet, good healthy food, naps. Unaccountably her fear was replaced by anger.

As if aware that she had not yet engaged Barbara's attention, Jessie reached out and placed her hand on Barbara's arm, and if she hadn't Barbara would not have realized that Doc was the man in Nell's life. At the same moment that Jessie touched her, Nell and Clive appeared on the deck, and for an instant, almost too quickly to be certain about it, Jessie's hand clutched spasmodically. The instant pa.s.sed, but, because she had been cued, Barbara saw the swift glance Nell and Doc exchanged. Then he was the charming host at the bar again. But there it was, she thought. There it was.

They were all saying h.e.l.lo and how are you and such and Nell came to Jessie and kissed her cheek, and then put several books on a table near her. Jessie moved binoculars to make room for the books.

Doc brought Barbara's drink, and wine for Nell. He took Jessie's gla.s.s for a refill. Clive and Frank were chatting about low water in the lake for this time of year. The good life, Barbara thought, happy hour among the nice people. Why Doc? To her eyes he was a tired, middle-aged man who could use a tranquilizer. And he was married to a woman who spent her days in a wheelchair. Jessie was fumbling in a large bag attached to her wheelchair.

She brought out a Polaroid camera and asked Barbara if she minded; she liked to keep a photo alb.u.m of events, Jessie said.

Nell kept glancing at her watch, and after no more than five minutes, she finished her wine and stood up.

"I have to go. I promised the kids dinner would be ready the minute they walked in."

Clive was already on his feet. She waved him down.

"You stay and talk. Our dinner will be hot dogs and ham burgers." At the disappointed look on his face, she said, "You would hate it. And the kids will be cranky and worn out. You know how it is when you've been swimming all afternoon. Early dinner, early baths, early bed. Why don't you come over tomorrow night? I'll cook something real."

"Let me drive you home," he said.

She shook her head.

"That would be supremely silly, now, wouldn't it? It's five minutes. And I like the walk."

She picked up the books she had separated out, waved to them all, and left.

There was silence until she was out of sight around the end of the deck. As soon as she was gone, Clive looked at Frank.

"I'd like to talk to you sometime," he said.

"All right. Nothing wrong with now."

"Alone."

Doc sat down in the chair Nell had left and regarded Clive.

"If it's about what you were telling me earlier, you might as well go ahead. I already told Jessie about it."

dive's quick glance at Barbara was involuntary, she felt certain, and only a tinge of bitterness damped her amus.e.m.e.nt when he tried to pretend it had not happened, that he had been adjusting his shoulders or something. She had seen that kind of quick rejection too many times to miss it. What he had said with that reflexive look was that she should find something to do elsewhere and let him and her father get on with it. She settled back more comfortably to watch him with a steadiness that she knew he would find disconcerting.

"Well," Frank said meditatively, "you can make an appointment and I'll charge regular office-hour fees, or you can unload here and now and keep it on a neighborly basis. Your choice." He finished drinking his wine and looked at Clive over his gla.s.ses, his lawyerly look.

"You should know that anything that concerns the law, I'll probably pa.s.s on to Barbara, unless it's too boring to bother her with. After all, she is a partner."

Barbara did not turn to glare at him over that last comment but continued to watch Clive, who was startled, and that meant, she added to herself, that Nell had not told him much about the long interrogation that afternoon.

Clive hesitated a moment, then said carefully, "Frank, I think you know how highly we all value you around here.

We trust you, and we come to you for legal help without reservation. You've done good things for many of us. But I think Nell needs to bring in someone else to defend her." He walked to the table outfitted as a bar and helped himself to bourbon.

"All right," Frank said.

"What do you mean? You agree?"

"No. I mean you stated your opinion, and it's all right for you to have that opinion. Couldn't prevent it in any case."

dive's face darkened, and abruptly he sat down.

"Frank, d.a.m.n it, I'm scared out of my wits for her! She needs someone with great trial experience, someone younger, someone who can stand up to Tony De Angelo I asked around about him. He's a son of a b.i.t.c.h, and he's out to win!"

Barbara had fused right into the chair. She did not look at Frank because she could not move. She should have known. Maybe she had known from the start and simply had not let herself think about it, had not let herself even breathe the name.

".. . no more than most prosecutors .. . faced him before...."

Her father's mild rejoinder seemed disconnected, words free-floating all around her, and then Clive was saying something else just as disjointed. Gradually she felt that she was separating from the chair, felt that her blood was circulating again, that her skin felt clammy from the breeze coming in from the river, not from any internal system that had gone haywire. She lifted her gla.s.s and saw that her hand was not trembling, and although she did not look at him to confirm it, she knew her father was watching her, that she had pa.s.sed a test of some kind.

"Barbara is young, and she's faced Tony down, too.

Several times, in fact."

"But for something like this, a murder charge...."

Clive stopped helplessly and turned to Doc, who shrugged.

Barbara set her gla.s.s down and said in a good, crisp voice, her court voice, "Mr. Belloc, when a client hires an attorney, that relations.h.i.+p cannot be put aside by a third person. If Nell decides she wants different counsel, that desire will be sacrosanct, but unless she decides that, no outside influence will be tolerated by our firm. I am fully qualified to defend a client against a charge of murder.

Actually, Mr. Belloc, the phrase is death qualified. I am fully death qualified. Dad, shall we be on our way now?"

Jessie protested. They had to stay for dinner, she said, but her insistence was feeble. She had blanched at the phrase death qualified. Doc shook hands with Barbara and studied her face for several seconds before he released her.

She could tell nothing from his expression. Clive stood up and said nothing at all as she and her father left them.

Clive, she thought with satisfaction, was mad as h.e.l.l.

Tough, she also thought; so was she. Madder maybe.

As soon as they were out of range, Frank said, "He'll ask around about you now."

"Let him. Just who does he know to ask, by the way?

Who'd he want, Clarence Darrow?"

Frank took her arm, laughing.

"Let's go out somewhere and eat, somewhere fancy with good wine."

She nodded. If she asked him why he hadn't brought up Tony's name, she knew he would say something like, why expect anything to change around here? And why indeed?

In the middle of a dinner that Frank said was excellent and she had hardly tasted, she put down her fork, put her elbows on the table and her chin on her clenched fists, and said, "Okay. On one condition."

"Which is?"

"My way, from start to finish. I'm not an a.s.sistant; it's my case."

He put his own fork down and reached across the table.

"Deal."

They shook hands, and then she began to eat her lamb brochette, which really was excellent. Before he resumed his meal, Frank said, "Honey, I wouldn't have brought up his name before you were already committed. I want you because I think you can do that girl some good. Understood?"

She nodded. No vendetta, no revenge, no lingering hatred to cloud her judgment. Like h.e.l.l, she thought.