Death Qualified Part 25

They all stood up.

"Mr. Kendricks, tomorrow will be an ordeal for you," Barbara said.

"Tony will try to keep you on a very short leash, and I'll try to stretch it out.

Try to get some sleep tonight. You, too, Nell," she added, and she put her arms around Nell, and then kissed her cheek.

"It's not over yet," she said.

"I have every intention of blowing this whole d.a.m.n thing right out of the water."

At eleven-thirty she stirred in Mike Dinesen's arms. His breathing had changed; he was falling asleep, and she was afraid if she did not get up this minute, she would fall asleep also. A hard rain beat against the windows; she was warm and content--dangerously warm and content, she realized as she caught herself drifting. This time she eased Mike's arm off her and tried to roll away without waking him up.

"You really meant it?" he asked sleepily.

" 'fraid so," she said.

"Go back to sleep. Don't wait up. I'll be late."

He pulled her to him and kissed her, and then rolled over onto his stomach. She swatted his bare bottom and got up.

Earlier, she had made coffee and put it in a thermos, and now she dressed quickly, collected her various things," the briefcase, purse, umbrella, and the thermos, and opened the door. The rain was businesslike, purposeful, a hard November Oregon rain that had gone on for hours and had not even started to show its stuff yet. Taking a deep breath, she went out into it, heading for Frank's law office, the law library. Two hours, she muttered to herself, but it was four in the morning when she returned to Mike's bed; he did not wake up.

The fragrance of coffee brought her struggling up from a very deep pit. By the time she reached the kitchen the coffee was done; Mike was at the table gathering sheets of computer paper. Often when she stayed overnight she found the table covered with pages of arcane symbols that she could not decipher any more than if they had been Martian recipes. Those times she realized that not only did she not know what he actually did, she did not even know the language he used for his work. Those times she regarded him with a touch of awe, mixed with a touch of skepticism in about equal proportions.

He finished clearing a corner of the table and jumped up to take her by the shoulders and guide her to a chair.

He brought her coffee.

"You look like h.e.l.l," he said cheerfully.

"Thank you."

"Did you sleep at all?"

"Sure."

He sat down opposite her and waited until she had sipped the hot coffee.

"It all comes down today, doesn't it?"

"I don't know."

"I'll be there. I'm giving my graduate cla.s.s a problem I can't solve. That's how they used me as a graduate student.

Now I can see the point. I'll be there."

She finished the first cup of coffee and thought vaguely that after three or four more she might start feeling human again.

"Barbara," Mike said then, "what if she did it?"

She got up and walked past him to the counter and the coffeepot.

"She didn't."

"You can't really know that. No one can except her. But what if she did? Won't it be worse for her to keep denying it and then be found guilty than to admit it and express remorse? I read somewhere that the expression of remorse is worth five years."

"With tears, more like seven," she said darkly.

"I was in court yesterday," Mike went on.

"She's taking a real beating, isn^f she? I began thinking, though, that no matter what Lucas was involved in, what that group was up to, what he took that they want back, it could still come down to the simplest motive in the world. Man, woman, fear, revenge, betrayal, all those understandable, natural forces that drive people. And none of that other stuff makes any difference at all."

"Dear G.o.d," she breathed. She returned to the table, shaken more than she wanted to admit. That was exactly the line Tony would take in his summation for the jury, exactly the line her father had expressed from the start.

She knew very well that ninety-nine out of a hundred murders were committed for one of those basic, human reasons: jealousy, hatred, money, revenge.... A deep shudder pa.s.sed through her. And we call them understandable, natural forces; Mike's words echoed in her head.

She looked at the messy papers with their scribbles and said, "It must be comforting, being a mathematician. You work with your problems and find a solution--I know, an elegant solution--and send it off to your peers, all seventeen of them, who follow your steps and say right or wrong. And you know. That must be comforting. How do you know the truth about people, Mike? How? She says she didn't do it and I believe her. She could be punished more for denying it, for telling the truth, than for lying and confessing. And we call it playing the game. The law game. The game of justice. The only game in town. What we need is a reliable truth sniffer, a grace sniffer. Everything that's been invented so far has proven indecisive, unreliable. Invent me a truth sniffer that can't be denied, Mike. That day the whole game ends, no more courts, no more trials, no more guessing did she or didn't she, or making book on which lawyer is more persuasive, which knows better how to manipulate a jury of twelve good and honest citizens."

"Hey," Mike said softly.

"Hey."

"Oh, G.o.d, I can't cry now. On top of not enough sleep I really will look like h.e.l.l warmed over." She got up and ran from the room.

TWENTY.

frank gave barbara's cheek a quick peck and then looked over her shoulder at the three or four law books his clerk was depositing on the defense table.

"And I thought you were out carousing all night. Sorry."

"That, too," she said. It was hard to tell which pleased him more, her carousing or her doing her homework. Then the judge entered and the real day began.

John Kendricks was a good witness, calm and attentive, and determined to tell what he knew and what he suspected.

Tony did not allow him much leeway, just as Barbara had predicted. Twice he had to ask John Kendricks to answer simply yes or no, and very quickly John Ken dricks became a hostile witness, more reluctant than any of the others so far.

"You hadn't seen your son for nearly seven years and you didn't ask him his plans?"

"No. There wasn't enough " "You've answered the question, Mr. Kendricks. Did you ask him when he planned to visit his wife?"

"No. I'm trying to tell y " "Mr. Kendricks, did you call his wife to alert her that her husband was coming?"

"I called her."

"To warn her that he was coming?"

"To tell her he might come."

"Mr. Kendricks, when you picked up the children, your grandchildren, did you warn Mrs. Nell Kendricks that her husband would arrive the next day?"

"I didn't kn-" "Why did you agree, to take the children away?"

"I didn't agree. I sug " "Did Mrs. Nell Kendricks-" "Your Honor, I object," Barbara said then.

"The prosecuting attorney is not permitting the witness to finish an answer before pummeling him with another question!"

Tony threw up his hands as if in disgust.

"Withdraw the last question. No further questions." He gave John Ken dricks a look of contempt and sat down.

Barbara led John Kendricks through a description of his family, his and his wife's relations.h.i.+p with their two children, and then asked, "When your son returned home from Colorado nearly seven years ago, did you see any significant changes in him?"

"Objection," Tony said.

"Let counsel be specific about changes, not use the word in such a loose, meaningless context."

"Sustained," Judge Lundgren said. He seemed ready to add to this, but Barbara was already nodding in agreement "Did you think your son was mentally disturbed when he returned home from Colorado the first time?" Her voice was very gentle.

"Objection. The witness is not qualified to make such a judgment."

"On the contrary," Barbara said swiftly, and now she went to the books on her table and opened the top one to cite her first reference.

"Rawleigh v. Rawleigh...." She read the decision.

"And The State of Indiana v. Lomax."

In both cases the judge had ruled, on advice from a panel of psychiatrists, that the immediate family was most often the first to notice behavioral changes that signified mental illness.

Judge Lundgren listened intently, then nodded to her; that was as much pleasure as he would allow himself to show, she realized. He liked case law, liked having attorneys rely on what had gone before.

"Overruled," he said.

"You may continue."

"Thank you, Your Honor." She walked back to stand near John Kendricks.

"Did you think your son was men tally disturbed when he returned home that time?"

"No. He was preoccupied and worried and unhappy, like a man with a hard problem to solve."

Tony objected several times as she asked questions that allowed John Kendricks to describe the years that Lucas was gone the second time, his efforts to get in touch with his son, the returned mail, unanswered telephone calls.

"Your Honor," she said in response to one of his challenges, "Mr. Kendricks tried very hard to answer the questions put to him by the prosecution, and he was blocked each time. My questions were all implied by the prosecution although no answers were permitted. The prosecution brought up the matter of the seven years of absence; I am trying to clarify what happened during that period."

The judge allowed her to continue. She was beginning to appreciate the description of fairness that her father had applied to him.

"What about Christmas, birthdays?" she asked John Kendricks then.

"Did he write or call on special occasions?"

"Not a word."

Bit by bit the past was filled in. She did not rush him, and she met each one of Tony's objections head on now as she moved in a triangular pattern from the witness chair, to the jury box, to the defense table, making certain that those twelve good and true peers kept their attention focused on this witness and this defendant. She stopped moving back and forth at one of the answers. Seven years ago Lucas had driven off in a pretty new Honda, the same car that he had driven back last June.

"Mr. Kendricks, you have told us that your son was preoccupied and worried on his visit seven years ago. How did he appear last June?"

She was turned so that she could see Tony and the slight flush that spread over his face. He had got the point. That was the question she had prepared the ground for, had cited references to cover more than forty-five minutes earlier Tony did not moves.

"He was scared to death," John Kendricks said in his deliberate way.

"People were hunting him down, and he was scared."

He finished describing the visit and finally came to the last time he had seen his son.

"So he drove away without saying what he planned?"

"Yes. He was pretty upset, and really scared. He said he'd be in touch and left."

"In his Honda?"

"Yes."

"You never saw him again, or spoke to him again?"

"No. Never."

"What about the car, Mr. Kendricks? When did you see his car again?"

"Objection! Defense counsel is trying to introduce matters that are irrelevant to this case, and she knows it."

"Your Honor, Lucas Kendricks left his father's house in his car on Tuesday and four days later turned up on foot, having hiked for days in unsuitable clothing. I maintain that it is relevant to determine where he had been and what happened to his car." She walked to the defense table and moved aside one of the books she already had read from in order to open a different one.

"I refer you to.. .."

Judge Lundgren was smiling faintly; it would have been easy to miss the expression as a smile. He held up his hand. "No need, Ms. Holloway. I agree that this is a relevant issue.

Please proceed. Overruled."

That was just as well, because the only case she had been able to find was so weak that she would not have dared cite it without first calling up two very strong cases.