Death Qualified Part 8

"My life's work. Finally.

Been waiting twenty years, collecting material all that time, and now I'm at it. A collection of great cross-examinations in two volumes. Historical stuff in one, modern in a second.

Problem is too much material. But great stuff.

Great!" He wiped his hands.

"Wait a minute. I'll show you some printouts."

He hurried from the kitchen and returned swiftly with pages of fan fold paper not trimmed yet, not torn apart. "This one's a beauty. Geiger, Stan Geiger, back in Ohio, before your time. In the fifties and sixties. Very fine. Just read that."

"Wouldn't it help if I knew something about who did what to whom?"

"No. No. Just read it. You'll catch on quick enough."

He was chuckling as he returned to his fish.

She read the page he had indicated: Q. Weren't you afraid, knowing a burglar was in the room, knowing there was a chance that he was armed?

A. Yes, of course.

Q. So you hid in the closet. Wise course. You didn't have a gun, did you? No weapon of any sort?

A. No, nothing. If I had, then I would have faced him.

Q. I see. Please, just tell us once more exactly what happened.

A. As I said already--several times, in fact--I fell asleep in the armchair, and it grew dark. I woke up when I heard the window opening, and I slipped into the closet because I knew I couldn't get to the door without being seen.

Q. Thank you. Very concise.

In her father's scrawling writing was a note to reproduce the layout of the room.

Q. And there was a light at that end of the room, although the side you were in was in deep shadows, is that right?

A. As I have said several times, I was in virtual darkness at that end of the room. There was a dim light on the chest of drawers on the other side. In order to leave, I would have had to pa.s.s it. I could see him plainly in that light.

Q. Yes. I can see that it is a straight line from the closet to the safe. A good view of anyone opening the safe.

Yes. But I wonder why he didn't notice the light in the closet. Did he seem aware of the closet light, react to it in any way?

A. There wasn't any closet light. He never got a glimpse of me.

Q. Then you must have had the door closed all the way. Is that how it was?

A. No. As I have said, I left the door open an inch or so. I wanted to get a look at him if I could.

In her father's writing was another note: summarize the house ad, the builder's name, etc." etc. Reproduce the ad.

Q. So, you admit you bought the house only a few months before the robbery, that you bought it from Smithson and Son, Builders, and that this advertis.e.m.e.nt is a fair representation of the house.

A. Yes, but what possible diiference-Q. Please, sir. Let me continue. You see, in this ad it states quite clearly that every closet has an automatic light that comes on when the door is open. You can see the source of my bewilderment, I trust.

Her father was watching her closely as she finished the cross-examination.

"Neat," she said.

"Good job."

"Oh, I think so. Of course, he stole his own jewelry for the insurance. But Geiger noticed that ad and made follow-up inquiries. He called the builder, the servants, the wife. The closet lights worked fine. But he didn't really need any of that. That schmuck was tripping over his own dong from then on. Good job."

She nodded.

"Read the next one. The working t.i.tle for this section is Now You See It, Now You Don't, but I'll find something more clever than that when the time comes."

"I doubt it," she said, grinning. She turned the page and started to read: Q. How long have you lived at your present address, Mr. Steinmann?

A. Forty-two years.

Q. A very long time. I suppose you're familiar with every sound there is up on the hill, aren't you? The mail delivery truck, neighbors' cars, everything that moves on the gravel road?

A. Yes, ma'am.

Carefully Barbara closed the fan fold papers, restored them to order, and then pushed the stack away from her. "That's one of the most brilliant of them all," her father murmured.

"I go on to say so. She noticed that too much time elapsed from when Steinmann said he heard the car make the curve until he saw it go into the Wilson driveway, and she just got to wondering why it took so long. One thing led to another, and she found out that fog set in so thick that old man Steinmann couldn't have seen what he claimed he saw, and was too plain, dumb stubborn to change his story. Said he saw exactly what he expected to see, simple as that." He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to his meal preparations.

"Little thing like that probably saved a man's life, though."

The police had claimed that Mr. Wilson arrived home, killed his wife, and left again, to return several hours later and pretend to discover her dead body. She had proven that a stranger must have been driving very slowly on an unfamiliar road shrouded in fog, and that Steinmann's identification of the car and the man leaving it was false.

He could not have seen Mr. Wilson. The fog had not descended to the valley floor until after ten, but by five it was already blanketing the surrounding hills. Slowly, inch by inch, she had paved the way and finally forced him to admit that he had not actually seen anyone. But who else could it have been? he had asked.

Barbara sipped her wine without comment; her father began to whistle tunelessly. Presently he said, "You want to set the table on the terrace? Ten minutes and it's dinner His dinner was superlative, as she had known it would be; when she said so, he nodded. No false modesty there.

The sun was gone by the time they finished and he had brought out coffee. Deep, shadowless twilight lay over the river; it had brought a stillness that quieted the air, quieted the trees. Later a wind would start to blow, but not yet.

"Let me tell you a story," she said in a low voice.

"It's about a girl from around here somewhere. She grew up with adoring parents who, no doubt, spoiled her, but more than that they expected her to have ideals, even talked about idealistic goals and futures and the fights worth fighting for the sake of ideals. What did the girl know?

She believed her parents, trusted them to be as truthful as they insisted she must be. She nourished her ideals the way other girls nourished their dreams of Mr. Right and a glamorous career with two beautiful children who appeared when it was seemly. So, our girl went to the right schools and got the right sort of grades, clerked for the right sort of judge, but as time went by she began to notice that the grades were granted grudgingly, that she was last in line when honors were awarded, and that politics of various forms was more important than doing good work in many places. Okay, she thought to herself, that was one of the things she intended to fix. And she began to make notes of where the fixing was most needed."

Barbara paid no attention to a slight sound her father made. She was staring as if catatonic at the smooth river below; it had turned black and looked like obsidian. Her voice was as smooth as the water, as implacable.

"Somewhere along the line she realized that she was not sleeping very well, that she frequently had nightmares about being run over by machines that were inhumanly oversized and out of control. She saw a shrink or two and learned that she had to come to terms with the system she had entered of her own free will, that she was always trying to force others to adopt her own idealism, that she made people uncomfortable with her own nonconformity. Her nightmares were all her own fault."

She felt his hand on her arm and knew she had become chilled only because his hand was so warm. She did not draw away or acknowledge the touch but continued to speak, continued to face the river. He removed his hand after a moment.

"So, if she wanted the good life, the full, meaningful life, she probably needed several years of therapy, or a mild tranquilizer until she was on course again, or maybe a group, an encounter group, a support group, something.

Meanwhile, the world was noticing her, admiring her rise in her field, and suddenly all the things that had been hindrances became a.s.sets. It was good that she was female, young, good-looking, all good for business, good for the image of her company. She began to notice that she was a.s.signed appearances before certain judges who had an eye for women. She was included when a bevy of attorneys met with important corporate clients. She was warned that a certain CEO might call her 'girlie' and even touch her, but what the h.e.l.l, he was harmless. She had no business at all at those meetings, she didn't know s.h.i.+t about corporate law, but it helped the image. And she was doing good work in her own area. Very good work. And then.. .."

"Finish it," her father said harshly when her pause stretched out too long.

"Yes. Finish it." She had realized quite suddenly that there were still parts of it she could not say, could not think through clearly. Her voice was flat when she went on.

"Then she lost a client when a senior member of her firm and a crooked a.s.sistant to the DA made a deal behind her back, and all at once she knew she couldn't fix any thing, there never had been a chance to fix anything. It was unfixable, all the way. She had lived in a dream world, just as the psychiatrist had told her."

"And you tucked in your tail and ran like a coward!"

She shrugged. When had it become so dark? she wondered then. She had not noticed the change as it happened.

Lights flickered in the cabins below; a grill flared, sub sided, flared again. She turned toward her father, his face a pale blur, his arms pale. They had not turned on lights in the house, which was very dark behind them. Finally, a breeze was starting, raising goose b.u.mps on her arms.

"I went to Vermont," she said quietly.

"They thought I was crazy. The tourists were all leaving when I arrived for the winter, not even in a ski area. I watched the snow pile up around the cottage I rented, until it covered the windows on one whole side. And I thought. But no matter where I started, it always came back to the same place.

Everywhere, in all ways people are so busy consuming each other, it's a miracle anyone's left. Even your Lonnie What's-her-name. Her father consumed her and left an aging husk who will die on welfare, in an inst.i.tution some where eventually. Behind that amusing little anecdote is real tragedy, and it's played out over and over, every day, everywhere, by everyone, it seems. I realized in the cottage that winter that you have only three choices: You can climb onto the machine and ride it wherever it's going, mindless, blind, destroying everything in its path, or you can try to stop it and be mowed down when it finally turns in your direction, and it will. It will. Or you can walk away."

"All that's bulls.h.i.+t, and you know it. So you've set your self up to walk in the wilderness with a lantern."

She laughed.

"You don't get it, do you? I'm not looking for anyone, or anything, nothing at all, and I haven't looked for five years."

"What's more, you didn't lose a client. He lost you. He called me because he wanted a deal, and he knew you were off on your own fight, not his. I got him the best deal going. It happens, and you know d.a.m.n well that it happens. It's built into the system."

"Yes, of course, I know. He got eight years, three other guys got to stay out of trouble and count their money, the prosecutor got another gold star, and you? You just did your job. That's what keeps the machine running, isn't it?

Some with real reasons for what they do, and others just going along for the ride, doing their jobs."

"Exactly. It's always been that way. And always will be."

"And that's why I'm on the outside."

"Selling d.a.m.n fool doodads to d.a.m.n fool silly women!

You've got a brain, the sharpest mind I know. I'm proud of you, Bobby, and you know that. You can't toss it all."

"Yes, I can! You chose to stay in, do the job. I chose out. It's that simple. I can visit you as your loving daughter, in to check up on your health, to reminisce, to look over your books when they're done, go for a ride with you.

You know, the visiting daughter bit. But nothing else. Now, let's go in. I'm freezing. I'll clean up your kitchen."

"I hear you, Barbara. Now you listen." His voice was hard, his words clipped and furious.

"I don't want a d.a.m.n silly girl around. I want a colleague, a peer, someone I can talk to, someone who can spot what I'm missing, whose opinion I trust as no one else's. If you can't be that, I don't want you around at all. And I'll clean up my own d.a.m.n kitchen."

* * * It was fair, she told herself sharply in her room a few minutes later. She had stated her position; he had done the same. t.i.t for tat. Fair. But she was furious with him, and she realized that her fury was caused by his refusing to fight it out the way they had done so often in the past, yelling at each other, stamping around the living room, around his office, each accusing the other of willful blindness, of playing dumb. She had expected that, and he had not taken his part.

She never had stayed all the way out of touch; she had written postcards, sometimes even a short letter; she had called from time to time. He had responded in the same way. All without meaning. Estrangement? Alienation? She rejected both words. They simply had grown apart over the years; meaningful exchanges were impossible. And to night didn't really count. Stating a position wasn't a meaningful exchange. She had missed him, she knew; no one else ever made her explain every step to a conclusion the way he could do. He had been the best sounding board she'd ever had and at tipes had reduced her arguments to babble with a question or two. His ability to spot the weakness of a defense she was preparing had been un canny at times, and he always said the same was true of her reactions to his arguments. They had worked well together Then he had betrayed her. She knew that the client had called for him, not her. But her father had not told her it was happening until it was over and done with. He had been willing to make the deal in spite of her, in spite of knowing very well that her client was ready to name three others in a construction scam that had made millions in deals with the state government.

This had come too soon after her mother's death; the hurt was still too raw. What Barbara had not been able to say earlier now came back to mind; it had been her mother fault. She had been his Jiminy Cricket, his conscience, and with her gone, he had become as corrupt as the general public a.s.sumed criminal lawyers had to be. She bit her lip hard.

It was over, she told herself wearily. Although she was very tired, she was too restless to attempt sleep yet. The drive had been too hot until she crossed over the pa.s.s of the Cascades, when the air had magically cooled. But the heat had been hard to take, had worn her out more than the driving. The thought of starting the drive to Minneapolis in the morning made her feel her fatigue even more.

No matter how she decided to go, by what route, she had to cross the plains that would be an inferno. Now she was s.h.i.+vering; she went to the closet and took out one of the sweaters she had left years ago. It was bulky and very warm.

She sat in the chair with the reading lamp and only then realized that the newspapers had been selected very deliberately; they featured the stories about the murder of Lucas Kendricks. Sighing in resignation, she started to read, curious for the first time about why her father had taken on this case if he didn't think he could handle it, or didn't want to handle it.

As she read, she put the papers on the floor; absently she pulled a legal pad onto her lap and made a note. Her father had highlighted, or annotated, remarks, statements here and there; she paid close attention to those sections.

When she came to a statement made by John Kendricks, the father of the victim, she stopped. Lucas hadn't known about the birth of his daughter? And she was now six!

She wrote: Where was he? Prison? Inst.i.tution? Out of the country?

Abruptly she stopped writing to examine the pencil she had found on the table, a mechanical pencil with very fine lead, the kind she had always used. She had bought them by the carton and routinely lost them. For a second or two her vision blurred with tears; then she threw the pencil as hard as she could across the room. She got up, dumping the note pad and the rest of the newspapers onto the floor, went to the bathroom, and began to run hot water for a bath. And then bed, she told herself. d.a.m.n him!

TEN.

her father was on the terrace having coffee the next morning when she joined him. He peered at her over his gla.s.ses, nodded, and motioned toward the thermos carafe.

"Help yourself. I'll rustle up some breakfast pretty soon."

As she poured, he said, "You know, after your mother died, I couldn't sleep worth a d.a.m.n in that house in town.

I began coming out here on Friday afternoon, stayed 'til Sunday, and slept like a baby. Soon's I could manage it, I just came out, period. Remember the first afternoon, though. Dog tired, just plain dog tired, and I stretched out here on this chair, dozed off, and woke up to morning.

Cold, stiff, sore. But it felt good, really felt fine."

"You never mentioned having trouble," she said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Even as she asked, she wondered when he could have confided. That had been a bad year, no time for confidences. At the end of the year she had fled in body, although she had fled in spirit months before the actual deed.

"For what purpose?" Frank asked reasonably.

"You couldn't have put me to sleep. Pills helped for a time, but I didn't like having wool, steel wool, in my head all day afterward. Nope, I got to thinking about it after I moved on out, and I have a theory. There's a soporific in air that's filtered through trees. Maybe just fir trees. It's going to need a lot of research to narrow it down and find out if it's specific to firs, or if all trees do it. Tried to interest a chemist down at the university, but he laughed at me. Figure when I have time, I'll have to bone up on chemistry, physiology, what else? When I have time I'll do the re search myself."