A Wrongful Death (16 page)

Barbara leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. "Well, the police have your sworn statement, and God alone knows what kind of corroborating evidence they think they have, and they intend to charge you with murder. And if they bring you to trial, you're going to be found guilty. That's the bottom line."

Barbara stood and walked the length of the kitchen, back, did it again. Then she stopped at the table. "Were you and Leonora lovers?"

"No! Of course not. I'm not gay and neither was she."

"Did you stop at a gun show in Sacramento?"

Elizabeth looked bewildered by the question and shook her head. "I drove straight up to Oregon."

"When did you put those papers in the locker in Las Vegas?

The date."

"I don't know the date, the day before I left Las Vegas, then two days on the road, a couple of days at the cabin. I don't know the dates. Why?"

"Because it may be their policy to clean out lockers after thirty days if material isn't claimed. Where is the key?"

Elizabeth stood up. "I'll get it."

Barbara was trying to count days back. Elizabeth had been attacked on November twenty-fourth, after two days in the cabin. She could have left the material around the eighteenth or nineteenth. It was December sixteenth. Time was running out fast if anyone was going to retrieve that material.

"What are you going to do?" Elizabeth asked when she returned and handed the key to Barbara.

"I don't know. I need to think, and we have to get that material and stash it somewhere safe."

"What should I do?"

"Nothing. Your hands are tied. You can't do a thing now. You can't leave the state, or even the city. You have to sit tight and sweat it out." She sat again, then said, "I have a lot of questions and I want some straight answers."

Elizabeth nodded. "Are you going to represent me?"

"They wouldn't permit me to," Barbara said after a moment. "I may well be a state witness in a trial of the state versus Leonora Carnero for the murder of Elizabeth Kurtz." She shook her head. "But I'll see to it that you will get an attorney."

Chapter 15

It was nearly four in the afternoon when Barbara finally went to Frank's house. She had not called first. He would be home or he wouldn't, and if he wasn't there, it would save arguing. He was home but the argument was postponed when she saw that he had brought in a Christmas tree, and boxes of ornaments were on the living room floor.

"Well, just in time," she said. "Or do you want me to sit back and watch?" She always helped him decorate his tree.

"This is as far as I intended to go," he said. "Ready for tomorrow. What brings you around now?"

"Premonition," she said. "I closed my eyes and saw an old man cursing a tangled string of lights. Let's do it."

The lights not only were not tangled, he had already tested them and replaced those that were burned out. They began the ritual of trimming the tree. She knew every ornament, some of them painted by the three of them — her, her mother and father; some from her mother's own childhood; two received as gifts. The tree, when completed, was exactly how it had been as far back as her memory stretched.

"Beautiful," she murmured. "It's just beautiful."

Frank nodded. "Smells good, too. Now, eggnog? or wine?"

That, too, was part of their tradition.

They put the empty boxes in the hall closet and went to the kitchen where he poured eggnog into pretty little crystal cups and raised his own in a toast. "Another year," he said.

She touched the cup to her lips, then said, "I have to talk to you, lawyerly sort of talk. Maybe in the study?"

He stiffened. "Are they harassing you? Why didn't you give me a call?"

"In the study," she said and led the way.

There, with him behind his desk, and her seated before it, she told him first about Beatriz Cortezar's visit. She paused for a moment then continued, "I called Leonora Carnero this morning. She had already made a signed statement, and I went over to talk to her."

He listened with no change in his expression, his lawyerly face, she assumed, the face his clients had seen over the many years as they talked about various crimes — murders, blackmail, assault, whatever had taken them to a criminal defense attorney in the first place.

When she finished, he said softly, "Christ on the mountain. Insanity."

"That's what I said."

"They'll trace that flight her mother took," he said after a moment. "They'll widen the net and it will come out, and after that's exposed the rest will follow."

"In time," Barbara said. "Both of them are smart, Elizabeth and her mother. Mrs. Cortezar's passport was still in the name of her first husband — Littleton. She remarried just three years ago and hadn't got around to changing the name on it. She booked a round trip to Toronto, and took a domestic flight from there to Vancouver, then flew back to Toronto. Her cousin booked a flight to Toronto for herself and her grandson and a separate flight to Barcelona. They thought of that. As soon as Mrs. Cortezar got back home, she had the name changed, so now the passport reads Beatriz Cortezar. In time they might run it down, but not right away."

"It wasn't very smart to pull such a stunt," he said. "How much alike were they? Elizabeth and Leonora?"

"Similar, that's about all, but no one here knew either one of them. I said from the start that I couldn't identify the woman in the cabin — bloody, dirty, swollen, a washcloth on that head wound, partway down her face, black hair dripping wet and bloody. The only one who might recognize her is probably her ex, Terry Kurtz, and he has no way of getting close enough. Sarah Kurtz hasn't seen her for about six years, and now with curls and her eyelashes trimmed and stubby, it's doubtful Sarah Kurtz would make any connection if she had the opportunity to see her. She probably never even met Leonora. Then, for her mother to make a positive ID and claim the body cinched it. Who was going to dispute it?"

"You can't represent her," Frank said almost absently. "They'll arrest her in the next week or two probably. No bail. An unknown here, without ties or family."

"We could try for house arrest," Barbara said. "A bracelet, anklet, I guess. They might go for that."

"Don't say we," he said sharply. "You're out of it. You're going to be a state witness against her."

"I can't represent her, but Shelley can."

He shook his head. "A transparent dodge they'll swat right down."

"You could defend her," she said. Before he had a chance to respond, she added, "Dad, we have to face it. I'm implicated, like it or not. I shouldn't have let it go after the first attack. I could have raised a hell of a stink, insisted that they go look for her. I knew she was in no condition to drive away, but I didn't do anything. I let it go. And if she hadn't called me at the office Leonora wouldn't be dead. No matter what I say or do now, I'm involved. I could be arrested myself, as you well know, as a material witness. There is that.

"But also," she continued, without letting him get in a word, "we can't let it proceed to a trial, no matter who represents her. We can't let her go on the stand as Leonora Carnero accused of the murder of Elizabeth Kurtz. She'd be found guilty and spend the rest of her life in prison under an assumed name. And that means she can't bring in outside counsel. No one who knows the truth can defend her in a trial and without the truth she'll be found guilty. But if the truth comes out too soon, she's dead. Period. I agree with her that whoever carried out both attacks wouldn't hesitate to strike again, or get the child and use him to find her. We're stuck with her. At least, I'm stuck with her. Also, I want to see discovery, find out what they've come up with. Did they even question Sarah and Terry Kurtz? And what's that nonsense about a gun dealer in Sacramento? Elizabeth never bought a gun in her life."

Frank gazed at the ceiling silently and she waited. At last he said, "We have to get those papers from Las Vegas."

"I was with her for hours this morning, then I spent an hour trying to get a flight to Las Vegas. Best I could do is a nonstop to Phoenix, connecting flight to Las Vegas. I'll return on Monday, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Eugene. Get in around eleven."

"No! Bailey work."

"He can't, Dad. He and Hannah are going to Portland tomorrow to fly down to San Diego Monday morning."

"We'll find someone else then. Not you. Barbara, think. If the kind of money is involved that Elizabeth says, they'll pull out all the stops to keep any fraud from being disclosed. They likely are watching your every move."

"Let's put that aside for now," she said. "We agree we need to get those papers before they're tossed out. Then we'll need to see Knowlton. And he'll need a team of attorneys willing and able to take on the Diedricks Corporation, knowing Knowlton lost the first time around. Also, we need to find out who has a financial interest in the corporation. It's a closed corporation and Elizabeth doesn't know. Some people could have backed Diedricks in the beginning and their heirs kept an interest over the years, and they'd certainly be concerned now, if they know what's going on. One or more of them might be extremely concerned. Enough to commit murder? Who knows? Plus, we have to try to keep Elizabeth out of jail, but safe. Full plate, isn't it?"

He scowled and stood. "I'm going to put on some dinner. But, Barbara, stop saying we. If you make a move toward Knowlton, you'll confirm that you have something or know too much." He picked up his cup of eggnog and walked out.

Neither of them had really drunk any of it, she realized, and tasted her own. Too sweet for right now, she decided, and followed him to the kitchen and got out the good dry pinot noir instead.

He stopped whatever he was doing at the sink and said, "We can give Alan McCagno a call, let him go."

"No way. I got the last seat out tomorrow, and the tickets aren't transferable. I have to get to that locker by Monday, and just hope that isn't already too late."

He resumed working. She did not say another word until he had put chopped onions aside. She was afraid to distract him when he had a sharp knife in his hand, for fear he'd take off a finger. She knew that on those few occasions that she actually cooked, any distraction could prove fatal, if not to her personally, at least to whatever dish she was preparing. Cooking required absolute concentration in her opinion.

"I'll put one of the office interns to work to root out the major shareholders of the Diedricks Corporation," he said, opening the refrigerator.

"If Sam finds out, since he's got no hair of his own to pull out, he could come after yours " she commented.

He closed the refrigerator door and snorted. "What's he going to do? Fire me?"

He'd have a fit, she thought, but she said nothing. She suspected Sam was a little afraid of her father. She smiled slightly. He might come after her hair.

"One day next week let's get Brice Knowlton to take his dad to lunch, maybe in one of the booths at the Electric Station. Nice and quiet, and private back there, and we could meet them. What do you think?"

He didn't answer, and she suspected he was concentrating on the food he was preparing, and said nothing more. She got up and wandered back to the living room to gaze at the Christmas tree for a time, then walked into the dining room and touched a yellow rose in the flower arrangement from Darren. "This is why," she said under her breath, as she realized how thoroughly she had put him out of mind as she had become more and more preoccupied with the problems she had stumbled into — murder, a missing child, corporate fraud, hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, Elizabeth, the coming day or two. /It wouldn't be fair/, she thought.

Repeatedly, she let her work override everything else. No one would stand for that after a time, no one. Playing second fiddle to someone else's work. But she seemed to have no choice in the matter; it happened over and over. She drank the rest of her wine and went back to refill her glass.

Frank was entering the kitchen at the same time. "Something I had to do," he said. "You want to set the table in the dinette? Dinner in ten minutes."

She no longer asked, or even wondered much, how he could prepare a delicious meal in half an hour, with virtually no warning ahead of time. He could, and that was enough. That night it was a spicy stir-fry of pork strips and crisp vegetables, a touch of ginger, garlic, soy sauce.

The phone rang as they were eating, and Frank stood. "I'm expecting a call," he said, leaving.

When he returned, he resumed eating his dinner without mentioning the call. Only after the table had been cleared and they'd both had coffee did he mention it.

"Bailey's putting us in touch with an operative he sometimes uses in Las Vegas. He'll meet your flight and take you to your hotel. Pick you up in the morning and go with you to retrieve that material.You'll have an envelope ready, addressed to me at the office and he'll take you straight to the nearest post office where you'll put it in the mail, overnight delivery, registered and insured. Then he'll take you back to the airport in time for your flight out. You won't carry those papers any longer than that."

She stared at him in amazement. And she had thought he was concentrating on chopping vegetables. "That sounds good," she said without argument. "How do we get in touch with his guy?"

"I have his number. He's waiting for us to call and give him flight times and such."

Later, after they had made their arrangements with Bailey's operative, they sat by the living room fire, with a golden cat on each lap, and royal fir fragrance heavy in the air, and discussed the rest of the week.

"I'll wait until you get back to meet Elizabeth," Frank said. "Let's make it on Tuesday. And we'll wait until those papers arrive, are copied, and put in the safe at my office before we arrange to meet with Knowlton. The originals should stay locked away until he has his own attorneys. Agreed?"

She nodded. "That pretty much covers it for now. Do you think they'll wait until after the holidays to arrest Elizabeth?"

"Possibly, or it could come tomorrow. They might want your statement before they go after her. Let me know if they do."