Cold Case (22 page)

“See, what we decided we'd do was have Hal and his buddy keep driving while Hal worked on it and eventually figured out how to disable it. I took David on out to Shelley's house, and drove back to the bar and waited for Hal and friend to come back. I guess the guys tracking them were pretty confused before it was all over.”

“How do they track it without being noticed?” Frank asked, picking up the device and studying it curiously.

“Not hard. It's sending a signal to a satellite that traces it on a computer map. You could stay half a mile away and know exactly where that baby is at all times. Until it stops sending, at least. Like I said, it's a beauty.”

“How did it get in his pocket?” Barbara asked. “Does David know?”

“Sure. The receptionist let him in, and just inside the clinic a guy bumped into him a little and put his hand out to steady David, and must have dropped that in his pocket at the same time. With his right hand messed up like it is, David isn't using that right pocket and he didn't notice a thing at the time, not until he was trying to get his belt fixed.”

“Did he get a name, description?”

“No name. The guy had a name tag, but David didn't get to see the name. Stocky guy, five-nine, one seventy-five, sandy hair, light blue eyes, florid complexion. Good description.”

Barbara drew in a breath. One of the staff. A physical therapist or one of the interns. A staff member who had known when to expect David. Their plan to change his appointment time from week to week to keep a routine from being noticeable to an outsider had been futile. The enemy was within.

“Darren will put a name on him,” Frank said. “Good work, Bailey. Another beer?” He didn't wait for an answer. Bailey was not known to turn down anything potable. On his way to the refrigerator, Frank said, “They'll know you found it and disabled it, I guess.”

“Maybe not,” Bailey said. “Sometimes they malfunction, or the signal gets lost for some reason. Hal said he thought they'd probably start getting a little garbage before it stopped altogether. They were heading toward Fox Hollow Road when that happened.”

When Frank returned, he had a tray with cheese and crackers, wine for Barbara and another beer for Bailey. “I thought we might call Darren and have him bring Todd over here, order in something. What time has he been getting off these days?”

“Not before seven. I'll call him.” Barbara went in to make the call.

Frank poured himself a bit of wine and sipped it. “The GPS didn't work. He'll try something different, I imagine.”

Bailey's gloom deepened. “As long as David has to keep coming to town once a week, it's going to be tricky. Depends on how bad someone wants to find out where the hideout is, how much he's willing to spend to get it done. So far it's probably been under a grand, maybe a little more, but not much more.”

Barbara rejoined them and nodded to Frank. “They'll be along at about seven-thirty.”

“Our next step is the question,” Frank said.

“My question is this,” Barbara said. “What's in it for someone to track down David?”

It was no longer a question of a hate crime, she knew. Someone was spending money to find David. Why?

“That's the question, all right,” Frank commented.

“He wants to stop the trial, put an end to it immediately, not risk further questions,” Barbara said. “David convicted by death, case closed.”

After a moment, Frank nodded. Case closed by another murder.

R
ibs had been delivered and consumed, leftovers packed up for another meal for the noncooks, and now Todd was in the living room watching television and the others were in Frank's study. Darren was examining the GPS with as much curiosity as Frank had shown earlier.

“One of my staff?” he said quietly. “I'll serve his head on a platter.”

“That's the last thing we want you to do,” Frank said. “You had to be alerted, however. Describe him for Darren,” he said to Bailey.

He repeated the description and Darren nodded. “One of the new interns, Erik Strohman. Now what?”

“We're trying to decide,” Frank said. “But we don't want him to know we're on to him. Meanwhile David is still safely out of sight and reach. Is it imperative for his therapy to have him check in weekly at the clinic?”

“He's coming along, working at it on his own. Weekly? Maybe not. But I have to see him often, change his regimen. As he continues to make progress, we alter treatments.”

“Is there any possibility of your going out to Shelley's to treat him?” Frank asked.

“Another possibility,” Barbara said, before Darren had a chance to respond. “I could pick David up on Sunday afternoons and bring him here. We're always over for dinner anyway, and you and David could go up to the guest room and put him through his paces. After dinner I could take him back to Shelley's house.”

Frank nodded. It would do, he thought, and he did like the idea. He wanted to get to know David better and there had been little opportunity to do so. But what really pleased him was the way Barbara was protecting Darren. Eventually a wedding would come along, he hoped, but it was not pressing. It was enough for now that it was working for them.

“And meanwhile those other guys will be scouring the Fox Hollow Road area, looking for a possible hideout,” Bailey said, grinning. “It's a long road.”

“I'm okay with either plan,” Darren said. “When David's ready for some equipment, weights, something like that, I can get it over here.”

“Okay, then,” Barbara said, satisfied. “You might want to keep an eye on Erik Strohman. He could be into lifting the silverware, and meanwhile as far as he's concerned, his mission was a success.”

Bailey left soon after that and Darren and Todd didn't stay much longer. Darren had to go to the clinic in the morning, and Todd was eager to get back to his science project. The new school season was starting the following week, and he kept finding material to add, determined to have his project finished by then.

“I won't be long,” Barbara told Darren at the door as he was leaving. “I need to tidy up a few loose ends.”

Back in the study, she said, “I'm looking through discovery for the first sign that McNulty is referring to anything from that old police file, and as soon as I find it, I'll demand the right to use the same material. I'm making a list of names for Bailey to check out. Is the landlady the same one from that long ago, same neighbors? Things like that. So far, McNulty's suggesting it's all current but I suspect he's fudging it more than a little bit.”

Because officially she had no right to that old police file, she could not use it to impeach any new testimony that differed from what had been said before. The relevant information in that file had to be added to discovery, and it had not been done yet, except for the autopsy report.

“McNulty won't make it easy,” Frank said. “You'll probably have to file a motion.”

“I know. I've been drafting it, getting it ready.” She pointed to her bulging briefcase. “That's how I'll spend the weekend, reading. Maybe by next week I'll have a few answers. It's Labor Day on Monday, no office hours. By Tuesday I hope to know more than I do now.”

On Saturday afternoon Lou Granville called. A new art show was on display, she said, and she was certain Barbara would be interested in seeing it. Barbara arrived in the shop at two.

“You promise not to out her,” Lou said grimly.

“Yes. I told you I wouldn't.”

“I know. Just a reminder for both of us. Once a month Maas puts her daughter on a bus to Spokane to spend time with her father, and she goes to a friend's apartment in Richland, where she stays until Sunday night. It's a couple of weeks during the summer, same kind of arrangement.” Lou was clearly troubled as she continued. “Her pal is as deep in her own closet as Maas is. Works in a bank, middle-management job, no kids.”

“Name?” Barbara asked.

Lou hesitated. “You really need it?”

“I don't know. I might. Same promise regarding her, Lou. She's safe with me.”

Lou nodded. “Gwendolyn Trilby. Forty-six, never married, never outed.”

“Thanks, Lou. I owe you a big one.”

As Barbara walked to the door, Lou said, “It's a hell of a life, Barbara. A real hell of a life.”

Barbara turned, went to Lou and embraced her. “I know it is, my friend. I know it is. Thank you.”

When her team gathered on Tuesday morning, Barbara was grim. “We have three different stories to check out,” she said. “Nick Aaronson's current statement is that he saw Robert stagger into the house, with a bloody hand pressed against his face, and hurry upstairs with Chloe at his heels. He found Mrs. McCrutchen in the living room, thanked her and took off with his date, Belinda Hulse. He also said that David and Jill came in soon after Robert did, that David was holding Jill's arm, and hustled her out. Find Hulse, Bailey. I want to hear her version of what happened. No one else has mentioned that either Aaronson or Hulse were among the lingerers at the party. Not a mention of any of that in the old police file.”

Bailey made a note of the name to add to the others she already had given him.

“Next, Chloe's story has changed. Now she says she saw that Robert's face was bloody and she rushed upstairs after him to make sure he was all right. He had a bloody nose. She washed off the blood, put a washcloth on his nose and so on. Again, a different story. And now, after all these years, Dr. Elders recalls perfectly how possessive David was toward Jill, how he hovered over her, tried to monopolize her all that evening.”

Frank nodded. “That's what he told me the first time we talked.”

“In the police file there's no mention of him beyond the fact that he'd been there early in the evening.” She frowned. “Why the changes now? From all three of them. What do they have in common, if anything? Beyond the obvious fact that they all want to see David convicted. But why?”

“Elders could be jealous,” Frank said. “Upstart of a student making a big splash, getting a prestigious appointment at Oxford, national recognition for his books, while he's fading away in obscurity. It could be made even worse because David voices opinions that he finds odious and wrong. He could simply want to take him down in flames. It could even be unconscious on his part.”

“And likely Aaronson doesn't want investigations launched into the deals he and Robert McCrutchen hatched between them. Keep the focus on what happened twenty-two years ago,” Barbara said. “It could be time to look into some of those deals. Who would be good at that?”

“Let me think about it a bit,” Frank said. “It takes a certain kind of skill and training, and a good deal of time to unravel dubious zoning deals, land deals, as well as possibly dubious charities. Not my cup of tea, and not yours, either.”

Barbara shuddered. “You know it. And both those explanations might account for the desire to see a conviction, but neither one addresses the murder of Jill or Robert, or the attack on David. Separate issues? There are too damn many strings in this bow. It still leaves Chloe's new story and I don't have a clue about why she changed it.”

Shelley said, “You know who might have kept notes, papers, everything, including a journal, a diary or something with an account of the party? A business student. Aren't they trained to keep all documents? I knew one or two, and they did. The yearbook might tell the majors of the graduating students.”

“Good thinking,” Barbara said. “I bet you're right. David told me Jill kept a diary as a kid. Maybe Jill's notes and papers were preserved. And she might have mentioned names of classmates, even friends who knew her and suspected that she was in a lesbian relationship. I can't believe no one suspected. If anyone kept Jill's papers, it was probably Olga Maas. She named her daughter Gillian. I'll give her a call, and I'll have another look at that yearbook.”

“When you go to the McCrutchen house, I'll tag along,” Frank said. He was curious about Lucy's attitude the last time he'd talked to her. Of course, he had told himself, she might have just had a bad time with the plumbing or something, but he didn't think so. It had something to do with him, or with the case they were working on. He trusted intuition to a point, but he liked to back it up with reason, and he had not come up with a satisfactory one yet.

Alone a few minutes later, Barbara thought about Olga Maas. She would be at school, no doubt until close to five, an awkward time to call, since she might be preparing dinner. It couldn't be helped, she decided—she would call at five. She then called Amy, whose only real question about a visit concerned David.

“Is there any chance of my visiting him anytime at all?” she asked after Barbara assured her that he was making good progress.

“I'll find out,” Barbara said. “Meanwhile, would it be a terrible imposition for us to come over and have another look at that yearbook?”

“Not at all. When?”

“I'd like to ask your mother something at the same time. Do you know if she'll be there?”

“She'll be home from about three on, and I'll be here all day, so just come on over when you're ready.”

That afternoon when Amy opened the door for them, she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with dancing flamingoes. She looked much younger than her thirty-six years. Lucy joined them in the hall, and she was wearing a very handsome beige silk pantsuit. She greeted Barbara and Frank pleasantly and motioned for them to come into the living room.

“I'm resuming some of the things I used to do,” she said, as if explaining her clothing. “We're starting up the literacy project that tutors English as a second language. Meetings, always meetings before anything else happens.” She smiled ruefully, but she was distant and polite, not the open friendly woman she had been on previous visits. “Amy tells me you have a question?” She looked at Barbara, not quite ignoring Frank, but close enough, he thought. Close enough.

“Yes. Did you know Nick Aaronson before the night of the party here?”

Amy stiffened and a wary look crossed her face. She glanced toward her mother, then swiftly looked away.

“I knew him only as a regular at the seminars Henry held here. Why?”

“Do you recall if he came to thank you and tell you he was leaving on the night of the party?”

Lucy frowned and shook her head. “I don't really remember, but I imagine he did. He always thanked me after the seminars. It was as if his mother had drilled it into him, to thank the hostess before leaving. I should think he did the same thing that night.”

“Thanks,” Barbara said. “One more question. Who did the laundry following the party?”

Lucy looked bewildered. “Laundry?”

“I assume you didn't do it,” Barbara said. “I'd just like to speak to whoever did. Again, just trying to settle a few little things about the night of the party.”

“That would have been Alice Jost. I can give you the last address I had for her. I haven't seen her in years.”

“I'd appreciate that,” Barbara said. “Thanks. Amy, let's have a look at the yearbook.”

Amy jumped up and after she and Barbara left, Frank leaned forward and said, “Lucy, have I offended you in some way?”

She looked stricken for a moment, then shook her head. “No. Of course not. It's just…Oh, the situation. I thought it might not be appropriate for me to be seen having dinner with anyone who is connected with the trial. Let's have a glass of wine. I'll get that address, and then I have a question of my own to ask.”

He went with her to the kitchen where she consulted a phone book, jotted down the number and handed it to him. She took a bottle of Fumé Blanc from the refrigerator, poured into two glasses and held out one for him.

“My autumn crocuses are already starting to bloom,” she said, walking to the door where she stood gazing out. “It's weeks too early for them.”

“It's been a strange summer,” he said. “Many things seem out of season. Your question?”

She turned, glanced past him toward the study, then opened the screen door. “Let's sit out there until they finish.”

Seated on the deck, she asked, “Is David in danger of being convicted of Jill Storey's murder?”

“There's always that danger when someone is accused,” he said. “Juries are unpredictable. We will do everything in our power to prevent a conviction, but the danger persists until there's a verdict.”