Defense for the Devil (2 page)

Martin brought out their wine, and she said thank you and sipped hers gratefully. “The man said his name was Trassi, and he wanted to talk about Mitch. I hadn’t told a single person that I had seen Mitch. No one. I still haven’t, until now,” she added.

“He said Mitch worked for a company in Southern California, and he had been sent to their Seattle branch with important papers. He said Mitch had mentioned that he might stop off and see his ex, that he had a debt to pay, but everyone assumed he meant on the return trip and had thought little of it. He was due to arrive in Seattle on Friday and never showed up. Instead, he called and at first claimed that his car had broken down, but when his supervisor told him to rent a car and get to Seattle, he said his ex had thrown him out and he couldn’t get back in to collect the stuff until Monday because there were a hundred or more people around. When he didn’t show on Monday, the company sent Trassi, the company lawyer, to get the papers and find out what was happening.”

Maggie stopped there and sipped her wine again. Her eyes were narrowed and a slight frown creased her forehead. “He told me they would give a thousand-dollar reward for the suitcase and briefcase, and the company would cover the damage Mitch had done to the inn. He described the briefcase and suitcase.”

Barbara drank her wine and waited the few seconds it took for Maggie to resume. There was no point in prodding her; she knew what she wanted to tell, what she had to tell, and her report was as clear and precise as Barbara’s would have been.

“I was tempted,” Maggie said. “Really tempted. My insurance is pretty limited, the minimum that I have to carry. So there’s a big deductible, and partial coverage. Anyway, before I could even ask a question, Mama and Papa Arno and Ray came rushing in, over from Eugene. I told Trassi I had to leave. He tried to keep me another minute or two, but the Amos were all over us, and he saw it was useless. I left with the Amos. We drove up to the inn, and Mama was crying, Papa cursing, like that.” She flashed her fleeting smile again. “It begins to sound like a farce here,” she said, almost apologetically.

“They were all talking at once,” she said. “But what happened on Friday was that Papa Arno saw Mitch getting a drink from a hose near a shed, and he thought it was a bum who had stumbled out from the woods. Then he saw it was Mitch. He ran over to him and told him to turn around and beat it, but Mitch was muttering that he was going to kill me, and Papa Arno knocked him down. He thought he had to hide Mitch or someone would be killed that weekend. He shoved him inside the shed and told him to stay or he’d have him arrested. Mama and Papa Arno got together to decide what to do, and they called Ray and told him to wait at his house for them. When the rest of us went to dinner, they took Mitch to Ray’s house, here in Eugene. Ray told him to clean himself up and they’d talk on Monday, that if he showed up at the inn, he’d beat him to a pulp. Then he came over. But on Monday when Ray got home, Mitch had left. He broke some lamps, spilled beer, left a mess; we think he might have broken into Papa’s house, too, but he didn’t do any damage there. Then he hit my house,” she said furiously. “What if I’d been there with the girls?”

Her hands were shaking again. Barbara patted one and said, “Easy. You weren’t, they weren’t. So he tore up the place, no one got hurt.”

“Right,” Maggie said after taking another of her calming, deep breaths. “Anyway, Monday when I got home from Portland, there was a message on my phone machine from Ray, for me to call him back that night. And I called him from the hotel later. He told me Mitch had been there and was gone, and I began to cry, I guess, and I told him about the inn. He wanted to come over then and hang out, just be there if Mitch came back, but I told him that Tom Lasker was on guard, and he wouldn’t be allowed in. That’s why Mama and Papa came over the next morning with him. We got to the inn and Mama went to pieces again, but Irene kept saying it was her fault, for leaving the place open to air out, and Tom was there telling everyone it was simple vandalism. I really wanted to tell them, at least to tell Ray that Mitch had been there, get his advice about what I should do, but Mama was crying, and everyone talking at once, and Mama and Papa so upset…. I didn’t mention that I had seen Mitch. No one mentioned Mitch. I got Ray to take Mama and Papa back home. No one could do anything until the insurance man finished. Then, the first chance I got, I really looked at Mitch’s stuff. The suitcase looks very expensive, leather, with a keypad lock. And the briefcase is leather, with a keypad lock. It’s really heavy. His sport coat is silk, with a New York tailor’s label.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He had seven hundred dollars in his wallet and eighty-two hundred dollars in a money clip. And I remembered something I hadn’t thought of again. When I went to back my car out of the garage on Friday, I saw something shining on the floor and picked it up. A watch. I just put it in my pocket, and when I went inside the house again, I put it in my bag and forgot it.” Now she rummaged in the big tote bag and drew out a Rolex and laid it on the table.

Martin stepped from the kitchen and stood in the doorway. “Barbara, you and your friends are welcome to sit as long as you need, but I have to warn you that in a few minutes I got to unlock the door and let customers in. It just won’t be as private.”

Startled, Barbara looked at her own watch. It was ten minutes before six. “We’ll be done by six,” she said. “Thanks. Maggie, tell me something about Ray. He keeps figuring in what’s happened. Do you suppose he knew Mitch was coming back?”

Maggie shook her head hard. “No way. It’s just that we all rely on him for so many things, he’s the one we all call if the car won’t start or the furnace makes weird noises. He was the first one I told when I got pregnant; he and Lorinne were engaged, and they offered to take me in, take care of me. For a while I was afraid my parents would kick me out. He’s just always been there for me, for my daughters.” She shrugged. “He’s my pal and my big brother.”

Barbara nodded, and Maggie leaned forward and asked, “Will you handle this for me? Have I told you enough?”

“Exactly what do you want me to do?”

“I want to track down Mitch and make him pay for all the damage, make him help send the girls to college, collect back child support. I don’t know! But he must have gotten rich somehow. And my daughters have gone without a lot of things over the years. I don’t want him to get away with this again. I want you to take all Mitch’s stuff out of my house and put it away in a safe place, and keep that, too.” She pushed the expensive watch toward Barbara. “I don’t want to touch anything of his. And will you deal with Trassi?”

“You’re on,” Barbara said. “As of right now we have a verbal agreement that will have to be put into writing, but later. A few quick questions. Is his car still in the day-use park? And what kind of car is it?” She slipped the Rolex into her bag.

“It’s gone. It was gone on Monday when I went up to Portland with my brother. We drove past the park and I looked. I don’t know what kind it was. Black, with leather seats, is all I know. Expensive.”

In the next few minutes they agreed that Barbara would go to the inn and collect Mitch’s stuff and put it in a safe-deposit box. Maggie gave her a brochure about the inn, where it was, how to get there. Barbara said she would bring out an agreement to be signed, and Maggie wrote a check for five hundred dollars, a retainer.

“I’ll bring a detective with me,” Barbara told her. “I’ll want pictures of the damage. And you’re not to say a word about any of this to anyone, and don’t talk to Trassi at all. Not a word.” She gave Maggie two cards, one to be handed over to Trassi, and they both stood up just as Martin walked out to unlock the door.

“By the way,” Barbara said, beckoning Laurence to join them, “if you and your friend need a recommendation for dinner, you can’t do better than right here.”

Then she muttered, “Oh, God! Dinner! So long, Maggie, Laurence. I just remembered something I have to do. See you tomorrow.” To Martin she said, “I’ll settle up tomorrow or the next day. Okay?”

“Hold it just a second,” he said. He went into the kitchen and returned with a paper bag. “Sauce for the salmon. Seven minutes an inch, under the broiler. Got that? Let it rest a minute, then sauce it. And a nice vinaigrette for the salad. Don’t use that bottled stuff. I think Binnie tossed in something, don’t know just what.”

She hugged him and took the bag, feeling guilt and relief in equal measure. The last glance she had of Maggie and Laurence was of rather bewildered expressions cast her way, before they reseated themselves. They at least would eat very well.

3

Where had May
, June, and July gone? It was not amnesia, because if she put her mind to it, she could fill in the weeks and months, most of them anyway. Although the first few weeks were a blur of lovemaking, eating, swimming, and more lovemaking. Then Aztec ruins. After she and John Mureau had spent weeks in Mexico, an earthquake had struck and John had been drawn to it irresistibly, and they had climbed rocky places so he could examine the wreckage, lecturing her on the physics of earth movements all the while. They had flown to New York and spent a few days, then on to Wheeling, West Virginia, so she could meet his two children. Barbara understood very well that part of her confusion about time was due to the fact that there were periods she had put away out of mind, to be thought about later.

She imagined that in her mind was an infinite file cabinet where she could store things that needed considering someday, but not right now. The meeting in Pikeville, Kentucky, with his mother and other family members was tucked away there, too.

Eventually they had flown to Denver, where he had stripped out a large four-wheel-drive camper van. As a geologist working as a mine-safety consultant, he spent a lot of time out in the field in the camper. She had been dismayed at the amount of stuff he had to move from his apartment, and more dismayed when she first saw his office. The desk alone would have filled her living room back in Eugene. He needed it to spread maps on, he had said. It had taken many days for him to pack up the things he would take in the camper, and then to arrange for movers to come for the rest.

Days and days in Denver had been followed by a slow drive to Eugene in the overloaded camper that struggled on hills in a way that made him clench his jaw hard enough for his scar to flare.

For more than a week they had stayed at Frank’s house after they finally arrived in Eugene. A frantic search had started, a race to beat his belongings that were then in transit, a race that had ended here. And here was too small by half. A three-bedroom apartment that had looked good when it was empty. Now it was jammed with boxes, with
things.
Rolls of maps, file cabinets, big mover’s boxes, some opened, some still taped, the camping gear he had taken out of the camper…

They ate on a card table that had to be folded up again when they were done. Two of the bedrooms were big enough for offices, they had thought at first, when the rooms were empty; the biggest bedroom would be theirs. And the little ones, after they were organized, were big enough for cots when the kids came to visit, he had said. Very carefully, wordlessly, she had stored that item away in her secret mental file cabinet.

That morning she was drinking a cup of coffee, standing by the sink with it, since the table was already folded up against the wall. Bailey was due any minute. She watched John finish cutting the tape on another box; he groaned.

“Only thing to do is open a window and start heaving stuff out,” he said.

“Promises, promises.”

Grinning, he crossed the few feet of space between them and took the cup from her hand. “Be back early?”

“As early as I can.”

He nuzzled her neck.

‘’I’m sorry I said no,” she said softly. “It turns out there was time.”

“You’ll pay, and pay, and pay,” he murmured.

She laughed and pulled free, aware that if he kept it up, by the time Bailey arrived she’d look as sappy as little Mary Sunshine. The doorbell rang.

“And pay,” John said ominously, and went to admit Bailey.

Bailey Novell came in, carrying an old denim daypack that he claimed held his junior detective kit. He said hi, and gazed about noncommittally. If Queen Elizabeth sashayed in with a rose between her teeth, he would look noncommittal, Barbara thought, picking up her briefcase and shoulder bag. Bailey was the best detective on the West Coast, her father sometimes said, and she had no reason to disagree, but he looked like a tramp in old hand-me-down clothes that never fitted right. John blew her a kiss and they left.

“Your car or mine?” Bailey asked outside the apartment building.

“Mine,” she said, thinking of his expense account. Not only the best detective but one of the most expensive, that was Bailey.

“Okay, but you know your driving puts me in heart-attack territory.”

She gave him a look. The apartment was at Fifteenth and Patterson, a nice walk to downtown and the office and courthouse, but too far to walk to Martin’s, another annoyance. They got in her car and she headed for Eleventh, and westward.

“You might give a guy a little more warning next time,” Bailey commented, slouched down in his seat.

She had not gotten around to calling him until almost ten-thirty last night. “Sorry,” she said.

“You going to tell me why we’re going to the coast, and why you wanted me to bring a gun?”

“Okay, just the highlights first. A woman’s ex is on the rampage, he tore up her bed-and-breakfast place, and he may be crazy. I want a lot of pictures of everything. We’re going to pick up some stuff and put it away in a safe-deposit box, so we have to get back before the bank closes. That’s why the early start.” It was then nine-thirty.

“Where’s the place?”

Barbara bit her lip. She had not gotten around to looking at the brochure. “Somewhere between Florence and Newport. There’s a brochure in my purse, with directions. You want to root around and find it and guide me in when we get to the coast?”

She pretended not to notice his swift glance at her; she was afraid the deadpan Bailey might be smiling.