Defense for the Devil (28 page)

“Were you keeping records back then? Would his name be in your books if he bought anything from your shop?”

“No. Probably not. I learned about good records later, the first time I was audited, five or six years into the business.” He leaned forward then and asked harshly, “Why is she doing this? What’s in it for her?”

“I wish I knew,” Barbara said.

“I didn’t throw anything in the river,” he said with great intensity. “She didn’t see me. I didn’t kill Mitch. But right now I feel like I’m losing my mind. A strange woman can come forward and convict me with a lie. Why is she doing it?”

Barbara reached across the table and took his hand. “I know all that, Ray, and you’re not convicted yet. Try to relax, get a little rest while you can.”

Some of the tension left him; she knew, because she could almost feel it flowing into her through their joined hands.

That night Frank ordered food from Martin’s. Too busy to cook, he said, they’d have to make do with second best. Martin had prepared roast duckling in a sweet and hot mustard sauce, asparagus tips with herbed butter, a potato-leek casserole…. Binnie had added one of her specialties: raspberry cream tarts in hazelnut crust.

John didn’t stay long after they had dessert and coffee; he was working hard to wrap up his report on the Canadian mine, which he had to finish before Christmas.

She walked to the door with him. “This is a bitch,” she said. “But it won’t be much longer. Promise.”

“Better not be. If I’m sleeping when you get in, wake me up.” Then, in a whisper, he added, “If Alan’s sleeping, leave him alone.”

Frank was just bringing in a carafe of fresh coffee when she returned to the dining room. “Let’s talk about Marta Perkins Delancey,” he said. “After I talked with Sylvia, I spent some time with Bud Yates, up at his place in Pleasant Hill. He suspected I wanted to pump him, and when I said it was about Marta, he said pump away.” Bud Yates was one of his old friends, older than Frank, and retired now.

“Bud was the Chisolm attorney for a good many years,” Frank said. “And he gave me an earful. Between him and Sylvia, I reckon I got the whole story. After Marta hooked Joel, they stayed in Eugene for a few years and went through his money, took it down to zilch. Then Marta got an itch to move to New York. So off they went. Greta, the mother, was heartbroken, and the money problem got worse. She hated Marta with all her soul, and probably with cause. Anyway, after the father died, Joel began talking about his marriage being a mistake after all, and Greta bought it. Joel and Marta came home to discuss things. He said he was going to leave Marta and live in the family house with his mother. That’s when she added the clause to her will, leaving it to him, and everything in it. It had priceless antiques the Chisolms had collected and she had added to, things like that. She told Bud that she knew Joel was irresponsible about finances, but at least he would have the house and its contents, and maybe after the divorce he would find a nice local girl and really settle down. She also said that Joel was in desperate trouble and that she had made him a big loan. Something to do with brokering phony stocks. Two weeks after they left again, with a big check, Greta died. Harry, the other son, accused Marta of poisoning her, but nothing came of it. Alcohol, sleeping medications, and tranquilizers, that was all, and his accusation was treated as sour grapes.

“After the estate was settled, they had this fancy mover come in, crate up everything, and haul it off to New York, and they put the house in the hands of a real estate company and left town. Two weeks later, Joel was shot in the street and killed. They had gone to a play and were on their way to a supper club when it happened. Marta was not injured.”

He stopped and regarded Barbara with a knowing look. “Sylvia said they used a mover who specialized in handling expensive goods, one based in New York.”

“Oh, my God! Palmer?”

“Possibly. She didn’t know the company name.”

Barbara remembered Ray’s question and repeated it: “What’s in it for Marta? Why would the wife of a United States senator come forward to commit perjury?” She shook her head. “We have to try to find the link between her and Palmer. Your job, Bailey, whatever it takes. And I need some ammunition by Friday.”

Bailey groaned. “You know we can’t dig deep that fast.”

“Whatever you can find. And, Bailey, a three-way link maybe: Marta, the senator, and Palmer. See what you can find about Joel’s death.” She frowned, thinking, then said slowly, “She knew about Palmer’s moving business eighteen years ago. Was it operating then the way it is now, a little business deal of moving something to cover up the real transaction? In that case, maybe a murder?”

Frank made a throat-clearing noise, which she ignored. She knew he hated it when she went leaping over obstacles blindly. She turned to Shelley. “Your work is in Portland. Find Harry Chisolm and talk to him. Did Joel ever go fishing? Buy stuff from a local shop? That line. We may want him to testify, but you’ll have to judge that. Remember, a bad witness is worse than no witness, and if he hates Marta enough, he might be a very bad witness. But we need to know. I’ll want dates, when Marta and Joel left town here for New York, when and where Ray opened his shop….”

When she got home, John was sleeping. She stood inside the bedroom door for a moment, then quietly left again and went to her office, where she sat at her desk and thought about time. All this business about Marta was cutting into the hours she had budgeted for other things. She swiveled in her chair to examine the calendar on her wall. Christmas was on a Wednesday. Would Judge Waldman take the entire week off, or just Tuesday and Wednesday? What she wouldn’t do, she had made clear, was sequester the jury at this point, nor would she work them on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Barbara did not believe the judge would send the jury into deliberation on Monday, two days before Christmas.

And John’s children were due the day after Christmas. He had motel reservations at the coast, for them to see Keiko the whale. And a day planned in the mountains, sledding and snowboarding. A day in Portland to visit the science museum… Plans for shopping for their presents.

She closed her eyes hard; then, very roughly, she cursed Palmer and Marta, and finally she opened her briefcase, pulled out papers, and started to work.

28

At four-thirty
on Thursday Barbara and Frank joined a group of people in the forensics lab. There were detectives, forensic personnel, Matthew Gramm and assistant D.A. Craig Roxbury, and now Frank and Barbara gathered around a long table that held a shallow black plastic pan, such as a photographer might use for developing large negatives. A stark white light glared on a black plastic bag in the pan. The table was covered with a white plastic-coated sheet of paper, and there was a second shallow pan, empty.

Two cameras were recording everything, one on a fixed tripod, the other handheld by a photographer who moved in and out among the assembled witnesses.

The black plastic bag was heavy-duty, industrial strength, fastened by a wire that had rusted and fused together but was so brittle that when the forensics technician cut it, it broke in several places. There were a few small slits in the plastic bag, and it was still partly filled with water; when it was opened, the water ran out into the pan.

The technician was wearing elbow-length rubber gloves and a rubber apron. Carefully he opened the bag and held it open for the photographer, then he reached inside and drew out the contents, moving slowly, stopping frequently for the pictures. A sodden stained shirt, black slacks, black shoes, filthy white socks, very brief briefs, a pair of leather work gloves, a second pair of canvas gloves, a lead pipe like the one Mitch had carried in his duffel bag, six big rocks. The technician identified each item as he pulled it out and laid it in the pan. After the plastic bag was empty, he examined the pockets of the slacks and the shirt, all empty.

“Ms. Holloway, Mr. Holloway,” the district attorney said then, “may we have a word? Outside, in the corridor.”

They followed him and Roxbury to the hall.

“Obviously, they can’t do anything with that stuff until it dries out,” Gramm said. “We can’t tell if those stains are just muddy water or blood at this point. What I propose is that we ask Judge Waldman for another postponement, until Monday morning. By then we’ll know something about this evidence. Is that agreeable to you?”

Barbara nodded. “You understand that you’re asking for this delay, not I.”

“I know that,” he said curtly. “I informed Judge Waldman as soon as I received word that the bag had been found. She wants to see us in chambers. She said as soon as we had opened it, to come over directly; she’ll be waiting.”

She was at her desk, toying with gold-framed glasses, with a calendar before her. Her nod was frosty and her words were clipped and sharp when she said, “Please be seated.” As soon as they had taken chairs opposite her, she turned toward Roxbury. “What do you propose to do?”

“Well—” he started, but Gramm interrupted him and answered.

“Your honor, we regret very much this unforeseen development, but we all are experienced enough to know that sometimes the unexpected does occur.”

Judge Waldman shook her head at him. “Mr. Gramm, no speeches. We are all experienced enough to know that an enraged jury panel is a bad jury panel. How they will vent their displeasure is an unknown factor. Will you introduce this new evidence, and how long will it take?”

“We need until Monday,” Gramm said bluntly. “We can’t examine the items until they dry out, and that will take a day or two.”

Judge Waldman was tapping her fingers on the calendar.

“Your honor,” Gramm said then, “we have an alternative to propose. It would be highly irregular at this point, but we would consider a plea bargain with Mr. Arno, let him admit to manslaughter, and be done with the whole thing. Those clothes, the incontrovertible testimony of the next witness, Mrs. Delancey, is overwhelmingly convincing. To drag out these proceedings further serves no purpose whatever.”

Judge Waldman looked at Barbara.

“Impossible,” Barbara said. “Ray Arno didn’t kill his brother.”

“Can you speak for him?” Judge Waldman asked.

“I’ll talk with him, but he won’t accept a plea bargain.”

“In the event that we continue with the trial,” Judge Waldman said, addressing Roxbury, tapping the calendar, “how long do you expect to take with Mrs. Delancey, and then with any follow-up witnesses you require?”

“Half a day with Mrs. Delancey, half a day with follow-up,” he said. “Providing defense counsel doesn’t drag things out the way she’s been doing.”

“I already have a lot of questions for Mrs. Delancey,” Barbara said. “I don’t think the state will rest until the middle of next week.” She added thoughtfully, “It would not be fair to the defense or to the jury for us to start and then be interrupted by the holidays. Such a break in the continuity of the defense case would be grievously damaging.”

Judge Waldman put on her glasses and looked at the calendar, frowning. “What I propose,” she said after a moment, “is to let you recall the state’s four witnesses next week, then recess until the day after Christmas. I’ll advise the jurors of this schedule and warn them that we could continue into the New Year, and that if we do, they should be prepared to work half a day on New Year’s Eve, then off for New Year’s Day, and back the following day. And I warn both sides now that the jurors are not going to be happy about this.”

Gramm and Roxbury both raised objections, politely, but with some force, and she heard them out. If Arno would not accept a plea bargain, and he needed time to think about it, they wanted the trial postponed until after the first of the year. She rejected their arguments. Then Barbara said, “Your honor, would it be possible to let them know that this delay is not a sinister machination of the defense?”

“I object to such a statement being made to the jurors,” Roxbury said. “That would be grossly prejudicial.”

“I shall consider carefully what I tell them,” Judge Waldman said dryly.

Ray Arno leaned back in his chair and studied Barbara with a disbelieving gaze, then he turned the same incredulous gaze on Frank. He shook his head. “I told Bishop Stover on day one that I didn’t do anything and wouldn’t plead to a lesser charge, because it would be a lie. Nothing’s changed. Why are you bringing it up again?” His handsome face had become ravaged-looking, and strangely more attractive than before.

“Because Gramm made the offer before the judge,” Barbara said. “That makes it more or less binding. You would get twenty years, or we could go for a lower number and argue about it; in any event you’d be out on parole in seven or eight years at the most. On the other hand, under the sentencing guidelines, you could get life without parole if you’re found guilty, or you could even get the death sentence.”

“So those who are guilty get the breaks, and the innocent get life, or the final shot in the arm,” he said bitterly after a moment. He was very pale. “I didn’t do anything, Barbara. I won’t say I did.”

Gil Wilkerson, one of Bailey’s hired guns, was waiting to drive them home when they left the jail. It was raining very hard.

“My place,” she told Frank. “I’ll give Bailey and Shelley a call, meet back at your place around eight. We’ll scrounge up something to eat first.”

She heard John’s printer at work when she let herself into the apartment; he came to the small landing to meet her and help her off with her coat.

“You’re shivering,” he said. “Let’s have a hot drink. Irish coffee?”

“God, yes! But first I have to get out of these clothes.” Then, a few minutes later, in her jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers, she called Bailey and Shelley, and finally she sat at the table, sipping Irish coffee, and told John about the new developments.

His forehead furrowed, the way it did when he was troubled, and the scar on his face drew up his mouth in a crooked grimace. “You won’t even start your case until the day after Christmas?”

“No.” Then she said, “I told Dad we’d eat here. I have to go to his place at eight. I’ll see what we have.”