The Best Defense (41 page)

Finally she nodded.

“Yes, he does.”

“So you simply enter items where your husband tells you, the way a secretary might do. Do you do the arithmetic

“I’m the bookkeeper!” she cried.

Barbara walked to her table and stood by it regarding Kay Dodgson, who looked her age and more now. Her lipstick was gone; her face was pasty.

“You stated last week that before you and your husband came to Oregon to start a business he was a salesman and you were a housewife in Las Vegas. Is that correct?”

She nodded, then said yes.

“But were you not also a dancer, Mrs. Dodgson?

Didn’t you work for a casino called Aces Up?”

“No!”

“Weren’t you what they call an exotic dancer?”

“No! No!” Her hand flew to her mouth, which was visibly trembling.

“Wasn’t your stage name Kay Darling?”

“No!”

“And wasn’t the assistant manager Royce Gallead?”

Kay Dodgson looked as if she would faint, or become hysterical. Both hands were pressed against her mouth hard, and her eyes were wild now, her gaze darting everywhere. She was shaking her head violently;

he dangling earrings flew back and forth.

“I’m sick,” she said.

“I’m going to be sick!”

“For God’s sake, leave her alone,” someone behind Barbara yelled, and another voice rose, and another.

“Stop attacking her! She’s not on trial here! Get the baby killer!”

Judge Paltz was banging his gavel.

“This court will be cleared. There will be a ten-minute recess for the witness to compose herself. The bailiffs will detain anyone making a scene, and those persons are held in contempt of court.” He stalked off.

“The cat’s in the fire,” Prank muttered when they were alone.

“Carter Heilbronner will see us both as soon as we’re done here. At the house. Bailey will let him in.

And Bill Spassero spotted Bossert in-the corridor, carrying a cane. They grabbed him and seized it, just a cane.

He was tossed out and told to stay out. He’ll get a lawyer.”

His words were staccato, his expression fierce. Altogether he looked exultant, and probably he was more excited than he should be, she thought. On the other hand, she could not account for her own feeling of great detachment, as if none of this had anything to do with her. What emotion she would feel if she dared let herself would be a terrible sadness, she thought.

“Bill Spassero again,” she murmured.

“Someone else probably would have spotted Bossert, but it was Bill that did and got him out of here.”

“Did Bailey find out about the pool-cleaning company?”

“You bet. They pumped it out on Tuesday, the day Dodgson fired Mrs. Melrose. Bailey’s talking to the guys who did the work now.”

“They’re gluing Kay Dodgson back together,” she said, and went to the door.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

She went to the rest room that had been put off limits to everyone except those who had proper identification.

The women who worked up here must be hating this, she thought. She washed her face with cold water and reapplied her own lipstick and then regarded the stranger in the mirror.

“Shark,” she murmured to the face.

The glue job on Kay Dodgson had been hasty, Barbara thought when she resumed. Kay Dodgson was pale, and she was very frightened; her gaze flickered here, there, everywhere but on Barbara. She kept looking out over the audience as if searching for someone.

“Mrs. Dodgson,” Barbara said in a conversational tone, “you know that the state of Nevada keeps a register of those who work in the various casinos, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“They do. Did you work as a dancer in a casino called Aces Up?”

“Maybe, when I was very young.”

“Before you married Mr. Dodgson?”

“Yes.”

“And later, when he was working as a salesman and was away from home for many months of the year, didn’t you return to work?”

“We needed the money,” she said.

“I worked a little, just to help out, when one of the girls couldn’t make it.

Not full-time.”

“I see. Did this continue, your part-time job as a dancer, until you left Las Vegas and moved to Oregon?”

She was moistening her lips already. She nodded.

“Just part-time, not often.”

“Was Royce Gallead the assistant manager of the club where you danced?”

“I don’t know.”

Barbara shook her head.

“Mr. Gallead was assistant manager of the club where you danced until the summer of nineteen seventy-eight, the same year you and your husband moved to Oregon. You knew him very well, didn’t you, Mrs. Dodgson?”

“I don’t remember,” she whispered.

“Did your husband approve of your dancing while he was out of town?”

“He … he …” She shook her head helplessly.

“Did he know you were dancing all those years?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it.”

“You never told him, did you, Mrs. Dodgson?”

She hesitated and then said, “We didn’t talk about it.”

“Mrs. Dodgson, didn’t you have a separate checking account, all your own, your own money that no one made you account for?”

“I was saving,” she whispered, “so we could move, start the business.”

“Did you make a contribution to the business?”

“No,” she said in such a low voice Judge Paltz asked her to repeat it.

“You couldn’t, could you?” Barbara asked then.

“He would have demanded to know where the money came from. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. She was so pale, her makeup looked garish in contrast to her pallor.

“Did Mr. Gallead ever threaten to tell your husband about your work?”

She looked down at the dais before her.

“No,” she whispered.

Barbara went to the exhibit table and picked up the photographs taken by Carol Burnside.

“Mrs. Dodgson, do you recognize the background in this picture?”

After no more than a glance, she said, “No.”

Barbara pointed out the details, showed the spot where Carol Burnside had stood to take the picture, reminded the jury of the resultant call Rich Dodgson had made to Mrs. Canby, and again held the photograph out to Kay Dodgson.

“This is the fence around the Gallead property, and this is his truck. Someone is opening the gate, and five men are standing near the truck, one of them stretching. Mrs. Dodgson, were you aware that Mr. Gallead was importing laborers in the dead of the night to do some work for him?”

“Objection!” Fierst called.

“We don’t know anything about that shadowy photograph, or the figures in it.

Counsel is making unwarranted assumptions without proper groundwork.”

He was sustained.

“Wasn’t Mr. Gallead the one who became angry over the incident?” Barbara demanded.

“Didn’t he insist you get rid of those women before something else happened?”

She was still studying the photograph.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Mrs. Dodgson, on the morning you spoke with Angela Everts and she told you the Canby house would be empty, didn’t you see it as the answer to Mr.

Gallead’s insistence that you do something? Didn’t you go home and call him and tell him the house would be empty? Didn’t you go back out to watch for him, to see if he would actually dare do anything? Didn’t you see him that morning?”

Pierst was yelling objections and Judge Paltz was banging his gavel, but Barbara got it all out in a furious, demanding voice, and she knew Kay Dodgson had heard every question.

While Fierst was stating his just cause for objecting, Kay Dodgson said in a low voice, “Yes.” Fierst shut up to stare at her.

“Yes what, Mrs. Dodgson?” Barbara asked.

“I called him. I thought I saw someone. I wasn’t sure who it was, or that I even saw someone. And I ran back home.”

And then the cat was really in the fire, Barbara thought as the courtroom erupted into a cacophony of voices and the rustle of people scurrying out—reporters, she thought, without looking around. She kept her gaze on Kay Dodgson and waited for Judge Paltz to deal with the pandemonium in the room. She removed the photograph from before Kay Dodgson and returned it to the exhibit table, and then stood with her arms crossed, waiting.

When order was restored, she said, “Mrs. Dodgson, will you please tell us exactly what you did that morning?”

Kay Dodgson did not look up. In a low voice she repeated, “I called him.”

Barbara sighed.

“You called from where? Which room?”

“The kitchen.”

“Did you go into the family room?”

“No. I just went back outside.”

“Was Craig swimming when you called?”

“Yes.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I went back out to the private road, down to the pond, and watched for him.”

“And you saw what?”

“Just a shadowy figure. I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure what I saw. I was afraid and hurried back home.”

“Where did you see the figure?”

“If I did,” she said, not looking up. Her voice was faint; the courtroom was absolutely silent now.

“Up past the Canby driveway, crossing the private road.”

“Mrs. Dodgson, did you see the women and children leave the Canby house that morning?”

She shook her head.

“I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Come now, Mrs. Dodgson. You had made the call, you knew they had to be out of the house before anyone entered. Human nature would have made you watch.

Didn’t you see them leave?”

“I couldn’t have seen them,” she cried.

“The grass and weeds were too high.”

“Not in April. From the end of the road you had a perfect spot to observe the space between the house and the woods. Didn’t you watch until you saw them all leave, and didn’t you then kneel down to tie your shoe?”

“No!”

“Weren’t you signaling to someone that the house was now empty?”

“No!” she screamed.

“Leave me alone! For God’s sake, leave me alone! What more do you want?”

“The truth, Mrs. Dodgson.” Barbara walked back and forth.

“When Mr. Dodgson came in that morning, did you tell him what you had done?”

Kay looked up and cast a swift glance over the spectators, and then looked down at her hands.

“No,” she said.

“You haven’t told him in the intervening months?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you tell the investigating officers you might have seen someone crossing the private road?”

“I … Rich said Paula Kennerman did it, and I believed him. I thought I must have been mistaken,” she said in a low voice.

“Were you afraid that Mr. Gallead would tell your husband about your dancing during his absences?”

She cast another desperate look about and ducked her head again.

“I wasn’t afraid,” she said, nearly inaudibly.

“I just wanted the past to stay buried. There was no reason to bring it up now.”

“Monday, April twenty-first, your husband and your son went out on the yacht, but you didn’t go with them.

Why not?”

She gave Barbara a startled look.

“I was sick.”

“Did you go to the office that entire week?”

“No, I was sick.”

“Mrs. Dodgson, your husband controls the business;

he controls the household affairs; he buys your clothes and gives you an allowance, doesn’t he?”

She shook her head. She looked agonized now.

“That Saturday when he came in, didn’t you in fact tell him exactly what you had done, and didn’t he beat you? Weren’t you afraid that if he learned of your dancing, your private funds, he would beat you severely?

Wasn’t that why you were in the power of Royce Gallead, because you are deathly afraid of your husband?”

Fierst was screaming objections; Barbara ignored him.

“Mrs. Dodgson, do you understand the meaning of battered-wife syndrome?”

Judge Paltz’s voice rose and Barbara looked at him now.

“Ms. Holloway, you will stop piling questions on questions. You will stop leading this witness. You will conduct yourself properly. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Kay Dodgson was sobbing into her hands; her entire body convulsed. Judge Paltz glared at Barbara; he looked at Kay Dodgson, then back at Barbara, and beckoned her and Fierst to the bench.

“How much longer do you intend to take with this woman?” he demanded.

“Only a few more minutes. Your Honor.”

“I don’t want this to continue into the morning,” he warned. It was twenty minutes past four.

“Your Honor,” Barbara said before he could raise his gavel for another recess.

“I would like to suggest that Mrs. Dodgson be made aware that she can have protection if she so desires.”

His gaze held hers for a long time, it seemed, before he nodded.

“She will be so told out of the hearing of the jury.” He raised his gavel then and called for a recess.

m

*

“Ah, Bobby,” Frank said.

“How on God’s little green earth did you know that?”

“She told me. Everything she said, every gesture, her fear. She told me.”

“Honey, it’s over. You can rest the defense today;

you’ve done it.”

She shook her head.

“Not yet. There’s one more witness, remember? I want him. Dad. I really want him in that chair.”

She went to the window and looked out. They were still there, patrolling. And then in her mind’s eye she saw the look on Paula’s face only minutes ago when she had returned to the defense table. A look that was a mixture of fear and revulsion.

“Mrs. Dodgson, just a few more questions,” she said when they began again. Kay Dodgson had washed her face and reapplied lipstick, but there hadn’t been enough time for the mascara, the blush, all the rest. She looked haggard. More, she looked defeated.

“Did you not tell the authorities the truth about that Saturday because you were ordered not to speak of it?”

“No,” she said dully.

“You know Mr. Gallead has a gun shop and he runs a firing range, but do you know of other activities he is engaged in?”

“No.” Her voice was toneless.

“Do you know if your husband and Mr. Gallead are business associates?”