A Wrongful Death (11 page)

"After Diedricks began to recover, didn't he intervene, make a statement or anything?"

"Nothing. For a couple of years I guess he couldn't, and later— I don't know why not. He and Dad formed an instant friend-ship, a bond. They understood each other perfectly from the first meeting, and Dad always said that was a first for them both, to find someone else that compatible with the same work. I don't know why Diedricks didn't take a stand in the matter. That was one of the things I wanted to talk to Elizabeth Kurtz about."

He looked out the window again. "It's turning into snow."

Big oversized flakes were falling, and staying where they fell. "Time to get on the road," Barbara said.

"One more thing," Knowlton said. "Something Elizabeth Kurtz said, that someone might be watching you. Someone followed Rita and me when we left the restaurant that day. She spotted him first and I thought she was just being paranoid, more conspiracy theory stuff, which she's pretty much into. But I looked and after I dropped her off and headed for my house, I saw that same car again. It was pretty foggy and he was staying in close. There's no other way to explain why another car would have gone to her apartment on Tenth near Jackson, then turn to head out to the Santa Clara area where I live. She was right. We were followed when we left you last week."

Chapter 11

Barbara sat in traffic at a red light near the corner of Sixth and High and watched, holding her breath, as a car started to turn onto Sixth, began a tortuously slow sideways slide and pulled out of it less that a foot from the car in front of hers. The sliding car straightened, wavered back and forth for several feet and completed the turn. It seemed a long time before another car moved.

When she reached the corner, she didn't continue straight, the way to her apartment, with numerous stops between here and there, instead, she eased around it in low gear and inched forward the next few blocks to the foot of the slight hill that led to Frank's house, a hill hardly noticeable as an inclined slope normally. She did not try to negotiate it. Still in agonizingly slow motion, she pulled over to park, and let out a long breath when her wheels came into contact with the curb.

No longer the big lazy flakes that drifted to earth, a tease more than a meaningful snowfall, the snow now was coming down with a rainlike intensity that suggested it was serious. The temperature had plummeted, freezing the earlier rain to a thick coating of ice on the streets, sidewalks, everywhere, a glaze now hidden by snow.

She left the bag of books in the car, shouldered her purse, took her laptop in one hand, her briefcase in the other, and started the treacherous walk to Frank's house. Slipping and sliding all the way, sometimes perilously so, by the time she reached his front door, she was freezing. She didn't try to get the key from her purse, simply rang his bell and waited.

"For God's sake! What are you doing out in this weather?" Frank demanded when he opened the door. He took her laptop and briefcase, pushed the door closed with his foot and led the way to the kitchen. "Sit down, let's get those boots off."

"I can do it," she said. "It's okay." The boots were caked with snow, her hood was covered, her shoulders and both legs.

Minutes later, wearing fuzzy warm slippers and a heavy wool robe, she told him about her talk with Brice Knowlton. "How many people are they using?" she said. "The green van, and the SUV by the apartment, a guy who followed Brice and Rita, maybe another one who stayed behind to keep an eye out. Why? Why all that effort? And the expense! My God, it's costing someone a fortune. Or it was."

He hoped was the operative word. Barbara moved back a little from the hearth. He had made a fire while she changed her clothes and it was starting to heat up. He seldom had a fire when he was alone. He much preferred to sit in his study with his books and his old chair that was past saving by a repair shop, but was still the most comfortable one in the house. But she liked a fire, and she had been icy.

He left and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She was surprised, since he rarely drank anything alcoholic except with a meal, and very little then.

"Let's take it from the top," he said, after pouring wine for them both. "Whatever is going on must have started back in New York, since she apparently began her flight there."

"Right. But why head for Oregon? She had no friends here. She knew about the cabin, though. But again, why go there?"

"Why did you?" he asked. "Maybe her reason was as innocent as yours, just a place to have some peace and quiet for a time."

That made as much sense as anything else. "Okay. So whoever attacked her either didn't know about the child, or didn't care." She paused. "And why take just the computer? She wasn't robbed. She left five hundred dollars in cash at the shelter. It wasn't a migrant or a casual pickup who attacked her, but someone specifically after her. Or after her computer and whatever she had on it. How did anyone know where she was if she had stayed hidden for weeks by then?"

She sipped her wine thoughtfully, then said, "They didn't find it, whatever it was they were after. Leonora said, and Hoggarth confirmed, that the apartment bedroom had been tossed. They were still looking for it. For something." She looked at him. His face was set in a hard expression. "You've been going through this, haven't you? Thinking about it?"

"All afternoon. I tried to call you, but you must have had your cell phone turned off."

She had turned it off when she went to the bookstore. It was in her purse, still turned off.

"Take it the next step, Bobby. They searched the apartment. What if they still didn't find what they're after?"

"They could continue to look for it, or they might give it up now that she's dead." She thought a moment, then added slowly, "Or they could think I have it, or know something about it."

"Exactly. They can't know any more than Janowsky does how much contact you had with her, if you actually met out at the cabin by arrangement, if she talked to you or passed something to you. I don't think it's going to stop here, not unless they found the missing link, and we can't know if they did." He drank the little bit of wine in his glass and stood. "I'm going to put on some dinner."

Barbara continued to sit near the fire, trying to make sense of what was happening, and when that failed, she wandered out to the kitchen to stand by the door and watch the snow. It was falling as hard as before. Four inches by morning, she thought, at least that much, maybe more. And nothing would be moving in town for the next day, two days or even longer. Some of the main streets would be plowed or sanded, but the side streets had to wait for the thawing rain that inevitably followed a snowfall. She knew very well that Frank would want her to stay there in his house until he was satisfied of her safety. But that could be a long time, she also knew, since they didn't know what the killer was after, where that wanted thing was or anything else about it, including who was doing the looking. In any event, to stay or not to stay was a decision to be put off by necessity for a day or two.

"It must have been Leonora who pulled the trigger," Frank said, pausing while chopping carrots. "The time won't work for anything else."

"Or at the very least she was in the apartment when that trigger was pulled," Barbara said. "Elizabeth rented the apartment the day before, and she must have been in touch with Leonora, to give her the address. She must have known when Leonora would get in, yet she decided to take a shower. It doesn't add up. It's hard to believe that she would have left the door unlocked to go shower. She must have admitted Leonora, then she went in to shower, came out and was killed. Her own gun? Left out for someone to see and use on her? I know security is a matter of hit and miss at the airports, but you'd better not count on sneaking a loaded gun through." She remembered the roll-on and the carry-on bag still by the door of the apartment and added, "I don't think she had unpacked a thing yet, or even opened her suitcase."

"Leonora could have been met by someone at the airport and that person gave her a gun," Frank said. "She handed it back or tossed it when she went out to call Elizabeth's mother." He was frowning, apparently rejecting that scenario even as he voiced it. "And the first attack? A separate, unrelated incident?" He frowned harder and resumed chopping. "Or Leonora Carnero could have been the one searching for something while Elizabeth was in the shower, found the gun and used it."

"Could be the likeliest idea so far," Barbara said a bit uneasily. She didn't like for him to be chopping anything while talking. Knives were too dangerous, but he had started this and she continued. "But if Leonora had the address, and was in cahoots with the other attackers, they didn't need to tap my line to get the address and they could have gone there earlier. Was she working alone, or with a second group? Talk about conspiracy theories! God, I'd like to have half an hour with Leonora."

He didn't repeat that it was none of her business and to leave it alone. Circumstances were making it her business. It appeared that as far as Lieutenant Janowsky was concerned, she was part of whatever was going on. And someone had been watching her office, probably followed her to Martin's, tapped her phone line and might even then be watching to see if she remained here overnight.

That night on the local news a segment was devoted to the missing Jason Kurtz, starting with a summary of his illustrious great-grandfather, Henry Diedricks. There was an account of his service as a field surgeon during World War II, followed by two years at Walter Reed, a brief private practice, then his breakaway to pursue better prosthetics. He was quoted as saying, "Those fine young men deserved better than peg legs, and Captain Hook claws, and that's about what it amounted to in those days." There were clips of his two children, Sarah and her brother Lawrence, when they were both good-looking athletic youngsters. A brief mention of the recent death of Joseph Kurtz. A rather breathless account of the murder of Elizabeth Kurtz, followed by a more recent photograph of Jason than the one Barbara had seen earlier. The segment ended with an impassioned plea by Terry Kurtz for anyone who had seen Jason, who knew his whereabouts, to please get in touch with the authorities.

Barbara turned off the television. "Interesting, isn't it, that they're no longer suggesting a possible kidnapping? They're implying that Elizabeth took him somewhere and entrusted him to another party. They want whoever has him to feel they won't face serious charges if they simply call in, hand him over and claim they were doing her a favor."

Frank agreed, then said, "But they'll be in over their heads if they do that. How long's it been now? More than a week since she left the shelter and took him somewhere. You can't keep a youngster hidden indefinitely. School, doctors, immunizations." He gazed at her with a somber expression. "It can't be any commercial child-care organization. They wouldn't keep him a second after she was killed. And she didn't know anyone in the state, apparently, much less have a good friend here who would go out on a limb for her like that."

"And that leaves a kidnapper, possibly a child homicide, or me," Barbara finished the thought. "I know a lot of people, some

who might even owe me a favor. How do you think they'll play it? Keep the two separate, the murder a local affair, the missing child state business, maybe FBI eventually if not already?"

"Maybe," he said. "Hoggarth will try for that, at least."

She stood. "Well, not much I can do about it, is there? Wait and see." How often had she told her clients exactly that, she wondered, walking out. She veered from the living room where she had been headed, and went instead to the dining room, and stood gazing at the lovely flowers on the table.

Janowsky probably would demand more sessions, more questions, a formal statement. And eventually he would want her e-mails, other correspondence, telephone records. She knew the routine and, again, there was not much she could do about that, either. But Frank was right about the Internet, she thought, looking at the flowers. Sending an e-mail was like broadcasting, out there for anyone, everyone to see. Including Darren's letter. The thought of anyone else reading his message, his love letter, snickering, casting knowing glances not just her way, but also at him, made her hands clench until she realized her nails were cutting into the flesh. It would be leaked, she knew without a doubt. Too juicy to keep secret, the notorious criminal defense lawyer and a highly regarded therapist in charge of the most prestigious physical therapy center on the west coast. It would be leaked. Abruptly she left the room and went upstairs.

In her room, with her back pressed against the door she opened and closed her fingers. No, she thought, then said it aloud, "No! I won't let them do that to him!"

When she returned to the kitchen, she was dressed in a sweater and jeans, but still wore the fuzzy slippers. With a determined effort Frank began to talk about coming invitations for dinner, the office party, getting a tree. He gave up when he realized that she was paying little, if any, attention.

"Have you seen a weather report?" she asked.

"No. It's snowing, that's all we need to know."

"Maybe. I'll go see what they're saying." She went to the study, tuned in the weather channel and watched weather for more places than she cared about before they got to the local scene. "Front coming through late tomorrow, snow turning to rain and then we'll have a day or two of slush," she said, back in the kitchen. "But navigable, at least." It was usually like that. Snow seldom lasted more than a day or two. And then what? she asked herself, going to the back door again.

"I really want to see Leonora ," she said. "How can I do that without making like an ambulance chaser?"

"You can't. She calls you or she doesn't."

"I know. But there must be a way. Probably not while Mrs. Cortezar is on the scene. I wonder how long she plans to stay around."

Frank shook his head. "Barbara, you can't take her on as a client. That would be inadmissible."

He was speaking to her as an attorney, not as father to daughter, she realized with a shock.