A Wrongful Death (13 page)

Barbara told her about Elizabeth's call at ten past four. "At that time she was prepared to come to my office and changed her mind when I mentioned that people had been asking about her. Instead, she asked me to come at five. Leonora's plane arrived at three-thirty, and the police will have an exact record of when the rental car was timed out — the companies keep such records. And they will determine if there was a delay in unloading luggage. They will know nearly to the minute how long she was at the airport. And it isn't hard to figure out how long it would take to reach the apartment at that time of day. In fact, she should have arrived at the apartment even before your daughter was getting ready to take a shower. Elizabeth Kurtz was too afraid to have left the door unlocked, and who but Leonora would she have admitted only to leave to shower? That's the case the police are putting together, Mrs. Cortezar, and it's hard to refute it. They'll simply dismiss the first attack as coincidence."

Mrs. Cortezar appeared frozen, immobilized by shock. Barbara leaned back in her chair and waited.

Finally Mrs. Cortezar shook herself slightly and moistened her lips. "I see. We'll have to discuss this. Leonora and I." She picked up her purse, and drew out a slim gold case, removed a card from it and handed it across the desk to Barbara. "That is my Barcelona address and telephone number. I wrote the apartment address here and her cell phone number on the back. Will you notify me if the police arrest her? Will you help her if they do that?"

"I can't promise to represent her in a criminal trial, Mrs. Cortezar, but I will assist her in every way I possibly can. And if I find that I cannot be her attorney, in the event she requires one, I can promise to see that she has someone who will serve her well. But, Mrs. Cortezar, she will have to initiate a meeting herself. I can't impose myself on her. Is that sufficient?"

Mrs. Cortezar closed her eyes briefly, then nodded. "That's really all I can ask for at this time," she said. "If she requires an attorney, she will call you. Thank you." She reached into her purse again and this time brought out a check. "It was presumptuous of me, but I wanted to have this prepared in the event that you agreed to help her. For preliminary expenses." She placed the check on the desk.

Barbara picked it up and read the note on the stub. "For services rendered to Beatriz Cortezar."

The check was for ten thousand dollars.

"It's insufficient if she is charged," Mrs. Cortezar said in a low voice. "I wasn't thinking of that, only that you might be able to intervene if they kept questioning her or refused to release her passport. Tomorrow I must go to New York City to settle affairs for my daughter and from there I must return to my home. I shall arrange a transfer of funds to Leonora's bank so she will not find herself penniless when her expenses increase. I assume they will if the scenario you've outlined is correct. However, such transfers often require days, or longer, to be finalized. After that period, she will be responsible for her own financial needs. If she is arrested, if there is a trial, I shall return at that time to be at her side."

"Mrs. Cortezar," Barbara said, "you have to understand that the authorities will not accept your statement that Jason is well and being cared for without proof. There is a massive search ongoing, an Amber Alert and no doubt the FBI has become engaged."

"Of course, I understand. In New York I shall contact my attorney's associates and instantly begin the process of establishing custody of the child. That will be settled in a civil court in the state that issued the divorce decree, of course. Meanwhile, I have told your local authorities all I know about the situation."

"If his father has visitation rights, he can pressure the police to pursue this as a criminal matter, one of abduction. Do you know the terms of the divorce?"

"I shall learn that in New York when we open her safe-deposit box. I know that her will names Jason as her beneficiary and names Leonora and me as joint guardians, that will be our starting position. As for an abduction, I can tell them no more than I have already done."

Barbara was feeling a mounting frustration with Beatriz Cortezar. Only her pallor, the hollows beneath her eyes and a hard to define expression in her eyes that could have been fear or sorrow, betrayed emotional distress.

Quelling her impatience, Barbara said, "You say you read that article in the newspaper, and you must appreciate the position I find myself in. Presumably you were in Spain, and Ms. Carnero was in New York, but I was on the scene here during the first attack as well as the fatal attack, and the assumption seems to be that I was in the confidence of your daughter, and may have information about her son. Neither assumption is correct, but I am in a difficult position. If I am to assist Ms. Carnero I must have some information. I have to have a copy of the divorce decree, and access to Ms. Carnero in order to ask her questions."

"Of course," Mrs. Cortezar said. "If I may have your card, I shall fax you a copy of the divorce papers, and I shall speak to Leonora. We must discuss what you have told me. I assure you that she will be cooperative. Ms. Holloway, I sincerely regret your becoming involved through nothing more than a Good Samaritan deed, for which I cannot express enough gratitude. Whatever I can do for you will be done."

"You could tell me where the child is," Barbara said coolly. She passed her card across the desk.

"I'm sorry. Now I should be getting back to the apartment before Leonora begins to worry that I skidded into an accident. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice." With quick, decisive motions she slipped the card into her purse, pulled on her gloves, stood and drew her cape about her shoulders and walked to the door.

After seeing her out, and ordering Maria to take off for the rest of the day, Barbara sat at her desk for a long time thinking about the meeting. Mrs. Cortezar had not realized that Leonora was in danger of being suspected of the murder, she thought in wonder. It had been like a thunderbolt, jarring her to the marrow. In control of her expressions and her movements, she had not been able to control the pallor that had swept her.

Chapter 13

That afternoon Barbara went straight to an import shop where she bought gift certificates for Maria's daughters, a few small items and a mammoth clamshell with a pedestal for Frank. "Bird bath," she said under her breath when she spotted it. Ideal. Finished in record time, Christmas shopping done, she wandered through the store toward the exit when she was stopped by a lovely game table, inlaid with white marble and black onyx squares to form a chessboard. Two small drawers on opposite sides held jade and bone chess pieces. She put down a piece that she had been examining and started to move on, but stopped again and returned to look for a price tag. Far too expensive, she decided, and took a few steps away.

"Pretty, isn't it?" a salesman asked.

"It is, and much too awkward to do anything with."

"Oh, the legs are detachable. Actually they're held in place with those decorative nuts and bolts," he said.

Half an hour later, with the clamshell on the backseat of her car, and the boxed game table in her trunk, she drove home. Fog had moved in again, and the streets that had not been cleared were starting to freeze in ridges and dips where slush had been left by traffic. She was cursing under her breath on her own street as her wheels slipped, found traction, slipped again. It wasn't the dangerous slide that had underlain the earlier snow, but still annoying.

"Home, soup, read a novel," she ordered herself, finally parking. The birdbath could stay exactly where it was until Frank took it out himself, and the table was perfectly safe in the trunk, she decided. Carrying the smaller bag, she entered her apartment building.

Darren was sitting on the top step. She stopped moving.

"Hi," he said.

"How did you get in?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"I came to return the key you gave me months ago. You returned mine. Fair's fair." He stood up and stepped back to the landing out of her way.

She climbed the stairs, then hesitated at her door. "Do you want to come in?"

"No. How serious is the trouble you're in? Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shook her head. "I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, twice. There's nothing to be done."

His gaze roved over her face, her eyes, her hair. "I sent you an e-mail. Did you get it? You didn't answer."

"I got it," she said. They were both whispering, neither of them moving. "I didn't know how to answer it."

"It would be a gamble, Barbara, for both of us. I know that. I'll be waiting for your answer." He unlocked her door, turned the knob to release the latch and moved away from it, leaving the key in the lock. He went down the stairs swiftly, without looking back at her.

She pushed the door open with her foot, entered and put down her purse and purchases, then retrieved the key. It was still warm from his hand. She leaned against the door holding the warm key for a long time.

Under her breath, she said, "Stay away from me, Darren. You have to stay away. They'll crucify you." She finally moved away from the door, but the thought persisted — they would crucify him. Dig up his past, juvenile detention camp, sister married to a gangster, father a corrupt police officer. Darren once under suspicion of murder. It would all be rehashed, twisted. She couldn't let him come near her, had to keep him away, out of their sight and she couldn't tell him why, or even hint that there was a reason. /Just stay away/, she willed. /Stay away/.

It had been a long, restless night and she felt grumpy and out of sorts when she mounted the stairs to the office on Friday morning carrying a shopping bag with gifts to be exchanged later that day. Two men were lounging in the hallway outside the office door. She knew one of them slightly, Gary Nichols, a reporter, and she guessed his companion was another reporter.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions," Gary said, straightening up.

"Why not? Who's your pal?"

"Herb Newton, from the /Statesman Journal/, Salem," the second man said promptly.

"Come on in," she said.

"Your secretary wouldn't let us," Gary complained.

"Orders, just following orders. Nothing personal."

She motioned them to follow and opened the door, nodded to Maria, whose lips tightened when she saw them and led the two reporters to her office.

"I'll tell you what I've told the police," she said, taking off her jacket, then sitting at her desk. "Have a seat."

She told them almost exactly what she had already repeated many times, and concluded, "I never spoke to Elizabeth Kurtz until she called for an appointment on the day she was killed. I did not arrange to meet her anywhere ever before that time. I never knew her name until the authorities told me. I don't know who she thought might be watching my office or whom or what she was afraid of. I don't know where the child is. I have no information other than what I've just told you. Period."

They asked a few questions and, as long as they referred to what she had already told them, she answered truthfully, aware that their skepticism persisted. Finally she stood and said, "I think we've covered it. Like you, I'm awaiting developments."

As soon as she had ushered them from the office and closed the door Shelley emerged from her own office. "Maria said you were talking to reporters. Is there something new?"

"Nope. Just getting my own statement out there, for all the good it will do."

"Maybe I'll come in next week," Shelley said. "You know, just in case..."

"I certainly will be on hand " Maria said.

"Nope. Holiday. If they arrest me, Dad will let you know. Then it's time enough to show the flag. Bailey's coming around at about four, and Dad said he'll pop in. Cookies and hot chocolate time, or something." She waved at them and reentered her office.

Wine, booze for Bailey, a tin of cookies that she had picked up, and she knew Maria would bring something to eat. She always did. Party time at four.

She sat at her desk, brooding over Elizabeth Kurtz, who was proving to be a pain in the neck, dead or alive.

And that was how various innocent clients had felt over the years, she realized — helpless and cornered by circumstantial evidence they could not disprove.

She had not yet moved from her desk when Maria buzzed to say that Lt. Janowsky and an FBI agent were in the office and wanted to see her. Barbara said to send them on in, and she got up to open her door for them.

Janowsky might have owned another suit, she thought greeting them, but he seemed to prefer the heavy tweed. His companion was very young looking, with carefully parted dark hair neatly combed, wearing a conservative dark gray suit, white button-down, discreet blue tie, shined shoes. He looked like an insurance auditor.

"Special Agent Gerald Whorf," Janowsky said inclining his head toward the younger man. Barbara did not offer to shake his hand, and he didn't extend his.

Today, instead of the chairs around the low table, Barbara motioned toward her client chairs, and sat behind her desk.

"All right, what now?" she asked. "Do I need my attorney to be present?"

"Of course not," Whorf said. "No, no. I mean, this is informal, just information gathering." He smiled, and looked like a college sophomore trying to con a professor into a higher grade.

She nodded.

"I'd like to hear from you about your various encounters with Elizabeth Kurtz," he said, and drew a notebook from his breast pocket.

She glanced at Janowsky, who had crossed his arms over his chest, and looked patient and somewhat pained. "Don't you guys share information yet?" she asked. "In spite of all the admonitions and warnings?"

"We like to get it firsthand," Whorf said quickly. "If you don't mind."

She shrugged. "Whatever you say." She retold the same story once more.

"You say you were in San Francisco for several weeks before you returned to Oregon," he said when she finished. "Do you mind saying where you stayed there?"

"Agent Whorf, what I did in San Francisco has nothing to do with my encounters with Elizabeth Kurtz. I was on vacation, stayed in a hotel apartment, went to shows, visited museums, had dim sum and rested. Then I headed for home."