A Wrongful Death (19 page)

From across the office Barbara said, "It will take the testimony of Elizabeth Kurtz to establish where they came from."

Soberly Frank nodded. "She's the missing piece in the equation."

"It wasn't going to be enough just to get the research back. She had to be dead, as well," Barbara said. "And now more than ever she has to stay dead."

Chapter 18

Frank had long suspected that over the years during one of the many remodels the offices had undergone Patsy had had a secret closet of her own built in, one that from time to time she visited to bring forth some of her treasures. That day it had yielded a lacquered tray, small plates with cloth napkins, china cups and saucers and a platter on which she had arranged the sandwiches. She had even purloined a red rose from the reception desk and placed it in a cut glass vase.

She put the tray on the low table by the sofa, then said, "That man just got here."

Frank suppressed his smile. "Well, bring him on back. And thank you for the spread." He was very much afraid that Lt. Milt Hoggarth would never rise higher in Patsy's mind than that man.

Frank met Hoggarth at the door and ushered him into the office. "Have a seat, Milt. You're just in time for a late lunch."

Hoggarth stiffened slightly when he saw Barbara on the sofa. She waved a greeting and he nodded without speaking, walked across the office to sit on the edge of one of the easy chairs.

"What's on your mind?" he asked Frank.

"A couple of things. I thought we could clear the air like this, an informal little meeting, save time later on. Chicken salad on wheat?" he asked Barbara. "I think that's yours. And pastrami on rye for you, Milt. I think the pickles go with that one."

"I already had lunch," Hoggarth said, eyeing the sandwiches.

"Call it high tea and have some more," Barbara suggested.

He took a sandwich. "So clear the air," he said to Frank.

"Right. We had a long talk with Leonora Carnero this morning."

Hoggarth, chewing, shook his head. He swallowed the bite then said to Barbara, "You can't defend her. The D. A. will have you tossed off her case."

She smiled. "Lieutenant, every single word I said to you in my office was the absolute truth. No embroidery, nothing left out, just the whole truth. I told you then I don't have a client. I still don't."

His look was openly skeptical. "The whole truth, like always "he said derisively.

"Well, put it this way, as usual."

"I'll represent Leonora Carnero," Frank said.

Hoggarth stopped his motion of taking his sandwich to his mouth. "I thought you were retired."

"Retirement's like a water mirage on the desert," Frank said. "Always just up ahead, never quite in reach. Anyway, the point is that I instructed her not to answer any more questions or make another statement unless I'm on hand. You might as well tell your fellows to come to me directly if they want more from her, and we'll set it up."

"Okay. Frank, why lower your batting score at this stage of life? Why this one? Open and shut, and she proves it with her statement." He jerked his thumb toward Barbara.

"We'll see," Frank said. "Another thing, I want a copy of the statement Ms. Carnero made, for reference. Just to keep us all in the same script, you understand."

After a moment Hoggarth nodded. He had become very watchful, his suspicion almost visibly mounting. "What do you know that we don't?" he asked. "I can't remember a tighter case unless a shooter was videoed pulling the trigger. The only question now is do we bring her in before or after her statement, before or after Christmas?" Again he jerked his thumb toward Barbara as he spoke, keeping his gaze on Frank.

Barbara answered. "We know she didn't do it, Hoggarth. And speaking of my statement, in order to save a little time, I went ahead and made a statement and printed it out for you." She reached for an envelope on the end table by the sofa, withdrew the statement and handed it to him. "I made it quite detailed," she said, "at the risk of its becoming overly long, but I wanted it all down in black and white. Exactly what happened on the two occasions that I encountered a woman later identified by others as Elizabeth Kurtz."

He put on his reading glasses and, holding the sandwich in one hand, eating as he read, he carefully read the statement. It was long. She had made certain to dot every i and to cross every t. Finally he tossed the papers down on the sofa, finished his sandwich and glared at her.

"Clever, but it won't do. We want a real statement, answers to real questions."

She shrugged. "I'm going to ask Patsy to notarize my signature, and that's the only statement you'll get from me. If you want to ask questions, shoot, and we'll add a postscript, but I'm telling you up front I won't answer any questions about what I did in San Francisco because it's irrelevant and none of your business. And I won't be more precise about what I did driving up the coast to Astoria or where I stopped because I can't. I found one receipt for a motel and included that one, but I don't know and won't know the others until I see my credit card statement early next month."

"What's that business, that the woman who called you claimed to be Elizabeth Kurtz? You told us she made that call."

"I misspoke. I should have said that's what she claimed, because I didn't recognize her voice, having never heard her before. All I can swear to is that she claimed to be Elizabeth Kurtz."

He reached for his second sandwich and bit into it as if it were raw meat and he a tiger.

"If you have no questions to add to that, I'll get Patsy to notarize it and make some copies, three I think. One for you,

one for my attorney and one for the press if it becomes necessary.

Hoggarth put down his sandwich and wiped his mouth on the napkin, wiped his hands thoroughly, and, she suspected, counted to ten a number of times while doing so. His voice was even, but mean, when he asked, "What game are you playing this time out? Let's have it all in the open. What are you after?"

"I don't want Leonora arrested and charged with a murder she didn't commit. It's that simple. You know as well as I do that the two attacks are related. The first one didn't kill her, they came back to finish the job. Her computer and printer were all that were taken the first time, no car, no keys, no cash, credit card, nothing else, just the computer and printer and whatever she had printed out. They searched her room again the next time, so they hadn't found it yet. Leonora said Elizabeth was running and hiding from her ex-husband and his mother. You want it all on the table, out in the open, ask them a few questions. Ask Sam Norris whom he called when she was staying in the cabin. He's the caretaker and he knows that's the only cabin over there. He must have seen smoke from the chimney and made a call. Ask him. And he called the Diedricks house after the attack."

"What about a statement for the press? What does that mean?" he asked in the same hostile tone.

"If you arrest her, I go public. They'll have my statement linking the two attacks, and no doubt there will be a lot of questions, which I'll answer on the condition of being quoted as a /usually reliable source/. Carnero was in Manhattan when the first attack happened. Where were the Kurtz crew? Who took those phone calls from Sam Norris? What did Elizabeth Kurtz have that made it necessary to kill her? Why was she running and hiding from her ex-husband and his mother? Lots of speculating to be done, don't you think?"

"Jesus," he said in a low voice, "you're accusing her ex and his mother of murdering her? Leaving the kid to die? You're out of your mind."

She picked up the statement and stood. "Just wondering, Lieutenant. Just wondering. I'll ask Patsy to get out her stamp. You want to witness it?" He didn't move and she walked from the room carrying the papers with her.

"She's out of her mind," Hoggarth repeated and if it was addressed to Frank or himself was not clear. He looked at Frank. "The locals are satisfied that it was a guy she was traveling with at the cabin."

"We're not, and neither are you," Frank said. "Admit it, Milt. You know whoever left her for dead the first time was the one who went back with a £un the next time." He leaned back in his chair and said, "You have to hold Leonora Carnero here, of course. But you can keep her as a material witness, even house arrest if someone over you demands it, but you heard Barbara. If there's a premature arrest and murder charge, she'll go public, and this case will be tried in the media. I know some damn powerful people are applying pressure and there will be more, but we'll fight fire with fire if it comes down to it."

Hoggarth shook his head. "It's the time element, Frank. There's no time for a third person to get in on it."

"Finish your lunch and let's talk about it when Barbara comes back. I think we'll need more coffee." He got up and went out with the carafe.

Frank and Barbara returned together. She handed an envelope to Hoggarth, put a second one on Frank's desk and the third one in her purse. Hoggarth tossed his copy down on the table. Frank poured fresh coffee and when they were all seated again, Barbara said, "Lieutenant, I understand the spot you're in. I've gone around and around with it myself. Let's speculate. What if the murder had already occurred before that phone call to me? A search had already been made, then the call, just to muddy the waters, made it appear that the killer got the address at that time. Since I had never heard Elizabeth Kurtz's voice, there was no way I could tell who was on the phone that day, as I made clear in my statement. The killer could have left seconds before Carnero came on the scene. She has no idea how long she was there, throwing up, panicking, running around trying to find a telephone, the call to Spain. No telling how long that all took. So certainty about time is an illusion. And the two attacks are no longer separate incidents."

"Now you're claiming the tap on your line didn't mean anything," he said in disgust.

"I'm saying I don't know what it meant, or who put it there or when. And neither do you."

She was giving him an out, Frank knew, and he also knew that Hoggarth recognized it as such. Basically he was a good detective, and clearly he was not happy with the two attacks, one successful, one not. How much pressure he was getting from above would be the key. Hoggarth drank some coffee, put his cup down and shook his head.

"The M.E. will shoot it down," he said.

"He won't," Barbara said. "I was there for an hour and he hadn't arrived yet. Another hour? Two more? No medical examiner can pinpoint the exact time of death unless he's there with a watch in his hand. We're talking about a difference of minutes."

"Too many loose ends. What about the boy? Where is he?"

"A separate issue that has nothing to do with Leonora Carnero. Let Janowsky have it. You're in homicide, not abductions. At this stage in an investigation aren't there always loose ends? At any stage that's true."

Before Hoggarth could respond, Frank said in a meditative way, "I'd appreciate seeing the autopsy. If you arrest her, I'll get it eventually, of course. Curious about two shots. Didn't the first one take her out? Barbara said there was a pool of blood around the midsection of the body, and another by her head. Curious."

"Yeah, curious," Hoggarth said. "The first one would have done it soon enough through loss of blood. From across the room, the first shot. The one in the face was close, two feet at the most. From above her. They figure she might have moved some after she hit the floor, the second shot was to make sure."

"Someone stood over her and shot her in the side of the face?" Barbara asked, horrified at the idea. It accounted for the condition of the face she had seen, shattered bones, unrecognizable features and so much blood. It accounted for Elizabeth's hysteria. She had seen that same destruction of her best friend.

Hoggarth stood up, then reached for the envelope with Barbara's statement, and put it in his pocket. "Thanks for the sandwiches. I'm thinking we won't do much until after the holidays. Too damn many sick-leave absences this time of year. Year after year, same thing, guys suddenly get sick along about now." He shook his head and walked to the door with Frank at his side.

When Frank returned after seeing Hoggarth out, Barbara said, "At least that puts it off for now. She won't get fingerprinted and put down in the books as Leonora Carnero."

"We'll see what kind of pressure's being applied. The next few days will be telling. Are you done with all that?" He indicated the tray.

"All done."

Before he could pick it up, there was a tap on the door and Patsy came in. "I'll take that," she said.

Frank called Bailey. "He'll take us home, let Alan bring the Buick later on. Keep it for a getaway car," he said.

He put the copies of the Knowlton material and Barbara's statement in his safe while they waited for Bailey. It wasn't long until they were in the SUV, taking an excessively long time to cover the few blocks to Frank's house, a route he routinely walked.

"Where did you lead the guys?" Barbara asked Bailey.

"Oh, we drifted around the mall parking lot for a time, then wandered over to the Gateway Mall and did some more drifting. I checked out a new subdivision or two. Listened to a replay of the Orson Welles broadcast of the War of the Worlds. At some point I dropped off Alan so he could get his bike. I think that covers the last few hours. Had to stop for gas." He was actually smiling. "No secret about where your dad's office is, and they're behind us now, watching me take you home. Busy day."

She grinned back at him. "Good work."

But in Frank's driveway her grin vanished when she saw Shelley's pretty little red Jaguar with Shelley inside.

Shelley was out and waiting before Bailey got parked. She looked anxious and even afraid, near tears. "Oh, Barbara! Are you all right? What's going on? Why are they doing this to you? There must be something I can do!"

Helplessly Barbara looked at Frank. He shrugged. "Come on in, Shelley." He said it regretfully, afraid that the little pink-and-gold fairy princess would become another target of a smear campaign, but it couldn't be helped. Barbara couldn't hold out on her any more than they could hold out on Bailey.