A Wrongful Death (24 page)

"Thank you," Barbara said, and watched him as he walked to the door and out. She knew what was different, she thought. He looked like a man with a guilty conscience, but more like a man who had lost something irretrievable and regretted it bitterly. And she knew that he must never come face-to-face with Elizabeth, no matter what she called herself. Even with her eyelashes blunt and stubby, she still had those beautiful eyes that haunted her ex-husband.

Chapter 22

Barbara was telling Frank about her time spent with Elizabeth when Bailey and Shelley arrived. She gave Shelley a big hug.

"I promised myself not to start worrying until four-thirty," she said. "You saved me from another pray hair." It was twenty after four.

Shelley laughed. "It was a picnic, sort of. Alan told me funny stories, and it's a beautiful drive. Mr. Norris was suspicious at first, but his wife said for me to come in and get warm and have a cup of hot chocolate, and I did."

Frank grinned. Everyone wanted to give her hot chocolate or candy or something. "Shelley, do you want coffee, wine, anything?"

She had coffee and Barbara wine. Bailey held out for his usual bourbon. They took their drinks to the living room where Frank poked the fire, and they arranged themselves on chairs and the sofa. Cats immediately chose laps.

Shelley drew in a breath, then said, "Not only did Norris see smoke on Tuesday that week, but someone from the village beyond the stacks at the beach saw Elizabeth and the child and congratulated him for landing some winter tenants." Shelley looked and sounded triumphant. "And sure enough he called the main house and left a message about them on the voice mail. No one called back about it, and he let it go at that. He had done his duty. On Thursday, the deputies dropped in and talked about the attack a little, asked a few more questions and after he ate Thanksgiving dinner, he called the house again and left another message, about the attack this time. This time a man named Lon Clampton called back within half an hour, he said. He had a lot of questions, none of which Mr. Norris could answer. What did she look like? Was she alone? Things like that. And since he hadn't seen her himself and he just had your description, he told Clampton about you, who you were and told him what you had said about Elizabeth."

"Well, it appears that Mr. Norris can talk after all," Barbara said dryly. "Did he also tell you what the deputies had to say when they dropped in?"

"He didn't, but Mrs. Norris did. She said they thought they had it all figured out. They gave up the idea of a cougar attack early on, then they gave up the passing vagrant idea." She shook her head. "Alan and I drove over there after we left the Norrises, and to have considered a passing vagrant in the first place was more than a little insane. Anyway, they gave it up. What they settled on was that Elizabeth had a man with her all along. He beat her up, and left her in the rain to teach her a lesson while he started to load the car. Mrs. Norris said one of the deputies told her they do things like that to their women."

Barbara made a rude sound and Shelley said, "I second that. Anyway, he heard you coming and hid, and as soon as you were gone, he finished loading the car and they all took off."

"Did they mention the child? What he was up to, running down to the beach for help?"

"They said that kids like that are afraid of the men their mothers pick up, and of course he tried to run away from him. It's natural."

"All neat and done with," Barbara said. "Now it can be shelved and forgotten. Assholes!"

She thought for a few seconds, then asked, "Did they tell you anything about Lon Clampton, why he was he one who called back?"

"Not Mr. Norris. He remembered that he had things do to somewhere else, but his wife talked a lot," Shelley said. "It seems that all decisions come from Clampton. For instance, some years back, after Dr. Diedricks had the accident, Mr. Norris didn't know what to do about the cabin. Turn off the electricity, keep firewood stacked, just general caretaker kinds of things. He couldn't get through to anyone but Clampton, who gave him orders to keep the electricity turned on, keep brush cut back, firewood and so on. Clampton said they'd get in touch if the orders were changed. No one ever called back to change anything, so he went on doing what he had always done, and every month a check came along. Not much, Mrs. Norris said, but a little and it helped out."

She sipped her coffee, then said, "Mrs. Norris said it seemed funny to her that they never laid eyes on Lon Clampton, yet he seemed to be in charge, and even signed the checks. It seemed a terrible waste to her to keep up a cabin that no one ever used. She's convinced that Dr. Diedricks intends to come back some day, maybe to die there. And they keep it up exactly as if they expect that to happen."

Barbara thought of a sick cat crawling off to die in a secret place. Quickly then she recounted her day, the newspaper article, shopping with Elizabeth. "She brought up Lon Clamp-ton's name, too. Apparently he's a majordomo up there and runs things generally. But the most interesting part of my day was later when I met with Terry Kurtz." She told them about that meeting. "I don't know what to make of him yet. Two different stories about his relationship with Elizabeth and each time he appeared sincere. Back burner for now. Elizabeth said he hated Lon Clampton and used to be afraid of him."

Frank turned to Bailey to ask, "Do you have the information about the original financial backers of the corporation, possible heirs?"

"Three investors in the beginning," Bailey said. "Five percent of the company each. One sold his share back years ago, and there are five living heirs of the other two. One in Austin, Texas, one in Tucson, one a rancher in Harney County, a librarian at Oregon State University, and a doctor in Vancouver, Washington. None of them has a thing to do with the company except collect their share of profits. Full report," he said, reaching into his duffel bag to retrieve a folder. "It will take more digging to find out where they all were on the days of the attacks."

"Well, there haven't been any profits for the past seven years until recently," Frank said. "They bought a building to remodel for corporate headquarters in Manhattan, and built a production plant in New Jersey, and went into debt to do it. Since the Iraq war they've landed a big government contract and business has picked up, but it was a dry spell for quite a while."

"They seem to live pretty high for a profitless corporation," Barbara commented.

"Good salaries," Frank said. "One of the reasons profits are scant."

"Isn't that interesting?" Barbara said. "Sarah isn't employed by the company and never was. Joe was the money earner in the family. And her father keeps hanging in there, so she doesn't inherit, either. How will she keep up her expensive habits? Insurance? A company death benefit plan? I think if I were Dr. Diedricks along about now I'd want a food taster."

Frank frowned at her and Bailey looked shocked. She grinned.

"One more thing " Frank said. "We've been thinking of a sale in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but that's perhaps too modest. Think instead of a billion dollars. Apparently futurists foresee a growing need for prosthetics."

"Bionic man and woman, here we come," Barbara said after a moment. She found that she could not comprehend what was really meant by a billion dollars. She turned to Shelley. "One last to impart. Our meeting with the Knowltons, father and son."

"You think he'll go back with the first attorneys?" Shelley asked when Barbara finished describing the meeting.

"I hope so. It would simplify things just a little." Then, looking at Bailey, she added, "I also think that sooner or later we're going to have another security problem, as soon as, or if, anyone realizes how far we've gone with that research material, and that Dr. Knowlton is now engaged in it."

He scowled. "He needs a safe house. No way to keep him secure in that retirement community."

"Maybe it will come to that."

"Well " Frank said getting to his feet, "if that concludes this impromptu briefing, I'll go start some dinner. Shelley, join us?"

She dimpled and shook her head. "It's been a long day. I'd better get on home. Alex has been acting so mysterious, hiding something and I want to catch him at it before whatever it is gets all wrapped up."

"She," Frank said, jabbing a finger toward Barbara, "never waited for Christmas until she was grown up. Guess you haven't reached that point yet."

Shelley laughed. "Guess not. It's big, whatever it is, and not a pony. He wouldn't try to keep a pony in the house." She did not sound certain about it.

She left with Bailey soon after that and Frank went to the kitchen. Barbara continued to sit by the fire and in her mind's eye she was again seeing that haunted look in Terry Kurtz's eyes. A guilty conscience could account for it, she brooded, especially if he had shot his ex-wife in the face. Or he could have come to know too late that he still loved her, that he had thrown her away and now she was gone forever. Or he could be thinking of an unimaginable fortune slipping out of his grasp.

However that turned out, what his visit implied was that he continued to believe that she and Elizabeth had in fact talked and that she knew where Jason was. And now, believing Elizabeth was dead, he and his bunch might also believe that Barbara was the only active player. They knew she had flown to Las Vegas and mailed something from there. Possibly they were puzzled about her intentions and they must wonder if she knew the real significance of those papers.

If they believed she and Elizabeth had met and talked, that she had taken Elizabeth as a client, then they also believed that she had lied about it to them and to the police. Such a talk would have had to have taken place at the cabin, or during the period after Elizabeth fled and vanished for more than a week following the first attack. Barbara assumed that they knew whatever the police did, that Elizabeth had spent five days at the shelter, but that still left several days when she and Barbara could have met before Barbara returned to Eugene. There had not been any time when their spies were not on the job after her return. And if they believed she had lied about that, they were no doubt considering that she might be holding out for an offer, that she might resort to extortion or might be investigating the actual worth of what she had in order to cut a deal.

They were as much in the dark about what she knew, what she had, where the research material was, as she was about putting a name on that unknown they. She nodded to herself. It was something to keep in mind.

She went upstairs to her makeshift office and using her laptop she went into Google Maps and located the Diedricks property, then made a printout of the map. Taking it and an Oregon road map she entered the dining room to spread them both on the table, but she stopped moving when she saw the flowers on the table.

Inexplicably the image of Terry Kurtz's haunted eyes came to mind as she gazed at the flowers, and her thought that he had thrown Elizabeth away and she was lost forever. Darren's e-mail rose in her mind.

"I haven't thrown him away" she said under her breath. "I haven't." Abruptly she left the dining room, still carrying her maps.

"Want to see something interesting?" she said to Frank after dinner. "A Google map of the Diedricks property. People kept saying it's up in Portland, but it really isn't. It's twenty-five miles southwest of the city in the hills, and the R&D section is in town."

She put the two maps on the kitchen table and pointed. "This is the guesthouse where Knowlton said they worked and that Sarah said she and her husband had lived in for years."

The map was excellent, all three residences very clear, the driveway to the guesthouse, the lake and bathhouse with walkways leading to them and the main house, all well separated, landscaped around each building, and the rest of the property covered with trees.

"The interesting part," Barbara said then, indicating the road map, "is that it would take only a few minutes to get to I-5, and from there to Eugene and points south is freeway driving and fast. An hour and a half at most to get to Eugene, probably less when traffic's light." She traced the highway with her finger as she said, "And then another three hours to get to the cabin. Elizabeth was attacked between one and one-thirty, I think. It was about two when I got there."

Slowly Frank nodded. He knew it could be a mistake, but they were both assuming that someone from the Diedricks house had taken that drive in November.

He also assumed that whoever had shot Leonora to death thinking she was Elizabeth would not hesitate to kill anyone else who might stand in the way of a billion dollar deal.

Chapter 23

Elizabeth arrived before noon the following day, looking anxious and nervous. Barbara took her raincoat and led her straight to Frank's office. "All yours," she said, pointing to the telephone on his desk. "Take as long as you want."

Elizabeth emerged forty minutes later with traces of tears on her cheeks. But she was smiling. "They'll spoil him to death," she said softly. "He said Grandpa Ferdy let him ride a horse, but it wouldn't run. And Grandpa said he would buy him a pony, and he intends to teach it how to run." She laughed. "He asked me when I was going to come home and I said I had to finish some work first, and he said okay. I was afraid he'd be upset. Mother and Fernando will see to it that he doesn't get upset over anything. I should have known better."

She looked at Frank and asked, "Is there anything I can do to help out? Earn my dinner?"

He shook his head. "Both of you, out of the kitchen. Why don't you go somewhere and have lunch?"

"He knows I'm a kitchen klutz," Barbara said, "and I think he believes most females are at heart. I want to pick up a centerpiece for the table. Let's head to the Fifth Street Market."

"What's the matter with those flowers on the table?" Frank asked. "I thought we'd use them."

"Too big, too much, too high. We wouldn't be able to see one another."

"Can I have a look?" Elizabeth asked. "Maybe I can arrange something smaller with them."