A Wrongful Death (32 page)

"It's the district attorney, isn't it?" Frank said. "He likes the case he has and doesn't want trouble."

"He's going to ask me why I was there without a search warrant, who tipped me off, and when I tell him, he's going to blow." He was speaking as if Barbara were not even in the room. His expression was grim and hard. "He wants that deposition, and he intends to charge her with obstruction, misleading and false statements and withholding evidence in a capital case. And she did all of that. She's lied to us from the start. A tip from someone involved, with a possible criminal charge pending, would be tossed out, and whatever it led to would be tossed with it. That's how the game is played. If Sarah Kurtz had had the gun, if she had confessed when we stopped her, it would be different, but she stonewalled and her story is better than hers." He barely glanced at Barbara as he said this.

"I told you I haven't lied!" Barbara said hotly. "I haven't!"

Before she could continue, Hoggarth finally looked directly at her, wrathful and hostile, all but quivering in his anger. "You spent time with Elizabeth Kurtz. That tape proves it or else it's as phony as everything else you've been telling us. Who's going to trust your word about anything else you have to say, or any evidence you claim is valid? Not the DA, and frankly not me, either. Your name is mud, and your word is shit."

"Lieutenant, are you really off duty?" Barbara asked. "I assume you are, but the real question is if you learn something when you're off duty, what is your responsibility regarding it?"

His eyes narrowed even further and he shook his head. "That's a goddamn dumb question, and you know it."

"It's a pity," she said. "It means I can't tell you what I know and it will have to wait for the DA. I'd rather have it out with you first."

"Jesus Christ! You want to make a deal with me? You're out of your mind! I wouldn't trust you to hold my coat at this point."

"Let's try a different question," Frank said. "Tomorrow, Saturday, is New Year's Eve, and of course Sunday is a holiday, and so is Monday. I imagine the district attorney's office will be closed until Tuesday, isn't that right?"

"Yeah. You know it. So?"

Frank and Barbara exchanged a look and she nodded. "Excuse me a second," she said. She went upstairs and retrieved her tape player and the tape, which she had not rewound yet. When she returned with it, she said, "You heard the first of two parts, Hoggarth. Let me play the second part for you."

It picked up where it had left off, and Elizabeth's voice was clear and firm as she continued. "After my hair was cut, and with a permanent, my eyelashes trimmed short, I thought no one looking for a woman with long dark hair, traveling with a small child would give me a glance. I came to Eugene and rented the apartment on Eighteenth. I called Leonora..."

After listening for a minute or two, Hoggarth carefully put his glass on the table. He was leaning forward, both hands now clasping the arms of his chair in a white-knuckled grip as Elizabeth voiced her fears, and the reasons for her deception, and her first meeting with Barbara.

After she told the date, and read the newspaper headlines, the tape was finished. Barbara turned it off.

"I don't believe a word of it," Hoggarth said in a strangled voice.

"Believe, Hoggarth. Believe," Barbara said fiercely. "She was terrified. She had every reason to believe that if it were known she was still alive that she would not live for twenty-four hours. And she saw Leonora's face. She fell apart. Her hysteria was real and by the time she was rational again, she was convinced that her only chance was to play it out as Leonora, never imagining that as Leonora she would be the prime suspect for murder."

"Jesus Christ!" he muttered. He reached for the carafe and poured coffee, added sugar, then apparently forgot it. "How long have you been sitting on that?"

"I met her last week," Barbara said, "after she gave her signed statement, and I've been running at a dead heat ever since." Swiftly she went through her reasoning about Elizabeth's identity. Then she said, "A paid assassin would have had no reason to destroy her face like that. A clean shot in the head would have been plenty. Whoever fired that second shot did it out of hatred, pure, blind, irrational hatred. When it began to make sense I went over to talk to her. And I left with the key to that storage locker in Las Vegas."

She told the rest of it and Hoggarth's expression gradually changed from hostility and disbelief to doubt, and finally to acceptance and anger.

"Her mother went along with it! Misidentified the body! Jesus!"

"Neither of them even considered that she, as Leonora, would be suspected of murder. They both thought it was the only way to keep her safe."

"And you let her go on with the lie."

"How many resources does it take to safeguard a witness? Do you have those resources? She wouldn't have lasted a day,

that's the reality. Not with so much money at stake. Sarah brought it home. One percent of a billion dollars is ten million! Maybe Sarah's insane, maybe not. I think she is, but maybe she's just driven by hated and greed, but whatever it is, she's fearless and ruthless, and determined to get that sale. You heard them. Her brother and Terry played cards with the brother's kids. Clampton set up the table and found the cards on Thanksgiving, and she claimed she was alone in the guest house from Wednesday until called to dinner on Thursday. She's intelligent. That was a good recovery tonight, fast thinking, enough to send you packing. Anyway, we are all agreed that before an arrest, Elizabeth will have to tell the truth."

"Where is she?"

"In safekeeping. We'll bring her with us on Tuesday. Until

Sarah's in custody, or Tuesday, whichever comes first, Elizabeth's under wraps. We don't want a premature arrest. God knows it's complicated enough without that."

"I told you I wouldn't move on her until next week," he said roughly.

"And I believe you," Frank put in. "We both do, but there are others over you, and a lot of persuasion going on, a lot of pressure being applied. We have no reason to trust those others."

"You know what's going to happen," Hoggarth said. "Kurtz will bring in a flock of lawyers who know every dodge invented by man to keep their client out of jail. It could be years, or never, before there's a trial, even if we did have any evidence, and we don't. It's going to be a whole new investigation, maybe even an accusation against Elizabeth Kurtz, the only one who knew Carnero was in town. Maybe they really were fighting over the kid, jealousy, even those research papers. It's a goddamn fucking mess! You'll come clean on Tuesday, then what?"

"Maybe things will move a little faster than that," Barbara said, leveling a steady gaze at him. "I had a long talk with Gary Swarthmore last night. More insurance, you might say. I wanted to know what shape Henry Diedricks is really in. And he told me. This morning Alan McCagno delivered one of those receivers to Swarthmore and he and Diedricks heard every word said in that conference room. I asked him to make sure Dr. Diedricks remained in his room throughout, and he did."

"Jesus, he's old. Senile, demented. Kurtz has power of attorney concerning him. What was that for?"

"He's old, but not demented, and maybe senile in body, but not in his mind or his spirit, according to Swarthmore. Sarah never had power of attorney. As a vice president of the company, Joseph Kurtz had it in order to make corporate decisions when Diedricks was thought to be on his deathbed, but it died along with Joseph Kurtz."

Hoggarth ran his hand over his scalp and turned to Frank. "At his age, if he goes to sleep and doesn't wake up, who's going to ask questions? Do you realize what she's done?"

"I know what I've done," Barbara said. "Starting today Swarthmore is training an assistant to replace him in order to take a little vacation in a couple of weeks. Alan will make a good assistant, and he'll be there overnight for a while."

"What are you expecting to happen?" Hoggarth demanded, getting to his feet, glaring at her.

"Maybe nothing. Maybe the last act of an ongoing drama. Maybe a final nudge to someone teetering on the edge."

Chapter 30

"Happy New Year's Eve," Frank said when Barbara joined him for breakfast the next morning.

"And to you, Happy New Year. I made a resolution already. And since I don't believe it gets zapped if you say what it is, I'll tell you. I resolve to lead a calm, quiet, sane life for all of next year, maybe take up knitting, although that's still in the possibility column, not in the must do one."

Frank laughed. "And I intend to wrap up that book and be done with it." He turned to the stove. "The difference is that I'll keep mine."

"Oh, ye of little faith. After breakfast I guess I'd better take a run out to Shelley's house and collect Elizabeth. Let's not leave her alone tonight, okay?"

"Absolutely. I'll put a bottle of champagne in the fridge." When she called Shelley, however, a different plan was proposed. It sounded suspiciously rehearsed. "What we thought we might do ," Shelley said, "is ask you and your dad to come out for dinner, have a teeny party here, and put you up for the night. Alex found a wonderful surprise up in the woods. I'm dying to show you. And we want to keep Elizabeth."

Frank shook his head at the idea. "As I said, I stopped leaving the house on New Year's Eve. You go."

When Barbara relayed this to Shelley, her script had an answer prepared. "Okay, but he has to come to dinner tomorrow. A good-luck dinner with black-eyed peas, collards and pork. I guess ham qualifies. Alex wants to show off his newest skill — bread making. He makes champion breads!"

It was a perfect day, she thought later. Shelley and Alex's house was a sprawling ranch house with wings going off this way and that, a mammoth fireplace in the living room with a good fire, Alex's art everywhere and books on every table. The watchdog sprawled in front of the fire, pretending to sleep, but his ears twitched now and then, making it clear that he was working. Periodically he stood, stretched and padded out his dog door. All he needed was a time clock, and a card to punch to prove he was on the job. When he returned, he rolled on his own rug by the fire, then sprawled again. A drenching rain precluded the walk in the woods, but the following day promised to be clear and not too cold. Today, Shelley had said, she and Elizabeth were making dinner, and the next day Dr. Minnick and Alex would take over.

"And I'll happily keep out of the way and watch," Barbara said. As she unwound late that afternoon, she thought this was the kind of life real people should lead — peaceful, calm, good company.

Almost as if echoing her thoughts, Elizabeth said, "Mother's house was always like this. No one ever rushed, or raised a voice. Leonora and I would take Jason and go stay for weeks at a time in the summer, to Spain, I mean, and just sort of fall apart, we'd relax so completely. You get into a different kind of pattern living in New York City. You forget how it can be."

Dr. Minnick was eyeing Elizabeth curiously, and Alex started to say something, glanced at Shelley as if questioning her, and remained quiet.

Barbara sighed and said, "You heard it right. This is Elizabeth Kurtz, not Leonora."

Elizabeth looked stricken. "It's all right," Barbara said. "Family secrets are safe here. But I guess a little explanation is due."

She explained, and when she finished, Dr. Minnick said thoughtfully to Elizabeth, "Your reaction was classic, what you called turning to ice, when you became dissociated. That's a shock reaction, followed by hysteria. Your survival instinct was in charge. Possibly nothing else you could have done or said would have kept you from blurting the truth of the matter and, as you know, you would have been at extreme risk. Interesting. That survival instinct is a poorly understood mechanism. What part of your brain knew that was your most expedient behavior?" He shook his head. "So many mysteries, so very many mysteries."

"What happened at that meeting up there yesterday?" Elizabeth asked.

Barbara hesitated only a moment, then told about playing Elizabeth's tape and her own demands and Sarah's reaction afterward. She finished by reporting what Hoggarth had said later.

"But they've gone to trial with a lot less than that," Shelley said in near disbelief.

"It's political," Barbara said. "Money, politics, influence, they're all being brought to bear. All the DA knows, remember, is the case against Leonora, and that's pretty solid, even airtight." She looked at Dr. Minnick. "I keep wondering if Sarah Kurtz is insane, or lapses into insanity now and then. Can people do that? Go in and out of insanity?"

"There's little about behavior you could suggest that people can't do," he said. "From what you said, it sounds as if the possible loss of that much money may be overwhelming. But clinically insane? That requires tests, evaluations, observation. There are certain criteria we use, you understand, and she may or may not meet them. Enraged, certainly, and determined to do everything within her power to prevent that financial loss. Her survival skills seem to be working to allow her to avoid the trap you set, and the private investigators, her reason for hiring them, and so on. That kind of quick thinking, seemingly rational explanations, sometimes go with insanity, of course, but can she tell right from wrong? Can she control her impulses? That would determine insanity, not just acting out of greed. Our mental institutions would be overflowing if that were the sole criterion."

Dinner was a cassoulet with duck and small white beans, salad that had artichoke hearts, avocados, scallions and dried cranberries, topped with a sprinkling of roasted sunflower seeds. Alex proved Shelley's claim — he provided a warm, coarse dark bread that was perfect for the meal. Barbara didn't even try to guess how Shelley and Elizabeth had managed to prepare a meal when it had seemed they were never in the kitchen for more than a few minutes at a time. She had stopped questioning kitchen magic a long time ago, and had no intention of starting again.

They played Scrabble and Elizabeth won. "Not fair," Shelley said. "You're an editor. You know words that haven't even been invented. Again."