Cold Case (16 page)

Smiling, Barbara and Darren exchanged a look. Todd had found a grandfather, and Frank was playing the role exactly the way he should, and enjoying it.

After his company left that night, Frank sat in his study with the crossword puzzle and thought about the coming weeks. He had his work to do on his book, office work with Patsy. She was checking the footnotes and index, while he was going over the text and restoring his own words and phrases that the copy editor had changed. Damn fool, he thought again, didn't know the difference between
corpus delicti
and
habeas corpus.
And then there was David's defense. He was involved in a way that he seldom was with Barbara's cases. Most often he was on the sidelines this early, and played a bigger role as the court date approached. But he had read David's book. That made the difference. David was taking a stand, and he would have supported that stand if David hadn't had a penny to contribute to his defense.

Darren was taking a stand, too. One that could cost him his position, change his life. Others came to mind. Shelley, beautiful and rich. She could have gone the way of too many celebrities, filled the tabloids with her exploits, but instead she was working hard on behalf of those who had little or nothing. Alex with his pointed political cartoons exposing corruption and deception again and again. And now Todd was standing up.

It gave him hope, he thought, and smiled. It gave him hope.

“O
kay, gang, it's full steam ahead,” Barbara said on Monday morning. “Bailey, everything about Robert McCrutchen you can dig up. His Salem contacts, women, deals involving Aaronson, debts, the whole picture. Same for Aaronson and Chloe McCrutchen. You know the drill.” Bailey scowled and made a note.

Barbara turned to Shelley. “Here's a list of the ones we know stayed at the party late. Specifically, we want to know if there were others, and if any of them saw anything having to do with the confrontation between Robert and David. If any of them knew Jill well enough to shed some light. Skip Nick Aaronson and Chloe. I'm saving them for later. I'd like some names for a few friends of Jill. Again, whatever you can learn. Who saw others leaving? A play-by-play of the final hour of the party. That's for openers,” she said.

“Bailey, we need to get David here by ten on Wednesday for Hoggarth to go at him. And he has to be at the clinic on Friday at two in the afternoon for a session with Darren. However you want to arrange it. Hoggarth will take an hour or more, and same for Darren. Then straight back to the hideout.”

“It's going to take some time,” Bailey grumbled. “Salem's closed for the summer.”

“So fire up your horse and get started,” Barbara said.

His scowl deepened. He drained his coffee cup, heaved himself upright and ambled to the door. “I could have been a plumber, like my old man. No chasing shadows in the summer heat.” He saluted and left.

“Anything else for me?” Shelley asked, more than ready to take on whatever Barbara suggested.

“That's going to be quite enough, I imagine. How's it going at the house?”

“It's great! David and Alex were meant for each other. Talk, talk, talk. Alex has been showing David some of his drawings. You know how unusual that is? For him to show anyone?”

Barbara knew. “It's a tremendous relief that they hit it off. It could have gone either way. I'll take Martin's tomorrow, by the way. Just a couple of things I have to wrap up there, and then we'll have to go to one-a-week specials for a while.”

Shelley left and Barbara went to her desk to sort out her next moves. Frank had skipped that morning meeting, but he would be there on Wednesday. Meanwhile there were several things she wanted to get to. She looked up Brice Knowlton's number and called him.

Many times when she succeeded on someone's behalf, the grateful client had all but begged for a chance to do her a favor. She rarely followed through by asking for one, but now she intended to do just that.

Not only was Brice at home, he even answered his phone. She had feared she would have to leave a message and wait for a call back. After identifying herself, she said, “I wonder if you could do something for me. I don't know if it's against university rules, though.”

“If it is, we'll break them,” he said cheerfully. “What is it?”

“I want transcripts of grades of a student from years ago, especially from her last year. Twenty-two years ago, in fact. Can they be had?”

“Sure. Nothing gets tossed by the university. Whose grades?” Knowlton asked.

“Jill Storey,” she said. “You probably read something about her in the newspaper recently.”

He whistled softly. “McCrutchen's murder. You're involved?”

“In a way,” she said. “I'd really like to see Storey's grades and drain your brain with a few questions if that's all right.”

“You know it is. I'll see what I can do. Twenty-two years ago? I'll call you when I have something.”

She asked how his father was doing, and he was rhapsodic in his response.

Next she called Lucy McCrutchen and asked if she could drop in sometime that day. Lucy suggested one o'clock and that was done.

Routine stuff until her appointment with Lucy, she decided. Lunch after that, and a walk sometime before heading for home.

That day when Amy admitted her to the house, her first question was about David. “Is he okay? I haven't talked to him since he left the clinic.”

“He's fine,” Barbara said. “Haven't you called him?”

“I…I left him a message,” Amy said. “He hasn't called back.” She looked miserable. “Mother's on the deck. She said to bring you out when you got here. Do you want to be alone with her?”

“Not necessarily, unless Elders drops in.”

Amy grimaced. “I told Mother to run him off with a stick, or turn the hose on him. Or something. He's courting her, to use a good old-fashioned phrase, one that suits him just fine.” They walked through the house toward the deck as she spoke.

Barbara laughed. “Your mother struck me as a woman who can handle a situation like that.”

“I think she's being too nice, too patient. He's a goddamn pest,” Amy said.

They went out through the kitchen. Lucy, like Amy, was in shorts and a T-shirt. Her broad-brimmed hat and gloves were on the table. She had a nice sun glow on her face and her legs and arms were showing a tan. A sweating pitcher and glasses were on the table.

She waved Barbara toward a chair. “Lemonade,” she said. “Please, help yourself.”

Barbara and Amy sat down and Amy poured lemonade into two glasses, passed one to Barbara.

“You've put a lot of plants on the deck over there, haven't you?” Barbara said, motioning toward the far end where the deck extended to the end of the house.

“That's how I always kept it in the summer,” Lucy said. “Plants inside for the winter, out here for the summer. They like it. The contractor thought I was crazy when I told him I wanted the deck to extend out to the end like that. He said it was wasted space, we'd never use it. And it made for more unusable space from there to the fence line, just eight feet, like an alley. He was wrong. I knew what I wanted it for. It's plenty wide for the plants, and for me to tend them. And I put heather and hellebore in what he called the alley, with stepping stones to get through the growth. It all worked exactly how I wanted it.”

Barbara nodded, less interested in what plants liked than she was in getting a question or two answered. “Mrs. McCrutchen, you know I'm representing David Etheridge. I expect him to be charged with the murder of your son, and I don't believe he did it, but it's an awkward position for both of us for me to be asking you to help. I appreciate that.”

“I want to help,” Lucy said. “Like you, I don't believe David did it. What can I tell you?”

“I'm trying to fill in blanks for the night of the graduation party held here. I have a list of those who were last to leave, but it isn't complete. I'm hoping you'll be able to help finish it.”

Lucy looked woeful. “You have to understand that I didn't know a lot of those youngsters. Some had attended the seminars and I had met them previously, but there were many more that I'd never met before that night and their names were gone almost as fast as I heard them. Let me see the list and I'll try, but I doubt I can be of real use.”

Barbara handed her the list, and watched her ponder each name, then move on.

Lucy returned the list, shaking her head. “I'm sorry, I can't add to it. There are some there that I had never met before, and I couldn't even have put their names forward. I know Jill was still here. I recall that she had been to a few of the seminars, not many, and how ill she had appeared to be. That night she seemed almost feverish, overexcited in the way that people often become after being so ill. The poor girl was so thin, I was afraid she was overdoing it.”

Barbara put the list back in her purse. “Thank you for trying,” she said. “In trying to complete the party list, I saw that Dr. Elders's name was missing. Was he an invited guest?”

“No, not formally invited, if that's what you mean. I invited him to come over and join us for dinner and to take a plate home for his wife. Well, he loved to dance, and he enjoyed the young people, so he returned to join in when they started dancing. He left when they stopped. He came to the living room to thank me for letting him stay, and he was drenched. Maybe he hadn't danced that much in years.”

“Well, it was worth a try,” Barbara said. She drank the rest of the lemonade and stood. “Thank you for letting me intrude on you again.”

“I wish I could have helped,” Lucy said. “If you have anything else to ask, please don't hesitate to do so.”

Amy went back out with Barbara and, at the front door, she said in a low voice, “You really think they'll charge him with Robert's murder, don't you?”

“Yes, I really do.”

Amy glanced behind her, then said, “I have to tell you something.”

“Come to lunch,” Barbara said. “We can talk.”

“Wait a minute. I'll put on a skirt and tell Mother I'm leaving.” She hurried away and returned very quickly, buttoning a wraparound skirt over her shorts. “Okay. There's a little place not far from here, The Grill. On Franklin.”

It was a student hangout in the school season, but practically empty that afternoon. In a booth, they both ordered, and Amy toyed with her silverware and napkin while they waited for salads to be delivered.

Barbara did nothing to hurry her. Amy was too nervous to add to her anxiety. Then, with their lunches in place, Amy left hers untouched, leaned forward and said in a low, intense voice, “That night, the night of the party, I told you how Greta and I were sent up to my room. But I didn't stay. I couldn't go to sleep. Too wound up or something. I put my clothes back on and went downstairs, out to the backyard. I looked in the windows to the family room and saw everyone gathered by the piano, and then I sat in the grass by the dogwood tree. Daydreaming, making up fantasies, just thinking. Jill came out…” She told it all exactly as she remembered, leaving out only the part that included her mother.

Barbara forgot her salad as she listened. “You're sure those were her words, that they disgusted her?”

“Yes. I didn't attach any particular meaning to them then, but after I learned a little, grew up a little, I realized that I think she meant she was a lesbian. And she was disgusted by what she had done and by men in general. It wasn't just her words, it was the way she said it,” Amy said.

“Good God!” Barbara said. “Have you mentioned this to anyone? Did you ever talk about it to anyone? The police investigators?”

Amy shook her head. “Never. No one ever asked me a question. You know, I was supposed to be in bed. But David must know it. Growing up close to her, he must know it. And he never told, either.”

“Could anyone else have heard what happened out there?”

“I'm sure not. They were at the end of the deck. I'll show you.” She groped in her purse for a pen and notebook.

Barbara brought out her list and turned the paper over. “Show me here,” she said, then watched Amy draw strong, unwavering lines of the deck, the family room, kitchen. Her architectural training was evident in the sure way she depicted the area, all to scale.

“I was here, fifteen feet from the end of the deck,” Amy said, and drew a wavy arc for the tree. “They stood at the end of the deck, here. The windows are stationary, thermal pane. The door to the family room opens to the main deck, and people were at the far end of the room, near the piano. The family room is twenty-six feet in length. They were all too far away, and the window wall's a sound barrier. They couldn't have heard a thing.”

“Could anyone have come to the near end of the room without your noticing?”

Amy shook her head. “There were plants on the deck, low, like now, but anyone moving around in there would have been visible.”

“The deck would be like a sounding board,” Barbara said, studying the drawing. “And you're sure no one saw you?”

“I'm sure. I was being careful to avoid Robert after he caught us getting beer.”

“Amy, why would he have been pursuing Jill on the same night that he announced his engagement to Chloe?” Barbara said.

Amy ducked her head. “Remember, I was just fourteen and no one tells you anything at that age. I think twenty-some years ago kids that age were a lot more ignorant than they are today. Anyway, they got engaged, and married in June, and in December Chloe had an eight-pound baby. I don't think Robert cared a thing about her, and I'm almost sure she never cared for him.”

Barbara leaned back and let out a long breath. Two bombshells in a row. “They were married for twenty-two years! Why?”

Amy shrugged. “I don't know. We never were close. Robert was away at law school, then I was away at school, and when I was home for the summers, they were always busy. Age difference, different lives, interests. I got to know Travis, their son, a lot better than I ever got to know Chloe. After I got the job in Portland, I never saw them. Just at holidays and birthdays, never to really talk to her.”

Barbara took a bite of her neglected salad and after a moment Amy began to eat hers, but she clearly was not interested in food. She leaned forward again. “But you can see that, no matter what, David didn't have a reason to kill Robert. He knew about Jill. That night, he was like a brother, that's all. No love interest, no sexual interest, no raging jealousy, just friends. It didn't matter if Robert had that file. Nothing in it could have hurt David.”