Cold Case (8 page)

Amy took Barbara back through the house to the study, removed the book and handed the sheet of paper to her. She pointed to the copier. “Help yourself.”

Barbara made the copy and gave the original back to Amy. “Mind if I have a look at the photographs?” she asked. “Is Jill Storey's picture in it?”

“I guess so. She graduated that same year.”

They found Jill Storey's picture and, as Barbara studied it, her reality shifted. Jill was fresh faced, vibrant looking, very pretty. What had been a distant murder of an unknown, faceless young woman became real in a way it hadn't been before. Jill had been laughing, dancing, partying, manic along with the others, and then she was dead. Hardly more than a girl, on the verge of adulthood with her future waiting to unfold, dead at the hands of a killer.

She touched the smiling face gently, and in her head the words formed,
I'm sorry.

Dr. Elders greeted Frank effusively that afternoon. “Come in, come in. I just put on coffee. Will you share a coffee with me?”

“That would be good,” Frank said, looking around the room they had entered. It was handsomely, but overly, furnished with antiques, a beautiful Oriental rug in a royal-blue-and-gold design, heavy, framed portraits on the walls, Tiffany lamps. The room looked as if no one had used it in a lifetime. And even as the thought occurred to him, Dr. Elders motioned for him to come along.

“My study is down this way. More to my liking. I always feel as if I've stumbled into a museum in here.” He laughed and motioned Frank into a smaller room with dark leather-covered chairs, a television, a desk messy with papers, books on tables, overfilled shelves. “Have a seat. I'll bring the coffee. Won't take a minute.”

Frank sat in one of the well-worn chairs and agreed that this was more comfortable, his kind of room. Soon Dr. Elders returned with a tray, and then with coffee in hand, they regarded each other for a moment.

“I guess you want to fill in some details about that morning,” Dr. Elders said. “And I'd like to talk about it. Can't talk really to the family. Too painful for them.”

“Well, we have been trying to get some facts. The investigators have been keeping what they know pretty close to their vests.”

“Yes, they seem to do that, don't they? I was in the kitchen that morning, and I heard the gardener screaming. I hurried over, of course. Chloe had come out to the deck, and she was shaking, almost as if she was paralyzed, except for the tremors. It was a gruesome sight. Robert sprawled halfway out the door, blood, ants all over his head. Streams of ants coming and going. Racing back and forth, frenzied. Revolting and fascinating at the same time. The lady gardener threw up, and she was weeping, wailing really.

“David was already there, using his cell phone. He asked, no, actually he ordered me to take Chloe inside, and he demanded to know where the phone book was. He acted like a master sergeant or ranking officer, barking orders. After he called the police, he called Amy and Lucy. And he told me to snap out of it and make some coffee and to keep out of the family room. As if I had any intention of entering it. He went out to the deck while he was on the phone. Chloe was going on about ants. By then the other two garden workers were there, trying to help the woman who first saw Robert. David went to his own apartment and got a glass of water for the woman. When the police arrived, they told David to get inside and stay there. We all sat down in the kitchen and waited for the homicide investigators.”

“Did you see a gun?” Frank asked.

“Not then. Later, they showed Chloe and me a handgun. It was Robert's, from his desk drawer. He got it when he was a prosecutor and never gave it up. You know he was a prosecutor a few years back?”

“I knew that,” Frank said.

“He was a good one,” Dr. Elders said. “He was a good man, with a brilliant career ahead. A good man. Solid. Good values. He will be missed.”

“You must have known him all his life,” Frank said.

“Oh, yes. We, my wife and I, were already in this house when Mac and Lucy moved in next door. And they turned out to be the kind of neighbors one can only dream of having. Lucy is the most nurturing, caring woman God ever saw fit to put on earth. If there was ever a living saint, she is one.” He drank what coffee was left in his cup and refilled it. “Help yourself,” he said.

Frank was sipping his own from time to time, but it was not very good, and he had no desire to add to it. “You were mentor to some of those young people in the past, weren't you?” he asked.

“Many of them,” Dr. Elders said, nodding. “Robert, Chloe, David, they were all my students at one time.”

“Do you recall the student Jill Storey?”

“Vaguely. It was a long time ago, and she must not have done much to stand out or make an impression. Teaching for many years, as I did, I found that quite often a few students were remarkable for one reason or another, and I remember them, but the vast majority tend to blur together, no more than a number of bodies, papers to grade, tests to give. Of course, when she was murdered, we were all shocked, and I remember that time pretty well. I was at the party that night, Robert's graduation party, the night he and Chloe announced their engagement. Her murder following within hours of the party made me revisit every tidbit I could recall that involved her in any way. Accordingly, my memory of her is confined to that one night.”

“Can you recall whether there appeared to be friction between David and Robert?”

Dr. Elders shook his head. “I never gave that much thought, frankly, but I'd say no. I didn't stay for the entire party, you must understand. I liked to dance in those days, and I enjoyed that part, but when they started talking and someone started playing a guitar, I left. I couldn't say what time it was. And I couldn't say what might have developed after that. But while I was there, I didn't observe any interaction between them at all, with friction or otherwise.”

He shook his head. “I don't believe they were ever friends. In those days Robert was as open and friendly as a pup, playful, and David was…
opaque
might be the correct word. He's one of the students that I remember, you see. Extremely bright, well-read and a rather gifted writer. One never knew exactly what he was thinking. In class and at the seminars he would listen with a skeptical attitude, not expressed exactly, not really hostile, but rather sardonic, almost a mocking attitude, and he argued for inarguably false positions. His written arguments were cogent, well researched and documented, but usually quite wrong, based on false premises. In one that young, it was an untenable position.” He smiled ruefully. “The young tend to be very judgmental, with an unshakable belief in their own judgment, don't they?”

“Often,” Frank said, thinking of how often their judgment proved the correct one.

“That night, the night of the party, I remember that I was struck by his possessive attitude toward Jill. You know how a man can behave when he believes a woman is committed to him, and then suspects that he has been deceived. Possessive, watchful, waiting for proof. Of course, he was involved with Jill Storey. She had a key to his apartment, after all. At a party like that, everyone's flirting with everyone else, not seriously, of course, but rather in youthful high spirits. Robert was flirting with all the young women, and it didn't mean a thing. Especially since he and Chloe had become engaged, and she certainly understood how harmless it was and was not disturbed by it. I'm not at all certain David had the same understanding.”

He was gazing at a shelf of books, but it was as if he were looking into the past, thinking. “I've always wondered if David had just learned that Jill was rumored to have been promiscuous, if he was watching for a sign that it might have been true. For a serious young man, that kind of truth can be devastating, I believe.”

Frank agreed. Learning an unwelcome truth could be devastating for many people. “Did Robert mention why he had that police file, the investigation of Jill Storey's murder?”

Dr. Elders appeared surprised by the question. “It's obvious, isn't it? David reappeared and Robert, with some years of prosecutorial experience behind him, had cause to rethink something that had seemed trivial but suddenly took on importance. He was on to something. He said as much the evening of his death. I was over there, invited to dinner with him and Chloe, and Robert was talking about the case in general terms, and then he said something like,
oh, that's it,
something to that effect. I don't recall his exact words, but I had the impression that something had occurred to him that he had overlooked before.”

“He didn't add anything to that?” Frank asked.

“No. Chloe left for the theater, and he was eager to clear the table and do something. I helped him take things inside, and came home.”

“Did you hear a shot, anything that might have been a shot?”

“No. Most likely I was in here, possibly watching the news, or with the television turned on and waiting for the news.”

“He might have made enemies as a prosecutor. Everyone connected with the law makes enemies,” Frank said. “And these days it seems that many in politics also make fierce enemies. Did he ever speak of any to you?”

“No. He was a conservative, of course, but not a flaming firebrand. Reasoned, reasonable, as tolerant as anyone can be concerning distinctly opposing positions. Not like some in Washington. You know, people who seem to go out of their way to arouse animosity. He was to the right of me, I admit, but I consider myself more of a Goldwater Republican than one of the new breed. Of course,” he added after a brief pause, as if he had only then thought of something, “it could be that he convicted someone who went to prison and just recently was released and wanted revenge.”

The idea appeared to please him. He nodded and repeated it. “Someone who wanted revenge. Another variety of a crime of passion. Generally we think of love, lust, jealousy when we think of crimes of passion, but revenge qualifies, I should think. Since Robert's murder, you see, I've been thinking a good deal about why people kill other people, something that was always abstract until now.”

He settled farther back into his chair, as if preparing for a long conversation. Frank glanced at his watch and said, “Dr. Elders, I've overstayed my time, I'm afraid. Thank you for your comments concerning this business. You've been very helpful, but I really should be on my way.” He put his cup down and stood.

Dr. Elders got up also. “Another time. I'd like to discuss, in a philosophical way, the crime of murder, the question—has the killer ever lost anyone near and dear? Does a killer understand the impact on the survivors? Does he care? Even think about them? If he isn't a psychopath, isn't there a burden of terrible guilt? Dostoyevsky explored the subject, of course, but in a modern context would it be the same? Is it possible that we've become so inured—?”

Frank was walking toward the door as Dr. Elders continued to talk. At the outside door, Frank interrupted to say, “Again, thank you for your time.”

“Sorry,” Dr. Elders said almost sheepishly. “I can understand that you prefer not to talk shop, a sentiment I share when it comes to history, I suppose. Murder is a subject I had never given much thought to, and now I find fascinating. Please, if there is anything I can help with, be of any assistance at all, I am at your service.”

He opened the door. They shook hands, and Frank walked out, feeling that he had escaped just in time. Barbara's car was turning in at the driveway.

Minutes later, in Mekela's Thai restaurant, over steaming green curry, they exchanged information. “We have a new name for Bailey,” Barbara said. “Nick Aaronson. Chloe is gone for a few days, over to Yachats. Aaronson's looking for her, and Amy was as stiff as a board when we got there and he was on the way out. She doesn't care much for Chloe.”

Surprised, Frank asked, “She told you that?”

“Of course not. She's extremely careful how she speaks of Chloe, and that was enough. Also, she was never very close to Robert, and is as far to the left as he was to the right.” She added, “Amy can't believe that Robert had real enemies. She said he was too bland to make enemies.”

There were a few more bits and it was Frank's turn. “You did better than I did. Elders wants to have a philosophical dialogue about murder. He apparently believes that David killed Robert. And it was Robert's own gun, kept in his desk drawer. That raises interesting questions.”

“Boy, does it ever. How many people knew that?”

“Elders said that at dinner that night, Robert seemed to suddenly think of something that was meaningful about Storey's murder. They had been talking about it in general terms, and Robert said something to the effect,
oh, that's it.
”

“What did you make of Elders?” Barbara asked.

“Hard to say. Lonesome, no doubt. Nosy, talkative. I didn't see much of the house, but the living room is like a museum display, heavy and dark, expensive. I think he hates it, but for some reason doesn't change it.”

“His wife had ichthyosis, a bad case,” Barbara said. “She kept the house like a refrigerator, unable to stand any heat. And she hardly ever went outside. She was badly disfigured by her disease and she died about twelve or thirteen years ago. Elders was in the McCrutchen house a lot, more like a relative than a visitor. If there are skeletons, he probably knows which closet to look into and what's in it. But,” she added, “he isn't likely to tell
us.
”