Death Qualified (12 page)

    As she read, she put the papers on the floor; absently she pulled a legal pad onto her lap and made a note. Her father had highlighted, or annotated, remarks, statements here and there; she paid close attention to those sections.

    When she came to a statement made by John Kendricks, the father of the victim, she stopped. Lucas hadn't known about the birth of his daughter? And she was now six!

    She wrote: Where was he? Prison? Institution? Out of the country?

    Abruptly she stopped writing to examine the pencil she had found on the table, a mechanical pencil with very fine lead, the kind she had always used. She had bought them by the carton and routinely lost them. For a second or two her vision blurred with tears; then she threw the pencil as hard as she could across the room. She got up, dumping the note pad and the rest of the newspapers onto the floor, went to the bathroom, and began to run hot water for a bath. And then bed, she told herself. Damn him!

    TEN

    her father was on the terrace having coffee the next morning when she joined him. He peered at her over his glasses, nodded, and motioned toward the thermos carafe.

    "Help yourself. I'll rustle up some breakfast pretty soon."

    As she poured, he said, "You know, after your mother died, I couldn't sleep worth a damn in that house in town.

    I began coming out here on Friday afternoon, stayed 'til Sunday, and slept like a baby. Soon's I could manage it, I just came out, period. Remember the first afternoon, though. Dog tired, just plain dog tired, and I stretched out here on this chair, dozed off, and woke up to morning.

    Cold, stiff, sore. But it felt good, really felt fine."

    "You never mentioned having trouble," she said.

    "Why didn't you tell me?" Even as she asked, she wondered when he could have confided. That had been a bad year, no time for confidences. At the end of the year she had fled in body, although she had fled in spirit months before the actual deed.

    "For what purpose?" Frank asked reasonably.

    "You couldn't have put me to sleep. Pills helped for a time, but I didn't like having wool, steel wool, in my head all day afterward. Nope, I got to thinking about it after I moved on out, and I have a theory. There's a soporific in air that's filtered through trees. Maybe just fir trees. It's going to need a lot of research to narrow it down and find out if it's specific to firs, or if all trees do it. Tried to interest a chemist down at the university, but he laughed at me. Figure when I have time, I'll have to bone up on chemistry, physiology, what else? When I have time I'll do the re search myself."

    "Biochemistry," she said after a moment and was surprised to hear a huskiness in her voice that was strange to her ears.

    "Psychology, just in case the effect is psycho somatic, not physical."

    He looked thoughtful, then nodded slowly.

    "Never even thought of that. You suppose it could all be in my head?"

    "No, Dad, I don't. Tell me what you like for breakfast these days. I'm pretty good with anything to do with eggs."

    She made their breakfast, and as they ate they watched small boats leaving the dock area at Turner's Point, watched two teenage boys return with a string of fish, laughing. This morning the river was clear, light blue. "What I usually do after breakfast is walk down to the point and pick up newspapers, chat a bit, walk home.

    Want to take a walk?"

    "How far?"

    "Mile each way, or thereabouts."

    She thought of the long drive she was starting that day, thought of a motel at the end of the day's drive, the heat as soon as she left the mountains again. And, she thought, she had no schedule, no appointments, no one expecting her, no reason to be anywhere at any particular time.

    "Sure. Let's shove this stun" in the sink. I'll deal with it later."

    They walked on the gravel road that was private, maintained by the half dozen property owners who fronted it.

    He pointed out the houses they passed, although from the road not a single one of them was visible.

    "Chuck Gilmore," he said at the one next to his.

    "Owns most of the point, I guess. Soon as this property came on the market, he snapped it up and built the most handsome staircase you're likely to find anywhere, from the cabin area down there, up to the road here. Then the damn fool tried to cut a trail through Nell's property and she ran him off." He chuckled.

    "He thought if he got it in place, got some underbrush cleared, a few people using it, he could claim squatter's rights, I guess. Wrong."

    "Stupid thing to attempt. Why did he do it?"

    "For access to the beach down at Nell's place. Only beach around here, and it's a nice little protected sandy strip. Shallow water, good wading, good place for the kids to play while the fathers are out fishing."

    "But she doesn't buy that?"

    "She's seen the dump trucks full of junk they have to haul out of the point week after week."

    Barbara nodded. The next house was Stan and Lucille Bowman's place. They came out for weekends when they could manage the time. And then the Terry house.. ..

    The woods pressed so close to the narrow road and were so thick that with just a few steps a person would vanish, she was thinking. There was a fringe of wild flowers and bushes, berries, and ferns, all growing in what looked like piles and heaps of greenery, with flowers poking up here and there, a branch waving now and again, as if to celebrate its escape, its freedom.

    The gravel road ended at a dirt road; they turned left.

    This section was fairiy smooth, but the right turn had led to a gutted, rock-strewn road that looked undriveable. Old Halleck Hill Road, she remembered from the newspaper articles she had read the night before. Fifty miles down that road, apparently, Lucas Kendricks had killed a girl and thrown her mutilated body into a creek that had brought her to the river. Resolutely she put that out of mind and listened to yet another of her father's stories, this time about a neighbor whose name she already had forgotten.

    The walk was closer to a mile and a half, she decided when they entered Chuck Gilmore's store. But it had been a pleasant mile and a half, and she did not object. Her father introduced her to Chuck, a big, very muscular man with a tremendous chest and iron-gray hair. Two boys were trying to pick a comic book, and Chuck was keeping his eye on them. A car stopped, spilling out a family with two small children, one whining, "Is this where we're going?"

    Barbara and her father went out back to the rail overlooking the cabins, and from here she looked up to spot his house. It was very handsome up on the ridge, and the next one beyond it was even more handsome, expensive-looking. That was Doc's house, she remembered from her last visit. The houses on the ridge were so close that only now did she understand why Chuck Gilmore wanted access to the beach. His staircase was clearly visible, wide, sturdy, also expensive-looking. A short walk from here, through his property, along the gravel road a bit, then through Nell's property. She didn't blame him for wanting it, and she didn't blame Nell for refusing. Down at the docks there were cans lying around, bits of paper. Trash, she thought. Just the normal human trash.

    "Want to stroll through town?" her father asked.

    "I

    admit there's not much to see, but while we're here...."

    A pickup truck pulled into the parking lot; a small woman and two children got out. The boy was exactly the same height as the woman, and both had curly brown hair.

    Barbara steeled herself. That was Nell Kendricks, she knew. She looked hardly old enough to be a mother, much less the mother of the boy at her side. The other child was a small girl with long, straight blond hair and a serious expression.

    "I didn't plan this," her father said in a low voice.

    "But you've got to meet them, now that it's happened. Come on."

    Nell had spotted him and hesitated, then came in their direction, the two children with her.

    "Good morning, Frank," she said, and the boy said good morning. Carol smiled.

    "Honey, this is Nell Kendricks, Travis, and Carol. My daughter Barbara."

    Nell was obviously surprised when Barbara held out her hand. Belatedly she reached out and they shook hands.

    Barbara had been instructed to shake hands at law school at the insistence of a professor who had said professional people always shake hands when they meet. Remember that. Travis extended his hand, and she took it. Then Carol started to put her hand out, drew it back, and put it out again. Gravely Barbara shook hands with her also.

    "Showing Barbara some of the local attractions," Frank said.

    "View from Turner's Point. Next, the Grange Hall."

    Nell grinned.

    "I thought I'd find you here, since I missed you on the road. We're having a cookout, Tawna, James, us. And you're invited. You too," she added quickly to Barbara.

    "Love to come," Frank said.

    "When? And who's cooking

    "Tawna is, and six-thirty is when. We're off for shop ping. School clothes. Travis can't wear a single thing from last year."

    Travis rolled his eyes and made a face. Carol was looking serious again, staring fixedly at Barbara.

    "Don't let us keep you," Frank said.

    "It sounds as if you've got yourself a real day lined up. What can I bring?"

    "Not a thing. I'm stopping at the Metropole for bread.

    I'm getting some for Jessie, too. You want some?"

    "Yep. One of everything they've got."

    "Okay. Nice meeting you, Ms. Holloway. That sounds rather silly, doesn't it, since we'll be seeing you again in just a few hours. Come on, Travis, Carol, let's go."

    Frank and Barbara watched her fasten seat belts, climb up into the driver's seat, start the engine, and drive off with a final wave. Carol waved, too.

    Barbara started to walk out of the parking lot, back to the road where she turned in the direction from which they had come. After a moment's hesitation, Frank followed her.

    "What happened to her parents?" Barbara asked.

    "Nell's? Rumor is all I know. Stories, gossip. Her mother was from here, married a man from San Fran cisco. He couldn't stand it in the woods, I guess. They were back and forth a lot, anyway. He was a performer, musician, comic, something of the sort, and not very good, they say. Broke most of the time, like that. Anyway, he died, overdose, when Nell was just a little kid, about Carol age, and her mother came back home with her. Then two years later, she died, pneumonia, and the grandfather raised Nell."

    "The papers said she's a crack shot, sharpshooter de luxe class, something like that. Is she?"

    "So they say. I've never seen her shoot, so I don't know.

    Did you read about the tree cutters and the beer can?"

    "Yes. And that story didn't make any more sense than Chuck Gilmore's trying to cut a trail through her property

    "That's what I thought. I saw her the day it happened, though, and I guess she shot the can, all right." He told her about the day people had seen the body in the river, and Nell had found two men preparing to cut down her tree.

    Barbara listened, concentrating on his words, comparing his account with what she had read. It made a little more sense the way he told it, but not much, not enough.

    She breathed deeply when he stopped talking, and began to examine the woods again.

    "Anything?" Frank asked after several seconds.

    "No. Just curious about why a woman like her is a crack shot."

    "Her grandfather taught her, according to the gossip mill. They said he boasted that she was a natural, the best shot in the county."

    Barbara nodded absently.

    "But that doesn't answer the question about why he taught her in the first place, how he found out that she had a talent for it. I suspect he realized early on that she was not going to be very big, that she was vulnerable in many ways, and shooting was a way to give her self-confidence. I mean, she was a child who had just lost both parents, she probably was diminutive, like Carol, and probably nervous as hell. He sounds like a pretty wise old man to me. You never taught me to shoot."

    Prank snorted.

    "Never saw any sign that you needed a boost in self-confidence, either."

    There was a touch of bitterness in her laugh.

    "The key words are you never saw any sign. But, back to Nell. It worked. She's self-assured, self-confident, evidently doing a damn good job with those two kids. And under it all, she's scared to death."

    Frank put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed slightly, then released her.

    "Glad you saw that, too. She's good and scared. And has a right to be."

    Watching her expensive running shoes get scuff after scuff in the gravel of the road, she asked, "Why did you say you can't handle this case?"