Death Qualified (20 page)

    "Or one of the summer vacation cottages. Okay, can do." He stretched out his legs and regarded the river that ended in haze today.

    "And I thought this was just a simple case of a mad wife blowing away a jerk of a husband."

    "Let's keep it that way for now," Barbara said.

    "Not a word that we're after anything except proof that Lucas was a jerk."

    He gave her a look of deep hurt.

    * * *

    Bailey had been gone only minutes before Clive Belloc arrived at the front door. Clive was more dressed up than Barbara had ever seen him, nicely pressed trousers, a handsome sport shirt, shined shoes. He looked at her with a sheepish expression.

    "Can I come in for a minute? I should have called first, but I thought if I found you home, I'd say something, and if not, then another time, but not like a formal appointment." That sounded as if he had rehearsed it word for word.

    "Sure," she said.

    "We're back on the terrace wondering if it's worth thinking about doing something about dinner.

    Come have a drink with us."

    He followed her through the house to the terrace and nodded awkwardly at Frank. If he had a hat, he'd be twisting it, Barbara thought.

    "I'm having lemonade with vodka, Dad's sticking to straight lemonade, and we have beer and wine."

    "Lemonade," he said.

    "Sounds good."

    "Right back." She went inside for another glass, not a large one, because he clearly had not come here for a long drink.

    "A new fire up near Black Butte," he was saying when she returned and poured the drink for him.

    "Could be a bad autumn."

    He thanked her for the lemonade and even drank some of it, and then put it on the table.

    "I really wanted to see both of you," he said then.

    "I

    made a fool of myself over at Doc's the other day. I'm sorry." He said it in a rush, but it didn't sound at all rehearsed, and she thought probably the speech he had intended would have been long and involved and not quite as sincere as the little one he actually gave.

    "No big deal," she said.

    "I talked to Nell, and to a couple of people I know in Eugene, and they tell me you're as good as she's going to find, and she's happy with the arrangement, so I am too.

    And if there's anything I can do to help out, let me, please.

    Being helpless is maybe the worst part of this for me."

    His broad face was a study in pain and frustration.

    "But that's one thing I can't get out of my mind. You said you were death qualified. What does that mean?"

    She looked at the glass she was holding; water ran off it crookedly. Her fingers were white-tipped with the chill.

    And she thought the chill was somewhere deep within her, and it had nothing to do with the glass or the miserably hot afternoon.

    "It means," she said slowly, "that only an attorney who has done criminal law, who has had a client accused of a crime that could invoke the death sentence, is qualified to represent such a client in the future. The first case must always be as a junior attorney to another attorney who is death qualified, and then the junior is qualified."

    He blanched at her words.

    "Oh, my God!"

    "Right." Briskly she went on.

    "I'll remember what you said, and if anything comes up that you can help with, believe me, you'll hear from us. In fact, something already did. Dad said you found out that Clovis Woods Products was in Salem. Did you follow up with that?"

    He shook his head.

    "As much as I could. I called up there on Friday, the day after those guys came around, and the secretary swore they never sent anyone out this far. If they had, she would have known about it. Then Lucas was killed, and this hell began for Nell, and I didn't give it any more thought. She must have made a mistake with the name on the truck."

    "I guess," Barbara said.

    "Did she think she could have been mistaken?"

    "I didn't bring it up," he said swiftly.

    "I'm not a real dope. She sure didn't need anyone asking more questions, casting doubt on what she said, least of all for me to be the one."

    Barbara smiled at him with understanding.

    "But it must be tough for you, in your job, I mean. Or is that something else you don't bring up with her?"

    His deep sunburn seemed to darken a shade, and he looked sheepish again.

    "Actually, I haven't done any cruising since the week after Lucas was killed, not for sales, that is. I started applying for a new job, and next week I start work on a new job. Cruising, still, but for different reasons, to settle estates, tax appraisals, things like that, not for timber sales."

    "New job?" Frank exclaimed.

    "And I haven't heard about it? Now that's strange."

    "No one's heard yet, except Nell, not until I actually start," he said.

    "I sure haven't mentioned it to Lonnie."

    Frank laughed.

    "That explains why I haven't heard."

    Clive looked at his watch and stood up.

    "I'm glad I found you both like this. Thanks for hearing me out. And I mean it, if there's anything I can do. I've got to get along now. I'm taking Nell and the kids to an air-conditioned restaurant. One that doesn't smell like woods on fire."

    Frank walked to the car with him, and Barbara leaned back and watched the river move away without end. She found herself thinking of the sheriff playing Bach with those big broad fingers. Bach fugues, she thought, remembering a description she had read: ever-rising fugues, repeating a theme without end, varying it slightly each time, but always the same theme. Always the same river even if it did flow away forever, and was forever changing; it was the same river.

    "Well," Prank said on returning.

    "Just that. Well."

    "Yes, indeed. Poor Clive, what a burden to think that he met her through Lucas, on a job to estimate the value of her beloved trees. I bet he thinks Lucas had that stunt pulled, just as much as Nell thinks it."

    "If he does, you'll never hear him say so. He's not likely to furnish any ammunition for the prosecution. And that's a fine motive, added to all the other motives she already had."

    "I know. But I bet he thinks so. What's on your mind, Dad? You've been glummer than a constipated judge."

    He grinned fleetingly at the words, one of his favorite phrases. Then he said in a slow, thoughtful way, "I don't like how this is all shaping up. I don't like having a troop of operatives ransacking houses and cars, trekking through the woods, placing bugs in trees. Too much money involved Too much we don't know anything about. They could be feds, for all we know. We don't have an idea where Lucas was, what he was involved in. Could be drugs real bad news. I just don't like any of it, and I don't think any of it is relevant to your case."

    "Maybe it's too soon to know that," she said, equally mildly, equally thoughtful, even though she was seething inside, because, she had to admit to herself, he was probably right. But if it wasn't relevant, there was no hope for Nell.

    "Let me finish," he said, staring ahead at the river.

    "What I'm afraid of is that you're going to find out things that will make you want to bring down justice on the heads of half a dozen other people, and I don't give a damn about any of them. I want to save Nell as much grief as possible, keep her out of the state penitentiary if we can, or see that she gets the least possible amount of time if it goes that way."

    Moving very carefully, Barbara stood up. Again, she thought. Like the fugues, like the river, like everything, it was always the same.

    "Before you stalk off, consider what I'm telling you, Bobby. You know as well as I do that Tony will fight to keep anything to do with Lucas and the last seven years all the way out, and probably he'll have a judge go along with that. Because it isn't relevant. What is relevant is that Lucas turned up in an isolated spot, and Nell turned up there, and he ended up shot through the head. That's what's relevant, and not a damned thing beyond that. If anyone bugged that ledge and a tape turns up and proves that he didn't even threaten her, that kills any self-defense plea.

    And that's what's relevant."

    He didn't say it, he didn't have to; it played through her head without audible words: If Tony had the tape and Nell's story was verified that Lucas had said nothing more than "Watch this," Tony could even go for murder one.

    "You think she did it, don't you?"

    "I've been to that ledge, and so have you."

    She did not want to continue playing this scene, she thought distantly. She had even got up in order to run away from it, but her feet were one with the deck; she could not move, had to let it run itself all the way through even if she dreaded the outcome.

    "Why did you call me?" she whispered.

    "I told you. I can't manage this one alone."

    "You mean you can't get her on". And you don't think I can either, do you? You don't think anyone can. Finally it will be a plea bargain, won't it? Self-defense, manslaughter."

    "She says she won't confess, no matter what."

    "Because she didn't do it. Isn't that why? And you think when the time comes, when I have pushed and poked and probed and got nowhere, I'll help you persuade her that it's the only way out for her, the only way to be able to have any time with her children before they're both grown up."

    "I didn't say that!" His voice was harsh; he was flushed, with a line of sweat on his lip, and he looked like an old man who was very tired.

    "I didn't say that," he repeated quietly this time.

    "But the day might come when she'll think two years in the pen sounds better than twenty. And God help me, I don't want either."

    The wheel turns, she thought, and we're all on it. It turns, goes this way and that with a curious wobble, and sometimes you think it's taking you to someplace brand-new and wonderful, everything looks fresh and interesting, and then with the next turn, you're back at the same place. Everything different, everything the same. Different details, different cast of characters, and the same. Ever-rising music, ever-flowing river, ever-changing people; all the same forever and ever. "I 'm going to see if I can find something cold for dinner," she said.

    She walked away from him. As she entered the house, he said, "Bobby" in a weary voice. She kept walking, as if she had not heard him. Even dinner, she thought almost wildly, even dinner would be the same. Leftovers thrown together in a big salad, the same as last night, but different.

    She wanted to laugh, but even more she wanted to weep.

    FIFTEEN

    Doc had taken a wing of the house for a study where he could go and be assured of quiet and no interruptions.

    Separated from the rest of the house by a pantry, the kitchen, and a guest room, it was the closest point to the end of the trail that led from Nell's house to here. The room was paneled with glowing, golden oak, carpeted with a forest-green plush carpet, with gold drapes at the windows.

    There was a black-lacquered wet bar and a coffee maker, a tiny refrigerator, a desk, a chest of drawers, several comfortable chairs, a music system that was very good, and a twin-size bed. He had a telescope at a window overlooking the river; often there was a chess problem set up with handsome gold and silver pieces. He kept his medical journals here, and always a current biography that he was reading. It was his retreat, as private as if it were on another continent, on another planet. Lonnie never cleaned in here. No one but Doc was supposed to enter; he ran the vacuum now and then, dusted now and then, sometimes slept all night in here, or worked on a patient's intractable problem for hours.

    Nell loved the retreat. Because she would never leave the children alone, and she could not hire a sitter while she was keeping a tryst, her visits were infrequent during the summer, and almost always during the afternoon when the children were at friends' houses. Doc had two afternoons a week free, but because of the investigation, so many people coming and going, they had not met often this summer; they had been afraid to. Now that school had started again, things would be better, Nell thought. They would, they would. They never mentioned Jessie in here, and, until his death, they had never talked about Lucas in here.

    There was an outside door for which she had a key.

    Sometimes she came to the retreat even when she knew Doc would not be here because it was theirs, his and hers, a place where she was safe. Sometimes, more often, she simply waited for him, knowing almost to the minute when he would arrive. Today she had to wait only ten minutes before she heard his footsteps on the deck.

    At first she had been afraid someone would find out and cause him serious trouble, and she still was scrupulous about never leaving anything of hers behind. But anyone who entered the room would know, she thought. There was an indefinable something of hers, of theirs, that made the room different, that would betray them.