Evidence of Guilt (3 page)

I'd hoped to be able to meet with Sam about the Harding case right away, but he was going to be tied up most of the day. He had promised to have the file ready for me by late afternoon, though. "It's probably better if you look over the file before we talk," he said. "Saves time. And that way you can form your own impressions before they get tainted by mine."

His logic was sound, but my workload was light and I was anxious to get started. I was fairly certain of the approach Sam would want me to take anyway. Although he would doubtless argue otherwise, I had no illusions about why he was bringing me in. It wasn't my mind he was after, or my brilliant mastery of the law; it was my legs.

When a case goes to trial, particularly a big case, extensive legwork is inevitable. And invaluable. There is background information to be gathered, leads to be followed and checked, witnesses to be interviewed. Given his age and poor health, Sam needed someone with a sturdy pair of legs to do most of the scouting.

I put in a call to police headquarters and left a message for the chief, who is an old family friend. Next I asked Myra, who was through with the self-flagellation and back to repairing the damage to her nails, to get me copies of the news reports of Lisa Cornell's death. Finally, after tidying up a few things, I left for the diner where Lisa had worked. I wanted to get there around eleven, before the lunch crowd began to build.

Despite the hokey name, the Lazy Q Diner is one of Silver Creek's more upscale establishments. Its offerings are a long way from the braised endive and goat cheese cuisine you find in the San Francisco area, but it's definitely a step up from the hamburger joints and fast-food outlets in town. The couple who run the place are in their mid-fifties, transplants from somewhere back East. I'd never spoken to the husband, who spent most of his time in the kitchen, but the wife, Velma, worked as hostess and cashier, and often helped out with the tables during the lunch-hour rush.

She was there when I walked in and took my order herself. No place in Silver Creek makes decent coffee, at least not to the taste of someone who's been spoiled by the richesse of coffee houses in the Bay Area. I ordered a Coke instead. Although I wasn't hungry, I had a chicken salad sandwich as well, figuring that would give me a double shot at striking up a conversation.

"You must be shorthanded without Lisa," I volunteered when Velma set the soda on the table in front of me.

"Shorthanded and down in the dumps. It's such a tragedy, such a terrible waste."

I murmured agreement.

"We hired a new girl last week, but I'm not sure sheV going to work out. Of course, all of us here are still pretty

shaken by the whole thing, so maybe we haven't given her a fair shot at it."

"Had Lisa worked here long?"

"Seven or eight months is all. She moved to town after her aunt's death, when she inherited the house. But Lisa had a way about her. Kind of made you feel like you'd known her forever." Velma brushed a crumb from the table. "You come here quite a bit, so you must know what I mean."

I did. Lisa was as sunny and open as a summer's morning. Honey-blond hair, which she wore in a long braid down her back, fresh face, dimples and a smile that never quit. She was the kind of person you take an instant liking to, even before you've exchanged a word.

"She was a good worker, too," Velma continued. "Never short-tempered or frazzled. The only time I saw her without a smile on her face was when she was coming down with one of those headaches."

"Migraines?"

"I guess it was something like that. She seemed to be getting an awful lot of them lately. I didn't want to scare her or anything, but I thought they might be a sign of something serious. She'd been seeing a doctor, though, so I guess he was on top of it."

A group of four women came into the restaurant just then and Velma left to seat them. She stopped back, briefly, with my sandwich before hurrying off to attend to the next cluster of patrons.

I sipped my Coke, devoured more of the sandwich than I'd intended to and mentally ticked off what I knew about Lisa Cornell, which wasn't a lot. She was in her early twenties, a single parent who appeared to structure much of her life around her five-year-old daughter. From the snip-

pets of conversation I'd picked up, I knew she'd swum competitively until reaching high school, was teaching herself to play the guitar and drove an old blue Honda.

The list of tilings I didn't know was considerably longer. I hadn't known, for starters, that she'd moved to Silver Creek so recently. I'd sort of assumed she'd grown up here. I knew where she lived, but only because that was where the bodies had been found. I hadn't known she'd inherited the house from her aunt.

And what about her husband, assuming there'd ever been one? I didn't know whether he was absent because of death or divorce. And if the latter, whether the breakup had been Lisa's idea or his. I knew nothing about her friends, her background, her interests or hobbies. Nothing about what her life had been before coming to Silver Creek. I tried a few of these questions out on Velma when she was free again, but she didn't know a whole lot more than I did.

"Sorry I can't help. Only thing I know is about thej house. That's because I knew the aunt, though not well. Anne Drummond was her name. No children of her own. She died about a year ago and left the house to Lisa. It's j a nice piece of property, There was quite a bit of interest j in it, but Anne wouldn't sell, even when she knew she was dying and could have used the money to hire a private nurse or something."

"How'd she die?"

"Breast cancer. It got my mother, too,"

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, it's a beastly way to go."

"Did Lisa have other family?"

Velma gave a head shake that was the equivalent of a shrug. "Lisa was as sweet and pleasant as they come, but

she kept her distance, at least around me. Never talked much about herself. She was pretty friendly with Caroline, though, one of the other girls who works here. She might be able to tell you more."

I took down Caroline's name and number.

"You with the police?" Velma asked. "I called them right after I heard the news, you know, to see if there was anything I could do to help. They never sent anyone out."

"I'm a lawyer," I explained.

She tilted her head. "Which side?"

"Defense."

She let out a whistle. "Funny, I never took you for one of them."

" 'Them'?"

Ignoring my question, she volleyed one of her own. "You really believe there's a chance Wes Harding didn't do it?"

"There's always that chance."

She took a moment to consider it. "You know, the one thing that's never made sense to me is 'why.' Why would anyone do a thing like that?"

I nodded, acknowledging the senselessness of it. What I didn't bother to tell her was that it didn't have to make sense. Motive wasn't an element of murder. In some instances confessed killers themselves couldn't tell you why they'd done it.

When I got back to the office Myra was just leaving.

"I put your messages on your desk," she said.

"Anything urgent?"

"Not really. Sheri Pearl wants to talk to you about the conservatorship on her mother. She has a few questions about, and I quote, 'the legal ramifications.' "

I suspected that meant Sheri wanted to get rid of at least a portion of her mother's possessions. Her rush to tidy things up irritated me. It didn't help that the conservatorship had been the right thing to do, and that ninety percent of the time the senior Mrs. Pearl couldn't have told you what year it was or what she'd last had for dinner. Bottom line was, I didn't especially like Sheri Pearl, and I did like her mother, Irma. Particularly on those rare occasions when Irma was fully lucid.

"And you missed Tom's call," Myra continued. "He said to tell you 'hi.' "

"Tom?" The mere sound of his name caused my heart to quicken. "He's supposed to be on a Boy Scout camping trip."

"He is, but under the pretext of needing more toilet paper or something, he managed to sneak off to some outpost of civilization where there's a telephone."

"Did he say anything besides 'hi'?"

Just that the food's lousy, the ground's hard, the fish aren't biting and the mosquitoes are."

"That's it? Nothing about missing me?"

Myra laughed. "Oh, yeah, that, too." She headed for the door. "Don't forget to call Ms. Pearl."

I slumped into my chair, disappointed at missing Tom's call. Tom is part of the reason I'm still in Silver Creek. A big part

We're neighbors. We're also dating. Or, more accurately, sort of dating, sort of screwing around, which is how I'd explained it to Sabrina. "Well, I hope you're being careful," was all she'd said. I hadn't been sure if she meant that literally or more generally, but I assured her I was. On both counts. I was a veteran of too many soured relationships to let myself be otherwise.

Still, after Myra had gone I pulled out the picture of Tom I keep in the zipper pocket of my purse. It was taken late last summer, the one and only time we'd gone camping together. We'd hiked into Desolation Wilderness, which isn't desolate at all, camped in a meadow by a mountain lake and spent the night under a diamond-studded sky of black velvet. All in all, I prefer the comforts of home, but when I pictured Tom out there now, with a bunch of rowdy ten-year-olds, I felt a pang of jealousy. It seemed an awful waste of a fine body to have him sacked out under the stars alone.

Later that afternoon I dropped by Sam's office and picked up the Harding file. Then I headed out to have a look at the barn where Lisa and Amy had been killed. Not that I expected to uncover any new evidence; the police are usually fairly thorough about a crime scene investigation. What I wanted was to have a look at the site for myself. There are lawyers who can work solely from paper, but I find that reports and photos are poor substitutes for the real thing.

Lisa Cornell's house was a couple of miles outside town on a narrow road that wound and dipped, then unexpectedly opened onto an expanse of gently rolling grassland. It was a two-story white clapboard house with a wide porch in front and a good deal of land to either side. I guessed that it had been built sometime around the turn of the century, certainly long before the other houses that dotted the roadside. Once it had probably been the main residence on a ranch of considerable acreage. Over the years parcels had been subdivided and sold off at odd in-

tervals, making for the kind of uneven architectural mix you so often find in rural neighborhoods.

Despite its age, the Cornell place looked to be in good repair. It was clear no one had tended to it since Lisa's death, however. Throwaway papers had collected on the front steps, the roses and petunias along the walk were brown from lack of water and the front screen door was sprung so that it flapped open with the passing breeze.

I made a mental note to ask Sam who would inherit the house now that Lisa was dead. It was a long shot, but people have been known to kill for less.

I pulled into the driveway and parked, then made my way through the orchard to the barn at the back of the property. The building was a weathered gray, and listed slightly to the left. The roof was bare in spots, the siding warped. I suspected that the wide double door at the end hadn't budged since the last horse trotted out many years earlier. I walked the perimeter once, then stopped at a side door, which was slightly ajar.

Never a fan of dark spaces and the creatures that inhabit them, I hesitated, then took a deep breath, scrunched my face up tight and opened the door wider. I entered sideways, leading with an extended hand.

The interior had a musty, sickly-sweet smell that caught in my throat, but it wasn't as gloomy as I'd expected. Sunlight filtered through cracks in the siding and several larger gaps in the roof, revealing nothing more ominous than neglect and grime. Floating in the hot, dry air, particles of dust caught the light like microscopic June bugs, infusing the stillness with an otherworldly quality. From outside I heard the far-off, hollow tapping of a woodpecker. I stepped away from the doorway and inspected the area more closely.

A sagging hayloft stood at one end of the barn, wooden storage shelves at the other. The shelves looked to be hand-made, by someone as inexperienced with hammer and saw as I am. They were filled with old paint cans, rolls of wire mesh, plastic irrigation pipe and die like--scraps from a long line of maintenance projects. A lawn mower, aTusty wheelbarrow, a stenciled headboard and a couple of old kitchen chairs stood in the far corner opposite me. Other than that, the place was empty--a large open space of hard-packed dirt strewn with bits of straw.