Sleight of Hand (5 page)

Chapter 9

Meg Lederer stood at her office door and surveyed the small room with satisfaction.

That morning she had installed the new blinds and the room was ready to use. It held a regular desk and at right angles to it a computer desk set up with her computer and printer, a two-drawer file cabinet, a reading chair with its own lamp, bookshelves on one wall and a closet with deeper shelves for office supplies. Perfect, she thought.

Absolutely perfect. Her first office.

A sharp memory surfaced of the card table and secondhand typewriter on which she had written seven children's books. Typewriter on one side of the table, room for her meals on the other, none left over. It had been enough. Twenty-two years old, passionately in love with her husband, who would be imprisoned for five years, she had set out to learn to type, and then to write stories.

She closed her eyes as another sharp memory rose. Huskily Wally had said, "Honey, you're so beautiful, so young. I know guys will be at your heels day and night. If you... I mean if you can't resist or something... You know what I'm trying to say?"

She had been crying. He wiped her cheeks. "Honey, when I get out, just promise me one thing. That's all I'm asking, just one thing. Give me a chance again. Can you do that? Whatever else happens, I mean... No questions or anything. Just give me another chance."

She brushed away the past and walked through the house to the back porch to see what Wally was up to. Pestering the roofing man, probably. The phone rang and she went back to pick up the wireless handset in the kitchen, then took it with her to the porch. She could see Wally looking up at the man on the roof. Barbara was on the line.

Meg listened with near incomprehension, then asked, "What difference will that make to us? We never even met Connie Wilkins."

"I think they'll put everything on hold until they know more about how and when she died. What it means to you is that nothing's likely to happen for a quite a while. So you just sit tight and we'll see what happens. If they start asking you questions again, let me know, and I'll give you a call if I learn anything. Okay?"

Meg said it suited her fine to be left alone forever as far as she was concerned. She broke the connection and regarded Wally at the barn. It was hard to get used to him wearing a John Deere cap, old blue jeans and work boots.

Was he content? Was he likely to remain content out here in the country after the kind of life they had led so long? The question kept recurring.

Casino shows, blackjack, and several times a year a convention here or there, a weekend stay in a convention hotel. Wally picked the conventions with great care.

No starving poets' convention or hungry artists'. No firefighters' convention —he had his own set of scruples and he refused to take money from a firefighter. The attendees had to be affluent enough to afford him, he had said.

After finding a suitable convention through the Internet he did a little research, then made a reservation at the same hotel, always to arrive a day before the convention was to start, and by the time the conventioneers were in place Wally would have struck up a bantering relationship with the bartender. It was never hard for him to get in on the attendees' bar talk and he always located a floating poker game and was invited to participate. The players for the most part were strangers to one another, and he was just another stranger. There was always a poker game somewhere, he had said in the beginning, and he had been right. He sometimes lost a little at the casino blackjack tables, but he had never lost a cent at the convention games.

Once Meg had protested that it didn't seem fair, and Wally had said earnestly,

"Honey, look at it this way. Those guys are going to play, no matter what, and the losers are going to lose. I'm not changing a thing in the grand scheme of the universe. That's what some of them came for, to kick up their heels a little, to see shows their wives won't let them watch at home, to drink too much, maybe play around a little and to gamble. I'm there to work. They get what they came for and so do I."

There was a flaw in his argument. He was a professional taking advantage of amateurs, even if he didn't cheat. But, she had argued with herself, didn't those bankers take advantage of loan applicants with the fine print that they knew would not be read or understood if it was? Didn't too many doctors vacationing on pharmaceutical largesse take advantage of patients by prescribing high-cost medicines that their sponsors wanted to sell when generics or lower cost drugs would be equally beneficial? She had given up the argument and never raised an objection again. It was too difficult to determine, much less navigate, that elusive line that defined ethical behavior. All parties were getting what they wanted when they played poker with Wally, that was enough.

Wally had started to walk toward her and when he drew near he began talking, the way he always did. "I asked Andy what to do about all that moss on the roof. You know what he told me? You'd never guess. He said don't touch it. Leave it alone. It's all that's holding those shakes together. Exactly what I wanted to hear." He grinned and put his arm around her shoulders. "Gave me some advice about the fireplace, too. Let's go have a look and I'll tell you."

In the living room, which they had not yet touched, as he talked about the difference between open fireplaces and inserts, she leaned into him slightly. He stopped talking and looked down at her.

"Feel a little nap coming on?"

She nodded and he laughed and squeezed her shoulder. "Old folks like us need our naps," he said.

Even that, she thought happily. Even that. No matter what lay in the future, coming home had rejuvenated him, and her, too. She had never been happier, in spite of the fear Jay Wilkins had inserted into their lives. They left the living room and headed toward the bedroom, not really running, but not dawdling either.

After talking with Meg, Barbara regarded the slim folder with the Lederer material in it. She started to put it in the tray of "To File" folders, then changed her mind and put it with the active folders on her desk. She had a strong hunch that the Lederer case would not end just yet.

The evening newscast had a brief mention concerning the identification of Connie Wilkins s body and the ongoing investigation, but the following morning's newspapers had a longer account.

Barbara read it carefully while eating breakfast, then stopped at a name she knew: Adele Wykoph. Connie Wilkins had done a lot of volunteer work in the past, and one of the organizations she had helped had been the Women's Support Center. Its director was Adele Wykoph. Barbara had referred many women to the center over the years, and she and Adele were friends, comfortable with each other, trusting each other. She waited until she got to the office, then called Adele.

Adele's voice sounded strained and husky when she answered her phone, hesitant when Barbara asked if they could get together later that day.

"Maybe another time, after a day or two? I don't think I'm up to much right now. I just found out I've lost a dear friend. I think I'll knock off early and go home to the consolation of a stiff drink or two."

"I'm sorry," Barbara said. "I saw the center mentioned in the article about Connie Wilkins. That's what I wanted to ask about."

"She's the friend," Adele said. She sounded as if she were choking. "God, why her?"

"Let me pick you up and we'll go somewhere quiet and talk. It might do you some good, and I'll ply you with the drink or two and see that you get home safely. Think how many others you've advised to talk about it, whatever it is."

"I can't leave. The staff is ready to melt down. What would that do for our clients, to see the support team in worse shape than they're in?"

"Later," Barbara said. "Put on a brave face for them, buck them up, do whatever you have to. I'll pick you up at four-thirty and you can let go then. Okay?"

Adele Wykoph had a perennial New Year's resolution: this year she would lose ten to fifteen pounds. Her doctor had advised twenty, but she had decided that was being fanatical. She was a large woman, comfortable, comforting and, at the same time, decisive and very capable at keeping the center operating efficiently and seeing to it that her clients were well served. She usually wore long skirts and over blouses that reached her hips. Hers was an impressive figure.

That late afternoon she looked tired and despondent. "It's the pits," she said by way of greeting when she got into Barbara's car, and then not another word until they were seated in Sweet Waters Restaurant, by a broad window overlooking the Willamette River. No river sound reached them through the glass.

"Gin and tonic," Adele said to the waiter who had appeared instantly. Barbara ordered coffee. She would have wine with dinner, she added.

They both gazed at the silently rushing river until the drinks were served and the waiter departed. Then Barbara said softly, "Tell me about Connie." She understood that this was the long path to what she really wanted to talk about —Jay Wilkins

—but it was a path that had to be taken. They would get to him.

Adele began slowly but soon her words were tumbling out haphazardly in a discursive ramble. Later Barbara would sort it out and form a narrative with a beginning, middle and end; at the moment she simply listened attentively.

Adele had met Connie and David Laramie soon after they arrived in Eugene with their infant son. David had assumed his uncle's duties at the radio station when his uncle retired. As soon as the child, Steven, was in day care Connie started doing volunteer work that included time spent at Adele's women's center. Her gentle smile, a vivacious personality and a charming Southern accent captivated everyone she worked with.

Now and then Adele's voice broke. She paused to gaze at the river. Tears filled her eyes, overflowed, and she talked on. She finished her drink and Barbara held up the glass for another. Adele was oblivious.

They had a fairy-tale marriage, Adele said. Inseparable. They adored each other, and they both worshiped their son.

Then the accident happened.

She turned to gaze at the river, longer this time, and when she spoke again, her voice was lower, duller. "She had a cold and they decided it would be best if she didn't go skiing that weekend. David wanted to postpone the trip altogether, but she insisted that he and Steve had been looking forward to it too much, they should go on without her.

"They were hit by a truck and David and Steve were both killed." Adele stopped and drank deeply. "She died, too," she said after a moment. "A living death. She was stunned and disbelieving, then paralyzed by shock, grief and guilt. She blamed herself for urging them to go. She became a zombie."

Her sister came to help her, but after a month she had to go home to her own family.

Friends had tried to help. They took turns visiting her, taking meals, sitting with her, but she didn't respond to anything they said, and sometimes didn't seem to notice them at all.

"She wanted to die," Adele said. "Then the housekeeper got in touch with her lawyer and told him bills were piling up, she had not been paid for three months, and something had to be done. He got in touch with her family and her brother came to stay for a few weeks. He got her accounts straightened out, made arrangements for automatic payments and he tried hard to get her to go back to Virginia with him. She refused to leave her house.

"I talked to him," Adele said. "He said there were papers she had to sign, and she never even glanced at them, never read them. He said sign here, and she signed. That alarmed him. Then Jay entered the picture."

Barbara signaled to the waiter. Now she would have a glass of wine. This was, finally, what she had been waiting for. She pointed to Adele's glass and ordered antipasto for two. "We'll order dinner after that comes," she said and picked up her menu.

"Whatever you're having," Adele said indifferently without glancing at the menu.

Several egrets were skimming the river, inches away from the flashing ripples. She appeared to be hypnotized by them.

After the platter of antipasto, wine and another gin and tonic were in place and the dinner order given, knowing they would be left alone for a time, Barbara said, "What about Jay?"

Adele looked at her new drink, then moved it aside. She picked up a piece of salami.

"Connie's brother asked me about him. Jay had known Connie and David for years.

They moved in the same circles or something. Anyway, he had dropped in on her a few times. I don't know how this came about, but apparently Jay said he'd help Connie sell the sailboat and the place on the coast, and eventually, when she was ready, help sell her house. He offered to look after her, and her brother was relieved.

He just wanted to know if Jay was okay, not a child molester or something." She smiled bitterly.

"God knows she needed someone to look out for her. Most of her friends had given up. If they don't want to be helped, there isn't much you can do. You must find that in your practice as often as I do at the center."

Barbara nodded. "Unreachable, untouchable, unteachable."

"That's it. I never dreamed that a man like Jay would get through to her," Adele said.

"You knew him?"

"I grew up with his first wife, kindergarten through high school, all the way. She's a good friend. I knew Jay."

Pay dirt, Barbara thought, prepared to ask some questions. But before she could voice even one, Adele was off on another ramble.

Five months after Connie's brother left, satisfied that she was being looked out for by a respectable businessman, Connie and Jay were married. Everyone who knew her was stunned by the news, no one more so than Adele.

"I waited for several weeks, hoping Connie would give me a call. She didn't."

Adele had gone to Jay's house to see Connie, but he had met her at the door and said that Connie was resting. She tried again a week later and was turned away. Then Jay had arrived at her office at the center to talk to her.

"He said he had talked to her doctor and they both agreed that she was making good progress, but every time someone from her past life appeared, it sent her back to her previous state of despair and depression. He asked me to leave her alone until she was really well."