The Best Defense (35 page)

“It’s got nothing to do with male female roles. When one sees the need, he or she tends to it, and the other one accepts. With a pretense of graciousness, if that’s possible.”

“What would it be like to be married to another attorney, with two cases going at the same time?”

“One of them better be making enough money to hire a nanny who’d see to both of them. Scrub them, feed them, remind them to brush their teeth, and then get out of the way.”

She laughed.

“So let’s go out somewhere. And you’ll tell me the story about when you were threatened by someone in a case you were handling.”

“I will not. My stories are too good to waste on someone who’s only half-listening.”

He took her to an Italian restaurant, and when they returned home at eight forty-five, he said, “Well, at least you’ve been well fed with decent food even if you don’t know what it was, and didn’t taste a bite.”

Roberto arrived at nine-thirty. He was lankier than she remembered, and he looked embarrassed and shy when she greeted him at the door and introduced him to her father. In the study, Roberto said, “Barbara, we all miss you. A bunch of us were in Martin’s place, and we made a committee so when they clean up your house and get it fixed again, we’ll patrol, not the cops, not anyone else. We’ll do it, our committee. You’re coming back, aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“Yes. As soon as I can. You didn’t tell anyone this address, or that you were seeing me, did you?”

“No! Not even my mother. You say tell no one, I tell no one. Like that.”

“Thanks. Now, how about something to drink? A Coke, wine, coffee, beer …” He said coffee would be nice, and she left to make a pot. When she returned, he was talking earnestly to Frank about the need to have a trade, a life-long profession.

At five after ten Bailey arrived with Miguel Torres, who was carrying a canvas duffel bag. Bailey looked exhausted. He introduced his companion, who smiled and said not a word.

“Drove down from an orchard out of Hood River,” Bailey said.

“We stopped to eat. He’s okay; he slept most of the way, but I need some shuteye.

He’ll want a place to sleep.”

“We’ll take care of that,” Frank said.

“Does he speak any English?”

“Not that you’d notice. He’s a good guy, take care of him. I’m off. I’ll call tomorrow.” Frank went to the door with him.

“Senor Torres,” Barbara said, “por favor …” She pointed to a chair.

He smiled and sat down.

“Gracias, senorita.” He was muscular, in his thirties, and very dark.

“Roberto, ask him if he’d like something to drink, or wants to use the bathroom. You know.”

There was a swift exchange of musical language and Roberto said no, Miguel was comfortable.

“He says you’re very beautiful,” he added. Roberto could hardly contain his excitement at his role in this adventure; his cheeks blazed and his eyes flashed.

Barbara felt her cheeks go hot, and Miguel’s smile broadened. Roberto spoke at some length, now sounding like a teacher or a parent, and Miguel’s expression changed to one of respect.

“What are you telling him?” Barbara demanded.

“I told him about you,” he said proudly.

“He didn’t understand why you were being so friendly, why you were talking instead of Mr. Holloway. Now he does.”

She had Roberto explain that they would pay Miguel, and they would see to it that he had a place to sleep. And she wanted to tape-record the conversation. The exchanges became longer. He wanted to know why, Roberto said.

“Good,” Barbara^said to Frank.

“He’s sensible and intelligent.” At her words, she caught a gleam of under standing in Miguel’s eyes.

“You can understand some English, can’t you?”

He nodded and held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

“Little,” he said.

She suspected it was more than just a little, but she nodded and said to Roberto, “We think the man who hired him was engaged in an illegal activity. We don’t think the men he hired are involved, but we need information. That’s all, just information.”

Presently they had the tape recorder working and Miguel, through Roberto, was answering questions.

He had been hired, he said, by a man in his village who explained that the gringo wanted four men to work for three or four days, that there would be a long drive first and they would be required to stay in the truck.

The gringo wanted men who had no English; he was very firm about that. Miguel had no English, he said with a little shrug, and he needed the money. He had a wife and three children and no job. The gringo paid a hundred dollars a day, including the travel time.

When they got there, they had a big room with cots and showers, and plenty of food. They cooked for them selves. They weren’t allowed to go outside.

“What did they do there?” Barbara asked.

“What was the job?”

“He’s coming to it,” Roberto said patiently.

They made little boxes first, out of cardboard with print on it. And bigger boxes to hold the little boxes.

They wore rubber gloves, doctors’ gloves, and put medicine in little containers. They put cotton in the containers first, then medicine, more cotton, and they packaged them. That’s all.

Frank got up and left, to return with a pad of graph paper.

“How big were the boxes?” he asked Roberto.

Miguel held his fingers apart; five or six inches.

Frank started to draw a box and Miguel said, “Senor, por favor. I show.” He took the pad and sketched rap idly, a box about six and a half inches long and two inches wide.

“Up,” he said, and held up his fingers, then drew a line from the box upward about an inch and a half. He then drew a small cylindrical container, a pill bottle, one and a quarter inches high, and three-quarters of an inch wide. He looked at his work with a frown, then shrugged and handed the pad back to Frank.

“A little pill bottle,” Frank said.

“A real little pill bottle.”

Miguel nodded and spoke rapidly to Roberto. Twelve little bottles went in the box, he said, and twelve boxes in the big box. He shook his head and spoke rapidly again. First a paper was rolled up and fitted into the bottle. Rules? Miguel shook his head at the word and said something else. Instructions or something, Roberto said, printed paper, very small print, it went in first, then the cotton, the medicine, more cotton, and then the top was put on and sealed with a machine that melted plastic into a band.

“Good Lord,” Barbara breathed.

“Tamper-proof medicine bottles.” Miguel nodded.

“How many pills in each one?”

“dos, ” he said promptly.

“Two pills? Only two?”

He nodded emphatically and then spoke for several seconds to Roberto.

“He says the pills^ were very dangerous; that’s why they had to wear the gloves. They couldn’t let them touch their skin, their fingers, anything. They were all very frightened by them and they were very careful.”

“Could they have been radioactive?” Barbara asked, thinking out loud.

Roberto translated and Miguel shook his head and re plied with another burst of rapid Spanish. No, the gringo wore the same kind of gloves when he handled them, but if they had been radioactive, he would have protected himself more than that.

“Can you read English?”

“Little,” he admitted, and continued in Spanish for Roberto to translate. The instructions were not in English He didn’t know the language.

They kept at it for another hour. Barbara produced a bottle of aspirin and he nodded: Like that, one of the medicines, but smaller. Then he hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. In each little bottle they put one tablet like that, he said, and one different, a capsule, pink and soft. He sketched a slender capsule about an inch long. Pink, he said again. The medicines were kept in plastic jars, separated.

At twelve-thirty Prank said, “These fellows need some sleep, and so do I. Let’s wrap it up for now.”

Roberto suggested that Miguel go home with him. He could tell him about his school, and Miguel would like his mother’s cooking. Miguel nodded. They all stood up. Miguel hefted his duffel bag, and Barbara said, “Just one more question, senor. Since you arrived in the dark and left again in the dark, how did you know that place was here, in Oregon, on that particular road?”

He flashed his big grin and explained to Roberto.

They had heard shooting and had been frightened, but the gringo said not to worry and not to ask questions.

But he began to think it was like practice, not like the army or bandits. The morning they left, he caught a glimpse of Gallead’s sign, the long rifle silhouetted against the sky, and he put that together with practice, and suspected a rifle range. And on the last day, when the gringo’s servant brought them some beer and chips, the cash register receipt stuck to the bag. He had been able to make out the words Eugene, Oregon, he finished and spread his hands.

After they were gone, Frank prowled about the house checking door locks and windows, and then stopped at the kitchen table, where Barbara was working with a calculator.

“Bet he came back up with the idea of shaking down

Gallead, and his guardian angel said that was not a very good idea.”

“I’ve been doing the numbers,” Barbara said, frowning at her answers.

“Each case holds one hundred forty-four individual bottles, and he said there were thirty or forty cases. That’s between four and six thousand. Bailey said the truck makes a run about every six or eight weeks.”

She bit the end of the pencil.

“That’s not enough for street drugs.”

“Could be a new psychedelic,” Frank suggested.

“Or an aphrodisiac from Thailand.”

“An invisibility pill. One to turn you off, one to turn you back on.”

She grinned.

“I like that.”

“He wouldn’t hire local help,” Frank said after a moment.

“Too risky. I’m surprised he hires anyone. Seems like he could handle, it alone over a week or two.”

She looked up at him.

“I wonder if the Dodgsons know he brings in outside talent?”

Frank started to walk toward the hall and his bedroom.

He stopped at the doorway and regarded her for a second, and then said, “Don’t answer right now, sleep on it, but I’m thinking we may be in over our heads.

This could really be time to talk to the FBI.”

She had thought about it already, before Miguel Torres left, in fact “If they believed us and went out there and broke down doors, what do you suppose they’d find?”

“I know,” he said.

“I know. Gallead’s had time to clear out everything right down to virgin wood. But they’d start an investigation.”

“Yes, and six months from now, or two years from now, or five, we might even hear echoes of it, and meanwhile, what about Paula Kennerman?”

Alone later, she continued to worry the question: What was in the little pill bottles valuable enough to pay two thousand dollars for illegal workers to package? Some kind of phony treatment for something incurable? Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s, or even AIDS? People would pay anything for hope. Where did the tablets and capsules come from? Miguel had said emphatically they did not make them at Gallead’s place; they just packaged them.

She knew she was wasting time, but she couldn’t leave it alone. So, she told herself, Craig picked up ten thousand doses of something somewhere. Where didn’t matter, she decided; he said he went up and down the coast from Mexico to Canada, even to Hawaii. He could hide ten thousand doses easily enough, even if he was stopped repeatedly and searched for marijuana, coke, anything. All that was bulky, and he was dealing with very small items. His father had a supply of paper for the information sheet, or instructions; he could print and deliver five thousand to Gallead without involving anyone else. Same for the various boxes. That must be Dodgson’s department, also. And Royce Gallead was the packager. Then, someone had to deliver them. Craig Dodgson, she decided. He had the perfect cover for numerous trips throughout the year—his involvement with the anti-abortion groups.

Her head was reeling when she gave it up at last to go to bed. Until they knew what the stuff was for, they were no better off than they had been yesterday, or last month, she thought tiredly as she went up the stairs.

she had been up for over an hour before Frank appeared, looking grumpy and rumpled, wanting a cup of coffee, and no talk.

“I got hold of Carol Burnside,” she said.

“I told her we’d pay expenses, a room at the Hilton for two nights, the works. She said okay.”

“Who the hell is Carol Burnside?” he growled, and then shook his head.

“Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me anything yet.”

“She’s the photographer Dodgson bitched about. I need to spend a few hours at the office later on, reading to do.”

“Don’t talk,” he mumbled, and carried his coffee back toward his room.

She followed him through the hall.

“Where’s there a pharmacy open on Sunday, with a working pharmacist?”

“Christ almighty!” He entered his room and slammed the door.

While her father shopped in a supermarket with a pharmacy, she browsed in the aisle of over-the-counter medications waiting for the pharmacist to finish up what he was doing. She held a container of baby aspirins, which she had opened, and another of Dramamine, and was studying a pink capsule that the label said was a time-release decongestant, when the pharmacist approached her smiling. The smile vanished when he saw the open medications. He was a bald, middle-aged man with thick glasses.

“Now, something I can help you with?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“I hope so. Can you think of any medication that would require two different forms, one like this baby aspirin and one like this capsule?” She held out her hand for him to see, He looked at her suspiciously.

“Baby medicine?”

“No. For an adult.”

“Maybe if you tell me what it’s for, I can tell you what it is,” he suggested.

“I don’t know what it’s for,” she said.

“Only that one is a pink capsule and one is a white tablet, and they go together.”