The Unbidden Truth (18 page)

 

Carolyn often went through Mommy's purse, examining everything in it. She loved the little gold pen, and the compact with a seashell back. She pretended she was writing a check for a million dollars so she could buy a dog. She opened the lipstick and looked at the color, never real red, and it smelled good the way Mommy's clothes smelled. She was careful to put everything back exactly how it was, and she thought Mommy knew she did this and it was all right. She liked to look in Daddy's pockets, too. Sometimes she found bubble gum, and he said, how did that get in there? A reverse thief puts things in my pockets when I'm not looking. Once there were three tiny dolls, a mommy doll, daddy doll and little girl doll, and Daddy said the reverse thief followed him all the way home and slipped them in when he got a chance. Today nothing was in his pockets and Carolyn went to his dark suit on a hanger to check there, but Mommy said don't touch those, darling. Those are Daddy's work clothes.

 

Carrie sat straight up as the images blurred, but the memory did not fade away when the images did; even after she took her hands down she could still remember the room, the
clothes, the suit on a hanger. Turning on the light did not make them vanish. She snatched up a pen she had been keeping on her bedside table with a notebook, so far without a mark in it. She wrote down the scene, everything she could remember, how the little girl had been dressed—in pale-blue pants with pink flowers down one leg, barefooted, a blue ribbon tying her long hair back…

It was a start, she thought when finally she could think of nothing more to add and put the pen and notebook down. She realized that she had not actually seen the father or mother, they had been presences only, voices, like dream people who were never quite seen, but whose identity was never in doubt. That was all right, she told herself. She had something to build on. She felt that if she could fill in the life of that other little girl, the one she had imagined so clearly, she would also find clues to her own early life.

R
ay Manfried didn't mind pulling the night shift, easy work, sit drinking coffee for six hours or more, good pay, and nothing to do. He missed the old days, however, when he'd smoke a pack of cigarettes while keeping an eye out. Since he had given up smoking, there wasn't a thing to do with his hands. And when the fog moved in the way it always did that time of year, there wasn't much point in keeping an eye out from across the street, unless someone came in with a foglight, and he didn't think a night prowler would oblige. He shifted in his chair, emptied his thermos and finished the last sandwich he had packed. He should have brought peanuts in the shell, he decided, just for something to do with his hands. Then he stiffened in his chair.

He was in the coffee shop across the street from Holloway's office, and Bailey's orders were to call if anything hap
pened out of ordinary. A black van pulling in and stopping seemed to be exactly what Bailey had had in mind. He hit the speed dial on his cell phone and Bailey answered in a sleep-thickened voice.

“Something's going on,” Ray said. “Black van, maybe two guys. They're going in the shop under Holloway's office, and they turned off the lights.”

“I'm on my way,” Bailey said, and he hit the number for Herbert's phone. It was three-thirty in the morning. Herbert answered just about as quickly as Bailey had done. “You're closer,” Bailey said. “Barbara's office. Something's going on.”

Ray pulled on his leather jacket and cap, waited five minutes, then eased out the door and waited a bit longer. He couldn't see a thing happening across the street, just the van, and still no lights had come on. He pulled his revolver from the holster and put it in his pocket, keeping his hand on it. There were dim lights glowing through the fog at the upstairs offices, Holloway's offices. Maybe they had already gone up, using the inside stairs. Street lamps eerily glowed through fog, not providing much real light. He took his chances and darted across the street, froze in a shadow. The men had come out, had opened the sliding door of the van and were removing something big that looked heavy. He waited until they entered the shop with the thing to edge in closer.

He heard a sound from the van, but before he could turn something crashed against his head, and he fell to the sidewalk. He was aware of being dragged but was too groggy to struggle. A siren sounded, someone stepped on his hand and he passed out completely.

Herbert pulled to a screeching stop in the parking lot in
time to see the van rounding the corner, and right behind Herbert a police car stopped.

 

“After that,” Herbert told Bailey when he arrived, “things got a mite confused. They claimed I was speeding, and they were pointing guns at me and everything. I told them my buddy called to say there was a robbery going on, and I mentioned that they might want to have a look around and see if a watchman was laid out somewhere.”

By then there were several more police cars, and even two plainclothes detectives along with a forensic team. Ray was sitting on the floor cursing steadily, holding a wad of wet paper towels against his head, his other hand in his lap, already swelling and turning color. An ambulance arrived, the attendants helped Ray up and into it, and left with forensic specialists going along.

“What the hell is that thing?” a detective asked, eyeing the machine the men had dropped.

“It's a tankless water heater,” Herbert said. “You plug it in a regular outlet, and the wires on that circuit get red-hot and there goes the building. Looks like them guys wanted to see if it would work and forgot it when they left in a hurry like. I wouldn't touch if I was you. You know, fingerprints or such.”

At four-thirty Bailey called Frank.

 

“What the devil happened over here tonight?” Frank growled at Bailey in Barbara's office. She had made a swift check to make certain no one had entered. Nothing appeared disturbed.

Bailey was grim and he was sore. His man had been attacked and injured, and the case had become a personal affair.
He kept his report short. “Ray saw the van stop out front and a couple of guys get out and enter the decorator shop below here. He called me, and I called Herbert. The van was black, unmarked, with a film over the windows. He didn't see the third guy. They were inside eight to ten minutes. They were taking something into the shop. That's when he got bashed. They dragged him inside, and dropped everything and took off when they heard a siren. Herbert got here in time to see them going around the corner, and the cops were right behind him. They let Herbert go, and I sent him back to the house.”

“What were they up to? They didn't come up here evidently,” Frank said.

“Setting the stage,” Bailey said dourly. “Back door's steel, it won't open from outside. They opened it, went out and rigged the circuit breaker. A nylon string on a piece of dowel, fasten it to the circuit breaker, close the box with the dowel on the outside, and the thing can't trip until the nylon melts. The dowel drops to the ground, the breaker trips, and it looks like just another one of those accidental fires. They opened a window or two for a good draft, and turned off the water to this side of the building, disabling the sprinkler system. Seems they knew exactly where everything was, and they were fast workers. That waterless heater takes forty or fifty amps. The arson guys will check the wiring, but I bet they'll find this office is on the same circuit as the shop below. The building would have gone up when those wires got hot.”

“Don't those things have to be hardwired in or something?” Frank asked after a moment.

“This one's been modified. It has a regular plug. They knew what they were doing. Let the fire start, pack up the heater and beat it while the building burns from the walls out.”

“The fire station's just a few blocks away. No fire would have gotten out of hand before they arrived,” Frank said.

“Smoke and water damage,” Barbara said. She felt as cold as ice. “Nothing would have been salvageable after the fire department did its work.” She looked at Bailey. “What did Ray tell the police?”

“He was on a stakeout over at Johnny's coffee shop to see who was sneaking in at night and taking stuff. Johnny will back him up.”

“How bad is Ray?” she asked.

“He'll have a headache, and he's got a broken hand or fingers or something. The forensic guys went to the hospital to see if they can get an impression of the shoe that stomped him.” He winced at the idea of manipulating that swollen hand. “It'll be a Nike or Reebok or something that every other person in Eugene wears.”

“Did he get a look at them?”

“Nope. Just their backs. That's what he wanted to do, get close enough to have a look. Now we've got to talk about security.”

Barbara stood up and went to the window. The dense fog was brighter than when she arrived, but it was still heavy. And the police were still doing something down there. The detective had said he wanted to ask them a few questions before he left. No doubt, they'd stop everyone coming to work. Do you have any enemies who'd want to burn down your building? Nope, not me.

Frank got up to make coffee.

“Those guys tonight weren't playing around,” Bailey said. “And you've got one guy at your house. Alan's the best, but he's one guy, and if three of them come rolling in, he's still just one guy.”

Frank stopped in the doorway. “What do you suggest?”

“It's time to pull Herbert out of Darren's place and let him hang out at your house. If that means Carrie, too, then let her have the upstairs bedroom.”

Frank nodded and continued to the reception room to make coffee. Bailey was right, but he'd have a houseful with Herbert, a dog, Alan, Carrie, Barbara. Maybe it was time to turn things over to the Feds, let them deal with the Wenzels. Too much and too little; the thought followed swiftly. They knew too much and had too little.

At the window in her office, Barbara was also considering Bailey's suggestion, as unhappy with it as Frank was. She hated the idea of being crowded like that. She needed privacy, room to pace and think without interruption. And what would they tell Carrie? They wouldn't be able to pretend any longer. They would have to tell her they were all under guard, and she would know that Herbert had been her protector for weeks now.

Barbara had kept her informed about her plans for the defense, to establish that Joe Wenzel had been blackmailing his brother, and the family or some of the family had put an end to it. So far Carrie had not pressed for the reason Larry had yielded to blackmail, but if she now realized that she had been guarded so long, it was certain to raise the question of what that family's secrets had to do with her.

Barbara and the prosecutor, Jason Mahoney, had had two pretrial meetings with the judge, and both sides had stipulated to a lot, with the hope of expediting the trial. Everyone wanted it over and done with before Christmas. Just one week ago, she had turned over most of her witness list. Had the Wenzels been told they were on it? Had one of Greg's friends told him that Bailey was asking questions about Greg? Had they tried
to destroy that damning tape? She was deep in thought when Frank returned with the coffee.

“I think Bailey's right,” she said, taking her chair again. “And I want to have Nora and Greg served with the subpoenas today if possible. They've made their move, it's our turn now. As soon as that's done, I'll inform the D.A.'s office. They know by now the direction I'm heading in, more or less, but it might come as a shock to the Wenzels to be hit with subpoenas. Let's keep them off balance.”

“And maybe next time all four of them will come in a black van,” Bailey said.

“If so, let Herbert prove he's as good a shot as you claim,” Barbara said.

The cleaning crew came and were sent away again. The detective came up and asked the expected questions, got the expected answers and left, but not before saying this incident was being called an attempted burglary, at which everyone nodded, with the clear understanding that the arson squad was at work.

Before Shelley and Maria arrived, it had been decided that Bailey would see to security for the building. Frank would take care of the subpoenas, and Barbara would talk to Carrie and see to it that she got moved into Frank's house.

 

“Okay,” she said to Shelley after Frank and Bailey had left. “They tried to burn us out, so I'm moving my operations to Dad's house, and today I have to pack up everything relating to the case and haul it over there. I want to be out of here by three, dump the stuff and go talk to Carrie.”

“I'll finish correlating material, get things organized in the folders,” Shelley said. “What else can I do?”

“I think that's going to be plenty. Let's get at it.”

They worked on the stacks of papers and photographs together, filling file folders, labeling them, adding them to thick binders as they went, and by three it was mostly done. Barbara rolled up the maps and folded the easel, put them in her closet and locked it, and they loaded her car.

“Hold the fort,” Barbara told Maria. “Keep the door locked and be on deck in case we need something. We'll be in and out for the next few weeks.”

Maria looked woebegone.

It was ten minutes after four when Barbara arrived at Darren's house and found Carrie and Todd with Herbert in the basement rec room.

“Howdy,” Herbert said. “We're pret' near done. Don't it look good?”

“It looks great,” Barbara said after a swift glance around. To Carrie she said, “Can we talk a few minutes?”

Carrie said sure and they went up the stairs. When she paused in the kitchen, Barbara said, “Your apartment. Okay?”

Then, when they were both seated in Carrie's living room she said, “Last night someone tried to set a fire in my office building, and I'm moving everything to Dad's house. Since the trial starts on Monday, we think it's a good idea for you to move over there, too. It will make things easier.”

Carrie paled at her words, then asked, “Why burn down the building? Were you in it?”

“No. It was at three-thirty in the morning. No one was there. But if they had succeeded, my papers would have been destroyed, if not by fire, then by water and smoke. That would have meant petitioning the court for a new trial date, and starting over from scratch. Six months more, maybe even
longer. Maybe they figured we'd run out of money, or out of patience, or something.”

Carrie moistened her lips. “That doesn't explain why I should move.” She regarded Barbara with a level look. “Is Herbert going, too?”

Barbara nodded. “Yes. And Morgan.”

“And Alan will be there?” It wasn't really a question. “A philosophy graduate who's afraid I'll want to talk about philosophy. A guard dog, Herbert. I heard him leave just after three-thirty, and I heard him come back nearly an hour later. He went over there, didn't he? Why, Barbara? Are you going to tell me why? What this is all about?”

“I hope you've come to trust us during the past few months,” Barbara said. “I need your trust now. I promise you that after the trial is over I'll tell you everything I know, but for now we have to concentrate on the trial. You, too. We all have to keep our focus on every word said in court, watch every expression, note every nuance. We all have to concentrate on that alone for the next few weeks. Every scrap of information I've gathered has to be guarded, and Alan can't do it by himself. I need Herbert, too.”