The Unbidden Truth (2 page)

The waiter led them to a bistro table and a minute later brought coffee and oversize goblets with cognac. Barbara swirled hers and watched the way the liqueur crawled back down, expecting now to hear the phenomenal jazz discovery. Instead, she was jolted when the piano player started again, this time with the passionate, assertive opening of
Rhapsody In Blue.
She had not seen the pianist return, and her view of the woman playing was obscured by a fishbowl on the piano with a few bills in it. Without a pause the music changed, became sweet and dreamy, “The Blue Danube.” Again a change without a transition, and it was “Dancing in the Dark.” From there it dissolved into “Greensleeves,” into something she did not recognize, then Mahler, Chopin, something she did not know. The lounge had gone silent, no murmuring voices, or clinking of glasses, just the music with one piece dissolving, flowing into another with apparently effortless ease. The poignant strains of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” a lilting and gay “Farmer in the Dell,” Offenbach's “Barcarole,” a
bit of Mozart. She stopped trying to identify the pieces that came and went seamlessly, and then there were single notes, and she heard the words in her head that went with them.
When will they ever learn?

There was silence for a minute when the last note sounded; someone began to applaud, and then everyone applauded wildly. The pianist stood up, bowed her head and swiftly walked away out of sight through a doorway behind the bar.

“My God!” Barbara whispered.

“Didn't I tell you? Phenomenal, isn't she?”

Her coffee had grown cold, and she no longer wanted the cognac. Will had finished his. “She'll be back in twenty minutes or so,” he said. “But not like that. More easy-listening stuff. Want to leave now?”

Will had talked about the pianist all the way back to her apartment until she had wanted to gag him. “Probably an addict, those long sleeves are hiding needle marks, or maybe she's shacked up with a guy who beats her and she's hiding bruises. She could have become a concert pianist, but instead she's playing in a bar in a two-bit town. Probably a hooker. She'll rake in the tips, you bet she will. And move on.”

At her door she had not asked him in, to their mutual surprise.

Now that woman was her client, although she had yet to meet her. And it was Frank's fault, she said to herself, getting back to her starting point. If he hadn't tried to push her into Darren's arms, she would not have gone out with Will, she would not have gone to that lounge and heard Carol Frederick play, and if she had not heard her play, she doubted that she would have taken the case. It appeared to be open and shut.

Carol Frederick was a drifter with no permanent address, no known family, no real friends in Eugene. According to the
newspaper, and the leaks providentially dropped by the D.A.'s office, she had been pursued for weeks by Joe Wenzel, the owner of the motel and had avoided him, or lured him on, depending on how one looked at it. The night of his death she was seen talking with him in the parking lot after she quit work, arguing with him? Fighting with him? She had been seen entering his room.

The next day Joe Wenzel's body was discovered on the bedroom floor of his suite in the motel. He was wearing a lightweight summer robe, nothing else. Carol Frederick's hairs were on his coat, her fingerprints on a glass in the suite.

Tried and convicted by leaks, Barbara thought then. But any public defender, with a minimum of bargaining, would get her off with no more than involuntary manslaughter. And that would result in prison. Barbara shuddered to think of that magical piano player in prison, but she doubted very much if she or anyone else could do any better for her than that.

A
t eleven the next morning Barbara was in a small meeting room in the county jail waiting for Carol Frederick to be delivered to her. The room was dismal, with a metal table bolted to the floor, two wooden chairs and a harsh overhead fluorescent light that turned skin tones to a shade somewhere between yellow and avocado-green, and made any lipstick a garish purple. The door opened and a guard ushered Carol into the room.

“Hi, I'm Barbara Holloway,” she said, standing by the table. “Can we talk a few minutes?”

Carol Frederick was not pretty in any conventional way, but striking looking. Long, straight black hair in a ponytail, dark blue eyes, heavy eyebrows straight across, and facial bones that suggested some Native American in her genealogy. She regarded Barbara with suspicion and remained standing
by the door. “Why? I don't know you. How do you rate a private room?”

“I told them I'm your new defense attorney.” She pointed to her briefcase, which had been searched. “My credentials,” she said with a smile. “Of course, that can change if you kick me out, but as it stands now, that's why.”

“What happened to the one they already gave me? Quit already?”

“Nope.” Barbara pulled out a chair and sat down, motioning Carol toward the other chair. She approached it warily as if suspecting a trap. “It seems that you've become the cause for a group of people who donate money for various worthy causes. They want to pay for your defense. I'm not connected to the government in any way. I'm in private practice. They hired me to represent you if you'll have me.”

Carol perched on her chair as upright as a person could be, and now drew back and crossed her arms over her chest, her suspicion even more pronounced in her expression of skepticism. “What's in it for them?”

“Not a damn thing that I can see,” Barbara said. She repeated some of what Louise Braniff had told her, then spread her hands. “I'm sworn to secrecy concerning your benefactors. I have a cashier's check for a retainer, and I'm not to report back to them along the way, just get in touch with the spokeswoman if I need more money.”

“I don't believe it,” Carol said. “No one hands out money for a stranger.”

“They apparently do, and they did. It's up to you if we go on from here. You don't have to decide this minute. Do you know anyone you can ask about me, confirm that at least I'm legitimate?”

Carol shook her head, then contradicted the gesture. “Yes, maybe I do. If I can trust the matron who brought me here. She said you're okay. I should grab you if I can. But you listen to me. If you're just going to try to talk me into taking what they're offering, the way Bill Asshole is, forget it. Spend the money on a cruise or something.”

Barbara grinned, remembering the time she had called Bill Spassero the same thing, only to be rebuked by her father. “He's a pretty good attorney, actually, just overworked. What are they offering? What did they say when they questioned you?”

“At first, it was all sympathy. They said they understood. The creep dragged me into his room and locked the door and when the party got too rough, I shot him and took off. Self-defense, what any girl would have done, maybe get off altogether, or else involuntary manslaughter, minimum sentence. They said they were on my side, make it easier on everyone if I just admitted it up front and be done with it.” She pushed back her chair, ready to stand. “I said I wanted a lawyer and they said what for, no problem with self-defense, no lawyer needed. Like that. Two, three hours like that. Only problem is that it's a lie, and I wouldn't admit to anything and I just quit talking. They charged me with second-degree murder. Some sympathy. So if that's your line, forget it.”

“As I said, it's up to you. And that's not my line. I don't have a line since I haven't heard your side. Want me to leave now?”

“Wait,” Carol said. “Why did you agree to do this?”

Barbara studied her for a moment, then said, “Because I heard you play.”

Her words seemed to strip the tough veneer off Carol. She slumped in her chair, looking very young and vulnerable for a second, and very frightened. She straightened again and her
expression tightened. “So what now? What do you do? What do I do?”

“This is just a preliminary, get-acquainted meeting. There are certain formalities I have to see to on Monday, and after that we'll be spending a lot of time together. I'm Barbara, by the way.”

The young woman hesitated, then said, “Carrie. I go by Carrie.”

“Okay. For now, just tell me what happened that night. Your side of it.”

“I don't have a side,” Carrie said almost sullenly. “I quit work at midnight and went out to my car, and the creep was waiting for me on the walk by his door. He grabbed my arm, and I shook him off and kept going. He was drunk, talking crazy. He followed me and when I got to my car he tried to hold the door open, but I closed and locked it and took off. I went to the apartment where I lived and went to bed. That's what I told the detectives, all I could tell them, because it's all I know about it.”

“Okay,” Barbara said. “Had you known him before? Ever been to his suite at the motel? Had drinks with him? Anything at all?”

“No. He was a slob, a fat and ugly slob. I didn't know who he was until I complained to Mark—he's the manager, Mark Ormsby—and he told me the creep owned the place and to try to get along with him. I never even saw him until a couple or three weeks before he was shot. He began hanging around at night, watching me, brushing me in passing, touching my hair, like that, and I complained to Mark. I told him I'd quit if the slob didn't lay off, and that's when he told me to cool it, that he'd talk to him.”

“Did he?”

“I don't know. If he did, it didn't do any good.”

“You could have filed a harassment complaint.”

“Yeah, right. Against the owner. Sure I could.”

“But you didn't quit. Why not?”

That strange vulnerable look crossed her face again as she gazed past Barbara and said softly, “I wanted to play the piano.”

Whatever reasons Barbara might have assumed, good tips, or good hours, leaving her free during weekdays, to play the piano had not been among them.

“Okay,” she said. “We have a few details to work out.” She opened her briefcase and brought out a folder with the client-attorney agreement and a steno pad. “Don't bother with that right now,” she said. “Read it overnight, and we'll sign it on Monday after I clear things with the Public Defenders' office. Also, make notes of anything that might be of help, anything at all that you noticed at the motel, tension between Wenzel and others, things of that sort. What he was saying to you that night. Even if it seems inconsequential, it might be something we can follow up on….” She finished with her instructions, leaned back and said, “Now, what do you want me to bring you, or send over?”

“Like what?”

“Personal items, books, your favorite slippers, things like that. Nothing expensive. You don't want to get robbed here.”

“My sheet music from the lounge,” Carrie said after a moment. “Can I have that?”

Surprised again, Barbara nodded. “Let's make a list. Where is your stuff, by the way? Your car, clothes?”

“In the apartment. The car's parked at the curb. I have a couple of boxes, two suitcases…. They took my keys.”

“I'll get them back. I'll collect your belongings and keep them safe for you.” She got the address of the apartment Carrie had shared with Delia Rosen.

“You'd better write a note to your friend,” she said then. “Give me permission to pick up your things. And another one for the lounge.”

“Delia isn't a friend. Just someone I met in Las Vegas. She might have tossed my stuff out already to make space for a new roommate. He, Bill Asshole, didn't offer to do anything about that.”

“Well, as I said, he's overworked. He would have in time.”

Carrie shook her head. “No. It's part of the pressure to make me take their offer. He thinks I did it.”

Barbara did not argue the point. Carrie might even be right, she knew, recalling Will Thaxton's easy assessment of her: addict, abused, on the make. Besides, Bill Spassero had seen the evidence gathered by the investigators.

 

Delia Rosen's apartment was on the second floor of one of the fine residential houses that had been converted to apartments to accommodate the university students, in walking distance to the school and downtown, and dilapidated after many years of abuse and neglect. Delia had light-brown curly hair, eyes the color of milk chocolate and a dimple in her cheek. Her building was like an oven, and she was wearing shorts and a halter that hot day when she opened the door at Barbara's knock. She appeared to be as friendly as Carrie had been guarded. She hardly even glanced at the note Barbara handed her.

“Boy, am I glad someone's going to take her stuff. I didn't know what to do with anything. I guess my boyfriend will
move in and share rent, and her stuff's in the way. Come on in, I'll show you.”

The apartment had a living room with kitchenette, a bedroom and a bath. An ironing board was set up in the living room with several blouses on hangers on the end of it. Delia motioned toward some boxes and two suitcases against the wall. “That's her stuff. I packed up everything I could find.” She picked up a can of diet soda and said, “You want a cold drink?”

Barbara, who hated carbonated drinks of any kind, and especially diet drinks, said, “I'd love it. I'm burning up.”

“Yeah, me too, and I'm stuck with ironing on a day like this.” She went to a small refrigerator and brought out another can, which she handed to Barbara.

“Had you worked with Carrie very long?” Barbara asked, opening the can.

“Not really. We didn't work together in Las Vegas, just in the same casino. She was in the dining room and I was a cocktail waitress. We saw each other now and then, that's about it.” She motioned toward a rickety chair and pulled out another one for herself. “When she got fired I said how about going to Eugene with me, and she got this real funny look and said, who's he? See, like she thought I meant a guy. Maybe I was suggesting a ménage à trois or something.” She laughed. “I went to the U of O here, and I knew I could get a job….” She rambled on, wanting to talk about herself, and now and then Barbara nudged her back to Carrie.

“I wanted to come up early enough to find an apartment and line up a part-time job. If you wait too long you can't find anything, not after the kids return. So she said sure, she'd drive us to Eugene and hang out a while.”

“Why did she get fired?” Barbara asked during one of the infrequent pauses.

“I don't know firsthand, just the rumors and stories. Some gals said she slugged a customer, or else she just gave him a shove when he wouldn't keep his hands to himself, or something like that. Anyway, she got fired on the spot. She's a funny girl, you know. I never did hear her make on it. She doesn't talk about herself. You know, that's a long drive from Vegas to Eugene, and she hardly talked at all. She's just strange.”

Barbara nodded. “Some people don't seem to have a lot to say.”

“Not just that. We applied at the lounge the same day, and there were some others waiting for an interview. She spotted that grand piano, and it was like a magnet for her. First thing I knew she was over there playing like a pro. And she never even mentioned before that she knew how to play. Anyway, they hired her to play and she raked in the tips, believe me. They loved her. And every morning she'd go over there around nine and practice for a couple of hours. A magnet.”

“What about Wenzel? Do you think the motel will change now that he's gone?”

“It wasn't his, you know. It's the property of Wenzel Corporation, the developers. He moved in after his house burned down. He was off at Vegas losing money and his place burned to the ground, I guess. We called him Joe Weasel. And he got after Carrie right away after he moved in. It was spooky the way he watched her, like an obsession, and she made it worse by the way she cold-shouldered him. Probably if she'd just kidded him along a little, he would have let it go. Or she could have said something like her boyfriend was a gun nut and jeal
ous, or something. I mean, you can usually say something to make them back off, but she didn't.”

“That's a good line, about the boyfriend,” Barbara said. “I'll have to remember that. Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Not that I know of. Or girlfriend either, if you know what I mean. She's just funny. Sort of a loner.”

When it appeared that Delia had confided all she knew about Carrie, Barbara stood. “Well, I'd better haul that stuff out of here. Thanks for the soda.”

“And I'd better finish my ironing,” Delia said.

Barbara carried the boxes and suitcases to her car, then sat for a minute. Where to take them was a problem. Not to her small apartment. They would just be in the way. Not the office, same problem. Her old room at Frank's house, she decided. Plenty of room up there, in no one's way, accessible. She would swing by the lounge and pick up the sheet music and then head for her father's house.