The Unbidden Truth (28 page)

“On the night of August tenth did you see Gregory Wenzel arrive home late?”

“Yes, ma'am. At ten after three.”

“If you didn't keep a log, how can you be sure of the time?”

“On Sunday when I read about the murder of his uncle I said to my wife that he got home late that night and I said it was at ten after three. It was real fresh in my memory, and then saying it to my wife like that made me remember. That's what I told the police.”

“Did you actually see him, or just his car?”

“Well, I know the car, all right, and he sort of waved when he drove by. I knew who it was, all right.”

She thanked him and said no more questions, and Mahoney shook his head. He had no questions.

Things were so peaceful, Barbara thought, when Judge Laughton called for a recess until the following morning. And in the morning, she knew, things would start popping all over the place.

T
hose nights Shelley was staying to work with Barbara until ten or later, then Bailey drove her home, and Barbara continued for several more hours. That night soon after Shelley left, Barbara started downstairs for a drink of water. Halfway down she paused and realized she had been listening to Carrie playing for quite a long time. She frowned and went down the rest of the way. Frank's light in the study was still on, his door ajar, and she went there instead of to the kitchen.

“You're up late,” she said at his doorway.

He lowered the book he had been reading, another law book, and nodded. Both cats were with him, one on his lap, the other on his feet. As long as the monster dog stayed outside, they were willing to pretend an armistice had been declared.

“Have you been listening to Carrie?” Barbara asked at the door.

“Yes. Variations, but the same thing over and over.”

“I'm worried about her,” Barbara said in a low voice. She was thinking of Janey Lipscomb's warning, that an abreaction could bring about totally unpredictable behavior.

“And there's not a damn thing we can do about it,” he said. “Just a few more days, that's all we can hope for. Let's just pray she hangs in there until next week.”

Barbara got her water, found coffee in the carafe and poured a cup. Frank didn't let her make coffee in his house any more than Maria did at the office. She went back upstairs, back to work. Later, she heard Carrie come up and go into her room. The house felt eerily quiet after the piano music stopped.

 

Carrie was in a state between wakefulness and sleep, with dream images running through her mind, aware that they were dream images. Lucid dreaming, she thought sleepily. Carolyn flitted across her mental landscape.

 

Carolyn couldn't sleep, she was too excited and, besides, it wasn't even really dark yet. “Tomorrow,” she whispered to Tookey, “we'll go to a ranch and I can ride a horse, a real horse. Daddy said so. And we'll get a baby sister and a house, a whole house all for us.” She tossed and turned but sleep wouldn't come and she got out of bed, thinking about Daddy's briefcase. He said he had the king in there, she heard him, and maybe he had a toy for her or candy. She slipped across the hall to Mommy and Daddy's room where the briefcase was on the bed. She looked in the briefcase, but there wasn't a toy or candy either. She saw some pictures and pulled one out, just a bunch of men and a truck. There was a funny circle
around one man's head, and she drew in her breath. It was like a crown, she thought. It wasn't a very good crown, she could draw a better one, but Daddy probably was in a hurry when he made it. She studied the king, and thought the men with him were all his warriors, and his castle was somewhere else. She wished Daddy had a picture of the castle. Tomorrow she'd tell Ramon the queen wouldn't have to be lonesome anymore because Daddy was going to bring her a king. She put the picture back.

 

Carrie sat straight up in bed as the images faded and full wakefulness came to her. She didn't turn on a light yet. That always made dream imagery fade away before she could grasp it. Instead, she went over the dream again and again to fix it in her mind. Dreams, she had learned, were not like the waking memories Carolyn sometimes gave her. Dreams were more elusive, harder to catch and put in her memory box. She had to write them down. When she was certain she had everything firmly in mind, she turned on the light and reached for her notebook.

Finished, she lay in the dark, thinking of the dream, the other memories she had collected. “Even if it's a sign of insanity,” she said to herself, “they're all I have. I can't let them go anymore.” It was like gathering puzzle pieces, and when she had enough of them maybe she could piece them together to tell herself a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.

 

Except for a brief flurry of interest when Larry Wenzel testified, the case had not caught the public's imagination. It had become no more than a rather sordid story of a barroom piano player who had shot and robbed a drunken lecher. Barbara had
offered to bet Frank that things would change after that day. He had snorted.

Barbara called her first witness, Zoe Corelli, and Mahoney objected. At the bench he voiced the same complaint he had made previously. “This has nothing to do with the trial. It's another red herring.”

“Are you going to object to everyone I call?” Barbara asked mildly. “Why not just make it a blanket objection and be done with it?”

Judge Laughton glowered at her. “I've heard all I want to hear of cross talk between you two. Are you going to link this witness to this trial?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Overruled. Let's get on with it.” He appeared to be as impatient with her as Mahoney was.

Zoe Corelli was sixty-something, as thin as a stick, with fuchsia-colored hair that matched her blouse, her lipstick and nail polish. She wore a lime-green suit with a very short skirt.

“Mrs. Corelli,” Barbara said, “will you please tell the court your occupation and where you practice it?”

“I own a wig shop in San Francisco, Hair Galoreous. Isn't that a delightful name for it? I chose it myself.”

Barbara smiled. “It is. How long have you been in that business, Mrs. Corelli?”

“Oh, dear, let me think. Sometimes I believe I must have invented wigs myself it's been so long. Forty years? Forty-five years? Something like that.”

“So you must know a great deal about wigs, how they are made, how they are fitted, things of that sort?”

“Dear, what I don't know about wigs is something that neither man nor woman is meant to know. Ask me anything.”

Some of the jurors smiled, and someone among the sparse spectators laughed. Judge Laughton tapped his gavel, then said, “Mrs. Corelli, will you please just answer the questions?”

“But that's what I'm doing,” she said. She smiled at him. “Yes, sir, Your Honor.”

“I have a receipt here,” Barbara said, showing it to Mahoney, then the judge. “Can you identify it for the court?” She handed it to Zoe.

She held it at arm's length, then said, “You have to wait a minute, dear, while I find my glasses.” She groped in an enormous tote bag and brought out eyeglasses, sky-blue cat-eye frames studded with rhinestones. Wearing them, she looked over the receipt and nodded. “Yes, that's mine. See? Hair Galoreous, and my name right here. What a lovely wig that was.”

Barbara turned to Shelley, who handed her the wig. She held it up for Mahoney and the judge to see, then handed it to Zoe. “Is that receipt for this wig?”

Zoe examined the inside of the wig, then nodded. “It certainly is. But how on earth did it end up here?”

“Mrs. Corelli, please explain to the court how you can tell if that is a wig from your shop?”

“Well, I know my merchandise,” she said, then smiled. “But there's a serial number, too. You can see it right here. If your eyes are pretty good, I mean. Personally, I need my glasses. It's little. Number 97351, see? Right here? And that's the number on the receipt. I always put that on the receipt in case there's a problem. I mean I guarantee everything I sell. Well, maybe not everything, because some of my wigs are quite inexpensive, you know, and you don't expect them to—”

“Mrs. Corelli, limit your answers to the questions, if you will,” Judge Laughton said.

Zoe looked at Barbara. “What was the question again, dear?”

Gravely, Barbara said, “I believe you answered it. When the wig is expensive you make a note of the serial number on the receipt. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that's exactly what I do, because—”

“The answer is yes,” Barbara said. “Do you keep a record of the serial number and the sale?”

“The answer is yes,” Zoe said and smiled again at the judge.

Barbara retrieved the receipt and the wig and handed both to the clerk to be entered as exhibits. “That wig cost two thousand five hundred dollars. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that's what the customer paid, but she didn't dicker at all. I mean if they object to the price I always come down—” She stopped and said, “The answer is yes, dear.”

Barbara was biting her cheek to keep from laughing, and she didn't dare look at Frank. “Did you have more than one wig like that one?” she said, motioning toward the exhibit table.

“Oh, yes. I had three. I called them The Three Furies and had them on alabaster forms. They were so striking, the contrast of jet-black and stark white.”

“Did you sell the other two?”

“Well, I sold one of them and I still have one. It's a real bargain now. I've reduced the price, you see, but I have platinum hair next to it, and that's stunning, too. I couldn't very well call it the One Fury, you see, and now—”

“Mrs. Corelli!” Judge Laughton rapped his gavel sharply. “Just answer the questions, if you can.”

“Well, I can, but you don't get much information with just a yes or no, you see, and I thought. I'm sorry, sir, Your Honor. I can do that.”

“Do you have with you a record of the other sale of a wig
like that one?” Barbara asked, and Zoe said brightly that she did and groped in her big bag for a sales book.

“See? Here it is. That's why I brought this great big bag, so I could bring things like this. The ledger is so big, you see. One of these day I have to start using a computer, but—”

The judge banged his gavel and she gave him a quick smile, then said, “It was a cash sale. I remember she said she didn't want to use a credit card because it was maxed, and I didn't believe that, but when you're dealing with retail, you just go along with whatever the customer says and let it go at that.” She looked at the judge again and said, “I'm sorry.”

“What is the serial number of that wig?” Barbara asked.

Zoe put on her glasses and read the number.

“Do you know the customer's name?”

“No. She said it was Blondie, and I wrote that down, but that wasn't her name, I could tell. And she had dyed hair. It was blond so I guess she thought the name was suitable.”

“What was the date of that sale?” Barbara asked.

“July 30. I had to make an adjustment in the wig, and she came back for it on August 2. She made a five-hundred-dollar deposit because that was all the cash she had with her, and she paid the rest when she came back. Two thousand two hundred dollars total. See, she objected to the price and I lowered it for her. I'm always willing to do that for the expensive ones.”

Judge Laughton raised the gavel, then put it down and leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. Barbara added the two dates to her calendar.

She had a series of questions to ask, and by the time she finished, Judge Laughton's face had taken on a dark reddish-purple hue, and Mahoney looked apoplectic. Zoe said the wigs could be washed, set, permed, anything that human hair
could undergo without causing any harm because, of course, the wigs were real hair from Polynesian girls who sold it for quite good money, although the middlemen were the ones who really made a profit from them. They should be kept on forms, she said, to maintain the shape. The hairs were hand tied in, and they couldn't be pulled out without tearing the lining. And she said no she probably would not recognize the customer again because she didn't pay a lot of attention to faces, they all had eyes, a nose and a mouth, like that, but she never forgot hair, unless it was dyed and then it could be changed so easily that even that wasn't for certain. Barbara let her ramble without interruption until Judge Laughton more or less told her to shut up.

When Mahoney got up to cross-examine her he asked brusquely, “Mrs. Corelli, just yes or no, do you know who bought that other wig?”

“I already said she said her name was Blondie and I—”

“Yes or no!”

“Well, if—No!”

“No more questions.” He sat down, scowling at her.

Barbara had no more questions and Zoe was excused. She was still in the courtroom when Barbara said to the judge. “Your Honor, I would like a short recess at this time in order to make a photocopy of that entry in her records.”

“Oh, dear,” Zoe said from near the door. She turned and approached the front of the courtroom again. “I can't let you do that. You wouldn't believe how many people wear wigs, and it's all confidential information. They can be so sensitive about it.”

Judge Laughton pounded the gavel vigorously and said there would be a short recess. He fled.

“Shelley, will you go with her?” Barbara said. “Tell her to cover everything except that one entry, and try to get back today. Get her to sign and date the copy.”

Shelley, smiling widely, went out with Zoe, and Barbara turned toward Frank, who was no longer suppressing his laughter. “I'm going to follow her to San Francisco and ask her to marry me,” he said.

“She's married, Dad,” Barbara said.

“I doubt she'd let a detail like that stand in the way.”