Clear and Convincing Proof (10 page)

“Do you want coffee? A Coke?” Barbara asked Annie, motioning toward her office.

“A Coke maybe.”

“Coming right up,” Maria said, rising from her desk. “I'll make a fresh pot of coffee, too,” she said, then smiled at Barbara, as if forgiving her for the terrible coffee she generally made.

“Hold the calls,” Barbara said, ignoring the slight dig, “unless it's Dad or Bailey.”

In her office, Barbara gestured toward the sofa and comfortable chairs by the round table with its lovely inlaid semiprecious stones. “Let's sit over there and just talk,” she said. She sat down and put her feet up on the table. “See, get comfortable.”

Annie smiled faintly and sat on the sofa, not as stiff and rigid as she had been in the directors' room, but not relaxed either.

“How it works,” Barbara said, “is that the cops investigate, and if they think you're a prime suspect, they'll question everyone who knows you, ever knew you, or just thinks they might know you. They'll dig up secrets you didn't even know you had, and come up with a lot of things that are true, as well as other things that aren't. I want to get that same kind of information, but from you directly, not from outsiders.” She grinned. “A defense attorney hates it when she learns along with the jury that her client was a serial killer back in middle school.”

This time Annie's smile was wider and lasted fractionally longer.

“That's a good place to start,” Barbara said. “Back when you were a kid. You lived on the coast?”

“Tillamook. On a dairy farm.” She stopped, and when Barbara simply nodded, she began to talk about her parents' farm, and then about the bay, the annual flooding, fishing….

Maria brought in a tray with a Coke and coffee and quietly left again. Annie talked on, about college at Monmouth, a boyfriend or two, going to Corvallis with others to dance or do a pub crawl through the minibreweries or see a movie, coming to Eugene to look for a job.

“Naomi hired me. She said they would train me.” She ducked her head. “For whatever reason, she took a liking to me, personally, I mean. She wanted to help me. When I told her I was living in a motel, because I didn't have moving-in money—I wouldn't ask my folks. They'd already done so much for me. You know, first and last month, a deposit—Naomi said that wouldn't do. And she invited me to live in the residence for a while.”

She was talking freely when she described working in the clinic, which she had loved. “I fell madly in love with Darren,” she said, and shook her head. “The older man girls dream of. It never occurred to me that everyone falls in love with him. He takes it in stride if he notices at all. It took a long time for him to notice me in particular, but then we began going out.”

“Were you lovers?”

“No. It never got that far. He was being careful,
I think, because I was a lot younger than he was, and he had been married and divorced, and has a son. Then David came along.”

And then, Barbara thought, Annie began to spin a fairy tale. Swept off her feet. A perfect marriage. Lovely house with a housekeeper-cook. A family retreat at Sun River, where there were horses, mountain trails to hike, a heated pool. Plays, concerts. Freedom to do volunteer work at the clinic. Beautiful clothes.

She had become rigid again, except for her hands which seemed to have an existence of their own, twisting and clutching each other almost spasmodically, relaxing, only to start again. She appeared oblivious that her hands were belying her words.

Barbara heard her out without interruption, and when Annie fell silent again, she asked, “Is that the picture others will paint of your marriage?”

“No one outside a marriage can really know what goes on inside it,” Annie said.

“That's true,” Barbara said, “but think how it will appear if four or five others under oath tell a radically different story, and you, also under oath, stick to your version. A jury might go with the greater number.”

“I read that you don't have to testify at your trial,” Annie said defiantly. “I won't take the stand.”

“At your trial,” Barbara said, nodding. “Again, true. But, Annie, I'm thinking of Darren Halvord's trial now. You may be called as a material witness. Not only that, but a hostile material witness, and
that means the prosecution can ask leading questions, of the sort where you end up damned if you answer and damned if you don't. If you refuse to answer, you can be held for contempt of court, and if it is decided that you lied, you can be held for perjury. It's a no-win situation. The questions no doubt will include things like when was the last time you had a serious argument with your husband? What are the terms of the prenuptial agreement you signed before your marriage to him? When was the last time you met Darren Halvord outside the clinic?”

Annie had gone pale as Barbara spoke, then blanched even more, until it looked as if she might faint. Shots in the dark, Barbara thought sadly, but they had struck home. Not unkindly she said, “Annie, we must not have an adversarial relationship. If we do, I would advise you to get a different defense attorney right away, because you have to be able to trust whoever defends you, and that means you have to be truthful, so that between you and your attorney you can determine the best defense possible.”

Annie swished slivers of ice around in her glass and did not look up. In a low voice she said, “There was an agreement. That's why I saw a lawyer a few years ago, to see if it was valid.”

Almost in a monotone she began to tell the other side of the perfect marriage. Then she said, “I decided to stick it out because I could work at the clinic, and I was getting training in so many different ways. I had no skills at all before, just a liberal arts education. And we had good sex. David was a
wonderful lover. It was just his demanding schedule that I hated. He was a brilliant surgeon—everyone says so—but he was a bad driver, too impatient with other drivers, and he got tense when he drove, so I did it all. I took him to the hospital, met him for lunch, picked him up at the end of the day. Just a busy schedule. He needed to be in control, and since he couldn't control others on the road, he opted out of dealing with them at all.”

She drained her glass, then kept her gaze on it when she said, “It's so complicated. When we made love, he made me feel like a princess, or a goddess. I thought he couldn't be like that if he didn't love me. At those times he lost control, his body and mine, no rational mind in charge….” Her voice dropped lower and the words came more slowly, as if she had never thought through this before, and now found it strange, bewildering even. “I kept thinking that he would get over such rigidity in the rest of his life, the way he did in bed. But after…after we made love, he would send me away. Funny, such passion, and then he wanted to sleep alone. The next day it was as if it hadn't happened. I think he was afraid. Losing control like that alarmed him somehow. In his bed, in his arms, I was so sure he loved me.” She shook herself and looked up at Barbara then. “I suggested once that we see a counselor, you know, a marriage counselor. He was furious. He said if I needed help, to go get it, but he certainly had no such need.”

“Did you talk to someone?”

She shook her head. “I would have gone with him, but not alone. We didn't fight, not like you meant. We had an argument a few nights before he was killed. I was restless because of the storm, the first storm of the season. And I was homesick. We argued about the clinic. He wanted to make it into a surgical facility, and I wanted to go along with the foundation plan. It was just an argument, but like I said, I was restless. I've always loved the first storms out on the coast. Anyway, I didn't want to eat dinner and I went out and drove around, parked here and there to watch the trees in the wind. Then I went home, about nine or nine-thirty. We made up and went to bed.”

Liar, liar, your pants are on fire,
Barbara thought, but she didn't press it. Later they would come back to it, probably more than once.

“And about Darren?” she asked. “Will the prosecution bring out witnesses who saw you two together outside the clinic, or even inside, as far as that goes?”

“I wasn't seeing Darren, or anyone else,” Annie said hotly. “I was so virtuous Caesar would have been proud to claim me. No one can say we were seeing each other. Even if I had been willing, and I wasn't, there wasn't anything between us. I had companionship and friendship at the clinic and did meaningful work there, and sex with David was more than enough. I was not looking for an adventure outside of my marriage. Besides, Darren never would have gone out with a married woman.”

“Okay,” Barbara said. “What about the morning of the murder? Exactly what did you do?”

Annie drew in a long breath. “I've gone over this so many times it's starting to sound rehearsed,” she said. “I drove David to the residence at about seven-thirty. He got out and I left. Up Delta Highway to the Beltline, over to I-5 and up to Portland. I didn't stop anywhere along the way. It was slow going because of the rain and fog, and the traffic was heavy. At the hospital up there, I went straight to the reception desk where I was to pick up the X rays. When I said my name, a detective came over and introduced himself. Detective Cary Rizzo. He said there had been an accident, and he would drive me home. He claimed that he didn't know more than that. His orders were to drive me to the clinic. When we got there, another detective came out and asked if he could look inside the glove box and the trunk. I said yes, and he did. Then we went to Naomi's office and they told me what had happened.”

“You didn't get out of the car at all, at the residence or in Portland, anywhere along the way?”

“No. It was raining hard all the way up, and I went straight to the parking garage at the hospital. I got there at ten minutes before ten, and we got back here at twenty minutes before one. We didn't stop along the way that time, either. It was just a slow traffic day.” She drew in another long breath. “They kept at it, did I stop at one of the rest areas, or in Salem for coffee, or to use a rest room? I didn't.”

“All right,” Barbara said. “Let's call it a day. It's
been hard for you, I know, and I'm afraid it won't get easier. Will you be at the clinic tomorrow? I want you to meet another associate, who just happens to be my father. He'll be working with Shelley and me on this.”

Annie said she would be there.

Barbara went to her desk after Annie left. She had to make a few notes before Darren Halvord arrived, and she wished that she had allowed more time between the two talks. How much truth, how many lies had Annie told? And if she had turned up bone-dry on such a rainy day, what evidence had the police collected that tied her to David McIvey's death?

D
arren Halvord was ten minutes late and mildly apologetic about it. “I try to be prompt,” he said, taking off a heavy jacket, “but sometimes things pile up. Today they piled up. Sorry.” His broad face had bright patches of red from the cold.

“No problem,” she said. She made her usual offer of coffee, tea, Coke, and he shook his head. Then, instead of moving to the easy seating arrangement at the round table, she went behind her desk and sat down. Her instincts told her to keep this at a very professional business level; if he relaxed any more than he already was he would be a puddle on the floor. He tossed his jacket on one of the clients' chairs and sat in the other.

“Before we get to McIvey's murder,” he said, “I want to tell you a little story. Okay?”

“Shoot.”

He grinned. “Right. Down in California, Simi Valley area, there was this nice little nuclear family. Dad, Mom, a boy and a girl. Dad worked for the police department, pretty high up, one of those jobs where no matter who's running things, the job is safe. You know how that goes. Change of administration, out with the old crew, in with the new, through the revolving door. Only some of the people don't have to go out. Mom worked for the city government, too. Another cushy sort of job that was safe, with the records department. No real money worries, good health all around, the all-American family. The problem was with the boy. He had a mouth. And he had eyes and read newspapers, had ears and listened to tales told out of school. All in all he was getting an education that was not in the textbooks. One lesson he learned early was not to ask the dad questions. Dad had a way of answering with the back of his hand. Okay. The kid ran with the wrong crowd and when he was thirteen his crowd got busted for drug dealing and using. He along with others. When his case came up, it appeared that behind the curtain a deal had been struck. Some of the gang went here, some went there. Our kid went to a privately run rehabilitation camp. They called it a ranch. A prison for juvenile delinquents. He was sentenced to seven years, from the age of fourteen until he was twenty-one.”

His voice was low and easy; Barbara could not detect any bitterness. He might have been talking about a movie he had seen a very long time ago.

“The kid was having a bit of trouble with withdrawal, and finally he had to go to the infirmary. He was a pretty sick kid, actually. The doctor, Henry Ernst, took care of him and kept him for a few days, or maybe weeks. Later on the kid couldn't really remember how long it was before he was up and working in the infirmary, scrubbing things down, general work like that. It was mandatory that all the guests at the ranch would have classes, calisthenics and work.”

Speaking dreamily he described living in the detention camp: drugs, fights, rapes, gangs, classes that no one paid attention to or took seriously, busywork….

“The kid had been there for nearly a year, still working in the infirmary for Doc Ernst when he was there, usually once a week unless there was an emergency, and responsible for keeping the classrooms clean, getting high when his mom sent him a few dollars, planning on the high of his life when he got out. Then a real fight broke out. The guards carried a couple of guys into the infirmary, bleeding from knife wounds, and another kid who was screaming in pain. The guards were doing the best they could to stop the bleeding until Doc Ernst could get there, but the one kid kept screaming, and a guard yelled for someone to shut him up. Our boy went over to him and began feeling him. He wasn't bleeding like the other two, but he was in agony. And our boy felt something strange, as if his hands weren't his, and were doing things he couldn't understand or control.
He grabbed the kid's shoulder and wrenched it in a curious way, and the kid moaned and passed out. Our boy was really scared that he had killed him, but when Doc Ernst came and took over, he said that the screaming kid had had a dislocated shoulder that our boy had set back in place where it belonged.”

Darren paused, gazing at Barbara with an intensity that she found disconcerting. Then he said, “I don't know what I did. I didn't know then what I was doing. But I knew that was the thing to do. My hands knew that. Something happened to me that day. I was addicted when I went in, and for the whole first year I was addicted and hurting when I couldn't get a fix. After that day I wasn't an addict. I haven't wanted anything since then. I finished high school and three years of college, and when I was twenty-one I got out, got my bachelor's degree, and enrolled in a four-year physical therapy course.”

When he paused, Barbara held up her hand, then pushed her chair back and stood up. “Intermission. I want coffee even if you don't. And you should meet my colleague before she takes off.”

Darren stood up and pulled a paper from his jacket pocket. “This is the agreement. Annie signed it but I haven't yet. You can get out now, no harm done. I said from the start that I could get my own attorney if I need one. You see, I know exactly what the D.A. will make of my background. Tough town, tough kid, tough gangs, ex-con, pusher and user…Hang him.” He tossed the agreement down on her desk.

“Did I say I wanted out?” Barbara asked. “I thought I said I wanted coffee. Do you want some?”

For a moment neither of them moved, then he nodded slightly. “Yes. I would like coffee.”

He met Shelley, and by the time she floated out, he was smiling the same way that everyone smiled in her presence these days. Barbara told Maria to take off, and Darren carried the coffee tray back to her office. This time they sat at the round table, Darren on the sofa, Barbara in a comfortable chair. She did not put her feet on the table.

“So to bring you up to date…” Darren said when they were seated again. He told her how he had finished his training, clinical work for the last year, and then had started applying for an internship for the following year. And no one had accepted him. He got a job at a Buick dealership, detailing used cars, preparing them for resale, and kept applying in ever widening circles. Then Kelso had replied and set a date for an interview.

His academic and clinical references were beyond reproach, the highest, but his personal record made it a difficult decision, Dr. Kelso had told him frankly after the initial interview. However, since they were a closed corporation, their files were not open for scrutiny, except for the requirements of the position, and they would give him a try. He interned for a year, and they hired him full-time afterward.

“Dr. Kelso saved my life,” he said. “I was as low as a guy can get, and there didn't seem to be an out for me. Then he opened the door again. I doubt that
he realized how important it was to me. What he saw was a good therapist who came cheap.”

“It was his decision?”

“Basically, it was. His wife was already showing signs of Alzheimer's, drifting out of conversations, forgetting things. And David McIvey's father was getting tired and didn't much care who came in as long as someone did. He wanted more time to fish and relax, and he had earned it. His wife had her hands full with fund-raisers, things of that sort, not with anything to do with the medical end. Dr. Kelso was practically running the whole thing by then.”

During his internship, lonesome, broke all the time, he had met Judy, who had split with her boyfriend a month or so earlier. They had spent a weekend camping out at the coast, and she had ended up pregnant. “We got married,” he said. “She lived with her parents afterward, and they hated me for ruining their daughter. Can't say I blamed them much. Anyway, the boyfriend came home and one day Judy asked me if I would mind terribly if Eric and she got back together as soon as the baby was born. What could I say? We'd had one weekend together. So the night Todd was born, her lover Eric was there with us.” He grinned. “We scandalized the midwife. Two months later we divorced, and the next day she married Eric. They're very happy together.”

“Okay. What about you and Annie? Is there anything going on there?”

“No. And there never was. I took her out a few
times, on a bike ride, to a movie, a concert once. Something might have developed in time—we'll never know. But nothing happened then, and nothing's happened since she got married.”

“No private meetings that someone might have seen?”

“No.” He hesitated, then said, “Actually we met once, just a few nights before David McIvey was killed. She called and said she had to tell me something. I told her my address and she came over. She stayed maybe fifteen minutes, twenty at the most, then left.”

He knew, Barbara thought then. He knew as well as she did how damning that visit would appear. A fight with her husband, out driving in the rain, call the old boyfriend, pay a call…

“You might as well fill in the rest,” she said. “Why that night? What was so important? What time was it?”

“Look, Barbara, I mean this. There wasn't anything going on between us, that night or in the past. We care about each other, but as friends.”

“So give me the details.”

He filled in the details, then said. “He was blackmailing her not to go along with the vote for the foundation. The meeting and vote were coming up in a week. She warned me. That's it.” Leaning forward he said, “He couldn't have hurt me no matter what he put in my personnel file. I've built a reputation at the clinic. I can go anywhere in the country and do all right because I'm recognized as one
of the best physical therapists around. It's a great clinic. We're helping people who wouldn't be treated otherwise. No money, no insurance, no help. And it would be a crime to see it fold. But the clinic isn't my life, not the way it is for Dr. Kelso, or even for Greg. Financially, speaking of the bottom line now, I'd be better off going somewhere else. His threat was empty.”

She studied him for a time. He wasn't boasting in the usual sense, she decided; he was merely stating a fact. He was one of the best in his field. “Did you tell the police about her visit?”

“No. And neither did she. We know how it would look. It was the night the first big storm came in, foggy and rainy. No one could have seen her, and we'll leave it at that.”

“Someone in your apartment building might have noticed her.”

“It's a private residence with an upstairs apartment, outside steps.”

“Where did she call from?”

“I don't know. It was about nine-thirty, closer to ten maybe. She said she was over by the clinic and—” He stopped suddenly, then said, “Oh. She must have used her cell phone. The police will know.”

Barbara nodded. “They know, and they know you both lied about it.” She looked at her watch; it was twenty minutes after six, and she was getting hungry. “Briefly, tell me about the morning of the murder.”

“Yeah, briefly,” he said in dull tone, as if his mind
were busy adding up the score and finding himself on a losing side. “I was on my bike. I always ride the bike to work, and all around town. I passed the gate and saw an open umbrella. I got off the bike and leaned it against the fence, and went into the garden to close the umbrella and put it under cover. Then I got back on the bike and rode around to the staff parking lot where I locked it up and went inside. I got there before eight, but I don't know how much before. And I don't know what time I left my place. Sometime after eight Carlos came running in and said there was a dead man. I went out with him and Tony Kranz, and we saw McIvey. I made sure he was dead, that he couldn't be helped. I told Carlos to go tell Greg and to have Greg call the police. And I told Tony to go inside and stay by the door and not let anyone out that way. I looked around the garden a little, but it was pointless. You can't see in a straight line anywhere for more than a few feet. A dozen people could have been lurking out of sight. So I went inside to get warm and to dry off and wait for the police.”

“What were you wearing when you arrived that morning?”

“A yellow rain suit with a snug hood over a thermal jacket. Black gloves and boots. Helmet. I know. They were looking for a dwarf in something shiny and black.”

“Or a demon,” Barbara said.

“Yeah. A demon. Another thing, though. The cops took my bike, boots and gloves. They released the
bike after three weeks. Without a pedal. I had to get a new one.”

“Oh, boy,” she muttered, thinking hard. Impounded as evidence? They must have found blood, or something equally damning. “That's enough for now,” she said rising, then stretching. “It's been a long day. Are you going to sign the agreement?”

“Do you still want me as a client?”

She studied him for a moment, then said, “That's a curious way to put it. I might ask if you want me as your attorney. But do I want you as a client? Has a patient ever asked you that? Do you still want me as a patient?”

He nodded. “Yes. And if I can help that person, then I do want him or her as a patient. That's what it's all about.”

“And you know ahead of time whether you can help?”

“Yes. Otherwise I say no, and recommend something other than physical therapy.”

“Understand that I'm not that certain. I'll do my best, give it my best shot, and I hope I can help, but I can't be so certain. It must be a good feeling, that kind of certainty.”

“It is.” He pulled on his jacket, then turned to the desk. “I'll sign our agreement now and be on my way.” He signed it, and they walked out through the reception room to the outside door which she unlocked. He paused there and said, “I've learned over the years to answer questions my patients don't ask. The answer to your question is no. I didn't kill David
McIvey, and I didn't conspire with anyone else to kill him. And I'm not sorry he's dead.”