Death Qualified (15 page)

    Miserably, Nell nodded.

    "The last time he was home, he said a new person was joining the research team, a psychiatrist who had written a book about how children's belief systems became frozen during adolescence. He said that when the project was done, Travis would be exactly the right age, that his age group would be the first to use whatever it was. And I knew he would try it on Travis if ever he could. Then, he came home again, and Travis is at that age, an adolescent, twelve." She moistened her lips.

    "Anything I say just makes it look as if I'm adding motive on top of motive for wanting him dead."

    Barbara agreed with her. She thought for a moment, then asked, "How was he different when he came home, when Travis was five?"

    Nell lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture and looked from Barbara to Frank.

    "I can't describe it. He ... he would be looking at me, and it was as if I wasn't there, as if he was looking through me to something else. For hours he would be quiet, not saying a word, and then he would start to talk so fast I couldn't even follow what he was saying. And his talk about the project sounded crazy.

    I think he had lost faith in it, in his part, anyway. That's why he wanted money. He said if he could provide matching funds for a grant, something like that, they wouldn't be able to phase him out." Her misery seemed to deepen as she spoke.

    "He was so unhappy that time, so worried, and distracted. Distracted," she said again as if she had made a discovery.

    "I don't think he was ever really here after the first day or two, not until we had another fight the day before he left again."

    Abruptly Barbara stood up.

    "I'm going to make some fresh coffee. And then, if you can stand to tell it once more, I'd like to hear about that last day, the day he was killed." She didn't wait for Nell to respond but picked up the carafe and entered the house. No decisions yet, she told herself firmly. Keep an open mind. Something good might still come up, not just piling more and more damning statements on top of one another. Nell thought her child had been threatened, she found herself arguing, as if for the prosecution, and she shook her head. Stop. In any event Nell could not be put on the witness stand. She would tell her father that much. But even as she thought about telling him how to conduct this case, she accepted that she was kidding herself. He was right that he couldn't manage it. He was too close to Nell.

    "And never practice law for your spouse, your family, or your friends." She heard the words in her head in the voice of the professor who had repeated them so often that it had been almost a joke.

    The kitchen was positioned so that the working area was in the front of the house, the road side, and the dining space overlooked the river. As Barbara stood at the sink waiting for the coffee to finish dripping through the automatic machine, she caught a glimpse of motion in the driveway. She went to the kitchen door to look out. A man was leaning against the hood of a Land Rover.

    She stepped out.

    "Hi, did you want something?"

    He was tall and broad in the shoulders, with blond hair that was bleached out by the sun to nearly white in the front, and he was dressed in work clothes, tan trousers, a tan work shirt, boots. He snatched off his sunglasses; he had bright blue eyes surrounded by pale skin. Suddenly he seemed many years younger than he had with the glasses on.

    "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt or anything. I'm waiting for Nell. She thought she might be done here around two. I'm Clive Belloc, a friend of hers."

    Barbara glanced at her watch and was surprised to see that it was two-thirty.

    "Sorry to keep her so long," she said.

    "I'm Barbara Holloway. I'm afraid we'll be another half hour or so. Is there anything I can get you? Do you want to come inside?"

    "No," he said hastily.

    "I'm fine. You're Frank's daughter? Glad to meet you. And please don't mention I'm out here, will you? I wouldn't want her to feel rushed or any thing."

    Barbara nodded and went back inside; the coffee was done. When she returned to the terrace, Nell appeared poised and steeled. Barbara poured the hot coffee for them all. Someone had dumped Nell's cold coffee, but this time she didn't bother with the spoon; she ignored the coffee altogether and started to talk as soon as Barbara was seated again.

    She recounted the morning concisely through the time of the UPS delivery of the computer and her climb up the mountain to the sheltered clearing. Then her voice faltered, and she sipped her coffee for the first time.

    "I saw him just before I got to the top, and I froze. I guess I was more shocked than anything. I shut my eyes for a second before I went up. Then I took the last step and looked around and saw him at the edge of the clearing He was laughing. And there was the shot."

    "Why did you say before that he was happy? It seems you hardly had time to notice."

    "But he was! He was laughing. He said, "Watch this!"

    just like a child might say it, pleased, delighted even. Just happy."

    "What did he mean, "Watch this'? What was he doing?"

    "Nothing. Just standing there, laughing."

    Barbara frowned at her.

    "Did he have anything in his hands? Anything he might have wanted to show you?"

    Nell shook her head.

    "I'm sure not. I didn't see anything.

    When he.... The shot threw him backward, and he jerked up both hands. I'm sure they were empty. I didn't see anything."

    Her voice had become more and more strained, and now broke entirely. She drank some coffee and drew in one deep breath after another. Barbara waited, dissatisfied and deeply troubled.

    "Okay, then what?" she asked finally.

    "I ran back down the trail to my house and called Doc.

    I knew he would be home on Saturday. I said I was going to go look for Lucas and he told me to wait, not to do anything until he got there. That's what I did. He called the sheriff, and we went together to look for Lucas. We hadn't found him yet when the sheriff's deputies arrived.

    They found him."

    "And they found your rifle in the living room later," Barbara said slowly.

    "Why was it out?"

    Wearily Nell told her about the men who had started to cut the tree down, and about the beer can.

    "I should have cleaned the rifle Friday night, but I thought I'd do some target practice on Saturday, and then I forgot all about it."

    Barbara knew there were many more questions she should ask, but, she thought wryly, she didn't know yet what they were. And Nell was looking pinched and pale, her hands trembling when she raised her coffee cup. Barbara leaned back in her chair.

    "This has been hard, I know. But you've been fine, just fine. There's something I'll ask you to do over the next few days. Don't rush it, and don't try to make sense out of it, but jot down everything you can remember that Lucas ever said about the people he was working with, the project they were involved in. And what that first test you tried was all about, the perception experiment. Will you do that?"

    Nell looked bewildered.

    "Sure," she said.

    "But they're in Colorado, you know. That's where they were working."

    Barbara shrugged.

    "It might not help, but at this minute I'm thinking we need all the information we can gather, and that's part of it." She glanced at her watch and saw that it was after three.

    "I'm afraid we've kept a friend of yours waiting a rather long time. Clive Belloc is out front."

    Nell looked surprised, then mildly guilty.

    "I forgot he was coming," she said.

    "He's going down to Turner's Point to the bookmobile with me, and then out for a sandwich or something. I forgot all about it." She stood up and began to stack the books; there were a lot of them, ten or twelve.

    "We'll drop in to leave Jessie's books after awhile," she said.

    "Will you be over there?"

    Frank said probably, then explained to Barbara, "Thursday, library-on-wheels day. Nell is Jessie's private librarian, pick-up-and-delivery service. And then we usually get together and gossip. Where are the kids?" he asked Nell.

    "Out swimming with Tawna and Celsy, up at McKenzie Bridge Park. They won't be back until six-thirty." She had the books in her arms, ready to leave, but hesitated.

    "Everyone been so good. Tawna and James, Celsy, Clive, Doc and Jessie, people in town.. .. They've been so good."

    She appeared ready to weep, and Barbara said briskly, "Well, let's go relieve Clive. Now there's a patient man."

    Actually, she thought cynically, she just wanted to see Nell and Clive together. Was he the one? She was thinking not when she returned to the terrace a few minutes later. Clive was perfectly aware of the invisible line Nell had drawn between them, and he had not violated it by as much as an inch.

    "Well?" her father said, watching her over the tops of his glasses.

    Why didn't he get contacts, or regular glasses, she thought irritably.

    "It's a bitch, and you damn well know it. She can't testify."

    "I know."

    "Did anyone else around here even know him?"

    He shrugged.

    "I never met him. Doc and Jessie might have. And he brought Clive around to give an estimate on the walnut trees seven years ago."

    She made an impatient gesture.

    "Accident? Someone out with a rifle let go a random shot, got him."

    He shrugged.

    "Could be, but wrong season. And target practice on private land? Not very likely. But it's possible."

    "She doesn't believe Lucas killed that girl. The papers say he left the car on the other side of the mountains and hiked over here. My God! Why? What do you have about all that?"

    "Damn little. That was over in Deschutes County. We can find out what they have." He looked thoughtful, then said, "Be better for her to believe he killed that girl, though."

    "If she's going for self-defense," Barbara agreed.

    "But she says she didn't do it, remember?"

    "Yep. I remember. Just commenting."

    "What about that professor who preyed on Lucas? Emil Frobisher? Anything?"

    "Something. But not good. He's dead. Killed by a boy, a prostitute."

    "Shit!"

    Frank grinned.

    "I missed my nap. See you later, honey."

    "Don't be so damned smug. I haven't made any decisions yet."

    She could hear his chuckle as he walked into the house behind her.

    TWELVE

    frank and barbara strolled through the woods to Doc's at five-forty-five. He led on a narrow path, and, watching his easy gait, she thought she had never seen him so healthy, so vigorous. Country living had been good for him. All that walking every day, she added ruefully. Her own legs were aching from the second trip to town that morning. Maybe in a month or so she would be able to keep up with her elderly father.

    The woods were wild and completely natural here; no one had trimmed anything except for the trail. This was old-growth forest, the trees massive, the light dim under them; nowhere did visibility extend more than ten or twelve feet as the trail wound and snaked its way in and out of obstacles.

    They entered Doc's property on the garage side and walked around the front of the house, which was very nice, she thought again. Wide redwood planks, and floor-to-ceiling glass, the broad deck, partially covered. The landscaping appeared to be professionally maintained; it had that precision look with broad plantings of azaleas and rhododendrons, and a velvety lawn that looked as if no human foot had ever trod upon it. The view was magnificent, forest and river and sky.

    "Hello," Jessie called out.

    "Now I remember you. Of course, I do. Doc kept telling me we met you a few years ago, but I couldn't bring a face to mind. Now I remember.

    How nice to see you again."

    Doc said hello and what did they want to drink, and Jessie said come sit by me, please. A martini would be good, Barbara said, and when her father said wine she realized suddenly that he was completely off hard liquor.

    She hadn't thought of it until that minute. He used to drink martinis at lunch, again before dinner. And all that walking, she thought; a thrill of fear coursed through her as she thought of the other changes--no cream, low-fat diet, good healthy food, naps. Unaccountably her fear was replaced by anger.

    As if aware that she had not yet engaged Barbara's attention, Jessie reached out and placed her hand on Barbara's arm, and if she hadn't Barbara would not have realized that Doc was the man in Nell's life. At the same moment that Jessie touched her, Nell and Clive appeared on the deck, and for an instant, almost too quickly to be certain about it, Jessie's hand clutched spasmodically. The instant passed, but, because she had been cued, Barbara saw the swift glance Nell and Doc exchanged. Then he was the charming host at the bar again. But there it was, she thought. There it was.