Death Qualified Part 32

"Very well, you may proceed." His expression, his eyes, his tone were all of a piece, frigid and remote, and very angry.

The jury was brought back and she resumed exactly where she had left off.

"Mr. Yost, please tell us what you were doing and what you saw that afternoon." The self-a.s.surance that had en wrapped him earlier was gone; now he looked nervous and wary. She smiled rea.s.suringly, as if to say that none of that business at the bench had anything to do with him. He swallowed hard and nodded slightly.

He had stopped at the pa.s.s to eat a sandwich and drink coffee. When he looked over the forest with his binoculars, he had seen the Honda. He said it quickly with no detail, no elaboration.

Barbara glanced at a paper on her table, as if to check his statement with his written statement. She looked up at him from the defense table.

"You received a commendation the next week, didn't you? For being alert and playing a significant role in an ongoing investigation."

He looked down at his hands and shrugged, then said yes.

"How long had you served in the Sisters Ranger District, Mr. Yost?"

"I was just a.s.signed it. I was on my way to my new job."

"Oh. Where had you been stationed before?"

"The Willamette District."

She picked up a paper and scanned it, then said, "When you called in about the car, exactly what did you tell them?"

"I said I spotted the Honda the bulletin was out about."

"Yes, but do you recall your words?"

He shook his head.

"I don't think so. It's been a long time."

"Of course. Let me refresh your memory. You said, didn't you, that you caught a glint of sun on the chrome of the grill?"

He nodded, then said ruefully, "But I was wrong. It turned out that the car was pointed the other way. I must have seen the rear end of it."

"Oh, I see." She put the paper down as if relieved, then picked up a photograph of the Honda. She handed it to him.

"Can you point out what you saw of the car?"

He looked at the picture in confusion. No chrome was visible from the rear.

"It must have been the chrome strip down the side. It goes all the way to the rear, but it doesn't show in this picture."

"I have another shot," she said, and found a different photograph, handed it to him.

He nodded vigorously.

"See, that strip is chrome. The sun must have hit it just right. I only saw a small section, less than a foot probably."

She took back the photographs and walked to the jury with them.

"From that little section you knew it was the gray Honda?"

"Well, you know, guys are pretty up on cars from the time they're little kids."

"Of course. In your report you told the sheriff's office that it was on Forest Service road 4219, didn't you?"

"Yes. I had a good map. It had to be that road."

"A map like this one, I understand, since this is the official Forest Service map." She indicated the map they had already used several times. He nodded. "So you were up here on the highway, and ten miles away was the Honda on Forest Service road 4219. Can you point out that road for us, Mr. Yost?"

Reluctantly he left the stand and approached the map.

He peered at it closely and twice started to put his finger down, then drew back. At last he pointed to the road.

Barbara thanked him and studied the map as he returned to the witness chair.

"There are seven Forest Service roads between that one and the highway where you were. No wonder it took you so long to find the right one."

"It's different when you're out there," he blurted.

"But you had to identify the road by using the map, didn't you? You couldn't be expected to look out over the forest and pick out an individual road and know it instantly Especially as a newcomer to the district."

"Objection," Tony snapped.

"Let counsel ask her questions without making speeches."

"Sustained."

"Do you wear gla.s.ses, Mr. Yost? Or contacts?"

"No." He was watching her with a sullen expression now, sitting so stiffly that he must have been concentrating on not betraying any nervous mannerisms. His stiffness was more revealing than fidgeting would have been.

"What power binoculars did you have?"

"Seven by fifty. But you can see a flash of light farther away than that with almost any binoculars."

"But you also saw enough gray to identify the Honda, didn't you?"

"I thought it was the car they were looking for. I saw enough to reach that conclusion. Maybe I shouldn't have, but that's what I thought I saw." He had gone the route from an abject desire to please, the perfect witness, to wariness; he had become sullen, saying with his body language that he was being picked on and didn't deserve it, and now he had reached this new phase, defiance. One more, Barbara thought. One more stage.

Barbara returned to the exhibit table and sorted through papers until she had the sheriff's report. She scanned it briefly.

"What time did you see the Honda, Mr. Yost?"

"About three-thirty."

"But you didn't call in the report until six?"

"I had to go to Sisters to call. The line was busy the first time or two, so I had a cup of coffee and tried again."

Barbara looked at him in surprise and walked to the map.

"But here's a government camp, less than a mile from the observatory on McKenzie Pa.s.s, less than a mile from where you were. It's clearly marked. Why didn't you go there to phone?"

"I didn't know it was there, or that it was open."

"You didn't know it was there," she murmured.

"I.

see."

"I didn't mean that. I meant I didn't know it was open."

"Mr. Yost," she said slowly, moving back to the exhibit table, where she started to look for something, "have you ever driven on that service road, 4219?"

"No. But I've been on plenty of other service roads in the forests."

"So you understand how they are, muddy in places, bone dry in others?"

"Yes, that's how most of them are."

"Yes. I have a few more pictures for you to look at, Mr. Yost. These are pictures Sheriff LeMans's deputies took of the car they found on Forest Service road 4219.

Will you examine them, please."

She handed him three pictures and watched the defiance fade from his face. He paled slightly and moistened his lips as he put the first photograph under the others to examine the second one. When he finished looking at them all, he did not raise his head but kept staring at the last picture. The pictures showed a car so spattered with mud and red lava dust that it was impossible to say more than that it was an automobile. A small area of the rear window had been wiped for visibility; no paint was discernible, not even the license plates could be seen, nor any chrome at all. If anyone had tried to guess at the color of the car under the heavy coating of mud, the first choice would have been red.

Very quietly Barbara said, "You never saw the car, did you, Mr. Yost?"

He swallowed but did not speak, did not raise his head.

"You were used very cruelly, Mr. Yost, and once you had made the statement you found it impossible to take it back, didn't you?"

The courtroom had gone so quiet that it was uncanny.

Judge Kendall Lundgren drew in a breath and said, "Mr.

Yost, you must answer the question."

"Yes, sir," he mumbled.

"Did you see the car?" Barbara asked.

"No."

"How did you know it was there?"

"A man called me and said he had seen it and he knew everyone was looking for it, but he didn't want to get involved."

The words were choked; finally he looked up, out past Barbara, out to where the young woman he had entered with was seated, by another young man in another spanking-fresh uniform. There were tears in his eyes.

He had reached the final phase.

Barbara led him through the story quickly now. He had no more resistance. A. man had called him Friday morning; he said he had read a little article about Yost in the local paper, giving his name, address, mentioning that he was being a.s.signed to the Sisters District. The man said he had seen the car Thursday afternoon. If Yost would drive on McKenzie Highway he could see it clearly from the pa.s.s. The man told him exactly where to look, what road the car was on. Yost had looked but had seen nothing, and for the next hour or two he had wavered, then finally made the call, thinking there could have been an accident.

If the car wasn't there, no harm done, but if it was, they needed to find it.

She asked a few more questions, but little new was forthcoming.

"Mr. Yost," she said finally, "did this stranger tell you precisely where to look?"

"Yes, he did."

"You consulted a map and looked exactly where he told you to, is that right?"

"Yes."

"And you couldn't see a thing out there, could you?"

"No. Just trees and the lava flow."

"Mr. Yost, do you think it's possible that anyone could have seen the car from that viewpoint on the pa.s.s?" "Objection," Tony said.

"Counsel knows that is pure conjecture."

"Sustained," Judge Lundgren said, but in the witness box Frederick Yost was shaking his head.

TWENTY-FOUR.

the fire had died; there were ashes left, and the end of a log faintly glowing. She should have added

a log, banked it, Barbara thought moodily. Already the living room was chilled, as if the heavy fog had penetrated as soon as the flames failed to forbid entrance. She drew her arms around her closer.

"Bobby, it's getting pretty late," Frank said at the doorway.

She nodded, not really surprised that he was still up.

"I told Bailey he could call as late as one in the morning."