Death Qualified Part 45

"They're all dieting," he said. "Just more coffee. " They remained silent until he had cleared the table and departed. Mike looked at his watch; it was one-thirty. "Okay," he said, and went on briskly. "That last day Frobisher called Lucas; he sounded desperate and said come right now. Lucas got in his car and headed out for his house, but he says that he was hallucinating all the way. He kept hearing the laughing boy, laughing, talking to him. The boy said Probisher was crazy, trying to kill him. He hid some disks and said he had to try to calm Probisher down. When Lucas went into the house, Frobisher had the gun, the boy was dead, and they were both cut up and b.l.o.o.d.y. Frobisher shot at him, and then Margolis arrived and Frobisher killed himself. Brandywine was there by then.

Margolis and Brandywine set the stage to make it look like the boy had shot Frobisher, and they hustled Lucas out of there and hid him, and from then until he woke up last June he had no memories of himself as Lucas Kendricks."

Nell made a m.u.f.fled sound and ducked her head quickly and kept it lowered.

Clive looked bewildered.

"Why would they do that?"

he demanded.

"It doesn't make any sense to me."

"To hide the fact that there was research going on, or had been, that led to insanity, or even murder, maybe," Barbara said sharply.

"I'm just surprised that the police bought it."

Frank nodded thoughtfully.

"Not so surprising. It could have been a combination of things, the big one being Schumaker. If he said Frobisher had a yen for boys, and there would be a terrible scandal at the school if anything of that sort came out, that would have been distracting, I suspect. Small, expensive private school like that probably brought in lots of big bucks that you wouldn't want to scare off. And since they were both dead, Frobisher and the boy, it probably didn't make much difference to the cops who pulled the trigger. Two gays out of the picture; let them all shoot each other. I've heard more or less that kind of statement often enough to believe I might have heard it back there."

Remembering the night that Clive had voiced pretty much the same sentiments, Barbara nodded.

Frank took the bill and fished out his credit card. When Clive and Mike offered to share it, he shook his head.

"Don't mind at all," he said.

"But I prefer to buy food that people actually eat." Then it was time to walk to his office. The jury would be back at work in the deliberation room.

It was a pleasantly cool afternoon; the sun appeared, vanished behind clouds, appeared again. As soon as it came from behind the clouds the temperature rose by several degrees; when it was hidden, the temperature plum meted. Clive and Nell walked ahead of the others, talking in low voices. She looked almost childlike beside the large man.

"What did Lucas say about the girl in the woods?"

Barbara asked Mike, glad that he had stopped when he did. Nell didn't need any more of this today. Barbara knew that Lucas had sat under the trees in the forest and had talked into a tape recorder; it was one of the images that had haunted her dreams last night, that aching, hungry, tired man speaking in the silent woods, alone in the black forest.

"He said he left her at the washed-out section. He started to go back with her, but he was sure that Brandywine would be waiting on the highway somewhere for him, so he worked at turning the car around and gave her the key, and he started to hike home. She was taking pictures, he said."

Mike took her arm and slowed her pace a bit more, giving Nell and Clive more distance.

"He was pretty bonkers toward the end," he said softly.

"Second or third night, he stopped making any sense whatever. You'll have to hear it yourself. I'm not so sure she should." He nodded toward Nell,.

"Eventually she'll have to decide," Barbara said. It occurred to her that she could work up a good case of jealousy if she put her mind to it; every man who met Nell seemed to want to protect her sooner or later. She shrugged the thought away, and said, "You mentioned disks. That the laughing boy said he was hiding disks. Was there more about that?"

Mike looked troubled.

"What he actually said was that the boy showed him where he hid the disks in the barn.

How, I don't know. Or even if it's true. But that's what he said."

Barbara s.h.i.+vered, although at the moment the sun was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly and the temperature had risen again.

"All this gives me the creeps," she muttered, and told Mike what Bailey had reported about the people who now lived in Frobisher's house. Their little boy had seen Lucas leave the barn carrying a bag.

"d.a.m.n, but that makes more sense than having Brandy wine and crew search for the tapes. They could claim he was a raving madman, and anyone listening probably would agree. But Frobisher's disks!"

"Yeah, but where are they?"

He scowled at the sidewalk. Frank had been listening silently. Now he said, "Maybe Nell left them in the same place they've been all along."

Barbara looked up. Nell and Clive had come to a stop outside the office building, waiting for them. When they drew near enough, Barbara asked, "Nell, is there anything else in that secret hiding place? Where you found the tapes?"

She shook her head.

"I'm sure not. I reached in and felt around." Her eyes widened then and she said quickly, "There were some disks, computer disks. I forgot about them. They must still be at the house. I just wasn't interested in them, only in the tapes." She looked from Barbara to Mike, back to Barbara again.

"Do you want them?

I can get them tonight when " She suddenly paled and looked as if she might faint, as if she remembered again at that moment that she might not be allowed to go home that night, or for many nights.

Barbara took her hand.

"Hang in there, kid. Just hang on. But, yes, we should round them up. How about if one of us goes to pick them up? Where are they?"

"I don't know. I forgot all about them. Maybe Tawna picked them up when she picked up the tapes. I don't know."

"I'll go have a look for them," Mike said. There was a strong undercurrent of excitement in his voice, in his expression. When Barbara started to object, he said quickly, "You can't go, and Frank should hang around with you, and dive's place is with her. Doesn't leave much, does it? I'll go. Will I need a key?" he asked Nell.

"Is your house locked up, I hope," Nell found her keys and handed him the one to the house.

"You go on up," Barbara said to Frank.

"I'll come in just a minute."

Frank took Nell and Clive into the building, and she turned to Mike. "Listen, we don't have a clue about what's on those disks, but something big, or something Brandywine and her crew think is big. You'd better make copies of everything and stash them away in the safe-deposit box." She looked at her watch and groaned.

"There isn't time for that today, is there? Do you have a safe place?

Maybe at the university? Somewhere?"

"Don't worry," he said.

"I'll think of something. And I'll make copies before I come back. See you later." He kissed her lightly and trotted off.

She started to call to him, to say something, but instead, she watched him until he rounded the corner, remembering the day she had met him, and he had been wearing his jogging clothes. How comfortable he had looked in them, how comfortable he had been with her from that first moment.

She realized that what she had started to call after him was, Be careful. She bit her lip in exasperation with herself and entered the building to join her client in what she knew would be one of the longest afternoons of her life. It was twenty minutes after two.

THIRTY-ONE.

the lounge was large and bright, with big windows and good oak furniture, book cases, a television. A coffee maker was on a side table. Frank made coffee. Barbara looked over an a.s.sortment of magazines, everything from Time to Architectural Digest to the New England Journal of Medicine. There were magazines on high fas.h.i.+on, home decorating, gardening .. . something for everyone; people awaiting verdicts ranged across the board in taste, wealth, interests. There was a case with a chess game, checkers, cards.. .. She turned away from them all and went to the window to watch people entering and leaving a cafe across the street. Frank left the lounge, returned, sat down, got up and left, only to repeat the sequence again and again. Nell held a magazine; whenever she felt anyone's glance on her, she turned a page, but she saw nothing. Clive found an interesting article. He tried to show a photograph to Nell, who smiled politely at him and looked at the picture; she could not have said what it was.

At four forty-five John and Amy Kendricks rushed in; the roads were plowed out, mountain pa.s.ses open, traffic moving again. Barbara and Frank left the lounge to the family.

"What the devil are they doing?" she muttered, stalking through the corridor to his office, maintained for his infrequent days in town.

"They're hung," he said grimly.

"Got the word from Joyce." She was the court recorder who always knew everything happening at the courthouse.

"Jesus," Barbara said.

"Could be worse," he said.

"Right." Worse would be the verdict, guilty as charged.

Mike should be on his way back with the disks, she was thinking. Back in town by five-thirty. He knew they had to be in court again by five-thirty. But he would need time to copy the disks and put the originals in a safe place. She should have told him to come here to the office, use the office safe overnight. Would he think of that? Maybe he would call here when he got back in town, about five-thirty? Six? She found that she couldn't focus on the problem.

How many were there? How long would it take to copy them? Whose equipment would he use? His own, no doubt; he would go home, then, not go to court. She had to give it up.

There was a soft tap on the door. Frank opened it to one of the clerks standing in the hall, looking puzzled. He was Stevie Postel; he had been with the firm as long as Barbara could remember, a small, gray-faced man with big dark eyes magnified to racc.o.o.n proportions by thick eyegla.s.ses.

"There's someone wanting to see either one of you," he said.

"Ruth Brandywine. Isn't she the one whose toes you toasted in court?"

"For G.o.d's sake!" Barbara exclaimed.

"Not now!"

"Wait a minute," Frank said.

"Maybe I should see what's on her mind if you'd rather not."

Barbara looked at her watch again. Five after five.

"Dad, we have ten minutes at the most. Sure, let's have a go at her. Ten minutes' worth. I thought she'd hop on her broomstick and head back to Colorado. Okay, Stevie. In here."

No matter what else, the lady had good taste in clothes, Barbara had to admit when Ruth Brandywine entered the office. Today she was wearing a jade-green velvet suit with a creamy silk blouse. Frank was standing behind his desk, Barbara at the window. Frank nodded toward a chair opposite his.

"Please," he said.

"What can we do for you?"

She ignored him and the chair, and looked at Barbara.

"I have to talk to you. I know this isn't the time, but I was afraid you would refuse a phone call, so I came in person. After court adjourns, will you meet me then?"

"Talk about what?" Barbara asked bluntly, with no more show of manners than Brandywine was displaying.

"The disks. The research. You're in over your head, and you have no idea of the danger. Will you meet me?"

Slowly Barbara nodded.

"Are you staying in town?"

"Yes. AttheHilton."

"Leave your room number," Barbara said.

"When we're through today, I'll give you a call. We'll find a neutral place, not in your room, not here." "That's fine." She drew out a card from her purse and jotted down her number.

"I'll go back and be in my room until I hear from you." She handed the card to Barbara, then turned and left without another word.

Snow Queen, Barbara thought distantly. Even the card felt cold; it seemed to send a chill through her hand, up her arm.

"Well, well," her father murmured.

"Having Roy Whitehorse tell her he had disks paid off, I'd say. What the devil does she want?"

"Would you buy a used car from that lady?" Barbara asked.

"Time to head out, I guess. You want to explain to them what a hung jury means? d.a.m.n, this could go on for days!"

He patted her arm and went out ahead of her. In the lounge, as they all put on their coats, he said, "The judge could accept that the jurors aren't going to be able to agree and it all ends now. Or he could sequester them and make them continue tomorrow. Not a thing anyone can do at this point, except the judge."

"If they are hung, what does that mean for Nell?" Clive asked. He looked almost as haggard as Nell; his voice was dispirited.

"Well, the district attorney could drop the charges and it's really finished, or he could start all over and try the case again, hoping to do a better job next time. That's in his hands."

"Oh, G.o.d," Clive said in despair. He looked at Barbara.

"Isn't it a good sign, that they're having trouble deciding? I think that's a good sign."

She started to answer, but her father's voice stopped her.

"Sure it's a good sign. One of the best. Come along now, time to be on the way. You all right, honey?" He looked closely at Nell, who nodded silently.

"Good, good. Here we go then."

Amy Kendricks took Nell's arm, and they left the offices and went back to the courthouse. It had grown dark; streetlights and traffic lights, automobile headlights and taillights were like Christmas ornaments. Some of the windows they pa.s.sed already had Christmas decorations; with a start, Barbara remembered that Thursday was Thanksgiving.