Clear and Convincing Proof (17 page)

“Why haven't they arrested her?” Darren said, from the door. She had not heard him enter.

“They don't know how she moved the body, or where she put the raincoat and gun,” Barbara said, taking all the checkers off the map. “Some people knock before entering a room.”

“And they miss a lot. I came by to tell you that I have a busy schedule this afternoon. Is there anything you want from me?”

“Are you on your lunch hour now?”

“Yes. I'll get a deli sandwich in a minute.”

“Is there anything to add to what you already told me?”

He shook his head. “Nope. You have it all.”

“Were the blinds open or closed when you went to the lounge?”

He glanced toward the wide windows with vertical blinds drawn all the way back, leaving a great expanse of glass exposed with a view of the garden beyond. “I think Winnie Bok had just finished opening them, like that, when I went in,” he said. “Too late to see the killer and victim enact their little melodrama.”

She nodded. “Too late. Did you see anyone else that morning before you entered the clinic? On the grounds, in the parking lot, on the street coming?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“That's all I wanted to know. See you later.” She had not made a token for Winnie Bok, who had arrived with her carpool companion at seven-forty-five.

He turned back to the door, paused, then looked at her. “Are you having lunch?”

“Eventually.”

“I could bring you something. The deli is just a door or two down the street. Good sandwiches and salads.”

She glanced at her watch. Twelve. Stephanie would come back at one, and until then no one. “I'll come with you,” she said. “First, I'll lock up stuff in my car.”

“Let's just lock this room,” he said, taking a bunch of keys from his pocket.

She pulled on her jacket and they walked out. He locked the door and they left the clinic.

“By the end of the day the gossip will be all over the place,” he said. “Darren and the lady lawyer had lunch together!” He laughed. “This way.”

T
he deli was crowded and noisy, and although there were tables, Barbara and Darren opted to take sandwiches back to the directors' room. Walking back she asked, “What do you do when you're not working?”

“Bridge a couple of times a month, bicycle club, marathon rides now and then, a chess buddy I get together with occasionally. Read. What about you?”

“Long walks, hike a bit, movies, read, dance. Do you date?”

“Sometimes. Nothing serious. You?”

“The same. Nothing serious.” Her answer had come without thought, and voicing it made her realize the truth of it. Nothing serious.

“You obviously do something to keep in shape.
You're a good walker,” he said. “I set a pretty good clip and you didn't seem to notice.”

She looked at him in surprise. She had not noticed.

He began to talk about his son, how they collected things like volcanoes, totem poles and, this coming year, trees. She recalled the miniature tree in its bamboo shelter on Erica Castle's back porch. Erica baby-sat Todd's cat and his tree? Apparently.

“Have you been to Kings Canyon?” he asked. “To see the giant sequoias?”

“A long time ago. There was snow on the ground and the tree trunks were like warm and furry walls, the cones so tiny I didn't believe those trees had produced them.”

“They're on Todd's list,” he said. “He's my advance researcher.”

They had reached the clinic by then. They entered and he unlocked the directors' room and went to get coffee from the lounge for them both. Then, sitting by the windows overlooking the garden, they ate their lunch and talked. It occurred to her that he was drawing her out exactly the same way she was drawing him out, and she felt a touch of uneasiness at the thought.

It was getting close to one o'clock when she asked, “If the plan to turn the clinic into a nonprofit foundation fails, and it is acquired by a for-profit company, will you stay?”

He shook his head. “I told you I can get work anywhere. It's true. But I wouldn't stay. I can't work for
just anyone. I can't take orders from incompetents who don't understand what I do and couldn't care less. There are other nonprofit clinics in the country or I could set up a tent somewhere. David McIvey suggested that I was qualified to practice in a tent revival.” He regarded her for a moment, then said, “I'll tell you a secret, Barbara. I don't know what I do. I could never justify myself to a panel of insurance bean counters, or even a panel of doctors who demanded an explanation before proceeding. I don't have to explain anything to Greg. He's content to let me make my own decisions. He prefers it that way. He knows and I know that I run this clinic.”

“I don't understand what you're telling me,” she said. “You've had excellent training, good schools, clinical practice with experts in the field.”

“I learned the jargon,” he said. “I can bullshit with the best of them. The education means nothing to me. I went down that road because I was trying to understand what I had. I can tell the clavicle from the kneecap, sure. I know and can use all the standard techniques, but knowing what is accepted and standard has nothing to do with what my hands tell me. And that's what I can't explain.”

He grinned suddenly. “There you have it. My innermost, darkest secret. Your turn. What's your darkest secret?”

She laughed, but it sounded false to her own ears. “You're out of your mind,” she said. “I can't match that.”

He stood up. “It's nearly one and I have a full
schedule. See you later. Thanks for the best lunch hour I've had in a very long time.”

She remained seated at the window going over in her mind all the things Darren had said, trying to make sense of a physical therapist who apparently was really a faith healer. She was still there when Stephanie Waters came in.

“Do you want to sit over here by the windows?” Barbara asked, getting to her feet.

After an indifferent glance toward the garden, Stephanie pulled out a chair at the round table and sat down. “This will do,” she said. “Look, Ms. Holloway, I know pretty much why you're asking about David and Lorraine. She's contesting his will, is what the rumor mill has churned out. That's why Annie's broke and staying with Naomi.”

Barbara sat opposite her. “I keep hearing that there are no secrets in the clinic. I'm beginning to understand what that means. Right now I'm still trying to get some background on all these people. Okay?”

“Whatever. As I said, I worked for them. When I started, there was the little boy Aaron, still in diapers, and Lorraine was pregnant. They hired me to be a housekeeper and cook, and I ended up nursemaid, companion, cook, everything. Then Caitlin was born and the fuss and confusion got worse. David hated disorder and noise. Noisy kids especially. If he hadn't wanted them, he should have kept his zipper closed. But she wanted children. Round out the perfect family, cement the marriage, that sort of thing.”

She grimaced. “Only the glue didn't hold. Anyway, I had tried cooking in a nice restaurant, and it didn't work out. Restaurant people are crazy. So I thought a private family might be better. Wrong. They were crazier. Lorraine was a beautiful woman. I had a terrible crush on her for a while.” She paused and gazed steadily at Barbara. “I'm in a lesbian relationship, you understand. It's not a secret. We've been together for thirteen years, just another couple getting old and gray together. So I had a crush on Lorraine, and I tried to help her, but there was no pleasing that pig of a husband. I lost patience with her for putting up with him, for trying too hard to keep him satisfied, crying over him, for God's sake.” She shrugged. “She was crazy about him in those days, just like Annie was when she married him. He must have been a hell of a lover.”

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “That's enough of the background. It came to an end one day when they had a cocktail party, a catered affair that had nothing to do with me. It was the first party they'd had in ages. Caitlin was about three or four months old and colicky. She started to wail and, of course, big brother joined the chorus. Lorraine had given me a few of her cast-off dresses, and I was going to leave the house for the afternoon and evening, let the caterers earn their money. David saw me at the back door and he said something like, ‘For God's sake, Lorraine, make those kids shut up or I will.' I turned around and he saw that it wasn't Lorraine, and he was furious. He said,
‘What are you doing in her clothes? You've been stealing her clothes. Take off that dress.' So I did. Right there in the kitchen with the caterers standing around, and some of the guests watching, I took off the dress and let it fall to the floor. I went to my room and packed my gear and got the hell out of there. I could hear people laughing, and not at me. I thought David might have a heart attack. I hoped he would, to tell the truth. The next day his mother, Joyce McIvey, called me and asked if I wanted to work in the clinic kitchen, and I've been here ever since.”

Barbara grinned, then she laughed out loud. “What a sight that must have been. Good for you.”

Stephanie smiled and nodded; she even relaxed her rigid posture a little. “It worked out. He was like a slow poison, seductive and charming as hell at the beginning, handsome as the devil, but poison. Drip by drip he poisoned Lorraine, and then Annie. If he'd taken over running the clinic, he would have poisoned it, too.”

“Would you have stayed?”

Stephanie hooted in derision. “The day he moved in, I would have been out. I'd begun looking around to see where I might go, in fact.” She stood up. “I don't know who pulled the trigger. I wish I did, just so I could send a thank you card. And if I'd seen it with my own eyes, I'd deny it. That's just how it is. Are you done with me?”

“I think so. Thanks. You've been very helpful. I appreciate it.”

 

Bernie Zuckerman was anticlimactic, Barbara thought a few minutes later when Bernie entered carrying a thermal mug that had a dragon coiled around it. She settled down into one of the window chairs, obviously prepared and eager to talk a while.

“I know what you're asking everyone,” she said. “When did we come in and who did we see. Right? Well, I got here at twenty minutes before eight, the blinds were still closed in the lounge and I saw everyone,” she said triumphantly. “It's my job to check them in. Just a check mark by their names so I'll know they're on hand when the patients start coming.”

“Do they all come to the reception desk to get checked in?”

“No. No, they don't have to. I can keep an eye on the corridor from the staff door. They come in that way and go on to the lounge to change. If I see someone, I wave or something, and that's that. I have to listen to the messages, the voice mail, like that, and they just make sure that I've seen them. At eight the voice mail is off and I have to answer the phone after that.”

“From your desk you can see the start of the corridor that leads to the garden door, can't you?”

“Sure. No one used it that morning until Carlos came in. The police asked me that.”

“What about Stephanie Waters and her helpers? They get here so early. Do they come out of the kitchen to check in?”

“No. I stick my head in on my way through and make sure she's here, and someone's helping out. No problem.”

“What if someone calls in and leaves a message on voice mail saying they can't make it, a flat tire, or something like that? Or if one of the volunteers doesn't show up?”

“I call Naomi right away and she gets on the phone and lines up someone else. No one did anything like that on that day.”

Barbara looked at her thoughtfully, then stood up. “Let's go over to the map for a minute,” she said. “I want to try something.”

She found the checker with BZ on it and showed it to Bernie, who was studying the map and the floor plan with interest. “Your marker,” she said, placing the checker on the map at the intersection of Country Club Road and Oaklawn. “You turned off Country Club Road here. Was there much traffic on Country Club Road that morning?”

“There always is in the morning.”

“How about Oaklawn?”

Bernie shrugged. “Little, usually. Maybe none. I don't remember one way or the other for that day. Remember, it was raining to beat the band, and it was foggy to boot.”

Barbara didn't move the checker, but put her finger on the floor plan of the clinic at the staff door. “So you parked and came to this door. Were you bundled up pretty much? Raincoat, boots, carrying an umbrella?”

Bernie nodded. “Yeah, it's about a ten-minute drive, and my car takes fifteen minutes to warm up. I was wrapped up. I stood under the overhang there,” she said putting her finger next to Barbara's, outside the door. “I had to shake rain off the umbrella.”

“Did you take it to the lounge with you?”

“No. There's a stand by the door there, for them to drip in. I put it in the stand and went on down the hall to the kitchen—” She stopped and her eyes narrowed. “I forgot this. I didn't just stick my head in. I went in to see if there was coffee. I was freezing.”

Barbara nodded. “Good. Then what?”

“I got coffee,” Bernie said. She looked from the floor plan to Barbara. “Maybe I said something or other to Stephanie. I probably did, just out of habit, but I didn't stay. They were busy getting breakfast.”

“Did Stephanie stop what she was doing to get coffee for you?”

“She wouldn't stop for a train when she gets busy,” Bernie said. “I helped myself, got my mug out of my bag and filled it, and then left.” She patted the dragon affectionately.

Bit by bit with excruciating exactness Barbara had her reconstruct her movements that morning, and then she said, “So you must have actually arrived at the clinic at least five minutes before you sat at your desk. Is that about right?”

Bernie thought about it, then nodded. “I guess that's just about how long it all took. Getting the coffee, untying my boots, getting my shoes changed.
Then I had to wash my hands. It begins to add up, doesn't it? I should have thought of all that before.”

“I think we all tend to forget how much time we spend at the most ordinary things that we do routinely. Well, let's back up a little, back to your car at the intersection. Why don't you move the checker down Oaklawn toward the parking lot?” she said. “I suppose you were driving pretty slowly on such a lousy morning, weren't you?”

Bernie had started to move the checker, then stopped and put it back at the intersection. “Real slow,” she said, and started again, very slowly. “The windshield wipers could hardly keep up with the rain and all that fog—and it was a dark morning on top of it. It was slow.”

“Right. I know those mornings. That's a long block, isn't it? Could you see to the end of it?”

“I don't guess so, but I don't really remember trying to see. I mean, if there had been headlights, I would have paid attention, I imagine, but I just don't know.” She had moved the checker about a third of the way down the street and stopped. “There was a little bit of exhaust maybe. You know, like a car makes when it's cold outside? Maybe taillights, come to think of it.”