Cold Case (25 page)

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“Amy said he's courting her,” Barbara commented. “From what little I've seen of Lucy McCrutchen, I think she might take a flyswatter to him if he becomes too much of a nuisance.”

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Frank chuckled. Then he told her about the two men he had talked to about Nick Aaronson's various dealings with Robert McCrutchen. “Rick Salazar and Boyd Chasten.”

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Barbara didn't know them, but was familiar with their reputations as investigative reporters, with a penchant for ferreting out government secrets. Recently, they had published articles concerning some contracts for a Umatilla toxic site cleanup that was underway, with huge cost overruns and missed deadlines.

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“Wow, they're big-time,” she said.

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He nodded. “They are particularly interested in a pending deal on the coast, something to do with a liquid gas facility. McCrutchen was instrumental in some hearings regarding zone changes. This could be bigger than we imagined when we first heard Nick Aaronson's name.”

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She thought about it, then shrugged. “Hard to connect it to a murder from twenty-two years ago, and that's my immediate concern.”

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They were silent again for several minutes. The cats joined them on the porch, stood up at the table to look over the plate of cheese and Frank told them to beat it.

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Barbara drained her wineglass and rose to go refill it. At the door she said, “If nothing breaks in the next few weeks, I may have to decide if David's best bet is a plea bargain.”

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Startled, Frank swiveled around to look at her, but she was already entering the house. He knew how much she detested plea bargains if she was convinced her client was innocent. For her to be considering it was more ominous than any of her other words had been.

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On Tuesday of the following week Barbara and Frank drove out to Shelley's house to talk with David. Both Alex and Dr. Minnick said they had things to do and vanished, leaving the three of them alone in the living room.

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“It's the problem of the key we're trying to pin down,” Barbara said.

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“Why is it a problem?” David was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and he was holding the blue ball, which remained silent.

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“Who tipped off the cops about the key?” Barbara said. “I think it was what set Robert off, and he apparently thought he was onto something. What I'd like you to do is try to recreate as clearly as you can exactly what happened when you got to the house the night of the party until after you passed the key to Jill.”

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He shrugged. “I walked over, as I told you. She was already there, a lot of people were already there.” Barbara held up her hand, but before she spoke he said, “Okay, step by step. I rang the bell. Robert opened the door. Jill was with several people toward the end of the hall near the kitchen door.” He was speaking in a noninflected voice, the reading of a boring Dick and Jane story. “She saw me and walked back to where I was. I handed her the key. She kissed my cheek and put the key in her pocket. Robert was by the door, and obviously he saw that, but no one else was close. No one else was paying any attention. They were facing away from us. Jill said to come on and eat something, and she went back to the group, and they all went outside. I followed them out.”

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His expression was unreadable, his face so masklike that he could have been talking in his sleep.

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Barbara wanted to slap some sense of his own danger into him. Her impatience was reflected in her voice when she asked brusquely, “Were most people outside by then?”

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“Dr. and Mrs. McCrutchen were out there with Elders. Others were hanging out around the grill, or getting beer. From fifteen to twenty people. If the next question is did Jill mention the key to anyone, the answer has to be no. She was getting a hamburger, adding tomatoes and onions, ketchup. After that, the stereo was turned on and they started dancing. I can't believe she mentioned that key to anyone.”

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“Later, when you left, did you tell anyone that you were leaving?” “No.”

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“Not even Mrs. McCrutchen?”

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“I said no. I looked in the living room but she wasn't there, and I left.”

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“Apparently no one mentioned the key, and no one knows when you left the party,” Barbara said. “But someone tipped off the police, and Aaronson says you left with Jill. That's where it stands.”

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“Aaronson's lying.”

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She ignored that and asked, “When did the police first interview you?”

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“What difference—?” He drew in a breath. “Sunday. They got a statement about the party.”

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“No mention of the key?”

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“No.”

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“Did they tell you not to leave town at that interview?”

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“No. I couldn't leave. I had to see Olga. She was in bad shape. We both were. I spent most of the day and night with her and I felt I couldn't leave until…” He stopped and shook his head, and finally he began to show something other than boredom or indifference as he spoke. “I don't know now what I was thinking, but I stayed with Olga. We didn't know what to do with Jill's things. Then Jill's sister came and took most of them. Olga kept a couple of boxes. I had to sell some textbooks and that took another day, to unpack them, take them over to the university bookstore. When I got back, a detective was there looking for me. He showed me the key and asked if it was for the apartment, asked why Jill had had it.”

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“You went out to sell books? Why?” Barbara asked.

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“The guy I was going to ride home with went on without me. I didn't have enough money for bus fare.” His voice was again nearly toneless, the words clipped.

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“What day was that?”

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“I don't know. I wasn't checking the calendar. Maybe Wednesday, maybe later. I helped Olga pack up and load her car. She went home late that week, and I left by bus the next day.”

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“So on Sunday evening or Monday they got the tip,” Barbara said. “Anonymous phone call. The newspaper accounts didn't mention a thing about the situation concerning it, only that it was to your apartment, but the police knew the truth. And it was left like that. By that weekend the theory was that a transient, someone on drugs, probably killed her, and finally it was filed as an unsolved murder.”

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“They were incompetent then, and they are incompetent today,” David said flatly.

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“They'll go to court with a vengeance,” she said, regarding him steadily, struggling to keep her anger at a distance. “No one mentioned that little confrontation on the deck at the time, and now four different witnesses have emerged concerning it, three with damning statements, three respected citizens with no discernible motive for doing you harm. The prosecutor is the one who will be sore, and with cause. And if you take the stand with the attitude you've shown today, the prosecutor will chip away at you for however long it takes to get you to lose your temper. And you will lose it. This isn't a contest of who's smarter, it's his ball, his game, his playing field. And he's going to be out to get you.”

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“You came here today to ask the same things we've already gone over. A few insignificant details missing, nothing that adds or takes away from the facts you already knew. Jesus Christ, what do you expect of me? Just tell me what you expect of me? Why did you come here today?”

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“Today is nothing compared to what's coming your way. There's going to be pretrial publicity, letters to the editor, radical radio broadcasts bringing up every negative they can think of. Those agitators, the demonstrators who rioted following your lectures are certain to demonstrate again, maybe every day of the trial. It's going to be nearly impossible to put together an impartial jury. Today we were less than an hour. McNulty will take hours, days. He'll go over your statement word by word, make you repeat the same things a dozen times with various connotations. I can't stop him. Just in case some of the jurors have missed the pretrial smears, he'll see to it that it's brought out that you profess atheism, that you have no higher authority, no god, no moral compass guiding you, no conscience. I can object, but no one can unsay words. And you'll show anger, coldness, indifference, boredom, contempt, whatever the hell it is driving you. You'll lose the jury and he'll have won. That's what I came to tell you today. To demonstrate to you that you're in a hellish position. They won't go for the death penalty this time, but a conviction, another trial for Robert McCrutchen's murder, another conviction, and you'll be in prison fighting for your life for as long as you have life. That's what I came to tell you.”

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David had grown rigid with her words, her fury. He stood up as stiff and cold as an ice sculpture. “Message delivered,” he said. “Are you done?”

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“David, sit down!” Frank said in a tone that Barbara had rarely heard—commanding, hard, authoritative.

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David looked startled, but resumed his chair.

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“Today is just a taste of what lies ahead for you,” Frank said crisply. “In two weeks here or at the office Barbara is going to take you through your testimony step by step, after which I will take McNulty's role and tear that testimony to shreds if you show any sign of weakness. Do you understand what I'm saying? We intend to fight for your life, and I intend for you to assist us, not hinder that fight. You have two weeks to consider your tone and your attitude.
Now
we're done.”

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Frank rose and said to Barbara, “Let's go.”

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Without another word David jumped up. He looked at the blue ball he was holding, threw it against the wall and walked out. The ball didn't bounce when it hit. It squeaked loudly, like a scream of protest, and dropped to the floor.

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Driving a few minutes later, Barbara said, “I'm sorry I lost it like that, Dad.”

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“Don't be. He needed to see your frustration, and understand the cause. Perhaps he does now.”

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“I think he's furious, but also desperately hurt and even frightened. His star was rising, pretty successful books, a plum of an appointment, recognition, then a vicious attack that damaged him, makes him accept therapy that must be humiliating, and the last straw, the charge of murder, knowing he'll have to submit to people he considers little more than idiots. So he builds that wall to protect himself, make himself untouchable, unreachable.”

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“And we have to make him dismantle it and show the side that stayed with Olga until she left town. I imagine they clung to each other and wept for a good deal of the time they were together those last days.”

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“The question is, can he do that? Reveal himself like that?” Barbara wondered.

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Frank nodded. That was the question. In two weeks they might know the answer. Depending on that answer, both he and Barbara could be compelled to urge David to take a plea bargain, with every expectation of a lesser sentence if he did so and admitted contrition and remorse. Grimly he followed the thought to the next step. David's pride would not allow him to go that route, and he most likely would be convicted of first-degree murder if his response to the reprieve of two weeks was the wrong one.

B
arbara argued on Wednesday that since the prosecutor was using material from the old police file on Jill Storey's murder, she had every right to examine the same material. It had to be included in discovery. The judge agreed.

“For all the good it does,” Barbara said to Shelley, back in the office. “I'm going home to change clothes.”

“Barbara, something's happening out at the house,” Shelley said. “I don't think David said a word all day after you and your father were out there. Alex told me that David went off into the woods and stayed until nearly dark. He was just about to go look for him when he came back.”

“He's got things to think about,” Barbara said. “I hope to God we put a scare in him.”

“I'll keep you posted,” Shelley promised. “I was afraid he'd pack his things and take off.”

“If he does, I'll personally kill him dead. I don't think he will, but keep me posted.”

Damn that man, she thought savagely after Shelley left. He was perfectly capable of deciding to go somewhere else and thumb his nose at them all. She remembered when she said to Frank that she hoped never to see David again. “If wishes were horses,” she muttered, and left to change her clothes.

She planned to spend the next day or two sorting, then examining Jill's old papers from four years of college. After glancing at them quickly, she had closed the box again. When Olga had finished looking for whatever she had removed, she had simply dumped the rest back into the box in no order whatsoever. Papers, term papers, tests, charts that were incomprehensible, essays, some dated, many not. Some weren't even paper-clipped, if they had been clipped together in the first place. It added nothing to Barbara's mood to contemplate tackling them, just in case there might be something. Such a remote possibility, it was almost one to be dismissed.

After Amy left on Friday Lucy brought in the mail and sat at the small kitchen desk looking through it. Two letters were for Chloe. It was annoying that some of her mail was still being delivered at the house, but a letter or two each week appeared in the mailbox. Lucy wrote the forwarding address on the envelopes and put them aside, then opened her own mail.

She looked up when there was a tap on the screen door and Henry said good morning. The screen door was locked. She got up to admit him.

“Good morning, Henry. Another perfect day, isn't it?”

“Very nice. I see that you're busy, and I won't keep you. I just wanted to invite you to dinner tonight. I know Amy's always gone on Fridays. I thought it might be a good night to get out.”

She shook her head. “Thanks, Henry, it's a kind thought, but I have plans already.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” he said. He turned as if to leave, but then faced her again. “Lucy, there's something I have to say. For your own good, a warning. Don't get too comfortable with Holloway. You know he's a criminal attorney, defending the man who killed that unfortunate young woman years ago, and more than likely killed your son. Attorneys like that will use you, twist your words, get you to say things you don't mean, even things that aren't true. They're slick and cunning, and you just haven't been subjected to that kind of manipulation before.”

Lucy took a step backward. “Henry, you know perfectly well that he's a
defense
attorney, and he is most certainly not trying to manipulate me in any way. As for David having killed that girl, I don't believe for a minute that he did, or that he murdered Robert.”

“That evening after Chloe left,” Henry said with an intensity that was startling, “on the night Robert was shot, he told me about a fight they had over the girl. On the night of the party he walked out on the deck for a breath of fresh air. He had no idea she was already out there. He went to speak to her. David followed him and made crazy accusations, then attacked him and knocked him down, off the deck. David learned that night that his girlfriend was a prostitute, Lucy, and he killed her. That's what Robert was looking into. That's why he was killed. David's the man Holloway's defending, and he's a killer. And Holloway will use you. Believe me, he'll use you. I urge you, please, just keep away from him.”

“Henry, I don't think I need protection. As you saw, I am quite busy. If you'll excuse me.” Lucy went to the screen door and pulled it open, stood by it until he walked out, then closed and locked it again. She knew he was aware of what she was doing as she returned to the desk, took her chair, put her glasses on and picked up another piece of mail.

Why had Robert told such a monstrous, vicious lie? Why had he done that? Of course, Henry would have repeated it to the police, and they would have believed it. He had no reason to make up such a story. David would deny it, and his denial would be dismissed. She bit her lip and closed her eyes thinking of Amy on the witness stand, the scathing questions, disbelief, mockery, suggestions of adolescent fantasy.

Her thoughts kept returning to Robert, the son she had loved in spite of his failings. Why had he done it? She found herself looking toward the door again and again and abruptly rose and walked from the room. For the first time ever she felt exposed in the kitchen and family room. She hadn't curtained the windows or put up drapes in either room—the backyard was too private to close off the view and the light. Now she felt as if eyes were following her every motion.

That night when Amy arrived home, Lucy met her in the front hall. “I'd like to talk to you,” she said, “if you're not too tired.”

Amy felt falling-down tired, but she nodded and to her surprise her mother motioned toward the living room. She obviously had been sitting in there for a time; her coffee cup was on the table, a book on the sofa. Amy couldn't remember the last time she'd sat with her mother in the living room.

She put her purse and a portfolio case down and sank into a chair. Lucy sat at the end of the sofa.

“I made coffee,” Lucy said. “In the carafe, still hot.”

Amy shook her head. “Is something wrong?”

“Amy, please tell me something. I know you care about David, but can you explain it? I mean, you were so young when he came for the seminars, and I can't believe you and he ever did more than make polite noises to each other.”

“What difference does it make?” Amy asked, and felt ashamed of the tone she had used. Quickly she said, “You'll laugh and tell me to stop being ridiculous. It's what I would say in your place.”

“I won't laugh,” Lucy said.

Looking at her more closely, Amy knew she would not laugh. She appeared to be closer to tears than to laughter. “It sounds so silly now,” she said, “but it wasn't when it happened. That night, the night of the party…” She told Lucy about the beer, Robert's and Dr. Elders's reactions, and then David's. “He knew it was okay,” she said. “We weren't evil or wicked. We were fourteen, trying out things. He understood. He rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and winked. End of story, but I've never forgotten. I've never forgotten him. I bought his books when they were published, and collected reviews and every other scrap of publicity I could find. There's been a lot, first because of the demonstrations and then after his arrest.” She looked at her hands, unaware until then that they had been clenched. She flexed her fingers and turned her palms up, then dropped both hands to her lap. In a lower voice she continued. “I thought I'd never see him again and I never would have made any attempt to see him, and I guess I was willing to think it was a case of puppy love, a kid's first real crush, my first rock star or something. But when he reappeared, it all came back as strong as it was that night.”

“Oh, my dear,” Lucy said softly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Now you tell me what's happened, what's wrong,” Amy said.

Lucy nodded. “This morning Henry came over.” She told it all, including the warning about Frank Holloway. “You, David and I are the only ones who know what happened out there, but if the police believed Henry, it could be the reason they arrested David. I can't find a reason for them to disbelieve that story. But why would Robert have done it, lied like that?”

Amy felt cold all over and shook her head. If Dr. Elders testified to that story, who would believe her? No one. Her lips felt too stiff for words to form and escape. She moistened them. “Mother, will you tell them?”

Lucy nodded. “I have to, don't I?” The tears she had held off all day suddenly flowed in spite of her effort not to let go. In an instant Amy was at her side, and they held each other and rocked back and forth, both weeping.

After several minutes Amy pulled away and, choking, said, “I need a Kleenex.” She hurried from the room to find a box of tissues, blew her nose and took the box to her mother. “I'll bring in the coffee,” she said, and left again.

Then, sitting on the floor by the low table, she poured coffee for them both. “I think Robert said that because he was afraid someone would find out David was staying here, in his house, that his name and David's would be linked. It could have been damaging to his political career. Those demonstrators might even have come here, brought a lot of bad publicity.”

Lucy did not protest the possible explanation. It was plausible. If Robert had brought charges of murder against David, told that story to back up the charges, it probably would have been accepted, especially since Robert had been a prosecutor. He would have known how much evidence was necessary to make such charges. Believing and still disbelieving that line of reasoning, she had to admit to herself that she didn't know if Robert could have done that, lied to involve David. If he would have done that. She didn't know if he had followed Jill that night. She ducked her head and reached for another tissue.

Amy took her hand and held it. “Is it all right with you if I stay here for the next few months? Until after the trial is over?”

“God, yes! I want you to. We'll redecorate the study, however you want it. Then you make it yours for as long as you want. And I'll put drapes on the kitchen and family-room windows. We live in a fishbowl.”

“And keep doors locked at all times,” Amy added. She pressed Lucy's hand. “Did Dr. Elders really say it was for your own good?”

Lucy nodded.

“He's such a creep. You know the two things that kids hate more than almost anything else? It's when adults tell them it's for their own good. Or even worse, this hurts me more than it hurts you. Followed by a whap alongside the head.”

They both laughed.

They talked more that night, then went through the house together turning off lights and making sure doors were locked. In bed afterward, Amy lay awake for a long time. Barbara would get David off, she told herself. Her mother's account of the scene on the deck and her own would be more than enough to counter Dr. Elders. There was no way to check his story. It could all be a lie, an elaboration on a chance remark, his own revised history. Barbara would find others to verify that Jill had been a lesbian, that David was never her boyfriend the way Elders made it sound.

Then, free again, he would leave.

She turned over and closed her eyes.
Sleep,
she told herself.
Stop thinking about it.
But the order was ignored and soon she was again lying with her eyes open in the dark. She had not mentioned the pictures, that Robert had been a blackmailer on top of whatever else he had been. It was too much. It had nothing to do with the distant past. And those pictures had nothing to do with Jill Storey or David.

That night at the same time that Amy was twisting and turning, unable to keep her eyes closed long enough for sleep to come, Barbara was in her downtown office glaring at the stacks of papers on her coffee table. They pretty much covered it.

She had placed back in the box everything that appeared to be earlier than Jill Storey's senior year of college. Then she had started doing the same thing with all papers before January of that final year, and still, there were stacks of papers, notebooks, typed papers, handwritten notes. All those about statistics had been next to go back to the box after a cursory glance through them. Although nothing of a personal nature had turned up, she had been able to see a distinct pattern in Jill's working methods.

First the class syllabus, so many quizzes, grade percentage assigned to each, papers with grade percentages, tests, final term paper, followed by a list of reading materials. As Jill finished each task, she had checked it off, sometimes dating her check mark. All neat and concise, checked off before the deadline, until the middle of March, when her illness hit. Apparently from then until early May she had not been able to keep up with reading, or the papers when due, and there were missed tests. In May, in shaky handwriting, she had penciled in new dates, apparently the dates various instructors had allowed for her to finish the work.

It was little more than a synopsis of an illness and the toll it exacted, Barbara thought in disgust. Nothing personal, nothing to indicate her feelings, reveal friendships. Nothing. Period.

She had to admire Jill's industry, though. She had crammed six or seven weeks of work into little more than two weeks. The early handwritten papers were all neat, highly legible. Later, the evidence of illness was betrayed by shaky, spidery writing, like that of an old person. She suspected that the final typed papers had been copied by Olga from Jill's drafts.