Death Qualified (13 page)

    "Because I don't think I can get her off."

    "Can anyone?"

    There was a long silence during which the only sounds were the clicking of gravel, the soft swish of his jeans as he walked, and one leg brushed the other rhythmically.

    "The situation," he said finally, "as accepted around here is that she was married to a son of a bitch who deserted her and the children, who didn't even know he had a daughter, and who tortured and killed a nineteen-year-old girl on his way home. When he showed up, he must have threatened Nell, threatened the children, and she plugged him. Justifiable*. Everyone agrees that he deserved exactly what he got, that she should have done it years ago, the last time he was around. Manslaughter, or even self-defense."

    "But?"

    "But she says she didn't do it."

    "You said Lucas didn't know he had a daughter. How did anyone find that out? She didn't have a chance to talk to him, according to the papers."

    "His parents did." He told her what little he knew about Lucas and his movements from the time he arrived at his parents' house south of Bend until he vanished around noon on Tuesday, with the girl who was murdered sometime the afternoon of the same day.

    "You'll have to have an investigator do some digging," Barbara said after a lengthy pause.

    "Where was Lucas all those years? Why didn't he know about his daughter if both Nell and his parents wrote to him, tried to call, and so on? Was he in an institution? Jail? Overseas? Down dope lane? Where? Doing what? Did the autopsy show drugs?"

    "Nothing."

    "Have the police turned up anything about his recent past?"

    "I really doubt they've looked much. Doesn't seem to matter. He's tied to the dead girl, and he's dead. Nell's rifle was out and had been fired recently. Doesn't seem to be any doubt that it was the gun that killed him. She was the only one around. Her father-in-law could have tipped her off that he was coming that day, and, in fact, he even picked up the kids and took them away for an extended visit the day before the murder, clearing the field of action.

    The police don't seem to feel they need much more than that."

    "Well, you sure as hell will need a lot more than that.

    But I've told you where I'd start asking questions."

    "About Lucas and his past?"

    She looked at him sharply and said with irritation.

    "Of course not. About her. Why didn't she divorce him? And who is she sleeping with?"

    The walk home seemed shorter than it had in the other direction, but even so, by the time they reached the house her legs were aching, and her thighs felt on fire. How long since she had done any real walking, she asked herself, and had to think back to the previous winter. No one walked in Phoenix when the weather got hot, as it did by April, or even March. Now she found that she just wanted to sprawl, have more coffee, read the newspapers her father had picked up.

    "What's next on your schedule usually?" she asked as they entered the house. It was very cool inside.

    "Generally I work a couple of hours on the book, then lunch and read the papers, and then nap. More work in the late afternoon some days. Sometimes I take a little walk. Sometimes a little fishing after nap time. Some days along about five or so, mosey on around to visit with Doc and Jessie, cadge a drink or two. Busy days, as you can see."

    She nodded.

    "If I were your doctor, I'd probably tell you to slow down. Well, leave the papers, please. After I do the dishes I'll have a go at them. Get on about your business."

    He grinned and handed over the newspapers, one an Oregonian, one a local weekly, and the New York Times.

    She suspected that he paid a fortune to have that brought in daily, and she could not imagine his doing without it.

    After Barbara tidied up in the kitchen, she made a fresh pot of coffee, not quite as strong as her father made it;

    when she went out to the terrace to read the papers, she found that she had no interest in them at all. She sipped the coffee, gazing out at the river, now a deep forest green, and suddenly she was visualizing Nell on the river, on a bobbing ice floe that she leaped from just as it upended.

    The next was no less dangerous. And that was where little Nell was, she thought then, in the middle of the river with out a chance of reaching either shore. If she agreed to plea bargain, admit to a manslaughter charge, with self-defense, she would serve time, four to six. If she refused and was found guilty of murder one, she would serve even more time, ten to twenty, or even life, depending on the state's case. All this was assuming that they didn't have cause to go for aggravated murder, with a death sentence. That was reason enough for the look of terror that had lurked behind her pleasant expression, that had clouded her pretty brown eyes.

    What would happen to those two kids then? Grandparents probably would get custody, but a court could decide to put them in foster homes. Nothing was certain where kids were concerned any longer. And who would guard her trees?

    This was exactly why she had dropped out, Barbara thought with great bitterness. The machine was in motion, and Nell was not aboard. She had not sidestepped in time, and it was too late now; she was directly in front of the behemoth. And just what the hell was she, Barbara, doing here brooding about a strange woman and her probable fate? It was going on noon, too late to start driving, especially since her legs had failed her on such a short walk.

    But it was more than simple brooding, she realized. She was seething over the bastard Lucas who had done this to Nell and her two beautiful children. The devourers and the devoured, she muttered under her breath. If he had killed that girl and thrown her into the river, he had just as surely destroyed his wife and his children. If Nell was found guilty of manslaughter, of killing him in self-defense, or premeditated murder, she was destroyed, and so was the family. No one recovered from such a history, not really.

    The torture wouldn't leave visible scars and physical mutilations, but there was torture and torment aplenty in store for them. Predators and prey. Always it came back to that.

    Pick a role, there are only two. Victimizer or victim. Toss a coin.

    Angrily she stood up and gathered the unread papers, arranged them neatly for her father. She had turned her back on the machine, she told herself; she refused the coin, the roles, both of them. She had refused the machine, walked away from it. Even if she agreed to help her father on this case, nothing would be changed. Tomorrow another young woman would be devoured, or a young man, and then another and another endlessly, faster and faster. Nothing changed.

    Her father would say, just as angrily, she knew, that it was the only game in town and you play by the rules.

    "No more," she said.

    "No more."

    Lunch was a sandwich and an apple. Afterward, her father disappeared for his nap, just as he had said he would. She wandered around the house, then went to her room and lay down, for a minute, she told herself. She slept nearly an hour, to her great surprise. All that walking, all that soporific air, she thought, chagrined. She had not taken a nap in so many years she could not even remember the last time.

    Then her gaze landed on the newspapers, the ones filled with the stories of the two murders. Presently she sat in the easy chair and resumed reading where she had left off.

    Later her father asked if she was up for walking over to Nell's house.

    "How far?"

    "Maybe half a mile."

    "You're talking about another country mile altogether, aren't you? Let's drive."

    He chuckled, and they went out to his car. He pointed out where Doc's property stopped and Nell's began; the difference was startling. Doc's place had been left wild;

    thick forest, the same fringe of undergrowth along the road, but then the trees became more spaced out, with great clear areas, and the regularity of an orchard. Barbara didn't recognize the trees until he told her they were the walnut trees that would make Nell a very rich woman one day soon. The road made a sharp right turn onto Nell's property. Barbara gazed at the giant fir tree that had been threatened by the tree cutters. And what had that been all about? she wondered, but did not comment.

    She was surprised to find that Tawna and James were black. They greeted her father as a friend and extended that friendship to her without hesitation. Celsy, their teenage daughter, was just as friendly. Barbara was surprised again to learn that the Gresham family was living in the big house, Nell and her children in the smaller one. Topsyturvy, she found herself saying under her breath.

    Travis began to tell Frank about the horse James had treated that week.

    "We had to give him a shot," Travis said.

    Nell spread her hands in a helpless gesture.

    "I keep telling James not to let him be a nuisance, but he loves to tag along."

    "The day comes that he's a nuisance, that's the day I send him packing," James said.

    "Frank, Barbara, we're having wine and beer, but there's bourbon, some gin, maybe something else. Name it."

    While he was inside getting wine for them both, Frank pulled a chair closer to the grill where Tawna was turning chicken. She looked at her daughter and said softly, "Maybe you could play something?"

    Celsy glanced at the company, then said with some resignation, "Okay."

    "Can I watch?" Carol asked. She said sure, and they both went inside the house.

    "And she's a pest with Celsy," Nell said.

    Frank questioned Tawna about the sauce she had made for the chicken; it smelled spicy and alien. Palm oil, chili peppers, a little this, a little that, she said. Nell began to tell Barbara about the ceramic jewelry that Tawna made.

    Then James came out with a tray and handed out wine; it seemed to Barbara that she had known these people for a long time and was very comfortable with them.

    The sound of Celsy's flute drifted out; Tawna glanced at James and they both smiled faintly, very proud of their talented daughter. For a moment Barbara felt her eyes burn. When she looked at Nell, she knew she was seeing another side of her, relaxed, at ease, the terror deeply buried for the time being.

    The chicken was delicious, the bakery bread that Nell had supplied was crisp and very good, the salad was superb.

    Prank praised everything extravagantly, and soon he began telling one of his funny court stories, and then James topped it with a funnier animal story. When Carol began to yawn, Nell sighed.

    "Guess it's that time," she said with regret. It had become very dark.

    "I'll take them," Celsy said.

    "You want to stay and talk a while, I'll go down with them." She was already on her feet; it was obvious that she had had quite enough of the adult evening.

    "Okay, burns, say good night and then march!" Carol giggled and said it nicely; Travis saluted and said good night in a computer like voice. He began to march like a wooden soldier. By the time they were out of the light from the house, they were all giggling.

    "It's been a grand party," Frank said.

    "Those are great kids," Barbara added.

    "All three."

    "Sometimes you wish you could put a bell jar over them, keep them exactly the way they are forever and ever," Tawna said in a low voice.

    "You know, capture them at this exact moment."

    "What happens is that kids turn into people all too soon," Barbara said, and to her dismay the light tone she had intended was not there.

    "People are okay," James said reflectively.

    "Not as nice as animals, but okay."

    Tawna laughed.

    "If animals wanted anything more than regular meals and shelter, they'd be just like people. You better believe."

    "Maybe if all people had regular meals and shelter, they'd be as nice as animals," Nell said.

    "They wouldn't," Barbara said.

    "People don't want only what they really need. They want more, always more, and the only way to get it is by taking what they want from others. Human nature."

    "Oh, no!" Tawna protested.

    "It's learned behavior.

    People aren't selfish because of their genes. Everyone can quote the golden rule, but who actually practices it? There are too many ways to learn things, and by rote, the way we teach the golden rule, is probably the worst of all."

    "Nurture/nature," Frank said.

    "One of those problems without an answer. One of the reasons philosophers are now up to their eyeballs talking about language, and forgetting the basic questions. Because they have recognized finally that there can't be any definitive answers, just faith.

    Suppose, for a minute, you were granted the power to change people. What would you do, Tawna, for openers?"

    "Teach them, really teach them to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That would be quite enough."