Death Qualified (30 page)

    When they arrived at his room, he was standing at a wide window with his hands clasped behind his back.

    Heavy mist seemed to press inward against the windowpane.

    The room was furnished in delicate-looking French empire antiques; there were two skylights, each decorated with a mobile of hanging plants in silver filigree pots.

    Beyond the skylights the gray sky seemed too close.

    "I've sent for coffee," Judge Lundgren said.

    "Sit down, sit down." He continued to stand at the window until a second or two later there was a tap on the door; it opened to admit a gray-haired woman with a tray that contained a silver pot and very fine Haviland coffee service.

    After she left, Judge Lundgren went to the desk to pour the coffee for them, and then took his own around the desk and sat down.

    "Mr. De Angelo he said, then paused and shook his head.

    "Tony, I am very well aware of what you are attempting.

    I appreciate your efforts to keep your case confined to the vicinity and the time of the murder. And, Ms.

    Holloway, I am equally aware of your efforts to broaden the scope of the trial. Now, Sheriff LeMans is a qualified officer of the law, well regarded, and highly skilled. He is a competent witness, as competent as the sheriff of this county. I will not permit you to hobble your own witness, Tony. And I intend to keep the court in session until the sheriff is finished with his testimony today, however long that takes. I have no intention of either keeping him in town overnight, or returning him tomorrow from his own county." He lifted his cup and peered at Tony over the rim before he sipped.

    "Do I make myself clear?"

    "Yes, sir," Tony said without hesitation.

    "But this is all a delaying tactic on her part. It has nothing to do with what happened on that ledge."

    Judge Lundgren inclined his head slightly.

    "At some future time I may concur with that determination, but for now, this aspect of the case has been introduced, and I shall let Ms. Holloway pursue it." He turned his gaze toward Barbara; his pale blue eyes were cool and very remote.

    "Are you prepared to make a connection between these events and the death of Lucas Kendricks?"

    "Yes, I am, Your Honor," she said steadily.

    "Because if I decide that you are introducing conspiracies and muddying the water in order to obfuscate the facts, I shall instruct the jury that they cannot consider in any way any incident that occurred before Lucas Kendricks and his wife confronted each other on that ledge.

    Do you understand?"

    "Yes, of course. They are connected."

    "Very well. One other matter." Looking at Tony again, his voice very formal and proper, he asked, "Mr. De Angelo you are not required to answer at this time, but I should like to know if you intend to introduce the perpetuation of testimony of Dr. Ruth Brandy wine. If you choose not to make that decision yet, very well, but if you have already decided, I should like to know. Also, will that be your last witness, as you have previously indicated?"

    Barbara's hands were moist, but she made no motion to wipe them; she did not move as she waited for Tony to answer. He had not expected that, she thought with satisfaction.

    He had thought he would have until tomorrow to mull it over, and, of course, he still could. Judge Lundgren would not insist on knowing now, as he had made clear, but not to answer was probably out of Tony's range of possibilities. He was a firm believer in the power of authority, and the judge was on a higher step of the power ladder than he was.

    "Yes, Your Honor," he said finally.

    "I was hesitating because I didn't see any point in smearing the memory of Lucas Kendricks, but now that this whole other aspect has been brought up, I will introduce the video. And at this time I have no further witnesses to call."

    Judge Lundgren nodded thoughtfully.

    "Ms. Holloway has filed a formal request for a short recess in order for Dr. Brandywine to be subpoenaed as a hostile witness who was evasive and not forthcoming in her testimony." He drank his coffee and put the cup down.

    "I shall make my decision and tell you when court adjourns today. You are both ordered not to divulge this development to the public, or the press, or to allow it to leak." He looked at Tony with a frown.

    "I am very unhappy at the direction this case has taken toward becoming a circus. Now, there is very little time remaining of our recess. Thank you both for coming." He stood up, dismissing them.

    In the hall outside his door Tony swung around to say harshly, "You really think you can get Brandywine up here to accept a subpoena? You're whistling in the dark. I intend to get your client. In the end she'll be on that stand crying, pleading, saying she's sorry she did it."

    "Who do you really want to see crying and pleading, her or me?" she said just as harshly. He stalked away.

    There was no time to confer with her father when she returned to the courtroom. She nodded, and he left his seat and the room, and she began to guide Sheriff LeMans through the events starting with the call about the missing girl, on through the ranger's spotting the car, and finding it and the evidence of a crime.

    "Exactly what did the ranger report seeing. Sheriff LeMans?"

    "Just that he spotted a gray Honda Civic on the forest service road. We had an APB out on the car, a description of the man and the young lady, and her name."

    "When did he report this?"

    "Late Friday evening, six, seven."

    "And then what did you do?"

    "I sent two deputies in a jeep to check it out. They took a camera, and their instructions were to interview anyone they found, or take pictures if no one was there, not to touch anything, and then hightail it to a telephone and let me know. That's what they did. I went out with a crew first thing Saturday morning."

    "And the pictures? Will you identify this packet of pictures, please, Sheriff LeMans?"

    "They're the ones," he said, after looking them over.

    "They handed in the camera and the department had the film developed and marked each picture."

    "Which way is the car headed here?"

    He took the picture and looked at it, then handed it back.

    "East. Someone worked real hard to get it turned around. My boys found red lava dirt in the rocks where the car dropped it in getting turned around."

    "Heading back the way it had come?"

    "Yes, Ma'am."

    She started to walk toward the jury box with the pictures.

    "It's very muddy, isn't it? The car, I mean. Could you tell where it had been by the dirt on it?"

    "Pretty much. That's mostly red lava dust and mud.

    There was a lot of melting snow around there back in June, and a lot of mud everywhere. It was a mess."

    "So that was Saturday afternoon. When did you trace that car to Lucas Kendricks?"

    "Not definitely until the next week." He explained about the stolen license plates, and the missing registration.

    "By late Saturday, we knew that Lucas Kendricks had been shot, and that's when I suspected he must have walked across the mountains, and I got the tracker to find out how, to find out where he camped, look around his campsites, things like that. We still didn't know what happened to the young lady. Me and the sheriff from Lane County put together a crew to try to trace her down that creek."

    "Some days later did your tracker report that he had been hired to show a stranger where the campsites were?"

    "Yes. It's in my report. Seemed a curious thing, so I included it in the report."

    "And then what did you do?"

    "I went over the campsites myself, each one. They'd all been torn up, like someone had been searching for some thing. Ground disturbed, logs rolled over, rocks moved, even a little digging."

    Barbara went to the big map and pointed.

    "This is where the car was found, and here is the first campsite.

    How far apart are they?"

    "About ten miles, depending on how you go. Could be longer, twelve or thirteen miles, if you stick to the Forest Service roads." "Your report shows that the pictures you developed from Janet Moseley's camera were made at about one in the afternoon. Is that right?"

    "Yes, it is."

    She pointed to the map again.

    "This is the stream where her body was thrown in. How far is this from the car?"

    "Nine hundred yards."

    "Did you find the rope?"

    "No, we didn't."

    "Was there any rope in the car, or around it?"

    "No, there wasn't."

    She thanked him then and had no more questions. Tony was on his feet quickly, and he made the sheriff admit that there was no way to know with certainty who had made the various campsites they had located. And, in fact, they had no way of knowing for certain anything about the trail Lucas had taken, where he had slept, where he had rested. "Isn't it true that whenever there is a grotesque murder, curiosity seekers gather, Sheriff?"

    "Yes, it is."

    "And don't these ghouls sometimes hamper an investigation, even destroy evidence in their eagerness to participate in some sick way?"

    "I object. Your Honor. These questions are both leading and improper in their generality."

    "Sustained."

    "No more questions," Tony said.

    Judge Lundgren called Barbara and Tony to the bench to inform them that if Tony had no witnesses to call after Ruth Brandywine's statement was presented in court, he would recess the trial on Friday, the next day, until Tuesday at nine.

    That meant the jury would have all weekend to ponder the very damning testimony that Ruth Brandywine had voiced, a bad break, and from the expression on Tony's face she knew he was thinking exactly the same. He was not quite smirking. But it also meant that there were four days in which to dangle the bait for Brandywine to snap.

    that evening the reporters swarmed around the halls of the courthouse. Frank maneuvered Nell, John, and Amy out through them with aplomb; he had done this many times, and while he never actually shoved anyone, neither did he allow anyone to impede the forward momentum of the group he was herding. Barbara, waiting until they were out of sight, the hordes of news people dragged along like a wake, was surprised when Clive Belloc appeared at her side.

    "Can I drive you around the block, or to a bar for a drink or something?" he asked.

    "I can get my car and meet you at the door in five minutes."

    "Fine with me," she said. A car waiting in the rain, a quick dash through the reporters, a getaway, fine. He hurried off and she began to time him. As long as she remained in the courtroom, the reporters would leave her alone, and she knew she did not have the finesse her father always showed with them. She was not above shoving.

    After exactly five minutes she pulled her raincoat tighter around her, put her hood up, and made her run; the cameramen were there, the television crews, the newspaper reporters, all of them poised since she was the only one remaining now. She got through them to dive's car without uttering a single word, not even "No comment." She did not push anyone. She felt pleased with herself.

    The rain was little more than a drizzle, an ever-descending cloud. It was ten minutes after six.

    "A bar?" Clive asked.

    "I thought maybe you had a date, a dinner date, or something, and it's been a tough day, but is there time for a drink?"

    Actually it was not a date. She and Mike had an understanding, and how had that come about so soon? If she showed up by seven, they had dinner together, always at a restaurant; he did not cook, ever, except breakfast.

    "There's time," she said, "if it's someplace near and the service is pretty fast."

    "Know just the place." He drove to the valet parking garage at the Hilton, where he turned the car over to a youth who looked no more than fourteen; they stepped into an elevator that whisked them to the top floor, all in under five minutes. From their table in the lounge they could see the lights of Eugene, haloed with mist.

    The drinks were less prompt than he had been, but even so, the timing was loose enough to let her start to relax.

    But Clive was looking awkward and embarrassed, as if he was not quite sure how to launch into what was on his mind. The pale area around his eyes was hardly noticeable now that his deep, rich tan was fading.

    "I've been in the court every day," he said, just as the cocktail waitress brought their drinks and arranged them.

    He waited until she left.

    "Anyway, I've really admired the way you're handling everything. What I said back in the beginning, that's more idiotic than ever. I'm really sorry about that."