Death Qualified (37 page)

    "Acute paranoid schizophrenia. He was totally helpless, catatonic, dissociated, hallucinating. I thought I could help him, and I did."

    "So he was having a mental crisis? How long did that phase last?"

    "A severe crisis. It was in December that he began to function, and after that his recovery proceeded normally and he was able to take a job in January and live in the student housing unit."

    Barbara nodded.

    "What did the young man have with him when he moved into your house?"

    "Nothing, just the clothes he was wearing."

    "Identification, money, a car?"

    "I said nothing."

    "Do you know what happened to his possessions, his wallet, his car?"

    "I supposed that Emil Frobisher had taken care of those things. I didn't ask."

    "Who put his car in your garage?"

    Dr. Brandywine shook her head.

    "No one did. It was not in my garage."

    "Do you know Miranda Cortealta?"

    "Of course. She is my housekeeper."

    "When did she start working for you?"

    Dr. Brandywine shook her head again and looked past Barbara toward the jury, then toward the crowded courtroom.

    "I don't know. Sometime that fall or winter, I think."

    "Dr. Brandywine, this is the report of the officers who investigated the theft of your car battery last June. Quote:

    "According to Miranda Cortealta, housekeeper for Dr.

    Ruth Brandywine, a gray car was also missing. She did not know the make of model, only that it was a small car.

    It had been parked in the garage ever since she could remember. ' Was a gray car missing from your garage at the same time the battery was stolen?"

    "Miranda was mistaken. I never had a gray car in my garage."

    "Did you tell the investigating officers that?"

    "No. They never asked as far as I can remember."

    "So when you first met Lucas Kendricks, he was incapable of communicating? Is that right?"

    "I met a man called Tom Mann. That was the only name I knew him by. And acute paranoid schizophrenics seldom communicate," Dr. Brandywine said sharply.

    "I

    told you, he was in crisis."

    "Yes, you did. For how long was he totally incapacitated?"

    "Weeks, at least."

    "He was unfit to drive, or go into town to conduct business, or to continue whatever work he was doing with Dr.

    Frobisher?"

    Dr. Brandywine sighed.

    "I have said this already as clearly as I know how. He was in crisis, incapable of any business whatsoever."

    "Yes, you have said that clearly. Dr. Brandywine, I have a few papers I'd like to have you identify if you can. Do you recognize the name of this bank?"

    She handed a document to Ruth Brandywine, who fished in her purse to draw out glasses, and put them on deliberately, adjusted them, and then peered at the paper.

    "Yes. I bank there in Boulder."

    "And the manager's name? Is that familiar to you?"

    "Yes."

    "Dr. Brandywine, I ask you this, did you go to that bank with Lucas Kendricks on November 16, 1982?"

    For the first time she hesitated, but it was a very short pause; she drew herself up and said as firmly as before, "No."

    "Did you draw out a cashier's check for three thousand two hundred twenty two dollars on November the sixteenth

    "No!"

    Barbara nodded; she picked up another paper and walked to Ruth Brandywine. She kept this sheet and said, "I read the sworn statement of Lawrence Spaulding, man ager of the Bank of Boulder. Quote, "On November 16, 1982, Lucas Kendricks closed his checking account in per son, taking his money in cash. The teller, Doris Huntley, as instructed in such cases, made note of the serial numbers of the bills, which were hundreds. Because there had been several confidence scams in the past few months, she also alerted me, and I left my office to observe what was transpiring. Lucas Kendricks was known to me at the time, and his companion. Dr. Ruth Brandywine, was also known to me. After closing the checking account Lucas Ken dricks and Dr. Brandywine left the bank together." The starting and ending serial numbers are included," Barbara said, and handed the paper to Ruth Brandywine. She walked back to the defense table where she stood without motion until Dr. Brandywine finished reading. Barbara nodded to the clerk, who took the statement and handed it to the jury foreman.

    "Dr. Brandywine, did you go to the bank with Lucas Kendricks on November 16, 1982, and stand by him while he closed his checking account?"

    Ruth Brandywine took off her glasses and folded them, replaced them in a gold case that she carefully put back in her purse. Then she looked at Judge Lundgren and said, "Your Honor, I must refuse to answer any further questions without the counsel of my legal advisor."

    "I object. Your Honor," Barbara cried furiously.

    "This witness can answer the question immediately. She has made statements that are contradicted by others in sworn affidavits. She can admit she went to that bank or deny it without any legal advice. Either she did or she didn't. It doesn't take expert advice to tell the truth of the matter."

    "Objection!" Tony yelled then.

    "Counsel is harassing this witness. Under our system of jurisprudence witnesses are granted legal rights, as counsel knows very well."

    "That doesn't include the right to lie under oath. Don't be idiotic!"

    Judge Lundgren banged his gavel hard and glared at Barbara and Tony.

    "We will have a ten-minute recess," he snapped. He stood up, stalked from the bench.

    When the recess was over, Judge Lundgren nodded to Ruth Brandywine.

    "You are excused until nine-thirty tomorrow morning. You may step down." He looked frostily at Barbara.

    "Do you have additional witnesses you wish to call before continuing with Dr. Brandywine?"

    Barbara watched Ruth Brandywine leave the stand and walk in front of the defense table, pass out of sight. Brandywine looked neither right nor left; her head was high, her face expressionless. "I have various statements I would like to enter as defense exhibits," Barbara said as neutrally as she could manage as soon as she knew Ruth Brandywine had started the walk from the court. Every eye was following her.

    "Very well," the judge said.

    "You may proceed."

    Deliberately Barbara turned to watch Ruth Brandywine, who had reached the door to the corridor. She waited until the woman left the courtroom, and attention returned to the defense table. Then she introduced the bank statement concerning the car loan Lucas Kendricks had taken out, and the official notification that the loan had been paid in full by a cashier's check in the amount of $3,222 on November 18, 1982.

    She read the insurance cancelation notice, and the note indicating that a refund check for $285 was attached. A newer notice was stapled to that one: the check had not been cashed or returned. Next came an accounting from the housing administrator's office at Rocky Mount College. Through December 1982, Lucas Kendricks had paid for his meals and his apartment; after January 1983 Dr. Brandywine's office had been billed for the same apartment and meal tickets for Tom Mann. Her final document was the bill of sale for the computer system, and a note about the serial numbers of the hundred-dollar bills that had been used to pay for it. The identical numbers, she pointed out, that appeared on the bank statement about the closing of Lucas Kendricks's account in 1982.

    After court adjourned until the following morning, Barbara sat at the defense table for several minutes trying to identify the source of a silent alarm that was sending adrenaline throughout her system. Brandywine, she decided.

    Something about the way she had looked at the jury, at the courtroom, at Barbara in a cool appraisal. Something about the way she had walked out. Something about her that was not yet comprehensible. Finally she got to her feet, and as she turned, she saw Frank and Mike waiting.

    "You want a drink?" Frank asked.

    "Mike's buying."

    "You bet I do."

    "And some dinner in a little while?" Mike asked.

    "I'm buying that, too."

    "Don't be silly," she said.

    "Remember our agreement?

    You pay, I pay. And if Dad goes, he pays, too."

    Mike shook his head.

    "Not this time. I owe you one."

    She looked at him closer and drew in a long breath, and then nodded.

    "Okay." But this was insane, she thought;

    he was looking at her as if they had just met, and she felt as awkward as a girl trying to make a good impression. It was more like a first date than their first evening together had been. That had been like two old lovers getting together, not like strangers exploring each other's range of interests or testing for mutual compatibility.

    As they started to leave the courtroom Frank took her arm and said, "Well, you're stuck with me since I have the car, unless, that is, Mike wants to drive you out later."

    Mike was at her other side, but he was not touching her.

    She looked at him almost shyly and said, "Tomorrow's going to be a tough day. Let's have that drink and dinner, and then I'll go home with Dad." He nodded.

    When they reached the street, the fog was back, thicker than the night before.

    "Driving home will be a bitch," Barbara said with a shiver.

    "I hate fog. I can't tell you how much I hate fog."

    "It reminds me of the year I spent at Oxford," Mike said.

    She looked at him in surprise. That hadn't come up before.

    They went to a restaurant that had a large, fine lounge, where they relaxed before an oversized fireplace with a mannerly fire. Mike talked about his year at Oxford, but he kept watching her; there was a softness in his face that she had not seen before, not even when they made love, or afterward. It also surprised her to find that she was reacting to this new side of him with confusion. She had assumed that she had learned this man, only now to find a layer that had not surfaced before, and that made her wonder how many more layers there were.

    Frank talked about a sailing trip he had made with his wife, Barbara's mother, when they were newly wed. He told it dreamily. Then Mike told about trekking across the Highlands in the fog and mist, and no one expected Barbara to say anything, but neither did they exclude her.

    They went to their table and ordered, and the pleasant chatting continued as they ate.

    The comfort was banished as they waited for coffee, and Mike said, "That Brandywine woman is going to be dangerous to someone."

    The shiver that had been stilled by the pleasantries re turned to Barbara's spine.

    "What do you mean?"

    "She's been set up. No way could she have had enough clout in a few months at that school to get Kendricks in that apartment with meal tickets billed to her, get him a job, the whole thing. You noticed that the statement you got said it was billed to her, not paid by her. Bet no one paid. But aside from that, someone with clout had to vouch for her, for the arrangement. I'd bet it was Schumaker."

    "But you said dangerous to someone. Who?"

    "I wouldn't want to be Schumaker," he said thought fully.

    "As soon as she realizes it's all in her name, she'll throw him overboard, but she'll do harm along the way to anyone in her path. You, Nell, anyone. It'll take some doing, but she's a smart lady. You see them, men and women like her, in the academic world, playing every single angle. They are political geniuses."

    The waiter brought their coffee and they were silent until he left again.

    "Thanks," Barbara said then to Mike. An other side of him that she had not known about, this ability to come up with a very good analysis. It matched her own thoughts in an uncanny way.

    "Now that she'll have a lawyer at her side, it's going to take forever, but I've got forever if need be. I'll do my damnedest to make her either take the Fifth or refuse to answer. Lundgren probably will be a devil, and I know Tony will be."

    " Lundgren's big on respecting authority," Frank said.

    "In his eyes, no doubt, she represents authority just a bit more than you do."

    Barbara snorted with laughter. Lundgren had made it clear that he considered her a barbarian, as her name implied, while Tony De Angelo name summed him up. And now a Ph.D. as well as a medical doctor. The totem pole was getting higher and higher, and she felt it resting squarely on her own shoulders, with Ruth Brandywine so high above her she was hardly visible.

    "After Brandywine, then what?" Mike asked.

    "Is she the last witness?"