Defense for the Devil (14 page)

He studied Barbara, then said, “I don’t quite understand how Waters knows as much as he does, what his game is. Can you describe him?”

“Smooth and personable, six feet tall, broad-shouldered, a good voice, dark hair and eyes. He claimed he was head of security for the company involved and he was persuasive and believable.”

“Gilmore!” Major said suddenly. “That son of a bitch!”

“Maybe,” Jolin said. “Stuart Gilmore is the man who approached Thelma in Zurich. He’s an ex-actor turned con man who’s worked for the Palmer Company for a dozen or more years. He makes the first move. It could be him. But why tell you as much as he did? Too much maybe.”

“Probably several reasons,” Barbara said. “They had no idea how much I already knew, what all Mitch might have had with him. He could have kept Thelma Wygood’s ID, her wallet or something that would have led us to her murder and eventually sent us to the police. He made a special plea that I not go to the police, that the affair be kept confidential. But also, I think, to give me an alternative choice, one that appeared honorable and just. And lucrative. His offer was all the money, no questions, and justice served. To cover the possibility that we had her name, he had to make it authentic and detailed enough for me to accept. He was good,” she added.

“Why didn’t you take his offer?”

“I didn’t trust him. And after I read about Thelma Wygood, I came to disbelieve she would sell out her company. Also, I really do have a client to protect.” She looked at Major again and said very sharply, “Mr. Major, I need your attention. What do you want me to do with your program?”

“Give it to Palmer’s lawyer,” he said in a low voice.

“It’s a setup, isn’t it? How long before they’ll know it’s a phony?”

He looked helplessly at Jolin. “We worked for more than two years on it, Thelma and I, before we knew it was all wrong. It will take them longer. Our teams never found out, and no one else ever had access to the entire program. Everyone was excited. It would have revolutionized the telecommunications industry, but it was wrong.”

“After you knew Thelma was dead, why didn’t you go to the police?”

Major looked agonized.

Jolin answered. “What was the point? We didn’t go to them beforehand, too afraid of a leak. And afterward? We had no proof, the diary of a dead woman, unsigned, coded, no names in it. Not even a real diary, just pages that she sent on as she wrote them. It would have been pointless, but the rumor would have spread that she had sold out. We weren’t willing to do that. We didn’t have anything,” he said bitterly. “No car, no money, no witness—nothing!”

Barbara could no longer contain her impatience with Major and his ceaseless movements. “Mr. Major, please sit down so I can talk to you.”

He stopped walking and looked at her with a bewildered expression.

“Please, just sit down a minute.” She waited until he did so. “Do you have any interest in that money? It’s two hundred forty thousand dollars.”

He shook his head and looked as if he was ready to move again, but Frank spoke now. “Would anyone payout that kind of money for a program sight unseen, without a demonstration or something?”

Jolin and Major exchanged glances. Jolin said, “You know what vaporware is?”

“Not a clue,” Frank admitted.

“Okay. A company announces a new program that’s to be released at some future date. The day comes and goes, and the product doesn’t appear. It’s so common in our field that there’s more vaporware than software out there. Major Works has never in twenty years announced a vaporware product. Never. And people know that. Thelma let out a hint early on that they were working on a voice-recognition system; not a blatant hint, but enough, and then she and Russ clammed up. They both let their research teams in on the fact that they were interested in the telecommunications problems and were tackling them. Then they had the big party to celebrate; and another, final, hint was dropped: they would have an announcement for the fall trade show. That was last spring, just before their last big battle. The other company had to bite.”

Frank shook his head. Rumors and rumors of rumors. A crazy business.

“All right,” Barbara said. “However that went, they did payout a large amount of money and they don’t yet have what they paid for. Mr. Major, your people can’t go after Palmer now or the person who hired him. Neither can you get involved with Trassi or Gilmore. The minute they detect your presence, they’ll know you’re onto them, and they’ll cover their tracks thoroughly. There’s no way you should know about any of them, is there?”

He looked at Jolin, as if for help, then said, “No. They think we don’t know anything.”

“Right,” she said. “The man who killed Thelma was Mitch Arno. His ex-wife is owed just about the amount in the suitcase for past child support. I intend to get it for her, in a way that will satisfy the legal requirements. But I’m talking about justice more than law, Mr. Major. Ray Arno very likely will be arrested for the murder of his brother Mitch, and he is innocent. I don’t intend to stand by and see him get the death penalty for that murder.”

“You’ll throw Thelma out for them to gnaw on,” Jolin said heavily.

“No, I won’t. You can’t punish her killer, and you can’t go after Trassi and Palmer; I can. But I’ll need your cooperation, and Mr. Major’s cooperation.”

“Why would you?” Jolin asked.

“My client is due that money, but she’ll turn it over to the police along with the program before she’ll let Ray Arno hang for Mitch’s death. They wrecked her bed-and-breakfast inn and would have killed her, no doubt, if she had been home. They threatened her children, and me. They tortured and murdered Mitch Arno. An innocent man is at deadly risk. I think they’ve gone far enough.” She knew that was only the surface of her reasons, but she would not have been able to explain herself to these two men, since she could not explain it even to herself.

Jolin continued to study her, his face as expressionless as stone.

Major was up again, on his feet, on the move. “We’ll do whatever you say,” he said, going to the window. “If you can keep Thelma out of it.” He swung around to face her. “I intend to destroy Dan Frisch; getting the program into his hands will do it. It will take time, but he’ll be ruined, he won’t steal another program. Can you keep your client in line? Will she cooperate, not hand anything over to the police? Ms. Holloway, I want Frisch and I want Palmer, even more than the tools they used.”

“I can’t defend Ray Arno until my client and I conclude our business, but at that time I want to step in. I want the men who killed Mitch and tore up Maggie Folsum’s inn, and I want Trassi, who was more than likely directing the killers. To get them, I’ll have to involve Palmer. I can’t work out in the open yet, but there’s a lot I can start with in the background.”

Jolin shook his head. “You can’t get them. They’ve been too careful too long.”

“Maybe not,” she admitted. “But I have a chance, and you don’t. It’s that simple. And for openers, I’ll want everything you’ve learned, and then for your people to back off, or work under the direction of my own detective.”

He pursed his lips and looked at Major, who nodded. “She’s right. She has a chance. Tell us what you need.”

“Can I hold out some pages of printout until Trassi makes good on promises? Would that satisfy the person behind all this?”

Major’s expression changed, became almost demonic. “Yes! Keep out the first hundred pages, and the last fifty or so. Frisch’s team will go crazy trying to fill in the missing pieces. They’ll have enough to do to keep them busy for six months, longer, but Dan Frisch will be driven to finish it himself.” Abruptly he swung around to face out the window, where he stood rigidly with his hands thrust into his pockets.

Watching him, Barbara realized he wanted to destroy Frisch, his rival, competitor, thief, and he knew how to do it, because whatever it was that drove Frisch drove him as well, just as it had driven Thelma Wygood.

“Let’s iron out some details,” Jolin said then, and for the next two hours Barbara and Jolin worked on their plans.

Suddenly Major participated again. “Ms. Holloway,” he said bleakly, “you know the expression ‘Money is no object’? Usually no one really means that. I do. Just get them, any way you can, legal or not. Just get them. If you can’t, I’ll get them myself. I wanted to. He stopped me.” He gave Jolin a bitter look. “But he won’t stop me again if I have to do it.”

13

Major and Jolin
left as soon as they finished; Frank left with the Fenton driver, Ralph, and Barbara with Bailey.

“So you got real backing,” he said after she told him about the meeting. “Good work.”

“They have an airstrip they use out of Vancouver, Washington. They’ll drive there, then fly back to the island, and by eight or so, Jolin will start faxing me all the stuff they’ve gathered so far.”

“Tonight? Barbara, remember Hannah, my wife? You know, I’ve got a whole other life?”

“You don’t need to be there. But I’ve been thinking. If Waters really is Gilmore, he’s going to fly away free as a bird. He romanced a lonely woman in Switzerland, so what?”

She was well aware that Bailey had gone into his hard-listening attitude. He said sourly, “But you’ve got an idea.”

“I may have an idea,” she said. “What if a failed actor turned con man met a foolish, rich old woman who longed for the roar of greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, and above all else her own theater, a return of glory? How much do you suppose he’d try to take her for?”

There was a strange sound from Bailey; she glanced at him and realized he was chuckling.

“You want Sylvia to work a sting,” he said. “Jeez, she’d love it!”

“Could she pull it off?”

“Barbara, she looks and acts like a nut, but she’s as shrewd as they come. And Joe indulges her. She’d love it, and Joe will play along and be happy as a clam. And when the time comes, they know every judge in the state. If she goes for a sting, consider him stung.”

“Would she be willing to testify, go the whole distance?”

Bailey laughed out loud. “Are you kidding? Jeez, I wonder what getup she’ll wear.”

Very softly, Barbara said, “They’ll send Gilmore’s picture. I’ll let you know if he’s calling himself Waters.”

She had Bailey drop her off a few blocks from her apartment at a Safeway, where she studied the gourmet section of frozen entrees, picked two, and lettuce and tomatoes, and thought with relief that dinner was under control. She walked home.

The truce was still holding. John laughed when she unloaded her bag of groceries. “Look in the freezer,” he said. She found half a dozen more frozen entrees there.

He didn’t ask what she had been up to all day, and she didn’t ask about the Staley mine. After they finished eating and washed the few dishes, she said, “I left my car in the office lot. I’ll go over, pick up some faxes, and drive home.”

“I’ll walk over with you.”

Neither had been truly relaxed, but a new tightness appeared on his face, sounded in his voice.

“There’s no point in that,” she said.

“I’ll come,” he said.

She shook her head, and suddenly he grinned. “See, you’re still doing it. You get impatient and shake your head like a dog with a bone. But, impatient or not, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be out alone at night when you’re dealing with the kind of people you seem to gravitate to.”

She signed in exasperation. “I’ve been a big girl for a long time—”

“I’ll tag along a few paces behind you,” he said. “Jesus!” she muttered.

“You have any idea how much like your father you just sounded? When do you have to be there?”

They walked to the office together. Half a block from the apartment, he reached for her hand.

The next morning she started to read the faxes. At eight-thirty a special-delivery parcel arrived: Gilmore’s picture from his acting days, and two snapshots that Thelma Wygood had taken. Gilmore was calling himself Brad Waters these days. He had been blond in Zurich. There was also a photocopy of Thelma’s diary, starting with June fourth. “A blond man introduced himself as Brian, and bought me a drink at the Hilton Bar. His first words were ‘God, you look like an American. Please be American. A Kansas drawl would sound like heaven.’ It was a very good way to start. We talked a few minutes, nothing of consequence.”

Barbara flipped through the pages; some of the entries were quite long, and there were a lot of them.

Bailey arrived a few minutes before nine, and Frank a few minutes later. They both started on the faxes. Bailey concentrated on Gilmore’s dossier.

“A snap,” he said after a few minutes. “Sylvia will chew him up and spit him out.”

“If Trassi actually calls Sunderman to set up a time for a meeting, I’ll call Waters and make a date. It won’t take me long to shake him, and he might be in a rush to get out of town afterward, once his role is played out here. I’ll let you know when.”

Frank looked up sharply. “What the devil are you conniving?”

When Barbara told him, he looked troubled, then grudgingly he nodded. “It probably will work. But you’re cutting it pretty close, Bobby.”

“I know.” She motioned toward the faxes. “I’ll go through all this stuff and wait for Trassi’s call.” She was relieved that no one asked what her backup plan was if Trassi didn’t call.

“Word is, they’re going to arrest Ray Arno today,” Bailey said.

“I know,” Barbara said morosely.

She made copies of all the Gilmore material, and Bailey left to talk to Sylvia. Barbara and Frank settled in to read. At eleven Frank wandered down the corridor to Lou Sunderman’s office to tell the tax attorney that he had an interesting problem for him. He was humming under his breath; he and Lou regarded each other as members of alien species. Frank thought anyone who liked spending all his time studying new tax laws and trying to find ways to get around them was straitjacket material. And he well knew that Lou thought anyone who chose to hobnob with criminals, possibly murderers, was a seriously deranged pervert.

When Frank returned an hour later, he handed Barbara a sheet of paper nearly covered with his heavy scrawl. “Lou says that’s what he’ll need from Maggie. Marriage license, divorce decree, kids’ birth certificates… He’s probably being fussy, but he says the more he can produce at the first meeting with the IRS, the better.”