Evidence of Guilt (13 page)

"Do you mind if I join you?" Pammy slid into the seat next to mine, tucking her feet up under her. She rested her chin in her hand. "So, what do you think? Is my brother guilty or not?"

Before I could decide how to answer she jumped ahead.

That's okay, I know you can't tell me. I'm not sure I want to know anyway." She shifted position and sighed. "Unless you're certain he's innocent, that is." She paused

and looked over at me. When I didn't respond right away she sighed again. "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of."

"Just because I'm uncertain doesn't mean he's guilty." The fact of the matter was that as his attorney, I didn't want to know the truth.

"Andrea is sure he did it." Her voice was thin, like a puff of dust "That's what my mom thinks too, though she'd never admit it. I don't know about my dad. Sometimes I think his standing solidly behind Wes is all for show, and other times I think he really believes Wes is innocent Maybe he just wants to believe it so bad he's convinced himself it's so."

"And what about you--what do you think?"

She pulled a loose thread from the bottom of her cutoffs and rolled it into a ball. "I don't know what to think. Wes has been really nice to me. I know he's got a reputation as a rowdy, but I've never seen that side of him. In fact, I've only seen him lose his temper once, and that was when he'd had a lot to drink."

Pammy played with the ball of thread for a moment, rolling it between her palms. There's no way I can imagine him doing what was done to that woman and her little girl, but there's an awful lot of people who think he did it. I keep wondering if maybe they know something I don't."

"Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe you know Wes better than they do."

"I get along better with Wes than I do with anyone else in the family. Better than I get along with, my mother and sisters anyway."

I nodded. I knew about sisters. Sabrina and I had been like oil and water the whole time we were growing up.

"Sometimes I'd drop by his place after school or on weekends, help him strip wallpaper, work on his car, stuff like that. It wasn't so much real conversation as just hanging out" She paused. "Wes and I are a lot alike actually."

"Alike how?" Myself, I didn't see much similarity.

A shrug. "We like the same movies and we're not real social." She laughed unevenly. "We're both big disappointments to our parents."

Wes, maybe, but I couldn't understand how the Hardings would be disappointed in Pammy. I started to tell her so. "Everybody feels that to some extent, but -- "

She cut me off. "Spare me the lecture; I've heard it. And I'm not saying my parents don't care about me. It's just that my mother wants me to be more like my sisters -- you know, pretty and popular. And my dad . . . well, what he really wanted was a son. Someone he could take fishing and hunting, do the male bonding trip with. It didn't work out with Wes, and then he ended up with three daughters. I was his last hope."

"Daughters can hunt and fish."

She responded with a disgusted laugh. "Not these particular daughters. Andrea wouldn't do anything that might muss her hair or cause her to break a nail, and I don't have the patience for that stuff. Or the stomach. That's another way I'm like my brother." This last was said with a hint of adolescent pride.

"I thought the group of guys Wes hung out with saw guns as the answer to everything."

"Some of his friends are like that, but not all of them. If you ask me, it's mostly for show anyway. Besides, Wes is squeamish about blood."

Recalling the headless cat that Wes had supposedly left

in the chemistry lab in high school, I wasn't so sure. But I found Pammy's fondness for him touching. "His arrest must be hard on you."

A quick nod, and then a scowl. "What really bugs me is that my parents won't talk to me about it. My dad says there's nothing to discuss, and my mother finds it an embarrassment. Her biggest worry, I think, is what her friends will say."

"She's probably more worried than she lets on."

"Don't bet on it. She wasn't any too happy when Wes moved back to Silver Creek in the first place. I think she'd tried to forget all about him. But having him right here in town, getting in hot water all the time--she could hardly ignore that."

"Wes does seem to have a way of attracting trouble."

A flock of birds flew overhead and Pammy was quiet for a moment. "I think he does that on purpose. He likes the image of being bad. I've heard him tell people his name is John Wesley Harding, like the outlaw, even though it's really plain old Wes."

"The outlaw was named Hardin; Harding came from a Dylan song."

'You're kidding. I wonder if Wes knows that. Of course, Harding isn't his real name anyway."

"It isn't?"

She shook her head. 'The way I understand it, my dad wanted to adopt Wes, but they couldn't track down my mom's first husband to get his consent. Wes started calling himself a Harding anyway. He never knew his real dad, who was apparently a total loser. Andrea says that's the reason Mom has a problem with Wes; because he reminds her of his father."

She wouldn't have been the first woman in history

to think that way. But it seemed unfair. Who wanted a mother who associated you with some of the worst years of her life?

"Wes was lucky to get a second chance with someone like your dad," I said.

"\eah, although they sent him away to some militaristic boarding school when he was sixteen, so it must not have been as cozy as they'd hoped."

Having known Wes during that period, I was fairly certain things weren't cozy at all. But what had been at the heart of all that anger and acting out? It struck me that I'd never once wondered what the world looked like through Wes's eyes.

"Tell me about Wes," I said. "What's he like?"

"When he's here at the house he's kind of quiet But he's different when my parents aren't around."

"Different how?"

"Looser, funnier. He has a way of imitating people that cracks me up. He can do Mom perfectly."

"Have you met any of his friends?"

"A few. I usually leave if they come over."

"How about girlfriends?"

"He's got a bedroom drawer full of condoms, so I guess he must, uh .. ."she gave an embarrassed shrug, "... date, but I've never heard him mention any girlfriend in particular. When he's had a lot to drink he sometimes talks about a girl named Kathy. She was big-time rich, or her family was, anyway. They had houses everywhere--Palm Springs, Maui, Aspen, even a flat in London. She had horses, so there must have been a ranch in there too. If you believe Wes, anyway. I don't know how much of it's true because he gets really mad and talks in circles."

"Has he mentioned anyone else?"

She shook her head. "He's a private person, even with his friends."

"He never mentioned Lisa Cornell?" "The dead woman? No. Why would he?" I shrugged. "I'm trying to figure out the connection between them."

"\bu think there is one? He told the police he'd never heard of her."

That's what he'd said, but to me the evidence indicated otherwise.

It was only nine o'clock when I got home that evening, but I couldn't settle in. I tried television. I tried the book I'd picked up at the library earlier in the week. Even vacuuming. Everything chafed, as though I were suspended in skin that wasn't my own.

I called Sabrina, who wasn't in or wasn't answering. Ours may not have been the easiest relationship, but the very fact that she saw things so differently than I did was sometimes a tonic.

Finally I took Loretta and Barney for a walk, thinking the night air might clear my mental palate.

We headed down the road past Tom's house, which stood in darkness save for the single interior light that was supposed to fool burglars. When we walked at night I kept the dogs on a leash, which they considered an unnecessary hindrance and I considered a measure of precaution. We moved more slowly that way, having to coordinate ten legs and three strong wills, but at least I could think my thoughts without constant worry about their safety.

My thoughts this evening were largely of Wes Harding. And they came unevenly, in bits and pieces. The past

mixed with the present, Pammy with the girl I'd been when Wes and I were in school together.

I wanted to understand Wes. Yet he was a puzzle, just as he had been when we were growing up. Then he'd been a "bad boy," but not a person you actually feared. And the bad, being draped in mystique, caught your imagination the way innocence and purity never would. The Wes Harding of my girlhood had been an un tethered force, like the handsome villain in a tale of gothic suspense. An entity unto himself.

I realized I'd never envisioned the young Wes with a mother and father and baby sister. Probably two baby sisters by then. I'd never considered that he might have fears or worries or sorrows of his own.

Wes was still attractive. Still something of a mystery. I wondered what fears and sorrows he lived with today. And I wondered what he was hiding.

Sunday morning I put thoughts of Wes Harding aside and went to visit Irma Pearl. Although she was not, technically speaking, my client, I felt a responsibility toward her. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to make up for the visits I hadn't paid my father in the last years of his life. Or maybe it was the fact that I didn't entirely trust her daughter, who
was
my client.

The Twin Pines Rest Home was named for two spindly pines that stood on either side of the front entrance. Like the residents inside, they'd seen better days.

Irma Pearl had chosen the Twin Pines herself, back when she'd first been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She was adamant about not wanting to be any more of a burden on her daughter than was necessary. By the time Sheri

approached me about handling the conservatorship proceedings, however, Irma had trouble remembering that decision. It wasn't that the Twin Pines was so bad--in the scheme of things, it was fairly decent. But it wasn't home, and that was where Irma wanted to be.

To her credit, Sheri had tried that, bringing in private-care nurses to help her mother with the myriad of daily tasks that were now beyond her. But it was an expensive and imperfect solution. On the other hand, cutting all ties with home and spending the remainder of your days in a convalescent center didn't strike me as so perfect either.

I checked in at the nurses' station, then went to find Irma. On her good days she was often outside, with friends, or in the lounge watching television. The bad days she usually spent in her room, which was where I found her this morning.

I knocked on the already open door. "Good morning," I said, crossing to the far side of the room. Irma sat in a straight-backed chair, near the window. She was still in her nightgown, though she'd thrown a shawl over her shoulders. The thin white hair she usually twisted into a bun now hung limply around her face. She wasn't a frail woman, but at that moment she looked as fragile as crystal. I handed her the box of chocolates I'd brought with me.

"A present for me? How lovely." Her face lit up for a moment, then went blank. She blinked at me. "\bu're not Sheri, are you?"

I shook my head. "I'm a friend of Sheri's."

"Do I know you?"

"We've met a couple of times. I'm an attorney. My name's Kali O'Brien."

Irma smiled, smoothing the collar of her gown. "Of course, Kali. How could I have forgotten? I'm so sorry, dear, it's just that..." She made a meaningless gesture with her hands. "Just that things get mixed up in my mind sometimes."

'That's understandable. It's hard to keep track of everyone you know."

She nodded. "Sometimes I can't even remember which ones are dead and which ones aren't." The hands fluttered in her lap. "Can I have a piece of candy? It's still morning, I think, but I ate a good breakfast."

I peeled off the wrapper and opened the box. After much deliberation Irma chose a piece with white chocolate glaze. She plopped the whole piece in her mouth at once.

When she finished the candy she peered into the box and surveyed the remaining choices. "I was hoping maybe Sheri would come today and take me home."

"You enjoy those visits, don't you?"

There was a girlish laugh. "You don't
visit
your own
home,
silly."

"Isn't this your home now?"