Sleight of Hand (12 page)

she reminded Sonia.

"Yes. I was overjoyed that she had called. There was no communication at all from her after the accident, no e-mail, letters, nothing, and then the call. I urged her to come home, but she said there were things she had to attend to first. She said she would come later. She told me a little about her stepdaughter, Eve."

For the next hour or two Sonia talked about her sister. Sonia had wanted to meet Eve for herself, to understand what had drawn Connie to her. It had been an emotional meeting, she said.

Adele added, "They both cried like babies."

"She's a lovely girl and very brave. She understands how ill she is, and she's coping with it as best she can. No whining, no self-pity. I can see why Connie was so taken with her, not just the transference of love for her own child, although it might have started like that. But as her own person, a young woman who is determined to make the most of the life she has.

"One last thing, not a real question, something to ponder," Barbara said. "If it turns out that my investigator can come up with no more than the police have, I'll do my best to make them consider this an unsolved criminal act, not a suicide or accident. I would want your permission to go public, if that is the case. Or if I feel confident that I know who committed this act, but can find no way to produce enough evidence to justify an accusation, I will inform you of exactly what I have learned and why I reached my conclusions, but I won't be able to go beyond that in any formal sense. Can you accept either of those two possibilities?"

"He did it!" Adele blurted. "You know it and I know it. Jay Wilkins killed her!"

Carefully Barbara said, "Listen, both of you. It's almost impossible to charge a dead person with a crime unless there are eyewitnesses. If the police decide this is an unsolved homicide, it would be difficult to bring any charge. The accused is always granted the opportunity to offer exonerating evidence attesting to innocence."

"Just don't let them say or imply a suicide and close the books on it," Sonia said fiercely.

Alone again, Barbara sat at her desk for a long time making notes, two lists of tasks, one for Bailey, and one for herself. She read the will, then reread the handwritten notes more slowly. It could go either way, she thought.

She was still at her desk when the sound of the doorbell startled her. She glanced at her watch and frowned. No one came calling on an attorney at seven-thirty on a Saturday night.

Angrily she went to see who was out there, and she was even more startled to see Darren. He was carrying a paper bag.

"What on earth? Oh, God, the cookout! Darren, I forgot. I got busy and forgot."

He came in. "I figured as much, and your car's still out there. So I brought you some dinner. Coast clear?" He nodded toward her door.

"Yes, they left a little while ago. Darren, I'm sorry—"

"Shush. I'll just put this down." He walked past her to her office where he cast a sweeping glance over the cups, the papers on her desk, her yellow pad. "Just how I thought it would be," he said. "I won't stay. Todd looked over my supplies and said I forgot a few things. New shopping list to fill. Things like chocolate-milk mix, cookies, peanuts, chips."

He was walking back to the outer door as he spoke. "He's packing his gear and when I get back we'll load up the truck so we can take off early." He stopped at the door. "It's all right, Barbara. It's okay."

She shook her head. "It isn't. It isn't fair."

He kissed her lightly. "Let me decide. See you in two weeks. Don't overwork, remember to eat and sleep. Get some exercise. I love you." He didn't wait for her response, didn't seem to expect any, and he left.

She locked the door behind him, then stood with her forehead pressed against the door. God, she thought bleakly, is this what I want?

Chapter 21

"I don't like it," Frank said on Sunday evening. "You can't take two different paths and do justice to either one. They might draw farther and farther apart with every step, and you aren't obligated to Sonia Carrolton the way you are to Wally Also," he added darkly, "I hope you realize that if you try to bring charges against Jay Wilkins for the death of his wife, you're killing the best chance Wally's case has. No more double murder with one killer. Keep them separate."

"I know all that," she admitted. "But maybe the paths separate to get around a roadblock. Maybe they come back together on the other side of it. Maybe Jay had nothing to do with Connie's death. However that goes, I don't think the two cases are totally separate. There's a connection."

Frank shook his head.

"Dad, we have to face it. If I don't find something, Wally's going down."

As Frank sat in stony-faced silence while Barbara briefed Shelley and Bailey the next morning, it was clear that he didn't like it on Monday any more than he had on Sunday.

"She's willing to spend a bundle and end up with an unsolved murder rather than accept accident or suicide," Bailey said in a disbelieving tone. "Just to get out from under a load of guilt and remorse over not doing something."

"She doesn't believe for a second that it could have been an accident," Barbara said.

"And she can't let herself believe in suicide. Not just guilt and remorse, but the certainty that her sister would suffer the torments of hell for eternity if she took her own life. Belief systems are hard to argue with."

"You're the boss," Bailey said. "You want me to go over the same territory the cops have covered? Time, men, money involved. Not a done deed by Friday."

"I'll see what I can get from the official investigation. If they stonewall, that's how it will have to be. I'll ask Adele for a list of people who knew her back when she was at her lowest, the ones who maintain that she was suicidal. I want to know when they last saw her. And, the flip side, more recent contacts who were around her after she began making a comeback. And the doctor's name, the one who prescribed the drugs in the first place. Were there follow-up exams, lab tests, automatic refills, what? Dosages, interactions, everything you can find out."

She turned to Shelley, "Dr. Joan Sugarman, the one who detoxed her. A statement, if she's willing to make it. And the martial arts instructor, what he told the police."

She thought a moment as Shelley made notes. "Finally, what medications Jay Wilkins was taking, dosages, when filled and so on. I'm sure Eric Wilkins will be cooperative and let you have a peek at his medicine cabinet. That should be quick, before anyone starts clearing out the mansion."

They discussed it a while longer, then Bailey slouched out morosely, and Shelley stood up. "You think it's all connected, don't you?" Her eyes were shining with excitement.

"I think they could be connected," she said slowly. "But it's just a hunch, nothing more than that."

"Good enough for me," Shelley said. "I'll get right on this stuff."

Frank was last to leave. At the door he regarded her soberly. "I hope you haven't bitten off more than you can chew. I used to wonder where that phrase comes from.

Maybe a plug of chewing tobacco, poison."

Thursday at two, Barbara walked into the police detective unit at city hall, where she was supposed to meet with Lieutenant Vern Standifer. He was not waiting for her in the hall. She opened the door to the big office, crowded with too many desks, and noisy with several detectives going about their business, conferring with one another, on phones, talking to citizens, who for the most part appeared to be nervous. No one looked up when she entered, and no one seemed aware of anything beyond their own tight circle of activity. She approached the nearest desk and interrupted a detective who was on the phone.

"I'm looking for Standifer. Is he here?"

At another desk, Milt Hoggarth turned around. He had been engaged in conversation with a seated woman.

"This way," he said to Barbara, jerking his thumb toward a closed door. He was a stocky man in his fifties; a fringe of faded red hair, shaggy eyebrows equally faded, florid complexion, and a bright red dome of a bald head was description enough to single him out in any crowd.

"It's always a pleasure to see you, Lieutenant, but I'm really looking for Standifer."

"You'll settle for me," he said, crossing to the door. He opened it and motioned for her to enter.

The room was cramped and small, more crowded than the outer office, with file cases, folders and stacks of papers piled on a desk, boxes on the floor and so little floor space that he had to sidle between boxes to get to his desk. He pointed toward a metal chair opposite his own.

"Now you tell me in twenty-five words or less what you want, I tell you why you can't have it, and we can both get back to work."

"I want to talk to the lead detective in the disappearance and death of Connie Wilkins. And you're not he."

"Captain Smiley said since we have a good working relationship I should be the one to talk to you." He face was expressionless, but his voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"Oh, dear. Does he know about your ulcer?"

"I don't have an ulcer."

"And I don't want to be responsible for causing one. Why can't I see Standifer? Is he afraid I'll bite him?"

"Cut the crap, Holloway Why? What's your interest? I have that file, and I've been assigned that case, as if I needed another case. Isn't defending a murderer enough on your plate? You talk to me or beat it."

"I must have been absent the day the professor taught that an attorney can have only one client at a time," she said. She took Sonia Carrolton's notarized authorization from her purse and handed it across the desk to him. "I've been retained to represent the interests of the family in the investigation. I want the autopsy, and whatever information you have to date, and especially why you are jumping to the conclusion that it was a suicide."

He skimmed the letter and tossed it back to her. "I'll have a copy of the autopsy sent to your office. And you know damn well I won't tell you anything about an ongoing investigation. But we have a good case for suicide. We know where she holed up on the coast and we're looking for the pal who drove her over and as soon as we locate her and have a talk, that case is closed."

"Hoggarth, I want details. Unless you give me full details of what evidence you are basing that conclusion on, with an opportunity to either accept or refute that evidence, I'll hold a press conference and blow your closed case so wide open you'll still be scrambling to find pieces a week after Christmas."

He glowered at her and she smiled. "You know I'll have Bailey follow your tracks to hell and gone to find whatever you already have. You know that Bailey has an uncanny knack for finding odds and ends that your own guys somehow missed.

And, finally, you know damn well that I won't settle for a Daddy-knows-best answer.

Give."

"One," he said, "she left a suicide note."

"Unsigned, computer stuff that anyone could have keyed in."

"Two, she was being jerked around in too many ways. Wykoph on one hand, her husband, and that insane Wilkins girl. She wanted out from under all of them. And she wanted her dope. You don't call an addict clean after a few months. They crave the dope and if they can't have it, most of them cave. If they stay off a few years, maybe, not a matter of months. And we have a list of folks who know she was suicidal."

"Two years ago, not recently. Wykoph was her friend, and Connie loved Eve Wilkins. It stinks, Hoggarth."

"Also, we know who has an isolated cabin in the Bandon area, a pal of hers. She bought her own one-way airline ticket, tourist, but she always flew first-class. She was willing to spend a few hundred bucks to make it look good, but not a couple thousand. She didn't want her husband to go in the terminal with her, and didn't even want him to take her to the unloading area. She got out and walked."

"You know what he told you," she commented. "A shame he can't be cross-examined."

"We found stubs, receipts. We talked to Realtors. We can account for his time right up until he turned his car over to valet parking on Saturday night, and again on Sunday and Monday. By then she was in the ocean."

"He provided himself with an alibi before she was even reported missing? That's interesting."

"I said we found the stuff in his wallet, his car, here and there. Credit card purchases. He wasn't thinking alibi."

"Right. Or, maybe while he was going through all the motions, accumulating a raft of such receipts to prove his innocence, someone else was busy transporting a dead body to the coast and getting rid of it."

"Jesus Christ! Don't try to spin a conspiracy out of this!"

"Then a week later the other guy went to Wilkins for more money, they got into a shoving match and Wilkins ended up dead. I can make that case sound as good as the one you've got. Did you find any hard physical evidence to prove she stayed in a cabin on the coast?"

"We know who killed Wilkins," he said angrily. He stood up and she did, too. "I'll see what kind of details we're able to include with the autopsy. A day or two."

"You didn't find anything like that, did you?" she murmured. "You're waiting to find her driver and ask questions. Is that it? Hoggarth, what happens if you don't find her?"

"She's out there, living in a cloud of sweat, waiting for the knock on her door," he said. "We'll find her and she'll tell us what we need to know. We're done here. Why don't you take off and let me get on with my business."

Driving again, Barbara had to admit that they could make a persuasive case for suicide. And meanwhile, until they sent material to her, all she could do was wait.

Stephanie Breaux, she thought then, was involved in both cases; it was time to talk to her.

Stephanie had not been enthusiastic about seeing Barbara, but she had agreed to a meeting, and at ten the next morning Barbara pulled into the driveway and parked behind an old light blue Camry. An even older Civic, much battered, was next to it.

The houses were set back from the street thirty or forty feet, with shrubs and trees in abundance. The grass needed mowing in Stephanie's yard.

Built in the fifties, the house was modest in all ways. White with blue trim, it had a driveway that sloped down steeply to a garage that was under part of the house, one of countless split levels that were then in style because they were inexpensive to build, and took up less land space than most four bedroom houses. Barbara went to the front door and rang the bell.

Stephanie opened the door almost instantly. "Ms. Holloway," she said. "Please come in. I'm Stephanie Breaux."

There was a small foyer with stairs at one end, a closet and an arched doorway to the living room. The light green wall-to-wall shag carpeting probably had been installed when the house was built. It was badly worn. "I appreciate this opportunity to talk to you," Barbara said as they moved on to the living room. "Thanks."

"Adele called me. She told me what you're doing for Sonia Carrolton. Of course, I'll help in any way I can."

She was a tall woman, slender, almost too slender, and very straight, but it was her face that was striking, with high, finely chiseled cheekbones, smooth skin the color of ivory, deeply set dark blue eyes. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, pulled back in a chignon, but soft around her face. Hers was the kind of face that appears on cameos, Barbara thought. And she could have modeled for a classic Greek statue, or be featured on a modern runway modeling the latest fashions. She was poised and, as Shelley had said, elegant in an old-world way, cool and self-possessed. The black jeans and simple T-shirt she was wearing did not detract from her elegance; it was innate, in her posture and graceful movements.

Stephanie motioned to a wing chair by a picture window and went to a matching chair with a small end table between the two, but before either of them had sat down, two young women came down the stairs, then stopped at the arched doorway. They were both carrying several books.

"Ms. Holloway, Reggie Johanssen, and my daughter, Eve. This is Ms. Holloway,"

she said to them. Reggie came forward eagerly with one hand outstretched.

"Ms. Holloway! I follow all your cases in the newspapers. You make me wish I had gone into law instead of just liberal arts, but I doubt that I have enough mental discipline to do what you do. I'm very happy to meet you." She was amply built, with curly auburn hair, a wonderful broad smile and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She pumped Barbara's hand with enthusiasm.

Eve did not leave the archway. She looked frightened and did not smile, but she was lovely with the same fine bones as her mother. There was little other resemblance.

Her hair was wheat-colored and her eyes a much lighter blue. She looked more like a teenager than a young woman in her early twenties, small, even fragile. The grip on the books was white-knuckled.

"Hello, Eve," Barbara said, rescuing her hand from Reggie.

Eve did not respond.

"We're off to the library," Reggie said. "Back in a couple of hours. Come on, Eve, let's beat it."

Eve was out the door before Reggie got there.

"Your daughter is very lovely," Barbara said when they were gone.

Stephanie nodded. "She's beautiful."

They both sat down and Barbara said, "Did Adele tell you that the police are trying to make a case that Connie Wilkins committed suicide?"

"Yes. But I don't believe it."

"Will you tell me about her? How she changed from the time you first met her until the end? What she was like with Eve?"

Stephanie nodded. "She was almost as shy as Eve the first time she came. Recently, she talked about taking Eve to Portland, to the museum, let her see museum art. She thought that Eve is quite talented, and that her talent should be developed. Connie said she would rent an SUV with plenty of room in the back, that we could all go, Reggie and I, pack a nice box lunch and find a quiet place..." She looked past Barbara and became silent for a moment. "Connie said if that worked out, maybe later this summer we could take a train trip to San Francisco. They have small compartments for families. Eve would never have to leave it for meals or anything else. And we would rent another van down there, avoid taxis and buses.