The Unbidden Truth (3 page)

B
arbara heard Frank's car when he arrived home that Saturday afternoon, but even if she had not heard it, the two coon cats would have alerted her. Keeping her company, jumping in and out of boxes while she sorted through Carrie's few possessions, they had both twitched their ears and abandoned her without a backward look when they heard him. Soon he called up the stairs, “Bobby? Are you up there?”

“Be down in a minute,” she yelled back. She was holding a newspaper article, so worn and frayed that she feared it would fall apart in her hands. With a sigh she returned it to a clear plastic folder, then sat back regarding her efforts. One box of cool-to-cold weather garments; one box of warm-to-hot weather things. Underwear, gowns, slippers…A sleeping bag. A small box of books, poetry, paperbacks, dictionary…Some lotion, hairbrush, comb, face cream…Half a dozen pa
pers of various kinds—birth certificate, her parents' death certificates, medical records, school report cards, bill of sale for a car that would be fourteen years old now, some sheet music for piano.

She was putting the documents together in a folder, then paused to regard the newspaper clipping once more. Marla and Ronald Frederick had been killed instantly in a fiery crash when their truck collided with a concrete barrier, and their daughter, Carol, had been critically injured. There was a poor photograph of Marla and Ronald; Carrie looked more like her father than her mother, the same straight eyebrows and black hair. Her mother apparently had been fair—it was hard to tell from the newspaper photograph—and very pretty, with a big smile that showed a lot of teeth. Carrie had been eight years old when it happened.

She added the folder to the documents she would take to the office to keep in her safe, then closed the overnight bag she planned to take to Carrie. She put the other things in her closet.

When she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, her father was sorting his own collection of items. Pots, packets of seeds, watering can…“Hi,” he said. Then, eyeing the overnight bag, he asked, “Are you coming or going?”

“Going,” she said. “What's all that stuff?”

“Look out back,” he said, motioning toward the door. “I got the shade cloth on yesterday, and today I did a little shopping. Perlite, vermiculite, coconut pith, pots. I'm ready to set up shop.”

Over the past two weeks he had had a lean-to greenhouse built onto the side of the garage, then found that it was too hot this time of the year to enter, much less do any work there. Now the structure was covered with a shade cloth.

Barbara glanced out the door and nodded.

“So, what's the bag for?” Frank asked, a bit annoyed that she showed so little interest in his new greenhouse.

Briefly she told him about Louise Braniff's visit, and her own visit to meet Carrie. “I think I'm going to like her,” she said. “She reads T. S. Eliot and
Finnegan's Wake,
for one thing, and she plays the piano like an angel. Also, she called Bill Spassero Bill Asshole. Ring a bell? She says she didn't do it.”

“Don't they all?” He thought a moment. “Barry Longner? I know him. Appellate court. Want me to make the call?”

“That would help, but I assume it will all check out. There really is a Benevolent Ladies Club and they do good deeds, period. Why do you suppose anyone would want sheet music if there's no instrument to go with it? She asked me to bring her music with the other stuff.”

“Maybe she's like some people who can read cookbooks and taste the dishes. Maybe she can hear the music in her head.”

“Taste the dishes? From reading a recipe? You're kidding.”

He knew there was no point in arguing about it. “Ask her,” he said. “I read about Wenzel's murder. Seems pretty cut and dried. Will she take a plea bargain?”

“No way. At least that's what she says now. I'll know more after I've talked longer with her. I've got to go. And you can go have fun in your playhouse.”

 

“You don't look like a lawyer,” Carrie said the next day, back in the conference room.

Barbara looked down at herself, jeans, T-shirt, walking shoes. “How am I supposed to look?”

“I don't know. Power suit, medium heels, discreet jewelry,
expensive makeup. Like someone who makes a mint and shows it in good taste that lets you know there's plenty more where that came from.”

Barbara laughed. “What you see is what you get where I'm concerned. On the other hand you don't look like a jailbird.”

“First time for me,” Carrie said. “I'll grow into the role.”

“You'll have to learn how to sneer,” Barbara said.

This time Carrie laughed, and for a moment she looked more like her mother's photograph than her father's. The same big smile with a lot of shining teeth.

“What I'd like to do today,” Barbara said, “is get some background to start working with. You know, past history, things like that. Okay?”

Carrie nodded, the smile gone as quickly as it had come. “Sure. But I have to tell you up front that I don't have any memories that go earlier than before age eight and a half. You saw the things in my box? The newspaper article, all that?”

“Yes. You don't recall the accident? Your parents' deaths?”

“No. And nothing before that. I was born around the age of eight and a few months.” The words were spoken lightly, but the guarded look had returned, with a new tightness around her mouth.

“Well, let's start with what you do remember. The hospital where you were treated? Any of that?”

Carrie shook her head. “Flashes of memory, snapshots, drinking water with a straw, restraints in bed, a lot of pain, just things like that. A cast. Physical therapy. Nothing real, nothing in any kind of order, no first this then that.”

“Where does your real memory begin?”

“A home for kids and being taken in an airplane to people who were to be my foster parents, in Terre Haute. Stuart and
Adrienne Colbert. I lived with them until I graduated from high school, and then I took off.”

Whatever ease she had managed to achieve only moments earlier had vanished, and she looked strained. “What difference does any of that make? It's got nothing to do with me now.”

“If you put up a fight, the prosecutor will dig out everything available about you, and I have to have the same information they'll gather.” She paused a moment, then said, “So let's talk about the foster parents. Were they good to you?”

“They'll dig up my past that far back?”

“Probably.”

Carrie looked away; then, keeping her gaze on the wall, she said, “What they'll learn is that I was considered crazy, maybe schizophrenic. And maybe I was.”

“Because you had amnesia?”

“I don't know why.”

Studying her, Barbara nodded slowly. Carrie knew something, and she was not going to talk about it, that was apparent. For now they would drop it, but they would have to come back to it as often as it took to get her to tell what the prosecutor would surely discover. “Okay,” she said. “Back to the Colberts. Were they good people, decent to you?”

Carrie shrugged. “Stuart was okay, I guess, but he wasn't there a lot. You know, work, doing stuff around the house and yard, out fishing. Adrienne and I didn't get along.”

“They gave you music lessons, didn't they?”

Carrie grimaced. “No. Adrienne liked country-western and accordion players. That's all she listened to. I can't recall that Stuart listened to any music. They didn't have a piano or guitar, anything like that in the house.”

“You learned to play before the accident? Is that what you're saying?”

“I must have. But I don't remember.”

Frustrated, Barbara dropped it. “You said you took off right after high school. Tell me about that.”

This, at least, seemed to be a topic that Carrie was willing to talk about at length. Stuart Colbert had said there had been some insurance money for her education but, not interested in college, Carrie had bought a car and started an odyssey that wound through one state after another, one city after another, sometimes with a companion, most often alone. Boyfriends never lasted very long, she added. Barbara noted the various cities where she had stopped to work for a few months, six months, one time for a whole year, before moving on. The last city before arriving in Eugene had been Las Vegas.

She told Barbara about the incident that resulted in her being fired. “This slob, drunk as a skunk, wouldn't keep his hands off me when I served their table. When I took the check over, he tried to put his arms around me, and I gave him a shove. He staggered back a little bit and knocked some things off the table. The manager was there faster than lightning, apologizing to the jerk. That was it. I was out.” She shrugged. “I probably wouldn't have stayed much longer anyway. Good excuse to hit the road again.”

“Why Eugene after that?”

“I never even heard of Eugene before Delia mentioned it. I don't know why. I just felt as if that's where I had been heading, not here, just the northwest in general, and I might as well have help with the gas.”

The shuttered look had returned. Barbara was learning to read her client's expressions, and that was what these prelim
inary conversations were for: to get acquainted, comfortable with each other, and become familiar with expressions, body language, learn where the land mines were, what territory was forbidden. Carrie could flash that big open grin, she could be candid and forthcoming, or as unyielding as a statue. Those off-limit areas were the ones Barbara intended to revisit often.

“Had you seen Joe Wenzel in Las Vegas? Run across him?”

“Never. You know how the casinos are set up with restaurants? A cafeteria with the world's worst food, a cheap dining room, family dinners for four-ninety-five, and the high-class dining rooms. I waited tables in el cheapo. From what I know about Wenzel he probably ate in the high-class joints. No crossing of paths.”

Barbara stayed a while longer, then stood up. “Enough for today. But tell me something. Why did you want your music if there's nothing to play?”

That other expression appeared on Carrie's face: a softness, a vulnerability, a look of deep hurt perhaps. Her hands began to move on the table as if it were a keyboard. Her fingers were long and beautifully shaped, the nails short, well cared for. It was fascinating to watch those hands, and Barbara forced her gaze back to Carrie's face.

“I need practice,” Carrie said in a low voice. “I'm so out of practice. I can hear the music when I read it, hear my mistakes, hear when it's right.” Abruptly she clenched her fists and pushed herself away from the table. “Thanks for bringing my stuff.” That closed, guarded look had returned.

 

It was a calm, cloudless day, temperature in the mid-eighties, the sky flawlessly blue, a perfect day for a long walk by the river, but Barbara knew that the park would be full of peo
ple on a nice Sunday afternoon like that, and she headed for Frank's house instead. Knowing she would find him out back, either on the porch in the shade, or in his new greenhouse, she didn't bother with the front entrance, but walked around the side of the house.

It was fitting, she thought, for him to have a new toy; a Depression kid, he had had very few toys in his childhood, and now in his second childhood he had a playhouse. She was grinning at the thought, and rephrasing it in her mind to tease him when she rounded the corner of the house, then stiffened in annoyance. Darren again. And Todd. Their bikes were leaning against the garage door, and Darren was lounging in the doorway to the greenhouse talking to Frank. Todd was on the back step reading a comic book.

“Hi,” she said, drawing near.

Darren turned and grinned, and Frank stepped out of the greenhouse. “You're right,” he said to Darren. “Simple screens over the bed will do it.” He looked at Barbara. “Those fool cats think the raised bed in there is the world's finest litter box. I'll screen them out.”

“It won't take much,” Darren said. “One by ones, screen stapled on top. Three sections? Easier to manage that way, and to store.”

“Now you're a master builder, on top of all else,” Barbara said, not hiding the sarcasm a bit.

“Doesn't take much to outsmart a cat,” Darren said. “Actually I'm here on a mission. You're both invited to a little gathering at the clinic next Sunday to celebrate the official opening of the foundation. They particularly want you to show up, Barbara. A lot of debts to pay, that sort of thing. You saved their skin, you know.”

That was her cue to point out to Frank that Darren's interest in her was due to his gratitude. The previous year he and Annie McIvey had been prime suspects in the murder of Annie's husband, and the clinic that Darren actually ran was in danger of being taken over by outsiders who would have turned it into a for-profit facility as fast as possible. Barbara had pulled their chestnuts out of the fire and they were all grateful, Darren as well as all the others. But she couldn't go into that with Darren and his son at hand; it had to be a private conversation, a well-rehearsed off-the-cuff spontaneous remark. She had promised herself to find the proper place to make her “spontaneous” comment, and put it aside again.