Part 4 (2/2)

”You bet,” Sh.e.l.ley said.

”They don't know who our client is yet, and I want to keep it that way as long as possible. It might just be a few days, or maybe weeks or more. But as soon as they do know, Bailey will zero in on Alex.”

She called Dr. Minick. ”If you want to get in touch with me,” she said, ”call Will Thaxton and leave a message and a phone number where I can call you back. A pay phone number.”

After hanging up, she went to the safe and stood regarding it for a moment. It had an electronic keypad lock that Bailey had insisted was state-of-the-art; no one but Barbara could open it once she set the code. She changed the code.

Then, seated at her desk, she called Will Thaxton. Like before, he answered in person.

”Barbara Holloway,” she said. ”I'm rus.h.i.+ng your invitation to get together, I'm afraid. Buy you a drink when you knock off?”

”Love it,” he said. ”You have a place picked out?”

Again she heard a tinge of excitement in his voice. She named a hangout that students and their professors used, a place where no one would give her a second glance in her blue jeans and sneakers.

It was four-thirty, she realized, two hours to try to think herself out of this mess before she met Will Thaxton. She had done what damage control she could do for now. But what about tomorrow, next week? What about Friday, when Alex planned to come to the office to conduct his chat room? What about the blue computer in Sh.e.l.ley's office?

She started to pace. She understood how her father's mind worked; she had been watching him all her life, and he had been her best teacher, far better than any university cla.s.s. On the other hand, he knew how her mind worked.

Hilde Franz was not only his client, bad enough, but also his old friend. Frank would do just about anything for a client, and anything without qualifiers for a friend. That was a given. If he was convinced that Hilde was innocent, he would steamroll anyone in his way to clear her.

He would try to find out who Barbara's client was first thing.

Anyone who needed an attorney this early in a murder investigation was presumably in a lot of trouble. Her client and his, she added darkly.

Also he would advise his client to cover her tracks, get rid of anything incriminating, anything that could possibly be damaging. As she had advised Alex.

What could there be in Hilde Franz's past to make her go running to a criminal attorney? She could be a closet lesbian, or have a male lover, something like that. Not a criminal record, or she wouldn't have been hired by the school system. Nothing on record, something very secret. A lover who didn't want their relations.h.i.+p revealed? She glanced at her computer, then turned away. Later she would sift through whatever was available about Hilde Franz.

If there was a secret lover who desperately needed to remain secret, there was another suspect, after all. And this could be to her advantage even more than to Frank's. He would be constrained by his client's wishes to keep the secret, wishes he would feel compelled to follow unless her life was at stake.

He would expose Alex in a second to save his own client, Barbara knew. Could they hide his ident.i.ty well enough to elude Bailey?

Frank had not tried a murder case in years, but he had been her second counsel, and he had lost nothing in the intervening years. He knew far more law than she did and could cite endlessly. He knew every judge in the state and was friendly, if not a friend, with most of them. He had an in at the jail, and he could worm information out of a brick.

The worst part of this mess, she thought then, was Bailey. She had said once that if Frank told him to go get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he would grouse and complain and then slouch off, and in a few days, bedraggled and haggard, he would deliver it. And she couldn't use him, but Frank could and at this very moment probably had him out tracking the rainbow.

She had come to a stop outside Sh.e.l.ley's office. She tried the door, locked. That was good, but it wouldn't slow Bailey down a second if he decided to come have a look around.

Back in her office she eyed the sofa, then lay down, and said to herself, ”Okay. I'll guard the G.o.dd.a.m.n computer, Xander, and X.” Paranoid? she mocked herself, and shook her head in answer. She knew Bailey, and if Frank told him to find out who her client was, Bailey would do whatever it took to find out.

7.

Maxie's Place had a small parking lot and a long bicycle rack. Now, in early June, after the regular term had ended and before the summer cla.s.ses started at the university, neither the parking lot nor the bicycle rack was filled. Barbara spotted Will Thaxton on a bench near the entrance. He stood up and waved to her as she left her car.

”Hi,” he said when she drew near. ”Tables out back. Okay with you?”

”Just the thing,” she said, and they walked around the restaurant to the back terrace. Dense shrubbery crowding a high fence defined the area; the late-afternoon sun slanted through a spruce tree, the perfect accent to enhance the feeling of being far away from the city, the school, books, study. Few other people were on the terrace.

”You've met them, Graham and Alex?” Will asked when they were seated.

”Yes, indeed.”

They became silent as a waiter in shorts and a tank top approached.

”Margarita and nachos,” Barbara said. ”Lots of nachos.”

Will ordered a local beer, and then as soon as the waiter was gone, he leaned forward and said, ”Can you believe that Alex is the artist for Xander? Incredible, isn't it? Is he in real trouble?” His excitement was evident, also his anxiety. His brow was furrowed, his gaze direct and penetrating. She had forgotten how dark his eyes were, brown edging toward black. His hair, quite blond in high school, had darkened over the years.

”Maybe,” she said. ”I don't know yet. Will, before we go on, I have to know. Whose attorney are you? Minick's or Alex's?”

”Both,” he said promptly. ”Attorney of record for both of them.”

”Good. I have two charges. First, and uppermost at the moment, to preserve his anonymity. Second, if he is charged, to defend him. If there's an investigation, they will want to know about his financial situation. And I need to know in detail how that has been set up. They said everything is funneled through you. How?”

”It's all legitimate, on the up-and-up,” he said, smiling slightly. ”Alex started to sell his art about eight years ago. They came to me a year later when he got syndicated. He has an agent who sends him a Miscellaneous Income form every year, and he files his taxes with a Schedule C. Nothing irregular about it. Our firm's tax attorney does the work, Alex signs, and the firm pays. His agent sends everything to me-contracts, payments, everything; I forward paperwork to him and deposit his money in the bank in his account. He's never been audited or even questioned.”

”So if they look into that, they won't come up with Xander or X.”

”No way. He doesn't have to reveal his customers, his agent handles that, and he doesn't have to reveal them unless he comes under a full-scale audit, which isn't likely. And even if he did tell, it's a corporation, a syndicate that buys Xander and X both. And, Barbara, believe me, they wouldn't reveal his ident.i.ty even if they knew it. That's a great advertising gimmick for them, the mystery about the creator of that strip and those cartoons. They'd fight like h.e.l.l to keep the secret.”

The waiter came with a platter of nachos and their drinks; they were silent until he left again. The margarita was frosted, tangy, and very good, but the nachos were better.

”Now you tell me something,” Will said. ”What in h.e.l.l is going on?”

She told him about Gus Marchand, his charge of stalking, and the threat to build houses on his tract. ”Could he have done that, put in houses?”

”No way. Not next to the state forest. He could have applied for a permit, but chances are a hundred to one against gaining approval.”

She made a mental note to pull Sh.e.l.ley off the tedious task of researching land-use laws; that was Will's field. Then she told him what she had done about the computers. ”I don't know what all Alex has on his hard drive, but enough to lead anyone to Xander and X. So we have it locked up in our office. He needs a place where he can come and go and not be noticed and where his computer will be safe from prying eyes.”

”I didn't think the police worked that fast,” Will said after a moment, watching her.

”Not the police,” she admitted. ”Bailey Novell. Dad has a client who might be a suspect, and he has Bailey working on it. Bailey will be after Alex like a shot when he finds out he's my client. If Alex can't scrub the hard drive, and he says he can't, then we have to keep it away from Bailey.”

Will leaned back in his chair and whistled softly. ”You and your father on opposite sides?”

”Looks like it.”

”He wouldn't cut you any slack if you talked to him about Alex?”

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