Part 13 (2/2)
Barbara stared at her. ”Sh.e.l.ley-”
”Don't say it,” Sh.e.l.ley pleaded. ”I know there's nothing I can really do for him, but maybe one of these will help when he has to appear in public. If he'll have it, that is. He could be offended. I thought I might pick one out, but then I thought he should choose, and now I just don't know. What do you think?”
I think you're in a bit of trouble was Barbara's unspoken response. But she wasn't the one to tell Sh.e.l.ley to put the brakes on. Gratuitous advice resulted only in defensive posturing, resentment, or even hostility; in any event, it went unheeded. She eyed the berets lined up and said, ”Let him choose.”
”Thanks. Exactly what I wanted to hear,” Sh.e.l.ley said, putting the berets back in the box. ”Maybe all of them, a different one each day, depending on his mood. Are you going to lunch later on?” she asked, heading for the door.
”After I see the judge at one.”
”Would it be okay if I show up, hang out in the corridor or something when you go in?”
”I may come out in a real snit,” Barbara warned her.
She tried to concentrate on routine matters, but it was no use. In the past she would not have dreamed of taking this step without consulting her father, who knew every judge in the state. Was such an order even legal in Oregon? She had searched for a precedent in the state, had come up with nothing. Other states, yes; Oregon, zilch. She should have looked harder, spent more time. It was the sort of thing Frank would have known....
At ten minutes before one she stood outside the door to Judge Hardesty's chambers, drew in a long breath, and entered. Mrs. Delacourt was not at her desk, but a young woman came to meet Barbara.
”Ms. Holloway? Please have a seat. Mrs. Delacourt will be out in a minute or two.”
Barbara sat down and waited. At ten minutes past one Mrs. Delacourt emerged from the inner chamber carrying a large manila envelope. She crossed the office to Barbara, who had risen at her appearance.
”Judge Hardesty said to hand this to you,” she said.
Barbara took the envelope. ”I'm not going to see him?”
”No. I'm afraid not. He's gone to lunch now.”
Dully Barbara walked out clutching the envelope. She had not taken half a dozen steps away from the door when Sh.e.l.ley caught up to her.
”What did he say?”
”Nothing. He had his secretary give back the stuff I took in.”
Sh.e.l.ley's expression became tragic. ”Nothing! How could he just-? Have you looked in the envelope yet?”
Barbara shook her head. The courthouse was busy with people scurrying in all directions, probably no busier than it had been that morning, but then she had not noticed; now she did. People were straggling out from Courtroom B, secretaries hurrying out to lunch, attorneys clutching briefcases, clerks....
”Down there,” Sh.e.l.ley said, taking Barbara's arm. Against the wall near the end courtroom was an empty bench. They walked to it and sat down, and Barbara opened the envelope. She riffled past the pictures, the cases she had cited, and then she came to an official doc.u.ment that had not been among her papers before.
Carefully, almost fearfully, she withdrew the single sheet and scanned it; she leaned back and closed her eyes. ”He did it,” she whispered, and pa.s.sed the doc.u.ment to Sh.e.l.ley.
Sh.e.l.ley read it, then made a squealing sound, and Barbara stood up. ”Okay, let's get the h.e.l.l out of here. I have to call Dr. Minick.” She felt as if she needed to tether Sh.e.l.ley as they walked down the stairs and out.
On the mall she called Dr. Minick and asked him to call back; Sh.e.l.ley bought burritos from a stand, and they sat and ate and talked while they waited for Dr. Minick to get to a pay phone. When the nearby phone rang, Sh.e.l.ley raced to answer it. Then, with Sh.e.l.ley hanging on her elbow, Barbara explained what had happened.
”I'm sort of a special officer of the court, charged with delivering Alex for questioning or any other customary police procedure, and the authorities are charged with not placing him in custody. So if they want him for questioning, you refer them to me. You can call him and tell him that.”
Dr. Minick's relief was as palpable as Sh.e.l.ley's. It came through loud and clear over the phone.
Barbara had a message from Frank waiting for her at the office: Bailey had something and would be around at three or a little after. She was at the house by three.
”Court day?” Frank asked when she arrived home. He knew she had not argued a case that day; he kept track of her days and often wandered in to watch and listen, as he did with Sh.e.l.ley.
”Date with a judge,” Barbara said. ”And I can't stand these hose a minute longer. Back in a second.” She hurried to her upstairs bedroom to change.
Watching her, he felt a pang of regret, and even loneliness. More secrets. Or, he added, she could handle it alone now. If she had an interesting case, they usually talked about it or he even got involved one way or another, and he was always good for a cite or two, or a bit of advice-something. Well, he had put Band-aids on her knees at one time, he told himself; things change.
Bailey arrived and in a few minutes they were at the dinette table, where Bailey was laying out stills taken from the video from Hilde Franz's safe-deposit box. They were of the bookcase in the bedroom with the paperback books. Under the first row of pictures he placed several additional eight-by-ten photographs taken of the same shelves after Barbara had examined the books. She could see the ones she had put back on top of the others. She looked from the pictures to Bailey.
”Okay,” he said. ”See, I got to wondering what it was about those books that bugged me, and I went back and took some pictures with the digital camera after the guy went in through the window. See the difference, Barbara?”
She shook her head. ”The books were jammed in so tight, I had to take out several at a time to look through them, but there wasn't anything to find. And I didn't see any point in trying to get them back the way-” She stopped, and peered closer.
”Now you see it,” Bailey said, so smug that he deserved a swift kick.
”Well, I don't,” Frank growled. ”Fill me in.”
”Third row down, these books here. Five putrid green spines, one blue, no books on top of that row. Looks like someone lifted a paperback book, and filled in the s.p.a.ce with the one Barbara had left over at the end of the row.”
The top two rows of books were romances, the bottom two rows were mysteries, and three of the shelves of books had one or two laid flat on top of the others. The third shelf was filled, with nothing left over.
Bailey reached into his bag and brought out paperback books and lined them up on the table. ”Two by Talbot Grady, one Iris Murdoch, three more Talbot Grady,” he said. ”And at the end of the row, the last two are by Iris Murdoch.”
He groped in his bag and brought out one more photograph, an enlargement of the still from the video. ”I had my guy enhance it so we would be able to read the t.i.tles,” he said, turning the photograph sideways. ”The missing one's called Over My Dead Body.”
”He went in there for a paperback book?” Frank asked, not quite believing it.
”Don't know,” Bailey said cheerfully. ”But it's missing. I never heard of Talbot Grady. I did a quick Internet search for him. Active in the forties, up until the late fifties, then nothing. Published six mysteries, all paperback, all out of print. That one appeared in nineteen fifty-nine.”
Barbara was visualizing that row of paperbacks. She had handled every single one of them, and the shelf had been jammed as full as the other shelves. ”There could have been an inscription,” she said. ”Or a note written in a margin somewhere. Or someone's stamp of owners.h.i.+p, if it was a borrowed book. Not a loose paper. I would have come across it.”
”Or it could be in the text,” Frank said heavily. He scowled at the pictures as if it were their fault. ”What else do you have?”
”Nothing real,” Bailey said. ”Two of the guys still on that committee list are out of town. First, Ethan Small, sixty-eight, head of an eye clinic in town. Ophthalmologist, makes a million a year and travels a lot demonstrating a new technique he developed. A real big shot. His wife travels a lot, too, and they rarely travel together. Could be, but not likely. The other one is Isaac Wrigley, forty-one, in the biological sciences department at the university, something of a hotshot. He does research on the side, in the Brighter Future Research Group. Married, two kids, wife pregnant. He makes a bundle, but she has more. Timber money in her family. He travels, too, and raises mucho money for his own research group and for the university, and he's off now to Stanford to give a paper at a conference. Again, possible, not likely.”
”Forty-one!” Frank snorted. ”Forget him. Maybe Small is Mr. Wonderful.”
”I don't know, Dad,” Barbara said, thinking of the historical romances. Had Hilde been a romantic, yearning for young love? ”One big shot, one hotshot. I'd check them both out.”
Frank made a rude noise, but he nodded at Bailey. ”If Mr. Wonderful isn't on that list, we're back to square one, and we have nothing to go on, except the fact that she had planned to be with him this week in San Francisco. You said Small's away. Where?”
”San Francisco,” Bailey said. He shrugged. ”He's scheduled to do a couple of operations down there.”
After Bailey left, Frank muttered, ”Hilde had too much sense to take up with a man who's only forty-one, with a wife and kids.”
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