Part 16 (2/2)

22.

Over the years much of Willamette Street had turned into a strip mall: fast food, shoes, electronics, big-box superstores, the inevitable Chinese restaurant, and a medical complex. It was a two-story, chic U-shaped building with a courtyard fountain splas.h.i.+ng on smooth river rocks, a variety of ferns, broad shallow stairs, and colorful awnings over the walkways. Barbara stopped at the directory. Orthodontists, allergists, neurologists, and on the upper level the Brighter Future Research Group. She bypa.s.sed the elevator and started up the stairs, and hated them instantly. A ramp would have been better, or regularly s.p.a.ced risers; as it was, the steps were too shallow, yet too deep to take two steps at a time, pretty but awkward. She felt as if she had to shuffle her way up.

It was very quiet in the complex, doors closed on all sides, the floor covered with a purple deep-pile carpet. She walked past the door to the Brighter Future Group, on to the end of the corridor where she had spotted an EXIT sign. As she suspected, the door at that end led to a regular staircase down to the back parking lot. She went back. The logo at the Brighter Future Group was of sunrise over a skyline of mountains and forests. The door was locked. She pushed the buzzer and waited.

The man who opened the door was younger looking than she had expected, more like a graduate student than the Ph.D. in charge. He was dressed in chinos, a T-s.h.i.+rt, and sandals. His hair was thick and dark, almost black, straight; his eyes dark blue. Slightly built, his face angular with prominent cheekbones and a long nose, he made her think of someone, something.... It slipped away.

”Ms. Holloway? Isaac Wrigley. Come on in.”

”Thanks for seeing me,” she said, entering the reception room.

It was decorated in mauve, violet, and shades of blue, with comfortable-looking plush chairs. Expensive looking. There was a closed blind at the window of the reception desk.

”Well, as I said, I'm stuck here working all day, but weekdays are worse. So... This way to my office.”

They pa.s.sed two closed doors; he opened the next one and stood aside for her to enter. Almost spartan after the luxurious reception area, this room had only a desk and four chairs. There was a second closed door. The desk was covered with papers and held a framed picture. He indicated one of the chairs and went behind the desk to take his seat. Exactly what she did when she wanted to signal to a client who was boss.

”Now, you said you wanted to talk about Hilde,” he said.

She shook her head. ”Actually, I'd like for you to talk about her.”

”I have to admit that I'm puzzled,” he said. ”Why? And why me?”

”She was near the scene at the time of Gus Marchand's murder, and it's quite possible she saw or heard something that pertains to that. I represent Alex Feldman, who has been charged with the murder. So, I am interviewing her... friends.”

”I see. But the fact is that I was not one of her friends. An acquaintance, no more than that. As I told you, we were on the same committee, and on several occasions I gave her a ride to and from the meetings. She lived a few blocks from here, and it was convenient for me to pick her up and take her home several different times.”

”You were in her house on those occasions?”

”Yes. Several times. She was interested in some of the work we had done with kids-ADHD kids-attention disorders, autistic, hyper, the whole gamut. I loaned her some books on the subject and carried them in for her, and a couple of months later I went in and picked them up. Maybe another time or two, I can't remember.”

”Did she talk about Gus Marchand, the problems she had had with him?”

”I never even heard of him until I read about his murder. I knew she was a school princ.i.p.al and no more than that about her.”

”Did she ever mention Alex Feldman?”

”I told you,” he said, speaking very clearly, even leaning forward as if to emphasize his words, the way he might speak to a rather slow student, ”she didn't talk about her personal life. We talked about the studies here, and about committee matters. That's all.”

”Was she a partic.i.p.ant in your diabetes-medicine study?”

”No. Her diabetes was under control; there was no reason for her to risk anything by starting a new regimen.”

For a moment Barbara regarded him, and he stiffened and ran his hand through his hair. ”She mentioned that she was a diabetic,” he said, ”when I talked about the study at one of the committee meetings.” He pushed his chair back. ”I really don't know why you're here. I don't know anything about Gus Marchand or his murder. Hilde didn't confide in me in any way about anything. Now, I have a lot of work to get to.”

”It's interesting that you took time out from your work to talk to me,” she said, rising. ”I wasn't even certain that you were back home yet when I called.”

”I honestly don't know why I told you to come,” he said. He stood up and walked around his desk.

”Would you mind telling me where you were on the evening of June ninth?” she said.

”How the h.e.l.l do I know? Oh! That's the day Marchand was killed?” She nodded. ”Jesus! You think I had anything to do with that?” He looked incredulous. ”Forget it. I was here explaining to a group of thirty people what we were proposing for a new study of hypertension. I explained what a double-blind experiment is, what a placebo means, possible side effects and possible benefits. The meeting lasted from six until eight.”

”Thank you,” she said. She took a step or two toward the door, then asked, ”In your opinion, even as simply an acquaintance of Hilde Franz, do you believe she was capable of murder?”

”What are you talking about? Why?”

”Because Marchand threatened to reveal a secret that she couldn't risk having made public.”

”I don't believe for a second that she had such a secret, in the first place. And I don't believe she could have killed anyone. She was an older woman, probably menopausal, possibly hysterical at times in a clinical sense, but a killer? No. For heaven's sake, leave her alone. Let her rest in peace.”

Barbara nodded and took another step, paused again. ”It's curious that your fingerprints were found in every room of her house, Dr. Wrigley.”

He was at her side, but he swung round and dashed back to his desk, where he picked up the framed picture and held it up. ”Look at her,” he said. ”Rhondi, my wife. My two kids. We're expecting a child in August. What you keep hinting at is insane! Do I look like a man who'd even be interested in an old, menopausal woman? Do I look desperate? s.e.x-starved?”

Then she had it, whom he had reminded her of. The young, very young and hungry, Frank Sinatra, whose face always seemed hauntingly starved, whose eyes looked out from photographs pleading for something.

”Your wife is very beautiful,” she said. She was. Blond, with short hair, fine bones and eyes, with the beauty of youth. She looked from the photograph to him and said, ”I understand that she's in California at the present time.”

His mouth tightened to a hard pale line, and the prominent bones of his face looked even sharper as the skin tightened over them. ”Don't go near her, Ms. Holloway. I'm warning you, don't go near her. She's having a difficult pregnancy, and I won't have her disturbed by your filthy insinuations.”

Barbara nodded. ”I can let myself out.”

But he walked with her, slightly ahead of her through the hallway, through the reception room, and opened the door without a word.

”I think I'll use the back exit over there,” she said, nodding down the corridor. ”It's unlocked, isn't it? Isn't that a fire law, that it be kept unlocked from the inside?”

He closed the door hard and she walked to the end of the corridor, opened the EXIT door, and stepped out into the bright suns.h.i.+ne.

”I don't know, Dad,” she said on his porch later. She was drinking a gin and tonic, just right for a hot afternoon. Summer had come with the start of July. ”His office has a back door, easy enough to park in the rear, slip out, and go visiting anytime. He works strange hours and is there alone some of the time anyway. I don't imagine he keeps much staff late at night. He ducked the question of how his prints got in every room of Hilde's house. That's when indignation set in. I think he wanted to try to find out how much digging we've done.”

Frank was watching the cats stalk a b.u.t.terfly, trying to surround it. He made a grunting noise. ”He has a wife, two kids, a third one on the way,” he said. ”I don't buy it.”

”I know,” she said. ”You were around when Frank Sinatra was starting. Do you remember how he looked? I've just seen film clips and photographs, and in them he looks half starved, but not just for food. Something else. Affection, approval, love maybe. Wrigley has that same look, hungry for something. Yearning.”

”Let's tell Bailey to dig deeper,” he said. ”And wait for the toxicology reports. We don't have a blessed thing to go on yet.”

”Right. Well, tomorrow I'm off to meet Dolly and Arnold Feldman. Then I think I'll hike up in the forest behind Dr. Minick's house. I want to see it for myself.”

The cats abandoned the b.u.t.terfly and began to stalk an ant or something, maybe a shadow. Frank felt as if that was what Bailey was doing in his search for Mr. Wonderful: stalking shadows.

Dolly was exactly what Barbara had been led to expect: tall, elegant, sleek in a designer pantsuit of something black and s.h.i.+ny. And Arnold was very much the chairman of the board, of many boards. Thoughtful, sober, also elegant in a silk summer-weight suit. She wondered if they went to the same manicure salon.

She apologized for the way she was dressed after they were all seated in the living room; she was in jeans, T-s.h.i.+rt, and hiking boots. ”I thought it a good opportunity to hike up into the woods, see the back of the Marchand property while I'm out this way,” she said.

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