Part 17 (1/2)

From the strained look on Dolly's thin face, and the strained silence that followed her remark, Barbara suspected that they did not want to discuss, or even mention, the fact that Alex had been arrested for murder. Alex had seated himself in a chair positioned in such a way that he presented the good side of his face to the room. He picked up a drawing pad and started to sketch. He was wearing a beret and his sungla.s.ses.

”Isn't his beret striking!” Dolly said then, not looking at her son. ”I just don't know how many times we tried to get Alexander to wear a hairpiece. They make beautiful pieces these days, so realistic no one could tell. I don't know how many we ordered and begged him just to try on. They're very expensive, the good ones, I mean; some are even custom-made.”

Alex sketched faster.

”Of course, he should have some suits,” Dolly went on in a rush. ”You can order the most fantastic clothes on the Internet, or from catalogs. You get several different sizes and just send back the ones that don't fit or don't look right.”

When Arnold said anything at all, it was a comment about the stock market-he was worried about it; or about oil prices someone should shake the stick at OPEC; or about delays in air travel-he was opposed to regulation, of course, but there had to be a way.... He didn't look at his son, either, but addressed his remarks to Dr. Minick or Barbara.

Dr. Minick spoke once or twice, and Alex never said a word. At precisely four o'clock Barbara stood up. ”I'd better be out there climbing before it gets much later,” she said.

”I'll guide you,” Alex said, jumping up. He hurried to his studio with the drawing pad, left it and closed the door, then joined her at the back door of the house.

”I didn't mean to drag you away,” she said on the porch. ”They'll want to talk to Graham,” he said. ”Do you want to go up, or around the back of Marchand's place?”

”The back of his place.”

”I thought you might.” He started to walk. ”I'll lead. They think I lurked there to get a glimpse of Sleeping Beauty, don't they?”

”They seemed to imply something like that.”

Very little area had been mowed here; soon they were in the forest, going uphill. She saw where he had cut firewood from blowdowns. It smelled good in the forest, earthy, pithy; here and there pockets of ferns thrived, but little else grew in the dense shade of the tall fir trees.

”I don't know for certain where his property starts,” Alex said. ”Somewhere around here. My usual trail goes on up, but if you want to see the back of his yard, we'll blaze a new trail. Game?”

”Yep. Lead, I follow.” Now, going downhill, the way became rougher, and they clambered over tree trunks and wound around rocky places with treacherous footing. Soon brambles began to appear on her left, and she realized that they had neared the edge of the forest.

The blackberry vines were thick and high, ten feet, twelve feet high, impenetrable. Nothing was visible through the thicket. Alex led the way farther, sometimes back into the forest a bit, then toward the brambles again. Nowhere did she catch a glimpse of whatever lay on the other side of the living, exuberant screen; on this side the brambles were still blooming, white tinged with pink, with a few hard green berries. On the southern side, the sunny side, no doubt they were ripening. They came to a place where the vines had been cut down, and ahead of them stretched the filbert orchard. From here she could see the corner of the Marchand house through landscape shrubbery.

”Well,” she said. ”I think Sleeping Beauty is safe from prying eyes.”

”Just as good as a wall of magic fire,” he said. ”I'll take you to a resting place and then we can start back down if you're ready.”

She would have Bailey bring out his cameraman, she decided, and get some good professional pictures of that wall of brambles, maybe a video of the fortress barrier.

Alex led her upward, generally back in the direction they had just come, but higher; then he stopped. Here, smooth basalt boulders were scattered like a giant's set of building blocks. She chose a boulder backed up by another one and sat down. It had been a strenuous hike. Alex sat a short distance away, his back to her.

”An hour can be a long time, can't it?” he said. ”It can, and was. Is it always that difficult?”

”Well, it's worse right now. They don't know if I'm a killer. Puts a crimp in the conversation.”

”They're probably trying to talk Dr. Minick into getting you a real lawyer.”

”They already did that. They think Johnnie Cochran would be a good choice.”

”Or F. Lee Bailey.”

”Second choice. Graham is very good with them.” He began tossing small rocks at a bigger one. ”Graham made me see that they can't help being who they are. You make choices all your life and you become the person you are because of them. Changing is very hard, and impossible until you decide you want to change. If you think you're okay, there's no reason to go looking for a way to change.”

”You're very fortunate to have had such a wise friend,” she said. He made a low, rumbling sound, which she had come to recognize as laughter.

”I am,” he said then. ”Fortunate.” He tossed a few more stones, then said, ”I really wanted to get you alone, not in the office, to tell you something. Actually, two things. I've seen you studying me, trying to decipher clues, trying to psyche me out. It used to be that when I got too anxious, cornered, afraid, whatever it was, I would pretend to be Xander and go flying away. It worked, up to a point. Not all the time, and not totally, but it was all I had. When I began to draw the comic strip, and the cartoons, it was better. I could detach myself from whatever was bugging me, sort of watch from the outside, and even think something like, I could use that. An escape hatch. It works most of the time. And it makes me a little more inhuman, I suppose. I become an observer instead of someone living a life. But it works most of the time, and that's the important thing. When it doesn't work, I chop wood, or hike, or do something else physically hard. I guess what I'm trying to make clear is that I know what I am and I've found ways of dealing with it. You don't have to be afraid of me, or of what I might do. It's under control”

She felt as if her throat was constricted too much for her to speak for a time. Finally she said, ”You said two things.”

”Yes.” He threw rocks with unerring aim, harder and harder. ”The other one is about Sh.e.l.ley. Graham said she's falling in love with me. He said you know it, too. Of course, she isn't. It's a mixture of pity, compa.s.sion, regret over her outburst when we met, a lot of things. And I've been stupid. She's the first person besides Graham, the only person my own age, I could ever talk to and I've taken advantage of that. I don't want to wound her. She's too good to be hurt because of an infatuation. I'll tell her she's like the little sister I never had.”

”How old are you, Alex?” Barbara asked when he became silent.

”Depends,” he said. He tossed a handful of stones into the air, and then leaned back, done with pelting the big rock. ”Chronologically? I'll be twenty-nine in September. A Virgo. Other ways? Older than Graham, older than anyone. A strange thing happens when you've been hurt, surgically, emotionally, in a lot of ways; I think each hurt adds a year or two. I've been alone a lot, and that adds a year or two tucked in between real time. It helps if you can think of real time as divisible. Sometimes I feel like an ancient man who's been revitalized in a poor excuse of a frame.”

”Will you let her be your friend?”

”My little sister is for life, Barbara. You ready to start back down?”

He led the way back down, and watching his easy stride, she wanted to weep.

23.

”Okay, gang, we have fifteen weeks,” Barbara said on Monday afternoon in her office. Sh.e.l.ley and Bailey made up the gang. Barbara had had a choice of trial dates, October sixteenth or February something. She had opted for October.

”We have quite a few directions to follow,” she said. ”The day of the murder. I want a timetable. When Leona Marchand went to school during the day, when she returned home, when she prepared the food, what was in the box she took back with her. What was in that skillet and ca.s.serole...?”

She had several pages of notes, and they covered them all during the session. Bailey was making notes, page after page of notes. Sh.e.l.ley was doing the same.

Finally she said, ”That's for starters. As discovery trickles in, there will be more.”

”Fifteen weeks,” Sh.e.l.ley said in a low voice. ”Your father said a proper defense takes at least a thousand hours.”

”Look at it this way,” Barbara said. ”Fifteen weeks times a hundred hours per week, divided between us, remember. Not so bad.”

Sh.e.l.ley did not look convinced.

”And you remember that we start with a holiday,” Bailey said.

”Fourth of July. Tomorrow. Hannah and I are going on a picnic.”

”I told Alex I know a place where we can watch fireworks,” Sh.e.l.ley said, keeping her eyes downcast. ”He's never gone out to see fireworks.”

Barbara looked at her own legal pad; what a good stage prop, someplace to direct the gaze when you couldn't bear to look at another person. She suspected that after tomorrow Sh.e.l.ley might not be worth much as an a.s.sociate for a time. ”So let's call it a day for now,” she said. ”Have fun. Take earplugs. And from Wednesday on, no more fooling around.”

Barbara called Will Thaxton as soon as she was alone again. She had known he would be appalled at the short time she had allowed to prepare the defense, and he was. Appalled and angry. When he demanded to know why she was shortchanging Alex, she said, ”I said I'd keep you informed. I didn't say I wanted your advice or your recriminations. Just let me handle my case, all right?”

There was a pause, then very stiffly he said, ”Of course. Sorry. Thanks for calling.”

They hung up. She glared at the telephone, finally shrugged, and started to go through the police reports she already had in hand.