Part 20 (2/2)
Frank nodded. ”All right. What was your relations.h.i.+p with Hilde?”
”Let me start farther back. To when we came to Eugene, Rhondi and I, with our son. Three years ago. We decided New York was not a good place to bring up a family. I looked around and put out feelers, and landed a tenured professors.h.i.+p at the university here. We were both happy about that. Exactly the kind of town we were looking for.”
He was leaning forward, speaking fast, his gaze on Frank intent, unwavering, yearning for something. ”We got busy, civic affairs, a social life; everything was just what we had wanted. I joined the hospital committee and met Hilde there. I liked her; she was intelligent, funny, knowledgeable.... That's all it was, a friends.h.i.+p forming. Then I went to Philadelphia to give a paper, and to my amazement she turned up in the audience. It seemed that she had a teachers' a.s.sociation conference or something at the same time. I had mentioned that I'd be giving the paper, and she had finished with her business and decided to attend my talk, which was open to the public. We had dinner. That's all. I attended the rest of the conference, and I a.s.sumed she just came on back home, and never gave it another thought.”
He was squirming, crossing his legs, uncrossing them, running his hands through his hair, and always regarding Frank with that same expectant look, as if waiting for approval, acceptance.
”That was nearly two years ago. A few weeks later I got a note from her, sort of a love letter, I guess. Not signed, just her initial, no return address. I threw it away. When I saw her at the committee meeting, she didn't mention it or Philadelphia. She seemed just the same as she had been before, friendly, no more than that, and I decided a student must have sent the note. I gave her a ride a few times, and it was okay, friendly, nothing more. But she turned up again, in Los Angeles, where I was on a panel at UCLA. I confronted her this time, and she admitted that it was on purpose, she had followed me. I told her to knock it off.”
He stood up and began to walk about the room jerkily, now and then turning to look at Frank, as he continued.
”She was stalking me. I couldn't believe it, but she was. She wrote me notes. She sent me a tie, and a book. She would turn up places where she had no business, and never a sign of any of it at the committee meetings. I told Rhondi, of course, and she thought it was funny, this old woman stalking me.”
”But you kept giving her rides?”
”Yes. She would bring it up at the meeting, that she was without wheels, and ask if I could drop her off. I didn't know what to say or do. It would have looked funny if I'd said no, and each time she asked if I could pick her up or drop her at her place, it got more awkward. But I didn't know how to get out of it, so I gave her a ride sometimes.”
”Is that what you told the police?”
Wrigley shook his head and slumped down in the chair again. ”This is what frightens me,” he said. ”I told them she and Rhondi exchanged books, that I took some books back for my wife, but that isn't true. The last time I gave Hilde a ride home, she had a lot of things to carry, and I helped carry books inside for her. She was upset that night, and asked me to stay and talk a few minutes. She was talking about the murder out at Opal Creek. She said Feldman did it, that she saw him going toward Marchand's house, but she didn't want to be the one to nail him for it. I told her to go to the police.
”I was getting up to leave and she asked me to take the books to the shelves in the bedroom, so I took them in there, and she lunged at me. She begged me to love her just a little, and promised she would leave me alone after that, if I would just love her a little. It... it sickened me. I went into her bathroom and washed my hands, and got out of there. That was the last time I ever saw her.”
Frank regarded him without a word. Wrigley returned his gaze, apparently waiting for the advice he had said he wanted. Frank knew what Barbara meant by a hungry look.
”That's it,” Wrigley said.
”And you never told anyone,” Frank commented.
”Just my wife. It would have destroyed Hilde, totally ruined her to be called a stalker. We thought, Rhondi and I both, that it was like the fixation students sometimes get for a teacher. It happens quite often, but the student moves on and gets over it. We thought she would get over it. And it would have made me a laughingstock if I had told. She was quite a bit older than me, you know. I could imagine some of the jokes my colleagues would have made. We decided the best thing to do was nothing.”
He jumped up and started his restless roaming again, then stopped to say, ”I told the police the salient part, that I took books in and put them away for her, and that she told me about seeing Feldman that day. I just didn't know if I should tell the rest. I still don't know.” He came to the desk and leaned forward. ”Will you represent me, see me through this?”
”No.”
Wrigley drew back and straightened up. ”I guess I'll just have to make up my own mind, won't I?”
”That's always true in the end. You make up your own mind.”
Wrigley turned toward the door. ”Do I pay at the front desk?”
”There's no charge,” Frank said.
Wrigley nodded and walked out.
After a moment Frank opened his desk drawer and turned off the tape recorder. Then he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
”Ah, Hilde,” he murmured.
”I don't know what's on his mind,” Barbara said to Sh.e.l.ley and Bailey that afternoon. ”He asked if he could sit in on part of our conference, and said he has something for us. That's all I know.”
At that moment Maria buzzed to announce Frank's arrival.
”Send him on back,” Barbara said.
Frank came in carrying a vase with flowers. He set it down on Barbara's desk.
”You're celebrating?” Barbara asked.
”Conceding,” he said. ”I need a tape player.”
She got one from the closet and watched him plug it in and put in a tape. No one moved or made a sound as they listened to Isaac Wrigley talk.
”That son of a b.i.t.c.h,” Barbara said when the tape ended.
”Language,” Frank said mildly. ”Mr. Wonderful himself.” He pointed to a new cabinet. ”What's that?” He knew he had not bought it, and he had bought most of the furnis.h.i.+ngs in the office; Sh.e.l.ley's father had bought the carpet. Two proud fathers helping their daughters get a start.
Bailey stood up and ambled across the room to open the cabinet door, revealing bottles. He lifted the top to show a tiny sink. ”Complete with a refrigerator,” he said, and opened the door to it. ”It's mine,” he said.
”It's not yours,” Barbara said. ”Company property. Dad, what's that all about?” She motioned toward the tape player.
”He called for an appointment, and that's the result. I think he wanted to make sure that I knew Hilde was a liar, that she misrepresented their relations.h.i.+p with a c.o.c.k-and-bull story, and if she lied about that, no doubt she lied about other things. Or maybe he wanted to see if I'd reveal anything of what she told me. Or a warning about how far he would go if you ride him too hard. Also, he's covering himself in the eventuality that you dig up something incriminating.”
Bailey grinned, and Barbara said in annoyance, ”Don't smirk. I would have saved my money, if I'd known he was going to blow his own cover. Bailey put him and Hilde in the same hotel in Detroit and in Philly,” she told Frank. ”Someone must have alerted him to the fact that we were digging that deep. Or he found out that the nanny talked about him and his wife, their domestic scene.”
”Will his wife back him up?” Sh.e.l.ley asked.
”Who knows?” Barbara said. ”No one's going to get a statement from her, not if he's just a witness for the prosecution. If he becomes a defendant in the murder of Hilde Franz, then they'll get her statement.”
Frank nodded. ”He overplayed his hand today. After seeing him, listening to him, I can understand how Hilde could have been taken in. But a stalker? Never! Anyway, you can't believe anything he said. One lie's enough to turn it all to garbage. Well, I'll let you get on with it. By the way, Maria gave me a fine weather report when I arrived. Keep her.”
He started to rise, and Barbara said, ”Dad, can you entertain the belief that Alex Feldman is innocent?”
”Who's the guilty party?”
”I don't know for sure. But I'm not gunning for Hilde Franz. I know she couldn't have done it.”
He sank back into his chair. ”I can entertain such a belief. Why did you give up on Hilde?”
”The boys were still turning their car around when her car pa.s.sed them. There wasn't enough time for Hilde to get to the house and back and pa.s.s the boys before Daniel returned.”
”She could have seen Alex or Minick going into the woods.”
”Not really. The Minick driveway curves away from the house, away from the Marchand property, and the growth is pretty dense. There wouldn't be any reason for anyone to stay in sight of the driveway, not if he intended to go to Marchand's place.”
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