Clear and Convincing Proof (23 page)

T
he expected wave of hard rain had blown in by the time Barbara climbed the stairs to Darren's apartment. She ducked her head and drew her hood down lower against a gust of wind, glad that Darren didn't keep her waiting when she knocked at his door.

“Come on in,” he said. “Welcome to chaos.”

She glanced around. Books lay on the floor by the cases, cushions were off the sofa, nothing unexpected. A partly opened door afforded a glimpse of his bedroom—mattress askew, bedding in a heap on it. She could imagine what the rest looked like. “It would have been worse if Dad hadn't kept them civilized,” she said. Inwardly she was seething. They had him down as an ex-con; they didn't have to be polite, not even in the presence of a respected attorney.

“Yeah, I know. Take your coat?”

“I'll keep it. This isn't going to take very long.”

He had started to move toward her, but at her sharp words, he stopped. “Why do I get the impression that you come with bad news?” He moved back into the room and sat on the arm of the sofa, watching her.

“Because you're perceptive, I imagine. You don't miss a trick, do you?” She walked through the living room to glance into the kitchen. Apparently he had put things more or less back in order there; at least the signs of a search were not instantly noticeable. “Did they do Todd's room?”

“Yep. Can't tell much difference between before and after, though.” He nodded toward a closed door. “Have a look.”

She shook her head and went to stand near the outside door again, next to another closed door with a chair in front of it. “At our first meeting you asked me if I still wanted you as my client. Remember? At the time, I said yes. I'm rescinding that now, Darren. I'm quitting on you.”

He regarded her steadily for a moment, his expression revealing nothing. “Throwing me to the wolves?”

“I think that just about sums it up. It was a mistake for me to take on two clients who might end up presenting an insoluble conflict of interest. I have to abandon one or the court might force me to leave both and I'm not willing to do that. If you had stopped with McIvey, I probably could have gotten
you off, cast enough doubt to convince a jury that the case was not proved. Not the best way to save a client's neck, but you take what you can get.” She shrugged. Darren had not moved from the arm of the sofa, and she could not tell from watching him if he had heard what she said, or realized what she meant.

“I've arranged for a meeting with the directors for seven-thirty to inform them of my decision, but I wanted to tell you first, not wait and hit you with this at that time.”

He nodded. “So that's what it's about. Everyone knows you called for a meeting. Bernie talks to you and babbles afterward. Bernie gets killed and you hide out all day. From the police, or the killer? It's a toss-up which it is. What else do you suppose they're talking about over there? Are you going to tell me why?” he asked. “Or is that the cliff-hanger, to make sure I'll attend, see the next chapter in your melodrama?” He sounded interested, the way a child might be interested in something found crawling under a rock, or in retelling a B-movie plot, distant and not personally involved. He sounded the way he did when talking to a patient.

That was the key to him, she thought suddenly. He had learned how to hide behind a facade of amusement, even indifference. He had to be anxious; he knew better than she did what awaited him if he was charged and found guilty of anything at all. Not a juvenile prison ranch this time, but hard time. And he had learned how to control his fear and put on a mask of absolute confidence. She thought of how he
had talked about his imprisonment, how he had spoken to his patient on the video she had watched, how relaxed he had appeared. Now he seemed totally relaxed, and no more than mildly interested—no clenched hands with white knuckles, no facial tic, no blanching or blushing. At ease, comfortable. Sure of himself.

“I'll tell you why,” she said, making no effort to hide her sudden fury with him. “Darren and David, David and Darren, two sides of the same coin. Equally arrogant, equally egocentric, equally determined. David never hid his disdain, contempt even, viewing everyone as if he stood on Mount Olympus and belonged there, while you were in a place where you had to hide. You learned your lesson well, but you're up there, viewing the world from Olympus, gazing down on poor humanity below. Both the best in the field, magic in their hands, power of life and death at their disposal, but there's only room for one god. How it must have stung when he snatched Annie out from under your nose. No one does that to Darren, do they? Everyone loves Darren, but David McIvey didn't. First Annie, and then he was going to take the clinic away, too. You lied about that. A whiff of suspicion of drugs in your résumé, in your personnel file, death to a career, back to the gutter. You said it, you run the clinic. It's yours to run, no questions asked, your fiefdom, everyone agrees about that, and you weren't going to stand aside and let him take it away, and destroy you.”

She drew in a breath and Darren stood up, backed
away from her a step or two, then stood leaning against the wall. “This is what they've been saying from day one,” he said. “No proof, remember? Speculation. Suspicion. No case. What changed?”

“I talked to Bernie,” she said. “You know what she saw, and you made up that cock-and-bull story to try to cover it. It won't work. Today I had a long talk with Erica Castle. She won't change her story under pressure, and she'll be a credible witness for your defense. Actually, she's the only thing standing between you and a cell at this moment, but she didn't see everything that happened that morning, did she?

“You left in your truck early and got to the garden before David showed up, let yourself in and waited for him. You're one of the select circle with a key to the garden gate. You knew what his schedule would be, everyone at the clinic knew. You waited for him and killed him and moved his body out of sight. Then you got in your truck and left again, and Bernie saw brake lights as she arrived. Your brake lights. You drove the truck back to the garage and got out your bike and made sure that Erica saw you leaving at twenty minutes to eight. But Bernie talked too much and you had to tell a new story to cover hers, and you had to kill her. Your usual bridge game had to be missed—no time for fun and games. There was work to be done before Bernie had time to make a statement to the police. You'll go down for it, Darren, but I won't let you take Annie with you.”

“Isn't it a little foolish for you to come here alone and say these things to me?” he said in a low voice.

“Don't be an idiot. I didn't come alone. Bailey's waiting for me, probably just outside that door, and Dad and Shelley both know everything I know.”

“I didn't kill anyone, Barbara.”

“Save it for your defense attorney. I called that meeting for seven-thirty. Shelley and Dad will take Annie back home and put her to bed, tranquilized to her eyeballs. I told her what this is all about and there's no need for her to attend. She's in no shape to attend anything, to tell the truth. She's heading for a nervous breakdown if she doesn't get relief from the pressure she's under. Tomorrow morning Shelley will pick her up and take her to her parents' farm where maybe she'll get some rest for the next few months. And tomorrow morning I have a date with the lead detective. I'm through dodging the cops. I told you I'm an officer of the court, sworn to uphold the law, give them relevant information. Everything you've said to me up to now is privileged. I don't have to reveal a word, but from here on out, nothing is. Be warned.”

She turned toward the door. “You can come to the meeting or not. Get in your truck and take off or not. Frankly, Darren, I couldn't care less what you do from this point on.”

“I wouldn't miss this meeting for the world,” Darren said. He smiled. “Be careful on those stairs, they get slippery when it rains. It would really look bad for you to have an accident on my doorstep.”

 

At 7:25 Frank pulled into the driveway of the residence. He glanced at Shelley and Barbara in the back seat and shook his head. Barbara looked ridiculous in a blond wig. “Action,” he said. He got out and hurried to the front door of the house. Greg Boardman opened it.

“Now,” Barbara said. She got out and opened an umbrella, reached inside as if to help Shelley out. Shelley, in Annie's red raincoat, looked fine. Barbara pulled the hood of her mackintosh over her head, then, ducking their heads low, they hurried through the rain to the porch.

“Can I have a word with you and Mrs. Boardman?” Frank said to Greg Boardman, gently herding him away from the door as the two women entered the house and went straight up the stairs. “Shelley's going to help Annie get settled,” Frank said. “We're running a little late for the meeting, I'm afraid.”

“Where's Annie?” Naomi Boardman said, entering the hall from the living room.

“Going to her room,” Frank said. “Shelley's with her. Mrs. Boardman, Annie's in a pretty bad way. She saw Shelley's doctor and he gave her a tranquilizer. We agree with your husband that she should go to her folks' house on the coast, get away from all this for a time. Shelley will take her over in the morning.”

Naomi's lips tightened and she pushed past Frank and started up the stairs.

In Annie's room, Barbara quickly took off the
mackintosh and Shelley the raincoat. Shelley put on the mackintosh, and Barbara went into the bathroom, closed and locked the door just as Naomi knocked on the bedroom door.

Shelley opened the door. “Oh, Mrs. Boardman, Annie asked me to tell you that she doesn't feel up to a meeting. She wants to lie down and rest for a while. She said maybe you could tell her what it was about when it's over.” She held up the raincoat. “I don't know what to do with this, it's a little wet to hang in her closet, I think.” Naomi took it.

They heard the toilet flush, and after a moment tap water running.

“I'll just help her get settled down, and then Mr. Holloway and I will join the rest of you,” Shelley said. “She's really all right, just very tired. And she wants to talk to you later, after the meeting.”

Naomi hesitated a second or two, then turned and walked away stiffly. In the downstairs hall she said, “Annie isn't coming. She needs a little rest. Thomas is waiting. Let's go and get this over with.”

“As soon as Shelley comes down I'll bring her over,” Frank said. “I'll move the car around to the clinic. No need to bother you folks after we're done over there. It shouldn't be more than a minute or two.”

Naomi hung up Annie's coat and put on her own, then she and Greg left by the back door. Upstairs, Shelley closed the drapes in Annie's room while Barbara arranged the bed, put the wig form in place on the pillow and the wig on it. It looked phoney as
hell, she thought, but with the lights off, a dim night-light on in the hall…It would do. It would have to do.

“Go,” she said to Shelley and waited until she was at the door, then switched off the light. She followed Shelley down the stairs. Frank turned off the hall light and the porch light, nodded to Shelley and opened the door. He opened the umbrella, and a figure in black slipped onto the porch and took it from him—Bailey playing his part. With the umbrella low over them, he and Shelley hurried out to the car, and two other dark figures eased into the residence—Milt Hoggarth and one of his detectives, Sergeant Larkins. Light from the living room was enough to reveal Milt's mouth set in a tight, thin-lipped grimace.

“If this doesn't work, Holloway,” he muttered, “you're dead in the water from here on out.”

“This way,” Barbara said, going up the stairs again.

 

In Annie's room Milt used a penlight to look the situation over. The closet had bifold doors; Frank and Barbara could duck in there, he said. He would take the bathroom. There was no good place for the sergeant to hide. Barbara pushed clothes out of the way in the closet, making room, while Milt and the sergeant went out to the hall, down to Naomi and Greg's room. The sergeant would have to stay there, and if anyone entered Annie's room, follow him.

“He'll probably leave the door open,” Milt said,
“to get the light from the hall. Just keep out of sight until he makes a move. That's it.”

Back in Annie's room he said to Barbara, “Your dad's pulled some fast ones in his time, but he never turned on a client as far as I know. If your guy doesn't show tonight, I'm taking him in the morning. Just to tell you.”

“I didn't say anything was guaranteed,” she said. “I said there was a good chance to nab the killer with the gun. That's all. And I have one client, Annie McIvey, who is right now eating tortillas and fried plantains and mango salsa…” Her stomach growled and she stopped her recitation of the probable menu at Mama's house. She was watching her cell phone. It was muted, but the caller ID came on after another minute and she said, “That's Shelley's signal. The stage is set at the clinic.”

Barbara and Frank were sitting on the bed, Milt in a chair, and as far as she knew the sergeant had stretched out and gone to sleep on Naomi and Greg's bed. There had not been a sound from him. The wait was interminable, and she was thinking that Frank had no business here at his age. This was really too much. He had insisted; if he couldn't be in on the end, he wouldn't play at all, and he had meant every word. So stubborn, she thought. He could teach a mule.