Death Qualified (11 page)

    In her father's writing was another note: summarize the house ad, the builder's name, etc." etc. Reproduce the ad.

    Q. So, you admit you bought the house only a few months before the robbery, that you bought it from Smithson and Son, Builders, and that this advertisement is a fair representation of the house.

    A. Yes, but what possible diiference-Q. Please, sir. Let me continue. You see, in this ad it states quite clearly that every closet has an automatic light that comes on when the door is open. You can see the source of my bewilderment, I trust.

    Her father was watching her closely as she finished the cross-examination.

    "Neat," she said.

    "Good job."

    "Oh, I think so. Of course, he stole his own jewelry for the insurance. But Geiger noticed that ad and made follow-up inquiries. He called the builder, the servants, the wife. The closet lights worked fine. But he didn't really need any of that. That schmuck was tripping over his own dong from then on. Good job."

    She nodded.

    "Read the next one. The working title for this section is Now You See It, Now You Don't, but I'll find something more clever than that when the time comes."

    "I doubt it," she said, grinning. She turned the page and started to read:

    Q. How long have you lived at your present address, Mr. Steinmann?

    A. Forty-two years.

    Q. A very long time. I suppose you're familiar with every sound there is up on the hill, aren't you? The mail delivery truck, neighbors' cars, everything that moves on the gravel road?

    A. Yes, ma'am.

    Carefully Barbara closed the fan fold papers, restored them to order, and then pushed the stack away from her. "That's one of the most brilliant of them all," her father murmured.

    "I go on to say so. She noticed that too much time elapsed from when Steinmann said he heard the car make the curve until he saw it go into the Wilson driveway, and she just got to wondering why it took so long. One thing led to another, and she found out that fog set in so thick that old man Steinmann couldn't have seen what he claimed he saw, and was too plain, dumb stubborn to change his story. Said he saw exactly what he expected to see, simple as that." He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to his meal preparations.

    "Little thing like that probably saved a man's life, though."

    The police had claimed that Mr. Wilson arrived home, killed his wife, and left again, to return several hours later and pretend to discover her dead body. She had proven that a stranger must have been driving very slowly on an unfamiliar road shrouded in fog, and that Steinmann's identification of the car and the man leaving it was false.

    He could not have seen Mr. Wilson. The fog had not descended to the valley floor until after ten, but by five it was already blanketing the surrounding hills. Slowly, inch by inch, she had paved the way and finally forced him to admit that he had not actually seen anyone. But who else could it have been? he had asked.

    Barbara sipped her wine without comment; her father began to whistle tunelessly. Presently he said, "You want to set the table on the terrace? Ten minutes and it's dinner

    His dinner was superlative, as she had known it would be; when she said so, he nodded. No false modesty there.

    The sun was gone by the time they finished and he had brought out coffee. Deep, shadowless twilight lay over the river; it had brought a stillness that quieted the air, quieted the trees. Later a wind would start to blow, but not yet.

    "Let me tell you a story," she said in a low voice.

    "It's about a girl from around here somewhere. She grew up with adoring parents who, no doubt, spoiled her, but more than that they expected her to have ideals, even talked about idealistic goals and futures and the fights worth fighting for the sake of ideals. What did the girl know?

    She believed her parents, trusted them to be as truthful as they insisted she must be. She nourished her ideals the way other girls nourished their dreams of Mr. Right and a glamorous career with two beautiful children who appeared when it was seemly. So, our girl went to the right schools and got the right sort of grades, clerked for the right sort of judge, but as time went by she began to notice that the grades were granted grudgingly, that she was last in line when honors were awarded, and that politics of various forms was more important than doing good work in many places. Okay, she thought to herself, that was one of the things she intended to fix. And she began to make notes of where the fixing was most needed."

    Barbara paid no attention to a slight sound her father made. She was staring as if catatonic at the smooth river below; it had turned black and looked like obsidian. Her voice was as smooth as the water, as implacable.

    "Somewhere along the line she realized that she was not sleeping very well, that she frequently had nightmares about being run over by machines that were inhumanly oversized and out of control. She saw a shrink or two and learned that she had to come to terms with the system she had entered of her own free will, that she was always trying to force others to adopt her own idealism, that she made people uncomfortable with her own nonconformity. Her nightmares were all her own fault."

    She felt his hand on her arm and knew she had become chilled only because his hand was so warm. She did not draw away or acknowledge the touch but continued to speak, continued to face the river. He removed his hand after a moment.

    "So, if she wanted the good life, the full, meaningful life, she probably needed several years of therapy, or a mild tranquilizer until she was on course again, or maybe a group, an encounter group, a support group, something.

    Meanwhile, the world was noticing her, admiring her rise in her field, and suddenly all the things that had been hindrances became assets. It was good that she was female, young, good-looking, all good for business, good for the image of her company. She began to notice that she was assigned appearances before certain judges who had an eye for women. She was included when a bevy of attorneys met with important corporate clients. She was warned that a certain CEO might call her 'girlie' and even touch her, but what the hell, he was harmless. She had no business at all at those meetings, she didn't know shit about corporate law, but it helped the image. And she was doing good work in her own area. Very good work. And then.. .."

    "Finish it," her father said harshly when her pause stretched out too long.

    "Yes. Finish it." She had realized quite suddenly that there were still parts of it she could not say, could not think through clearly. Her voice was flat when she went on.

    "Then she lost a client when a senior member of her firm and a crooked assistant to the DA made a deal behind her back, and all at once she knew she couldn't fix any thing, there never had been a chance to fix anything. It was unfixable, all the way. She had lived in a dream world, just as the psychiatrist had told her."

    "And you tucked in your tail and ran like a coward!"

    She shrugged. When had it become so dark? she wondered then. She had not noticed the change as it happened.

    Lights flickered in the cabins below; a grill flared, sub sided, flared again. She turned toward her father, his face a pale blur, his arms pale. They had not turned on lights in the house, which was very dark behind them. Finally, a breeze was starting, raising goose bumps on her arms.

    "I went to Vermont," she said quietly.

    "They thought I was crazy. The tourists were all leaving when I arrived for the winter, not even in a ski area. I watched the snow pile up around the cottage I rented, until it covered the windows on one whole side. And I thought. But no matter where I started, it always came back to the same place.

    Everywhere, in all ways people are so busy consuming each other, it's a miracle anyone's left. Even your Lonnie What's-her-name. Her father consumed her and left an aging husk who will die on welfare, in an institution some where eventually. Behind that amusing little anecdote is real tragedy, and it's played out over and over, every day, everywhere, by everyone, it seems. I realized in the cottage that winter that you have only three choices: You can climb onto the machine and ride it wherever it's going, mindless, blind, destroying everything in its path, or you can try to stop it and be mowed down when it finally turns in your direction, and it will. It will. Or you can walk away."

    "All that's bullshit, and you know it. So you've set your self up to walk in the wilderness with a lantern."

    She laughed.

    "You don't get it, do you? I'm not looking for anyone, or anything, nothing at all, and I haven't looked for five years."

    "What's more, you didn't lose a client. He lost you. He called me because he wanted a deal, and he knew you were off on your own fight, not his. I got him the best deal going. It happens, and you know damn well that it happens. It's built into the system."

    "Yes, of course, I know. He got eight years, three other guys got to stay out of trouble and count their money, the prosecutor got another gold star, and you? You just did your job. That's what keeps the machine running, isn't it?

    Some with real reasons for what they do, and others just going along for the ride, doing their jobs."

    "Exactly. It's always been that way. And always will be."

    "And that's why I'm on the outside."

    "Selling damn fool doodads to damn fool silly women!

    You've got a brain, the sharpest mind I know. I'm proud of you, Bobby, and you know that. You can't toss it all."

    "Yes, I can! You chose to stay in, do the job. I chose out. It's that simple. I can visit you as your loving daughter, in to check up on your health, to reminisce, to look over your books when they're done, go for a ride with you.

    You know, the visiting daughter bit. But nothing else. Now, let's go in. I'm freezing. I'll clean up your kitchen."

    "I hear you, Barbara. Now you listen." His voice was hard, his words clipped and furious.

    "I don't want a damn silly girl around. I want a colleague, a peer, someone I can talk to, someone who can spot what I'm missing, whose opinion I trust as no one else's. If you can't be that, I don't want you around at all. And I'll clean up my own damn kitchen."

    * * * It was fair, she told herself sharply in her room a few minutes later. She had stated her position; he had done the same. Tit for tat. Fair. But she was furious with him, and she realized that her fury was caused by his refusing to fight it out the way they had done so often in the past, yelling at each other, stamping around the living room, around his office, each accusing the other of willful blindness, of playing dumb. She had expected that, and he had not taken his part.

    She never had stayed all the way out of touch; she had written postcards, sometimes even a short letter; she had called from time to time. He had responded in the same way. All without meaning. Estrangement? Alienation? She rejected both words. They simply had grown apart over the years; meaningful exchanges were impossible. And to night didn't really count. Stating a position wasn't a meaningful exchange. She had missed him, she knew; no one else ever made her explain every step to a conclusion the way he could do. He had been the best sounding board she'd ever had and at tipes had reduced her arguments to babble with a question or two. His ability to spot the weakness of a defense she was preparing had been un canny at times, and he always said the same was true of her reactions to his arguments. They had worked well together

    Then he had betrayed her. She knew that the client had called for him, not her. But her father had not told her it was happening until it was over and done with. He had been willing to make the deal in spite of her, in spite of knowing very well that her client was ready to name three others in a construction scam that had made millions in deals with the state government.

    This had come too soon after her mother's death; the hurt was still too raw. What Barbara had not been able to say earlier now came back to mind; it had been her mother fault. She had been his Jiminy Cricket, his conscience, and with her gone, he had become as corrupt as the general public assumed criminal lawyers had to be. She bit her lip hard.

    It was over, she told herself wearily. Although she was very tired, she was too restless to attempt sleep yet. The drive had been too hot until she crossed over the pass of the Cascades, when the air had magically cooled. But the heat had been hard to take, had worn her out more than the driving. The thought of starting the drive to Minneapolis in the morning made her feel her fatigue even more.

    No matter how she decided to go, by what route, she had to cross the plains that would be an inferno. Now she was shivering; she went to the closet and took out one of the sweaters she had left years ago. It was bulky and very warm.

    She sat in the chair with the reading lamp and only then realized that the newspapers had been selected very deliberately; they featured the stories about the murder of Lucas Kendricks. Sighing in resignation, she started to read, curious for the first time about why her father had taken on this case if he didn't think he could handle it, or didn't want to handle it.