The Unbidden Truth (30 page)

“When did you have the luncheon meeting?” Barbara asked.

Sylvia reached into her purse and brought out a red-leather bound notebook. “I have it noted in my engagement calendar,” she said, and flipped through it. “Yes. Here it is. Our first meeting was on September 23, a Monday.”

“Was Mrs. Nora Wenzel among the women at that luncheon?”

“Yes, she was.”

“Did you make a note of when you contacted her about it?”

Sylvia looked at the notebook again, then nodded. “Yes. I called on her at her office on Friday, September 20, at four in the afternoon.”

“At that time did you tell her that you were planning the masquerade party?”

“No. I wanted to save that for the luncheon when I could get comments from everyone. I said I was organizing a fund-raiser to help the homeless, and I promised that it would not involve biweekly or monthly meetings, that it was to be a onetime event. Later, after we realized how successful it was, we decided to make it an annual affair.”

“At that luncheon was the idea of the masquerade received with enthusiasm?”

“My goodness, yes. Everyone loved the idea.”

“Did the women discuss how they would dress for it?”

“Some of us did. One woman said she had always wanted to be Marie Antoinette and this was her chance. I said I would be Medusa. Everyone was enjoying thinking of costumes and talking about them.”

“Did Nora Wenzel mention her costume?”

“Yes. She said she would be Cleopatra. I remember that Alice Bernhan said if the rains started early she could arrive by boat.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fenton,” Barbara said. “No further questions.” Sylvia inclined her head in a little bow and turned her bright gaze toward Mahoney.

“Mrs. Fenton,” he asked, “did you talk about this idea with anyone when you first thought of it?”

“Yes. I talked with my husband. He thought it a splendid idea.”

“Do you know if he discussed it with anyone else?”

She smiled slightly. “My husband never discusses anything with anyone,” she said. One or two of the jurors smiled as if they knew all about such husbands.

“Do you have a secretary?” Mahoney asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you discuss the party idea with her?”

“Of course I did. She helped with the names and telephone numbers, and she saw to the invitations.”

“Did you talk it over with her before mid-September?”

“Before I even thought of it? Of course not.”

“Is it possible that with such a novel party idea, she might have mentioned it to others?”

“Absolutely not. She is my confidential secretary. She has been with me for twenty-seven years.”

“Since the party was not going to be a secret, isn't it possible that she might have spoken of it without breaking a confidence?”

“Sir,” Sylvia said, drawing herself up straighter, “a confidential secretary
never
discusses an employer's business. She would cut out her tongue before she would mention a thing that is said between us.”

And that was the queen mother asserting herself, Frank thought, and doing a damn fine job of it, too. She looked haughty and as regal as hell.

Mahoney shook his head and made a slight waving of the hand gesture, as if to say he knew better, but he sat down with no more questions.

 

When they left the courtroom, the Wenzels were being photographed and asked questions by half a dozen reporters. One of them broke away and approached Barbara. “What are
you suggesting with that business about the wig?” He motioned to a photographer who began to snap their pictures. Carrie ducked her head.

“Sorry,” Barbara said, and drew her finger across her lips as she stepped between the photographer and Carrie. “No comment. Judge's orders.”

“They're giving a regular press conference. Don't you want to answer them?”

“Can't,” she said and moved on. None of the Wenzels paid any attention to her group as they headed for the stairs.

D
ay after day Barbara had watched the hollows under Carrie's eyes darken and deepen and her appetite decrease almost to the vanishing point. Dr. Minnick had written a prescription for sleeping pills and Carrie had accepted the small container silently, but Barbara was certain she had not used any of the pills yet. After dinner that night she said, “Tomorrow it will be Greg Wenzel's turn on the stand, and very likely by afternoon I'll call you. Are you up for it?”

Carrie nodded. “I just want to get it over with.” She sounded as dispirited as she looked.

Barbara told Shelley to go on home early that night. The ducks were in a row and she had to prepare her closing remarks, but that was solitary work and, when done, she would try it out on Frank, the way he had always tried out his closing remarks on Barbara's mother. He was a good listener, and
a very good critic. Another late night was coming up, she knew, and got to it. But when she finally left the upstairs office for her bedroom, there was a tracery of light under Carrie's door.

Carrie was writing feverishly. Disjointed memories of Carolyn's: an elevator with Mommy and Daddy holding her hands, an airplane ride, a special cushion she could use on the piano bench so she could reach better, Mommy playing on a stage with a lot of people clapping…It seemed to Carrie that by admitting that Carolyn could be her elusive, mostly invisible, twin, she had breached a dam, first allowing few memories through, then more and more until it had become a torrent of Carolyn's memories, given to her in dream states, in flashes, in brief scenes without beginnings.

Try as hard as she might she could not dredge up a memory of riding in a truck with her father and mother, of seeing him paint houses, of camping out, sleeping in a tent.

Now and then a nightmare brought her wide awake, shaking, freezing cold and sweating at the same time. The nightmares were always about fires and hospitals, doctors, loud noises and pain. In the past, when the nightmares bedeviled her she could get in her car and go somewhere else and put them to rest with new scenery and a new job. Now all she could do was sit up in bed shaking, waiting for daylight, waiting for the trial to end, for something new to start, either prison or freedom. She yearned to get in her car and drive forever.

 

When Greg Wenzel took the stand the next morning, Carrie stared at him fixedly. He was very handsome, with thick dark hair, and apparently a great body. But it wasn't his good looks that held her gaze. She had seen him before, she
thought, a long time ago. Barbara led him through preliminary questions: he lived with his parents in their home, and he was employed by the Wenzel Corporation, and he had gone to the Cascadia lounge with his brother to look over the piano player. That was it, Carrie thought. She must have seen him there briefly.

“When did you go watch her play?”

“I don't remember. A week after my folks did, probably.”

“Was it while they were in San Francisco?”

“I think they had returned. My brother and I went on a Sunday night and they were home by then.”

“How long did you stay at the lounge that night?”

“Not long, just until her break. It would have been rude to walk out while she was playing.”

“So she took her break and left and that's when you got up and left also?”

“Something like that.” He paused, then said, “Actually, I think it was when she finished playing for the night. Twelve, something like that.”

“Had your parents talked to you about the complaint she made to Mr. Ormsby?”

“They mentioned it. That's why I wanted to see her for myself.”

“Was your brother present when they discussed it with you?”

“I think so.”

“Was it in the nature of a family problem, something you all felt you should deal with?”

Mahoney objected and was overruled.

“We were all concerned about the business,” Greg said.

“Did your father mention that he had talked to his brother about the complaint?”

“I don't remember if he did.”

“Do you recall when you had the family discussion about it?”

“I don't remember what day it was. Before they went to San Francisco. That's all I remember about it.” He glanced toward Carrie, then hurriedly looked away and squirmed in the witness chair as if he were finding it uncomfortable.

“Mr. Wenzel, do you have a key to the room at the motel that is reserved for your family?” Barbara asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“When was the last time you made use of that room?”

Mahoney objected and was sustained.

“Did you ever lend your key to anyone else?” Barbara asked.

Mahoney objected again, and Barbara said quickly, “I believe it is of interest to know if that room was entered on the night Joe Wenzel was murdered.”

The judge overruled and Greg said no, he never loaned the key to anyone. “I keep it in my possession all the time,” he said.

Barbara saw one of the jurors writing a note, then pass it to the foreman of the jury. He motioned the bailiff and handed him the note, and the bailiff took it to the judge. Barbara waited.

Judge Laughton read the note, nodded to the foreman, then said, “Ms. Holloway, Mr. Mahoney, the court will have a brief recess. Please, don't leave the courtroom.” He walked out and the bailiff led the jurors out.

Barbara looked toward Mahoney, who shrugged and held out his hands in an
I don't know
gesture. She returned to her table.

It was a very brief recess. Everyone filed in again, the judge sat down and motioned Barbara and Mahoney forward. “One of the jurors has lost a crown,” he said. “She has to see a dentist today, and I'm going to recess until tomorrow morn
ing. We don't want a juror with a throbbing toothache, or one filled with novocaine.” He looked resigned.

 

That afternoon Barbara and Frank worked in his study while Shelley worked in the upstairs office on the files. Carrie wandered through the house, now and then stopping to gaze at a steady rain. She picked up the newspaper to work the crossword puzzle, put it down, then picked it up again to read about the Wenzel family. She glanced at the picture of all of them posed in the courthouse, started to turn to the continuation, then looked again at the photograph and caught in her breath sharply. She was holding the pencil she had been using for the puzzle, and slowly she drew a circle around the head of Gregory Wenzel. Crowned, she thought distantly, as the world seemed to fall from around her.

She dropped the pencil and the newspaper and clutched the edge of the table, taking one long breath after another until the world settled once more. Then, moving like a somnambulist, she stood up and walked upstairs to her bedroom.

In her mind's eye she was seeing another photograph, the king and his warriors standing by a truck, the king with a crude crown drawn around his head. This was what crazy meant, she thought then. Schizophrenia. You can't tell what's real and what isn't. That couldn't have been Greg Wenzel in that old picture, yet in her mind they were the same, now and then all the same.

She sat on the side of her bed for minutes, seeing that old picture from her father's briefcase, and she drew in another sharp breath. Not her father, Carolyn's father. Real, fantasy, real…

Pain in her hands brought her back from a swirling maelstrom of images and thoughts, and she looked at her palms.
Her nails had dug in, there were droplets of blood. She stood up and pressed a tissue in her hand, then, holding it tight, she went to the closet and took out the box that held the folder Barbara had put her papers in after photocopying them—birth certificate, school records, medical records, the newspaper article about the deaths of her parents, their death certificates…

She returned to the bed and examined the picture of her mother and father, tracing their faces with her forefinger. She had worn a white blouse and a long black skirt when she played on the stage. Carrie shook her head violently. After a moment she looked at the birth certificate, then the death certificates, and she whispered, “It's a lie. All of it. It's a lie!”

Moving again like a sleepwalker she got up and found her manicure scissors in her makeup bag, and carefully she cut the picture of her parents from the article, then put the article and everything but the picture back inside the folder. Holding the picture, she lay down, overcome by an exhaustion deeper than any she had ever known.

 

Carolyn couldn't sleep. There was too much to think about and morning wouldn't come. She got up again to look out the window for a sign of daylight, and she saw someone fixing Daddy's car even though it was still dark with only a dim outside light. She moved the curtain aside for a better look, and he looked up at the window. The king, she thought with excitement. Then he closed the car and ran out the driveway to another car that sped away with him. She'd have to tell Daddy the king came and fixed his car while everyone was sleeping. But it was still dark and she went back to bed, thinking about a little sister, and riding a horse, and seeing the king….

 

Carrie rolled over and plunged the rest of the way into a profound, dreamless sleep. Her hand relaxed and the picture fell to the floor. There was a drop of blood on it.

When Barbara went to bed that night at two, there was a tracery of light under Carrie's door.

 

The Wenzels were in court again, and there were several reporters present in expectation of seeing Carrie testify. Greg returned to the stand and was reminded that he was still under oath, and they started.

“Mr. Wenzel, where were you on the night your uncle was killed?” Barbara asked, curious to see if Mahoney would object. He didn't. He had no objection to Greg stating his alibi apparently.

“I left the house at about eleven to join friends in town,” Greg said confidently. His whole statement was said in the same confident way. “I met them at the Steelhead and we had a little to eat, and then went on to a couple of other places. At about two I drove Mattie Thorne and Tina Jacoby home. Mattie asked me in and I went in with her and stayed until about three, and then I went home and got there at around ten minutes after three.”

“Are you certain of those times, Mr. Wenzel?”

“Yes. I waved to the security guy at our place and happened to notice that it was ten after three. It's about a ten-minute drive.”

“Are you certain you left Ms. Thorne's apartment at three, not at two twenty-five?”

He smiled slightly and nodded. “I'm sure. She wanted me to stay longer, but I wasn't feeling too good and said I had to
take off. I noticed the time because I was hoping my mother would be asleep when I got home. She would have been upset if she knew what time I got there since I'd been feeling bad earlier.”

“Did you have the key to the room in the Cascadia Motel with you all that evening and night?”

“Sure. I always kept it in my wallet with me.”

“Did you ever see the wig your mother bought last summer?”

“Yes. I thought it was neat.”

“Do you recall when you saw it?”

“I think late in September.”

She regarded him for another moment, then turned away. “No further questions.”

Go for it, Mahoney, she thought as she sat down.

He did. “Mr. Wenzel, you say you saw that wig late in the month of September. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir. She had just bought it.”

“Can you be more specific about the date?”

Greg frowned in thought, then said, “Well, it must have been around the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth.”

“What makes you recall the date?” Mahoney asked.

“I was out of town that weekend. I left on Friday the twenty-seventh, and I saw it a day or two before I left.”

Mahoney nodded. “No further questions,” he said, well satisfied.

Barbara stood up again, frowning at a clipping in her hand. “Mr. Wenzel, are you certain about those dates?” she asked, holding the clipping.

“Yes, I am.”

“I have a newspaper clipping here from Ashland, Oregon,” she said, showing it to Mahoney, then to the judge. “It states
that Mr. and Mrs. Larry Wenzel were in Ashland from September 24 to September 26 to celebrate the opening of a theater complex the Wenzel Corporation built.” She handed it to Greg, and he read it slowly. He looked at the spectators, at his family, then away quickly. “Is that article correct?” she asked.

“I think the dates must be wrong,” he said. “Articles get the dates wrong a lot of times.”

“Or is it possible that they drove back from Ashland and raced up to Portland in time to buy a wig for you to see before you left town?” She didn't try to hide the sarcasm, and Mahoney objected and was sustained.

She took back the clipping and handed it to the clerk, then started to return to her chair. As if an afterthought had struck her, she faced Greg Wenzel once more. “Mr. Wenzel, on the night of August 10, after you left Ms. Thorne's apartment, did you make a detour before driving home? Did you drive to the Cascadia Motel?”