Barbara Holloway: Desperate Measures Part 8

Walking again, she thought that if Hilde Franz had had a lover, he probably had a key to her house, no need to break and enter and leave traces. But why? To keep her from disclosing their affair? That seemed improbable. Public officials, even the president, had affairs and were not strung up in the village green. She considered the scenario she had outlined to Frank: Hilde had gone through the forest to the Marchand house.... Maybe not, she thought then. Maybe she had seen someone else go there. Maybe she had seen her lover or glimpsed his car.

Then she wondered how much Hilde had told Frank. Her own clients had told all, she felt reasonably certain; had Hilde? Or perhaps more to the point, what would her secret lover a.s.sume or fear she had told Frank?

Stop this, she told herself sharply. Hilde had had a serious disease. And that was all she knew about her death and all she might ever know unless she could get a copy of the autopsy report when it came in.

The next morning she made a grocery list. She had no bread for toast, no eggs, no cereal. And the juice had a peculiar odor. Later, in the supermarket, she found herself gazing at two girls with heavy-handed Goth makeup, black and white faces, black clothes, purple hair.... "Oh," she breathed. Rachel. As soon as she had paid for her groceries, she went to a pay phone outside and called Will's number. "Be there," she muttered, and he was.

"Will, it occurred to me that we will need pictures of Rachel Marchand before she turns up in court dressed in ankle socks and a pinafore, with her hair in pigtails. Can the Doughboy handle something like that?"

"If he can't, he has people around who can. You think the girl's cutting loose?"

"I don't know. But she was running around with a boy in a red Camaro, no name for him."

"Okay. You might want to pick up a copy of the Springfield newspaper. The pressure's starting."

Well, they had known it would, she thought. Then she called Bailey's number. His wife, Hannah, answered.

"Just ask him to give me a call, will you? I'll be home in a few minutes and stay there for the next several hours at least."

She felt as guilty as a child sneaking out of the kitchen with warm cookies in both hands.

She had not been home more than half an hour when Bailey called.

"I have to see you," she said. "You can call it close surveillance or something."

"Jeez, Barbara, give me a break. You know I can't come up there."

"You have to. Do you think I'd call if it wasn't important? Name the time. I'll wait for you."

He muttered something unintelligible, then said, "Half an hour."

He was prompt, and she was waiting to admit him. He looked as guilty as she had felt earlier, and he looked suspicious.

"No questions," he said. "Don't ask me anything."

"Right. You just listen. Coffee?"

He shook his head, pulled out a chair from the table, and sat down. "Shoot."

"First," she said, "Hilde Franz had a secret affair. Now she's dead, and Dad thinks her death is suspicious. Let's a.s.sume that someone did her in and that whoever it was knew she had an attorney, but he couldn't know how much she had confided in him. She might not have told her lawyer who the lover was, but can he count on that? Worst-case scenario, she might have seen him out at Opal Creek the day Marchand was killed."

Barbara had been watching Bailey closely; she saw when his look of uneasiness changed, replaced by a new intentness.

"Dad and I both know different things about this case, or the same things with different interpretations. But if Hilde Franz's death turns out to be another murder, I have to know. He'll get the autopsy report, and I want a copy, too. I want you to get it for me."

He looked incredulous and began to shake his head.

"And I want you to have someone keep an eye on Dad until we know about her death. I'll pay the freight on that one."

"Jeez, Barbara. How about the moon while you're doing your wish list? I can't work both sides of the street. Go have a talk with him. He doesn't have a client anymore."

"I can't do that. He still has Hilde Franz to protect and he will do whatever it takes to protect her name. He'd just think I'm trying to pull a fast one, muddy the waters even more."

"Aren't you? Isn't that what this is all about? With me in the middle."

She shook her head. "Do I look like I'm finagling? I know some things that make me frightened for his safety. It's that simple. If it turns out that Hilde Franz's death was natural, I'll call it off, pay up, and that's that. That's why I need the autopsy report. Meanwhile, you could do some routine maintenance on his security system, maybe even suggest that he be careful. You know. He listens to you."

"Right. And if he finds out I've been scheming with the enemy, he'll really listen, won't he?"

"So don't let him find out."

He stood up. "Thanks, Barbara, just thanks a million. He pays me to keep an eye on you, you pay me to keep an eye on him. It's to laugh, isn't it? See you around."

At the door she said, "Oh, to make your job a little easier, Will Thaxton is an old high-school friend. We were on the debating team together. He got divorced recently, for the second time, and gave me a call. We may start debating again."

His look was not friendly.

And he had not said a word about the autopsy report, she thought glumly when Bailey was gone. No promises. She knew he would keep an eye on Frank, that was a given; but how far he would go for her was uncertain.

12.

On Friday afternoon Frank had a meeting with Geneva Price and Ron Franz, Hilde's sister and brother. They and their mother were the beneficiaries of Hilde's will.

"We don't know what to do," Geneva Price said after Frank went over the terms of the will with them. "We can't even get inside the house, or remove her body, or anything."

"It's customary," Frank said. "Until there's a decision about the cause of death, everything will remain sealed."

"How long will it take?" Ron asked.

"A few days, or possibly a week or longer, depending on what they find."

The brother and sister looked at each other helplessly. Geneva was sixty, the eldest of the three children, and she looked very much like Hilde, the same chestnut hair, much grayer than Hilde's, the same trim body and wonderful complexion. Ron, fifty-five years old, must have taken after the other side of the family; he was a thin, long-limbed man with very little sandy-gray hair, bony features, a large nose, ears like flags at half-mast. He owned and operated an auto-parts store in Medford, he said, and he couldn't walk away from it for an indefinite period.

"And I can't just leave Mother. She's eighty-five years old! This has devastated her." Geneva looked near tears.

"What I suggest," Frank said, "is that you both return home and let my office handle the details. Mr. Franz, you are the executor of her estate, so nothing can be done without your approval, but there are things that can be started now. We can take care of them. I will make certain that nothing is removed from her house without a receipt and an accounting. I can be on hand when they go into her safe-deposit box, things of that sort. Where will you want the funeral to take place? I can make whatever arrangements must be made."

Geneva did weep then. "Back home in Medford," she said, choking on the words. "Near Father. Mother has a plot there."

Her brother patted her shoulder awkwardly and nodded to Frank. "We'd be grateful if you just took care of things."

Frank went out to tell Patsy to draw up an agreement that he was to represent the interests of the family members, but he really wanted to give Geneva a little time to compose herself again. He wanted them to talk about Hilde.

When he returned, he said, "My secretary will draw up an official agreement. I'll need to show it to the investigators, you understand, and while we're waiting, she'll bring in some coffee. You say your mother is eighty-five. Is her health generally good?"

That was all it took. He had told Patsy to give him an hour, and during that hour he learned a great deal about Hilde. "She'd get tickets to the Ashland theater, Shakespeare or something, and gather up all five kids, Ron's and mine, and off they'd go. Now and then she would pack up a box of books, novels, poetry, whatever, and bring them down for Mother and me. She was so good to Mother. Little presents now and then, not just her birthdays or holidays. A silk scarf, or new gloves, thoughtful things like that. She loved her family so much."

Hilde's marriage had been a good one, Geneva said. Her husband had adored her. But when she was diagnosed with diabetes, she swore she would never have children, risk cursing them with that gene. "For several years that seemed to work, but he really wanted a family, and eventually they separated. She wished him well."

"The last time I saw her," Frank said when it appeared that Geneva might break into tears again, "she said she still planned to retire in two years and do some traveling. Did she talk much about where she wanted to go?"

"France," Geneva said. "Especially Provence. And England, the Oxford area. But over Christmas, when I asked her if she had made any real travel plans yet, she blushed a little and said sometimes plans change. I think she might have met a man she was interested in. She wouldn't say another word."

Her brother was frowning. "Women," he said to Frank. "That's all they think of. Getting each other married off. Hilde was perfectly contented with her life."

Geneva shook her head. "Several years ago, on a Friday night, she showed up. I was really surprised because she hadn't called or anything. She said her house was full of silence and emptiness. I think she was very lonely, until recently anyway."

It rained overnight. When Frank gazed out the kitchen door Sat.u.r.day morning, he knew he would not work in the garden that day. He decided to take a run out to Opal Creek. He had thought a lot about what Barbara said and his own speculation that perhaps Hilde had seen something or someone she should not have seen. He wanted to look for himself.

He drove past the Marchand orchard slowly, admiring the care that had been taken with the trees and land. Across the road the Bakken orchard was neat, too, but not as meticulous, and without the ground cover. He slowed even more at the Marchand driveway. Then the piece of forest between the two properties. He came to Minick's driveway, which vanished behind trees very soon. Driving on, he pa.s.sed the small marker surrounded by flowers, pa.s.sed the school, and continued to The Station, where he stopped.

There were four men at a table inside; they became silent when he entered.

"Morning," he said as one of the men rose and walked around a counter.

"Help you?" the man said.

"Hope so. You have red wrigglers?"

"Yep."

"Good. How much?"

"Twelve for a buck."

"I was thinking more like half a pound," Frank said.

"That's a lot of fis.h.i.+ng."

"Worm bin. I'm stocking a worm bin. Half a pound is what it'll take. How much?"

"Worm bin? How about fifteen dollars?"

Frank nodded. "But I don't want a tub full of peat moss, or whatever it is you keep them in."

The counterman laughed. ''I'll screen them out. Take a couple of minutes."

"Fine. I'll have coffee while I wait."

The counterman motioned toward a carafe. "Help yourself." He vanished into the rear of the store.

Frank got a cup of coffee, picked up a local tabloid newspaper, and started to read. After a few seconds, he whistled. "G.o.d almighty!" he said, glancing at the three men who had remained silent at their table. "Looks like you got yourself a mite of trouble in these parts."

The newspaper was full of the story of the three deaths and had a signed article about people's suspicions of their cause.

"A curse," Frank muttered, scanning the article. He looked up and said, "It's like that movie, The Blair Witch Project. You fellows see that?"

Two of the three men appeared to be in their fifties, the youngest about thirty; all of them were dressed in jeans and bootswork clothes. Farmers or orchardists.

One of the middle-aged ones said, "That's exactly what I thought."

"c.r.a.p," the youngest one said.

"I don't know," the third one said. "It's funny when you begin to add things up, put them together like Gus did."

A minute later Frank was seated at the table, listening to them recount the series of things that had gone wrong over the past ten years or so. The counterman returned and joined them. Presently their talk turned to Doc Minick and his sick friend, or patient.

"You ever see him without that cap? Mitch Farentino did, and he said you could see plain as day where they cut the horns off. Bet if you shucked his pants, you'd find a scar like that on his tailbone."

"Yeah, and where do they go for weeks at a time?" The speaker leaned in closer and said, "I think that's when he gets out of control and Doc has to dope him down hard to keep him in line. Or maybe take him out on the desert somewhere and let him howl."

"If I ever caught him even glancing at my little sister, I'd kill the son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"Son of the devil," one of them said. He chuckled. "That's all Gus ever called him-devil freak, or devil sp.a.w.n. That means son of the devil."

"Gus was a good man, honest as they come."

"Yep," the counterman said. "If he found a ten-dollar bill on the road, he'd put an ad in the paper for the owner to come claim it."

"He was born a hundred years too late," the young man said. "He would have fit right in in my great-grandfather's time."

"Nothing wrong with living with principles," the counterman said. "That's what Gus did. He had principles and he lived by them."

"Gus Marchand was a crazy zealot!" the young man said. "And you're all buying into his line of bulls.h.i.+t." He stood up and pushed his chair back roughly. "I've gotta go."

Just then the door to the store opened and a large, tall man entered. Dr. Minick, Frank thought, studying him with interest as the group at the table turned into statues. Minick was about Frank's age, with silver-gray hair and a deeply weathered face. He had a slight stoop, but his eyes were fierce, like a young man's angry eyes.

The counterman started to rise, but Minick said, "Don't bother, Benny. I'm not buying anything. I dropped in to tell you to pa.s.s the word: Alex has gone to visit friends. He's not up at the house and won't be for quite a spell."

"Now, Doc, don't get on your high horse. You know I've not got anything against you or Alex."

"Just pa.s.s the word." He turned and strode out again.

The young man hurried out after him.

Benny stood up the rest of the way and glanced at Frank. "I wet down your worms. You should keep them pretty damp and out of the sun."

The men at the table were starting to push their chairs back; the social hour was over. Frank paid for his worms, the coffee, and the newspaper and went out to his car, where he could see the spur to the old road. The young man had caught up with Dr. Minick, and they were walking together.

They had been talking about Alex Feldman, Minick's young companion, he thought as he drove home. The one who would not go into the library. Bit by bit he brought to mind what Hilde had said about him, and it was not much. He had led the kids in the Dungeons & Dragons game that got Gus riled up years ago and he didn't go out in public.

It was only a few minutes' walk from the Minick house to the Marchand house. What if Hilde had seen Alex Feldman entering or leaving the woods that separated the houses that day? Where was he now? And where had he been on Thursday night when Hilde died? He began to drive faster. He wanted to get home and call Bailey.