by Kate Wilhelm
Abruptly she stood up. Bailey was late. She started to pace the length of the garden, and continued to pace until Bailey called hello from the back door.
“Where the devil have you been?” she yelled back.
He was laughing when she reached the house, and he had a glass of wine already. “Haven’t they taught you not to throw rocks at the frog who might turn into Prince Charming at a moment’s notice? Not even verbal rocks.”
Frank stepped out of the kitchen down the hallway, and he yelled, too. “I don’t mind cooking for you guys, but damned if I’ll do it while you talk out of hearing. Get in here.”
They sat at the kitchen table while he did mysterious things with pork chops. “Okay,” Bailey said, “jackpot. It was Bossert/Bossini that did it. Should have spotted him myself, but, hell, I’ve never done anything except lose money in Las Vegas. Anyway, here it is.”
Kay Dodgson, nee Kay Darling—Barbara winced, and he said he was sorry—was a dancer at a club down in Las Vegas before she married Rich Dodgson. Exotic dancer, he added with a leer. Later, when Rich was on the road almost half the time, she took up her old profession after the boys started school, but only when Rich was not home. And the assistant manager of the club, he said, was Royce Gallead. Terence Bossini was the bouncer.
“Boy oh boy,” Barbara said. “Wow!”
“What I thought,” Bailey said modestly. “Threw me off because Gallead surrendered a California license when he showed up here. He took a roundabout way when he high-tailed it out of Las Vegas, a couple of years down in L.A., and then here. Once I knew to put him in Vegas fourteen years ago, it was easy. He, at least, didn’t change his name.”
“So fourteen years ago Rich quit selling, Kay quit wriggling, Bossert quit bouncing, Royce quit managing, and they all ended up here,” Barbara said with satisfaction. “What do you know about that? They all hit the jackpot at the same time, made a killing—enough to set up two businesses, buy property. How about that!”
“Lady Luck smiles on her favorites,” Bailey said, and got up to refill his glass.
Frank had made pork chops with rosemary and garlic, spinach with a yogurt dressing, and tiny red potatoes crisped in butter.
“If I had a cook like you,” Bailey said with pleasure, “I’d never leave the house. And you’d never leave the kitchen.”
“It was wonderful,” Barbara agreed. “I don’t want to move, but I have to get to the office before it gets much later.”
“Tonight?” Frank asked in surprise.
“Yep, ’fraid so. About an hour and a half at the most.”
He scowled over his glasses. “You might have mentioned it before. We could have eaten earlier.”
“Have you rush dinner? Never!” She laughed.
“All right. All right. We’ll run you over there and then go on to Martin’s and pick up those boxes. Better take something to put them in, keep them out of sight. When will you be done?”
It was almost eight-thirty. “Ten,” she said. “No later, I swear.”
“Right. We’ll come back at ten for you. Or thereabouts.”
The office building had a small arcade on the street level with several retail shops, two elevators, and a stairwell. The upper floors were mostly attorneys’ offices, and were never completely unoccupied; attorneys often worked strange hours. Lights shone through windows here and there on all six floors; dim lights were on in the shops on the ground floor. The building was a block away from the courthouse. This area was deserted after offices closed, with few pedestrians, no open shops; the attorneys’ offices were the satellites around the center of government, and when lawyers worked at night, they worked alone.
When they emerged from the elevator on the third floor, there was a light on in one of the offices off to the left of the reception desk; Frank strode down the hall to see who was working late. “Les Smithers,” he said, returning. “He’ll be in and out of the library. If his whistling gets to you, tell him to cork it.” Les was one of the junior attorneys who had a habit of whistling between his teeth while he read.
Bailey and Frank left right away, promising to return at ten, and she went to Bessie’s office to collect the papers she wanted to reread. She took them back to Frank’s room and started, but realized that she could hear Les whistling in the library, a dozen feet or so from here. She closed the door, but in a second or two she heard something fall, and he called out, “Sorry.” She gritted her teeth, gathered up everything, and marched down to Bessie’s office, around the corner from the library, out of hearing no matter what he did. Les, of course, was working with the library door open. His whistling followed her until she closed Bessie’s door.
Her student researchers had been so thorough, she marveled, reading her notes again. Three times in the past year the Weekly Valley Report had been late, although the dates were right. She found the three papers, and the papers for the following weeks, searching for an explanation. In December, a snowstorm in the mountains had delayed delivery. In August of last year, a power failure at the printing plant had occurred. And one time there was no reason given. On Wednesday, April twenty-third, the paper had been delivered that had been due on Monday. She reread the editorial and the news stories, and then folded the paper and put it in her briefcase. Cork it, Bessie, she thought; don’t complain. I’ll bring it back.
She got up, turned off the lights, and went to the door; fifteen minutes before ten; good timing, she thought. She stopped after one step through the doorway, her hand still on the doorknob. Something was wrong. There was complete silence, and, she realized, the hall lights were off. She never had been here at night when the hall wasn’t dimly lighted. Even as she thought this, the light from the library was turned off, and now the only light that showed anywhere was a tracery around Frank’s door, which she had not closed all the way. She backed up and reentered Bessie’s room, and pulled the door almost closed, listening. Had Les done something stupid to the lights? She shook her head; he would have yelled out about it. Then a flashlight beam shone on the corner door, Frank’s door; it moved up and down, came to rest on the doorknob, and was turned off. She closed the door all the way, holding the knob, releasing it slowly to still a possible click. She backed away. She could not lock it; Bessie never had installed a lock. Some of the offices were locked each evening, others not. Her father kept his locked; Bessie didn’t.
Faint light seeped in through the blinds, but she did not dare turn on a lamp. She didn’t know if light would show around the edges of the door. She put her briefcase on the floor and groped in her purse for a tiny penlight, and, using it, she went to the desk and the telephone. She was starting to punch in the numbers of her father’s phone, when she shook her head and hung up. Not him. Not anyone from this room. Whoever had gone to Frank’s office knew she was not there; maybe he thought she had gone to the rest room; maybe he was on his way there. Or maybe he would start trying doors up and down the hall.
Rest room, she thought then, and played her light around the side wall. There, a door to a bathroom Sam Bixby and Bessie shared. She ran to it, and then had to go back for her briefcase; he mustn’t know she had been in here, if he looked in. Sam’s door would have a lock, she felt certain. It would have a lock, she repeated, and opened the door to the bathroom, as dark as a pit inside. She reached across the tiny space, found the opposite door, opened it, and drew in a breath of relief. The bathroom doors both had simple locks in the doorknobs. She locked the one to Bessie’s office and hurried across the room to try the hall door. It was locked.
Now she ran to the desk and fumbled in her purse, searching for her address book, still afraid to turn on a light, using the penlight sparingly. She had to keep it on when she opened the book and found Heath Byerson’s number. Everything was taking so long, she thought as she did the numbers, listened to a distant phone ring. No answering machine, she prayed. Please no machine. She had left Sam’s door open to the bathroom; her gaze was fastened on Bessie’s doorknob, which looked li
ke a pale ball floating in the dark. Enough. She would know if it moved. Then a woman’s voice was in her ear.
“This is an emergency,” Barbara whispered. “I have to talk to Heath. Is he there?”
“I can’t hear you,” the woman protested. “Can you speak up?”
“No. Get Heath.”
He was there almost before she finished. “Who’s that?” he demanded.
“Barbara Holloway. I’m at Dad’s office, and there’s an intruder. Can you hear me?”
“I hear you. Stay cool. Two minutes.” He hung up.
She replaced the phone, and then froze with her hand still on it. The bathroom doorknob turned, and turned again, harder. He could force it, she knew; those locks wouldn’t keep anyone out who really wanted in. Without a sound she pushed her briefcase under Sam’s desk, crawled in after it, and crouched as low as she could. For what seemed a long time there was a profound silence, and then she heard the hall door being tried; the doorknob turned, turned. And silence again.
The offices were a labyrinth; he couldn’t know which ones were locked without trying them all. There was the library, and a larger file room, and the stenographers’ room, the secretaries’ rooms…
Two minutes, she told herself. Just two minutes. Maybe he would realize it was hopeless, leave. Stay cool, she ordered when she realized she was trembling.
It had to have been five minutes or longer, she thought in despair. Where were they? Maybe Heath hadn’t called anyone. Maybe he was on his way. What if her father came first, surprised the prowler? She bit her lip and eased out from under the desk, crept to the door, put her ear to it, listening.
Then she heard someone shouting, “Ms. Holloway? Where are you? It’s the police!”
She started to beat on the door, hesitated. A trick?
“Barbara! Barbara!” Her father’s voice sounded panic-stricken.
“In here!” she yelled. “Sam’s office.”
The door was shoved open and Frank grabbed her and held her. He was shaking harder than she was.
Now she heard a siren, and many voices. “Did they catch him?” she asked, her words muffled against his shoulder.
“No. They’re still searching.” His voice was thick, almost unrecognizable.
She drew back and examined him. He was as pale as death. “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s over.”
“He sneaked up behind Les. ... It could have been you. God, it could have been you.”
“How bad?”
“Don’t know yet. Bad. Come on, let’s go to my office and sit down.” He kept his arm around her shoulders as they walked back to his room, where Bailey met them and put a glass into Frank’s hand, another one into Barbara’s.
“Take a drink,” Bailey said, “and then look at this.”
On the desk was a picture of Barbara, the glass smashed and Frank’s paper cutter stuck in the middle of her forehead.
“Don’t touch it,” Bailey said. They all sat down and waited, listening to the police officers in the corridors, in the other offices.
Presently Heath Byerson appeared with a police lieutenant. “How are you?” Heath asked Barbara.
“Okay,” she said. “What about Les? How bad is it?”
“They took him to the hospital. No report yet. He’s alive, that’s a plus.”
“Look at that,” Frank said, pointing to the picture. “How’d he get in here?” he demanded. “Where’s the watchman?”
“We found him,” Heath said slowly. “He took a bashing, too. He’s alive, that’s all I know. He was dragged under the stairwell, his keys gone. They’re still gone,” he added, and then said to Barbara, “You up to making a statement yet?”
She told them, and the lieutenant made notes. He asked the questions after she finished. Although he was thorough and patient, she could add nothing. She had not seen him, had not heard him, didn’t know who he had been.
“He wore gloves?” Bailey asked.
The lieutenant nodded. “They’re lifting smudges, that’s all.” He glanced around Frank’s office, the picture on the desk. “We’ll do this room soon as you folks leave.”
“And the weapon?”
“He kept it.”
“Sounds like a pro,” Bailey commented. “Not one of those crazies who’ve been hanging around.”
“We’re considering that,” the lieutenant said. “Tonight we’ll keep a man outside your house,” he told Frank. “You can leave now. I’d change the locks here,” he added grimly. One of the police officers came in with Barbara’s purse and briefcase; she had forgotten them.
There was a brief discussion of how they would get back to the house. Heath wanted to drive them, but Bailey had his car in the parking lot, and finally it was decided that Heath would tag along, see that they got home safely, and wait there until someone came on duty.
“You're not going to like it when you get outside,” he said. “Reporters. They'll follow us. I’m afraid your hideout blown from now on.”
Bailey went out to bring the car to the entrance, and Heath escorted them to it, with officers on each side ot Barbara and Frank. The reporters were there, the television cameras. a crowd of onlookers. Flashbulbs exploded, quesHons were screamed at them, a microphone was shoved past one of the officers, who knocked it out of the way, and from the crowd a woman’s piercing voice shrieked, “Next time you get il, bitch!”
TWENTY-THREE
What if she had not gone to Bessie’s office? What if Les had not been there? What if her father had arrived to find an intruder? What if he had had a gun? What if she had called out to Les? What if she had not become alarmed by no lights in the halls? The thoughts chased themselves like a dust devil in her head. Bailey had started to talk about it, and Frank had said later, tomorrow. How carefully she and her father had examined each other, searching for what?
She had got to bed late, after twelve, and now her legs twitched, her head ached, her back hurt, and sleep was in the next county over. Twice she got up to look out a window to make certain the police were there. She summoned the sound of the wind in fir trees, whispering, whispering… Finally, trying to make out the words, trying to understand, she fell asleep.
Bailey showed up even before Heath Byerson the next morning. “Thought I’d hang in close today, tomorrow, in case something comes up the last day or two the way it does sometimes,” Bailey said in his offhanded way.
She wanted to order him to keep an eye on her father, not get far from him, but she thought he already knew that. “Any word about Les?” she asked.
“In surgery. They flew him up to Portland last night. The watchman’s in better shape, still in intensive care, still critical, but in better shape than Les Smithers.”
Today there was a group of people outside the house— same people, same signs, same cameras, same shouted questions. “The neighbors will love this,” she murmured to Frank.
“Fuck ’em,” he growled, and, with a firm grasp of her arm, walked to the waiting car.
Outside the courthouse the crowd was larger, more unruly, and Frank was firmer, his hand on her arm harder. The bailiff met them and said she was wanted in the judge’s chambers. He escorted her.
“Good morning, Barbara, sit down,” Judge Paltz said when she entered his chambers. Fierst was already there; he looked harried, concerned. They exchanged nods. “How are you?” Judge Paltz asked Barbara when she was seated.
“Fine,” she said. She suspected that she looked like hell warmed over.
He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “The jury is getting very perturbed over the length of this trial,” he said. “I have reassured them twice already that it will end soon. And even though they are being sequestered, whenever there is so much outside tension connected to a trial, they seem to sense it, and even to echo it. Barbara, I have no idea what viper pit you’re stirring up, but if it has nothing to do with the trial we are all enjoined to facilitate, I advise you to put down the stick until this trial is concluded.” He hel
d up his hand to forestall any response she might make. “I have never lost an attorney, for either side, during the course of a trial at which I acted in my judicial capacity,” he said. “And I don’t intend to now. Barbara, until this trial is concluded and a verdict is in, I am placing you and your father under full protection of this court. You will have police protection around the clock for the duration of these proceedings. And I want to know how long you estimate your defense will continue. When will you be done?” he asked bluntly.
“I’m hoping tomorrow,” she said.
“Very well, that will leave Thursday for your summations, and for the jury to begin its deliberation.” He stood up. “I hope you both will cooperate and expedite this trial to the fullest extent possible. No delaying tactics, no grandstanding. Is that understood?”
They both said meekly that they understood, and he said to Barbara, “You understand that the protection of this court will cease as soon as the verdict has been rendered?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
For a time he regarded her with no expression on his face, then he nodded. “Take care, Barbara. Take care.” And he sent them out.
She reported briefly to her father before they were summoned to the courtroom. Frank had changed overnight, she realized. Last night he had looked haggard, like an old man, but today he looked mad as hell. And that was fine, she thought, because that was exactly how she felt—mad as hell.
Paula was very frightened; she clutched Barbara’s hand and examined her. “Are you really all right?” she asked. “I heard the news, read the paper…”
“I’m okay,” Barbara said. “Relax. Look at it as a positive event, in fact. We’re scaring the shit out of someone.” She smiled at the young woman, and after a moment Paula smiled also, but it was not a good smile.
Barbara called her next witness.
Janey Lipscomb appeared to be too young to be a professional psychologist who dealt with the ugliest of human tragedies—domestic violence. As she recited her credentials, her work, it became clear that she was exceptionally well qualified, however.
