by Buffa, D. W.
As he moved behind his wife, he laid his hand on her shoulder and then let it go. I watched him descend the stone steps, holding on to a steel banister, placing one foot carefully before he lifted the other. Shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, he joined the crowd that stood at the guardrail, caught in the clean enchantment of the water that had been falling for thousands of years.
"We used to come out here a lot," Alma remarked, watching my eyes follow Horace. "When we first came here, Horace loved this place. It was like therapy for him. It helped him forget."
Down below, Horace rested his arm on the railing, spread his feet wide apart, and stared into the shallow rock-bottomed pool. "Forget?" I asked, my eyes coming back to her.
"Not forget, really," she said, trying to explain. "Helped him realize it was good to be alive. He was still very bitter, back then, about the war and what had happened to him."
She looked at me in a way that made me feel as if she were older than I. "He was drafted a week after he graduated from law school. How many twenty-five-year-olds do you think got drafted?" she asked, an edge to her voice. "And do you think they put him in the adjutant's office? No, they put him in the infantry."
She glanced away, searching until she found Horace, as if she had to be sure he was safe. "When his legs were blown off," she went on, looking at me again, "they called him a hero and gave him a medal, and they all felt proud—not so much of Horace, they didn't even know him—but of themselves. It made them proud of what a great country this was. Horace proved everything they wanted to believe about themselves. He proved this wasn't a racist country, because if it was, why would he have saved those white boys when he knew he might die doing it?"
"Then why did he do it?" I asked.
"Horace never talks about it," she said, looking away. "There was an attack, late at night, out in the middle of the jungle, and they were surrounded. Horace's unit fought its way out, but a lot of them didn't make it. Horace wanted to go back for the wounded, but no one else dared. So Horace went back by himself and brought them out, one at a time. He was shot in the shoulder when he brought the first one back, and shot in the arm when he brought in the second. They were still too scared to help him, so he went back the third time and got another one out. He was going back for a fourth when the grenade came. Even after that no one came to help. They let him lie there, not more than a hundred feet away, convincing themselves he was already dead."
She took a deep breath. "You want to know why he did it? Because he was black, and he had to prove he was better than they were."
"I don't believe that, Alma," I said quietly. "I think Horace did it because he was better than they were."
There was something in her eyes, but whether it was a reflection of the anger buried deep inside her over what had happened to her husband or the first sign of the terror she must have felt about her own impending ordeal, I could not tell. Reaching across the table, I grasped her arm.
"We don't have to talk about this today," I said, trying to ease her into the conversation we had to have. "But if you feel you're up to it, why don't you just tell me what you know about this. We have to figure out how your fingerprints got on that gun."
She pressed her lips together, as if she were thinking about something, and then, a moment later, pulled them back into a wistful, almost rueful expression. "Horace told me I should tell you the truth." Until she said it, it had not occurred to me that she was capable of telling me anything else. "I was there the night Russell was murdered."
"You were at the house?" I asked, wondering whether I had heard her right. "But Horace told me you were home with him that night."
"It was the first thing he could think of. He wanted to protect me."
It was getting warm. Taking off my windbreaker, I draped it over the bench. Down below, Horace stood against the guardrail, his back to the falls, taking the late morning sun full in the face. "Start from the beginning," I told Alma. "What were you doing at Russell Gray's house that night?"
"We had a board meeting there for the ballet company. Not the whole board, the executive committee. There were seven of us, counting Russell and myself."
"What time did it start?"
"Eight o'clock. By the time everyone got there, it was probably eight-fifteen."
"Why did you meet at his place?"
"Russell was the chairman of the board and he always offered," she explained. "His house is beautiful, up in the west hills with a wonderful view of the city and Mount Hood. You used to live up there; you know what it's like."
"What time did the meeting end?" I asked. I was not sure she was listening. Her gaze drifted away, out toward the trees that covered the hillside and above them, to the soft white clouds that were scattered across the sky. Quietly, I asked her again. She looked at me and blinked, as if trying to remember what we had been talking about.
"Ten-thirty or eleven," she said. "I stayed a while longer. There were some things we had to discuss."
"What happened after everyone else left?"
"I was there for about an hour. I was just getting ready to leave. It must have been close to midnight. I was in the bathroom when I heard it."
"The shot?" I watched her as she stared straight ahead, living it over again in her mind.
"I don't know how I could have heard it," she said, strangely detached. "The bathroom is enormous. The door must be two inches thick."
"Are you sure you heard it?" I asked, trying to keep her attention on what we had to talk about.
"I wonder if I did? Maybe I just felt it, but somehow I knew it. Anyway, I found him in the living room, where I'd left him. He was on his stomach, in the middle of a Persian rug, his face turned to the side. His eyes were wide open. I saw the blood underneath him. Then I saw the gun, lying a few feet away. Everything was so still. I could hear my own breath when I knelt down next to him. I kept expecting him to move, say something."
She did not have to tell me what she did next. "Why did you pick up the damn gun?" I asked, suddenly angry that she should have done something so stupid.
Her eyes were filled with a puzzling intensity. "I don't know. I hate guns. Maybe that was the reason. I'd never been close enough to touch one before. And there it was lying there, something that had just brought death to someone I knew, someone I cared about. Whatever the reason," she said, lowering her gaze, "I picked it up and looked at it."
As she clutched the near-empty paper cup, a shudder ran through her. She raised her eyes and looked directly at me.
"When I became aware of what I was doing, I dropped the gun on the floor and ran out as fast as I could. I panicked. I should have called the police, but all I could think about was getting as far away as I could."
She seemed haunted by what she had done. Her eyes stayed fixed on mine, but she was looking right through me.
"Where did you go?" I asked.
"When?" she asked blankly.
"When you dropped the gun and ran out of the house."
"I went home."
"Straight home? You didn't stop anywhere?"
"No," she insisted, with a trace of annoyance. "I didn't stop anywhere."
"When you got home, was Horace still awake?"
"Horace wasn't there. He has dinner with some of the other judges once a month."
I was more interested in something else. "Go back to the gunshot. Try to think. Did you hear it, or didn't you?"
She cocked her head. "I must have."
"Did you wait in the bathroom until you thought it was safe, or did you run out immediately to see what had happened?"
She hesitated. "I'm not sure. I think I opened the door a crack and listened and then went out to the living room."
"And what did you hear?"
"Nothing. So I left the bathroom and went to the living room."
"Nothing?" I asked, watching her intently. "You heard nothing at all? You hear a gunshot, you open the door, and you hear nothing at all?"
"No."
&
nbsp; "You didn't hear the sound of footsteps running away, of a door slamming shut, the kind of noise someone trying to get away in a hurry would have made? You heard nothing?" I asked.
She reached across with her hand and took hold of my wrist. "Joe, it's me, Alma. Everything that happened is all mixed up. I don't remember hearing anything. I'm not absolutely sure I even heard the shot. But I must have. I think I did."
Her hand tightened around my wrist."Joe, I didn't do it," she said. "I'm telling you the truth. You do believe me, don't you?"
I slid my wrist away from her hand and straddled the hard bench, my side to the table, staring out at the steep hillside, watching the light climb toward the summit as the sun kept moving west.
"Tell me about Russell Gray. What was he like?"
"He was fascinating."
With my knuckles, I beat out a hollow rhythm on the bench between my legs. The surface was rough, irregular, and badly in need of paint. I remembered Russell Gray— charming, urbane, and, I suspected, literate and superficial.
"He loved the arts," I heard her saying, in the low, somber tones of a eulogist. "He went to London every year for the theater and to New York for the ballet." The sun hit the side of her face, adding a luminous glow to her skin.
"Tell me about his personal life. I understand his involvements were not limited to women."
"You really are a moralist, aren't you, Joe? His 'involvements.' She laughed quietly. "You want to know whether Russell went both ways, don't you? Well, the answer is, one, I don't really know, and, two, I would not be the least bit surprised."
With a mocking glance, she added, "It's not all that uncommon, you know." There was something in her voice, something in the way she looked at me that I did not like. It was condescending, too much the attitude of someone asked to explain the ways of the world to someone else who is never going to be any part of it.
Over her shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Horace. He had taken a seat on a bench on the other side of the walkway. He was sitting erect, both feet on the ground, his eyes open, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.
"And what about you, Alma? Were you part of Russell Gray's sophisticated world?"
"Are you asking me whether I slept with him? Whether I had an affair with him?"
"I have to know everything. If there was anything— anything at all—between you and Russell Gray, I have to know," I said.
"No," she said, "there was nothing going on between us. We were just good friends."
She saw the doubt in my eyes. "There was no affair. I never slept with Russell Gray."
"Gilliland-O'Rourke says you did," I replied, watching her closely.
She tossed her head back. "People tell stories. There wasn't any truth to them." She glanced over her shoulder to where Horace was still waiting.
"I have to know, Alma. I can't help you unless I know the truth."
Her eyes lit up. "I know," she said brightly, as she sprang to her feet, "let's get Horace and go somewhere else. We have all afternoon."
I watched her move gracefully down the steps and take her husband by the arm. She was lying to me. I wondered if it was because she was hoping Horace would never have to find out.
Chapter Twenty
Autumn came and the nights grew longer. Sidewalks were slick with faded yellow leaves. At the northern edge of the city, dark smoke curled up from the black-funneled freighters riding on the murky waters of the Columbia. Winter was more than a month away, and I was already dreaming of spring.
Harper Bryce was not dreaming of anything. He was too busy gathering whatever information he could for his next story. He had just drifted in, unannounced and uninvited, a dripping black umbrella in his hand, obviously in a reflective mood. "It occurs to me we have something in common, you and I," he said, as he dropped into a chair. "Other than your one-time fling as a prosecutor, you represent people accused of crimes and I report on what happens in those proceedings. We both tell stories about what happened to other people. And that makes us both outsiders, doesn't it?
"Do you ever wonder what it's like, to sit at that counsel table and listen to you and the lawyer on the other side describe what happened, and you're the only person who really knows? You ever imagine, when you're up there telling a jury that the evidence doesn't even come close to proving the defendant did what he's accused of, that your client is sitting there laughing his head off because he knows he did it? It's kind of a strange business all the way round, isn't it? Clients lie to their lawyers, and lawyers hardly ever tell the whole truth to reporters." His nostrils flared as he drew in a breath, and his chest seemed to sink as he let it out. "Do they?"
"I wouldn't go that far," I replied. "Some clients tell their lawyers the truth."
He laughed appreciatively. "Those must be the ones who plead guilty."
"Not everybody is guilty, Harper. And even when they are, they're not always guilty of the crimes they're charged with."
Making a wry face, he conceded that perhaps only a large majority of people accused of breaking the law were guilty. "There are a few who aren't." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'm even willing to concede that Judge Woolner's wife might be one of them."
"You can count on it," I said firmly.
"I'm just a reporter," he said cagily. "I try not to count too much on anything, especially when it involves murder, and particularly where it might be what they used to call a crime of passion."
I gave him a blank look. "Crime of passion?"
"There are rumors out there, my friend," he said, trying to gauge my reaction.
"There are always rumors when you have a murder trial, Harper. You know that."
"And I know that sometimes rumors are true, and even when they're not they sometimes point to something that is."
Leaning back, I held up my hands in surrender. "All right. What rumors are you talking about?"
"The rumor that the late Russell Gray was having an affair with the accused. Care to comment?"
"I never comment on rumor, and I never comment on a case."
"Off the record."
"Off the record, on the record, doesn't matter. Alma Woolner is innocent, absolutely innocent." But I did not stop there. "It's bad enough she's charged with murder. Now she has to defend herself against charges of infidelity? How the hell do you think this is going to make her husband feel?" I exclaimed angrily.
Harper sat up. "I didn't start it. I just told you about it."
In silent apology, I held up a hand again. "You're right," I said, looking at him.
Hastily, Harper tried to change the subject. "You have two weeks before that case goes to trial. Tomorrow morning you have the sentencing of Marshall Goodwin. What's going to happen?"
"What do the rumors say?" I replied.
"There aren't any rumors." Pausing, he cast a shrewd glance at me. "And there isn't any comment from the other side, either."
"Richard Lee Jones refuses to talk to the press? That's a first."
Harper was amused. "I didn't say he wouldn't talk, I said he wouldn't comment. Actually, he talked a lot. He said Goodwin was innocent, said he was sure he'd eventually win on appeal. What he wouldn't comment on was whether his client was going to turn State's evidence in return for a lesser sentence."
He tugged on his sleeve and wiggled the fingers of his free hand, apparently trying to increase the circulation in his arm. It was a miracle that his heart held out against the burden of that corpulent, undisciplined body.