[Barbara Holloway 02] - The Best Defense

by Kate Wilhelm

  “Good. RU-486 is a drug combination that induces abortion with virtually no side effects. It mimics an early spontaneous abortion, commonly called a miscarriage, with as few aftereffects as a miscarriage. It’s widely used in Europe, and is illegal here. There’s been terrible pressure to keep it from being licensed in this country; no company here will touch it for fear of massive reprisals in the form of boycotts, demonstrations, whatever. There is evidence that Dodgson and Gallead have a source for it, and they are smuggling it in, packaging it, and distributing it to selected doctors. If it were legal, it would cost about seven hundred fifty dollars; on the black market, who knows what they charge for it? All Dodgson’s diatribes against birth control, abortions, and all the while he was making millions with RU-486. And Craig’s demonstrations against clinics while he was actually delivering the stuff. This has to be the most cynical, the most hypocritical black-market enterprise on record!” She was too furious to continue.

  “You can prove any of this?” Judge Paltz murmured. His eyes were gleaming.

  “Not enough,” she admitted after drawing in a long breath. She told them about Miguel Torres, how he and three other men had spent four days packaging a medication. “We have the picture showing the truck with five workers at a different time. We have people who will testify that the Gallead truck brings in workers every six to eight weeks. This is a multimillion-dollar operation. They are packaging from four to six thousand doses at a time, six or more times a year! We have the names of four doctors Craig Dodgson visited in Denver, all gynecologists; I have no idea how many doctors may be involved. I talked to a woman who was given medication that looked like the baby aspirin and decongestant I showed Dodgson in court. She had what she thought was a spontaneous abortion following it.”

  No one had moved or made a sound as she talked. Now Larry Coltrane made a disgusted sort of noise, not quite a snort. “If they’re making that kind of money, where is it, why doesn’t it show?”

  “This isn’t an open-ended racket,” she said. “The day RU-486 is legalized, they have to close shop, and I imagine the day after that, they all planned to vanish.”

  “By this time,” she went on, “Gallead believes the Dodgsons are throwing him overboard, framing him for the murder of Lori Kennerman. And, no doubt, he believes that Dodgson is going to plead ignorance of what Gallead was doing. Dodgson said he can’t read French, remember. All he did was print orders from time to time. I think Gallead will talk, he’ll want to deal.” She added, “It seems likely that Gallead got hold of someone with the drug years ago and looked around for a partner, and who better than a pharmaceutical rep?”

  “All that nonsense about a shadowy figure,” Fierst protested. “It’s not worth a damn. You can’t pin the murder on Gallead with nothing more than that, and you know it.”

  “I never said I could,” she said. “Right now they all know we’re onto the RU-486 operation, and the Dodgsons know that I’m asking dangerous questions about the arson fire and murder of Lori Kennerman. Let me tell you one more scenario, the only one that makes any sense. The one that the Dodgsons will do anything to keep under wraps, even if it means framing Gallead.”

  Fierst set his mouth in a tight line and didn’t speak.

  “They must have been desperate to close down the refuge after Carol Burnside took those photographs. But if they stirred up too much trouble Mrs. Canby would have had the Dodgsons investigated; she told me that. And real investigators were more dangerous than someone stumbling over their operation. Then, less than two months after that incident, Kay met Angela and learned that the house would be empty. She hurried back home.” Barbara scowled at Fierst and added, “Carrie Voight saw her, remember? Kay and Craig saw their chance to get rid of the Canby place, to burn it down. She wrote the note to Mrs. Melrose to clean the refrigerator in order to keep her in the kitchen. She opened the pool-room door, the door to the family room, turned the music on loud, all to establish that Craig was in there swimming naked. And then she went back toward the end of the road to watch for the departure of the women and children at the Canby house. From the pond area she had a clear line of sight. But she didn’t know Angela’s little girl was there, so when the second little girl ran out, she thought that was the last one, and she stooped down to tie her shoe. She couldn’t see Craig through the trees, but he could see her very well in her pink running outfit. Then she went back to the house to wait for him, to open the front door for him. He must have been covered with blood and gas. Maybe in shock. No one expected a child to show up to witness the arson.” Her voice hardened. She took a deep breath and continued. “Anyway, there he was, reeking, filthy, and at any moment someone could have walked in. So he jumped into the pool, clothes and all, maybe even with the gas can; he stripped under water, anchored everything out of sight. They couldn’t risk anyone’s seeing the clothes, the can, or smelling gas. Kay ran to get his robe, and then Angela appeared while she was still carrying the robe. Having Angela appear at the front door must have been almost as great a shock as seeing Craig covered with blood and gas.”

  There was complete silence while they all considered it. Finally Larry Coltrane said, “That’s why they had to pump out the pool and scrub it down. There could have been some gas left in the can.”

  “And why Craig and Rich went out for a short cruise on Monday,” Barbara said. “To dump the clothes and the can at sea.” She gave Coltrane a bitter look. “I suspect he left footprints on the flagstones, on the carpet, somewhere. Something that made it necessary to send Mrs. Melrose home early before she noticed. I’d press Mrs. Melrose about the footprints she saw. And I’d see if they redecorated the house after that—new carpets, for instance.”

  “Barbara, if I may ask,” Judge Paltz said, looking thoughtful, “what made you even think of this particular scenario, true or not, as time will tell?”

  “The missing clothes,” she said. “Craig testified that he changed in the dressing room, but Mrs. Melrose didn’t find any dirty clothes there, and no one had gone to get them. She had no reason to lie about that. Or anything else. He put on the robe that his mother provided. And there was no reason for her to take him a robe if his own clothes were available. That and the fabrication of an excuse to clean the pool and get rid of Mrs. Melrose at the same time.”

  “Even if there’s a shred of truth,” Larry Coltrane said after a moment, “there’s no way on earth to prove anything. Just another story.”

  “And what was it when you set your eyes on Paula Kennerman?” Barbara demanded. “Every shred of evidence pointed away from her, but you never wavered. Battered-wife syndrome, blame the mother, no more questions.”

  “Statistically we were right,” he said. “It usually is the mother, or the father.”

  “Paula Kennerman isn’t a statistic! If you want a battered woman, look at Kay Dodgson. Without Rich to tell her what to say and how to say it, she’ll tell you whatever you need. She’s put in a lifetime of serving men. You saw her in the courtroom! She cracked wide open! Without her men, she’ll talk. If she thinks for a second that she can keep her younger son Alex from being involved, she’ll beg for a chance to talk. Or if she thinks for a second there’s a chance for Craig to get off with manslaughter instead of murder, she’ll sing and dance for you.” She was shaking, and stood up, jammed her hands in her pockets. “I need a cup of coffee. Are we finished here?”

  “What the hell was all that shit about Gallead, then?” Coltrane yelled. “Just muddying the waters?”

  “Don’t be an idiot!” she snapped. “What if I had brought up this picture? Gallead would be out of it. The whole damn smuggling operation would be out of it. And Craig would have got off, and you know it. Without the smuggling, Craig has no motive worth a damn. The Dodgsons have done everything in their power to get a quick conviction of Paula Kennerman. My God, Craig’s a murderer, Kay’s an accessory before and after the fact, and Rich is an accessory after the fact! They’ll give you Gallead in a basket to save their s
kins, and you need Gallead to start talking to save himself. He knows the difference between taking the rap for peddling an illicit drug and the rap for murder. No one knows what all I suspected, how much I actually know. Keep them separated and they’ll all talk! I rather imagine they all think they have enough money stashed away to buy their way out of anything.” Her fury was increased by her awareness that she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

  “Sit down, Barbara,” Judge Paltz said kindly. He nodded at his stenographer and clerk. “I think you can go now, and see that someone brings in coffee, will you please?”

  Heilbronner and his assistant moved toward the door. “I’ll be going, too,” he said. “Ms. Holloway, after court adjourns we’ll have to talk. I’ll want those doctors’ names, Miguel Torres, and the name and address of the woman who took the medication.”

  “The doctors and Miguel,” she said. “Not her, unless she comes forward.”

  He regarded her for a moment, and then left without speaking again. But he would be back, she knew, and thought, Fuck him.

  The jury took under an hour to bring in their verdict of not guilty, and the courtroom erupted; some of Dodgson’s people were loyal and loud, but most of them left as if dazed. Paula broke down in sobs, and her sister sobbed with her. Jurors pressed around, some patting Paula’s shoulder; one woman, also weeping, embraced her; one man shook her hand awkwardly and said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  When the crowd thinned out, Barbara said to her, “Go on with Lucille and get some rest, some fresh air, some good food. Give us a call when you’re rested. Dad has come up with a list of real options for you to consider. Okay?”

  Paula nodded. “Janey came to see me last night. She said she has a group, that I should think about joining it. I will, if I can afford it. She said I should start thinking about my future, what I want to do.”

  “I think after you talk to Dad you’ll see that you can afford Janey’s group,” Barbara said. “That’s a fine idea.”

  “I want to go to school, do what Janey does, help other women and children,” Paula said, and then, without warning, she flung herself at Barbara, who held her and stroked her hair and did not mind at all that her nice silk jacket was getting tear-stained.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  She had been at the coast for three days. It was pointless even to wonder how many miles she had walked on the hard sand, how many dunes she had scrambled over, how many cliffs she had climbed up and down. Now she stood at the cliff overlooking Little Whale Cove. Below, the water was so dark it looked bottomless. Every day the weather had been calm and warm, the waves had been gentle, but on the horizon she could see a dark wall of clouds moving in, bringing a Pacific storm. She would wait for it, she decided, although earlier she had planned to go home this evening, after this last stop. First the storm, then home to her little miserable house, which was being repainted.

  An erratic gust of wind swept her hair into her face, and she thought she should get some decent clothes, at least get her hair cut, look more like a respectable lawyer.

  The water below was beginning to churn, as if in anticipation of the coming storm, as if the distant low-pressure area was already having an effect here. It was, she thought then; nothing was not connected. Last February she had stood here, rain and wind lashing her, and in February Carol Burnside had taken her photographs: such isolated incidents, both necessary. Connected.

  Below, a whitccap formed, vanished. Another rose. “This is what I do,” she whispered into the gusting wind. “This is what I am.” The words belonged out there with the note she had thrown into the sea.

  She watched the churning water, the wind tangling her hair, until she finally turned to walk back to her car, to drive back to the rented cottage with a view of the ocean.

  By the cottage door she saw Bill Spassero. She nodded as she got out of the car, and went to unlock the door. “Dad told you,” she said.

  “I kept pestering him, I’m afraid,” he said. “He said I might as well carry a message. They’re all singing like trained birds. His words.” He spread his hands, palms up. “No present,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything I could buy or steal or make that would impress you. I figured out what will, but it will take a long time. First I have to learn how to be a good lawyer, and then I have to be the second-best lawyer in the state. A long time. You said you’d think about talking to me about the case.”

  She laughed. “Where are you staying?”

  He pointed to another cottage.

  “What I’m going to do,” she said, “is get a scarf and then go down to the beach and walk until sunset, or until the storm moves in, whichever comes first. If you want to take a walk, fine. But, Bill,” she added, “I’m not ready for anything else. Understood?”

  He grinned a huge grin that made him look like a sophomore. As if he knew she was thinking this, he said, “When I’m ninety, you’ll be ninety-six.”

  Then, with her scarf tied on, with a wind increasing from the sea, they walked on the beach, talking.