by Lois Winston
I retrieved the key and left.
“Have a nice day,” he called after me.
I think he added “bitch” as I was closing the door.
I decided to spend the remaining hours of the hot day where an air conditioner did work.
~*~
The old library up the street is now a museum, and the new library is an entire block of eye-stunning white stucco and glass. White-hot steps flow seamlessly into a concrete sidewalk with no place for the shade of trees. Not like the old one. The old library still stands under spreading sycamores shading the steps.
Entering the Modesto County Library, I was rewarded with a blast of cold air. I wasn’t going to complain, since good air-conditioning makes up for any architectural sin in my book.
I bellied up to the bar under a sign that said Magazine & Newspaper Desk. The sign on the desk said Darlene Hobbs, and there she was, all in pink, right down to her earrings and pink nail polish. I greeted her as if we saw each other daily, when the truth of it was I avoided her whenever I could. I asked for the Modesto Bee and a range of dates. Somewhere in the old newspaper archives there had to be more information about Patience’s convict husband and the murder trial.
“We’ve had a lot of requests for those back issues in the last couple of days.” Darlene leaned her considerable girlish figure over the counter and whispered, “You’re lucky it’s available.”
“Oh, really? Who’d want to look at this old stuff, I mean, besides me?”
She batted her cowcatcher eyelashes at me. “Well, for one, that nice sheriff friend of yours.” Darlene was a great fan of romance novels and any man in uniform. Thinking I might have a direct line to Caleb’s heart, she pumped me for information every time I saw her.
I ignored the hint. “Anybody else?”
She giggled, her mouth forming a cupid’s bow. “I guess I can tell you, if you won’t tell Sheriff Stone on me.” She should save the act for Caleb. “Jan Bidwell from the Bee came in yesterday, went through the back issues and then hurried out of here,” she said, putting her hand up to push back the veil of black hair threatening to fall in her eyes.
I wondered what Jan had found that would cause her to be in such a hurry. “Don’t the newspapers have their own archives?”
Darlene took her time, sure now that she had my attention. I got to watch as she smeared a dollop of lip gloss across her thin lips and then daintily wiped the corners. “Nah, we do most of it, especially the old stuff. We even got Stockton’s papers here if you want to see those, but of course it’s all on microfiche if you can stand dealing with that stuff.”
“Fascinating. Can you give me the ones she requested?”
“Sure, hon, let me go get them and I’ll be right back.”
Darlene was soon back with the microfiche pages, but covered them with her dimpled hand. “Do me a favor?”
Yup. I knew this was coming.
“Tell Caleb to ask me out to lunch sometime?”
I laughed. “You want to add to the soaring rate of adultery in Modesto?” It had the odd metallic sound of hysteria even to my ears. “He’s still a married man, last time I checked.”
“Why, Lalla Bains, I never. Everybody says Marcy left him for good this time.” Then she gave me a shrewd look through her long eyelashes. “Are you telling me you didn’t know she went back east to her folks?”
I was floored. “When?”
Darlene looked at me as if I was the sad result of a bad makeover. “Where have you been? Oh, gee, hon, I’m sorry, I forgot. I guess you’ve had a lot on your mind lately, huh? What with your friend driving your car into the lake and all. I heard she was pretty drunk. You wouldn’t see me loaning out my Miata, it’s too precious. But about Caleb. Gosh, I guess I heard about two weeks ago. Everybody says you two are still tight as ticks; I would’ve thought you of all people…” Then a little thought lit up behind her eyes like twin Christmas candles. “Well, now. That’s all right, hon.” She patted my hand and smiled broadly. The girl was jumping for joy, doing hand flips behind the reference desk. Or maybe I just imagined it.
I thanked her and went to find a machine marked microfiche and an empty chair. Then I stuck my head into the cowling and while I figured out how to scroll around through the listings. I thought about Caleb. He didn’t tell me Marcy had left, did he? That explained why he was at Roxanne’s every morning for breakfast and Roxy’s sour face at my comment about his eating at home instead of at her place. Nobody tells me anything.
Parts of page three popped in and out of the screen. Then I took a stroll down memory lane. I was so engrossed with who was doing what to whom at what social function, how much gas didn’t cost then, I almost missed the blurred photo in the society column. It was a very young Lalla Bains entering an award ceremony on the arm of a well-known movie star and womanizer. The caption read “Local Model Goes Hollywood!”
What a glamorous event! What exciting people! What a bore. I was in L.A. for a modeling gig, and hired out to a local production company to escort a very single and very famously drunk movie star through the front door and I was about as glamorous as the paper towels in the ladies’ room. When we entered the building, I untangled my arm from his and, handing him over to the next poor sucker, let myself out the side door. I got my picture in the papers, which added to my reputation as a party girl. The movie star, already a party animal, didn’t need any help in that department.
I found the front page and saw a much younger Patience McBride decked out in a smart and stylish suit and heels, her blond hair swept back in a neat chignon, standing on the courthouse steps, looking stunned and helpless at the newspaper people crowding around her. Patience was being asked to consider the improbable: what was she going to do if her husband was convicted of murder? Nothing in the photo could explain the plastic flower barrettes and white Nikes she sported at Roxanne’s Café. So when did she descend into fashion hell?
The headline was delivered in a staccato style reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties: “Brutal Murder of Successful Stockton Business Man by Bookkeeper’s Husband.”
The copy read “Sensational murder trial begins today. Bill Hollander, successful owner of a local farm chemical business south of Stockton, was strangled in his own office. In a love triangle, police say the bookkeeper’s husband, Edward McBride, brutally murdered her boss. District Attorney Terrance Benn seeks the death sentence in this brutal slaying.”
I sat back and rubbed around my itchy contacts. Hollander Chemicals. I’d vaguely heard that name while I was in my hospital bed, happily distracted from what Noah was saying about the company when Caleb walked in. But what if Hollander Chemicals, Eddy McBride and his wife’s death didn’t involve me at all? That would be nice. I pushed the microfiche out and put in the next film. The next headline read “In Shocking Reversal, Eddy McBride’s Attorney, Sidney Griffin, Suddenly Requests His Client Plead Guilty by Reason of Temporary Insanity.”
Sidney Griffin. Sidney… Griffin, attorney. Wait a minute. I squinted at the photo of the attorney comforting a glassy-eyed and obviously stunned Patience McBride. I put my thumb over the man’s dark hair. Bigger gut, same suspenders, but in all the years I’d known him, he only wore a threadbare short-sleeved dress shirt and a pair of sawed-off khakis; that is, when he bothered to dress for company. Long-time retired county judge and reclusive widower, Sidney Griffin could be found in tattered bathrobe and slippers in the summer, by the pool reading, or in the winter, reading by the fire.
I met him as a teenager, delivering Noah’s latest real estate documents to his house. His specialty before retiring was real estate, but he’d always been simply Judge Griffin to me, and I didn’t remember anything about him being with the public defender’s office. Private practice, then? And Patience McBride hired him to defend her husband? I broke away from the photos long enough to read the last headline: “Jury Decides! It’s Murder!”
The presiding judge sentenced Eddy to prison for second-degree murder—twenty years
with the possibility of parole in ten. I looked back through the pages to see where I missed it, but nowhere did I see Sidney Griffin listed with the public defender’s office—just the words defense lawyer.
From my bus-yellow kid-sized chair, I looked up at the round wall clock with big black numbers. Half past four. Time to check for messages. Nothing from Caleb, but there was one from Garth.
“Say, darlin’, how ‘bout that dinner I promised you? I’ve moved my RV from Aunt Patience’s place to an RV park near town today, and I could use a night out with a pretty girl. You’ve got the number. Well, I guess that’s all. Bye now.” Garth’s voice held a peculiar balance between hopeful and arrogant. I didn’t think I’d actually promised dinner. Well, maybe I did.
I looked at my watch again. I could decline, or I could go. Noah always says no decision is a decision.
Noah. My dad had made a decision not to fill me in on what he knew about the Hollander murder, but then maybe it wasn’t the time. Of course, it would be logical that my father was acquainted with the owner. But then what was the connection between all of them—Patience, her husband, an Ag chemical company owner, a retired real estate lawyer who just happened to be my dad’s only friend, and my father. It would be just like Noah to withhold crucial information from the police because he saw it as none of their business.
I called my house. The phone rang seven times without answer. He’d turned off the answering machine, avoiding news reporters, nosy neighbors and maybe me. I closed the phone. Since a dead woman I barely knew was found in my Caddy, my father had become exceptionally irritable.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d neglected to tell me about the Hollander murder. Or that his fly-fishing buddy and real estate pal was also the defense lawyer for Patience McBride’s convicted husband.
I remember my dad mentioning Hollander Chemicals when I was in the hospital, and distracted by my visitor, I’d let the moment pass. “Don’t worry, Lalla,” Noah had said. “You’re not in this alone.”
Something told me there was a whole lot more he wasn’t telling me. Time to find out for myself.
I opened my cell again, scrolled down the list of names and punched in a number. “Hi, Judge Griffin. It’s Lalla Bains.”
“Lalla. How’s your daddy these days.”
“Noah’s fine. Could I come by for a bit? I won’t take up much of your time, I promise.”
“Of course my dear. I’d love to see you again. Catch up.”
“Thank you, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
He didn’t have to ask what I was calling about; he still read five or six newspapers every day, where the salient details of my latest disaster could be found.
I waited till Darlene’s back was turned, slipped the microfiche sheets onto her desk and hurried out of the library.
If Jan Bidwell had already connected the dots, true or not, my reputation, and now maybe my father’s reputation, was back in the hot seat. And when Darlene came out of her hormonal stupor over Caleb, she wouldn’t be above selling her version to the tabloids. If I wanted to head off tomorrow’s shocking headlines, I was going to have to hurry.
I jaywalked and unlocked my Rent-A-Wreck, got in and put on my seat belt, thinking so Caleb chose not to tell me about his breakup with Marcy? Well, why should he, Lalla Bains? You didn’t exactly ask his permission to get married and divorced. Twice. I guess he thought it was none of your business.
Adjusting my mirror, I looked over my left shoulder for any oncoming traffic and pulled out. In my side mirror I saw another car pull out from its parking place half a block back. It was a twin of my Ford Tempo, but cleaner. I couldn’t see the driver, but the hairs on the back of my neck started to tingle. Maybe I was imagining things, but it looked like a man driving, and he was still behind me when I reached Magnolia Avenue. The air conditioner in my rental sputtered and died, and so did my self-confidence. I was being followed.
TEN
The pokey driver behind me was still behind me, still slouched down in the seat. I slowed to thirty and then twenty-five, figuring he’d have to pass me, and then I’d see if the face matched the mug shot I’d seen of Eddy McBride. Exasperated drivers passed both of us with one-fingered salutes. I was left crawling along at twenty, with the white car stuck to my bumper like cockle burrs to socks. I thought about slamming on the brakes and causing a fender bender. Then he’d have to get out of the car, I’d call the police, he’d be arrested, and my worries would be over. That was my plan in a nutshell. But while I fantasized, my part-time stalker turned right.
I got a glimpse of a gray head and oversized earrings peeking over the steering wheel.
Twenty miles an hour was probably her cruising speed.
~*~
Retired Judge Sidney Griffin’s home was a two-story federal style. The changes from my last visit as a teenager, unfortunately, were not pretty. The house could hardly be seen for the wild growth of bushes in front. I got out and walked up to the doors, stepping over weeds pushing up through the brick walkway. Sycamore leaves overflowed the house gutters, and paint was peeling off the shutters.
I stood on the steps and pressed the bell. The door was eventually opened by the same happy-go-lucky ol’ judge I’ve known most of my life. White hair fringed his freckled scalp and a pair of dusty reading glasses were perched on his red-veined nose. His dressing gown looked like something Hugh Hefner would wear if he were going to impersonate Santa Claus. When he saw me, he chuckled and beckoned me inside. “Come in, come in. I had a bet with myself as to when you’d show up.”
“Who won?”
“What? Oh, figure of speech, so to speak.”
I stepped into his living room, thinking the inside was even more decrepit than the outside, then wandered over to the fireplace mantel and looked at his collection of dusty photos.
He pointed to a woman and two children. “That was taken when my Lexy was alive. She couldn’t have children, but she did love them. The kids on her lap are her sister’s boy and girl. They named the girl after my wife. Cute, but spoiled, not that Lexy cared—she doted on that child.”
The girl gazed unselfconsciously into the camera with a serene smile on her lips. I’d seen that look on glossy magazine covers. It was a look of complete confidence that said she was loved and petted and told she was a beauty and always would be. I touched at my own straight hair and thought, again, how I would have liked to have had a daughter.
“I can see the family resemblance.”
“Lexy’s family, not mine, thank God. Too bad her temperament didn’t go with that pretty face.” He gave the silver-framed photo a swipe with his sash and invited me to sit.
We settled into a pair of threadbare Queen Anne chairs next to a blackened and quiet fireplace, still holding onto its sooty winter smell. He put an ashtray on the table next to me.
“Thanks, but I quit,” I said, giving a quick touch to move it out of my reach. Hopefully, it wouldn’t follow me out the door, begging to be used.
“Me too,” he sighed. “Seems like that’s all I do these days, give up the things I used to love. But that’s not your problem. So I suppose you’ll want to know how I came to be involved with the original case. Did Noah tell you?”
“Noah? I wish. I had to read about it at the library archives.” He took off his glasses and dropped his gaze while he gave the lenses a once-over with the sash of his robe. Exasperated that the moment was dragging on, I blurted, “I’m pretty spooked here, Judge. Patience’s husband broke out of prison, and I don’t know if he murdered his wife or not, but there’s a good chance he’s tagged me for taking whatever loot he was convicted of stealing when he killed Mr. Hollander.”
He looked up, put his glasses back on his nose, gazed at the family pictures on the mantel and then, with amusement in his voice, said, “And did you?”
“Kill Patience? You’re joking, right? Before today, I didn’t know Patience had a husband, much less that he was convicted of murder.”
I sat on the edge of my seat, ignoring the faint smell of stale cigars, and frowned. “They aren’t looking at a twenty-year-old murder. I am.”
“The investigating detective has already been here, my dear. It’ll all be cleared up very soon, you’ll see.”
I ran my hand over my eyes, remembering the whisperer’s warning that he knew where I lived, and took a deep breath. “Yes, but is it simply a coincidence that you’re my father’s best friend when you were also this guy’s attorney? If there’s a connection, I need to know—because none of this makes any sense to me.”
“Well, it’s understandable, since I’m at a loss as to how that poor woman’s body ended up in your automobile.”
No direct answers, and he wasn’t going to make it easy for me, but I plowed ahead anyway. “Well, let’s start with the obvious. If you weren’t with the PD’s office, how did you come to represent Patience McBride’s husband?”
Apparently caught off guard, he pretended to consider the question. Somewhere along the line, he gave up his internal argument and said, “Well, that’s obvious. His wife retained me to represent her husband.”
“How could Patience afford a private attorney? Were you friends with her?” I asked, hanging onto the edge of my seat cushion.
“Was I romantically involved with Mrs. McBride? The answer is no. After the trial, I never saw the woman again.”
There it was again, that slipping away from any real answers. I tried another tack. “So, did you think he was guilty?”
“No, I didn’t think so,” he said, pausing for a moment to reflect, and perhaps recall. “At least, at the time, I didn’t. The evidence was circumstantial; Bill Hollander was rumored to keep a great deal of cash in his office safe, though why he chose to do that is anyone’s guess. Patience would have had knowledge of his movements, but I wouldn’t allow her to testify. A wife doesn’t have to, you know, and her nerves were such that it would’ve been counterproductive. Anyway, when Eddy and I heard that the prosecution was considering charging her as accessory, he changed his plea to guilty. Whatever Eddy was, he loved his wife, and rather than see both of them on trial for murder, he pled guilty to second-degree murder. He told the jury he killed Bill in a fit of husbandly jealousy, but he denied ever seeing any money or stealing it.”