Gone, But Not Forgotten Page 31

  “You want me to leave a doughnut?” Barrow asked.

  “Sure. Why not? I should have at least one good thing happen to me today. Now get out and let me work.”

  Ross Barrow handed Alan a maple bar and followed Highsmith into the hall. As soon as the office door closed, Page dialed Senator Colby’s office and asked for Wayne Turner.

  “Mr. Page, what can I do for you?” Turner asked. Page could hear the tension in the administrative assistant’s voice.

  “I’ve been thinking about the senator’s information all weekend. My situation is desperate. Even my own staff is starting to doubt Darius’s guilt. We know Darius killed three women in Hunter’s Point, including his wife and daughter, but the judge is starting to see him as an innocent victim and me as his persecutor. If Darius is released, I have no doubt he’ll kill again. I don’t see I have any choice but to ask the senator to testify about the pardon.”

  The line was silent for a moment. When Wayne Turner spoke, he sounded resigned.

  “I was expecting your call. I’d do the same thing in your shoes. Darius has to be stopped. But I think there might be a way to protect the senator. Betsy Tannenbaum seems like a responsible person.”

  “She is, but I wouldn’t count on her staying on the Darius case. Someone murdered her husband on Friday and kidnapped her little girl.”

  “My God! Is she okay?”

  “She’s trying to keep herself together. The husband’s funeral is this afternoon.”

  “That might complicate matters. I was hoping we could convince her to tell Judge Norwood about the pardon in camera. That way he could use the information to deny bail without the public finding out about it.”

  “I don’t know,” Page said hesitantly. “You run into all sorts of constitutional problems if you try to bar the press. Besides, Darius would have to give his okay. I can’t imagine him not trying to pull down Senator Colby with him.”

  “Take a shot at it, will you? The senator and I have been talking this out. We might be able to weather the storm, but we don’t want to, if we don’t have to.”

  Two

  Storm clouds cast somber shadows over the mourners as the graveside service began. Then a light rain started to fall. Rick’s father opened an umbrella over Betsy. Cold drops blew under it. Betsy did not feel them. She tried to pay attention to the eulogies, but her mind kept wandering to Kathy. She was grateful for the concern everyone had shown for her daughter, but every mention of Kathy drove a knife into her heart. When the rabbi closed his prayer book and the mourners began to drift away, Betsy stayed by the grave.

  “Let her have some private time with him,” Betsy heard Rita tell Rick’s parents. Rick’s father pressed the umbrella into her hand.

  The cemetery spread across low, rolling hills. The headstones near Rick’s grave were weathered, but well cared for. An oak tree would provide shade in the summer. Betsy stared at Rick’s grave. What was left of her husband’s body was covered by the earth. His spirit had flown. The future they might have had together would be a mystery forever. The finality terrified her.

  “Betsy.”

  She looked up. Samantha Reardon was standing beside her. She wore a black raincoat and a wide-brimmed hat that left her face in shadow. Betsy looked around for help. Most of the mourners were walking quickly toward their cars to get out of the rain. Her brother was walking with the rabbi. Rita was talking to two of her friends. Rick’s family was huddled together, looking away from the grave.

  “The hearing was supposed to be today.”

  “It’s the funeral. I couldn’t …”

  “There will be no stalling, Betsy. I was counting on you and you let me down. I went to the courthouse and you weren’t there.”

  “It’s Rick’s funeral.”

  “Your husband is dead, Betsy. Your daughter is still alive.”

  Betsy saw it would be useless to try and reason with Reardon. Her face was void of compassion. Her eyes were dead.

  “I can call the judge,” Betsy said. “I’ll do it.”

  “You’d better, Betsy. I was so upset when I heard the hearing was delayed that I forgot to feed Kathy.”

  “Oh, please,” Betsy pleaded.

  “You’ve upset me, Betsy. When you upset me, I will punish Kathy. One meal a day is all she’ll get until you’ve done as I say. There will be just enough water and just enough food so she can last. The same diet I received in Hunter’s Point. Kathy will suffer because you disobeyed me. Every tear she sheds will be shed because of you. I’ll be checking with the court. I better hear that a date has been set for the hearing.”

  Reardon walked away. Betsy took a few steps after her, then stopped.

  “You forgot your umbrella,” Alan Page said.

  Betsy turned and stared at him blankly. The umbrella had slipped from her hand while Reardon was talking to her. Page held it over them.

  “How are you holding up?” Page asked.

  Betsy shook her head, not trusting herself to talk.

  “You’ll get through this. You’re tough, Betsy.”

  “Thank you, Alan. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  It was hard dealing with grief in a house full of strangers. The FBI agents and the police tried to be unobtrusive, but there was no way to be alone without hiding in her bedroom. Page had been wonderful. He had arrived with the first invasion on Saturday night and stayed until dawn. On Sunday, Page returned with sandwiches. The simple, humanitarian gesture made her cry.

  “Why don’t you go home. Get out of this rain,” Page suggested.

  They turned away from the grave. Page covered them with the umbrella as they walked up the hill toward Rita Cohen.

  “Alan,” Betsy said, stopping suddenly, “can we hold the hearing for Darius tomorrow?”

  Page looked surprised by the request. “I don’t know Judge Norwood’s calendar, but why do you want to go to court tomorrow?”

  Betsy scrambled for a rational explanation for her request.

  “I can’t stand sitting in the house. I don’t think the kidnapper will call, if he hasn’t called by now. If … if this is a kidnapping for ransom, we have to give the kidnapper a chance to contact me. He may have guessed you’d tap the phones. If I’m at the courthouse, in a crowd, he might try to approach me.”

  Page tried to think of a reason to dissuade Betsy, but she made sense. There had been no attempt to phone or write Betsy at her home or office. He was beginning to accept the possibility that Kathy was dead, but he did not want to tell Betsy. Going along with her would give Betsy some hope. Right now, that was all he could do for her.

  “Okay. I’ll set it up as soon as I can. Tomorrow, if the judge can do it.”

  Betsy looked down at the grass. If Judge Norwood scheduled the hearing, Kathy might be home tomorrow. Page laid his hand on her shoulder. He handed the umbrella to Rita, who had walked down the hill to meet them.

  “Let’s go home,” Rita said. Rick’s family closed around her and followed her to the car. Page watched her walk away. The rain pelted down on him.

  CHAPTER 28

  One

  Reggie Stewart sat in his modest apartment staring at the lists spread across the kitchen table. Stewart did not feel good about what he was doing. He was an excellent investigator, but cross-checking hundreds of names on dozens of lists required manpower, and could be done a thousand times more efficiently by the FBI or the police.

  Stewart was also concerned that he was obstructing justice. He knew the name of Kathy’s kidnapper and he was concealing this information. If Kathy died, he would always wonder if the police could have saved her. Stewart liked and respected Betsy, but she was not thinking straight. He understood her concerns about the way the police and FBI might act, but he did not agree with her. He had half-decided to go to Alan Page if he did not come up with something quickly.

  Stewart took a sip of coffee and started through the lists again. They were from real estate offices, utilities companies, phone
companies. Some of them had cost him, but he had not considered the price. So far, there were no listings for a Samantha Reardon or a Nora Sloane, but Stewart knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  On his second trip through a list of new Washington County phone subscribers Stewart stopped at Dr. Samuel Felix. Samantha Reardon’s first husband was named Max Felix. Stewart cross-checked the other lists and found that a Mrs. Samuel Felix had rented a Washington County home the week Oberhurst returned to Portland from Hunter’s Point. Stewart called Pangborn Realty as soon as their office opened. The saleswoman who handled the deal remembered Mrs. Felix. She was a tall, athletic woman with short brown hair. A friendly lady who confided that she was not completely happy with moving from upstate New York, where her husband practiced neurosurgery.

  Stewart called Betsy, but Ann told him she was on her way to court on the Darius case. Stewart realized the opportunity this presented. Reardon attended all the court hearings in the Darius case. She would probably attend this one and leave Kathy alone.

  The house was at the end of a dirt road. It was white, with a porch and a weather vane, a happy house that was the least likely suspect to conceal suffering inside. Reggie Stewart circled around the house through the woods. He saw tire tracks in the front yard but no car. The door to the small, unattached garage was open and the garage was empty. The curtains were closed on most of the windows, but were open on the front window. There were no lights on inside. Stewart spent twenty minutes watching for any movement in the front room and saw none. If Samantha Reardon lived in this house, she was not there now.

  Stewart darted across the yard and ducked into a concrete well at the side of the house. Six steps led down to a basement door. The basement windows were blacked out with paint. If Reardon was duplicating Darius, Kathy would be in the basement. The painted windows reinforced that belief.

  Stewart tried the basement door. It was locked. The lock did not look sturdy, and Stewart thought he could kick in the door. He backed up two steps and braced his arms against the sides of the concrete well, then reared back and snapped his foot against the door. The wood broke and the door gave a little. Stewart braced himself again and swung his leg against the damaged part of the door. It gave with a loud crack.

  The basement was cloaked in darkness and Stewart could see inside only as far as the sunlight penetrated. He edged inside and was greeted by stale air and a foul odor. Stewart pulled a flashlight out of his coat pocket and played the beam around the room. Against the wall on his right were homemade shelves of unpainted wood holding a coil of hose, some cracked orange pots and miscellaneous gardening tools. A child’s sled, some broken furniture and several lawn chairs were piled in the middle of the floor in front of the furnace. The odor seemed to emanate from the corner across from the door where the darkness was thickest. Stewart crossed the basement cautiously, maneuvering around objects, alert for any noise.

  The flashlight beam found an open sleeping bag. Stewart knelt next to it. He saw encrusted blood where a head would lie and smelled a faint odor of urine and feces. Another open bag lay a few feet farther into the darkness. Stewart was moving toward it when he saw the third bag and the body sprawled across it.

  Two

  The night before the hearing, Betsy was so preoccupied with Kathy that she forgot about Martin Darius. Now he was all she could think about. Samantha Reardon was forcing Betsy to choose between Kathy’s life and the life of a man who did not deserve to live. The choice was simple, but it was not easy. As sick and twisted as he was, Darius was still a human being. When Betsy let Samantha Reardon into the jury room, she had no illusions about what would happen. If Martin Darius died, she would be an accomplice to murder.

  Newspaper reporters surrounded Betsy as soon as she stepped off the elevator. She turned her head to avoid the glaring lights of the television cameras and the microphones as she hurried down the corridor toward Judge Norwood’s courtroom. The reporters asked the same questions about Rick’s murder and Kathy’s disappearance over and over. Betsy answered none of them.

  Betsy spotted Samantha Reardon as soon as she entered the packed courtroom. She walked past her quickly and hurried down the aisle to her seat. Darius was already at the counsel table. Two guards sat directly behind him and several others were spread through the courtroom.

  Alan Page was just putting his file on the table when Betsy walked through the spectators. He caught Betsy as she entered the bar of the court.

  “Are you certain you want to go through with this?”

  Betsy nodded.

  “Okay. Then there’s something we have to discuss with Judge Norwood. I told him we would want to meet in his chambers before court started.”

  Betsy looked puzzled. “Should Darius be there?”

  “No. This is between you, me and Norwood. I’m not letting Randy come in with us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Page leaned close to Betsy and whispered, “I know Senator Colby pardoned Darius. The senator sent his a.a. to see me.”

  “Wayne Turner?”

  Page nodded. “You know how the senator’s confirmation hearing will be affected if news of the pardon is made public. Will you meet with the judge in chambers or are you going to insist we do this in open court?”

  Betsy considered the situation quickly. Darius was watching her.

  “I’m going to have to tell Darius. I can’t agree to anything unless he consents.”

  “Can you wait until we meet with the judge?”

  “All right.”

  Page went back to his table and Betsy sat next to Darius.

  “What was that about?”

  “Page wants us to meet with the judge in chambers.”

  “About what?”

  “He’s being mysterious.”

  “I don’t want anything going on behind my back.”

  “Let me handle this, Martin.”

  Darius looked like he was going to balk for a moment. Then he said, “Okay. I trust you. You haven’t let me down, so far.”

  Betsy started to stand up. Darius put a hand on her forearm.

  “I heard about your husband and daughter. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you, Martin,” Betsy answered coldly.

  “I mean it. I know what you think of me, but I do have feelings and I respect you.”

  Betsy did not know what to say. Before the hour was up, she would cause the death of the man who was trying to console her.

  “Look, if the kidnapper wants money, I can help,” Darius said. “Whatever he wants, I’ll cover it.”

  Betsy felt her heart contract. She managed to thank Darius, then pulled away.

  Judge Norwood stood when Betsy walked into his chambers. He looked concerned.

  “Sit down, Mrs. Tannenbaum. Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine, Judge.”

  “Do they have any news about Mrs. Tannenbaum’s daughter, Al?”

  “Nothing new, Judge.”

  Norwood shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry. Al, you tell your people to interrupt if they have to talk to you.”

  “I will.”

  The judge turned to Betsy.

  “And, if you want to stop the hearing, if you aren’t feeling well, anything at all, just tell me. I’ll set over the hearing on my own motion, so your client won’t be prejudiced.”

  “Thank you, Judge. Everyone is being so kind. But I want to go through with the hearing. Mr. Darius has been in jail for several days and he needs to know if he is going to be released.”

  “Very well. Now tell me why you wanted this meeting, Al.”

  “Betsy and I are aware of information about the Hunter’s Point incident that is known to very few people. One of those people is Senator Raymond Colby.”

  “The President’s nominee to the Court?” Norwood asked incredulously.

  Page nodded. “He was the governor of New York when the murders occurred in Hunter’s Point. His information could affect your decision on bail, but it wo
uld badly damage Senator Colby’s chances of being nominated.”

  “I’m confused. Are you saying Senator Colby is mixed up in the Hunter’s Point murders?”

  “Yes, sir,” Page answered.

  “And you agree, Mrs. Tannenbaum?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is this information?”

  “Before Mr. Page tells you,” Betsy said, “I want to object to you hearing any of this testimony. If this information is used against Mr. Darius in any way, it will violate the due process guarantees of the United States Constitution and an agreement between Mr. Darius, the State of New York and the federal government. I think we need to hash this out in much greater detail before you call your witness.”

  “An agreement Darius made with those parties can’t bind Oregon,” Page said.

  “I think it would.”

  “You two are getting way ahead of me. What type of agreement are we dealing with here?”

  “A pardon, Judge,” Page said. “Colby pardoned Darius when he was governor of New York.”

  “For what?”

  “I’d prefer the contents of the pardon were not revealed until you decide the threshold question of admissibility,” Betsy said.

  “This is getting extremely complicated,” Judge Norwood said. “Mrs. Tannenbaum, why don’t we have the guards take Mr. Darius back to jail. It’s obvious to me that this is going to take some time.”

  Betsy’s stomach churned. She felt like she might collapse.

  “I’d like to confer with Mr. Darius in private. Can I use your jury room?”

  “Certainly.”

  Betsy walked out of the judge’s chambers. She felt lightheaded as she told the guards that Judge Norwood was letting her confer with Darius in the jury room. One of the guards went into the judge’s chambers to check with Norwood. He came out a minute later and the guards escorted Darius into the room. Betsy looked toward the rear of the courtroom, just as Reardon walked into the hall.

  A guard stationed himself outside the door to the courtroom. Another guard was in front of the door that opened into the hall. Betsy shut the door to the jury room behind them and turned the lock. A table long enough to accommodate twelve chairs filled the center of the large room. There was a narrow rest room in one corner and a sink, countertop and cabinet filled with plastic coffee cups and dishes against one wall. The other wall held a bulletin board covered with announcements and cartoons about judges and jurors.