Free A Wrongful Death by Kate Wilhelm Page B

asparagus — added noodles and a cream sauce and put it in the oven after Barbara's call, and as he had said, there was plenty and it was delicious.
    It was eight-thirty before the doorbell rang again. Bailey and Barbara waited by the fire for Frank to admit the detective. She groaned when she heard Frank say, "Evening, Milt. I'll hang your jacket. Nasty night."
    Milt Hoggarth was in his fifties, overworked and looking it, and that night he was scowling fiercely, first at Barbara, then at Bailey. "I'll talk to you alone "he said. He had fading red hair receding fast and a florid complexion. The cold air that night had made his face redder than usual.
    "Don't be silly," Barbara said, waving toward a chair. "Dad's my lawyer, and we'll tell Bailey every word said here, as you know. Do you want coffee?" She was having a glass of wine, but he always turned down wine, beer, or anything more potent than coffee. "What happened to Standifer? Did I scare him off?"
    "I'm assigned to the case," he said, eyeing the cats that had gotten up to greet him. He seemed to believe they were closer to mountain lions than domestic pets, and that they might go into attack mode any second.
    Grudgingly he sat down, leaned forward and said, "So, give."
    "Right." She told him everything she knew without omitting a detail, and he was as disbelieving as everyone else had been. Absently he helped himself to coffee and did not interrupt a single time.
    "So there it is," Barbara said. "I never met Elizabeth Kurtz, and the only words I heard from her were on the telephone this afternoon. But since I got home on Monday, there's been a parade of people demanding I produce her, or put them in touch, or something else. Sorry, no can do."
    Hoggarth started at the beginning with his questions. Why did she stop at that cabin? Where had she been in California, doing what? Where did she go after leaving the cabin? He was as thorough as Janowsky, the state police lieutenant, had been, and as skeptical of her answers.
    "Today, on the phone, tell me again exactly what she said."
    Barbara did so. Just doing his job, she reminded herself more than once and kept her temper in check as she went over the same details again.
    "So maybe still another person has been looking for her, and that one found her," she added. "Or—" She straightened in her chair and carefully put her wineglass down on the table. "Or someone could have a bug on my phone."
    "I'll have it checked out," Hoggarth said, as skeptical as ever.
    She glanced at Bailey and he nodded slightly. So would he.
    "Was she your client?" Hoggarth asked.
    "Listen to me, Hoggarth. I never met her. I never spoke to her until today, and never corresponded in any way with her. What about that is it you don't understand? I don't have a client. I'm thinking of retiring, maybe do some teaching."
    He made a rude sound and his scowl deepened. He poured more coffee.
    "Was it a bullet wound?" Frank asked.
    "Yeah. No gun around."
    "Had someone searched the apartment?" Barbara asked.
    "What makes you think that?" he demanded.
    "Something Leonora Carnero said. That things were on the floor, messed up in the bedroom. It sounded as though the place had been tossed."
    He nodded. "Yeah."
    "No sign of the child? His belongings, anything?" Barbara asked.
    "She didn't have a kid with her. No one saw a kid around."
    "If that was Elizabeth Kurtz, there has to be a child around somewhere," Barbara said. "Where is he?"
    "What do you mean if?" Hoggarth asked.
    "For God's sake! I never met her, remember? People keep telling me that's who she is. At the cabin her face was muddy, bloody, swollen. And you must have seen her face tonight. I couldn't identify her from what I've seen either time. But there was a child at the cabin. Where is he? What happened to him?"
    Chapter 9
    Hoggarth left at ten-thirty, dissatisfied with Barbara, with her answers to his questions and not at all happy to have had a new homicide investigation dumped on him right before