Read Online Cold Case by Kate Wilhelm - Free Book Online Page B

talk about Lucy and her garden—his was almost reverent. Chloe had been withdrawn, remote, but she heard him and she took on a frozen look. I thought she might break her glass, the way her hand tightened on it. Is he as oblivious as he appeared? As insensitive? Anyway, it’s going to make whatever he says about that family fairly suspect. Consciously or unconsciously, he’ll protect them.”
    â€œWe’ll need a spokesman,” Frank said. “I’ll get someone at the office. Keep your name out of it for now.”
    â€œGood. Amy wants to talk, too,” Barbara said. “I don’t think she’s entirely over her adolescent crush on David. I assume you heard every word.”
    â€œI did,” he said. “So you get her, and I get Elders.”
    â€œDo you want to keep the suitcases in your study for now?” she asked. “Depending on how David does, we might want to have a look at what’s in them both.” At his nod, she continued, “I’ll keep the laptop. I want to see what’s on it, what all those papers are about. There are a lot of people to be notified that he won’t be keeping his commitments.” She was thinking of the look of hopelessness on Lucien Etheridge’s face.
    â€œIf David dies, I’ll fight them before I let them close the McCrutchen murder with the implicit assumption that David Etheridge is the killer without having to prove it,” Frank said, indicating his thought processes matched hers.
    She was again startled at the vehemence in his tone. “ We’ll fight them, Dad. We. ”

    That night in a house that seemed emptier day by day, Barbara gazed at a wall map Todd had prepared, marking their trip. The Tetons, over to SeaTac and a flight to Alaska, a small plane into the back north country, another plane to a point very close to the Arctic Circle, back to SeaTac, then by camper up Mount Rainier, to Mount Olympia, then home. Ambitious, and out of touch much of the time. She had missed a call from Darren that day. His message said he would try again on Sunday afternoon. She bit her lip in vexation at missing the call and promised herself to be available with her cell phone turned on for a call the following day.
    She looked around for a good place to plug in David’s computer, sort through the papers in the carrying case, send a few e-mails. Her first thought was her office over the garage. She shook her head. When Darren and Todd were home, she needed her office, but with the house empty she could go anywhere. She settled for the kitchen table.
    First the laptop, she decided. She searched for an e-mail to the conference people—the coordinator, director or someone. She found exchanges between David and someone named Len, and sent her own message. Then she searched for the hotel reservation and canceled that. His flight to England was next. She stopped when she found it. One tourist-class ticket for David, one way, and two round-trip first-class tickets for Lucien and Dora Etheridge. They were for two weeks later than his. He had planned to treat them to a month-long trip to England, she realized with a pang. She hesitated over canceling the flights. If he died, she thought, a trip to England might be exactly what his parents would need. Change of scene, time out.
    Apparently Lucy McCrutchen had needed to get away after her husband died, and Frank had left town when Barbara’s mother died. She had left, too. Change of scene. As if someplace new and different would help. She got up and crossed the kitchen for a glass of water. When she returned to the table, she canceled David’s flight and left the reservations for his parents.
    It kept coming back to if he died. That would make three violent deaths, separated in time by twenty-two years, but the same cast of characters. Disquieted by the thought, she began to look over the dozen or so papers she had put in the laptop case. Notes, conference