Cold Case by Kate Wilhelm Read Free Book Online

write a check for your expenses.” He took his checkbook and wallet from his pocket, and handed her two cards. “My cell phone number. The address is my New York apartment, but I’ve sublet it. This is a mail-forwarding service I’ll be using. I don’t have an address for the moment.” He wrote a check and passed it across the desk to her, then stood. “If it isn’t enough, I’ll send you another check. If there’s a refund, send it to my mail-service address. Call me when you know something. I have two more seminars, Tuesday and Thursday, seven until nine, but they run later than that. And one more public address for Friday night. Saturday morning I’ll be out of the McCrutchen apartment and on my way to San Francisco, one way or the other.” With that he turned and went to the door. “I need to hear something as soon as you can arrange it.”
    Barbara left her desk and followed him, but he was already closing the outside door by the time she reached Maria’s desk.

    On Tuesday Barbara got in the walk she had put off the previous day. It felt good to walk a long, long time, she was thinking as she headed back to her car. She had driven over from the office and, hot and sweaty from her walk, decided to head for Frank’s house, just a few blocks away. He was following the Etheridge story, and he would find this new development interesting, she suspected. Also, he might invite her to dinner.
    Frank had been working in the garden and was just out of the shower when she arrived. “Iced tea on the porch, or help yourself to wine,” he said by way of greeting. “That watering system is great, by the way. Exactly right.”
    She took wine, and he took a glass of tea, and they sat on the back porch. The two cats eyed them, but apparently were too comfortable in the shade of a rosebush to do more than acknowledge their presence.
    â€œYou’ll never guess who tracked me down at Martin’s yesterday,” Barbara said.
    â€œSo I won’t try. Who?”
    She told him about the visit and the follow-up research she had done. “That’s a pretty impressive bunch, the historical society. People like Barbara Tuchman and Arnold Toynbee were regulars, and now Jared Diamond, and others like that. Big names, Pulitzer prize winners. I never heard of most of them.”
    â€œSo, you going to get to what the judge said, or sit and tease awhile?” Frank asked.
    She laughed. “He’ll have a decision tomorrow. I left a message on Etheridge’s machine to that effect. I’m glad he didn’t take the call. He tends to seethe and drip ice. He called McCrutchen a two-bit small-town politician, and no doubt, in his eyes, I’m a two-bit small-town shyster ambulance chaser, and he can’t wait to shake the dust of this berg.”
    â€œIt’s fifty-fifty whether they’ll let him go for even a few days,” Frank said. “And out of the country? Not by a long shot, unless they have the case sewed up tight and he isn’t it.”
    â€œIf I have to tell him that, maybe I’ll get lucky and just leave another message,” she said. “And if my luck really holds out, I’ll never have another face-to-face meeting with him. I’m afraid he could be in for a bad time. The D.A.’s assistant, Allen Durand, called him a person of interest in the McCrutchen murder investigation.”
    Frank nodded, apparently not surprised. “If the judge rejects his plea, and he goes anyway, they’ll arrest him and he’ll be in jail, and if they then charge him with murder, bail will be out of the question. He’ll sit in jail until a trial. You may not be out of it altogether yet.”
    â€œHe doesn’t know me from a Sunday-school teacher. I’d bet that he was going down a list hunting for someone who would see him yesterday and he came across me, holding open house at Martin’s and