Read A Wrongful Death for Free Online Page A

still abductions," Frank said. "Maybe we'll learn something more on Monday. Howard Janowsky, a state police lieutenant, wants to talk to you. In your office. I told him you would be available there, not up in Salem, or his office in town." He paused a moment, then added, "I'll be there unless you object."
    She regarded him even more incredulously. "You think I might need an attorney?"
    "Apparently the lieutenant is serious. That cabin belongs to Henry Diedricks, the founder of the Diedricks Corporation. They make replacement joints, hips, limbs, knuckles and they have a great deal of influence in the state. Apparently they've applied pressure to find a missing woman, the ex-wife of a grandson and her child, who would be Diedricks's great-grandson. They seem to believe that the missing ex-wife and the child were in that cabin. The ex-husband in the case is Terence Kurtz, and his father, Diedricks's son-in-law, died recently. The family gathered in Portland for his funeral, but the ex-wife and child were not among the mourners. It may be a matter of inheritance, wills, something of that sort, I don't know. But they want to find her and the child."
    It wasn't difficult to talk Barbara into staying for dinner. Chicken and poblano chilies ready to go into the oven had been the clincher. He didn't ask her where she had been. He already knew. When he told Bailey to find her, the report had come back quickly. San Francisco, a week in a cabin owned by Samuel Norris, four days driving up the coast, and then Astoria. It had been a long six weeks. He didn't mention that either, nor did he ask her what she had been doing all that time. She would tell him, or not.
    Then, lingering over apple crisp and coffee, she said, "I did a lot of reading on the road, here and there. And even watched quite a bit of television. C-SPAN, some talk shows. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to politics during the past few years, it was time to catch up."
    He nodded, and waited silently, understanding that was simply background.
    "I guess politicians don't change much, do they? I mean, you see corruption, interest groups, a lot of money being passed around, certain laws being enacted. I don't suppose that's changed over the decades, or even generations, except in scale possibly."
    When he still didn't respond, she grinned slightly. "You're playing the wise, old laconic know-it-all, aren't you? Or you're waiting for an opening."
    He laughed and poured more coffee for her. He had had his limit for the day.
    "The question is," she said slowly, "if you decide for yourself which laws are allowable or for the good of most, but not all, people, who's to say that everyone else doesn't have the same right to pick and choose? And what finally does the law mean?"
    He nodded. "Precisely the question. Did you come up with an answer?"
    "No. I'm still wrestling with it."
    Maybe just a little bit more coffee, he thought, pouring it, keeping his gaze on the carafe and his cup. Slowly, in a low voice, he said, "Bobby, no matter where you come down with an answer, you'll find the same question nagging at you decades from now. It doesn't go away."
    "You gave up capital cases," she said, just as softly.
    "Yes, I did."
    That night in her apartment, sitting at her table, Barbara regarded a cardboard carton with distaste. It was nearly filled with mail — personal letters, flyers, credit card offers, invitations. She had started to sort through it all, only to stop and push it aside. It had waited all those weeks; it could wait a bit longer. Instead, she turned to look over the living room, then the small kitchen. It was bleak, all of it, cold and barren in appearance with hardly a sign of who lived there. Except for books on end tables it was as impersonal as the hotel and motel rooms she had been living in for weeks. The very nice gifts different people had given her over the years were for the most part put away in their own boxes, on closet shelves, even in her storage