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“What does that mean?” Alyssa asked.
“It means that he’s getting ready to try the case. He’ll set up his office, then start talking to people.”
Jeff frowned. “But I thought the district attorney had already investigated the case. The police...Karen, Brick. Why do they have to do more?”
“Ethan Trask will want to talk with everyone himself. He’s coming into this new, remember? The attorney general just appointed him.”
Liza’s frown was fierce. “I still don’t see why Mr. Burns had to ask for a special prosecutor. It’s not as if he and Granddad are best buddies. They barely know each other outside of a couple of charity events. Isn’t that right, Granddad?”
Judson nodded.
“I know,” Amanda agreed. “It’s hard to understand, but the district attorney had to disqualify himself because of the way the situation could be interpreted. If Granddad is found not guilty, it might be thought that the D.A. didn’t push hard enough. Mr. Burns and Granddad aren’t best friends, but they do know each other.”
Liza grunted. “Mr. Burns is watching out for Mr. Burns. He doesn’t want to do anything to foul up his chances of reelection.”
“That’s probably true, too,” Amanda conceded. “But it doesn’t change the original fact. He had no choice except to take himself off the case.”
“So he made sure we got Ethan Trask,” Liza complained.
“He had no say in the matter. That choice belonged to the state attorney general.”
“Remind me not to vote for him, either,” Cliff said quietly, gaining a quick smile of approval from his wife.
“Me, too,” Cece agreed. Jeff squeezed her hand.
Amanda decided that the time was right. She had planned to tell her grandfather the news later, but since everyone was here... “I think I gained a point for our side today,” she announced. “Actually, a whole lot of points. Do any of you remember when I was in law school and talked about a Professor Williams? How brilliant he was, and how lucky I felt to have him as one of my instructors?” She received blank looks all around. “Well, Professor Williams—Peter—is retired now, and he lives at Lake Geneva. I spoke with him this evening. That’s why I was late, why I missed dinner. He’s agreed to advise me on Granddad’s case!”
The expected excitement didn’t occur. Finally, Liza questioned, “Does that mean he’s taking over?”
Oh, if only that were true! Amanda thought. But she shook her head. “No. He’s agreed to help, that’s all. He’s very experienced in courtroom procedure and criminal law. He was a practicing trial attorney for years before he went into teaching. He’s very respected. He’s even written a book—”
“Does it make you feel better that he agreed to assist you?” Judson interrupted.
Amanda gazed at her grandfather’s strong face—the high cheekbones, the commanding Ingalls nose and chin, the eyes that could be stern but were mostly gentle. “Yes,” she answered truthfully. “It makes me feel better.”
“Then that’s all that counts,” Judson decreed. “I agree with your decision. His first name is Peter, you say? My father’s name. A good name for a man.”
“I think you’ll like him, Granddad,” Amanda assured him, relieved that her grandfather had consented.
Judson nodded, then turned to look outside. He’d been doing a lot of that recently—standing and looking out windows. Amanda couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking about the present or remembering something from the past.
Cliff glanced at his watch, then stood. He helped Liza to her feet as well. “We have to go,” Liza said. She collected her daughter from her mother’s lap. “Little Maggie needs to hit the sack...not to mention Mommy and Daddy. Cece, when you gave us all those childbirth lessons, why didn’t you warn us that once babies come into the world they like to torture their parents? I thought she’d wake up only once a night to be fed, not every two hours like clockwork. And Cliff’s no help. He doesn’t come with the right equipment! He gets up with me, though, just to be fair.”
“Remind me to put you up on the roof the next time a shingle blows loose,” Cliff teased.
Liza flashed a reckless smile. “You think I wouldn’t do it?”
Jeff laughed. “Liza, Cliff’s been married to you long enough to know when to back off. If he’s not careful, the next time it storms you’ll be up on the roof replacing missing shingles, all the while suckling your newborn child!”
“I don’t want Maggie to grow up with preconceived notions about people,” Liza defended.
Once again Jeff laughed. “Sis, I seriously doubt that there’s any danger of that! Not with you for a mom.”
Cece stood up to hug Liza. “Don’t pay any attention to him,” she advised. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Jeff pretended to be hurt. “You can say that about me? You’re going to have to make that up to me, my girl.” He pulled Cece back down to his side and kissed her, long and with feeling. When he let her go, she was pink. Her fingers fluttered to her short, dark hair, but the secret smile she wore was a pleased one.
With her daughter cradled in one arm, Liza made the rounds, hugging her mother, her brother, her grandfather and finally Amanda. “Walk out to the car with us,” she whispered in Amanda’s ear. “I have to talk to you.” Her smile urged Amanda not to react.
Amanda gave a short, almost imperceptible nod and kept her own smile in place.
Liza passed the baby to Cliff, who somehow managed to look instantly comfortable with the tiny burden. His quietness seemed to instill quietness in the child. Maggie gave one tiny wiggle and went to sleep. Liza smiled and went about the business of collecting the array of baby things, which she then packed away in a soft cloth bag.
“Here, let me help,” Amanda volunteered. She took the bag from her sister, which freed Liza to arrange a light blanket around her child for protection against the night.
After their final goodbyes, Amanda followed them out to the car, and while Cliff put the baby into an infant-restraint seat, Liza said worriedly, “I didn’t want to ask inside, but what if he wants to see me? What should I do? Can I refuse?”
Amanda knew immediately who “he” was: the man who seemed to be on everyone’s mind—Ethan Trask. “Yes, you can refuse,” she said. “But he’ll subpoena you for the trial. He has the power of the state behind him. He can make you testify.”
“But what if he comes around before that...what do I do?”
“Am I your lawyer?”
“What do you... Of course you’re my lawyer!” Liza replied, catching on quickly. “Mine and Cliff’s both. Right, Cliff?”
Cliff straightened, his tall good looks emphasized by the diffuse light from the house windows. “Right,” he agreed.
“If you’re contacted, call me right away,” Amanda said. “Tell him you won’t be interviewed unless I’m present.”
Liza gave a devilish smile. “I’m almost beginning to feel sorry for the man!”
“Well, don’t. He knows a lot more about what he’s doing than I do.”
Liza sobered instantly. “I wish Cliff and I had never found the rug or that Joe Santori had never given me the bullet. I wish...no, I can’t wish that. If I’d never come back to Tyler, Cliff and I wouldn’t have met, and there’d be no Maggie. But if I hadn’t insisted upon redoing the lodge... It’s my fault, isn’t it, that this has happened? Leave it to me! Leave it to Liza to screw everything up!”
“Liza...” Cliff’s quiet voice cut into his wife’s frustration. “No one blames you.”
“It would have come out eventually, Liza,” Amanda agreed. “Granddad had thought several times about selling the lodge. It was only a matter of time before he did and before someone else started renovations.”
“But he looks so old now. What if he can’t stand up to the pressures of a trial? What if he collapses? What if he—”
“You’re tired,” Amanda said. “A lot has happened to you over the past few weeks. You’ve given birth, you’re trying to adjust to motherhood, both you and the baby are still chock-full of hormones. The grandfather you love dearly has been indicted for murder...just an ordinary month in the life of one Mary Elizabeth Baron Forrester.” Amanda patted her sister’s hand. “Go home, Liza. Go home with your wonderful husband, and let me worry about Granddad. I have reinforcements now. I’m not nearly as afraid as I once was.”
“Are you telling us the truth?” Liza demanded. “You’re not just saying that to make me stop worrying?”
Amanda crossed her heart, the sign the Baron siblings had used since childhood to signify truth telling.
Liza’s face brightened, but Cliff wasn’t fooled. Unlike his wife, Cliff didn’t want to be fooled. Amanda hesitated to look at him, but she felt her gaze drawn. In her brother-in-law’s black eyes she saw the truth. And she knew that he knew she hadn’t spoken it.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f94fae5d-abde-5768-9b6f-ba3466aee21a)
“THIS WAY, PETER. Over here,” Amanda urged. In her haste to get to the spot where Margaret’s body had been found, she drew ahead of the overweight professor. She moved agilely across the gently sloping hillside, while he proceeded more slowly. As she waited for him to catch up, she double-checked the accuracy of the location. To her left was the lake and the offshore wooden swimming float that she had known since childhood; to her right stood Timberlake Lodge—a large, rambling structure that had been built by her great-grandfather to host hunting parties for his friends, and which now was part of the Addison Hotel chain. Straight in front of her was the gnarled old pine tree she and Liza and Jeff had played under when they were young and had come to the lodge for a stolen afternoon. “This is the spot where they found her. A willow tree used to stand near here, but Joe took it down when he and his men were checking the water pipes.”
The professor wiped his pink cheeks. As he puffed from exertion, his alert eyes moved over the manicured lawn of the newly opened resort, then lifted to the multigabled structure that nestled at the top of the hill. “If she was running away, she didn’t get very far,” he said.
“No,” Amanda agreed.
“Why here?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know that, either.”
“What does your grandfather think? Have you asked him?”
Amanda hesitated. “My grandfather doesn’t like to talk about it.”
Peter’s answer was a displeased grunt.
“I know,” Amanda defended. “I just haven’t pressed him. He’s coming to my office this afternoon. We’ll talk then. He’s promised to tell me everything he can remember.”
“I hope his memory is excellent.”
“It is.”
She received another grunt, but this time Peter sounded more satisfied. She watched as he absorbed the quiet beauty of his surroundings. Timberlake Lodge always had the same effect on her. It was hard to believe that something as frightening and horrible as a murder could ever have taken place in such a sylvan scene.
She broke the silence that had fallen. “The police found her suitcase...did I tell you that? It was all packed and ready to go. Only for some reason, it was in the lodge’s potting shed. Well, not when they found it. Actually, it had been stolen. Whoever took it must have realized they didn’t have anything of value, so they dumped it on the highway between here and Belton. One of our police officers found it. It had her initials, M.L.I., and Granddad identified her clothing.”
Amanda lapsed into silence again, remembering the awful moment when Karen Keppler and Brick Bauer had come to the house, in uniform and on official business. And the way Karen had looked at her grandfather...suspiciously, as if she were already persuaded to believe that he had killed Margaret.
“Rather odd that it wasn’t with the body,” Peter mused.
“I know. If Granddad had done it, wouldn’t he have gotten rid of the suitcase, too? To make it look as if she had taken it? He knew Phil—Phil Wocheck was the gardener at Timberlake then. He knew Phil was in and out of the potting shed all the time, digging through things. Granddad couldn’t have expected the suitcase to stay hidden if he was the person who put it there...which he wasn’t.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’m sure!” she repeated.
“This Phil Wocheck. He’s the man you said testified before the grand jury? The man whose testimony seemed to carry so much weight?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Peter frowned. “I wonder what he knows.”
“We all wonder that!”
“You need all the information you can get, yet the prosecution is required to give you only your grandfather’s statements to the police. If you want more, you’ll have to file a motion.”
“I’m working on it now.”
“Good girl,” the professor approved.
Amanda started back up the hill, this time making sure to go slowly enough so as not to outpace her companion. What Phil had said to the police and then to the grand jury had been the subject of much speculation, both within the family and without, for the past few weeks. But Phil, observing the grand jury’s injunction not to speak of his testimony, would say nothing.
Frustration curled in Amanda’s stomach. She had so little to work on! She had no idea what the prosecution would throw at them. She had only the charge included in her grandfather’s indictment: first-degree intentional homicide, the worst accusation the State of Wisconsin could issue against a person.
The professor had started to puff again when two men appeared at the top of the pathway. One was tall, the other short. One moved with commanding assurance, the other with compact grace. Both had dark hair. When she recognized them, Amanda felt her breath grow shallow. She, too, might suddenly have gained forty pounds and forty years. Instinctively her hand reached out toward the professor, whether to warn him or to ask for protection, she didn’t know.
The professor glanced at her curiously, then he followed the direction of her gaze.
“It’s him,” she whispered tightly. “Ethan Trask.”
“Introduce me,” Peter said.
“I can’t! I haven’t met him yet!”
“Then you’d better introduce yourself.” Peter seemed amused by the turn of events. Or rather, by Amanda’s reaction. “He’s not a god,” he said. “He puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like I do.” He glanced at the beige trousers Amanda wore. “Just like you do.”
“I sit on the end of the bed and jam both my feet in at the same instant,” Amanda replied shakily.
Peter’s smile was no longer hidden. “Then that makes you special. Introduce yourself!”
The men were almost upon them. Amanda swallowed. She had already felt the sweep of Ethan Trask’s gaze and the much friendlier estimation of his companion. Of the two, she would much rather deal with the shorter man. She took a step sideways, signaling a desire to communicate.
“Mr. Trask?” she said. To her own ears, her voice sounded dry, strained. She could hear the fake attempt at confidence.
Up close, the special prosecutor was even more impressive than he had been the day before. He seemed taller, more intense, more determined, more handsome. His eyes were neither black nor brown, but an intimidating combination of the two. His dark brown hair was perfectly groomed, a tendency to curl tolerated but not encouraged. His features might have been carefully sculpted to give the image of strength—straight nose, firm jawline, sturdy chin, a mouth that was at the same time sensual and austere. The cut of his perfectly tailored suit bespoke a body that was muscular, athletic.
Amanda’s heart rate accelerated as he turned to look at her. Under his direct gaze she felt like a rabbit caught in a snare. “I, ah... My name is Amanda Baron, Mr. Trask, and I represent—”
Her name seemed to hit him like a lightning strike. It wasn’t so much that he jolted physically, but his mind seemed to snap to attention, focusing solely on her. It was all Amanda could do to continue. “I represent Judson Ingalls. This is Peter Williams, retired professor of law at the University of Illinois. He’s going to—”
“Amanda Baron.” Ethan Trask repeated her name as if he had heard nothing else she’d said.
Amanda smiled nervously. “Yes. I represent—”
“I know who you represent.”
Amanda shot a look at Peter, who in turn was studying the assistant attorney general. Her gaze then went to Ethan Trask’s companion. She was searching for a kind word, a kind face. She found it in the shorter man when he smiled at her. Still Amanda remained confused. She didn’t understand exactly what was happening. Ethan Trask sounded angry. Again attempting civility, she held out her hand.
There was a long moment before he responded, a moment that came close to insult. When finally his fingers closed over hers, they were brisk, businesslike. Amanda was quick to break contact. Her arm fell back to her side, but her hand still tingled.
“My assistant from the DCI, Carlos Varadero.” Ethan Trask indicated the man at his side.
Amanda knew that the Division of Criminal Investigation was the investigative arm of the State Department of Justice. A crack unit, it provided assistance to the attorney general’s office—which meant that she had been correct the first time she saw him: if he was affiliated with Ethan Trask, he was dangerous, smile or no smile.
Amanda shook his hand quickly, as did Peter. For a moment nothing happened. All of them seemed ill at ease. Then Ethan Trask said quietly, “I’m going to file a motion to disqualify you as defense counsel in this case. Since you are the granddaughter of both the defendant and the deceased, I consider your role inappropriate.”
Now it was Amanda’s turn to reel. She blinked at the unexpectedness of his attack. “But...that’s not fair!” she cried.
