'You ready to visit one of the most beautiful spots on the planet?' he asked.
'Yup.'
'Then let's go have our picnic. We'll hit the Overlook on the way back to Portland.'
They climbed the stairs. Tracy liked the feel of his hip bumping against hers and the pressure of his arm across her shoulder.
Barry tossed the volleyball into the shed. Tracy saw it roll to a stop in the empty space as they headed for the car.
Barry's special place was everything he had promised and they had lazed around enjoying Barry's Merlot and each other's company until the setting sun reminded them that they still had work to do. Tracy drove fast along the winding mountain roads that traversed the Coast Range and they hit I-5 a little before six o'clock and started looking for the Overlook Motel.
'There it is,' Barry said finally, pointing past the freeway exit.
Tracy took the off-ramp and drove down an access road for two hundred feet, then turned into the parking lot of the Overlook Motel. Sunset would save the Overlook's dignity by cloaking its shabby exterior in shadow, but by daylight it was a tired, fading, horseshoe-shaped failure with an empty pool and a courtyard of chipped concrete and peeling paint.
Tracy pulled up in front of the office. She took a close look at three bikers who were parking their Harleys in front of one of the rooms and locked her car. A heavyset woman in a flower-print muumuu was sitting behind the registration desk eating potato chips and watching a soap opera. She put down the chips and struggled to her feet when the office door opened.
'Hi,' Tracy said as she took her business card out of her wallet and handed it across the counter. 'I'm Tracy Cavanaugh.
I'm an attorney. This is Barry Frame, my investigator.'
The woman read the card carefully, then studied Tracy through her thick-lensed glasses, as if she didn't believe Tracy could possibly be a lawyer. Tracy didn't blame her. She was wearing shades, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was still dressed in the cutoffs and navy-blue tank top she had worn all day.
'We're working on a murder case and we'd like your help.'
'What murder case?' the woman asked suspiciously.
'You may have seen it on TV, Mrs .... ?' Barry said.
'Hardesty. Annie Hardesty.'
'... Mrs. Hardesty. It's the case where the judge was blown up in his car. We represent Abigail Griffen, his wife.'
The woman's mouth opened. 'You're kidding.'
'No, ma'am.'
'I've been following that case and I don't think she did it. A bomb isn't a woman's weapon.'
'I wish you were on our jury,' Tracy said with a smile.
'I was on jury duty once. The lawyers wouldn't let me sit on any of the cases, though.'
Barry nodded sympathetically. 'Isn't that the way it always goes. Mrs.
Hardesty, can you spare a few minutes to talk to us?'
'Sure.'
'You're not too busy?' Tracy asked.
'No, it's slow on Sundays. What can I do for you, honey?'
'We'd like to see your guest register for May third of this year.'
'I don't know if Mr. Boyle would like that.'
'Well, we could subpoena it, but then Mr. Boyle would be the witness.'
'You mean I might have to testify in court?' Mrs. Hardesty asked excitedly.
'If you're the one who shows us the register.'
Mrs. Hardesty thought for a moment, then bent down behind the desk and came up with the register. Tracy opened the ledger to May and scanned the entries for May 3, the day Abigail Griffen said she had confronted Justice Griffen at the motel. Seven people had checked into the motel that day. She took out a pen and copied the names. Craig McGowan, Roberto Sanchez, Arthur Knowland, Henrietta Rainey, Louis Glass, Chester Walton and Mary Jane Simmons.
'If Justice Griffen checked into the Overlook, he didn't do it under his own name,' she said.
'I wasn't expecting him to,' Barry said, laying a brochure about the Supreme Court on the counter. There were pictures of all the justices in it.
'Does anyone look familiar to you, Mrs. Hardesty?' Barry asked. The woman studied the pictures intently. Then she put her finger on Justice Griffen's picture. 'I've seen him a few times, but I can't say when. Is that the judge who was killed?'
'Yes, ma'am,' Barry said as he started to pick up the brochure.
Mrs. Hardesty stopped him. Then she put her finger on the picture of Mary Kelly.
'Is that the wife?'
'No. Why?'
'She was with him one of the times he came here.'
'Tracy,' Mary Kelly said with surprise when she opened the door to her condominium. Even wearing reading glasses and without makeup, the judge was an impressive-looking woman, and Tracy could see why Justice Griffen would have been interested in her.
'I'm sorry to bother you so late, Justice Kelly. This is Barry Frame.
He's Matthew Reynolds's investigator.'
The judge studied Barry for a moment, then invited the couple in. The condominium had a high ceiling and a view of the Willamette. Her taste was modern and there was a lot of glass and designer furniture in the living room. A cigarette was smoking in an ashtray that balanced on the arm of a deep alabaster armchair.
A biography of Louis Brandeis was open on the seat where Justice Kelly had left it when she answered the door.
'How's your new job?' Kelly asked. Tracy had the impression that the judge was asking the question to forestall her own.
'It's a lot of work, but it's exciting, most of the time. Sometimes, though, it's not so much fun.'
Tracy paused. During her year at the court, she had come to respect Justice Kelly and she felt very uncomfortable about questioning her, especially about her private life.
'I've been following Abigail Griffen's case in the papers,' Kelly said.
'How is it going?'
'We've just come from the Overlook Motel,' Tracy answered, her voice catching slightly.
'I see,' Kelly said, growing suddenly thoughtful.
'The desk clerk identified your picture and Justice Griffen's.'
Justice Kelly took a moment to think about that. Then she said, 'You two look too healthy to smoke. Do you want a drink?'
'No, thanks,' they answered.
'Sit down.' She placed the book on the floor, sat in the armchair and took a drag on her cigarette. 'I was hoping to avoid talking about Robert and me, but it looks like the cat's out of the bag. What do you want to know, Tracy?'
'Were you having an affair with Justice Griffen?'
Kelly laughed self-consciously. 'An affair sounds a little too formal for what we were doing.'
Kelly suddenly sobered. She looked very tired.
'Poor Robert.' She shook her head. 'I just can't imagine him dying like that.'
Kelly took a long drag on her cigarette and stared out the window. Tracy waited respectfully for the judge to continue. After a moment, Kelly looked up. Then she stubbed out her cigarette.
'Look, I'll make this simple,' she told Tracy quietly. 'My husband and I are separated. The whole thing is very amicable.
I'm going to file for divorce as soon as I'm certain I have no opposition in next year's election. If my relationship with Robert makes the papers, the bad publicity could give someone the courage to run against me. If
