'It's the only answer.'
'Bullshit,' Barry shouted angrily.
'I don't want to believe it either. But the simple fact is that Abigail Griffen could not have left the house. And even if she was able to defeat the electronic monitoring system, there's no way she could have known where on the roll to fix the faked strip. We had the negatives here along with the camera.'
'Ah, no,' Barry said in a voice so filled with grief that Tracy felt herself melt with pity for him.
'It was Matt,' she said softly. 'It has to be. He had access to the negatives and the camera arid he's a great photographer. You would have to know an awful lot about cameras to come up with this scheme.'
'But why, Tracy?'
'You know the answer to that, too. You've seen how she's played him.
He's so in love with her that she only had to whisper the suggestion and he'd do it.'
'Not Matt,' Barry said desperately.
'He's a brilliant attorney, Barry, but he's not a god. He's just a human being.'
Barry stood up and paced the room. Tracy let him work it out.
When Barry turned toward' her he appeared to have made a decision.
'What are you going to do?' he asked, his voice flat and cold.
'You know I don't have a choice. I have to go to Judge Baldwin. This is a criminal offense. If I don't tell the court, I'm guilty as an aider and abettor.'
'You can't do it, Tracy,' Barry begged her. 'If you tell Baldwin, Matt will be destroyed. He'd be disbarred. Geddes will go berserk. He'll make sure Matt goes to prison, for God's sake.'
Tracy placed a hand on Barry's shoulder.
'Don't you think I know that? But what else can I do? He broke the law. And you're forgetting something else. Griffen wouldn't need a fake photograph unless the dynamite was in the shed. Deems knew about the dynamite, because Abbie showed it to him, which means she asked Deems to kill her husband. If she convinced Matt to fake the picture, it's because she's guilty. If I don't tell the court, Abigail Griffen will go free. She's a murderer, Barry. She killed Robert Griffen.'
Tracy paused and her features became devoid of pity. When she spoke, her voice was hard as granite.
'She may have done something else, Barry. She may have killed Laura Rizzatti, my friend. And I'm not going to let her get away with that.'
Barry had not heard her. He was too overwhelmed by the facts he was forced to face. He looked at the floor and, in a voice on the edge of tears, he said, 'I don't believe it, Tracy. He's the most honorable man I've ever met. He would never fake evidence in a court case.'
'I understand how you feel, but I can't keep quiet about this.'
Barry's face fell. Tracy had never seen another human being so distraught.
'If you do this, you'll do it without me. I won't hurt Matt. And if you do . . .'
Barry couldn't go on. He simply stood in from of Tracy and shook his head.
'Barry, please. Don't do this to us.'
'Don't do this to Matt.'
'What about Griffen? Do you want her to walk away from a murder charge?'
'I don't care about Abigail Griffen. One hundred of her are not worth one man like Matthew Reynolds. Think of all the good he's done. All of the sacrifices he's made. Let her walk, for Christ's sake. Don't crucify Matt. Don't destroy him'
'He broke the law. I'm an officer of the court. You're asking me to betray everything I believe in and to let a cold-blooded murderer go free.'
'I'm asking you to be human. We're talking about a man's life.
And not just any man. Think about what you're doing.'
Tracy shook her head. She could not believe what Barry was asking of her.
'I can't let this go, Barry, but I'll talk to Matt before I go to see Judge Baldwin and I'll give him a chance to show me I'm wrong.'
Barry looked directly into Tracy's eyes. His own were dead.
'Do what you have to do, Tracy. But if you destroy Matthew Reynolds, I can never see you again.'
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
For the sake of appearances, Matthew did not spend the night with Abbie.
At four-thirty in the morning, he let himself into his house through a back door and climbed a staircase that went straight to his living quarters. Forgotten for the moment was the turn the trial had taken.
Tonight, all of his dreams had come true.
Not only had he and Abbie made love, but he had learned that she really loved him.
Before he went to bed, Matthew took out the manila envelope with the articles about Abbie and the photographs of her. This time when he looked at the photographs he did not feel longing or despair. In fact, they evoked no emotions. For the first time, he understood that the photographs were not Abbie. She was a warm, vibrant person. These two-dimensional images were as insubstantial as ghosts. He could not bring himself to destroy them, but he felt uncomfortable looking at them, as if by viewing the pictures he was betraying the woman he loved.
For the first time in a long time, Matthew awakened to sunlight.
He showered and made himself his usual breakfast of toast and black coffee. One of his correspondence chess games had taken a peculiar turn. In a position where Matthew thought he held a slight advantage, his opponent, an architect in Nebraska, had made an odd and unexpected knight move that had him worried.
Matthew carried his mug into the den and sipped cooling coffee until he was satisfied that he knew the architect's strategy. He addressed a postcard, wrote his move on the back of the card and descended to his office. Matthew's secretary was surprised to hear him humming.
A memo on the law of prior-crime evidence was waiting on his desk.
Reynolds read the memo, then buzzed Tracy's office. There was no answer. He buzzed the receptionist. 'Do you know where Tracy is?'
'I haven't seen her this morning.'
It was nine-thirty. Tracy was normally in by eight at the latest.
'Please tell her to see me as soon as she comes in,' Reynolds said. Then he picked up the memo and walked down to the office library to read the cases Tracy had cited.
Tracy offered to drive Barry to his apartment, but he chose to walk the twenty blocks of nighttime streets back to the loft. Barry cared for Tracy, he might even love her, but he could not bear to be with her and he desperately needed time to think. Tracy was relieved to be alone.
The pain she and Barry had caused each other was too intense. She needed time away from him as much as he needed to be apart from her.
Tracy arrived at her waterfront apartment at two-thirty. She tried to sleep, but gave up after tossing and turning for half an hour. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw the face of Laura Rizzatti or Matthew Reynolds.
Around three-fifteen, Tracy got out of bed and wandered into her kitchen. She poured herself a glass of milk and walked over to the sliding-glass door that opened onto her terrace. The terrace overlooked the Willamette. She pressed her forehead to the glass and stared at the lights on the Hawthorne and Morrison Street bridges. The ghostly glow of headlights swept over them like a legion of spirits aswirl in the night. After a while, Tracy was too exhausted to stand up. She curled in a ball on her sofa. Her eyes refused to stay open, but she could not sleep. The sadness of it all suddenly overwhelmed her. Laura and the judge dead, Matthew Reynolds's career on the verge of destruction and her relationship with Barry in ruins. She began to sob and made no attempt to hold back her tears. Her body shook quietly as she let herself go.
When the dawn came, her tears had dried.
'There you are,' Matthew said with a friendly smile when Tracy walked into his office at eleven-thirty. Tracy could not help noticing how relaxed he looked. She, on the other hand, was exhausted and drained of energy. It had taken all of her courage to come to Reynolds's office to confront him.
Tracy shut the door and sagged into a chair.
'There's something we have to talk about,' she said.
