True-Life Adventure

kids?”
    Again Lindsay shrugged. “Parents died. Raised by relatives who drank and beat them. Passed on to other relatives, then others. The usual stuff.”
    Sardis nodded. She was very interested in that kind of thing.
    But I wanted more details about the case. “Did you have a date with Peter Tillman the night you were supposed to see Marilyn?”
    She nodded.
    “But you broke it?”
    “Not then. I phoned him to say I was meeting Marilyn and asked if we could make it later than we’d originally planned.”
    “So you saw him?”
    “No. As it turned out, I was too upset.”
    “Did you tell him about the meeting?”
    “How could I help it? I blubbered all over the telephone.”
    “I don’t see why Jacob would have killed him for that. I can’t see a motive in it.”
    “Don’t you see? It’s the same motive for all of them. They all knew he was crazy— Birnbaum, Mike, Pete. That’s why he tried to kill you— because he thought you knew too.”
    “But, Lindsay,” said Sardis. “They didn’t really know anything. All they knew was, you thought he was crazy.”
    “So you’re wondering why he didn’t kill me if that was the motive. He’s capable of it, Sardis.”
    “But the digitalis,” I said. “How would he get it?”
    “Easiest thing in the world. Haven’t you got an aunt with heart trouble? Even I have. And of course Jacob does too. Old Aunt Hallie, the only person who was ever nice to the Koehler boys when they were growing up. When she got old, they moved her out here and ensconced her at Rossmoor, a few doors down from my aunt Katherine. And believe it or not, they both visit her regularly— even that jerk Steve. She’s got digitalis lying around like aspirin.”
    “Does Marilyn visit her, too?”
    “Sure. Why?”
    “Because if you really believe Jacob could kill three people because they might or might not have thought he was bonkers, and you believe Marilyn is neurotically obsessed with Jacob and would do anything to protect him, the same motive applies for her, doesn’t it?”
    Lindsay looked confused. “I don’t know. You have to be crazy to kill someone, don’t you?”
    “I don’t know, Lindsay. I honestly have no idea. Listen, I hate to be the one to say this, but I’m sure you’ve already thought of it…”
    She interrupted me. “I’m not going back with you. I want Terry to have this raft trip.”
    “But Lindsay—” Sardis looked as if she’d lost her best friend, and I guess she felt that way.
    Lindsay interrupted her. “I don’t think there’s any danger now to anybody but me, and he can’t find me on the river.”
    “What about Paul?”
    Lindsay looked shocked, as if she’d forgotten the attempts on my life. She started to cry again. “I have to think. Jacob is Terry’s father. I can’t imagine yanking her out of the river and up the canyon and back to San Francisco, just to try to get her father thrown in jail. I just can’t…”
    “I have an idea,” I said. “I brought a tape recorder with me. If you’ll tape your story, we’ll go quietly.”
    “But, Paul—” Sardis obviously couldn’t believe what I was saying, but I knew something she didn’t know. I shushed her.
    Lindsay looked as if she’d gotten a reprieve from the green room. The truth was, I’d come around to her point of view— she’d be safe on the river, and she might not be if she came back with us. Sardis and I could handle it alone.

CHAPTER 23
    “There’s something you two should know,” I said, and told them about my revelation at the Auto Cabins. With three brains working on it, we put together a much more complete theory than I’d been able to generate alone.
    Then we worked out a plan, one that I wasn’t crazy about, but they convinced me it was the only way. Lindsay made the tape I’d asked for, and after that, she made a second tape. Then, having heard news of the deaths of two men she was close to and having plotted to trap their killer, all in the space of an hour, she joined her dying daughter and floated off down the Colorado River. She was one brave lady.
    Seeing her was inspiring in its way, but it broke the mood of our idyl. We couldn’t get out of the canyon till the mule train left the next day, and I was restless. Sardis was too, I guess, but I was too restless to notice.
    The part about the plan that I didn’t like was that it used Sardis as bait. I’d agreed to do it on the condition that we first try out our theory on the cops. This