Money! Money!
shrieking mad celestial
money of illusion!
-Allen Ginsberg
Paul flew back to Sacramento from Washington on Friday. He heard the news about Nina’s verdict from a television set while biting down on a thick cheeseburger at Sam’s in Placerville. Sam’s was closing after thirty years and he was sure going to miss the old barn with the sawdust on the floors, and the hokey nostalgic decor.
As Nina wasn’t taking his phone calls, he was going to see her personally. He had hoped to make it up there for the verdict, as she was usually at her most accessible at the moment the pressure let up, but this would have to do.
He was still angry at the way she had treated him, but he knew the stunt he had pulled had merited a slap on the wrist. However, that should not have included this telephone silence or such a prolonged lack of contact.
Still, he was not surprised by her overreaction. Big trials always brought with them a loss of control. Lawyers belted each other, clients turned to drink, witnesses left town, strong judges turned into wimps. He himself had possibly overreacted slightly to Riesner. What was the big deal? He had barely hurt the guy.
He didn’t give a shit if he never worked for her again. He wanted something else from this warm female encased like Sleeping Beauty under cold glass. He wanted to break the glass and grab her, shake her back to life. But he couldn’t do that. She would never forgive him for doing that. She had put up that glass to protect herself in the working world, and that was a place she had always liked too much to give up.
Until now. Now she had won her big case, the big case. She couldn’t expect another with stakes like this one in her lifetime, could she? Like Sam’s in Placerville, a phase in Nina’s life seemed to be ending.
Barring any unforeseeable circumstances, Nina was now a millionaire. Markov still had thirty days to appeal. He would probably settle instead, and even if he did appeal, the lawyers would receive their due sooner or later.
She had been evasive with him about the details, but Paul knew a canny lady like Nina would not pass the opportunity up to make a killing on a case like this one. She had struggled along for almost a year while working the Markov case. She was on top. She had nothing more to prove.
She could even quit working.
She could move to Carmel and live with him, break open her glass coffin on her own.
A brilliant future stretched out before her. He finished his meal, quaffed a beer, and stopped to plunk a quarter into Madame Zelda’s slot for what would be the last time.
The impassive, scarfed wooden gypsy shifted in her glass case, unseating a layer of dust. A ruby light lit up behind her. Her finger roved among the yellow cards laid out in front of her. The finger stopped. A card fell into the slot.
The serpent crawls and does his harm
The thunder raises a distant alarm
The waters shift in restless lake
You face great danger for her sake.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
“Have a good retirement, you old witch,” Paul murmured uneasily, and he could have sworn Madame Zelda’s eyes flashed back.
That night, they lay together in Nina’s four poster bed, having made love twice in an hour, first on a lounge pad under the moon on a private piece of deck, and again on the bed, or at any rate, partially on the bed. Bob was in Monterey with his grandfather, and would be flying out of San Francisco on a school trip to Williamsburg on Sunday. He would be gone for the next week.
Nina put a hand on Paul’s cheek and rubbed.
“I love a warm welcome,” Paul said lazily, his eyes closed. “We should argue frequently.”
“No. Let’s never argue again.”
“If we got married and lived in Carmel, we would never argue.” He had said what he came to say. He reached out a hand and ran it over her soft thigh.
“Why don’t you move to Tahoe, Paul?” she replied, not entirely unexpectedly.
“Would you marry me if I did?”
She pushed her head into his chest sleepily, saying, “I would think about it.”
“Yeah, but would you do it?”
“Don’t you know you complicate everything?”
“I don’t see it that way. To me, it’s simple. Man, woman, desire, love, to quote the great Eric Burdon. Oh, I’ve thought about it. But I have a very good business down there. I’ve been working in Carmel longer than you’ve been working in Tahoe. Seriously. Come to me.”
“What about your Washington job?” Her voice was very drowsy.
“I’d drop it like a hot potato for you, my love.”
But Nina had stopped listening. She appeared to have fallen into a nap. Paul yawned. The big bed was a universe unto itself, the covers so thick and warm… he drifted off, too.
Paul woke up about one, his stomach growling. Nina still lay on her side, her long brown hair spilling onto her white shoulder. What a shame he was starving. He shook her gently and said, “Awake, my little honeybee. We skipped dinner. Let’s eat.”
She opened her eyes and seemed glad to see him. What more could a man ask for? Except a good meal?
“But I do have one more question about this business before we throw back the covers and you expose that enticing body of yours to the air and my worshipful gaze.”
“Wha’?” she said.
“About Clifford Wright.”
“What about him?”
“You sure got lucky there.”
“Huh?”
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd?”
She was waking up fast now. “Odd?” she said, the intelligence returning to her eyes. As he watched, absorbed by the transformation, the emphases of her face shifted from soft cheeks and full lips to jawbone and eyebrows. “There’s nothing new on him. Case closed. Just a freak medical occurrence.”
“Did you get a chance to look at the coroner’s report on his death?”
“Why would I?”
“Monumental coincidence or act o’ God?” said Paul. “Only Madame Zelda knows, and she’s getting out of the business.”
Her lips drew a hard line. “You smell fish everywhere you go, don’t you? There’s no mystery here. He died of anaphylactic shock from eating something.”
“Most people with allergies find out about it before keeling over in the jury room.”
“Oh, he knew he had food allergies,” Nina said. “He talked about them to everyone, practically. We even knew from all those super-duper quiz sheets we got about the jurors. Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“I don’t remember hearing about it.”
“Apparently, he had medicine that might have saved him, but nobody knew. What’s it called…”
“You mean an adrenaline kit.”
“Yes. You poke yourself in the leg with epinephrine, which immediately stops the allergic reaction. Sandy told me about a doctor down in southern California with an allergy to shellfish who recently died from anaphylaxis. Stuck his nose over a pan of boiling seafood. He had forgotten his allergy kit.”
“Why didn’t Wright use his?”
“The jurors say he mumbled something about his jacket, which was right there in the closet, but they thought he was delirious. Deputy Kim found it after he was in the hospital. His breathing became blocked so quickly he never got to use it.”
“So you don’t plan to check further into what happened.”
“Why would I? It’s unfortunate, but nothing to do with me.”
“No urge to examine your gift horse too closely,” said Paul. “I do see your position.” He hadn’t meant it to sound the way it came out, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nina said, pushing his hand off.
“What’s the matter?” he said putting it back.
She batted it firmly away. “Why can’t you just accept it that I won this case, fair and square? Why can’t you let me have that? You chip away at my success, hinting around that I couldn’t have pulled it off if Clifford Wright hadn’t died. Jesus.”
Paul fell silent for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I never congratulated you. And you’re so terrific, even out of bed. You’re brilliant, beautiful, brave, bosomy…”
“Thank you,” Nina said.
“Soon to be rich,” he said.
Apparently mollified, she said, “Don’t go tacky on me now.”
“Okay, good. Let’s turn our attention back to that very issue that’s hovering around us like a swarm of starving mosquitoes. We need to talk about how this change in your financial status is going to affect our relationship. There are some things to consider.”
“I thought you were starving,” said Nina.
“Shhh.” Turning over to face her, he put a finger over her lips. “Mail-order catalogs, for starters. You can finally afford a pair of those undies… you know the ones, don’t you? With the missing bits here,” he said, showing her where, “and right here.” His hand lingered. “Let’s splurge. Get two, in black silk and red. Net stockings to match and one of those things women wore back in the good old days when men ruled the universe without challenge…”
“A garter belt?”
“That’s it! Yum. The possibilities rise up like… like-”
“Like wet dough!” she said.
“Like a hunk of burnin’ love,” said Paul, inserting his tongue into her ear.
Before she could say another thing, he jumped her.
Then they went down to the kitchen and made toast and eggs and drank all the milk.
On Saturday they rented separate paddleboats and raced each other around Zephyr Cove until the setting sun blinded them, then returned to Nina’s to change into their fanciest duds for a celebration dinner Lindy was hosting at The Summit.
Nina took Paul’s arm as they arrived at the restaurant on the seventeenth floor of Harrah’s. Piano blues surrounded them, sensual as incense.
“I feel so grown up, suddenly,” she said, enjoying the scratchiness of his jacket and happy he was here to share this night with her. “Do you remember the first time we met at that place in Carmel?” She led the way into the restaurant behind the maitre d’.
“How could I forget? A blind date. And then you went off and married Jack.”
“When did we become the kind of people that go to places like this? Where’s the band with the electrified hair and distortion pedal?”
“It’s perfect, Nina,” Paul said, reaching out to shake Winston’s hand.
They sat down at a window table. Outside, way down, the lights of town twinkled. Lindy had already ordered champagne. Sandy, dressed in a shiny amethyst-colored beaded shirt over a long black skirt, argued with Nina over who could order the salmon with lemon couscous and who got the rack of lamb. They compromised by deciding to share. Next to her, Sandy’s son, Wish, demonstrated how to play spoons to a Scott Joplin tune.
Wearing an emerald-green jacket over white slacks and low heels, Lindy faced the window. Nina knew she had invited her friend Alice to the celebration, but Alice couldn’t make it.
After greeting Nina and Paul, she leaned forward and gazed at the lights beyond the glass, looking a little shell-shocked. “Isn’t it thrilling how it’s all worked out?” she told Nina. “Isn’t it strange?”
Sandy offered up a toast to “The lake of the sky, Tahoe, where anything can happen and does,” and they worked their way through two bottles before eating.
Throughout the meal, Nina couldn’t help noticing things had somehow changed between Winston and Genevieve. Genevieve continued to tune her behavior to his mood, offering him butter, salt, whatever he seemed to need, but he seemed distracted. Nina supposed he, too, was turning his mind to the future, a future where Genevieve would figure less prominently.
“Where will you go, Genevieve?” she asked.
“Oh, I’ve got a million ideas! Only you know what? I can hardly think about that right now. I get so worked up during these damn things, I don’t sleep. But I can’t imagine going back to L.A. and starting over again, which is probably exactly what I’ll be doin’.” She looked and sounded tired. Underneath the gaiety, they all must be. They had crammed a couple of years’ worth of work into eight months. And they had won!
They commiserated for a few minutes about the difficult transition to daily routines after the epic intensity of the past months.
“Like my mother used to say,” Paul butted in. “These are good problems to have. What will you be doing next, Lindy?”
She looked startled by the sudden attention. Her plate was still full of food. Apparently, she had preferred the champagne. Her eyes had a glassy sheen. “Oh, I’ll just go about the usual routines of a wealthy woman,” she said. “Teas. Parties. Mansion-shopping.”
“Poor you,” Genevieve said, making light of her mood.
“You mean rich me,” said Lindy, and everyone laughed, including Lindy.
After dinner, Nina asked Winston about his plans.
“I’ve got some paperwork to go through and some expenses to add up for Sandy,” he said, winking at Sandy. “Then I’m planning to take a couple of days before I go back to enjoy this fine spring weather, get some exercise. I feel like I’ve hardly moved for months.”
“Jogging every spare moment doesn’t count, I suppose,” said Sandy.
“Oh, and I brought a few things here. Little thank-yous for all your help.” Winston reached into a bag beside his chair, bringing out a huge package for Sandy, and a tie-sized box for Wish.
“Now don’t look so gloomy,” he said, handing over the box to Wish. “I promise, someday soon, you’ll need a tie.”
“Hey, really, Mr. Reynolds. This is just great.” Wish smiled feebly. He tore off the ribbon and ripped the box opening it. “Silk, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Great.” Wish held the blue tie close to his eyes, as if the details in the pattern might cast light on what had possessed a smart guy like Winston to choose such an outlandish and inappropriate gift.
Winston broke into full-throttle laughter. “Well, glad you like it.”
Sandy opened her much larger package carefully, setting the floral wrap neatly to the side of her place, untying the ribbon, and placing the interior tissue in a tidy stack until Wish looked ready to grab the box from her and tear into it himself.
Inside, nestled like an animal, was something thick and soft.
“What is it, Mom?” asked Wish impatiently. “C’mon, get it out.”
“I looked at a few moth-eaten ones before I found this one. It’s been well-cared-for,” said Winston.
“Where did you find it?” she demanded.
“In a shop in Minden. The proprietor told me the family that owned it sold everything they had and moved to Stockton last month. They told him the man’s great-grandfather made it. This was the last one he made before he died sometime in the fifties, at least that’s what the dealer claimed. They had found it stored very carefully in a cedar-lined trunk. Never used it.”
But Sandy stared into the box for a long time before pulling the object out to hold up. “A rabbit-skin blanket,” she said. “My mother had one when I was a kid that looked like this.”
“Those were big with the Washoe,” Wish explained to Nina, whose puzzlement must have showed.
“That’s what the dealer told me. Said they keep you so warm at night, even up in Alpine County at six thousand feet in the wintertime, you could sleep in the nude in a lean-to,” Winston teased. “Of course I thought of you, Sandy.”
But the joke was lost on Sandy, who stroked the blanket with a reverent hand, saying, “Each blanket lasted three years, then you made another.” She scrutinized the front and back, then looked at Winston with the same intense interest. “You must have paid a lot.”
“They are rare,” Winston agreed.
“Used to be the Washoe hunted rabbits with nets, shooting arrows at the rabbits, who ran into the net thinking they were escaping,” Sandy said. “Four or five hundred a day were killed. Then they cut the hides into strings and dried them for a day and a half. Twenty-five strings made one jackrabbit blanket for two people.”
“I’m saving for a down blanket this winter,” said Wish stoutly. “No animals die, and it’s just as warm.”
“But when this blanket was made, life was different,” said Sandy, pulling the blanket up to rub against her cheek, “In those days, you survived without money. Even up here in Tahoe where it gets really cold.”
The shift in atmosphere was subtle. Winston handed out more gifts, exotic flowers for Nina, Genevieve, and Lindy, a pen for Paul. Sandy put the rabbit-skin blanket across a chair.
It sat there, a reminder of times when money meant nothing. The conversation lagged.
“Oh, it is beautiful this year, isn’t it?” said Nina, hoping to bring back their earlier good spirits. “More beautiful than I can ever remember. Cobalt-blue skies, cartoon clouds, a great success to celebrate…”
“Will you listen to this girl. She’s giddy with success!” Lindy said. “Let’s do one last toast, to Nina and her Irish luck.”
They raised coffee cups and glasses to her, and drank.
“This had nothing to do with luck, you know,” Nina said. “Without you all…”
“Stop her before she gushes,” commanded Winston.
“And Paul here…” she said.
“… whom we have forgiven for not pegging Wright as a problem,” said Winston, interrupting her train of thought.
“Let’s not get into that again, Winston,” Genevieve said. “None of us had Wright pegged, except maybe Nina. Anyway, he’s no danger to us anymore.”
“According to Paul, maybe he is,” said Nina. She felt a need to speak about this, even as she realized she was contributing to the erosion of good feeling they had built up.
“What do you mean?” asked Sandy.
“If you can believe this, he’s hinted around that he finds the circumstances of Wright’s death terribly suspicious.”
“How can an allergic reaction be suspicious?” Winston asked.
“I don’t know,” said Nina. “Ask the expert.”
Winston shifted in his chair to face Paul more directly. “What are you thinking?”
“He thinks someone spiked the food,” said Nina. “Crazy, huh?”
Their waiter picked up Lindy’s credit card and the bill, and walked off while the party stared at Paul, agog.
“All this commuting you have been doing between Carmel, Washington, and Tahoe has driven you completely around the bend,” said Winston.
“It’s just peculiar,” said Paul, “him keeling over. Maybe-”
“Stop right there,” Winston said. “That’s useless conjecturing. Do you realize if you even hint at this notion of yours to anyone you could cause us a huge delay?” asked Winston. “An investigation by the police could hold up our money for months.”
“Believe me, I never intended to hint at anything.”
“He just doesn’t like peculiar things,” said Nina, recognizing for the first time she, too, had had too much to drink. Her head was spinning…
Paul took her arm and helped her up. “I think we’ll be going now,” he said. “Anyone need a ride?”
No one did.
“You’re not taking this further, are you?” Winston asked as the rest of them stood up to say good-bye.
“No,” said Paul. “As far as I know, everyone’s satisfied this was an accidental death. Nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, yeah,” Winston said. “Uh-huh. It always starts so innocently, but later there’s running and screaming.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Sandy.
“It’s from a movie,” Winston said, “about monsters getting loose.”
Monday morning when Paul reached for Nina, he found only the indentation of her body beside him. He stretched, pulled on a pair of khaki shorts, and padded barefoot down to the kitchen, where she had left him a pot of coffee smoking and black with age. A note on the counter directed him to cereal and bananas, but he didn’t want to cook. After making himself a fresh pot of coffee, he took a steaming mug out onto the deck with the morning paper, settled in, and made himself at home among the pines in Nina’s backyard.
An hour later he was caffeine-boosted and ready to move. He packed up his things, throwing the comforter over Nina’s messy bed. Before leaving, he called his office, directory assistance, Sandy at Nina’s office, and a number down south, spending nearly an hour on the phone.
In the van, he paused for a moment to consider his options. Nina for lunch, that was a given.
He would be heading home tonight. A little Monday morning gambling? Too decadent. A run in the thin mountain air? It would be good for him, but… it would be more interesting to check on the silly little thing that was nagging at him.
From the bin between the two front seats, he removed a Lake Tahoe telephone directory he had permanently borrowed from a motel a couple of years before. Flipping to the county government offices pages, he browsed for El Dorado, finding the office he wanted on Johnson Boulevard.
He dialed a number, asking for directions and a fifteen minute appointment, which was, a little to his surprise, granted.
The medical examiner had his office in the same complex as the courthouse where he needed to meet Nina later. How convenient.
“Nice to have things quiet again,” said Sandy when Nina finally climbed down from the Annapurna of papers on her desk for a midmorning cup of coffee. “Everyone’s coming in late.” She stood in the doorway of Nina’s office, her own fresh coffee in hand.
“Everyone’s pooped,” said Nina. The last months had been hell. They deserved to sleep late. “Did I thank you for holding this place together while I was so swamped?”
“Yes, but feel free to thank me again.” The long line of Sandy’s lips extended slightly.
“And you’re due for a big bonus when my fee comes in.”
A quiver of her eyelid suggested that Sandy found this very exciting news. “Should we start looking for bigger offices?”
“No.”
“Why not? You’ll want to expand a little. Not enough to upset our little applecart here, of course, but a little. Since the trial ended, you look like a ghost rattling her chains. You need a project.”
“There’s always a letdown after a trial but I’m not sure expanding the business is what I should do.”
Sandy stared at her. “You have some other plan you forgot to mention?”
“Maybe I’ll take some time off. Maybe a year.”
Sandy sucked in her breath. “So it comes to this,” she said.
“Comes to what?”
“Money. That’s what it does… it gets inside people. They forget who they are.” She seemed to be recalling something unpleasant. “I should have known. Since the beginning of this case, you’ve been compromising like crazy.”
Right there was a reason to close up shop and move on: Sandy’s big nose. “Don’t be silly,” Nina said, trying to be patient. “The money only makes it possible for me to examine my options.”
“You would miss work.”
Nina could think of many good reasons not to work today, tomorrow, or ever again, but in the hard light of Sandy’s dark eyes they appeared rather insubstantial to her at the moment. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just don’t want to make any sudden decisions.”
This time, Sandy studied her without anger. “Well,” she said finally, “if you’re looking to keep things small and invest your windfall temporarily, say the word. I’ve got this ex-brother-in-law with Charles Schwab…”
“When the money comes in, it will seem more real to me, Sandy. Until then, I’m just spinning spiderwebs.” She looked at the papers on her desk and thought, I can’t believe it really will come in. That’s the trouble.
“Something else is on your mind, isn’t it?” Sandy asked. “Is this about the juror that died?” She had an unerring ability to press on the sore spot, a talent she shared with Paul.
“No, there’s nothing else,” Nina lied. She rustled a few papers and took a final drink from her cup, setting it down on the desk ceremoniously. “I want to touch base with Lindy. We’ve hardly talked since the verdict. Try to reach her at her friend Alice’s or at her message number, okay?”
Sandy shrugged and went back to her desk.
Nina returned to her work in a state of emotional clutter. The weekend with Paul had been good, but things were never easy with him. He was so closely tied to her in every way, physically, emotionally, and even at work. She hoped he would forget about the juror. Wright was dead and the trial was over.
She hadn’t even had time to miss Bob, who had gone on a field trip financed by his grandpa to the East Coast on Sunday and would be visiting the Bureau of Engraving with his classmates sometime today. A cup of coffee gave her back the illusion of clear thinking, and she concentrated on some pending files that needed her attention. With Lake Tahoe spread-eagled out the window in front of her, she allowed herself five luxurious minutes to weave images in her mind of exotic lands and freedom from financial worry before she needed to pack her bag, resume her normal duties, and head back to the courthouse.
“You’re the fellow here about Wright,” said Dr. Clauson, studying Paul through Coke-bottle lenses. A skinny, balding man, he wore a wrinkled, short-sleeved shirt over trousers that were shiny at the knees.
Paul had never seen the medical examiner’s office before. In his mind, Doc Clauson forever loitered in the basement morgue at Placerville, where he had first seen him.
Clauson stepped behind a battle-scarred oak desk littered with gum wrappers, wadded-up bits of trash, and a hundred file folders. “Do I know you?”
“We’ve met. I work with Nina Reilly.”
“Her?” said Clauson, inserting a piece of Juicy Fruit into his mouth. “She gonna drag me into another mess? She send you?”
“I’m here to satisfy my own curiosity. Nothing to do with her.”
Clauson liked that answer, Paul could tell. Having survived a few run-ins with Nina himself, Paul could empathize.
“Well, it’s just a run-of-the-mill thing,” said Clauson, pulling a file out of a stack on the floor beside his desk.
He read for a moment, then scanned further as he spoke. “One of the bailiffs dialed nine-one-one. By the time the paramedics arrived, Wright had suffocated. They tried intravenous epinephrine, but it was too late.”
“Dr. Clauson,” Paul began.
“Call me Doc.”
“Okay, Doc. I’m curious about what it says on his death certificate.”
“Anaphylactic shock“-Clauson nodded-”with an immunologic component. That means as opposed to anaphylactoid shock related to nonspecific release of mediators.” He tipped back in his chair, as if relishing the chance to go over the case, and spoke in the choppy sentences Paul remembered. “Only the second case I’ve seen. First one was a woman; died from kissing a man who’d just polished off a bag of chocolate-covered peanut butter candies. Dead in a couple of minutes. Killed by a kiss. Sounds incredible, I know, but it happened.”
“Would you mind telling me in general terms what anaphylactic shock is?”
“Sure. Basically, you introduce a foreign agent, an antigen, into an organism, and the organism begins an all-out war against itself. Shuts down breathing or shuts down circulation, or both.”
“What causes it?”
“In this case, legumes. Peanuts are the most popular legume. A peanut is not a nut, properly speaking. We think some people become allergic because they are exposed to these tricky foods before an immature system can handle it properly. Probably mothers shouldn’t be eating peanuts while they nurse their babies. Kids under three shouldn’t eat peanut butter.”
Paul mentally totted up the thousands of peanut butter sandwiches he had eaten as a boy. “But not everyone who is exposed young develops an allergy.”
“True. Most don’t.”
“Are there other allergies besides the one to peanuts that can be deadly?”
“Of course, in susceptible people. Spider venom, pollen, antibiotics, vitamins. Most of his life, my father couldn’t eat apples. We now know that an apple reaction can be related to a birch pollen or ragweed allergic response. During pollen seasons, similar proteins in fresh fruit cause reactions in a compromised immune system. But that’s an odd one. And you’ve heard of allergies to bee stings, right?”
“Sure.”
“Can be life-threatening. Good idea to watch what you eat from the time you’re very young,” said Clauson, patting a stomach that had thickened slightly since the days when he sucked on Camels as if they were M &M’s.
“You did an autopsy on Wright?”
“Yep.”
“Mind going into detail for me?”
“Classic case of anaphylaxis. Laryngeal edema, hoarseness-he was still calling out when the medics got there, but not for long. Stridor-that’s harsh breathing. Angioedema, that’s a deep edematous cutaneous process. But look here, I’ve got a picture.” He handed a large, glossy color photo over to Paul.
“Man,” Paul said. “What a way to go.”
Clauson laid the picture on the desk in front of him and turned toward Paul. He crooked a thin finger and pointed.
“It’s the most characteristic external feature of this condition-giant hives.” He looked at his report and read, rolling the medical terms officiously around in his mouth. “Cutaneous wheals with erythematous, serpiginous borders and white centers.” Putting the sheet aside he said, “Discrete borders, but you can see here, so rampant he swelled up head to toe. The eyes are the worst.”
“How fast could that develop?”
“In this case, minutes. In some cases, people die in seconds. If he’d lived to get treated, those big red clumps would have disappeared over the next few days.”
“He say anything?”
“Throat too swollen. Now, there’s two ways to die with this thing. The angioedema-which he’d feel like a lump that blocks his breathing passages-can kill by causing respiratory insufficiency. Second way is vascular collapse, which can occur with or without hypoxia. The angioedema did him in. Way I could tell was the visceral congestion without a shift in the distribution of blood volume. Also, the lungs showed hyperinflation-that’s something you can see with the naked eye and with a microscope, common in fatal cases with clinical bronchial obstruction. I’ve got a photo here.”
“If he had gotten his kit and given himself a shot, what would have happened?”
“He would have calmed down all over and gone on with the show.”
“This is what I don’t understand. If he knew he was so dangerously allergic to peanuts, why wasn’t he more careful? Why did he eat them?”
“Obviously, he had no idea he was eating peanuts.” Clauson read from his notes. “Last meal was lunch in the jury room. Vegetable chow mein, egg rolls, and fortune cookie. Didn’t make it far into the cookie part. Only a trace in the stomach.”
“They put peanuts in chow mein?”
“Nope.”
“In the egg rolls?”
“Nope.”
“The cookie?”
“Nope.”
“I assume you talked to the caterer?”
“A restaurant on Ski Run Boulevard. Owner swears there were no peanuts in the food. Wright called there before to check with them and ask them particularly not to use any in his meal.”
“I don’t get it.”
If eyes as colorless as apricot pits could be said to twinkle, Clauson’s did. “I said the same thing to myself a few days ago. Then I went home. I go home at night, not much is happening. Tube, bed, let the cat out. I’m a bachelor. Women don’t like my work.”
“Yeah?”
“Used to smoke like a fiend. Not as good as a wife, but Mr. Butts kept me company of a sort.”
Clauson chewed his gum ruminatively. Paul waited for him to get to his point.
“Took a course at the college on cooking Asian food to meet some women. Didn’t find a wife, but learned to cook.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Decided to make myself some Szechuan chicken and homemade egg rolls.”
“Yes?”
“Looked at the bottle in my hand. Peanut oil. Lots of people cooking Chinese use peanut oil when they pinch the egg rolls shut.”
“But… isn’t it the protein in the peanuts that causes the reaction?”
“Oil will do it for some people.”
“Ah-hah!”
“What I said,” said Clauson.
“Did you ask the cook?”
“Swears she didn’t.”
“You think she’s lying.”
Clauson’s shoulders shook slightly, as if he had been tickled. “Gotta be. The food wasn’t bad enough to kill otherwise.” He chuckled at his joke, then looked sober. “Here’s negligence that caused a death, but nobody’s gonna pursue it. Guy with a time bomb in his system like that should have always brought his own lunch.”
“You think they’re afraid they’ll be sued.”
“That’s right, but I’m satisfied I know what happened. Done in by egg rolls.”
“You sure the cook was lying?” Paul said
Clauson sighed. Paul had apparently tried his patience just a bit. “There’s no question about the cause of death. You take the history of the patient before making a diagnosis. He’s been allergic since he was about three.”
“But this time he died.”
“That was almost a predictable outcome of another exposure. Just a couple of months ago, he took a trip to the hospital after eating ice cream that listed almonds in the ingredients, but had sneaked in peanuts as filler and flavoring without changing the labeling. Now that was a hard source to trace. This one is obvious, whether or not the restaurant takes responsibility.”
Paul had had his fifteen minutes. Doc Clauson jumped up, saying he had to go.
“Enjoyed talking with you,” he said. “Nobody takes much interest in death by natural causes, even interesting causes, except maybe the insurance people, and they’re only interested in how much they’re going to owe the grieving family.”
“It’s fascinating stuff, how many paths lead to death,” said Paul. “Oh, Doc,” he said, as Clauson put a hand on the door, “just one more thing.”
Clauson had to check his notes one last time for an address.
Nina waited for Paul on her favorite bench in the yard outside the courthouse where she could soak up sun, listening to the wind lifting the branches of the trees around her, insects buzzing, and the distant din of the highway a mile away. Closing fluorescent-scarred eyes, she drifted in dark, mindless bliss for several minutes.
“Waiting, waiting,” a voice said. The teddy bear had come back, the one Paul had given her when he proposed a long time ago, the one that spoke with his voice. But how could he be here? He lived in her front closet with her ski boots, his nagging tone for the time being smothered under a down jacket. “Wake up, sleepyhead.” A hand, not a furry paw, took hold of her side and shook.
“I’m not sleeping!” To her surprise, although her feet remained on the ground, her cheek had found its way to the cool, hard surface of the bench.
“If you say so, Ladyship.” Paul helped her to her feet. She straightened her jacket and turned her skirt back to face front.
“I must have dozed off. And don’t call me that.”
“Yes, you did and I’ll consider it,” said Paul. “Now how about lunch? It’s through the looking glass you know, napping before the meal.”
“I didn’t sleep much this weekend,” said Nina. “Now why do you suppose?”
“Better things to do,” said Paul, maneuvering himself into the driver’s seat. “You’ve finally got your head screwed on straight.”
Nina laughed at that.
“Hmmm. Exactly how hungry are you?”
“I have time for a quickie,” said Nina.
“I rise to a challenge,” said Paul, starting the engine to his van, whose roaring start soon settled into a purr.
“Food, I mean.”
“Oh, well.” He drove down the hill toward town.
“Where are we going?” asked Nina. “It’s so beautiful. Let’s eat outside.”
“I’m thinking Chinese,” said Paul.
“Anywhere with an outdoor patio?”
“I don’t think so. That’s not the Chinese way.”
“How do you know?”
“They hardly ever have windows. Some feng shui rule, I bet.”
Nina took her brush out and ran it through her tumbled hair. “You like Chinese food?” she said, wincing as she snagged a rat.
“Let’s just say, this food has an unusual provenance.”
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“Another secret unveiled. Damn,” said Paul, pulling up in front of a storefront with a large parking lot in front of it. “Next thing, you’ll be finding out how many women I’ve loved and lost.”
“How many?”
“None,” he said, pausing and then adding, “so beautiful as you.”
“See Paul dodge,” said Nina, giving him a kiss. “But it’s okay. Your two ex-wives are persecution enough for me in the dark of night.”
The restaurant’s low, flat building had a fire-engine-red-lacquered sign, flanked by black tiles arching over pink walls trimmed with gold paint, the whole of which somehow created the impression of a grand Oriental pavilion.
“What’s this place?” asked Nina, climbing out of the van. “Looks like more than a restaurant.”
“It is. They rent rooms, too. Welcome to the Inn of Five Happinesses,” said Paul. He hurried ahead to pull the brass knob. The door opened, and the pleasant aromas of fresh food and spices wrapped around them.
Once seated, Nina ignored the menu. “I always have the same thing,” she said. “Cashew chicken.”
“Have something else if you want," said Paul. “No one’s forcing you.”
“No. I’m just telling you. I want cashew chicken.”
“Not in an experimental mood. Got you," said Paul, looking up with interest as a smooth-faced Asian man appeared silently beside him, notepad ready. “Okay. One cashew chicken. One vegetable chow mein. A dozen egg rolls. Steamed rice. Tea for two.”
The waiter dipped his head slightly and turned away.
“You must be awfully hungry," said Nina. “You plan to eat a dozen?”
“There’s always a doggy bag," said Paul.
“Hitchcock won’t eat that stuff.”
“For your bottomless pit of a son.”
“Remember? Bob’s out of town this week-” Nina began.
But Paul excused himself to wash his hands. She amused herself by watching the other patrons, some of whom were picking leisurely through an array of dishes, while others, obviously office workers on a limited break, shoveled it in.
Paul wandered toward the kitchen, pushing a pair of swinging doors aside like John Wayne, feeling like an unusually large intruder invading a foreign landscape.
Painted white, with a black and white tile floor, the kitchen was on the small side, and the several people inside, wearing white aprons over jeans, whacked and clanged and moved from one end to the other with the grace of a single organism. One whole wall was absorbed by a massive silver cook top. Hanging from the ceiling, copper and stainless steel pots shone as though polished by the warm moisture suspended in the air.
“No, no!” A boy who looked about twenty waved a flat wooden spatula at Paul. “You go!”
Over a wooden chopping block, a teenaged girl ignored him, slicing away at cabbage and spring onions, her knife glinting and sharp, hair that could only be described as scarlet in color standing up in a multitude of lengths like unmowed grass. A diminutive older woman wearing a hair net opened a pan to reveal an entire fish, head and all, sweating in clouds of steam. To her left, another boy ran a Hobart dishwasher, sliding huge trays of dirty dishes in one end and out the other.
“Smells good,” Paul said.
“Kitchen,” said the kid, stepping up to Paul. About a foot shorter than Paul, but tightly muscled, he stood his ground. “You leave now.”
Paul saw himself in a Jackie Chan movie, about to be chopped and flipped and tossed out the swinging door. “See, I’m taking a class in Chinese cooking,” said Paul as politely as he could. “And for our final we’re supposed to make egg rolls. Only problem is, I’m afraid I cut most of the classes. I really have no idea what I’m doing. So I thought, well, here I am eating egg rolls for lunch. No excuse for not watching how it’s done.”
“No!” said the boy, but the older lady who slid the fish expertly onto a platter spoke to him in Chinese, and he stepped back, glowering. Turning his back on Paul, he hoisted the tray on one arm and glided back into the restaurant.
“We’re a family business. He’s my disrespectful son,” she said apologetically, rinsing a massive steel strainer full of shrimp with the vigor of a triathlete. “He is very rude.”
“Not at all,” said Paul. “I know it’s not usual to let people in the kitchen. But I’d really appreciate it…”
“Sure,” the girl piped in, giving Paul a smile her mother could not see. “It gets boring in here with nobody to talk to except my brothers and my mother. Come watch the expert. I bet I’ve made ten thousand egg rolls this year alone.”
The girl’s mother, who had never halted her movements for a second, tossed the shrimp, some steamed rice, and vegetables in a wok. From bottles next to the stove, she dashed a bit of this and a bit of that, watching poker-faced as Paul stepped up to stand beside the girl.
“I’m Colleen,” said the girl, giving her red lawn a toss.
“I’m Paul.”
“Don’t shake my hand unless your girlfriend is crazy about onions.” With her knife, she pushed a heap of fixings into a bowl and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “Nothing gets rid of this smell.”
Nina had been dreaming about her fee again. She had moved on to a fantasy of buying a lakeside home with a dock and a fine boat on which she and Bob could learn to water-ski and sail. She would replace Matt’s lousy boat with a new one, top of the line for him and Andrea and the cousins. Then she would buy the Starlake office building, renovate, and take over the top two floors, hiring associates and promoting Sandy to supervise people besides Nina. Paul would not bug her about marriage. Their wild fling would go on for years and years until Nina decided unexpectedly to settle down or have another child, at which time he would settle into complete fidelity and become a marvelous father.
Content to play in her imaginary landscape for a while, some time passed before she realized Paul had not returned. Puzzled, she checked the restaurant’s restroom, finding it empty. As she walked back to the table she spotted him hunched over a plate of steaming noodles. The table was suddenly covered with dishes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Fine, fine,” he chortled. “C’mon. Dig in. They really know how to cook here. Good food.”
She picked up her chopsticks and pointed them at him. “Where were you?”
“In the kitchen, learning how to assemble egg rolls,” said Paul. “It’s a family business. Mom supervises the kitchen. The two oldest sons, Tan-Kwo and Tan-Mo, clean up and serve. They use only the freshest cabbage in their rolls,” he said, biting down on one. “Mmm.”
“But you hardly ever cook. You grill. And then, only steak.”
“That’s true.”
“So?”
“So guess what? Dad had a heart attack two years ago. They’ve cleaned up their act. No more greasy bad stuff. Only fresh. And only pure.”
Nina tried to keep her patience. “What are you talking about?”
“Pure canola.”
She threw her napkin on the table, continuing to hold her sticks aloft. “Are you going to tell me what you’re talking about?” she said. “Don’t force me to torture you.”
“This restaurant catered Clifford Wright’s last meal,” said Paul. “Doc Clauson said he must have eaten peanuts in some form. They said they didn’t use ’em. He thought they were lying.”
“And?”
“They don’t use peanut oil anymore. They don’t serve anything with peanuts. They only use cashews.”
Nina heard the bewilderment in her own voice. “But aren’t cashews nuts?”
“He wasn’t allergic to nuts. He was allergic to legumes, and that includes peanuts.”
“How do you know that?”
“Various sources.”
“So… so he accidentally ate peanuts from somewhere else. What difference does it make?”
“Nina, if he didn’t have an allergic reaction to the lunch, what killed him?”
She pushed her plate away. “Paul, no. No, no, no.” She put a hand to her forehead and shook her head.
“Tan-Kwo in the kitchen says Clifford called the restaurant to check about the use of peanut oil in cooking before he touched his lunch. Wright told them then how serious the allergy could be, but they already knew about it.
“In spite of sounding like he’s just off the boat, that’s just an act. For most of the year, Tan-Kwo is premed at UC Berkeley.”
“Paul… you’re… you’re…”
“I spoke to Clifford Wright’s family this morning. They’re very distraught. They’d like to know more about what happened.”
Nina sat very still, her thoughts beating around in her mind like Ping-Pong balls. “If someone tampered with the jury, the judge will throw out the verdict. We’d have a mistrial. You’re suggesting someone spiked his food with peanuts.”
“Just considering the possibility.”
“You really think there’s something to find out?”
“It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“Why can’t you just let this alone? Paul, if this verdict is set aside I am in so deep I might never be able to dig my way out. I bet everything on winning. I’m in hock up to my eyeballs.”
It was a plea. Paul’s brow furrowed.
“So, what are you going to do?”
He took her hand. “You tell me.”
They had an uncomfortable ride back to Nina’s car at the courthouse, during which she pled exhaustion and turned the radio up and closed her eyes to drown him out both visually and aurally. She gathered her things to get out of the car and stepped out. She held the door open and leaned in.
“Okay, Paul, do it. Damn you. I won’t sleep until you tell me you’re wrong.”
“That’s my Nina,” Paul said.
She slammed the door in his face.
Paul headed straight for the South Lake Tahoe police department to root out an old acquaintance, Sergeant Cheney.
Cheney welcomed him with a smile, motioning him to sit. He had a phone glued to his head, and a pen scribbling in one hand. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Yep.” This continued for several minutes, while Paul examined the photographs on Cheney’s desk, especially the one of his wife, a lovely toasty-brown-colored woman with hair lighter than her skin, looking much younger than the overweight Cheney.
Finally, Cheney hung up. The phone rang. He ignored it.
“Haven’t seen you around in a while,” he said. “If you don’t count the fact that you’ve been involved in two out of the five deaths I’ve investigated in the past coupla years.”
“I can see you’re busy,” said Paul. “I appreciate you taking the time to see me. I’ll keep it short.”
“Let me help you along,” said Cheney. He looked down at his papers. “Clifford Wright, white male, thirty-two. Died from a severe allergic reaction called anaphylactic shock, presumably from ingesting some form of peanuts. Have I got it so far?”
“Well, yes,” said Paul, utterly taken aback. “How did you know I was here about Wright?”
“I’m a detective, remember,” said Cheney, “and then there was that phone call just now from Doc Clauson. He says you came nosing around the medical examiner’s office this a.m. You got the Doc’s curiosity bump itching. He’s asked me, unofficially, to look into a couple of things.”
“Such as?”
“They use peanut oil at the Five Happinesses or not?” asked Cheney. “I’ll probably mosey over there this evening. I feel a hankering for kung pao prawns. They have that over there? You know?”
“I didn’t notice.”
Cheney clapped his hands together. “Figured you’d already been. Bet you noticed a bunch of things about peanuts.”
“Like, they don’t use them or peanut oil.”
“Seeing you here, figured they might not.”
“I guess you’ve already answered my question.” Paul got up to leave.
“Which was?”
“How final is the medical examiner’s ruling on Wright’s death? Legally, I mean. The family is hiring me to find out.”
“Now, how’d you hook up with them?”
“Called with my condolences and happened to mention that insurance companies don’t pay as well for a natural death. They’ll inherit more if somebody else hurried him along. Turns out Wright had a hefty life insurance policy. If I come up with some proof that Wright’s death was less than kosher, how hard will it be to get Clauson to change his ruling on the cause of death?”
“Oh, his report’s final. Unless he changes his mind.”
“He can change it.”
“Yep. Quick as popping one of those sticks of gum he’s always got lying around these days. But the real answer is, our files on that case remain open. And now you’ve opened up a brand-new direction for our ongoing inquiries. Keep in touch, why don’t you?”
“Be glad to,” said Paul.
Back in his car, he punched numbers into his phone. “Sandy,” he said. “Any idea how I could reach Wish?”
“He’s right here.”
“Put him on.”
“Why?” asked Sandy.
“I have some work for him.”
The phone must have flown to Wish, because he answered only a second later. “How,” said Wish, “Chief Wish Whitefeather here,” and that greeting was followed by a thumping noise, then an “Ouch.” Sandy’s son had a sense of humor about being Native American his mother apparently didn’t appreciate.
“So you’re a chief now,” said Paul. “Too important for me to corner you for a couple of hours for a project I’m working on?”
“I’ll check my calendar.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” said Wish, hurt. “I’m taking classes at night, you know. Police administration.”
“Oh. Sorry,” said Paul.
“When do you need me?”
“Today, possibly into tomorrow.”
“What are we doing?”
“Interviews.”
“You running the show?”
“Nope. You’ve been promoted from assistant to detective-in-training.”
“Outstanding! But… how will I know what to ask? Are you going to fill me in on what’s going on?”
Paul did.
“Okay, let me see if I have this straight. You think someone put something into the Chinese food this juror ate right before he tossed in his chopsticks.”
“Yeah, someone out for a puff, or a stretch. Someone went out there and took care of our friend Clifford Wright.”
“How do you know that’s what happened?” asked Wish, sounding dubious. “I never heard anything about him being killed by someone.”
“I don’t know it. Yet. It’s just a hunch.”
“Oh,” said Wish.
“I spoke very briefly with one of the jurors this morning already, Grace Whipple. She said the bailiff brought lunch in a little late, at about twelve-fifteen. They jumped on that food like prisoners of war. Said it was a real high point in a nasty morning. They had all probably been thinking about it for at least an hour. Nobody could have fiddled with anything in full view of the rest of the jury under those circumstances.”
“So you think it happened when the food was out in the hall for about fifteen minutes after it arrived, before anyone ate, and all the jurors were coming and going.”
“Well, it was outside the anteroom in a private hall that leads to the clerk’s offices and the judge’s chambers. That hall is locked. You have to have business with the court, or work there, to get in.”
“So you think it was one of the jurors.”
“If anyone. Only they knew what was happening in that jury room. At this point, I don’t know anyone did anything. I’m just intrigued.”
“Do you really think someone planned to kill this guy by giving him an allergy attack?”
“Not really. It’s more likely, if this actually is the case, someone got angry, saw an opportunity, and grabbed it without knowing how serious the consequences might be. Maybe they just thought it would temporarily put him out of commission.”
“Where would they get the peanuts?”
“Apparently, most of them brought snacks.”
“I really don’t get this.”
“What?”
“Nina won the case. Why does she care about that juror?”
“She told me to go ahead and check it out, Wish.” Paul had known she would. Ultimately, the truth was too important to Nina, even when it might work against her. “She doesn’t expect us to find anything.”
“But if one of the other jurors offed him, Nina’s verdict will get put aside, won’t it?”
“We’re a long way from that happening, Wish. Right now, our role is to gather information, not to worry about what might happen.”
“Okay. Who do I go see?”
Paul decided to assign Wish the bulk of the jurors, those who had supported Mike in the beginning, and those who had been persuaded by Cliff to go with Mike later, according to exit interviews conducted by the media, which had pounced on the jury after the verdict. They would have less cause to want to harm him. Paul would take the ones that opposed Wright-Diane, Mrs. Lim, Courtney, and maybe Sonny. And then he might want to talk with Lindy. She had the most to gain, although how she could know what was happening in the jury room was a problem, unless she had a confederate.
“So I need your help on two fronts. Before anything else, the first thing I want is, I need you to… um“-some of this was tricky; he didn’t want Wish to break any ethical rules to get him what he needed, but it was the lazy way and the sensible way to keep this investigation short-”get me the jury’s addresses, phone numbers, everything. Nina will cooperate on that front.”
“Easy!” said Wish enthusiastically. “I’m sure we’ve got a list right here somewhere.”
“Good, good. And then“-now here came the important part, the part Nina might not embrace so eagerly-”if you come across anything relevant, of course…”
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” said Wish. “Of course, I can’t bring you anything really private.”
“Of course not,” said Paul, hoping nevertheless that Wish might, in his helpful innocence, stumble on something useful.
“I won’t let your faith in me down,” said Wish.
“Who taught you to talk like that?” Paul asked.
“That would be me,” said Sandy. “Just a little motherly advice. And there’s more. Find yourself another flunky.”
“You just eavesdropped on a private conversation between me and your son,” said Paul. “Nina won’t like hearing that.”
“He’s underage. And I’ll tell you what Nina won’t like. Nina won’t like you using my son to weasel your way into our private files.”
“That’s insulting,” said Paul. “Wish would never do that and neither would I. Besides, Nina wants this investigation to be over as much as I do. She won’t mind us getting what we need quickly and efficiently, and getting on with it.”
“Really?” said Sandy. “Hang on while I ask her about that.”
“Oh, don’t bother. We can get the jurors’ names from public records. Now, if I promise not to ask Wish to take advantage of his position at your offices to grub through trash cans or something, can I please borrow him for a few hours?”
“For how much?” asked Sandy.
“Lindy?”
A silhouette opened the door to Lindy’s trailer and stood there, irresolute.
Lindy came from the little kitchen, wiping her wet hands on a washcloth, calling, “Alice?”
“It’s me.” She saw Mike, the sun behind him, making a fuzzy halo of his hair.
“I, uh, hoped you’d let me come in. No phone, so I couldn’t call first.”
“What do you want, Mike?”
“Can I come in?”
She was so bewildered to see him that she found herself stepping aside to let him in, saying, “I can’t believe you remembered the place.” He followed her into the trailer and she motioned toward the table with its built-in benches. “I was just making some coffee.”
“No, please. Don’t bother,” Mike said. He sat down and leaned on the table on his elbow and scratched his head, familiar actions.
The room felt smaller with Mike in it. She hadn’t broken her solitude over the past months with any guests. A long time ago, they had lived here together for a short time. She could barely remember.
Lindy went to the window, looked out for traces of a lawyer or a sheriff or Rachel, but Mike’s black Cadillac sat all alone in the turnaround. The cloud of dust he’d raised still drifted in the breeze. Besides Comanche’s stall and the storage shed, the landscape, all rock and high scrub desert, was silent and shadeless at midday.
“I see you’re packing up,” Mike said. “You never should have come out here to this lonely old place anyway.”
“Where else would I go?” Lindy said. Something in Mike’s face stopped her from going on and saying what she had a right to say about that. “Dad loved it out here,” she said instead. “It hasn’t been so bad.”
“Reminds me of when we lived out here for a while, you remember? Tumbleweed Flats, we called it. No phone, no TV. Damn, it got hot. It’s sure hot out here today, isn’t it?”
“Why did you come? You could see me tomorrow in your lawyer’s office.”
Mike looked out the window at the rolling brown flank of the mountains silently, chewing his lip.
“Did he send you all the way out here to soften me up?” She went back into the little kitchen and came back with a couple of beers. She didn’t care if that was why he had come, that was how glad she was to see him, but she wasn’t going to let him know that, he didn’t deserve to know that, so she slapped down the beers and said, “Here. I’m having one anyway.”
“You got every right to say anything you want, Lin.”
Looking like a man with his head in a guillotine, his face was resigned and frightened. He’d screwed up his courage to come out here and try to tell her-what? “You look terrible,” Lindy said.
“You look great. No wonder. You beat the pants off me. You did.”
She had a long drink from the bottle. “I like beer out here. It cools me off better than wine.”
“Seems like a long time since we talked,” said Mike.
“We’ve had mouthpieces to do that for us.”
“Yeah.”
“How’ve you been?”
“Not good.”
He didn’t seem inclined to get to the point, and she didn’t care. He came into the bare room and filled it up for her, completed a sketchy picture. She just wanted to sit there and enjoy his huge presence for as long as it could last.
“I’ve been riding Comanche all over this desert,” she said after a minute. “Look.” She spilled out the contents of a dirty cotton drawstring sack onto the table. White rock pieces, jagged like shark teeth on the edges, tumbled out. “Collected these a few days ago. I had to get on a ledge about fifty feet up one of those rock faces, lie on my back, and chip away with my hammer. I doubt anybody else had ever been at that particular face. I’ve got more of it out back in a big pail of water.” Mike turned the rocks over, holding one up to the sunlight streaming onto the table.
“Beautiful. You always wanted to go out and prospect for opal.”
“There is some around here. Dad looked for silver, but that was all prospected out even before he came here, and I’m sure he never thought about opal. Unfortunately, I don’t think this spot is as rich as I thought it might be. I’m not finding much.”
Mike nodded, looking fatigued as he had most days in court. Lindy felt the urge to apologize to him for putting him through the court case, but resisted. He’d thrown her out and chosen Rachel. What did she have to apologize for? “It’s a long drive out here. Why don’t you rest? You look really tired.”
“Thanks. But I have to get going in a few minutes.”
Yes, you need to run on home to your pretty, young lover, Lindy said to herself, using the painful thought to touch the bruises on her heart and remind her that she needed to protect herself. He had no right to hurt her anymore.
“I came to talk to you.” Well, that was obvious. She saw how awkward he felt.
“One last time?” she said. “I thought we said our good-byes out by the lake that night.”
“I’ll be selling the business, moving on.”
Guarding herself at this introduction of the business between them she said, “That’s your decision, Mike, although I’m sorry to hear it. Do you want to work up some installment payment plan? If that’s what you came here to talk me into, that’s fine.”
Mike drank most of the bottle down in one long swallow. He set the bottle down on the table with a clatter. “You haven’t seen the receiver’s final report. My lawyer called me just before I left. All that expansion you were working on in Europe fell apart after you left. And the bottom dropped out of the domestic spa market. A Chinese company came in and undercut us. Somehow, it didn’t matter anymore to me-”
“How much did we lose?”
“We might get seventy million for it if we can sell it. Less if we liquidate and just go out of business.”
“But,” she could barely contain her shock, “how could that happen? I mean, at the beginning of all this, wasn’t it worth at least two hundred?”
“Months of neglect,” he said simply. “I let it go, along with you.”
“Seventy million. Mike, that’s my share. That’s the judgment my lawyer’s writing up right now.”
“So I’m told. I didn’t get it at first, but my lawyer says it’s the value of the business from the time we-”
“Yes. From the time we split up. Well, that’s awful news, Mike. I’m sorry.” She thought. “You’ll appeal the verdict then?”
“No. I’m done with courtrooms.”
“Mike, why’d you have to be so pigheaded-”
“Please, Lin. Not now.” Here was her chance to rub his nose in his failures, all of them, but how could she with him looking so collapsed and old in his defeat? She actually reached her hand out toward his hand, but thoughts sprang into her mind to arrest the gesture. On the witness stand he had barely admitted her role in the business. He had denigrated, insulted, cheated, and betrayed her… and all the while Rachel had whispered in his ear, touched his arm… she returned her hand to her side.
“Listen.” he went on obliviously, apparently too wrapped up in his own inner struggle to admit hers to his consciousness. “You want to know the worst thing? The worst thing is I don’t understand what happened to me. One day we were happy, and the next day I jumped into a bottomless pit.”
She bit her tongue, going back into the kitchen to get him another beer. When she returned, he had another stone between his fingers. He turned it back and forth in the light, his face intense and absorbed.
He set the stone back into the sack. “Rachel left me this morning,” he said, his eyes fixed on the sack, not her.
Lindy folded her arms. “The receiver’s report.”
“She read it. Then she set it down on the dining room table and she swung her purse onto her shoulder, and she said, ’Bye, Mike,’ and walked out the door. Went back to handsome Harry, is my guess.”
“And you came straight here to cry on my shoulder.”
“No, Lin, I…”
“You have some nerve,” Lindy said, unable to hide the anger vibrating in her voice.
“I came to tell you you were right. You’re smarter than me, Lindy. You’re smarter about living your life. I was too old for Rachel and she was in it for the money.”
“Now you figure that out?”
“I guess I knew, Lin, but I wanted her anyway. There’s no excuse, no explanation. I just lost my way.” He didn’t say anything more.
Lindy hadn’t seen Mike as rattled as this since the old days in the ring, after a few bad thumps on the head. “Well, I guess you loved her,” she said.
“For a month or two.”
“Was it all because we never had kids?”
“Only a little.”
“Still, too bad we didn’t. Then we’d have something more important than money to fight about.” She laughed slightly.
Mike was looking at her. “You let your hair go natural. And it’s longer than I remember. I like it. Goes great with your suntan. You look strong again. During the trial, I was worried about you.”
“Don’t you sweet-talk me.” She didn’t tell him she had worried about him, too. What would be the point?
Mike slid out from behind the table and came around behind her. Leaning his head down, he rested it on her shoulder. He stroked her hair, pulling it gently back, running his fingers through it. “I guess that’s all. I guess I should go.”
“Yes, you should go now.”
He pulled her up from her chair, and made her face him. He took both hands in his. “I apologize, Lin,” he said, putting his cheek against her cheek, “for ruining everything.”
“I don’t trust you anymore,” she said.
“I know.”
With her eyes closed, she tasted the salt of his sweat.
“You the public defender?” Sonny Ball sat in the glassed-in cage at the county jail talking through a telephone. He moved fast and jerky, like a man about to jump out of his skin.
“Sorry, no. I’m from Nina Reilly’s office. I’m talking with all the jurors in the Markov case.”
“I don’t have time for that. I’ve got my own trouble.” Sonny twiddled the phone, nodding his head rapidly to music only he could hear.
“Looks to me like you have time to burn, Sonny,” Paul said.
“Which explains why I need a lawyer.”
“If your lawyer comes in, I’ll leave.”
“Yeah, do that. So here we are. What you want to know? Your team won, didn’t it?”
“Well, we always want to do better,” Paul said. “It helps to interview jurors whether you win or lose. Find out what mistakes we made or what we did well.”
Sonny rolled his tongue around in his mouth. “What do I get out of it?”
“Well, I can’t pay you, but-”
“Make a phone call for me?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“Here’s the number.”
Paul wrote it down.
“Tell him to get down here and bail me the fuck out.”
“Will do.”
“All right, then.” Sonny assumed a hilariously serious expression, still drumming and twiddling and nodding all at once, and said, “Ain’t this a laugh? I do my civic duty, and they check my name out and find this stupid drug warrant. They arrested me the minute I walked out of the jury room that day. That’s the thanks I get.”
“Your service on the jury was greatly appreciated.”
“Think it might help get me outa here?”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“It’s not like I got caught doing a line in the jury bathroom.”
“I don’t want to hear about it if you were. I’d like to talk about the last day of the deliberations.”
“Sure, sure. Sure.”
“You ended up voting for Lindy Markov.”
“Right.”
“Mind if I ask what factors influenced you most?”
“I didn’t like Markov. He’s the kind of guy that always takes advantage and gets all the credit. A bastard pain in the ass. Also, the girlfriend was very uppity. She never even looked at me once. And I heard so much bullshit in that jury room, my brain ached. It was time to go. And then there were issues.”
Paul wrote it all down.
“Put down that I felt that an implied contract existed. And her old man made her sign that paper, so it didn’t count.”
“I understand that at one point, just before Mr. Wright collapsed, you were about to change your vote and vote for Mr. Markov.”
“Yeah. I just about did. Then Cliff went down. You should of seen his face. I’m thinking twice before I eat Chinese again.”
“Why were you about to change your vote, though?”
“Cliff went to work on me.”
“His arguments convinced you?”
Sonny stopped dancing with his head long enough to let out a snort. “He caught me at the morning break, said a few things that made me reconsider. I resisted as long as I did because I thought Markov just flat out lied on the stand. He had a shifty look I’ve seen a few times before. And were we supposed to believe the crud he said on the stand, about forgetting this and forgetting that?”
“What changed your mind?”
“Just before lunch Cliff started in on me in front of everybody else. Hey, he had a point about Lindy Markov. She was kinda pretty for such an old lady. Probably was messing around. He really needed my vote to win, and the three women weren’t about to shift over to Mike. So, I reminded myself how a guy like Cliff might turn out to be a better friend than enemy.”
“What did he say to you?”
Sonny looked irritated at the question. “Oh, maybe he’d get me a job or something.”
“He said that?”
“Let’s just leave it that he knew how to persuade people.”
“But after he, um, collapsed, you ended up voting for Mrs. Markov.”
“Well, old Cliff wasn’t in any position to help out anymore, was he? So I went back around to my original vote, like the judge said to do.”
“I’m curious,” Paul said. “Why would Cliff pressure people into his point of view? Do you think he had some special connection with Mr. Markov?”
“No,” Sonny said. “It had nothing to do with Markov. He was a power-tripper. He had to beat out the women, that was it. The mountain climber with the steel-shank shoes, the real-estate lady, and the cute little student. Courtney. He had to prove he was better than them, by winning the fight.”
“But why?”
Sonny looked pityingly at Paul, saying, “You know. Sure, let ’em win, let ’em cut your balls off. That’s what he said to me. Enough said?”
Paul shrugged and said, “Okay. Except you didn’t feel that way yourself.”
“That’s because I wasn’t concerned about those women doing anything I didn’t want them to do with my balls,” said Sonny.
“By the way, did you see the lunch as it was brought in that day?”
“We all did. We were hungry. It smelled good.”
“Did anybody go out in the hall before the lunch came in?”
“We had a break and everybody ran around, smoking, drinking, snortin’.” He guffawed. “What the hell do you care about our downtime?”
“Did any of the women go out in the hall before the lunch came in?” Paul asked insistently.
“I was busy, okay? Who knows and who the hell cares?”
Courtney lived with her mother in a big ranch-style family home in the Tahoe Keys. When she answered the door, Paul was surprised to see Ignacio Ybarra, another ex-juror, with her. He was holding her hand.
They talked for several minutes, but as Paul suspected, neither one shed any light on Cliff’s death.
“Can you think of anyone else who might have gone out into that hallway where the food was?” Paul said, right before leaving. “Anytime in the hour, say, before you broke for lunch?”
In unison, they said, “No.”
“Are you saying someone poisoned Cliff?” Courtney asked.
“Of course not. But, just for the mental exercise, if someone were going to poison him, who would it be?” Paul said.
“No one!” said Courtney.
“Diane,” said Ignacio.
Paul ate his lunch at a new Mexican restaurant that had just opened up at Round Hill Mall, then drove back into town wiping chile colorado from his lips. He wondered if he would know whether Diane Miklos had dropped something peanutty into the cartons the minute he saw her. Sometimes it worked out that way.
She lived in a chalet-style home on the hill going up toward Heavenly. Paul parked around the corner in a fine stand of ponderosa pine and reviewed his notes. Midforties, old for a climber. Genevieve had placed an article from a climbing magazine about Diane’s exploits into the file. Diane had come to the mountains late, spent a couple of years getting in shape and taking mountaineering courses at Jackson Hole and North Conway, both good places to go, and then climbed several Sierra peaks. She had acquitted herself well and headed for the Alps for a year, making a winter ascent of Mont Blanc, no mean feat, and apparently there hooked up with the climber, Gus Miklos, a man from Athens with a world-class reputation. They had married a few years back, and occasionally climbed together.
She had set her sights on the Seven Summits, a goal Paul could appreciate. The idea was to climb the tallest mountain on each continent, including, of course, Everest. Besides Mt. Elbrus, the European summit, she’d managed to bag the Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia, Aconcagua in Argentina the previous year, and Kilimanjaro the year before that. Everest and the others, Mt. McKinley in Alaska, and Mt. Vinson in Antarctica were still in the future, if she lived that long.
Paul found all this very interesting. He hoped Diane Miklos hadn’t killed Wright. She must have real character to live out this particular dream.
She didn’t answer the door at first, so he rang again. She finally opened it and groaned when she saw him. “I forgot you were coming,” she said. “Do we have to do this?”
“I won’t keep you long. We really appreciate your time.”
“You may as well come on in, then. Don’t mind the mess.” She sat back down in the middle of the floor. The entire room was heaped with rucksacks, duffel bags, stoves, ropes, pitons and anchors and hooks, helmet, food packets, deep-loft parkas, maps, books, and boots. She picked up a piece of what looked like parachute cloth and went back to mending it. On the table lay a camcorder and boxes of film. “Well?” she said.
A small, well-built woman with narrow blue eyes and a firm mouth, she lifted her head to listen to him.
“Where are you headed?” Paul said.
“Everest.” All he could see of her was a bright haystack of hair and the busy, competent hands. “They had a cancellation. I got an unexpected opening. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Is your husband going?” Over on a buffet behind a rough oak dining room set, he saw a picture of a grinning, dark-haired man wrapped in red parka and ski glasses with nothing but blue behind him.
“He did Everest in ’94. So, no. I’m on my own, so to speak.”
“I’m impressed.” He was. He let it show in his voice.
“Wait till I make a successful summit for that.”
“I was in the Peace Corps in Nepal,” Paul said, “a long time ago. Trekked up to Base Camp, went up Kala Patar to see the big mountain. The jet stream was pluming off it and had blown all the snow off the summit. Any climbers must have been blown right off, although the sun blasted down so fiercely we were wearing T-shirts. Dark-blue sky, white mountains all around, and that squat black pyramid, up so much higher even from eighteen thousand feet.” He could picture it all. “You going to fly into Lukla?” he asked. “If so, I hope they’ve improved the airstrip since I was there.”
“Don’t try to scare me,” she said, but she caught Paul’s smile. She was thawing. “Usually the first thing people want to know is how much I am paying to have some hundred-twenty-pound Sherpa drag me up on a short rope, as if I haven’t been training and climbing for years, and as if my survival won’t be up to me at all.”
He could guess how much she was paying. He wanted to know where she got her money. “It is expensive.”
“Yes, well. I have a wealthy sponsor for this trip.”
“Anyone I might know?” Paul asked. Did Lindy pay money to Diane to find out what was going on in the jury room? Did she pay her to guarantee a positive verdict?
“Nope. I have a dear ex-climbing buddy with wobbly knees who managed somehow to scrounge the money for this. She has nothing to do with the Markovs, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” She was getting defensive again.
“Well, you know and I know you’ll have to be extraordinary to get up there. There’s been so much publicity lately about the tragedies on Everest, but I hear you waltzed up Vinson in extreme conditions last January.”
“Waltzed?” She slapped her knee, laughing. “I staggered up and tottered down. I have never been so cold. But it was beautiful. I want to go back and climb in the Trans-Antarctics sometime. Incredible mountains, the bases buried in the ice sheet, whole ranges nobody’s ever set foot on.”
“You’re braver than me,” Paul said. “Would you be the first woman to make it up all seven?”
“No. Junko Tabei first did it in 1991.”
“How did you get into climbing?”
“A friend introduced me,” she said briefly. Then, as if she couldn’t resist, she added, “I used to be a professor of political science.”
“I know that. From the jury questionnaire. I figured you must have a social conscience, and that’s why you decided to serve rather than find some excuse to get out of it.”
She got up with a swift, lithe movement, turned to some items in the corner, and began sorting through them, her back to him. “Put this down in your report, if you want. I’ll never do it again. I’ve never seen such a bunch of goons.”
“Yeah, I’ve already heard a few stories.”
“You mean the scream? I was driven to that. But they were so irrational most of them, so taken in by that wolf in sheep’s clothing, Cliff Wright. I finally blew my stack. I hope the verdict stands up. Tell Mrs. Markov it was a near thing.”
Paul nodded his head, saying, “I heard about that, too. What do you think saved the day for us?”
Diane turned around and put her hands on her hips. “As you have no doubt also heard, we had Rasputin running the jury. He had them all hypnotized, all except Courtney and Mrs. Lim, and Sonny. I felt truly sorry for our system. And then Rasputin was gone and the alternate came in, and sanity was restored.”
“Are you talking about Cliff Wright? Incredible, him getting sick.”
“At such a pivotal moment, too. And I read it was peanut oil in his food. I wonder if it really was the restaurant, or if somebody didn’t just put a few drops on his egg roll.” A surprisingly direct person, she certainly wasn’t stupid, either.
“Why, who would do a thing like that?” Paul asked.
“Wish I’d thought of it. Mrs. Lim was seething, but she didn’t show it. Maybe she took him out. If so, I’ll testify in her defense. There were mitigating factors.”
She seemed quite matter-of-fact about these events. Sitting back down on the floor, she pulled her legs up into a full lotus. Her gray Ragg socks reminded Paul of his own half-forgotten days in the mountains. Noticing him watching, she said, “Suppleness is almost as important as strength.”
“You seem to have it all.” She really did. A woman like this didn’t worry about making a living, working night and day. Her job was to live. She had even found the right man for her, a fellow traveler. Sure, she was selfish, but she wouldn’t waste the best years of her life on clients that took and took and never paid on time. “But I’ll tell you what I think is the most important quality for a climber. It’s the ability to go one step further than anyone else would think possible. To do what has to be done in extreme conditions. To let nothing stop you. Do you think you have that ability?”
Diane smiled. “Definitely.”
Paul said, “Speaking of extreme conditions, it was getting pretty extreme there in the jury room. Cliff Wright was doing his number on everyone, and you seem to have been the only one capable of stopping him.”
“I’d already lost,” Diane, said, watching him. “There was nothing more I could do. We were about to vote.”
“And then, poof! Cliff was gone and in came the alternate with a fresh perspective, as you said.”
“Just in the nick of time.”
“You were out in the hall just before the food came in, weren’t you?”
“I think I know what you’re getting at.”
“You were standing there, and-”
Diane said, “You want me to come right out and say it? Is that what you want?”
“Please,” said Paul, his pulse racing.
“Okay. I’ll be brutally honest. Tell Mrs. Markov she doesn’t have to worry about me. I didn’t see her and I couldn’t testify against her. She must have done it right before I came out. Tell her-like you said, Paul. Tell her I understand it was extreme circumstances.
“Now, Paul, you tell me something. I promise I will keep it completely secret. I give you my word. I’ve been thinking this over and there’s just the one thing I don’t understand. How in the hell did she know what was going on in the jury room?”
Paul shook his head.
“Was it Courtney? Did she buy her off?”
“I don’t know that it was Mrs. Markov,” Paul said, finally finding his voice.
“Who else would care enough to do that to Wright?” Diane said. “I mean, come on.”
“But like you said, she’d have no way of knowing how much trouble her case was in.”
“It sure was a strange coincidence, then.”
“You knew, you cared, and you were outside.”
She laughed again. “I have better things to do with my life. I wouldn’t really hurt somebody to win. Even in extreme conditions. How old are you, Paul?”
“Me? Forty. And a half.”
“I was the same age, forty, when I started climbing, and these have been the best years of my life. I wouldn’t jeopardize that, even for Lindy Markov’s millions.”
“I admire what you’re doing. It’s the sort of thing most people don’t even dare dream about.” He thought for a minute and said, “What do you think? Did somebody kill him?”
“No,” Diane said. “It’s going to be the restaurant. It’s going to be the prosaic explanation.” But she stopped him at the door, saying, “What do you think? Really.”
“I thought it was you, Diane,” Paul said.
He stopped briefly at the courthouse for a chat with Deputy Kimura, who assured him that no one except court personnel were allowed into the private hallway. And then admitted that yes, there were exceptions here and there.
Almost everyone remotely connected with the case seemed to have passed through at some point, including Lindy’s friend, Alice, but Kimura did not recall seeing her or Lindy there on the day Wright died. “I watch for outsiders,” he had said. “I didn’t see anyone that day who didn’t belong.”
Alice looked at him through a peephole in the door. “Yes?” she said.
“I’m here to see Lindy Markov,” Paul said.
“Really.” She opened the door. In leopard-skin tights, a long yellow jersey, gold sandals, and disheveled blond hair, she had a gloss of perspiration on her brow that she wiped away with a kerchief. He recognized her from Mike’s birthday party.
She looked him over. “She’s just full of surprises these days.” She was out of breath. She must have been exercising. He heard music playing in the background, but it didn’t sound like exercise music.
“I work with Nina Reilly,” Paul said. “Paul Van Wagoner.” Lucky to run into Alice. She had reasons for wanting Lindy to win.
“Alice Boyd.” She shook his hand briefly. “I’m sorry but Lindy isn’t here at the moment. Mind telling me what this is about?”
“Just winding up loose ends.” Actually, he found himself listening to the sultry singer in the background, the way she stretched out a syllable over several notes in the scratchy recording. He recognized the song as one from the forties, “My Old Flame.” Give Alice one credit for good taste in music.
“Everything’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, she’s going to get her money, isn’t she?”
“Well…” Paul said, focusing once more on Alice, interested in her concern. “You know how it is when it comes to this much money.”
“Shit. He’s appealing isn’t he?”
“He stands to lose a lot if he doesn’t.”
“I knew it. That bastard. He’ll drag this thing out until we… Lindy’s ruined! What’s her lawyer want? More money? Because, sweetie, until we get a big check out of Markov Enterprises, there is no money.” She must have heard herself ranting, because she stopped.
“I really need to talk to her for a couple of minutes.”
“Ah,” she said. Light seemed to dawn. “You just have some paperwork for her to sign or something like that? And this is not specifically about an appeal?” She tried to read his face. “Help me out here. Has he appealed?”
“Not that I know of.”
She laughed with relief. “Jesus, you had me going there. I mean, she is my dearest friend. And she really needs that money.”
And sweetie, she’s not the only one, Paul thought. “Any idea where to find her?”
“She doesn’t like me giving out her whereabouts.”
He sighed and turned toward the door. “Too bad. Ms. Reilly’s going to be disappointed. This will cause a delay.”
“But you’re from her lawyer, right? So I can tell you,” Alice said. “She left right after the verdict. Headed for her shanty out there in the boondocks in the Carson Range outside of Reno.”
“By the way, Ms. Boyd. If you don’t mind my asking, where were you when Clifford Wright died?”
Alice pulled a handkerchief out and wiped moisture off her face. “While we waited for the verdict, I worked at the shop. We do a lot of impromptu weddings. It’s one of the ironies of my life that I spend most of my day putting together bouquets and corsages for weddings. My assistant will confirm that I was there that morning, until we got called in for a verdict in the afternoon. Why do you ask?”
“Ever been in the hallway outside the jury room? Where the clerks’ offices are?”
“Why, yes,” she said.
“Mind if I ask if there’s another reason you care so much if Lindy Markov gets her money?”
“She supported me for years,” said Alice simply. “That’s God’s truth. I’d do anything for her, and I’m not the only one. Mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Some of the circumstances to do with Clifford Wright’s death are in question.”
“You mean… someone hurt him intentionally?” The thought agitated her. “Goddamn it! I see what’s going on here. This is some plan to get the verdict changed, isn’t it? This is Mike’s doing. He’ll do anything to win! I knew it!”
He left her to her tantrum.
By the time Paul reached Lindy’s trailer, his van had been complaining for twenty miles.
Lindy must have heard it, too, because she stood in front with her arms folded, apparently awaiting his arrival, in a square of yellow light from her doorway that made the only illumination for miles.
“Brrr,” he said getting out, stepping directly into a puddle.
A low, foggy dusk had spread around the mountains like a silver belt. Lindy wore jeans and a thick ski sweater but he could see that she was shivering. “Come inside,” she said, motioning him in.
She poured him a cup of coffee she already had made, then sat down across from him at a fold-down table. “What are you doing here, Paul? Is everything okay? I talked to Nina this afternoon and she didn’t mention you were coming.”
She would be his hardest interview. He couldn’t think of any reason to have come other than the one that had brought him. “Some questions have come up.”
“What questions?”
“You may not realize it, but the police have not closed the book on Cliff Wright’s death.”
She drummed nicely manicured fingernails on the table. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “Why haven’t they? I thought he had some kind of allergic reaction. I thought they knew that for sure.”
“That’s true. But what they are trying to find out is exactly what caused the allergic reaction.”
“How will they do that? Someone told me he was allergic to a bunch of things.”
“Who told you?”
“I don’t know. Seems like we were going over the jury members once and someone mentioned it.”
So she knew about the allergies. That was key. “I think they are trying to narrow down the possibilities,” he said. “What they think happened is that someone may have put something in his lunch.”
She looked at him with a face that was perfectly incredulous. “Are they crazy? They think someone made him have an allergy attack?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Why?”
“Well, that’s just it. Cliff Wright was a real leader of the jury. Did you hear the interviews with your jury after they came out? He was really pushing for Mike, and had most of them coaxed around.”
“So?”
“So, the police seem to think there might be a motive in that.”
She shook her head back and forth. “This is unbelievable. Are you saying they think I might have had something to do with harming this man because I knew he was on Mike’s side?”
“Wright had turned almost the entire jury against you. You would have lost everything. So you see, you had good reason to worry about what this man was doing to your jury.”
“But Paul… how could I know what was going on in the jury room?”
“You know what, Lindy? From everything I’ve heard, you’re a smart woman. You hired Nina because you saw she’d kill herself to represent you. You built a huge business out of nothing with Mike. You know you can buy some people. I think, if you wanted to know what was going on in the jury room, you would figure out a way to find out.”
She stood up. “Get out of here.”
“Who told you about Wright, Lindy? Was it Mrs. Lim? She used the telephone frequently. She could have been calling you with updates on the situation. Did she tell you what a threat he was? And then… you passed through that hallway a few times before. Maybe you were passing through that day, worrying about him and then, there it was, his meal, specially marked for a vegetarian. Maybe you never meant to kill him. Maybe you were just angry, and you acted without thinking. Because, Lindy, if you did, it’s only second degree-”
She yanked on his arm. “On your feet. I said go!”
He stood up. She reached past him and threw open the door.
“Or was it Diane?” he went on standing with his two hands wedged firmly on the doorjambs. “She needed big money the most, and she really believed in your cause. I honestly don’t think she would have a problem accepting money in return for helping you out a little. Why she practically admitted she knew you did it-”
She pushed him. He held firm.
“Look, I’ll make a deal with you,” she said angrily. “I’m going to tell you what you want to know, and then you’ll get off of my property. Do we have a deal?”
He nodded.
“I did not bribe a juror.”
“Then how did you know about Wright?”
She struck him on the shoulder. “What kind of a person are you?” she cried as he made no move to leave. “Don’t you know most people don’t have murder on the brain and wouldn’t consider such a thing for any amount of money? Or have you been so jaded by your work you can’t understand that most people don’t kill?”
“I’m a realist, Lindy. Just like you.”
And then, in the swing of her arm, a gun found its way into her hand. It must have come from the cookie jar on the counter. Pointing it at him she said, “If that’s the case, maybe this will help you understand that I mean it when I tell you to get the hell out of here.”
Staggered as always at the inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies of human behavior, Paul stepped outside, backing away from her until she closed the door in his face.
Nina allowed herself a long walk with Hitchcock on Friday morning before getting into her work clothes. They found a field of buttercups for him to romp in, and rainbows in the dew on the bright-yellow blossoms of the Sierra Wallflower. She took in the heady smell of them, as rich and thick as something tropical, and went back home feeling forlorn. Today, Winston and Genevieve would be moving out of their offices. They would all three go their separate ways. And like the last day of school when she was very young, the day already had a bittersweet flavor.
By the time she arrived at the office, a yellow truck with a ramp stood parked on the street near the front door of the building. Wish and a friend were tipping Genevieve’s desk onto a dolly.
“Have you got a pad or something to protect that?” asked Nina. “The rental place will charge me for every scratch.”
“Sure, we do, Ms. Reilly,” said Wish. He raised a hand to wave at her, lost his balance, and dropped the handle of the dolly. His friend yelped, but held on to the desk with both arms. Leaping back into his place, Wish bumped him, floundered, and caught himself again. “I’ll just go get it.”
“Never mind,” said Nina hastily, scurrying into the building, unwilling to set off any further chains of events. She didn’t get far. The hallway was in shambles. Boxes of files and trash bags narrowed the aisle to allow only one person to pass at a time.
“Incredible how much accumulates during the course of a trial,” she said to Sandy as she entered the reception area.
“Some of the files we need to keep here, others can be stored in our storage area.”
“What storage area?”
“The one we just rented,” said Sandy. “You’re starting to pile up dead files. Until we rent more space, we need to be able to move around.”
“Sandy…”
“What?”
“Is… I mean. You seem…”
“What.”
“Kind of down.”
Sandy lifted her shoulders and began typing from a yellow legal pad.
Nina found Winston squatting on the floor in his sweats, in front of a tower of files in his office. “I think I’ve got this thing licked,” he said. “This pile here is stuff I take. This one,” he patted a stack, “is to stow somewhere. This is garbage. Where are the trash bags?”
“Sorry, I have no idea,” said Nina.
“Wish!” he hollered.
Genevieve, who had already packed, stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the wall watching him. “Winston, at this rate you’re never going to finish. Didn’t you have some kind of appointment this afternoon?”
“Trial over. Good-bye and good riddance?” he said.
“Of course not,” Genevieve said. “Just don’t drag it out. Packing’s a real pain, but I know how you feel. It’s like when you’re going to catch a plane. You fear you’re gonna end up at the counter without your passport.”
“There’s nothing really pressing. I just have better things to do than pile old papers,” Winston said.
“Just remember, Sandy will send anything along that you forget,” Genevieve said.
“I don’t like this,” said Nina.
“You don’t like what?” Winston asked.
“Everyone leaving,” Nina said. “This.” She waved her arms at the mess. “I got used to having company for lunch. I got used to you knowing better than me the things I knew perfectly well before you two came.”
“You’re a sociable critter, Nina,” Genevieve said. “You just don’t pander to that side of yourself enough. Now, Winston,” she said. “Move over and let me help you toss files haphazardly into that box. I can do that as well as you can.” Sidling over, she nudged him with her hip, but Nina thought Genevieve looked as upset as Nina felt.
Back in her own office, Nina closed the door and sat with her back to the window, thinking about how quiet it would be and wondering if she liked that. Rather than decide, she picked up her phone messages and began to return calls.
The morning passed quickly. By eleven, the yellow truck was on its way to return the furniture. Winston and Genevieve had relocated to the conference room next to Nina’s office, where there were still chairs. Sandy had ordered sushi and salad for an early lunch.
Winston ate quickly. “You know that island you told me about?” he asked Nina, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
It took her a minute to recall what he must mean. “The tiny one in Emerald Bay? Fannette?”
“That’s the one. Any idea where I could rent a kayak to get there?”
“Well, sure. Richardson’s Resort. Head west on the highway. Turn right at the ’Y.’ It’s just a couple miles up on your right. They have a marina and dock. Call first to make sure you can get one, though. It’s still early in the season.”
He called, and they listened while he arranged to rent one for the afternoon.
“That sounds like fun!” said Genevieve. “I’ve always wanted to learn to kayak.”
“I’m doing this for some upper-body exercise. I need to go fast. Maybe I can take you out another time,” Winston said.
Genevieve’s mouth turned down. “Okay.”
“Are you going to hike to the teahouse?” Nina asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll check it out and decide when I get there.”
Everyone helped clear away the trash. In deference to Sandy’s forbidding nature, Winston shook her hand. She thanked him again for the rabbit-skin blanket. Nina and Genevieve also came in for a final handshake. There seemed nothing left to say.
“I’ll be in touch, Nina,” Winston said, pulling away.
“You better be,” she said.
He saw her mood and gave her arm a squeeze. “Hey, we’ll do another trial again sometime. I feel it. Meanwhile, stay out of trouble. I mean it!” he said when they laughed at the thought. “Don’t you ladies do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said as he went out the door.
“Winston that’s just not a possibility,” Genevieve called after him. “I can’t think of a thing he wouldn’t do,” she said to Nina with a mischievous smile.
Susan Lim lived in a large, two-story home in Montgomery Estates. Paul always felt this particular development had a slight unreality to it, like a Twilight Zone of complete suburban normality on the cusp of the wild kingdom. Its landscaped yards fended off the wilderness, and the forest skulked just beyond its borders, threatening to engulf it again if the mowers ever stopped.
She answered the door. He introduced himself, giving the usual explanation for his questions, and she agreed to give him five minutes. She liked to be into work by ten in the morning, when the realty office opened, and was already running late.
They sat in two chairs on the porch at the front of the house. The lawn and flowers reflected the touch of a precise, artistic hand.
“First, I’d love your impressions of the mood of this jury as a whole, how they reacted to the testimony,” he said, notepad in hand.
A plain-featured woman with a helmet of shining dark hair, Mrs. Lim wore a hint of pink lipstick that matched her jacket and brightened her face. Sighing, she shook her head. “I found the process really grueling, since you ask. It seems like such a simple thing, to ask people to listen to some information, synthesize it, and decide the facts and evidence support one side or the other. Instead, what we had in the jury room was more of a free-for-all.”
“In what sense?”
“Everybody’s got an agenda,” she said. “I’m sure you know that. Usually, it’s not so obvious. We got in there and reason just flew out the window. Not that there was a window. That might have helped.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what was your position?”
“I favored Lindy Markov. From the beginning, I thought it was obvious they had some arrangements they didn’t have in writing. They must have informally agreed to share things. She was too bright not to have at the very least squeezed some promises out of him. And people agreed with me, at least at first.”
“I understand on the first vote of the original jury, eight people supported her.”
“That’s right. Then Cliff brought out his presents and threats…”
“Threats?”
“Oh, yes. I believe he threatened Sonny Ball with prison. He’d found some evidence of drugs in the bathroom at one point. I believe he seduced Kris Schmidt. I suspect they slept together after that first day,” she said, clearly disgusted.
“Maribel craved attention, and he gave it to her. Ignacio, well that was a shame. He’s a good person with good instincts, but not someone who is used to argument on the level Cliff inhabited. Cliff dumped him in a maze and walked circles around him, all the time posing as the logician.
“Grace just needed some sympathy and he came along, the Good Samaritan giving her what she needed.”
“So Frank, Bob, and Kevin already favored Mike,” Paul said.
“Yes. They didn’t allow anything as messy as logic to sway them. They had picked a position and stuck with it, by God,” she said, with a tinge of sarcasm. “All Cliff had to do was ensure they knew how welcome they were in the anti-Lindy club with him.”
“You didn’t like Cliff Wright.”
“I have nothing but contempt for men like him. I despised his manipulations of weaker per- sonalities.”
“Why do you think he was so opposed to Lindy?”
“I think Diane had that figured out. It had to be personal. He said he had recently separated from his wife. Maybe he was really suffering, who knows with a man like that? But he was so underhanded and angry, and so persuasive and determined in there. I’m guessing that Mrs. Markov looked like his worst nightmare come true, a woman ruining a man’s bright future because of a breakup.”
“I guess you’re glad things happened the way they did.”
She stared at him. “You mean, Cliff dying?”
“Well, with the alternate installed, the jury came back around to Lindy, didn’t they?”
“That’s true.”
“I understand most of the jurors brought snacks along during the deliberations,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Anybody eat peanuts?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Anything with peanuts? Candy?”
She began to laugh. “Snickers. Butterfingers. Nutty granola bars. Peanut M &M’s. Mr. Van Wagoner, is this a joke? Are you implying that someone, that I-”
“Look, I’m just saying things worked out the way you wanted them to.”
“I wish my husband could hear you. He thinks I’m not aggressive enough. And here you are suggesting I… correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you suggesting that I planted a peanut butter cup in his eggroll because I was so mad at him?”
“Stranger things have happened, Mrs. Lim. Did you or anyone else leave the room before lunch was served that day?”
“There were a few minutes before the lunch was brought in. Most of us left the room. I made a phone call. Some smoked, some stretched, some used the bathrooms.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Everyone was really looking forward to that lunch. I even saw Diane lifting the aluminum foil and peeking at the cartons.”
The implication of what she had said struck her so forcefully, her cheeks flamed. “The food smelled very good. We all thought so,” she said, trying to regain her composure.
He persisted with her, but after that, she refused to answer another question.
Back in his van, Paul looked around feeling discontented. Things were looking shabby in the old vehicle. Somehow, the leopard-skin cover in back had picked up some mildew, probably from sitting in airport parking lots for days. Like it or not, his car was an extension of himself, and it was dying of neglect. He started the engine up. The people in Washington were after him for a final decision by next week. He didn’t know what to say.
He had to finish up this investigation. He needed to think about Nina.
Promptly at noon, Paul arrived at Bizzbees on the highway. He and Wish were ready to swap notes on their interviews. Paul found himself instead being beaten to a pulp at darts.
“So Kevin Dowd and Frank Lister stuck by Mike from the beginning. They basically loved Cliff Wright. Grace Whipple came to her door in a housecoat, and this was at about two o’clock yesterday afternoon. She takes care of someone, said he’d been having some trouble. She only talked to me through the grill in the door. She was so distracted,” Wish said, pulling his arm back, and with a thwack, another dart met the bull’s-eye at dead center.
“What did she think of Cliff Wright?”
“ ‘Charming,’ she called him. And Maribel what’s-her-name…”
“Grzegorek.”
“She was at work over at Mikasa, but they were having a slow day. She told me she had liked Cliff, but got disappointed in him at some point.”
“Oh?” Paul said, interested, taking his turn.
“Yeah. She’s a real fun person. Said Kris Schmidt had already snapped him up by the time she noticed how handsome he was. Kevin told me she asked him out and he turned her down.”
“So her disappointment had more to do with romance than the case.” Paul tossed his last dart to the outside.
“Yep.”
“You didn’t tell me you were league champ at the rec center when you challenged me to a game,” said Paul. “You’ve got an unfair advantage here.”
“That’s why,” said Wish, selecting another dart, eyeing it closely for shape, whipping around and tossing it lightly to land beside the one already stuck in the board, “I only bet you ten bucks.”
His third dart flew to keep close company with the other two.
“I don’t want to play anymore,” said Paul. “I came here to talk.”
“Oh, come on,” said Wish. “Don’t be a sore loser.”
With a deep breath, Paul positioned himself, dart in hand. The bull’s-eye, so close from some angles, suddenly appeared quite far away. He threw. “Twenty,” said Wish, marking a chalkboard beside the dartboard. “That’s nice.”
Paul gritted his teeth, aimed, and threw dart number two.
“On the line,” pronounced Wish. He examined the board. “On the two side. Sorry.”
“Thanks one whole helluva lot,” said Paul. Here was one game he couldn’t win. Might as well quit now. Without aiming, just to get the throw over, he hurled his last dart.
“Bull’s-eye!” marveled Wish. He wiped Paul out with a few more well-placed darts, then said, “Okay, game two. Let’s up it to twenty.”
But Paul refused. He ordered another soda. Wish, who was on his lunch break, ate a sub. They settled near the pool table, where a slender man and a large woman were locked in combat and the room had the hush of church over it.
“Okay, let’s go over what we’ve found out,” said Paul, keeping his voice low.
They hashed out what they had heard about the events leading up to Wright’s death. “Just to be thorough, I looked into some other possibilities besides the jurors,” Paul said. “Rachel’s ex, Harry. He might want to sabotage Mike. But Harry was at a photo shoot at an automobile dealership all that morning according to his coworkers, and anyway would have trouble getting into that hall without a hassle from Deputy Kimura. Then there’s this other guy, George Demetrios, apparently a loyal fan of Lindy’s. Same problems except for a slightly weaker alibi provided by his brother.
“Then I looked at Alice, Lindy’s friend. Her alibi checked out, but again, we’re talking an employee. Nobody’s alibi is airtight. But with all three of these people, we return to a central problem: how could these people know what was going on in the jury room? How could they get to the food? Alice used the hall occasionally during the trial. Kimura said he’d seen her in there. But she would have no business there while the jury was deliberating. Someone would have noticed her that day.”
He took a long drink. “Here’s a thought,” he said. “The three women jurors were in cahoots. They spiked his food together.”
“Didn’t someone write that in a story once?” asked Wish. “Neat idea.”
“But there isn’t enough passion here for a conspiracy. He didn’t kill someone’s friend or murder anyone’s father. He just played with their heads,” Paul said, dismantling his own suggestion.
Wish winced as the slender man scraped his cue on the felt of the pool table. Three balls dropped into sockets. “Yeah, people don’t kill people over being on a jury together. They just want to.”
“People kill people over a pair of shoes these days, Wish!”
“Not with peanuts they don’t.”
“You have to admit, with this much dough floating around, someone’s easily going to want some enough to harm Cliff Wright, if it would do any good. Lindy Markov had the biggest motive. But that theory has a major flaw because how could she know what went on in that jury room? How could she know Wright was turning everyone against her? We didn’t know until those jurors came out and gave all those interviews.”
“A friend on the inside?” Wish said.
“That’s what I finally decided. Maybe she bribed someone. Promised one of the jurors a lot of money to do their damnedest to make sure that jury went her way. What if that person saw Cliff turning everyone against Lindy and had this ingenious idea on how to stop him?”
“Which juror?”
“I don’t know. Diane Miklos is the most likely candidate in that case. Mrs. Lim even saw her lifting the lids off of the lunch that day. Her lifestyle requires major injections of moolah. But she’s off on a climb. That means she’s already got her money in the bag, when Lindy doesn’t yet. And then there is the fact that Lindy swears she didn’t bribe anyone and seemed awfully credible to me.”
“What about her friend Alice?” Wish asked.
“Oh, I looked into that. Lindy helped her buy a house after her divorce. She had a breakdown, and that’s where most of Lindy’s salary went over the past few years, to supporting her old friend.”
“Lindy sounds nice,” Wish said.
“Or you could see her as the type of person who needs that money so that she can keep playing the big shot with her friends and favorite charities.” Feeling frustrated, Paul pounded a fist on the table, accidentally knocking his Coke to the floor. The brawny woman at the pool table missed her shot and turned eyes filled with hatred on him. She whispered to a few menacing-looking friends.
“You know I’ve got fifty bucks riding on this,” said the nearest one, the venality in his tone a warning. He puffed out his chest and stood close enough to violate Paul’s personal space.
“No, I sure didn’t,” said Paul. Swooping down, he picked up his cup and headed for the nearest exit, followed quickly by Wish.
“Maybe it was an accident after all,” Wish said.
Paul walked more slowly. He had decided not to push back in there because after all, fifty bucks was fifty bucks. Paul could see the guy’s point. “But did you see what just happened? That guy looked mad enough to deck me, maybe kill me over fifty bucks, and there was a lot more money involved in the Markov trial.” Paul stopped beside the van and took a good look at his raw recruit. “I don’t know where all this discussion leaves us. I’m afraid we’ve hit the end of the line.”
“This is such a bizarre job,” said Wish. “I don’t know another single soul who gets to have so much fun around people dying.”
After Winston left, the law offices of Nina Reilly had fallen into quiet. Because of the furniture removal, Sandy had not scheduled any clients. In the reception room, Sandy’s fingers clicked across her keyboard. In the conference room, having made several passes through the place to collect her things, Genevieve scratched out a list of expenses for Sandy. In her office, Nina sat, unable to work.
Bob would be flying in from his school trip back East late tonight into San Francisco. Nina’s father had offered to pick him up at the airport. They would drive up Saturday morning. She couldn’t wait. She missed him, particularly today, with everyone leaving.
The phone rang to interrupt these dark thoughts. The caller was Jeffrey Riesner, who if the legal grapevine could be believed, had just lost Rebecca Casey to a big firm in Reno. Nina assumed he couldn’t afford to keep her on after the Markov loss.
“You know why I’m calling, don’t you?” he said, without introducing himself.
“Who’s calling?” asked Nina perversely.
“Don’t start,” he said. “Let’s attempt to talk.”
“I assume this is about Markov’s appeal.”
“Well, not exactly,” he said, hedging. “Didn’t you get a copy of the final receiver’s report?”
“It’s here somewhere,” Nina said. “I haven’t really studied it.” She patted around on her desk, picking up papers, looking for it.
“Find it and call me right back,” he said. And bang, down went his phone.
Wondering what in the world had put him into such a snit, Nina groped around, finally locating it in a pile on the floor beside her. She read it and called Riesner back.
“This is an amazing document,” she said, “if I read it right.”
“You do,” he said shortly. “And now I’m going to level with you, Nina.”
“I’m astonished and delighted to hear that… Jeff.”
“You can see the immediate problem. If we pay the claim, Mike’s flat broke. Plus, I’m in a bind. Mike… has decided not to appeal the award. Naturally, he made his decision against my advice. I can cite a million errors that make this eminently suitable for an appeal, even a reversal. But he’s made up his mind.”
Nina almost fell off her chair. This she had never foreseen.
“I wondered if you would talk to your client about this.”
“What would I say?”
“I think I saw a little sympathy up there on the stand from her. She’ll realize he’s gone completely off his rocker. Maybe she’ll give him a break and open up negotiations for a reasonable compromise.”
“We’ve always been open to negotiating, Jeff. I’ve said so many times. But we no longer have to do that. We’ve won our case.”
“Would you just check with her? See if she’s seen the report. See what she thinks. Maybe she’ll want to do something for him,” he said.
It was incredible. He was groveling.
“I’ll do that,” she said. “But don’t expect anything.” She tried to sound courteous and keep the triumph out of her voice. Riesner’s plum of a case had turned rotten on him. His client had quit cooperating. There was no more money to be squeezed out. And she knew the worst of it for Riesner.
Losing. This public brawl had been won by a woman, by her, Nina Reilly. Not by Riesner, the good old boy.
And Mike Markov would be broke. She had better get Lindy on the phone soon to stanch any outbreak of pity.
Paul appeared in her doorway. “Looking for me?” he asked.
“Always. What’s up?” she said.
“Not much.” He took her up for a long kiss. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
With a word to Sandy, they moved outside, walking along a road that led to the lake. “I’ve got a business hanging on by a thread back home,” Paul said. “Just gave Wright’s family the news that I haven’t come up with diddly to prove his death was anything but natural. Talked with Cheney, too. The local police haven’t got anything either. They’re closing the file on his death.”
“No juror involvement?” asked Nina hopefully.
“Nothing I found.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a ’but’ in your voice.”
“I hate the feeling there’s something I’ve missed. Nina…”
“Yes?”
“You don’t know anything you aren’t telling me, do you?”
“No.”
“I know this case is important to you, and I know my talking with the jurors really made you nervous. But I never meant to bring you down. I just couldn’t let this pass by me without a second look.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” said Nina.
They reached the lake and watched kids nearby throwing a ball back and forth, and a dog running through the water after a stick.
“I assume you talked with the jurors about Wright’s position on our case,” said Nina.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“It was eight to five in favor of Mike at lunchtime. You were about to lose.”
“Remarkable timing, then,” she said. “Apparently, the replacement juror favored Lindy and they all swung back around.”
“Remarkable, yes.”
“Well, don’t look at me. I didn’t do it.”
“I know. Maybe Lindy Markov did, but if she did, I can’t find any proof.”
“So that’s it?”
“Met by a rock wall, most people stop.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Back to Carmel. Then D.C.”
“You’re going back?” she asked, and something about his demeanor suddenly made her very apprehensive. “I thought that job would be over by now.”
“Nina, I have something to tell you and it’s not going to be easy. Now my pattern in the past under similar circumstances has always been to be noble and blame myself for everything. That way, I get what I want and we both go away feeling good, but rather than lie to you and make it easy, I’ve decided to tell you the truth. You deserve that much from me. And I know you can take it.”
“Fire away,” she said gamely. She did not wish to hear whatever he wanted to say to her at that moment but short of running away, she knew she could not escape.
“You are a selfish woman. You want what you want when you want it. Okay, fine. That’s modern, even cool. Sometimes it’s even attractive. Except when it comes to me.”
She absorbed the blow. “It’s possible you have a point…”
“And this case has changed you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve done things that surprised me.”
“Such as?”
“You choose your work over your friends. Your moral gray area expands directly in proportion to the size of the pot.”
“I can’t believe you of all people are criticizing the way I do my job! You never followed a rule in your life!”
“That’s me,” said Paul. “We’re talking about you.”
“Let’s leave my work out of this discussion.”
“But we can’t. You’re such a lawyer, always organizing and pigeonholing like mad. Here’s Paul over here, in love with me, wishing he could marry me. I’m a busy woman. I’ll give him forty-nine percent. Well, I don’t give fifty-one percent to your forty-nine. We both give one hundred percent, otherwise it’s a waste of time.”
“Paul-”
“Now hang on, let me finish. I’m taking the security job in Washington, D.C.”
“What? No!” Now this she had never expected! She felt like he’d taken her by the ankles and flipped her overboard as Lindy had done with Mike on the boat. “Have you lost your mind? You don’t want that job!”
“I do want that job.”
“I don’t understand. Things have been going so well. I thought we were happy together.”
“We are, Nina, on the rare occasion we’re together,” Paul said. “But it’s not enough for me to flit in and out of your life like I do.”
“But that suits us!”
“It suits you. You need someone who wants you less than I do. You need someone available only when you’re hungry, who just simmers patiently the rest of the time. I am not a back burner type of guy.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” Paul said, “because I’m handy. But I’m going.”
“You can’t,” she said, casting about in her mind for the right thing to say and coming up blank. What right did she have to keep him here? He was a passionate man, and he deserved his match in a woman. “I have lots of work for you here!” she said, knowing how weak it sounded.
“Nina. Don’t pretend you miss the point.”
“I need you.”
“Yes, you do, much more than you realize. But remember, we’re friends for life. Anybody’s legs need breaking, you know who to call.”
“You’ll be three thousand miles away.”
“A hop, skip, and a jump,” he said.
He might as well be in Antarctica. The cold Atlantic was a long, long way from these western mountains. “You’re leaving for good?”
“For a year, Nina.”
“How can you leave California? What about your business in Carmel? You can’t go.”
“Yeah, I knew it would surprise you.”
“Look, I am selfish. And I know I’m high-maintenance. But-maybe I’m worth it!”
“You are, sweetheart. And I know there are plenty of guys who’ll be happy to pick up the slack when I let go.” He looked at his watch. “Phew. It’s already two o’clock. Now that’s off my chest, I’ve got to hit the road. But you know what would be good?”
She had no idea what would ever be good again.
“A last little taste of that tempura at Sato’s would really hit the spot on the way out of town…”
“Wait a minute. I have more to say,” Nina said.
“You can’t change my mind, so don’t waste your breath. Want to go get a bite with me?”
“No. I don’t have time,” Nina said.
Paul put his head back and laughed.
“How can you be so casual about this!” she cried. “We’re breaking up!”
“And I feel like shit about it, too. Now, c’mon. Give me another half an hour of your precious time so that we can do this thing properly. You can get on my case all you want. My treat.”
“I really can’t. Genevieve hasn’t left yet. I have to say good-bye to her.”
They walked back to her office in silence, holding hands. Nina could not speak, and Paul seemed as usual. An earthquake had shaken the world, but everything looked the same, and even sounded the same. He whistled through most of the walk back.
When they got there, Paul said, “ ’Bye, then.” He kissed her gently, walked over to his van, waved, and drove away.
As she walked down the hall to her office, she didn’t think about him leaving, but flashed back instead on the rough texture of the hair on his arms, and how poorly matched the two of them were physically, with him so large and her so small-how was it they had ever fit so well? She thought about his long thighs rubbing against her and the curve of his arm, enveloping her in his scent.
Damn him for those things he said! Damn him for giving up on her!
Sandy had deserted her desk. Nina found her with Wish, who had returned from his lunch. Holding a big green trash bag, he picked up loose bits of paper, rubber bands, and paper clips from the hallway.
“I’m going to miss them,” said Nina, crossing her arms and watching. After a minute contemplating the wreckage, she pitched in. They wandered into the empty rooms, picking things up in preparation for vacuuming. Where Genevieve’s desk had been, a silver chain twinkled on the floor beside a forgotten earring. In Winston’s office, wadded up candy wrappers revealed a secret love of licorice, and empty cola cans had been neatly stacked for recycling in one corner.
“Uh-oh,” Nina said. A piece of baseboard had dislodged where Winston’s desk had been. Moving day had been rough on this office. She knelt to try to push it back into place, and caught sight of something no bigger than a spider in one corner that looked like it had fallen behind the baseboard. Leaning over to examine the area, she picked up a small metal disk. “Some kind of battery.” Maybe for that little radio he always wore when he jogged? Or a watch? “He has all kinds of watches. Sandy, why don’t you pop this in the mail to him. It’s unusual. Maybe hard to replace.” She held it for them both to admire. “It’s terrific how minuscule they can make those things.”
Wish took it from her. Setting the bag down, he walked over to the window and took a closer look. “That’s not a battery. Look at these little holes here.”
Nina peered over his shoulder. “Well, what is it?”
“Hmmm,” said Wish. “A microphone?” He twisted the tiny thing between huge fingers.
“What?”
“Well, it looks a little like a bug… but…” He put the object very close to his eyes and studied it.
“You’ve been filling your head up with junk, reading those spy magazines,” Sandy said. “I told you that was a waste of time.”
“Well, maybe so,” Wish said. He set the disk down on the windowsill. “I’m probably wrong.”
“Oh, my God, you had me going there. I had the strangest idea,” said Nina, putting a hand to her pounding chest. “I thought maybe, I don’t know what I thought…”
Wish left Nina and Sandy for a moment, trotting swiftly into Sandy’s office and back, while they stared at the tiny thing on the ledge.
When he came back, he was holding one of those spy magazines that caters to teenagers. “See this?” he said, pointing excitedly at a quarter page advertisement near the last page. “Same thing.”
The women continued to stare, only now they stared at the page. SLY BOY! trumpeted the boldface. THE WORLD’S TINIEST BUG!
“Told you,” said Wish.
Sandy opened her mouth, then closed it. She folded her arms.
“But… how could Winston get a bug?” Nina asked.
“Anybody can buy surveillance equipment,” Wish said. “Really. There are spy catalogs on-line from all over the world. Haven’t you ever checked it out on the Internet? You can buy neat stuff. I wrote a paper on state-of-the-art technology for one of my classes.
“In the 1950s the Soviets bugged the American embassy in Moscow by hiding a little round thing like this behind a wooden carving of the Great Seal of the U.S., a gift from them that hung above the ambassador’s desks. Whoever said the Slavs have no sense of humor, huh? That was a different device.”
“How does this one work?”
“It’s a simple radio transmitter. There’s a range, like maybe eighty to a hundred megahertz, where you can tune in to hear it.”
“How far away can you be for something like that to work? I mean, could I go home and listen in?” Nina asked, gripping the windowsill.
“You’d need a receiver. Of course those can be very tiny, too, but the quality isn’t very good unless you’ve got something, say the size of a transistor radio, to collect and amplify the sound. Maybe two hundred meters? It varies. This is pretty sophisticated stuff.”
Nina and Sandy couldn’t seem to think of another thing to say.
“So someone bugged Winston’s office,” Wish said. “Who do you suppose was interested in listening in on Winston’s conversations? Hey, Nina. Do you think Riesner and Casey bugged his office to find out what you guys were up to before the trial?”
“No,” said Nina. “I don’t.”
“It is terrific how small they can make those things,” said Sandy, taking the object from her son. “Now, Wish, you take that trash out to the Dumpster. There’s a couple of chairs left in the reception area you forgot. They need to go, too. I’m not paying for any damages, so you’ll want to be very careful.”
“But…”
“Move it.”
Grumbling at being ordered around, Wish left.
“You don’t think someone was bugging Winston,” Sandy said.
Nina sat down on the floor. “No. Nobody planted that thing behind the baseboard. It was lying there, loose. I think the bug is his. God, what was he doing with that thing? I knew how desperate Winston was to win the case but…” She sniffed. Sandy handed her a tissue, and she blew her nose. “He was not around during those couple of days the jury deliberated. He did a lot of jogging.”
“With that disc player-radio thing he always wears,” said Sandy, frowning.
“Could he have been listening in? Or maybe he had a receiver hooked up to a recorder in his car, and just listened later, some of the time. All he would have to do was park his car somewhere near the courthouse.”
“But, Nina. It doesn’t make sense. What’s the use of bugging the jury room? At that point, you can’t control the outcome of the case.”
“My God. Maybe Paul was right. Maybe he… did something to Clifford Wright’s food, to stop him. He might not have realized how serious it could be.”
“But, Nina, they always leave the jury’s food in the private hallway outside the judge’s chambers until it’s served, right? And the door to that hallway is locked.”
“Nobody bothers the lawyers if they pass through that hallway, and you can go straight through from the courtroom. I’ve done it myself. And Winston had a thing going with one of the clerks back there… He knew all about the allergy from our jury files, I’m sure. He knew about the vegetarianism. Cliff’s food was probably specially marked. He could have put something in the food.”
“Why leave the bug here?”
“I don’t know! I can only imagine. It’s very small. It must have fallen during the shuffle of moving. Either he didn’t notice, or couldn’t find it.”
“He’s got a good reputation, lots of clients. Why would he do this?”
“He lost his last case. He was desperate to win this one. His professional success really depended on that. And he knew he had a huge payoff coming if we won big enough to help him get out from under some heavy debts. Oh, Sandy.” She dropped to the floor like a sack of flour and hugged herself. “Oh, my God. My case.”
“You better call Paul.”
She couldn’t move. Reality had caught up with her, and she didn’t know what to do. “Paul’s gone, Sandy. I can’t call him.”
Genevieve appeared in the doorway, a leather bag dangling from her shoulder. “Everything okay in here?” she said. “I never saw two such blue faces in my life. What’s that thing you’ve got there?”
“Nothing,” said Nina, tucking the mike into her pocket. She stood up, dusting her hands off. She had to think more. No sense involving anyone else.
“Well, ladies,” Genevieve said, looking a little sad, “the much-anticipated, awful moment has arrived. Genevieve Suchat is leaving the building.”
They said their good-byes. “Don’t let her work you too hard, Sandy,” Genevieve said. “And, Nina, don’t you let Sandy drive you to an early grave. Oh, I’m gonna miss you two.”
When she left, gloom descended on them, as thick as dust.
“Where’s Paul, Nina?” Sandy said as they walked slowly back into Nina’s office.
“Going to Washington. For good.”
Sandy’s lips tightened. “Why that little… Where is he right now?”
“He might still be having lunch at Sato’s. He was going to stop on his way out of town.”
“Call him. He’ll know what to do about this thing. He’ll have some ideas.”
“No.”
“Okay, then. I will. We need him. He’s not getting out of this.”
“Don’t. I’ll figure this out myself.” Nina went into her office, shut the door, put her hands down on the table, and placed her head over them. She stayed that way for five minutes, then called Paul.
He didn’t answer his cell phone. Nina listened partway through “Announcement One. Your call cannot be completed at this time. The cellular customer you have called may have reached his destination or…” and hung up. “This is never going to work,” she said. The Sly Boy felt hot as a live grenade in her pocket.
At Sato’s restaurant, the phone was busy. She tried again and again for nearly forty-five minutes, but the phone continued beeping rapidly. Paul would be out of there any minute. Nina made up her mind. Grabbing her jacket, she went back into the reception room. “Sandy, cancel anything I have left this afternoon. I don’t have court and tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m going to see if I can catch up with him.”
“You do that.”
“Meanwhile, keep trying the restaurant just in case you can get through. Tell him to wait for me there. I’ll keep my phone handy. Call me if you get through.”
Fortunately, the Bronco was gassed up. Pulling up to the front door of Sato’s, about to pull her parking brake, she spotted Paul heading for his van, which was parked across the street about a block behind her. Reversing quickly, she turned around and passed his van, backing up to parallel park smoothly in the slot behind him.
“Nina?” He got out of his car to meet her at her door.
“Who else, Paul?” she said, flooded with the emotion she hadn’t been able to express earlier, and with relief at finding him.
“To say that I didn’t expect you is an understatement… unless you caved in to a sudden uncontrollable yen for sushi?”
“Paul, just listen to me,” said Nina, shutting her car door. They moved to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant while she gave him an abbreviated version of the events of the morning, handing him the Sly Boy to examine. “What I want to know is, am I crazy to think this means anything? I like Winston. I don’t want him to be a bad guy.”
“Then why don’t you just call him and ask him to explain?” he said. “Don’t you trust him?”
“It’s awkward,” she said. “Me asking him, hey, did you plant a microphone in the jury room? Did you listen to the proceedings? Of course he’ll say no. It’s illegal for starters. And it’s not like he necessarily used the information to win our case. Maybe he just listened. Maybe he didn’t use it for that at all. I can’t believe he would hurt me like this, destroy me…”
But Paul was lost in thought. “What are you going to do?” he asked finally. “If he bugged that jury room, this may go beyond jury tampering. He would know Wright basically sabotaged Lindy Markov’s case. Did you find any peanuts?”
For a split second, it was almost funny. Then she remembered what it could mean. “If he did anything to Wright, I’ll kill him! The case… my God, Lindy’s verdict will be in question. All the months of hell with this trial… Riesner! How he’ll crow! And oh, Paul…”
“The money,” he said.
“My money!”
“If you don’t mind,” said Paul, “I’d like to talk to Winston with you. Is that okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks. I didn’t feel I had the right to ask you. But… didn’t you say you had to get to Carmel?”
“I can leave for Washington from Sacramento tomorrow. Skip the stop in Carmel. Where is Winston?”
“I think he’s out on the lake somewhere.” She called Sandy on her car phone. “I’ve got Paul.” She hung up.
“Does Genevieve know about this?”
“I don’t know,” said Nina. “She came in and saw me holding the microphone. I wasn’t paying attention to her, I was so freaked out at what I was holding. And Winston’s too smart and too proud to tell her something like this.”
A new implication hit her. She sighed unhappily. “Maybe she suspected something. It’s possible she recognized the microphone, come to think of it. She did look upset when she came in to say good-bye. I put that down to it being her last day.”
Playing with the plastic lid on a Styrofoam cup in his hand, Paul digested this information. “Where’s Genevieve now?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Does it make sense to you like it makes sense to me that Genevieve might just run off and warn Winston that you found the bug? What if she did recognize it, Nina?”
“She might.”
“And how do you think Winston’s going to react to the information if she is reporting to him right now?”
“Mad?” said Nina, light beginning to glimmer on the edge of her consciousness. “Threatened?”
“Threatened enough to want to shut her up? He probably figures he could convince you of anything. He’s got to know you’re dying to be convinced. You’ve got a fortune at stake. But he knows she of all people can nail him good. She probably knows more than she thinks she does, and it’s all beginning to make sense to her.”
“But,” said Nina, “even granting that Winston isn’t who I always thought he was, granting he might even be dangerous,” she thought out loud, “how could she catch up with him today if he’s on an island in the middle of Emerald Bay?”
“Same way we can,” he said, picking up her sunglasses from the backseat, pulling her by the hand, opening the passenger-side door on his van, and pushing her in. “Motorboat, motorboat, go so fast…”
Nina got into the van with him and made some quick phone calls. “Okay, head for Meek’s Bay. I called Richardson’s Resort. They refused to rent us a boat. It’s too late in the day, and the wind’s up, they say. The bad news is, they rented the last one of the day to Genevieve, so we know she probably followed Winston. Oh, God, Paul. By now she’s a good hour ahead of us.”
“Why should we go to Meek’s Bay?”
“Matt offered us his boat, and that’s where it’s docked.”
“You’ve had some unkind things to say about that boat.”
“Last time it went dead out in the middle of the lake I swore I would never ride in it again, but it’s our only option. He gave me some tips about starting her up.” They pulled into the parking lot. “Look for the one called the Andreadore.”
“Catchy name. Didn’t another ship ram that boat?”
“You’re thinking of the Andrea Doria.”
“Your brother has a strange sense of humor.”
“Tell me about it. Usually he’s docked down by Heavenly, but luckily for us, a friend was working to get it ready for the summer season. Some kind of trade. Meek’s is closer to Emerald Bay.”
They found the scarred twenty-two-footer easily. “Nina,” Paul said, untying the ropes that held it to the dock. “I know you don’t really think Winston killed Clifford Wright… but let’s just admit the possibility.” He jumped in, fiddled with the ignition, and started the boat.
“I just can’t.”
“But if he did… he’s not just dangerous to Genevieve, Nina.”
“There’s an explanation. There has to be.”
“Just don’t let friendship blind you. Watch yourself, okay?”
His words evaporated behind the rattle and roar of the Andreadore as she set off for Emerald Bay.
Paul ran the engine at full throttle for about ten minutes. Immediately, the cool wind of late May gusted inside Nina’s clothes to chill her limbs and bite at her neck.
A heavy spray flew off the choppy water below. “Would he swim to Fannette in this weather?” she said.
“I believe Matt told me once you can pull up to the rocks in a kayak,” Paul said. “You might be able to get there without even wetting your feet.”
“I wish we weren’t doing this,” said Nina. “I’m freezing already. The lake is getting really wild. And look at those clouds coming in.”
Paul didn’t reply, seeming lost in his own thoughts.
The wind rushed by. Ten thousand white caps adorned the vast expanse of lake. “And I’m scared,” she shouted over the motor and the wind. “Slow down.”
“We’re in a hurry, remember?”
She remembered. She remembered that she should be sitting at a safe desk somewhere, in a warm room, with everything in control, not out here on the lake with the afternoon wind coming up, in control of nothing, with Paul, who was supposed to be gone…
“What’s this?” she said, stopping a leather case that was rolling across the deck. “Oh, good, Matt’s binoculars.”
“Here,” Paul said. “Wrap yourself in the blanket.” He threw a picnic tablecloth to her and she put it around herself.
She pulled out the binoculars and adjusted them to her eyes. For several minutes, she scanned Lake Tahoe for as far as she could see, almost across its entire twelve miles to the eastern shore. “Anybody who was out here today was smart enough to dock before now. There’s nothing out there, not even the ghost of the drowned sailor.”
“What drowned sailor?”
She told Paul the story Andrea had told her about the sailor who ended up at the bottom of Lake Tahoe instead of in the tomb he had built on the island.
Something she said must have verified something he was already thinking. “This damn lake. This whole place. It’s so beautiful on the surface.” He looked out at the uneven waves, and hung on to the wheel with fingers so tightly clenched they had turned white. “But underneath…” As if to help him make a point, the engine sputtered, then reengaged.
Before Nina could ask if the comment had some hidden double meaning only a literature major could figure out, he said, “We’re almost at the entrance to the Bay. Get those binocs up.”
And there it was, a boat with the figure of a woman at the helm. “It’s Genevieve,” she said, handing over the binoculars so Paul could look.
“What’s she doing over there? That’s not the way into Emerald Bay,” he said, and for the first time Nina realized that the irritation in his voice, his absorption, probably masked a certain amount of fear. Paul didn’t spend all his time messing with boats either, she reminded herself. An equivalent to her five-minute lesson with Matt probably constituted the bulk of his boat lore.
But he had never failed her, had he?
They tried to hail Genevieve, but in the wind, she could not hear them.
“Damn and blast!” said Paul. “She didn’t even look this way. She’s headed straight out to the middle of the lake. Is she trying to get to the other side? Where on God’s blue water is she going so fast?”
“We can’t catch up to her, now. Her boat’s in better shape than this old rattletrap. Anyway, she’s alone, Paul. She’s okay. I don’t even see Winston.”
“Don’t knock Matt’s boat. You don’t want her taking offense. We’ve got a long way to go. And we don’t know what’s going on. It’s possible Winston’s in that boat somewhere. Now let’s just give her a little gas“-he pushed the throttle-”and we’ll just see who’s a rattletrap.”
He got the boat up to top speed, which wasn’t fast enough to overtake Genevieve, but felt very fast to Nina. Holding on to the windscreen with one hand, she stood up and waved the paper bag in the wind. Genevieve’s boat rumbled purposefully ahead, jumping and dipping in the waves, sometimes heaving to one side or the other, looking dangerously unstable. At one point she turned her head, and Nina saw her lips moving, as if she was saying something, but she continued at full speed, apparently blinded by her resolve. Then, suddenly, about four miles out from land, she shut the engine off and bent over out of sight.
“What’s she doing?” Paul said, adjusting the motor down, trying to close the gap between them without running into the other boat.
“I can’t see her.”
When they were as close as possible, he cut the engine down to low. The noise made no impression in the wind, apparently, because the next thing they knew, a startled Genevieve almost fell over at the sight of them.
“What the hell!” she called to them. “Where’d you come from?” She had a somnolent Winston caught by the arm, and as they watched, she propped him against one of the seats. He was sitting on the deck of the boat, eyes closed.
They pulled in next to Genevieve, and Paul kept the engine running, so that he could move away quickly if the wind pushed them in too close.
“We need to talk to you, Genevieve,” said Nina.
“You followed me out here to talk to me? Must be awfully important. What’s happened?”
“What’s the matter with Winston?” Paul said.
“Oh, man,” Genevieve said. “Winston. He’s drunk. God. He’s a maniac. He took it in mind to drive this dang boat all the way across the lake! I told him it was too late in the day, but he was beyond listening.”
“But you’re driving,” Nina said.
“Just for the past few minutes. He was so determined. Shouting at me. Jesus, I never saw him like this before,” she said. “He just now passed out.”
“What are you doing here with him?”
“After I finished up at work, I realized I had some time before I had to leave. You probably noticed Winston and I…” She flushed. “Well, we didn’t agree about how things ought to be between us. I wanted to keep seeing him… he thought we needed to make a clean break. So I wanted to talk to him. It seemed like a perfect, intimate little opportunity. I knew he was kayaking so I rented this boat, and surprised him on the island with a picnic I picked up at Cecil’s on the way out of town.
“We laid out a blanket on the island. We were celebrating with champagne, but I hardly drank anything. Turns out, he’s a mean drunk,” Genevieve said, and she started to dab at her face with her sleeve. Her light hair streamed out behind her in lank strips. “You can’t tell someone like that what to do. I guess he was drinking before I arrived. A little of the champagne and he was over the top. Then he practically forced me. We got on the boat. I wanted to go back, but he had this cockeyed idea… it was easier to give in. And then, just a minute ago, he finally passed out. I was just going to sit him up so he wouldn’t vomit and choke on it or something. Then I figured I’d head back.”
“Genevieve,” Paul said. “Would you toss the floats onto the side of your boat? You know, the ones you put down to protect the boat when you dock.”
“Why?”
“Did Winston say why he wanted to go out into the middle of the lake?” Nina asked. Winston was completely passed out, obviously not a danger at the moment.
“No,” said Genevieve. “He was way beyond reason, just pushing and demanding. I was afraid…” She was half-shouting over the wind.
“Genevieve, listen,” Nina said. She explained as quickly as she could what they thought the microphone they had found in Winston’s office meant. “It’s just possible he wanted you out here where no one would find you. If there was an accident.” The Andreadore pitched, and Nina reached for the windshield to prevent herself from falling.
“That’s ridiculous!” Genevieve said. “You’ve lost your marbles! How can you think that of him?”
“There may be an explanation. But you have to look at the facts. If Winston eavesdropped on the jury, there’s also the possibility… the remote possibility he has something to do with the death of Clifford Wright.”
“I… I don’t know what to say. I’m just flabbergasted. After all he did for you! And he would never intentionally hurt me. He cares about me.”
“Nevertheless,” said Paul implacably. “Why don’t you ride back with Nina. I’ll take Winston.”
“No,” said Genevieve. “I’ll take him back. He’s out cold. Even if what you’ve said is true, and I think it’s the biggest hunk of wet cow dung I ever met, I’m in no danger now. Tell you what. I’ll head back to the dock. You two could help me by goin’ back for his kayak.”
“Forget the kayak!” Paul exploded.
They argued back and forth for a few minutes as the sky continued to lower until the clouds nearly touched Nina’s shoulders, and the fading afternoon was darkening by the minute.
Genevieve finally clinched it. “How are you going to feel when he wakes up, huh? He’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything, and then he’s going to want to snatch you bald-headed for leaving his kayak behind!” She was very upset, and had slipped into her most exaggerated Southern accent.
“Paul, the island is only a few minutes out of the way. We could get his kayak,” Nina said.
Paul quit haggling. Pulling the Andreadore swiftly up beside Genevieve’s speedboat, he motioned to Nina to take over the helm, perched on the edge of the boat, and leaped before Genevieve had time to react, arms akimbo and legs flailing over a five foot stretch of lake, landing with a curse inside the other boat. He stood up and took Genevieve’s arm. “You be a good girl and get the hell out of this boat,” he said, guiding her over to the edge. “Nina, come in closer.”
Nina obeyed, moving gingerly in. Ignoring her noisy protests, Paul lifted Genevieve neatly into the Andreadore.
“I’ll go back for the kayak. We’ll meet you two at Richardson’s landing in twenty minutes. You two start back. Meanwhile, Genevieve, got any rope on this rig?”
Genevieve stood next to Nina, watching Paul and Winston recede as Nina steered Matt’s boat away. “You’re going to tie him up?” she said.
“Just maintaining the peace,” said Paul. “You said he was upset.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Tell me,” Paul said sternly, “where the goddamned rope is.”
Looking unhappy or uncertain or both, Genevieve finally said, “I think there’s some inside that hatch Win’s lying on.”
“Paul, be careful,” said Nina, waving and steering the Andreadore to the southwest. She waited until they were far enough away not to cause a wake and swamp the other boat before accelerating away.
She could see that he was trying to move Winston’s dead weight to one side, but the big man flopped around, ungainly as a marlin.
Nina and Genevieve covered a couple of miles in blessed silence, Nina just delighted to be going home and feeling tremendously relieved. They had Winston. Now he could explain. He could dispel this cloud of doubt about her case. They were about halfway to the resort before Genevieve said, “Oh, damn. Damn, damn, damn!”
“What is it?”
“I forgot to tell him to pick up the picnic basket,” she said.
“That’s no problem,” Nina said. “I promise I’ll get my brother to rescue it for you tomorrow.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried. “I took off my rings and put them in it. My mother’s wedding ring is in there. I can’t leave it. Someone might get there first!”
What the heck. She would rather be near Paul anyway. Paul had Winston, so they had nothing to worry about on that front. The island wasn’t far off their route.
“Calm down,” said Nina. “Let’s go get it.” She turned the Andreadore north and aimed for the narrow sliver of green lake in the distance that heralded the opening to Emerald Bay.
Rising about a hundred and fifty feet above the lake’s surface, Fannette Island sat in the middle of Emerald Bay like the important central jewel in an exquisite pendant. On the first visible piece of it, on the northeastern end, heaps of granite boulders were topped by the stone teahouse. The descending clouds had leached the color out of the pines. The landscape, always rugged but usually softened by sparkling waters and sunlight, held a different beauty in the blues and grays of late afternoon, brooding in its solitude out there in the middle of the swirling waters.
Nina had decided to relax into the event, let things take their course. They had nothing to fear except perhaps Matt’s unreliable boat, which had behaved admirably so far, and the unpredictable weather, which threatened, but did not deliver, rain. The island must be magnetic, she thought, because even out here, in this disquieting atmosphere, she could feel its tug. She wanted very much to hop right out of the boat and climb to the top of the little hill, to sit in the teahouse and take in the view from the top. However, the cold lake below, deep with melted snow, frightened her a little. She would come back on a sunny day later in the season when the lake had heated up, with Matt and Andrea and the kids. Bob would love finding the way up the ridge to the teahouse.
“We have to go around to the other side,” Genevieve said. “To the cove. Here, why don’t you let me steer? I know the way better.”
“No, thanks,” Nina said. She felt responsible for Matt’s boat, and she knew pulling in close to the rocks in the cove in this kind of wind might be nasty.
Rocking and rolling against the stiff waves of an unruly lake, the Andreadore was taking a beating. Genevieve would not shut up, and kept up a nonstop stream of chatter that had the effect of making Nina very nervous.
Within a minute, they caught sight of the tiny cove that offered the only safe harbor for a boat.
“We can’t get in, Genevieve,” Nina said. “See that?” She pointed to the twisted tree that marked the island’s most southern point. “I’m sure there are rocks jutting under the water there. The wind’s up too much. It’s just gotten too choppy.”
“Just get in a little closer, Nina,” Genevieve said, practically hopping with impatience. “I’ll jump in and swim. I did it once already, you know.”
Nina stared at her. “But the weather is really getting bad now, Genevieve. No, it’s not worth risking Matt’s boat.” She scanned the bay. “Where the hell is Paul?”
Gusts of strong wind battered the little boat, and they rocked like kids on a wooden horse, holding on wherever they could.
Mist had settled over the island and over the two women, and the constant drone of the motor had by now numbed Nina to the point where she could barely hear Genevieve, even when she shouted.
“If you’re so nervous, let me take the boat in closer, Nina,” Genevieve said. As Nina’s nerves went, so their voices had risen. Genevieve grabbed the wheel, nudging Nina out of the way with a heavy swing of her hip. “I grew up with boats.”
Nina, taken off guard by Genevieve’s vehemence but unable to decide how to bring order to this unbalanced state of affairs, stepped away from the wheel. “You’re going to sink us,” Nina said, watching as the boat moved wildly in, heading for rocks. “Watch out to the left! Ahhh…!”
No more than ten feet away from the edge of the island, near where the yellow kayak had been pulled over the rocks and onto the sand, Genevieve slowed the engine to its lowest speed and turned to face Nina.
“You calm down,” she said. She had to shout to be heard above a sudden gust of wind that now howled around them. “Everything’s going just fine.”
Nina lunged for the wheel. Any control she had had long since jumped ship. “I’m getting us out of here.”
Genevieve kept her hand clamped down. “No, you’re not. Don’t be such a chicken. Let’s stick to the plan. I’m going in.” She steered with one hand. “I’m going to freeze unless I’ve got something dry,” she said, and while Nina watched, she bundled a sweater with a towel and tossed them onto the sandy beach just beyond the edge of the cove. Her hair blew back from her face. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and absolutely nothing else.
“There’s one other thing,” Genevieve said.
But Nina had a question first. “Genevieve?” she said, and for just a moment, the wind let up and she achieved a kind of passionate clarity of concentration. “Genevieve, where’s your hearing aid?”
The rope had not been in the hatch under Winston at all. After conducting an intensive search, Paul located it bundled amid the life jackets, under the plastic cushions on the seats at the front of the boat.
Feeling only a little foolish, he tied Winston’s slack hands in front of him. Then he tied his feet to one of the seats, tight enough so that he was satisfied Winston would go nowhere without his help. The big guy wasn’t playing possum. He was unconscious.
Fleetingly reminded of his days as a cop, where taking prisoners was an ordinary event, and everyone was dangerous until proven otherwise, Paul reached for the starter. Where was the key? It didn’t take him long to remember how quick he had been to rush Genevieve off the boat. She must have had the key in her hand, or in a pocket.
He would call for help, he thought, then moved on to the picture of his and Nina’s cell phones tucked neatly away in the glove compartment of his car.
Cursing, he looked for a manual. Of course, rental boats had radios. But that would have been too easy. The radio sputtered, offered a short pessimistic weather report, and before Paul could figure out exactly how to dial out, died with a whimper.
Well, if you could jump a car, he thought, a boat ought to be a snap. He hadn’t entirely wasted his years as a cop in San Francisco. He set about managing it.
Within five minutes, they were on their way and just in time, too. The sky had darkened slightly. They should have gotten off the lake right away, he groused silently, wanting to kick the dormant and unconcerned-looking man at his feet, but too civilized to do it.
He took it slowly, having expended all his vitality on the hurried trip out. The jolt he had felt on seeing Nina outside the restaurant had disturbed him, and it was taking him some time to recover. He had said good-bye, and there she was again to tantalize him and make him deal with his regrets.
But it didn’t change anything except the cleanness of his departure. He would leave Monday, as planned. Seeing her once more was enough to convince him, if he had in fact harbored any doubts in the matter. He was putty in her hands, and the least threat to her cut through him like acid. They were too connected, and going nowhere fast.
He gunned the motor slightly. He liked speed, but Winston would get batted around. Paul would get batted around, too, so he kept his speed modest. With just a minute to tie the kayak to the boat, they’d be back on land before dark without undue haste.
They had a good ten minutes at a steady clip before they would reach the entrance to the bay. Within moments of their starting out, one of the ferries that plied these waters passed by, passengers waving merrily. Paul waved back. Left alone again, he tried singing, but in the windy dusk even the snappiest tune hung too long in the air, lingering like a dirge. He switched to whistling through his teeth.
“Jesus H. Christ,” a thick voice came up from down around his feet. “ ’Dixie’? Please don’t tell me you’re whistling ’Dixie’?”
Paul shut up.
“Mind telling me,” Winston said very slowly, and although he was enunciating carefully, his words slurred, “what this rope’s all about? That in combination with your choice in music is…” There was a long pause while Winston shaped his uncooperative mouth around the cumbersome words, “unpleasantly suggestive.” He struggled to pull himself up. Paul reached over to help him to the seat beside him.
“Well, good buddy,” began Paul, figuring there was no time like the present to clear the air. “You’ve got some explaining to do.” They had reached the narrow aisle of water between two jutting peninsulas that led into Emerald Bay. Paul maneuvered into the middle and headed in.
“Without a jury out and needing my attention, I hear well enough,” said Genevieve. Apparently reluctant to discuss further her miraculously restored hearing, Genevieve, scrawny but muscular under her clothing, balled up a fist, and slammed Nina in the face.
Nina fell down. Trying to catch herself on one of the seats, she put out a hand, but she was falling too hard. She heard more than felt her wrist crack. She tried to recall moves from her martial-arts courses, but her mind was filled by the growing darkness and Genevieve’s astonishing transformation from colleague to deadly foe. She jumped up as fast as she could, trying to regain some footing on the slippery deck, but Genevieve was ready for her. In a fast movement, all too spookily familiar, just like the night that had sent Rachel and Mike over the side of the Dixie Queen, she took hold of Nina’s ankles and lifted her over.
“You should have let me knock you out,” she said, unaccountably holding tightly on to Nina’s ankles. “But it’s not that easy to do, you know. Damn. I knew I must have dropped that bug in Winston’s office when we knocked my purse over during one last, very memorable lunch. Too bad you found it before I did.”
Nina’s face went straight into the icy blue. The shock… She bent her neck back to clear the water, pushing with all her might against the side of the boat with her good hand, trying to scramble her way back up into the boat, but she could feel the groaning of her backbone. Chunky waves rushed up to greet her, blurring her eyes and washing into her mouth and nose. “Genevieve, let go!” she said, spitting water.
As Nina lurched and lunged, Genevieve’s grip on her ankles tightened. “If you had just arrived ten minutes later, given me time to drown Winston, you’d be cruising along in the other boat with your boyfriend, having a grand time. Doesn’t that just stink? Shoot, Nina. I didn’t want to have to kill you. It’s just a total pisser.” Out of breath with her exertions, she proceeded to push Nina down deeper, until Nina thought her back would crack. She intended to drown her, Nina realized, numb with cold and already exhausted. Then Paul would find Genevieve alone, with some neat excuse about Nina’s disappearance. By the time Paul could check her story, Nina would be dead, her body gone to rest with the drowned sailor’s.
“This is exactly what happens when you can’t plan in advance. Otherwise, I’d have made it easier on you,” Genevieve said in a feat of almost superhuman determination, shoving Nina down hard. Nina clung to the side, raising her head above the water, and when Genevieve realized she couldn’t just drown her by hanging her over the side, she tried lifting Nina’s limp body up and down against the boat to knock the fight out of her. Waves of unconsciousness swept over Nina. She was tiring fast…
“Winston was so easy,” Genevieve continued, and it was so strange, the way she wanted to explain, as if she still considered Nina a friend, and stranger still that Nina had the sense left in her bruised skull to follow her words. “Not that I wanted to hurt him. I’ve had so much fun with Winston,” she said wistfully. “I just love that big guy. And he’s been great to me. But, unfortunately, once you found that bug, Winston posed an unacceptable threat. He loves champagne, and what the hell, it seemed fitting, so I spiked it. We drank a couple of toasts…”
She was thoughtful. “Even that other guy died pretty quick. There was all that catered food in the hallway outside the clerk’s office, just waiting for a little Southern spice, a dose of peanut for his very special meal before it went into the jury room. His even had a vegetarian label on it. And there I was passing by with my comfort food, peanut butter sandwich in hand. It was made to order. Don’t you just hate picky people,” she said. “Don’t you just despise them?”
“Weren’t you afraid you’d be seen?” Nina gasped.
“I’d been in that hall a half dozen times during the trial avoiding the press or following that flirt Winston around. Nobody took any notice of me at all.”
Nina was out of time. One more thump against the side would be the end of her. Catching Genevieve during a lifting motion, using both hands, even the one she now thought might be broken, howling with pain, she pushed off the boat straight into the lake. Genevieve, hunched over the side and caught by surprise by Nina’s choice of direction, lost her footing and tumbled into the water right behind Nina.
Nina opened her eyes and saw that she was underwater, sinking like a stone into the black depths of Lake Tahoe. Maybe from the time she came up here the lake had been waiting to take her, as it had others in the past, that sailor, the victim in her first murder trial. She kicked hard against the suction, wondering how deep she was, wondering how long her stretched lungs would hold out before they spewed out air and replaced it with water. Exhausted, pierced by pain in one arm, with no idea how far she had to go, she began paddling frantically and struck something. A boulder. She followed it up and burst through the membrane between water and air. Although the boulder was completely submerged, she could stand on it and get at least part of her body out of the water.
The wind hurt worse than the water. She had to get back to land, had to. The island was fewer than a hundred feet away. She should be able to swim that in a few minutes… Her body could not handle the searing cold. Goose bumps patterned like a relief map rose to different levels on every surface of her skin and she was shivering until her teeth rattled.
Completely drained of energy, panting, she examined the cove for Genevieve, spotting her instantly on the sand nearly hidden behind a bush. Genevieve had gone for the kayak. She would take the boat and get away. Nina watched, impotent, sucking in great gulps of the thin cold air, as Genevieve bent over to untie the yellow kayak, dragged it to the water, and jumped in, pushing off with a paddle. Galvanized, Nina went after her.
Swimming silently near the surface of the rough water, with one arm dragging at her side, trying to stay submerged, Nina came up along one side of the boat and heaved, using both arms, even the injured one, screaming to relieve the pain she felt. Genevieve went over. Without waiting for Genevieve’s next spontaneous act, Nina yanked her off the kayak. When they reached the surface simultaneously, she balled her fist up tightly, as Genevieve had, and walloped Genevieve on the chin as hard as she could.
Genevieve’s eyes shut. She sank, but Nina took hold of her hair and hauled her back up. Nina had done it. A knockout punch, one that would have done Mike Markov proud…
Nina tried to hold on to the kayak and use it as a float, but she couldn’t hold Genevieve and the kayak. For a long moment, she allowed herself to consider letting Genevieve go. She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. With a groan of resignation, she let the boat float away.
Kicking them both back to the island without using her hurt arm proved difficult but not impossible. By the time she dragged Genevieve up onto the rocks by the cove, both Matt’s boat and the yellow kayak were bobbing merrily hundreds of yards away, completely out of reach. She fell beside Genevieve on the sand, half dead from the cold, stretched out, and lapsed into a stupor of exhaustion.
No more than a few moments passed before she forced herself to stir, telling herself to keep at least one eye open. But her caution came too late. A fine drizzle of rain falling from the sky was interrupted by the shadow standing over her wielding a long, sharp blade.
Genevieve had found her picnic basket.
As evening approached the lake turned to a velvety midnight-blue. The necklace of mountains surrounding the bay, shadowy outlines, piled upon each other in layers of paling grays. The wind that often came up at the end of the day kept the waves busy, lapping noisily against the shores. Swinging rapidly into the bay, moving as cautiously as he could in the deepening darkness, Paul felt they were edging toward the end of the world, and at any moment might fall off.
Winston’s moment of coherence had passed, and he had settled back down and begun to snore heavily, not a healthy kind of snoring, but Paul didn’t have time to worry about that.
He angled toward the empty, floating speedboat, reached over, and snagged the trailing line. With a little difficulty, he tied it to drag safely behind. The lighter kayak was floating much farther out, away from the island. But he had a more pressing question. Where were the women?
The question demanded an immediate answer. He headed for Fannette, figuring out that they must have gone back there for something Genevieve wanted. Maybe the boat had simply come loose. The kayak, too. Unwilling to imagine an alternate scenario, he let that straightforward explanation console him until he got to the cove.
No sign of anyone.
“The hell,” Winston said clearly. “What kind of champagne was that?” He tried to raise his tied hands to his head, and failed.
Paul pulled away, and began to circle the island, starting around the southwestern tip.
“Genny?” said Winston, head lolling, eyes nearly rolled back into his head. “I know you don’t really want to hurt me. Let’s talk, honey…”
“Winston!” Paul commanded. “What are you talking about?”
But the other man’s eyes closed, and his head lolled back.
Popping up sudden as toast, Nina swung with her right arm, connecting with Genevieve’s wrist, but she didn’t go far. Genevieve took her down and sat on her.
“Don’t do this!” Nina screamed. “I won’t press charges!”
The strangeness of this statement was not lost on Genevieve, who half-chuckled as she pressed down with her weight, trying to still a crazed, wiggling Nina. “Jesus, Nina, you’re gonna go to your grave jabbering like a lawyer.” She had Nina pinned. She raised the knife, trying to jab it into Nina’s throat, but Nina took hold of her wrist, and using the force of Genevieve’s thrust turned the hand so that the knife faced away, but the wrist came into close contact with Nina’s teeth.
“Ow!” Genevieve screeched, dropping the knife.
Rolling away from her, Nina jumped and took off.
“Now where are you gonna go?” she heard Genevieve saying behind her. “There’s nowhere to hide on this little bitty island.”
Nina found the rock stairs that led up to the teahouse hidden by the brush nearby. Scraped and gouged by the thorny bushes, she ignored the lacerating of her feet and the sharp twinge of her weak ankle and moved at top speed up, up, up, thinking, where could she turn off, where could she get away, buy herself some time…
“Nina?”
The voice behind her was too near. Her fear at that moment equaled the terror she had felt at the sight of the knife, an icy hollowness, like she’d been invaded by ghosts and would freeze up and die from the inside out.
“Let’s work this thing out, okay?” Genevieve panted. “You want your money, too, don’t you?”
Because there seemed nowhere else to go, Nina ran all the way up the hill toward the teahouse, too frightened to think or even to worry about breathing. Once inside, choking back all fear, she ran over the stone floor to the open window on the northeastern tip at the highest point on the island, leaned out, took a deep breath, and screamed the highest, most piercing, shrieking, fearsome scream she could muster. “Help! Help! Help!” Three cries, like the three trips to the surface a drowning person has before dying. She knew Genevieve could hear.
Down below, she spotted Matt’s boat. She jumped up and down, shouting and waving her arm.
Paul waved back.
“This hasn’t been easy for me, you know. I never knew things would get this bad,” Genevieve said, ducking through the low door and coming at her.
Paul whirled around the northeast tip of Fannette, going for the cove, all worries about the kayak gone, determined to get onto that island if he had to swim there.
Once nestled in, he looped extra rope to the boat, taking the end in his teeth, and dove into the black water; then he swam like hell. Almost immediately, he felt extremely winded. The altitude. He wasn’t used to the altitude. He treaded water, trying to catch his breath, then continued on, using a strong, easy stroke, counting to himself to keep the beat going, the image of Nina in that window indelibly printed on his imagination; the sight of her against that black sky, her clothing tattered and flying in the wind around her.
Nina jumped out the teahouse window, landing hard on the rock below, barely catching herself before falling headlong down a hill of solid rock that would surely, surely have ended her days as a jabbering lawyer.
She stumbled to her left, but realizing whatever way she went Genevieve waited, she climbed down the rocks for a ways, listening intently for the other woman but hearing nothing. When she fell again, straight into a prickle bush, she took it for a message from whatever spirit had kept her alive so far. Pulling her torn limbs away from the punishing thorns, she continued down a rocky slope made up of huge boulders, some cracked by weather, others huge slabs of roughness.
There must be somewhere to hide. There must be.
There was. Nina leaned her hand against a particularly sturdy-looking piece of brush and fell in.
She found herself inside a ruined pile of rocks which screened a small, dry, squarish cave, barely large enough to contain her, but very well hidden from view. Panting, almost crying with relief, trying to keep herself from making any noise, she sat down in the dirt, put her arms around her knees and shivered, burying her face into her arms.
Her eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. When she finally looked around, she realized this was no natural formation. The walls formed a pattern, with larger boulders forming the base that gradually shrunk in size as they approached the top. The ceiling consisted of one huge slab. An intricate entryway, now collapsed, but with enough remnants to be discernible, had once lovingly described an arch.
Nina had fallen into what must once long ago have been the sailor’s tomb.
“Come out, Nina,” Genevieve said from somewhere above. “Don’t force me to come after you…”
Trying desperately to be silent, but sucking air in great gulps, Nina leaned back into the spidery walls of her cave, listening for sounds.
Wind. Rain.
And then, footfalls.
She got down on her hands and knees, reaching for something she could use for a weapon. Her hand landed on a loose rock, heavy, jagged. She held it aloft.
Only a few feet away now. The sounds came closer, closer…
And then, with a swiftness and noise that had abandoned stealth, they moved away.
Nina breathed out a sob. And the next thing she heard was Paul’s voice.
“Nina!” His voice rumbled, deep and full and desperate, traveling across the distance like a lion’s roar. “Nina!”
“Here!” she said, trying to stand up, whacking herself on the head. “I’m right here!”
She heard rocks falling around her, then the thump of heavy steps.
“Where?”
Paul’s voice sounded right beside her. She pushed a loose pile of rock away and stepped out into his arms, covered head to toe with dirt and dust. After a short moment, all too short, he stepped back.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
“Where is Genevieve?”
“I think I heard a splash back there. Someone dove off a rock near the cove,” he said.
“Her hearing aid. It wasn’t real.”
Paul seemed to understand immediately.
“Where are the boats?”
“Tied together in the cove.”
“She’ll take them both.”
“Let her, Nina,” Paul said, pushing the mop of her hair away from her eyes. “We can wait here. We’ll keep each other warm. I told Matt where we were going. He’ll find us.”
“What about Winston?”
“Oh, shit!”
“You left him tied up?”
The expression on his face gave her her answer.
“She’ll kill him!” Nina said.
“Why is she trying to kill Winston?”
“He knows more than we do about her. Maybe she knew when we found the bug he would connect her to Wright’s death.”
They tore back over the hump of hill to the pathway and ran down to the cove.
When they reached the small sandy beach, Genevieve had already unhitched the rental boat from its mooring on a rock and was climbing in. Banging against some rocks, the Andreadore bobbed behind. The kayak was by now a small yellow sliver on the horizon, heading toward the main body of the lake to the east.
“Where’s Winston?” Paul yelled.
“There!” Nina shouted. “She dumped him! He must have been trying to swim away from her and got caught in the current.” Out beyond the cove, also caught in the drifting waters they saw him flailing, the dark orb of his head dipping below the surface.
“I’ll go after her,” she told Paul. “I’m not strong enough to lug Winston back. You get him.” She started to jump into the water, but he held her back.
“Let her go,” he said.
Nina looked at Genevieve in the boat, and back at Paul. “We can’t leave Winston out there.”
“I’ll get Winston.” He held on to her.
“You’re no good to me or anyone else dead!” Nina cried. “She’ll run you both down if I don’t stop her!”
With a look of agonized indecision, he let go.
Nina dove, swimming as fast as she could to cover the few short yards between her and the speedboat. In spite of the pain, she ordered her injured wrist into action, kicking furiously to make up for the weakness in her stroke. Behind her, she dimly noted splashing as Paul set off to rescue Winston.
Rain broke from the sky, battering the water below and the people in it. Wet already, Nina hardly noticed. Within seconds, she reached the boat. Genevieve was searching frantically for something. Alternately kicking, cursing, and screaming at the boat, she lurched from side to side and front to back. Within a few moments, she stood up, triumphant, key in hand.
Meanwhile, Nina pulled down the ladder by the propeller, straightened up, and hauled her dripping body into the boat, into air as wet as the lake, her injuries forgotten, feeling like a monster rising from the deep, larger and more powerful than the disheveled person facing her now.
In the fleeting seconds when they faced off, Nina could find not even a hint of the youth and charm and personality that was Genevieve. She faced a stranger.
“Genevieve, why?” she asked, rain running down her face, trying to give herself a moment to assess the situation so that she could decide what to do next to stall Genevieve and give Paul time to get Winston to safety. “The tension. You’re not well-”
“Remember that little private meeting we had way back when? She promised me three million dollars,” said Genevieve, twisting the boat key savagely.
“Who?” asked Nina, looking around for a weapon and discovering only one, the knife held fast in Genevieve’s free hand.
“Lindy.”
“Lindy bribed you to bug the jury room?”
“Of course not. She offered me a bonus if we won. That’s a perfectly legitimate incentive in the business world. Too bad I had to open my big mouth and go bragging to Winston about it before I knew Wright was going to cause me such trouble. Even then, Winston never would have figured out what I had done if you hadn’t found that damn bug.”
“Lindy knew about Wright?”
“She didn’t want details. She wanted to win. And she did, didn’t she? I won it for her and by God, I’m going to get my money out of the deal.” The engine started up. “You know I always thought I’d do like the other ants because that’s what I was raised to do. But I am my father’s daughter. I just couldn’t resist the opportunity when it came along.”
While Genevieve talked, Nina edged in closer. “What are you going to do now?”
“Take care of Paul and Winston first, then you.”
“I thought you cared about Winston. And even me, a little.”
“Stay back,” Genevieve commanded, stabbing the knife in the air toward Nina.
Nina backed up quickly.
“You’ve got to go, Nina. I was stupid, losing track of that microphone. But I can fix everything right here in the tragic boating accident that’s just about to happen. You accidentally run down your friends and take your own life. It’s feeble, but the only witness will add substantiating details.”
“The attack on Rachel Pembroke?”
“She was Mike Markov’s muse, and way too influential. Without her pushing him to fight hard against Lindy we’d have had a much better chance to win the trial. And of course, she was a crucial witness. I hid in the backseat of her car, thinking I’d get her alone and stage a suicide. But she spotted me and cracked up the car before I could do anything. Then Lindy showed up out of nowhere, so I never finished the job. So I decided to trust my usual research method, listening in on the jury. This was the first time I’ve had to intervene to such an extent. I really am very good at my job. No one could have predicted Wright’s change in attitude. It wasn’t my fault.”
She wouldn’t look at Nina, although she still held the knife poised in one hand. With her light hair pasted to her head and water streaming down her face, she looked half drowned, half something supernatural. Moving the boat around in a circle, she searched for Paul and Winston.
Nina couldn’t see them anywhere. Where were they?
“You know there are all kinds of old shipwrecks out there,” Genevieve said, “bits of flotsam from Vikingsholm on the bottom of the bay around here.”
“Please, Genevieve,” Nina said, eyes straining out into the rain, her fright reaching fever pitch.
“Maybe, if you aren’t drowned already, when you get to the bottom you’ll see something down there.” As Genevieve reached the end of the cove and open water, she said, almost to herself, “How did everything get so out of hand?”
Nina pounced, silently invoking God, ghosts in the lake, and anyone else who might take an interest, to help her shove Genevieve away from the wheel. Genevieve took the onslaught like a redwood, without budging. Swiping the knife efficiently, she slashed deeply into Nina’s arm. “Stay back,” she said, angling the boat out of the cove, “or I’ll cut your throat. There’s a perfect cemetery down there, one that never, ever reveals its secrets.”
Fighting tears brought on by the pain in her arm, Nina turned her back to Genevieve and took hold of the rope that still held Matt’s boat attached to the marina boat. The Andreadore bounced behind like a child’s sled on a suicide run down a mountain. She untied it awkwardly, using her slashed right arm since the left remained almost out of commission. Then, lifting herself to the edge of the seats, she jumped for it. One knee slammed into a bench, and the other collapsed under her as she came in for a landing.
Watching Nina get away, Genevieve cried out with frustration.
Amazingly, the key remained in the ignition of Matt’s boat. Fighting lances of pain in her arm, Nina turned the key and took hold of the wheel.
Nothing happened. The Andreadore had died without even offering up its usual nose-thumbing, the smell in the air of gasoline. Matt’s boat began to drift east, following the route of the kayak, going out to the big lake beyond.
But maybe it was okay, Nina thought. Maybe Genevieve would forget about hurting any of them, dock on land near Vikingsholm, and climb to the highway. Maybe she had a car stashed up there. She could be in L.A. by evening, gone from their lives forever, buried in its anonymous millions.
But even while she told herself this story with a happy ending, Nina didn’t believe it. Genevieve had come too far. She had listened in on the jury. She had already killed. Now she would collect her pay.
The same thought must have occurred to Genevieve because she turned the boat back toward the island.
Paul saw Nina reach the boat and heard voices, but he had no further attention to spare on Nina’s troubles. The cove was tiny, but once he reached the deeper waters beyond where he had seen Winston, he had to concentrate on locating the head that had resurfaced once already. Stroke, stroke, steady.
Out of breath, and so cold he had to remove himself mentally from his body to go on, he finally reached him.
Grabbing first by the hair, then by the shirt Winston still wore, Paul began to tow the other man. “Winston,” he said, gasping for air. “Can you help me at all?”
A gurgle, then a strangled voice. “My hands are literally tied, man!”
Genevieve had removed the ropes around Winston’s ankles but she had left the ropes Paul had tied around his wrists. Paul tried but could not remove them. He had done a very good job tying them. “I’m just going to have to drag you in,” he said.
“Get these ropes off!” Winston pleaded, frenzied. “I’m drowning! Get them off!”
“Hang on,” Paul said. He had no energy left, not enough to argue, and certainly not enough to lug a football player across this melted continent to safety. He began to kick his feet, trying to paddle with one arm.
“You’re going to kill me!” Winston sputtered, as his head dipped into the churning lake.
They had gone no more than fifty feet before Paul heard it: the motorboat returning.
Well, dark or not, Genevieve could see them easily. The moon had risen, and above the silvery water and raindrops he imagined his head as the light side of the moon, to Winston’s dark.
“We’re going down,” he said, “out of sight.”
Winston struggled violently until he was out of Paul’s grasp. Held aloft by sheer will, unable even to paddle, he faced the boat that was coming at them. “Augh! Augh! Genevieve stop!” he shouted. “No!”
Rushing at them like a locomotive, big as an ocean liner, the immensity of death obliterated their small horizon.
Nina watched in horror as Genevieve plowed straight into Paul and Winston. So immersed in emotion she felt she, too, had been hit by Genevieve’s boat, she twisted the starter on Matt’s boat like a crazy person who had only one obsessive task to attempt and never complete. After inspecting the water for the reemergence of Paul and Winston, Genevieve brought the boat around swiftly and started back for Nina. She planned to crash her speedboat into the Andreadore.
“Start, damn you!” Nina jammed the key into the ignition once again and twisted, but the boat did not start.
What had Matt said on their last trip out, while she squawked and complained and swore she would never get it? The boat will start. What starts the boat is not technique, it is confidence. Here’s confidence right here, see it? The black lever to the right of the wheel. Now take that confidence and mess with it. Give it a sip of gas. Move it here… She moved it, swiveling the key back and forth with her other hand. Nothing. Put it here, more toward the middle of the slot…
Genevieve was so close, Nina could see into her eyes. What she saw there moved through Nina’s body, making her tremble. She saw total concentration, pure violence coming at her. Why, those merciless eyes practically glittered with it…
The engine caught.
Swinging the wheel wildly to the left, Nina thought she could feel Genevieve’s cold breath as she passed, missing the Andreadore by inches.
With a few seconds’ grace, Nina turned to look at the cove. There, on the far edge, she saw two heads popping up with a huge splash. Paul and Winston. They had somehow managed to duck under the boat. They were still alive.
Crying out in pain, she swung the boat around, pitching in the wind and tipping way to the right, so close to going over she could count the foam bubbles forming around the raindrops on the surface of the water. She would get there first. She would save them all somehow.
Behind her, Genevieve advanced.
“It’s Nina!” Paul cried out. “She’s coming this way.”
“Nina?” Winston coughed. “She’s after us, too?”
“No!” Paul said. “She’s trying to lure Genevieve away from us.” The muscles of his arms were wired so tight to keep him and Winston aloft, he thought they might snap. “Genevieve’s not taking the bait. We’re finished,” Paul said. “Jesus Christ, kick your feet, Winston. Help me!”
But Winston, who had taken in a good gallon of water during their most recent underwater struggle, was far too busy trying to expel it to answer.
“We gotta go down again!” Paul said quickly. “Ready?”
“I can’t!” Winston spat. “No!” and in his panic he managed to extricate himself from Paul long enough to sink from sight.
Down under he went.
Genevieve bore down on them.
Paul floundered around hopelessly for the other man’s shirt, found it, and aimed for shore, flapping like a fish already dying on the hook. He pushed, he shoved, he tried his best to keep Winston above water and breathing, but all his awareness was in fact acutely focused on the sound of motors getting louder and louder…
The Andreadore passed, giving them wide berth. He saw Nina, intent at the wheel, her long hair tangled and flying out behind her, a flag of faith. But Genevieve wanted them dead. She would mow them down first, and then go after Nina. She was close, so damn close…
He touched an underwater rock with his toe. Hurling Winston violently to one side, he fixed his last hope on the rock jutting around the left end of the cove. He sprinted for it and lifted the dormant, waterlogged body of Winston behind him.
Genevieve’s boat cut so close it whistled by, sloshing a great whale fluke of water to douse them. Then, robotlike, as if totally undeterred by the minor setback of failing to kill them yet again, it swung back in line to renew its inhumanly unemotional pursuit of Nina.
Genevieve knew they were safely trapped on the island. Paul watched helplessly as Nina headed for the beach by Vikingsholm. She had a hundred yard lead on Genevieve by now. She could get in close, jump out, and hide somewhere in the woods or climb the hill up to the road. She could go for help…
But as he watched, the Andreadore pulled up short and swung around, heading back to the island.
What was Nina doing? She couldn’t rescue them, could she? he thought, confused. Why come back?
She was heading for these rocks, he thought. Had the rain blinded her to the rocks and shallow water here?
She would die! He tightened his grip on Winston. Should he wave her off?
Maybe she would turn away at the last minute. But then he saw Genevieve’s boat cut the same wide arc. Without Paul and Winston in the water to distract her, Genevieve quickly narrowed the space that separated the two boats.
Thirty, twenty, ten yards from the rocks, Nina closed the distance between her and the rocky peninsula of the islet where Paul and Winston lay, the Andreadore chugging steadily along.
Gripping the droopy lawyer at his side, Paul hauled him-bumping, grinding, and screaming-up and over the rocky tip onto the beach at the far end of the cove, then dropped him with a thump. He ran up a steep rock a safe distance from the point, and held up a hand to his forehead to keep the rain from streaming into his eyes.
He tried to see into Nina’s mind as she flew into the wind toward him, but her fixation on her target left no room for anything except determination.
The rain pounded down hard now, and Paul no longer knew to trust his eyes.
He thought he saw the small figure of Nina stand erect on the edge of the Andreadore and then soar like an angel out into the deep water beyond the point just as Genevieve’s boat, directly behind, connected.
He thought he saw Genevieve’s terrified face.
He felt rather than saw the tremendous crash as she struck rock with an explosion so violent it stopped time.
And then, almost leisurely, he saw the rest in detail, slowed like animation examined frame by frame: Genevieve’s boat flipping, coming to rest upside down, whomping down crossways over the Andreadore. The infinity of splintered wood sailing into the air. Fire where boats had been. Heat and light where dark had been.
Amid the splinters, aglow in the glare of ignited gasoline, the silhouette of a woman boneless as a rag doll coming to rest in the lake, poising on the surface, and sinking into its depths.
Summertime in Tahoe. Kelly greens and chartreuses mixed with green as dark as charcoal. The forests had soaked up the melted snow that rolled off the mountains. Memorial Day came. The tourists arrived for vacation fun and did not leave.
Nina didn’t notice. She came into the office that Tuesday morning in June and closed her door to everything. She did not answer the phone when it rang. She did not touch the papers that were already beginning to look musty, like something from her past. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she propped her bare feet on her desk and looked out the window toward the lake, but the picture window insisted on acting like a projection screen and the events of the past seven months imposed themselves again to interrupt her line of vision.
Sandy, parked at her own desk outside her door, did not disturb her. She knew that even on a summer morning you could have a dark night of the soul.
Genevieve had advanced through their lives like a landslide, destroying everything.
Paul had helped Nina get out of the water and climb onto the islet. There, they had waited, watching the speedboats burn. Winston woke up in time to observe with them as the burning embers of the boats sizzled in the rain, sinking into the lake in eerie silence. The kayak had floated away. It was hours before Matt notified the Coast Guard and they were rescued.
Paul and Winston had taken their stories to the police. Jeffrey Riesner had requested that the verdict favoring Lindy be vacated based on “irregularities” in the proceedings, and Judge Milne granted the request, ordering a new trial. Removing Jim Colby as receiver, he placed all assets and business management back in Mike Markov’s hands.
The catastrophic outcome of the trial, since it was caused by a member of Lindy’s legal team, exposed Lindy to judicial sanctions. At least she should have been ordered to pay Mike’s legal fees. Instead, Judge Milne delivered a stinging lecture to Nina in open court, widely quoted in the media, that made her red to the roots of her hair, beamed Jeffrey Riesner up to the moon, and yanked out the last shreds of her self-confidence.
Mike had most of his money. Lindy had nothing.
Nina had less than nothing.
A year of her life had been completely blasted into oblivion along with Genevieve’s boat.
What was left of Markov Enterprises after Mike’s neglect was now his to run again until a new trial went one way or another.
Whatever happened, Nina was no longer in the picture. Her business had been shattered by the Markov case. Clients had drifted away to lawyers who had more time to return their calls. Her checkbook featured a negative balance. She could not begin to afford to represent Lindy in a retrial. She could not even pay her rent. According to her contract with Lindy, Lindy had agreed to pay at least her basic attorney’s fees and costs. Even at a discounted rate, that came to over a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe someday Lindy would be able to pay the bill, but it didn’t look like anytime soon.
Or maybe Lindy would just file bankruptcy and move on.
Nina borrowed more money to buy Matt a new boat since Matt hadn’t kept up the insurance on the Andreadore. She borrowed money to pay Winston for his time in the last few months of the case. That money wasn’t enough to save Winston, however. The IRS came after him for tax evasion. He was countersuing for harassment, but everyone knew how difficult it was to get out from under once the government had turned its red eye your way.
They would not be upgrading their offices. They would not be hiring new people. The complete exploitation of every financial resource available to her to get through this case had wiped her out. The boat loan was the last loan the bank would float for her, the bank had said. She needed to start regular payments on her massive outstanding debts.
Without the fee from Lindy, she couldn’t. Instead, she piled the bills in a corner of the office, and watched them mounting day by day.
Genevieve had disappeared, either into the lake, as Paul seemed to think, or into the vast land of California, and the story of her disappearance and her attacks on Paul, Winston and Nina made front page news all over the state. In case by some miracle she had survived the explosion, the police charged her in absentia with murder in the second degree for Clifford Wright’s death, and three additional counts of attempted murder for Paul, Winston, and Nina.
Nina did not choose to think about Genevieve any longer. She was done with her, just like everything else.
Paul delayed his trip to Washington for a week, but she was too down to talk to him. Finally, he left town quietly, without calling to say good-bye.
Nina had risked everything, and lost.
Leaving Comanche safely stabled with friends outside Reno, Lindy moved back to town temporarily to wrap up loose ends. She had decided to leave town. Some old friends had a gold mine they worked in Idaho. She wanted to go up there and soak up what they knew, plus she just needed to get away from Tahoe. It sounded like the perfect getaway for her right now.
The news about Genevieve had been devastating. It had taken her several days to recover from the shock of what had happened. Her own offer of money had somehow triggered the murder of a juror and attacks on her lawyers. She had been criminally obtuse. She was lucky they weren’t charging her with conspiracy or something. Guilt overwhelmed her.
Along with the news of Genevieve came the news that a new trial had been ordered.
And so, even though Nina had advised against it because Lindy would probably get stuck with Mike’s court costs, Lindy had decided to walk away from the case. She felt terrible about what she had put Nina through for nothing, but she didn’t feel strong enough to continue fighting Mike.
She wished she could pay Nina, but lawyers always seemed to have plenty of resources. Nina probably had lots of money tucked away. She wouldn’t have taken the case without a major bankroll, because that would be stupid. Nina would be okay, and Winston would make up his loss in a year.
Her thoughts went back to that poor man. The whole world seemed to feel that Cliff Wright had died because of her, and maybe they were right. She no longer wanted the money, the business or anything else. She had heard from Alice that Rachel had gone back to Mike begging for forgiveness. So Mike would be fine.
As for herself-she’d finally accepted that her life here, the life she had led for twenty years, had come to a close. She wasn’t exactly young, but she was tough as boiled octopus.
The second week in June she called Mike’s secretary and arranged to come by the house to get the rest of her things. She wanted to warn him ahead of time. She asked him to please get Rachel out of the house as a final favor to her, just for a couple of hours. Then she would go, and they would never need to talk again.
She drove the Jeep down the familiar dusty road off the highway, along the lakeside to the gate of the house. The gates were open. He was expecting her.
Her flowerbeds, in full spring bloom, sprawled with neglect. Fully half the blooms were dead and unpicked. She liked to think Rachel would love them as much as she had, and would soon have things back in order.
Sammy loped up and over her, and she spent a few minutes petting him, saying all the things he liked to hear. From her pocket, she pulled a piece of the beef jerky he loved for a treat, and she left him to eat it on the gravel path.
Mike stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She walked up the stairs, and he let her by. “Do you have some boxes for me?”
Florencia had stacked dozens upstairs, and dozens downstairs, along with thick stacks of paper for wrapping.
“I won’t need all these.” She planned to take only the most special things, the carved wooden box her dad left her, a blue glass paperweight that belonged to her mother. She would box the photographs up to look at someday when the poison had drained out of them and they could no longer hurt her.
She started with the upstairs. Mike stood on the landing leaning against the banister, hands still in his pockets as she moved from room to room. When she ran out of boxes, he helped her fold and tape up some more. He never objected to one single thing, although he watched her intently the whole time.
The only place she did not go was into the bedroom closet. She couldn’t stand to see Rachel’s things hanging there. She decided to ask Florencia to ship anything on to her if she had left anything important in there.
She felt very tired when the time came to start on the downstairs, but there would be less down there. Those rooms were public, and except for her desk, she didn’t think she’d find much.
“Want something to drink?” Mike asked, following her down the stairs.
She ran her hand over the railing one last time. “No, thanks. I want to finish up.” Strange. For almost the first time since she had met him, she couldn’t read the look in his eyes. He had changed. She almost wished he would complain or get angry, anything to break the tension between them.
She made short work of the desk, shoveling her paperwork into two boxes, swiftly striping them with tape. Mike helped her stack the boxes by the front door.
Giving herself a few seconds to catch her breath, she looked around one last time. Then she opened the front door and faced Mike. Wiping her hands on a piece of wrapping paper, she held out her right hand. “We had a good long run,” she said. “See you around sometime.”
He was hesitating, as if he was making up his mind about something but couldn’t spit it out. She wanted to hear it, hear him say something she could carry away that meant he understood how good a run it had really been.
So she stood there like a fool, her hand out, when she should have turned around with whatever dignity she had left, and the tension grew unbearable.
He took her hand. And then he pulled her toward him and kissed her on the lips.
She jumped back. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” she cried.
“I’m trying to kiss you, to make it better.”
“You’re making it harder!”
She started past him, but he blocked the way. “Will you listen to me?” he said. “Rachel’s gone,” he said, and suddenly he looked like the old Mike, a little shamefaced, but secretly pleased with himself.
“Don’t lie. I know she came back to you.”
“She did, and I’m a big dumb ox, but I’m not as dumb as I used to be.” He gave her a tentative grin.
“She’s not coming back?”
“I had to write her a hell of a check,” he said. “It was always business with her. And I was vain and confused, an easy mark. She’s gone, Lindy. And I-”
She shook her head. “Mike, don’t do this.”
“We could… let’s sit down here on the steps and talk.”
“After all that’s happened? I don’t think so.”
“Just give me a minute, then, and I’ll talk. Though I’m as lousy at that as I am at everything else I do without you.”
Away in the distance, Tahoe gleamed.
“Let’s dump last year in the lake,” Mike said.
Sandy brought lunch in, two salads. She set them down on Nina’s desk.
“I’m not hungry,” Nina said.
“Fine. Don’t eat,” said Sandy. “Now what?” she asked, taking the plastic lid off and pouring dressing.
“Now nothing,” said Nina.
“Is she going to pay us anything?”
“No, and I don’t even have the money to cover the office rent this month. We’re lucky the judge didn’t order Lindy to pay Mike’s attorney fees. She’s already trying to come up with thirty thousand to pay for Mike’s trial costs so that she can drop the complaint. She can’t help.”
“The landlord will carry us for a couple of months. You’ve made the Starlake Building famous. He’s got a waiting list of tenants. Here.” She handed Nina a check.
Sandy’s personal check was made out to Nina for ten thousand dollars. How she could have put together that kind of money Nina couldn’t imagine. And here she was offering it to her boss.
“You are the best,” Nina said, trying not to show her emotion. “No way. But thanks for the offer.” She handed it back.
“We’ll start fresh. Work twice as hard,” said Sandy. “You can just use that money to get us out of the crunch.” As if to illustrate this statement, she crunched thoughtfully on her crouton.
“Forget it!”
“You telling me I work for a quitter? You’ve still got a blanket to keep you warm at night, don’t you?” Sandy turned her pebble eyes directly toward Nina’s.
Nina looked back into their blackness, as if she might find in there the mysterious source of Sandy’s power. She saw only a dark-haired, round-faced, Native-American woman looking back at her, no more comprehensible than she had ever been.
And at that moment, looking at Sandy’s eyes, she felt the full cost of her gamble. She had risked Sandy’s job, Bob’s future here, their home, the work she was cut out to do in life. She had lost Paul…
Because Lindy refused to go to the bed upstairs, the one she had seen him in with Rachel, they had found their way to the boat and made up the bed in the cruiser with fresh sheets. Sunlight poured through the skylight into the cabin.
Later, they found some beer and crackers in the galley. They brought the platter up to a table on the deck, and found a spot in the sun to enjoy the lazy, warm afternoon. A few boats floated in the distance, rocking like lovers with the rhythm of the lake. Distant music drifted toward them.
“I’ll go see Riesner tomorrow,” Mike said. “Tell him to cooperate with the dismissal.”
There was no doubt in him. He sounded like a man fighting for his life. He wanted her back. But she didn’t believe in miracles. Things were far from perfect. She could never trust him as she once had. “I love you, Mike, but I won’t go on with things the way they have been.”
Mike said, “I know. So we won’t. We’ll get married on Sunday.”
There was a very long silence.
“Lindy. Marry me. Please,” Mike said urgently. “Any day you want, if Sunday’s not convenient.”
Another silence.
“Lindy?” he said, sounding very anxious.
“Oh, sure, Mike.”
“Please?”
“Why should I believe this?”
“I mean it. I love you more than ever. I need you back in my life. This time for good, Lindy.”
For a long time she looked out across the water, remembering the last time they had been together on this lake, in a boat. The spring wind fluttered through his hair as he stood waiting for her to say something, so very different than he had been that night, a different person, as she was.
He wanted to marry her at last. Here it was, big as Lake Tahoe and just as full of mystery, the happy ending, nothing like she had ever imagined. Underneath the ridiculous, persistent, flickering hope that this time would be for good and forever, doubt and fear had taken the place of faith. She had never known how fragile it all was. She had never known how your hopes could collapse on you, and destroy you. How hard it was to go on, knowing that.
“I’ll promise to marry you…” she began.
“Ah, Lindy.” His face creased into a deep smile.
“If you promise not to wiggle out of it this time,” she finished.
“No more wiggling.”
“I’ll believe that when I see the preacher here on Sunday,” she said.
They kissed, and then sat down on the built-in benches that lined the stern, touching shoulders. “I’m taking you on a real honeymoon,” Mike said. “I know just the place.”
“You want to leave right now? With the business in so much trouble?”
“The question is, what do we want to do? I have a suggestion. I’m thinking we might want to sell out, go somewhere brand-new. I hear there’s a big opal mine in Australia for sale…”
“A new start,” she said. She ran a finger along his chin, refreshing her memory of its shape.
“Just sell out and go.”
“I’m already packed,” Lindy said, and as she said it, words from Corinthians her father used to quote came into her mind. “Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs.”
She realized she would never know why it all happened, why he fell in love with Rachel, or why she forgave him. Why they had ended up in court. She did not have a clue. You just never knew about people. There were so many things going on inside them all the time, waves of memories and events, influences you could never fathom. She thought again, sadly, of Clifford Wright.
“Speaking of business,” she said, “I’m going to have Nina draw up some papers for us to sign, Mike. Things are going to be different between us, marriage or no.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s make it plain and simple, in writing. That ought to satisfy even ol’ Jeff Riesner.”
A speedboat went by, and its wake made the cruiser pitch and sway. “By the way,” he said, holding her tightly, “how much is the damage so far in the legal department?”
“A lot, but Nina worked very hard for me. I wish I had something personal to give her, something really special, besides money,” she said, thinking of Genevieve. “I’d like to show her how much I appreciate… Oh! I know. How about this for a bonus? I’ll pass along my dad’s claim. It’s not worth anything, but it’s a place to go besides her office. Maybe she would like that. I don’t think I’ll ever go back there now. Too many memories.”
“Great idea.”
“Her costs and hourly fees ran to about a hundred thousand total. Isn’t it awful? What an expensive lesson. She won’t get the percentage, of course.”
He turned her so that the sun warmed her back and began massaging with the art of an ex-boxer who really knew what felt good. “Your legal fees are a hundred grand?” he said, moving his fingers soothingly over the knobs in the center of her back, working slowly, kneading the sore spots he knew so well.
With the tenderest possible touch of his callused hands, he was trying in the best way he knew how to erase some of the injury of the past year.
“You got a bargain,” he said, and laughed. “My lawyer charged twice that.”
“Moan and whine for the rest of today if you have to,” Sandy was telling Nina across town, “but that’s all the time you get. You have an appointment tomorrow at ten.”
“Oh?” Nina had started to pick at her salad. The afternoon sun, reflecting off the lake outside, blazed into the office, warming her face. She tried to yawn, wishing she could nap for just a few minutes and forget the mountain of financial trouble she was in, but exhausted and tired were two different things. She felt exhausted but wired.
“New business,” Sandy said.
“Sandy, no…”
“Something big.” She was sitting very still, wearing her most deadpan expression.
She was up to something.
“ Sandy, tomorrow’s a long way away to me right now. I have a lot of decisions to make. Even if I could afford it, I can’t consider getting all wrapped up in another horrible case…”
“You’re going to love it,” she said.
And as she spoke, something stirred inside Nina, a familiar feeling, that little thrill.
What the hell, she thought.
She took her feet off the desk, straightened up, and picked up a yellow pad.
“Lay it on me, Sandy.”