From the Hindi, Jagann-ath. A large, overpowering, destructive force or object-an idol of Krishna which is drawn on a huge cart during an annual parade, under whose wheels devotees throw themselves to be crushed…
The first accident gave Neal the idea for the second accident.
He had spent the evening of the first crash pouring coins down the throat of the Silver Ghost, the name of his favorite slot machine at Harrah's Tahoe. As usual, when he was about to give up, eager, in fact, to watch the cherries, plums, and jackpot signs line up, signifying nothing, three bars kachunged into place and seventy-five dollars in tokens pinged into the bin. It was not a big win, considering his investment that evening, but it was enough to keep him going until his eyes were bloodshot and the free drinks from earlier in the evening had invaded his bloodstream and slithered over his brain stem. Now he felt tired. Exhausted. Oh, how he could not wait for bed.
His car was hard to find because he had not parked in the usual spot, so he floundered around the lot looking for it under stars bright as burning spear points, shivering. Up here in the Sierra, November always came as a rude shock. October blew through like fire, all reds and oranges and gusting wind. Winter chased right behind it like a hound from some bone-biting, cold hell.
Finally, he found the Toyota crouched in the far end of the lot, almost touching the dark forest beyond. He wished he were drunk, but no such luck. The abysmal state of his stomach had kept him prudent, along with the hot cups of coffee toward the end of the session.
Too bad, because a clear head brought him around to thoughts of Juliette, who would be waiting at home, mad because once again-once again, she would say, in that new and strident tone he hated-she had to spend the evening alone. Of course, she wouldn't say that at first, she would stand at the kitchen counter watching him with her mouth sullen, refusing to talk, refusing to respond.
As he started the engine, he drifted into a pleasant fantasy. She would decide for once to treat him right. He would come through the door and find her sleeping in a pretty pink negligee like the one she wore when they were first married. He would crawl into bed. Her fragrant arms would rise to pull him down beneath the cool white sheets. Not a word would be spoken; no guilt would be heaped on him.
Checking his rearview mirror for oblivious drunks, he backed out slowly, drove through the valet parking area and out toward the street, where he stopped to wait for a break in traffic before entering. It was while he was there, mentally with Juliette, imagining what they would do in bed, that a stretch limo roared up behind him, screeched its brakes, skated into a skid, and slammed into him with the force of a locomotive.
The next day he awoke in the hospital, loaded up on Darvon. He had jammed his foot on the brake and been thrown forward, almost through the windshield, he was told. Luckily, car traffic along the highway had been light, so no other car had been involved. Aside from a moment of paralyzing fear as he saw the car sliding along the ice toward him in his rearview mirror, he remembered almost nothing of the accident.
He was shook up, that was all. The doctor and the chiropractor he found later legitimized the exaggerated backache and the jaw trouble. His lawyer settled for twenty-five thousand from the limo company, and with another twenty-five hundred thrown in by the casino for nuisance value, he had enough for bills and gambling money until February.
To add to his good fortune, there had been that moment when Juliette arrived at the hospital, her blonde hair shimmering down her shoulders like the falls near Emerald Bay, gorgeous and young. He basked in the envy of his fellow patients and for just a few moments there at the beginning when she thought he was really badly hurt, he basked in the glow of her concern.
“Your hands?” she had asked first thing and, for a second, he couldn't think why she would care. Then he remembered. He played the piano in the bar at the casino, didn't he? When he had a job, which she thought he did.
“The doctor says no permanent damage,” he told her.
She pulled his hands to her chest and left them there to feel the pulsing life underneath her sweater. Five years of her, and he would never get enough.
The windfall caused problems. Soon after he got home from the hospital the fights with Juliette resumed. She wanted the money, wanted to put him on an allowance, wanted his paychecks, wanted to save for a future, and yammer yammer yammer. He never could hold his own in an argument with her. Her words pounded on him like a club, so he hurt her back the only way he knew how, with the back of his hand and sometimes when she just would not shut up, with his fists. He always regretted it, always begged for her forgiveness, and she always came through after a day or two.
If she ever left him… but he would not allow her to leave. She knew that. He would hunt her down and bring her back. He had done it before, and she knew he would do it again. Marriage made two people one. He would no more let her go than he would let his left leg walk off without him.
Nothing meant more to him than Juliette. She was his biggest score, the one he would hold on to.
One day, a few months after the first accident, Neal went shopping at the jewelry store at the outlet center for a little present for her. He wanted something that would tell her exactly how bad he felt about a minor fracas of the night before. The saleslady pulled out a display of glamorous-looking gold necklaces. All the glitter in one place made him nervous-he turned his back briefly to count his money.
He had spent most of the insurance settlement, so he counted out his singles. When he was satisfied he could just swing the thinnest gold chain and was about to say so, the saleslady said, “Let me show you some other necklaces I think you'll love!” Sweeping the expensive chains back underneath the counter, she came up with another display that looked identical to him. Leaning in conspiratorially, she had said, “Vermeil. All precious metal, of course.”
“Gold?” he had asked.
“Sterling silver with a fine layer of gold on top. Better because it's just as beautiful and has the same intrinsic worth, but is more reasonably priced.”
“I'll take it,” he said, selecting a thick, flashy one he knew Juliette would love. He would tell her it was solid gold. She would never know the difference.
While the woman stooped under the counter finding paper to wrap it up, he happened to look out the store window. Out on the highway, a Caddie was hanging a left in front of a beat-up white Pontiac coming down the opposite side of the highway.
Only the Pontiac couldn't stop, not with the icy sleet coating the road. There was that same eerie moment of screeching brakes and watching a quarter-ton of metal sliding forward on pure inertia. Then crrrunch!
The Pontiac driver got out, rubbing his neck. Lucky break for him.
That moment, an idea that he had nursed like a seed since November sprouted into full foliage. Here was real money, ready for the taking. Risky, but a much better bet than the slots. A way to bring peace back home, enough to please Juliette, enough to get him out of hock, enough for a few more games, any one of them a potential big winner.
All he had to do was make sure whoever hit him next time was massively insured. And make sure he didn't get killed.
And he knew just the man to help him out.
The saleslady handed him a small package wrapped in metallic paper. “She's going to love it.”
“She will,” he said. “You are so right.”
That afternoon, after he gave Juliette the necklace and collected his thanks from her, he said casually, “Why not call Lenny and Carol? Invite them for dinner tonight. They haven't been by in quite a while.”
They were sitting together on the couch in the living room. A rare fire burned, and Juliette's cheeks glowed as orange as persimmons in the light. She had been studying for a test at the kitchen table. An older sophomore at Lake Tahoe Community College at twenty-three, she wanted to better herself, she always said. Still holding the chain, she turned to look at him. “But you hate Lenny.”
“Correction,” he said. “Your big brother hates me. Always getting on me about the way I treat you.” He had a lock of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. His hand slipped along like it used to slide over the ivory keys a long time ago when music had seemed to have a direct line from his imagination to his fingers. He laughed, although he didn't feel funny. “He had you all lined up to marry some straight little civil engineer, some meat loaf who would agree with everything he said, yessir, that's right, Lenny, uh huh, you are so smart…”
He waited for her to say she was glad she'd married him but she was silent, looking into the fire.
“Old Lenny doesn't get it,” he went on, annoyed, but aware this was not a good time to pick a fight. “How close we are. How well we fit.”
“No, he's never understood it,” she agreed, and her hand tugged on the new necklace.
The words grated, and the feeling behind the words grated more. Was there the tiniest suggestion that she, too, didn't understand it? He made his voice calm. “But hey, he's family. We should see them more.”
She had turned back to him. He put a lot into the smile he gave her. She smiled back tentatively, then jumped up to make the call. She thought this was a peace offering like the necklace, another part of the “I'm sorry” game. Fine. Whatever it took.
He hoped she would cook something tasty, something to take his mind off those dark, glowering eyes of Lenny's, and Carol's jittery chat.
They arrived about seven, stomping the snow off their shoes in the entryway on a thick rug Juliette put there for that purpose.
“Sonofabitchin' cold night,” Neal said, holding the door, giving them a big smile.
As usual, the wrong thing to say. A thought-policeman, Lenny was already glaring at Neal. Lenny thought he was better than Neal, better educated, more intelligent, classier… just thinking about it made Neal angry, but he kept his smile locked in place.
Fortunately, Carol and Juliette smoothed things over, making those female sounds that reminded Neal of spicy smells, permeating the air with promise but ultimately just amounting to a lot of warm air breezing through the room. They made it through dinner with just one really bad moment, when Lenny mentioned that he had spent some time down at Harrah's one night with some out-of-town associates-only reason he'd ever go into one of those nasty places-and was so disappointed that Neal was not, as advertised within the family, playing in the piano bar. “Asked the bartender,” Lenny had said, shoveling in a mouthful of cacciatore. “Told me they hadn't seen you in months.”
That made Juliette send Neal a visual promise that said, Later, honey, you will make me believe he is mistaken or this lovely evening that started out so well will be spoiled. “That guy must be new, Lenny” was all she said. “Neal's been working steady, haven't you, Neal?”
“You betcha.” Below the table, he had her hand in his and had to repress a sudden desire to crush her knuckles until they cracked. She had married a musician, an artist, for Chrissake, not some poor slob with a routine job. She needed reminding. His fingers were strong. No doubt one hard squeeze would take care of anything further she might care to remark if he wanted to stop her.
But Carol interrupted his thoughts with a surprisingly welcome suggestion. “How about a movie? There's one at the Y I'd love to see.”
Juliette brightened, withdrew her hand from his, and ran for the newspaper to check for times. Lenny continued to separate items on his plate, prissy and offended-looking at the green spreading of the spinach. “I'll pass,” he said when Carol returned.
“Aw, Lenny,” Carol said. “Live a little.”
“Go without me. I have some paperwork.”
Lenny worked for an insurance company, strictly a nine-to-five job that involved no late nights and no overtime. He just said things like this to make himself sound like a mover and shaker to others, the phony ass.
“Nothing that won't wait,” Carol said to her husband.
See, now, this was exactly the kind of thing a man could not let pass. This was direct confrontation. Lenny was pussy whipped, the dry little shit, and he didn't even know it.
“You girls will have a better time without us,” Neal said. “Go salivate over Brad Pitt. I'll give Lenny a lift home. Then I'll put in some practice time.”
Token protests, but eventually the girls drove off in Lenny's car. Lenny finished his dessert and coffee, eating methodically, not saying a word, then got up. “Gotta go,” he said.
“Stay for a drink,” Neal said, pouring Lenny's favorite poison into two small glasses. “Cheers.”
“Yeah,” Lenny said, lifting his glass and draining it.
“Another?”
“You're driving,” he said.
“Oh, thanks for reminding me,” Neal said. “But don't let that stop you. Have a drink for both of us.”
Neal managed to get three more stiff ones down Lenny and got him talking about his work. And over the course of the next hour, by prodding and pushing, he extracted the names of several prominent Tahoe people who carried especially good policies, Lenny's best clients.
“See, here's the thing,” Neal told him then. Lenny's normal reticence had relaxed as he related exciting tales of his exploits in the insurance business. He was stretched out on the couch, glazed and receptive, just like Neal needed him to be. “Here's the thing, Lenny. I'm really glad you stayed tonight, because I've got some bad news and I didn't want to talk about it in front of the girls.”
“I knew it,” Lenny said. “You had to be up to something. Well, I don't have any money to lend you right now. You can forget it. I'm scraping by myself, if you want to know.”
“Oh, Lenny. Man, I don't want your money. No. It's-it's a medical thing.” Neal explained about the carpal tunnel syndrome the doctors had diagnosed in the hospital that would make it impossible for him to use his hands in the future, and watched Lenny's mediocre mind attempt to take it in. That's right, Lenny, put it together, he thought. Musician, hands, carpal tunnel. Ah!
“But this is terrible,” Lenny said, the light finally penetrating his thick skull. “You won't be able to support Juliette.”
Well, he didn't really anyway, hadn't for a long time, but Lenny didn't need to know about that. He didn't need to know how the music had left Neal one day, never to return. The music had gone. He couldn't even hold his own in a lobby at a Nordstrom's these days. His reputation in this little town was right down there with the dirtiest rat in a Dumpster.
Lenny didn't need to know that Juliette was clerking in a real estate office part-time mornings to pay their rent. Juliette wouldn't tell him.
Neal laid it on thick, so thick, he had his wife and him living out on the streets within the next month.
“Then you'll live with us,” Lenny said, horrified. “I'm not going to let my sister go down, Neal. Never. If you can't be a man and take care of her…”
“That's a very kind offer, Lenny,” Neal had said hurriedly, striving for a whipped puppy effect in his voice. “But you know how proud Juliette is.”
Lenny knew. How Juliette bragged about her husband the artist. She lorded it over her brother in this one regard, and it was the one thing that Neal felt kept her by his side and protected from criticism sometimes, his mystique as an artist. She really respected Neal's talent. And now that talent would be gone, laid waste by a devilish medical fluke! Lenny was eating it up.
“This will kill her,” Lenny said, sounding truly miserable. “She'll have to quit school. Neal, I don't have to tell you how disappointed I am. You promised our mother and father, bless them both, that… You must have some fallback!”
“I have thought of something. It's-an unusual opportunity. Only it involves you. You've got a lot of guts, Lenny, and I know you're going to pitch in to help us so we don't lose our home.”
“Anything for Juliette. Count me in,” Lenny said, relieved. To seal the deal, he offered his glass up for an unheard-of fifth snort.
But the details of Neal's plan shocked him. It took the rest of the evening and some careful manipulations before Neal eventually wore down Lenny's resistance. At first, Lenny agreed only to help with research. He refused to play an active role in the accident. He would help Neal with the setup because his sister needed help so desperately, but he did so only under the most indignant moral protest. There, his involvement must end. They went back and forth. Neal needed him to get in the game. Otherwise, the authorities might suspect. Lenny couldn't see why Neal wouldn't simply apply his brakes, get rear-ended, and collect without Lenny's involvement.
“Got to make it look good, Lenny. Gotta make 'em believe.”
“You're good at that,” Lenny said then.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You got my sister, didn't you?”
Neal laughed, even though inside he was fuming. He hadn't acted to get Juliette. She loved him for who he was, not who he pretended to be. All the smoldering fireworks between the two men flared up at that point, and it took Neal's return to cold logic to convince Lenny that, in fact, his plan was the only way.
“It's dangerous, Neal. You realize you could be badly hurt.”
“I won't let that happen.”
“You won't be able to control it!” Lenny yelled.
“Quit worrying. That's my problem. And whatever happens, Juliette will be set for life.”
Those words worked like magic. Lenny didn't give a damn what happened to Neal except as it related to Juliette.
Even so, Lenny hadn't given in easily, although after that point, he had most definitely stepped on board the bus. Before he settled down, he asked a million questions: Couldn't Neal just slam on his brakes in front of someone and leave it at that? Why did Lenny have to cut him off? Wouldn't it look suspicious? Would Neal wear a seat belt? Did it matter if the accident happened in California or should they go over the state line into Nevada to maximize how well they would do in a settlement?
“Lenny, take it easy. I'm the one who's going to get hurt, not you and not Juliette, remember?”
Lenny broke out in a cold sweat at that, so Neal had to soothe him yet again, patiently breaking through his objections, pouring the liquor, painting comforting word pictures for Lenny, keeping things at his level. “Two things are absolutely all you have to do, Lenny. Cut me off, so people see I stopped for a reason. And find me a juicy mark. Has to be a drinker,” Neal said. “I talked with my lawyer this morning and asked him a few things…”
“You didn't tell him!”
“No, no. Just got him talking generally about my old case. He said if the limo driver had been drinking, well, that would have opened up a whole new pocketbook.”
“Gross negligence?”
“Punitive damages, my man.”
Three weeks later, they were set. Lenny had chosen some client with two DUI arrests in her background, who had just bought a big, heavy Mercedes and played roulette at Caesars every Friday night with two of her lady friends, but always drove home alone.
They had worked out every detail. Once in, Lenny was a meticulous planner. He drew up careful diagrams on paper they burned in the fireplace afterward, listed time frames, pulled out charts that gave some information on what speeds were most likely to cause lethal collisions, and bogged them both down in trivial issues until Neal was bored silly.
“We'll have your car serviced the day before,” Lenny had said, “so there's no confusion about some mechanical failure.”
“Sure, Lenny.”
“I've got a great mechanic. Let me make sure it gets done.”
“Fine, Lenny.” Anything to shut him up.
They waited on the highway side of the club in the whizzing traffic. The mark, who Lenny said was a widow, always used valet parking and always made a left out of the lot, then drove two miles before turning off the highway. That gave them plenty of time to get the game in place.
Neal had parked two blocks up, Lenny three. When Neal saw the bronze Mercedes pulling out of the lot, he swung out ahead of the mark, motioning to Lenny as he passed.
Traffic was perfect, busy but moving well, and there were nice long stretches on the road where you could get going pretty fast. Lenny would have no trouble moving into position when the time came. Neal felt like his nerves had moved to the surface of his skin, he felt so electric, so alive. To keep his mind off the pain to follow, he flashed to the penthouse suite at Harrah's he and Juliette would rent for a month or two, about the new car he would buy, about all the hands of poker he could play without gut-tearing fear… He'd never humiliate himself at a piano again, never put up with some slobbering lonely heart who wanted to hear him play the same old song again and again until he thought his fingers would crack into pieces… Who knew crashing could be such a high?
She was weaving, he noted with satisfaction, glancing into his rearview mirror. She had the visor down, so he couldn't make out the face, but her arms were slim. She looked young. For a moment he wondered about her, about what he'd be doing to her. He slowed and behind him, she slowed. He sped up and she sped up. They were dancing together, and she never even noticed the choreography. Like an automaton, she followed his lead until he knew he had her. All so smooth, so perfect… and then suddenly, bursting ahead like a true maniac, all his timidity apparently left behind when he got behind the wheel, good old Lenny blew out in front to cut him off. As planned.
And Neal jammed his foot on the brake.
Emily Chuvarsky, the widow, could not tell the story without crying. She sat in an orange client chair across from Nina Reilly, petite and perfect in her jeans and turtleneck sweater, shaking her head and interrupting herself, and tried several times to come out with it, but broke down every time. Outside, snow blew at an angle away from the lake. The drifts along the road were five feet high and Nina was thinking about closing up early to be sure she made it home to her cabin on Kulow Street.
“This car cut him off. He just… he came to a dead stop, right there in the middle of the road. I barely had time to brake. And so I hit him! His c-car burst into flames!” she cried. “I got out and ran up to see if I could do anything but the flames had reached the front… someone pulled me away. I heard him screaming. I dream about it. I heard him… and then the car exploded.”
Nina looked down at her desk. “The police report says he had a five-gallon can of gasoline stored in the trunk of his Toyota. His wife said she didn't know he kept gasoline in the trunk, and if she'd known would have asked him to remove it.”
“What a horrible way to die.” Letting her head fall back, Emily screwed her eyes shut and covered her face, her shoulders clenching tightly. “My insurance company is negotiating with his wife. But my policy only covers two hundred fifty thousand, and she feels she should get much more because…” She stopped, and her arms fell down into her lap. “She lost her husband. I do understand. But I don't have that kind of money.”
Nina said, “You were drinking that night?”
“Wine with dinner,” Emily said. “Three miles home on a road I've driven a million times. Maybe I had one glass too many but I wasn't falling-down drunk. I went to a seminar on living trusts once and the lawyer mentioned that if you're ever picked up for drunk driving to refuse the Breathalyzer test, so I refused when they asked me. They took a urine test a couple of hours later.”
“The results on that won't be in for a few more days,” Nina said. “Refusing the Breathalyzer won't make any difference. They'll just extrapolate back to the time of the accident, using your weight and the elapsed time.”
Emily said, “I ought to just take my medicine, you know? Go to jail for reckless driving, file for bankruptcy. The guilt is horrible. I don't sleep. There can't be anything worse in this world than killing a person, an utterly innocent person who never dreamed his life would be cut short like that-it's a nightmare! It's over for me, I'm going to hate myself for the rest of my life. But…”
Nina listened. After several years of solo practice in her Tahoe office, it was something she was finally learning to do. She didn't offer words of comfort or false assurances. She waited to hear it all first. Emily opened her purse and her wallet and pulled out a small photo. Nina took it.
A little girl, Eurasian, bright-eyed and still with baby teeth. “She's deaf. What money I have from my husband's life insurance, I need for her education. I want her to have the best. Right now, she's in a wonderful school. They do whole language training, a mixture of signing, lipreading, and speaking. She's thriving there. I can't take her out. I can't!”
“What's her name?” Nina asked.
“Caitlin.” Emily returned the photo to her wallet.
“You saw the man-Neal Meurer-get cut off?”
“Another car cut right in front of him. I don't think the driver even knew what he did. He was long gone.”
“Do you remember anything about the car?”
“A sedan with ski racks,” she said promptly. “Wait a minute. I remember the license plate had three eights. I noticed that because my late husband was from Hong Kong. He told me how lucky the number eight is considered to be in China and I just had time to think, what a lucky license plate…”
“That's great.” Nina wrote that down and thought, Amazing. Nobody ever noticed license plates.
“I just thought of it.”
“Be sure to go to the police station on Johnson Boulevard tomorrow and tell them you want to add that to your statement.”
“I'm not positive. I'll think about it a little more.”
“What about the man in that car? You're sure it was a man?”
“Oh, yes. He had a mustache. They're out of fashion now, so I noticed.”
Nina wrote that down, too. After a few more minutes and settling the business of the retainer agreement, she followed Emily out to the parking lot of the Starlake Building. Then, buffeted by the storm, she fought her way down Pioneer Trail in the Bronco. At the corner of Golden Bear a pickup suddenly spun out in front of her. Pulling sharply to the right, she hit the snowbank. Behind her, brakes squealed.
But the car behind her didn't hit her, just honked savagely and continued on its way. Very cautiously she backed into the darkening street and drove home, teeth gritted, furious because sudden chance events that ruined lives weren't acceptable to her. Nina didn't believe in accidents.
A few days later, with light snow still falling, the lights were on in the middle of the day at Lake Tahoe Community College. Nina caught Juliette Meurer coming out of her poli sci class with a tall, bespectacled young man who had his arm around her and was kneading her shoulder.
“Oh,” she said when Nina introduced herself. “Am I allowed to talk to you?” Standing near Nina, who was on the small side, she towered. She was almost as tall as the man standing with her.
“It's not a lawsuit yet,” Nina said. “It might help.”
“This is my friend Don.”
Don shook hands, saying, “Juli's been through a lot.” He seemed cool and kept his distance. Without asking, he tagged along to the Bronco, climbing into the back seat behind Juliette. Nina drove them to the Pizza Hut near Ski Run and the three of them sat down in a booth and ordered coffee.
Nina started slow and easy, letting Juliette Meurer relive the moments after the Tahoe police called her, listening to her talk tearfully about Neal's incredible talent, his charm, how she missed him so much… In spite of the reports of frequent brawls at the house, a few of which resulted in calls from the neighbors to the police, she sounded very much in love with her husband. Don glowered next to her, saying nothing. The two of them went together very well, Nina couldn't help noticing, both handsome, athletic, blond, and long-haired.
“The gas can in the back,” Nina said. “It bothers me.”
“Neal was stupid about cars. The weather has been so bad, if you ran out of gas in the mountains you might freeze. Maybe that's what he was thinking. Poor Neal. But he would have been fine, except the woman-your client-she had been drinking, hadn't she?”
“Mmm,” Nina said. “But the thing about the gas can, you know, is that it had prints on it that weren't Neal's.”
“What?” Juliette looked stunned. “Why would the police take fingerprints?”
“Oh, to be thorough. What's amazing is that there were prints left to take. Luckily, they found a fairly large piece intact ten feet away in a drift.”
“Those prints probably came from the guy who sold Neal the gas,” said Don. “Where's the big mystery in that?”
“Well, at first I thought that, too, and it was hard to check because the can didn't have the store sticker on it or anything. But this is a small town. My investigator managed to locate the fellow who sold that gas can. They weren't his prints. He remembered selling one three days before Mr. Meurer's death, at the Chevron at the Y, and he recognized it by the bits of paint color left on the metal piece the police found. That can was the only one he could spare that day, a really old one.”
“So?” Juliette said.
“Well, the thing is, I showed him a picture of your husband just to confirm everything. And this fellow who pumps the gas says it wasn't Neal Meurer who bought it.”
“He's wrong.”
“Said all he could see was the man was short, with blue eyes. Like everybody else around here, was mostly covered up. Wore a parka, muffler, ski hat. But Mr. Meurer had brown eyes, didn't he?”
Juliette nodded.
“Strange, don't you think?”
Don's blue eyes stared at her. “You can see what she's doing, can't you, Juli? She's weaseling her client out of trouble. She sees disaster heading straight their way. It's her job to do anything to head it off.” He half-rose. “Let's get out of here.”
Nina shrugged. “The gas attendant could be wrong but the fingerprint expert isn't. Your husband never touched that can.”
“Then-the rescue workers!”
“They had a fire and your husband to deal with.”
“Oh,” Juliette said, “this is too much. You're trying to tell me somebody else put the gas can in the back? That Neal was murdered? Well, who-who would have put the can there except your client, then? Nobody forced her to run into Neal that night.”
“Who would want to kill Neal, Juliette?” Nina asked the girl. “My client says she never even met your husband. And I hear there were a few domestic problems between the two of you.”
“Your client is responsible! She ran into my husband and killed him!” Juliette wailed. “She was drunk! God, are you serious about all this?” Don yanked her to her feet.
“Come on,” he said urgently. He looked down at Nina, who was calmly sipping her coffee. “I detest you shysters,” he said in a thick voice. Then he was pulling Juliette away toward the exit. She looked back once, her face a mask of anguish, blue eyes filled with tears.
Nina's investigator, Tony Ramirez, spent a week working on the three eights.
Tony, who was on the shady side of sixty and had the relaxed attitude to prove it, hailed from the low-tech school of investigation. He could have worked with the police to obtain a list of hundreds of people in California and Nevada with triple-eight license plates, and things could have gone on for months, but, as he put it, he liked to use his noggin to save himself work.
“Neal's sister lives in Illinois with her husband and five kids and hasn't talked to Neal for years. She's off the hook. There's no other family. So I looked to the workplace. Turns out Neal didn't have a workplace. I checked the license on his last supervisor at the casino-no eights on his plates. I checked Neal's gambling buddies and his bookie. No triple eights. Then I looked for Neal's women. There weren't any recent ones I could find and lately he stuck to his wife like a leech.”
Nina read through the police report again while Tony stood at the window, flipping through his notes.
“So maybe he just pulled a Pinto,” she said. “Emily gets a personal judgment for wrongful death against her for about a million dollars and goes to jail for reckless driving, and her daughter leaves school.”
“When you put it that way I feel like I better hustle back out on the street and do better,” Tony said.
“At least her blood alcohol was only point-five,” Nina said. “She wasn't impaired as a matter of law; not this time anyway.”
“The fingerprints came back from NCIC. Whoever bought that gas can has never had trouble with the law and ain't in the system.”
“Juliette gets the money. So we check out Juliette. We look at her friends and family.”
South Lake Tahoe is a small town, and Nina knew Lenny Dole, who was her brother Matt's auto insurance agent, as well as Juliette Meurer's brother. Lenny's office was at Round Hill Mall, around the lake on the Nevada side. He was waiting for her, and he was terrified; she could see that.
Short, not much taller than she was, according to Tony he had triple-eight license plates on his sedan. That plus his obvious terror excited her. She couldn't believe he had agreed to see her without consulting his own lawyer first, and she wanted to be very careful.
No need. Lenny proceeded to spill his guts, and it wasn't a pretty sight.
“When I told Neal I'd do it, I was drunk,” he said. “The next morning I called his house and left a message. ‘No way,' I said. Neal would understand what I was talking about.”
“But he talked you back into it?”
“No! That's what I'm saying! I refused! Absolutely!”
“But it was your car,” Nina said. “A witness saw the license number: six-K-L-S-eight-eight-eight,” which was a slight bending of the truth, since Emily had remembered only part of the license, but he didn't need to know that.
“It wasn't me. Somebody must have taken my car. I parked it out front all night-it was snowing…”
“You left the keys in it?”
“Those Cutlasses, you can hotwire them in three seconds…”
“So you're claiming someone tried to frame you? Who else did you tell about Neal's plan?”
He gaped. “Nobody!”
“You didn't tell Juliette? Or your wife?”
“I…” He shook his head weakly.
Nina took out a portable fingerprint kit. “Lenny,” she said, “if you're innocent, you'll do this.”
Looking guilty as hell, he shuffled up close. When he looked up she saw brown eyes and thought, Phooey.
The snowchains requirement had snarled traffic into a pile of stationary ski racks, but somehow Tony Ramirez made it up the hill from Reno to bring the print comparison back to Nina's office a day later. This latest Sierra storm had dumped two more feet and South Lake Tahoe looked as quaint as Santa's village.
The expert had found no fingerprint match. Lenny Dole hadn't left his prints on what remained of the gas can. Nina had also obtained prints on coffee cups from Don and Juliette, and those results were in, too. No match, no clue. Nina studied the whorls and notches and lines on the blowups as if they were hieroglyphics that might reveal a hidden story. “Tony,” she said. “I just can't put this together.”
Tony pried off his hiking boots and sticky, wet red socks, complaining about having to get out of the car to put on chains. “Can I?” he said. She nodded and he laid them across the heater. The smell of wet wool spread through the hot office.
“We're making progress,” Tony said, drying his toes with a tissue from her desk. “There was a conspiracy, whether Lenny stayed in or not. Emily was set up, no doubt about it. Lenny or somebody cut Neal off deliberately per the plan and Emily was the scapegoat.”
“But nobody would be stupid enough to arrange a rear-end collision with five gallons of gas in his trunk,” Nina said.
“A double cross,” Tony said. “Neal's partner decided to make it permanent.”
“Juliette would get the money,” Nina said. “She's at the center of it. But whose prints are these? Who bought that can of gas? Some short, blue-eyed ghost. None of these people is short and blue-eyed. Juliette must be nearly six feet tall. Who drove the Olds Cutlass that cut off Neal Meurer? A man with a mustache, Emily said. Nobody I know in this case has or had a mustache.”
“A buck sixty-nine at the joke shop,” Tony said. “Cheap whiskers for kids four and up.” He rattled the keys in his pocket and looked worried. “Nina, don't drive yourself too nuts with this stuff. Our job is to do our best, then let the chips fall.”
“I can't do that. I feel responsible for Emily. I feel if I push harder, work smarter, and go that extra step, I'll arrive at the heart of the matter. That's the only way to a just outcome. Then there's nothing to regret.”
“Just don't expect thanks when you've killed yourself for months and you hand over the bill for your outstanding service.”
Nina sighed.
“C'mon,” Tony said. “Let's continue this conversation over at Passaretti's. A glass of red wine and something smothered in olive oil and fresh pesto will put things back into perspective. What do you say? Let's get fed.”
“What about your socks?”
He pulled the boots on over bare feet and stood up. “Keep 'em for a souvenir.”
Nina got home about seven thirty. Her dog, Hitchcock, and her teenage son, Bob, were out front under the floodlight. Bob was making a snowman, a very peculiar snowman with a rubber dog ring on top like a halo. Hitchcock ran to the truck and gamboled around it while she swung down and shut the door. “You know he's going to jump on it and destroy all your work,” she called to her son. “He loves that ring.”
As if taking note of her words, Hitchcock turned abruptly and made a beeline for the snowman. Bob grabbed for the ring, snatching it off the snowman's head just before the dog made contact. “What's this, boy? C'mon, what's this?” He waved it at Hitchcock, who jumped vainly, tongue lolling, for his toy, until finally Bob put it back on top of the hillock of snow that made up the snowman's head. In one final heave, Hitchcock leaped valiantly into the air, landing with an audible “oof” near the top. His jaws closed around the ring. Bob jumped on, too. For an instant he clung to the hard-packed snow, arms circling the head as if to protect it. Then the whole shebang, snowman, dog, and boy, toppled into a cloud of snow.
Hitchcock chewed vigorously on his ring, having destroyed an hour of hard work. Lying in the white powder, Bob laughed helplessly. Destruction was still far more gratifying than building.
Nina went into the cabin. Bob had made himself frozen burritos as she had instructed, but appeared to have had a run-in with the microwave in the process. She found that mess easier to clear away than Emily's. Removing the cracked glass tray, Nina swabbed down the insides of the microwave almost gratefully.
By ten o'clock, Bob had been nagged through his shower and into bed. Nina sat on the rug in front of the fire with her glass of sauvignon blanc, comfortable in her silk kimono. She was trying to think, but the thinking kept turning into a kind of dozing, a hypnagogic dreaming. She kept thinking about the rubber ring and Hitchcock, such a patsy, going for it, doing his dogged doggy number, until he actually got what he wanted…
So easy to know what he wanted. In the end, so simple to get it.
“I'm sorry to disturb you,” Nina told Carol Dole the next morning. Carol was in a plaid wool robe and glasses. Nina had watched from the Bronco while Lenny drove off to work.
A small woman, Carol had blue eyes behind the specs that were blinking against some strong emotion right now. She tried to close the door, but Nina's six-hundred-dollar Manolo Blahnik boot heel was wedged between the door and its sill.
“Ah ah ah,” Nina said. “It's me or the cops. You'll do better with me.”
“Go away.”
“It's cold out here. Twenty degrees and dropping, I'd say. We can talk with the door open and run up your heating bill or you can let me inside and we'll both be better off.”
Carol looked once more at the boot in the door and gave up. “Come in,” she said ungraciously, opening the door and turning her back to Nina.
The house showed a lot of pride around its shined surfaces. On the walls, signed lithographs hung: a gaudy Peter Max, an English cottage scene by the guy who billed himself as the Painter of Light in his TV ads, and a Picasso scribble showing hands passing a bouquet of flowers. Showy knickknacks decorated the bookshelf.
“Lenny says he told you about Neal's plan,” Carol said. She was sitting on the white leather couch, bare legs crossed. Her robe gaped a little, exposing an angular bosom.
“How did you get involved?” Nina said.
“He was too worried to keep his mouth shut about this.”
“Lenny saw an opportunity in Neal's plan, didn't he? He could set his sister up for life and get rid of her troublesome husband, all in one stroke. Did he ask you for help, or was it your idea to buy the gas can and put it into the trunk? Neal had no idea it was there, did he? But you and Lenny had easy access to Neal's car, and you fit the description…”
“You're barking up the wrong tree. Lenny and I had nothing to do with it.”
“Short and blue-eyed. That's how the person who bought the gas can was described,” Nina said.
Carol Dole shook her head. “Have you taken a good look at your client lately?” she asked with a smile as wide as a half-moon. She tipped her head back so that Nina could follow the long line of her throat. It reminded her of Emily screwing up her eyes, closing them, leaning her head back…
Emily, petite, blue-eyed.
“Em was my best friend in high school,” Carol said. “That's where she and Neal met. Then just a couple months ago, after her husband died, she came across him again.”
Carol's meaning hit Nina hard. Emily had lied to her. Well, clients lied. She knew that. “So you know Caitlin,” she said.
“Who?” Carol said, and Nina felt like she was drifting off into some kind of space, only it wasn't calm and peaceful there. Supernovas were going off all around her. Through the distant chaos she heard her voice saying quite normally and correctly, “Emily Chuvarsky's little girl?”
Carol's laughter brought her back to earth.
“Em a mom?” Carol said. “You have to be kidding. She hates kids. It was Neal she loved after her husband died. Neal knew it, and he played her for a lot of money before she realized he'd never leave Juliette. She used to go listen to him when he was playing piano, before he got fired. Music is the way to so many women, have you noticed? Neal sure used it that way, when it suited him.”
“If it was Emily, then she was working with you or your husband,” Nina said. “Triple eights.”
“So she was the one who made up the story about our license plate? You really scared Lenny with that one. I thought it must be her. I remember one time she said we were lucky with the eights.”
“You're saying-do you realize…”
“All I'm saying is, I didn't do a thing to anybody.”
“Did you tell her about Neal's plan?”
“Just to show her she was better off forgetting about him. I didn't know she was the patsy.”
“Emily?”
Nina's client looked flushed and pretty, as if she had walked all the way to the office. “Yes?”
“I talked to Carol Dole about you.”
“Oh,” she said, all her prettiness falling behind a frown.
“You lied to me about Caitlin.”
“I always loved that name,” she said after a pause. “She's cute, too, isn't she? I found the photo stuck inside a book I bought at the Salvation Army.”
“You lied about knowing Neal, too.”
She tapped her foot, examined her fingernails, and didn't say anything for a long time.
“Maybe you need to find another lawyer, one you feel comfortable telling the truth to.”
“I just-everything I say to you is confidential, right?”
“That's right.”
“I guess you already figured out most of the story. Might as well know the rest. I did know Neal. He was a liar and a cheat. He gambled away a lot of my money. He hurt me… drew me in and made a fool of me.”
“You hated him.”
“No.” She breathed in short breaths, impatient to be understood. “I never hated him.”
“Carol told you that Neal had come up with a plan.”
Emily studied Nina awhile, then seemed to come to a decision. “When I heard about his idea for a crash scam, it set off something in me, something I didn't even know was there. I started thinking, wouldn't it be perfect if he should get his while trying to screw yet another unsuspecting victim? Almost a biblical justice.”
“You put the gas in his trunk.”
She shifted her body in her chair, looking uncomfortable. “I was over at Carol's when Lenny drove up in Neal's car. He had just had it in for servicing and was about to take it back to Neal, but we were all hungry, so he left the keys on the counter in the kitchen while they went out in Lenny's car to get us some food.
“It was fate, you see? I saw those keys lying there… I thought about Neal, how horrible he was to me. I felt such pain… and I picked them up. I didn't even think. I just took Neal's car and ran over to Chevron for the gas. Disguised myself a little. Then I hid the can under a blanket in the trunk before Carol and Lenny got back. It was cold and I wore gloves. If I thought at all, I guess I thought the car would be destroyed in a crash.”
“You wanted to kill him.” Nina was thinking about the fingerprint leading nowhere. A helper at the gas station? A previous customer?
“I loved him,” she said simply, as if even a child could see that explained everything. “But he hurt me so much. So I… engineered a little divine intervention. God rode beside him that day. If he had done nothing wrong, he would have lived, you see?”
“But you hit him, not someone else.”
“My rotten luck,” Emily said with a bitter laugh. “After that last DUI, I needed new insurance. Carol talked me into buying from Lenny, and he sold me a big fat new policy! So here I am driving home one night and suddenly Neal's in front of me. It happened so fast! I didn't realize it was him right away, but something struck me funny, so I followed close behind to try to see him better. Next thing I know, I'm stepping on the brakes, but the road's so slippery, I slide right into him! God-what a riot-isn't it funny? I can't stop laughing-the bad luck part-but you know, it's a small town-the bad luck part is, Lenny, who had me fresh in his mind and never liked me, must have picked me to be the mark! And I didn't know when they were planning the crash!”
“The triple eights…”
“Oh, Lenny was there that night, whatever he and Carol say, whether I saw him or not. He's the one who cut in front of Neal, wearing a mustache that hung crooked, just like everybody in that whole damn family, including my so-called friend, who never could keep a secret, even when we were thirteen. Oh, God. They'll never be able to keep quiet about this.”
“You realize you're in serious trouble now, Emily. The system doesn't forgive murder.”
“Yes, thanks for nothing! You could have just helped me, forced Juliette to settle within the policy limits instead of dragging up all this old business!”
She didn't really appreciate the extent of the calamity she had set off yet. Her first mistake had been a headlong, thoughtless rush into the fray, but her biggest mistake had been involving Nina.
Clasping her bag, Emily stood up. “I suppose I will get that new lawyer.”
“Good idea.” Nina also stood. “I'll sign the Substitution of Attorney as soon as it comes in.”
“Carol and Lenny have figured everything out by now, thanks to you. They'll hurry to protect themselves. No doubt the cops will follow close behind.”
They would, and they would get her, too. She should have forced her insurance company to settle with Juliette. She should never have put herself in front of the legal machine because now Nina had turned on the ignition and the wheels had started up. They would roll inexorably from here on out until they crushed her beneath them.
“Here's a check,” Nina said, scribbling one out and handing it to her. “Your retainer, less my expenses.”
Emily took the check, studied it, and frowned.
She went out the door. “Shyster,” she said, pulling it shut behind her.
When Nina got home, Hitchcock made a rush for her and began licking her stockings. “Get off me, you damn hound,” she said, making for the upstairs bedroom.
She lay down, imagining what the courts had in store for the impetuous Emily. She wondered if she'd ever feel the desire to get up again. She wondered if there was still a Peace Corps and if they had any openings in Gabon. Maybe the villagers there would thank her for doing a good job. Maybe there, passionate women did not plot against ex-lovers.
“Mom,” Bob said through the door, “I made a tuna casserole.”
“You're kidding!”
“In the microwave. It's steamin', Mom. Plus I poured you a glass of wine out of the bottle in the fridge. It's on the kitchen table. And the news is on.”
Nina opened one eye. White fell through the twilight outside the window.
“Mom?” At the same moment, Hitchcock barked. He wanted to come in, and he wouldn't take no for an answer.
“I'm coming,” Nina said. She got up and opened the door.