"You killed her!"
"I didn’t kill her. I hated her, but I didn’t kill her. One reason I stayed away for all those years was because of those feelings. I didn’t want to be tested. I never wanted to see her again. Then, when I saw her behind you at the courthouse, I panicked. I thought she was going to hurt you because of me. She had followed me to my hotel, but she didn’t come in, maybe worried about how I might react. So she called me. At first I wouldn’t even talk to her."
"But you did see her. You went to the studio that night, didn’t you? Why did you go? To threaten her?"
"I was throwing my clothes in my bag while I was on the phone, I was so anxious to get out of there. But she was smarter than I was. She came up with a story, the one lie guaranteed to keep me here, and make me think maybe I didn’t waste all those years running. She told me you had my child, a son. She said she met him at your office and learned from him that I’d probably never been told about him. She was so persuasive! All these details! She said she made friends with the boy, told him about me, and arranged for him to come to her house that night."
"A son?" Nina whispered. "She told you you had a son?"
"She’d say anything, Nina. But, of course, it made me think. I knew what you must have felt when I never came for you. I know, it was stupid, but I thought, what if? What if you had decided never to tell me? Is there ... is it possible? Is there a child?"
The mixture of wistfulness and hope in his eyes almost pierced her armor. Almost. "No," she said. The lie sat heavily on her heart.
"That lying—! Goddamn her!" He slammed the table with his hand. The glass shook.
"You went there that night," Nina said.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. "Of course I did. I had to. If she was telling the truth, if I had a—child, she could do anything. Hurt him. You didn’t know her. Nobody knew what she was capable of doing better than I knew.
"So I went, but she was alone. It was a trap. I think she wanted to kill me.
"I tried to leave, but she wanted to rehash some old, old business. We argued. She grabbed my old rifle, and before I could get away she took a shot at me.
"Jesus. Nobody tells you how much it hurts to get shot. I ran like hell out the front door while she was screaming at me."
"Your gun?" Nina asked.
"A Remington. I recognized it. She must have kept it all these years. Everyone up here keeps a rifle."
"Oh, my God, Kurt. This is hard to believe. You didn’t take the gun there?"
"I swear I didn’t."
He shouldn’t tell her any of this; there was no lawyer-client privilege between them, but she didn’t stop him. She had to know.
"She fired a single shot at you?" Nina asked.
"It’s funny you should mention that. I got to my car. I thought I might have heard another one when I was about a block away, but I’m not sure. My windows were up, and I don’t know if trust anything I heard or saw right then. Then I drove around a long time. I parked on Jicarilla in the bushes. My arm bled for a while, but then it stopped. I knew it was nothing serious. I wasn’t going to die that second.
"Then ... I guess the shock or something got me. I sat there for a long time, maybe even dozed off. Next thing I knew it was light. I needed to see a doctor, but I was more concerned that this thing had to stop, so I headed for the police station. You know the rest, probably. I was weaving on the road because of my injury, so a patrolman stopped me."
She had one question, the only one that really mattered. She wanted to be absolutely sure. "Think back. Are you positive there was no one else at Terry’s? On the porch, somewhere around?"
"You mean did I see the real killer?"
Actually, she had been thinking more along the lines of possible witnesses.
"I didn’t see anyone, not that I searched every corner. It was dark, and I didn’t see anyone."
Nina looked down at her yellow pad to hide her relief. She didn’t want to hear anything else. "I have to go, Kurt," she said.
"Sure you do."
"I understand you’ve retained Jeffrey Riesner to represent you."
"He was recommended by the deputy here."
"You never thought of calling me?"
"I’ve done enough to you, Nina," Kurt said. "Go home."
BOOK TWO
Eight Years Ago: Susana
Dangling high above the snow, the weight of her skis tugging on her legs, her face stiffening in a cold wind, Susana stuffed mittened hands into the tight pockets of her fur-lined parka, deciding to make this her last run of the day. Her legs ached, and she could think of a better way to spend the afternoon, a woozy, dreamy, fun thing to do that didn’t involve cold wind and athletics. Her brother, Tom, wouldn’t approve, so she wouldn’t tell Tom. She’d just meet him at home later, and take the flak then. It was worth it.
Beside her on the ski lift, Tom adjusted himself, acting nervous. She knew he was only coming up here to keep an eye on her. They’d skied all the resorts around Lake Tahoe for years, but he didn’t get anything like the kick she got. He was born gutless. Mom and Dad’s good kid, that was Tommy. After a whole day of his vigilant baby-sitting yesterday, and no end in sight, she was sick of it and cooked up this plan to ditch him. To the right, now far below, on a simple, wide plain of white, they could see other people in colored hats and down jackets wobbling down the bunny slope, legs rigidly positioned in the snowplow V of the beginner. Beyond them, the big blue lake spread out like an ocean.
"Susana, this is only your second day skiing this season. Besides, you’re not good enough to hit a black diamond run yet," Tom said, starting in on her. "This guy I talked to said this is the worst run at Heavenly. It’s really narrow, with bumps and turns like you’ve never seen before. Come on, be reasonable. Mom and Dad will kill me if you pop a mogul and crack your skull open today. We can take the lift back down, or an intermediate run."
They were passing over the sunlit tops of tall evergreens where marshmallows of new snow weighed the limbs down, making them droop. Her glasses had fogged over. She took a cotton kerchief out of her pocket and cleaned them. "I don’t want to take an easy run. You don’t have to go with me. You can meet me at the lodge."
"Why do you have to be so damn stubborn!"
"I’m sixteen years old. A hundred years ago, I’d be married with kids by now, so quit telling me what to do, Tommy. I’ll be careful."
Her brother punched her arm, hard. "Yeah, sure. You ski like a locomotive on speed."
She fitted her glasses back over her eyes, slowly. She was surprised to hear her brother say something like that. Even though he was two years older than her, Tom always talked so straight. He probably suspected a few things about her, but was this some kind of nasty little hint that he knew something he shouldn’t?
Before she could frame an innocent-sounding question to find out more, they had reached the end of the ride. They pushed themselves off the moving chair, sliding easily down the small slope from the lift. Susana quickly located the black diamond marker, and skied to the slight hump at the top, looking down at the narrow, winding way full of potholes and rocky moguls, the almost unmarked snow that suggested even the best skiers avoided this run. Tom looked down the run with her, shaking his head. "Jesus. You take too many risks."
"Hey, I just know how to have fun. "
"Don’t go, Susie," he said, but too late. "You don’t even have goggles."
She waved at him with one of her poles, saying, "See you later!" and started down the run.
She took the first moguls cautiously, wending her way around, forging a fresh path through the snow, her excitement growing by the minute. She had found her ski legs, and the careful, slow rhythm of traversing quickly bored her. Halting momentarily beside a wicked pile of snow-covered boulders in the middle of the pathway, she saw a straight shot down a white ribbon of pathway in front of her. Even though the trail intimidated her, it was inspiring, awesome. Partway down, the trail disappeared over a
hill. Who knew what horrible obstacles lurked beyond?
She could make it, she told herself. She could do anything and get away with it. She always plunged right into the hottest water, and always got herself out again, right? Today would be no exception. Pointing her skis straight down the mountain, she took off, sliding faster and faster, her arms tucked beside her, her head down, her glasses freezing over, the landscape whizzing by in a blur of green and white. Throw caution to the wind and live, she thought joyfully. Fly!
She beat Tom to the lodge with ease, turned her boots and skis in at the rental counter, and made a quick phone call.
Her ride came swiftly.
14
FOR SEVERAL WEEKS NINA DID NOTHING FURTHER about Kurt Scott. She appeared in court, went to Bobby’s softball games, and stayed out of it. She owed him nothing, as he had said. The gnawing curiosity she kept in check, though talking to him had only brought new questions.
April turned to May, and the snow retreated upward to the high mountains. Most of the ski resorts finally closed, defeated by the harsh mountain sun. Occasional news came to her. Bail had been denied because of the seriousness of the charge. Riesner had agreed to a fast preliminary hearing, and Kurt had been bound over for trial. She heard nothing about either the videotape she had learned of at Collier’s office or the progress of the police investigation. Even the Tahoe Mirror, inhibited by the lack of new information, limited itself to minor updates on the case.
Presumably, Riesner was working late nights, reviewing the police reports with experts he consulted, filing pretrial motions, hearing Kurt’s story until he could recite it by heart. She told herself to presume these things, presume Riesner would help Kurt just as she would have helped him. Even if Kurt had killed Terry, and she assumed he had, there would be extenuating circumstances. Riesner would call her eventually, and she would appear as a witness if it would help. That was all she could do. She only hoped Collier would not decide her testimony would somehow be useful to convict Kurt.
Many times at home she noticed how movements of Bobby’s, like the way he rubbed his forehead when he was tired, now reminded her of Kurt. She saw him from a new perspective, as a boy who belonged in definable ways to the man who was his father. He became a constant reminder of the man in jail.
Bobby didn’t try to talk to her anymore about Kurt. He had heard things, she knew, but he held his feelings inside. She felt the chill of separation from him, from the remote way he answered her questions to the way he shrugged off her hand on his shoulder on their walks up the hill behind the house. She knew she needed to talk to him, but she didn’t know how.
Matt and Andrea, too, seemed preoccupied. They knew who Kurt was, but they avoided the subject, giving her room to think, or maybe, in Matt’s case, just hoping the problem would go away.
The usually boisterous and open household seemed quieter than usual as Nina mulled over Kurt in private, as if they had all picked up the habit of secrecy from her, as if they all had things to hide. And wasn’t that a ridiculous thought on Nina’s part? What secrets would any of them have from her?
Angry at his brash thrusting into her affairs, Nina didn’t return Paul’s calls. If she told him now what his snooping around had caused, he’d come crashing up, shattering the already fragile situation. News of a homicide in Tahoe would not necessarily be reported in Monterey, so he probably had no idea. If he had stayed out of her private affairs, Terry would still be alive and Kurt would be ... safe, somewhere.
One morning Nina stopped at the bank and pulled the papers from her safe-deposit box. She pulled out her old journal, a small, spiral-bound book of black cardboard wrapped in rubber bands. During the summer with Kurt, alone in her cabin at Fallen Leaf, she had recorded snatches of their conversations and details of their meetings. She had meditated endlessly on him. Reading the journal after so long, she relived the night she had allowed herself to fall in love with him.
She had been at Fallen Leaf Lake almost two weeks, and had seen Kurt almost every day. They had sat on the rickety porch of the cabin that endless evening, watching shadows lengthen over the lake and talking until the mosquitoes drove them inside.
Kurt sat down at the old stand-up piano and began to play, his hands light and gentle at first, the music light, then deepening. She knew little about classical music; she had always thought it too forbidding and highbrow for her. She couldn’t make personal contact; she imagined men in powdered wigs and dirty satin playing to lords and ladies in castles. It had nothing to do with her.
This was different. She leaned against the piano, watching Kurt. Now and then he looked up and smiled, his eyes half-closed. For a long time the music made a background to the picture of him, his fingers rippling over the keys like water in wind. After a time the music worked on her. She joined him in its tides, letting him lead her through it. She heard him play the languor of the evening, the coolness of the lake, the breezes springing up. He was courting her now, embracing and caressing her with the notes....
She lit candles beside the bed, and left him there to wait for her. The water in the shower fell on her skin as softly as his music had fallen. Finally, pink from the heat, she put on his gift, a yellow silk robe that felt soft as talcum, and walked barefoot across the pine floorboards toward the flickering light.
He waited on the bed, naked, hands behind his head. He glowed there, the dark night all around them, magical, attractive, hungry, as alone as she was, with nothing but the dark night and forest for miles around.
She sat down beside him, saying nothing, bending over him, letting her damp hair fall around them like a curtain to enclose their kisses. She felt the connection formed in those minutes would always exist invisibly, that they created one being, a new person, not him or her, someone better than them both.
He took her by the shoulders, laying her gently down, opening the robe. She saw how he looked at her body with amazed pleasure. She bent up toward him, like a lily bending toward moonlight.
His skin like velvet, and the hardness of his muscles underneath ... she let him lead her through it.
Her utter trust in him made nothing forbidden. In that way, she expressed her love.
All this she had written in her journal, the journal of a young woman in love. All this she had forgotten. All this she had felt.
And never felt since.
"I wanted to talk to you about your client," Nina said in Riesner’s office the next afternoon.
"I’m feeling very benevolent and helpful today," Riesner said. "Witness my rearranging my schedule to accommodate you. So plunge right in. Amuse me." He arranged a red Japanese vase full of pussy willows on his desk.
His office reeked of success. There were pictures on the walls she couldn’t afford the frames for; oil portraits next to cherrywood bookcases with leaded glass doors displaying backlit artifacts from Asia and Africa, and leather volumes. Even the pen he wrote with was valuable and beautiful.
She could easily visualize the television ad: Jeffrey Riesner surrounded by the fetishes of his success, his low-end baritone hovering artificially in that masculine bastion, the bass zone. With this man, you are safe. You, too, can own a suit like this. Call today.
She should have picked up the phone.
"I’d like to know how the London murder case is going," Nina said.
"Why?"
"You know why."
"I thought you wanted to have a civil conversation. Why should I be civil when you seem to be incapable of it?" Riesner unwrapped a large, fragrant cigar, lighting it with a large silver lighter. "Oh. Excuse me. Would you like one? Cuban, rather rare." He blew a gamy cloud of smoke her way.
"No. Thank you," Nina said.
"That’s better. You were saying?"
"I’d appreciate your discussing the Scott case with me. I’d like to know what your general strategy will be. I understand there is some damaging eyewitness testimony. And that the police have some sort of videotape. Is there any direct physical evidence? Hav
e they found the gun, for instance?"
"The attorney-client privilege prevents me from telling you much," Riesner said thoughtfully, gazing down at the cigar between his thumb and forefinger as if for advice.
"How strong is the eyewitness? Have you interviewed him yet?"
"In due course," Riesner said. "I have his statement to the police."
"May I see it?" Nina said.
"No."
"You won’t let me have a look at any of the reports?"
"Why should I? It’s not your case. I don’t want any interference."
"What do you think are his chances of acquittal based on the preliminary hearing?" Nina said. Riesner was enjoying her visit, her need to approach him, but she knew him too well to think he would say anything at all he didn’t specifically intend to say.
"The D.A. established that there was a body, that it was a homicide, and that there was probable cause to believe my client did it. Three cops and criminologists, one medical examiner, one eyewitness, and a partridge in a pear tree. Three days and he’s bound over to the Superior Court for trial."
"You chose not to present any defense?" Nina said.
"I never waste my time with that sort of thing at a prelim," Riesner said. "With the standard of proof being probable cause, he’s going to go to trial no matter what I might have said. It’s a bad idea to let the D.A. see what you’ve got. I learned a few things on the cross-exam."
"Do you think he’s guilty?"
"Let’s put it this way," Riesner said. "He was seen running from the studio. The rifle used in the shooting was originally registered to him years ago. There’s no record of a sale or transfer of ownership. He left his blood on the rug, and he admitted to the cops he was there that night. Hallowell has a dying declaration from Terry London on video, where she says my client popped her. The D.A. didn’t even bother to use it at the prelim. He had enough without it.
"So you can draw your own conclusions. I don’t ask myself that particular question. It might hinder me in the zealous performance of my duties."
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