"Yes! The lip-reader! Terry didn’t really say those things! You’ve got a great idea there, Paul." But she didn’t like the way he distanced himself, saying it was her only chance, not theirs.
"I hate to spout conventional cynical cop-ese."
"But?"
"Don’t expect miracles. Also, you need a napkin. You’re dripping, gringa. Didn’t your mama teach you how to eat Mexican food?" He leaned over to hand her a stack of napkins, too late for her beige linen pants.
"You believe he killed her."
"She’s bleeding rivers of blood onto the floor. She’s not going to lie at this point. Sorry. And you’re forgetting the really important thing."
"What might that be, O cynical ex-cop?"
"You’re angry," Paul said. "It’s a big blow to you personally, not just to any defense you had in mind. I understand."
"What am I forgetting?"
Paul balled up several wrappers and lobbed them deftly into the wastebasket across the room. "Somebody killed her. It’s almost impossible to accept that she’d let her killer go free. You’ve told me yourself, she hung on to some unfinished romantic business for a dozen years. Someone like that’s going to feel some little resentment toward the one who downed her for good."
"Maybe she—she blamed Kurt somehow for her getting killed. You know, indirectly. She thought everything bad that happened to her was Kurt’s fault."
"Uh-oh. I’m getting lost somewhere in the highways and byways of the female mind. All I can say is, I’m lying on the floor, I’m gonna tell you who shot me. I’m not going to be planning my next moves beyond that. Look, I ought to get started if you refuse to call Hallowell right now begging for a plea bargain. How about we get into these boxes and plot where we go next. Okay, boss?"
"Don’t call me that. Please. I’ve had the chance already to review the materials." And find herself perturbed every time she looked at the list of items recovered from the crime scene. The very long list included items from outside the studio and in Terry’s house. Something was on that list that shouldn’t be— something she had seen at Terry’s studio that day, but no amount of looking through the list helped. "I’ll get you copies of anything you need."
Paul opened the first box and scanned a list. "Crime scene, Terry London. Contents: Inventory of items removed from scene. Photographs. Lab Reports. Fingerprints. Medical examiner reports. Autopsy. Witness statements. A letter from Kurt Scott to Terry. A police statement about what Kurt Scott said when they arrested him. A video of that momentous event. The usual police reports. Looks pretty complete."
"The second box has Riesner’s files. Skimpy, I’d say. And a transcript of the preliminary hearing," said Nina. "There are videotapes, here, too, that we should watch together. How’s Saturday night looking for you?"
"I’ll bring the popcorn." Paul rooted through the second box and pulled out a slim file folder. "There must be more than this from Riesner," he said. "Even if the prelim was a formality, he must have had notes, motions, research, investigative reports.’’
"He didn’t feel much like cooperating under the circumstances. The prelim was brief Maybe he had a dozen pretrial motions ready. I’ll never know, because he hadn’t filed them at the point I took over."
"If I were Scott, I’d demand all my money back."
"Another problem. Riesner’s sitting on most of Kurt’s retainer.’’
"Whew. What a friend Kurt’s got in Nina."
"What are you saying?"
"You’re financing this case, aren’t you? You’re risking your reputation, your security, your kid’s happiness, your own.... He’s got you good."
"You sound ... jealous."
"Sure I am. But mostly I’m concerned. He can take you and Bob down with him. I find myself wanting to bully some sense into you before it’s too late."
"Go ahead. See where it gets you." She felt her chin rising in the air, and embarrassed to find it there, moved it back where it belonged. "Anyway, it’s already too late, Paul. I’m committed." She buzzed Sandy and asked her to call her son, Wish, to see if he could come to the office.
Within fifteen minutes Wish arrived. According to Sandy, Wish would be attending community college in the fall, majoring in police science. He had been after her for months to get himself involved at her office in something a little more challenging than janitorial work. Wish pushed open Nina’s door. About eighteen years old, he was as tall and gaunt as his mother was short and wide. Dressed in mechanic’s clothes, oil outlining his fingernails, he hesitated before entering the office. Sandy followed him in.
"Sit down," Nina said. Paul had one client chair. Sandy took another, and Wish sat on the couch, his eyes wide and unblinking.
Nina surveyed her defense team: two smart, well-intentioned but inexperienced helpers; Paul, the slick dick with a talking bear hidden up his sleeve; and herself, competence to be determined.
They would get by.
She said, "The four of us will be putting together a defense for Kurt Scott. He’s charged with premeditated murder. We’re going to farm out some cases, close some others, and try to do right by the ones we keep."
"Trial date’s... when?" asked Sandy.
"July fifteenth. It’s too soon," said Nina, "but I’m worried about Kurt. He hasn’t adjusted to being in jail." How could she tell them that underneath the words he spoke, she sensed desperation? How she feared he would crack up in there? "He wants us to go forward as soon as possible.
"Sandy, take these boxes out to your desk and make indexed files. Start juggling my appointments so that I have some long chunks of time every day that aren’t booked. Make sure you calendar all the pretrial court appearances."
"Done. Almost."
"Wish? I understand you can work flexibly, on call?"
He nodded.
"You’re to work with Paul. Do whatever he tells you to do. Don’t do anything you’re not specifically told to do. Understand?"
"He does," Sandy said for him. Wish straightened up, nodding emphatically.
"Okay, Paul. You’re in charge of the investigation. Let’s talk about how to proceed."
"Other than the lip-reader, shouldn’t you line up some expert witnesses soon?" Paul asked.
"That’s on the list."
"I still need copies of all the witness statements and the evidence list. And the autopsy report," Paul added.
Sandy wrote.
"We’ll meet twice a week from now until trial," said Nina. Wish wore a grin that showed great big perfect teeth. "What is it, Wish?"
"He’s happy he gets to work on the case," his mother said, tucking her notebook into a capacious pocket on her skirt.
Wish nodded again. With his ears poking out of long, shining black hair, totally out of place in this world of ink and paper, he looked like an eager young psychotic about to do something rash.
"Okay, I’ve had a chance to review the reports. Let me fill you in on what we know so far. As I see it, the prosecution’s case rests on five pieces of evidence. The first and probably most difficult problem we have is Jerry Kettrick’s eyewitness account of that night. He says he heard two shots in close succession, then saw Kurt run out. We’ve got to nail down the timing of those shots he says he heard, and get anything we can that’ll cast doubt on his recall of the incident.
"Second, the Remington rifle that killed Terry London was registered to Kurt and his fingerprints were found on the barrel. Kurt says Terry’s had the rifle ever since he left her. Anything we can get to show that that rifle remained in Terry’s possession will help. If Terry had the gun in her possession, anyone could have used it on her.
"Third, what the D.A.’s office is now referring to as the ’death video.’ In that, Terry seems to be implicating Kurt in her murder. She’s either lying, or the transcript of the lip-reader is flawed."
"Our fourth problem. Kurt made some statements when he was arrested in his car the morning after that don’t sound good. The arresting officer had a car that was eq
uipped with a video camera. He taped the arrest. Paul and I will take a look at that video in the next day or two, and evaluate just how harmful Kurt’s statements might be."
"What is he supposed to have said?" Paul asked.
"According to, uh—" she leafed through some papers—"Jason Joyce, the arresting officer, he had blood all over him when he was pulled over, which by the way turned out to be only his own blood. He said there had been a shooting. ’She’s been shot.’ "
"Not ’I shot her’?" asked Wish.
"No, but ’she’s been shot’ is bad enough. It puts him there."
"They fixed fast and hard on Scott. But what do they think was the motive?" Paul asked. "He’s never made a statement about any of this except what you just mentioned. I realize they know by now that Scott was married to Terry, but he hasn’t had any contact with her for years."
"True. That’s the fifth problem. They have a note he wrote her that contains a threat. It’s not dated. It could be very old. I haven’t asked Kurt about it yet."
"What’s it say?" asked Wish.
She picked up a photocopy and read it. " ’Terry, for the last time, get out of my life. If you continue to harass me, write to me, or attempt to communicate in any way, I will come after you and make you sorry you ever met me.’ I assume it’s authentic."
"Did she keep bugging him?" Wish persisted.
"She didn’t find him after the last move. That was four years ago. The note was found among her effects."
"Why did she bother with him for all that time? I mean, usually you get dumped, you get over it," said Wish.
"Some people don’t," Nina said.
"She hated him," Sandy said. "She did what she could to hurt him."
"Oh, yes," Nina said. Paul was shaking his head sorrowfully. She knew he was thinking about what Terry had done to her baby. "Still, from our point of view, the police have very limited motive evidence, since they can’t talk to Kurt."
"Exactly," Paul said. "I know proving motive isn’t essential to getting a conviction. But like I said, juries don’t like convicting unless they feel they understand the why of the crime. And they’re going to want to know why he would come back after all this time and kill her. Hallowell doesn’t seem to have made the connection that I found Scott and told him where you were, which made him catch the next flight to warn you about Terry. If he ever does ..."
"Riesner said I might be called as a witness," Nina said. "It would be a mess trying to sort out which of Kurt’s statements to me were protected by the attorney-client privilege." Kurt’s note to her, asking her to meet him at Pope Beach, for instance, certainly wasn’t privileged. She looked out the window at the mountains, wondering if she would be subpoenaed. How could she defend Kurt when she might also be a major witness against him?
"Here’s what we should do," she went on, putting that problem aside for the moment. "Let’s concentrate on other people with other possible motives. We’ve got four people out there who had sued Terry. Their lawsuit was in big trouble. They wanted to stop her from distributing her film. One of them might have killed her."
"Jonathan Sweet. Jessica Sweet. Doreen Ordway. And Michael Ordway," Sandy said, reading from her notes.
"Hard to believe the film was worth murdering someone over," Paul said.
"We have to get into Terry’s mind," Nina said. "From my experience with her, I would say that she enjoyed playing with people’s heads, you know? What I mean is, I think the film has a subtext. It’s not straightforward. She—"
Paul interrupted. "I haven’t seen the film yet about the Sweet girl, but you say she hints around that she was first in a line of missing girls. We ought to run with that. What if it’s more than a crackpot theory or a marketing ploy? What if whoever is responsible for Tamara and the other girls’ disappearances wanted the film to disappear too? What better way than to kill the filmmaker before it gets out the door? There’s a guy with a motive."
Wish said, in his adolescent voice, which made it all the more chilling, "Maybe her father killed them all. Or Michael Ordway."
"Don’t leave out the ladies," Paul said. "It’s a brave new world of crime."
"Or it could have been somebody who isn’t in the film," Nina said. "We’ll have to look at her theory, though the film doesn’t bring up any hard evidence of a connection between those girls."
"Which brings up the obvious question," Paul said. "You said the film doesn’t even mention Scott. Scott dated this girl for a while before she disappeared. Why not hint around that he killed her? She had the perfect opportunity to cause him more grief The film might even have brought him back into contact with her."
"I don’t know," Nina said. "I agree." She ran her fingers through her hair, wondering if she would ever understand Terry. "Maybe she knew exactly what happened to Tamara. Maybe she killed Tamara herself." Sandy and Wish looked surprised at that idea, but Paul just nodded. He had already thought of it. "Or maybe she knew who did it, and it wasn’t Kurt, but she only felt able to hint around for some reason."
"She must have had notes, files in connection with making the film. Where are they?" Paul said. "Either her notes are gone, or she destroyed them. Why?"
"Good questions, Paul. I hope you bring me some answers soon."
"So we have a film that oughtta point the finger at Kurt Scott, but doesn’t. And we have two videos that do point the finger," Wish said.
"Interpretation is all," Paul said. "What, Nina?"
Nina put down her pen, looked at the paper she had been drawing on, crushed it into a ball in her hand, and threw it in the wastebasket. "I think we should all be very careful," she said. "Now, you all need to imprint the contents of those reports onto your brain, and Paul, I’ve arranged for us to go over to Terry’s first thing in the morning. Any questions?"
"Yeah, one," said Wish. "Did he do it?"
"How about we go get some coffee, so Nina can work?" Paul said to him, standing up. They each picked up a box and lugged it to the conference room.
Sandy and Nina watched them go. "Our raggletaggle gang of four," Sandy said, shutting the door firmly in the middle of Nina’s next thought, a good one, that she was not alone.
21
NINA AND PAUL DROVE THROUGH THE GATE ONTO Terry’s property late on Tuesday afternoon. They had borrowed keys to the studio and house from Collier Hallowell, and would be attended by a South Lake Tahoe police officer, Deputy Earl Hecker. The crime tape was gone and the place deserted, cool and shady, on one of the first of the season’s warm lazy days. Nina wondered where Terry’s dog had been taken.
Deputy Hecker, a buck-toothed, freckle-faced cop who looked just barely old enough to take a razor to facial stubble, stood on the porch while Paul fiddled with the studio door lock. "It’s one of those where you’ve got to pull out the key a quarter of an inch," he offered, after Paul had lost his patience and rattled the door so hard it threatened to fall off its hinges.
The deputy waited outside, cheerfully whistling the theme song for the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. They left the door open so that he could keep an eye on things.
Undisturbed since the D.A.’s investigation, the studio looked like a place abandoned for years. Some of the equipment had been taken as evidence, and what was left was blighted by fingerprint dust and rusty bloodstains, emptied of life and spirit. Nina, trying to recall the place the last time she had seen it, moved methodically around, checking the room against her notes.
"What’s the story on a crime scene, Paul?" Nina asked as Paul examined the back door. "Don’t they clean up after the investigation?"
"No pressing need here, and no relatives have come forward. When I called to arrange this visit, they said it was next on the list."
She had opened the locked storage closet with a third key and was studying the shelves in back. "Where’s all her stuff? She had enough filmmaking equipment to stock MGM."
"Apparently, most of it was rented. She had a mortgage and money troubles. She owned almost
nothing, just this property and some of the smaller pieces of equipment.’’
Nina looked over the list and crime photos, then looked at a spot on the floor near the doorway, where the camcorder had been found. She was trying again to understand Terry. Where were the calendars, the post-cards, the pictures, the personal touches you would expect to find in a woman’s home/workplace? How could Terry be so cold and single-minded as to work in this concrete box full of cables and plastic and metal?
"Anything important you saw when you were here that’s not here anymore and hasn’t been taken for evidence?" Paul was asking.
She turned back to her notes. "A lynx coat. It’s not on the list of items removed from the scene. I’ve seen her in it several times."
"Borrowed, maybe," said Paul dubiously. "A fur coat was a real extravagance for a lady in such deep debt."
"I think it was her mother’s. It’s probably up at the house."
"Let’s go."
They paraded up the path to the house, trailed by Deputy Hecker, who, perhaps unconscious of its meaning, had launched into "Pore Jud Is Daid" from the musical Oklahoma! He had the wonderful ability to whistle piercingly through his front teeth. He hadn’t spoken at all.
The interior of the small house looked exactly as she remembered it. "Nothing," she reported. "Just a vacant house, where someone used to live." Except for the clothes in the closets and in the bureau, it was still Terry’s parents’ house, as if Terry had never slept, ate, or lived there. She had lived entirely in her mind, not needing to surround herself with personal items.
"No fur coat," Nina said. "It was on the bed the last time I saw it. I wonder where it is?"
"Maybe we have a simple robbery-murder," Paul said.
"Not likely."
"We can always hope. Ready, Deputy."
On the way out to the car, they ran into a sixtyish woman in a smart red suit, who came huffing up the drive.
"Hey," said the deputy. "Can’t you read? Nobody on the property. Out. Out." He moved his hands as if waving off a pesky skunk.
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