“I got a room for you at the Holiday Express. It’s the best motel in town.” Another smile, this one not awkward. “Also the only motel in town. And it’s Western, sort of. Game trophies on the coffee-shop walls. Stagecoach wheels, too. Except they’re plastic. The wheels, not the heads.” As we went back into the corridor, she said, “You’re registered under my office. I didn’t want anyone to know you were coming. On the off chance somebody might recognize your name and make some kind of connection.”
“How likely is that?” I asked, surprised.
“The feds might. They’re lurking around, although officially they aren’t here anymore. You have been in the media, even up here.”
“It’s not like we’re in Fiji, Nora.”
“Fiji. God—that would be heaven.”
We were outside, in the darkness of early evening. “Is this yours?” she asked, spotting the Avis sticker on my rental windshield. Off my nod: “I drive an Explorer. I’ll pull around, follow me to the motel. We’ll get you checked in, then we’ll have dinner, and I’ll give you my spiel.”
At the motel I didn’t have to sign in or leave a credit-card imprint—I was handed a key and told to enjoy my stay. Nora waited outside; it wouldn’t do to have her standing there next to a strange man, even if this was official business. Although I had a feeling that if it hadn’t been me, but just some regular guy she hadn’t known in another life, it wouldn’t have been the same. But maybe I was wrong.
The motel was one-story stucco, a horseshoe around a swimming pool that was empty, fenced off with a lock and chain. Nora waited in the doorway while I tossed my bag onto the bed. I travel light; I had a sports coat in the car in case, but I wouldn’t need it. We weren’t going to be doing anything that required me to dress up. I already knew that if Nora could help it, I was going to be invisible.
I got into her car. “Are you hungry?” she asked, starting the car.
“I could eat. Where’re we going?”
“My house. There aren’t any good restaurants around here, nothing even halfway decent. Like Burger King is Epicurean. And we can talk without worrying about being eavesdropped on. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine,” I said nonchalantly. Inside, though, I was a tad concerned. The way she had registered me at the motel, now this. She was more than a little paranoid. Was it this situation, or who she was? I hoped the former, which made sense, the feds can do that to you. Otherwise, it could be a long, uncomfortable night.
“I’m a good cook.”
“In that case, I’m famished.”
She didn’t live in town. “It isn’t far. Dinner won’t be long, I came home at lunchtime and got most of it ready.”
We drove in silence. I looked over at her, checking her out in the low light from the instrument panel. She was dressed professionally, off-white blouse, navy skirt and matching jacket, low heels, hose. I would have recognized her on the street, I was fairly sure of that, but she had changed. She’d been a thin, athletic woman—now she was heavier, mostly from the waist down. When men gain weight it’s the gut; women do it on their thighs and behind. It wasn’t unattractive on Nora, just spread out. Lines spidered her eyes, her temples. No makeup, not even lipstick. She had been pretty in a Nordic, Liv Ullmannesque kind of way, and she still was. But twenty years had gone by, almost half our lifetimes. She had gone through some damn hard times, all the sadness with Dennis, of which I could only imagine.
It was her eyes that gave her away—even when she smiled, as she’d done a couple times so far, her eyes didn’t. They held the truth of what was going on inside.
Her house was set well back from the road, fifty yards. She had five acres, she told me, with a stream running along the property line.
It was new, but old-looking, done mission-style. I followed her inside.
“Very nice,” I complimented her, looking around. The place surprised and impressed me, both architecturally and in its furnishings. I mentally calculated what a setup like this would cost in Santa Barbara. Over a million. In Montecito, two million, maybe more, with five acres.
“You live well, lady.”
She smiled. “It’s much cheaper here than where you live, I’m sure. And what else am I going to spend my money on? I’m not saving up to put my kids through college. My parents helped,” she confided. “I’m their only child. Plus I made good money the years I was working in Denver.”
I was quite impressed.
“You’ll have to come back during the day, when you can see the outside,” she said, kicking her shoes off on her way through the living room to the kitchen, tossing her purse and briefcase onto the couch. “It’s the best feature of this place.”
“Sure,” I said, “okay.” How long was I going to be here? I thought. And how much was going to be done outside the office?
I smelled dinner cooking. A rich, full-bodied smell. I wondered how often she cooked dinner, living alone as she did. I didn’t know that for a fact, but I figured she would have told me if she was living with someone, a roommate or someone more intimate.
“You’re not a vegetarian, I hope.”
“I eat everything without discrimination,” I assured her. Dinner was meat of some kind. I was hungrier than I’d realized, smelling it. Except for the snacks I’d bought back at the filling station, I hadn’t eaten since leaving home early in the morning.
“Around here there’s no such thing as a vegetarian, except way back in the mountains, what’s left of the old communes from the sixties. And they cheat, when it’s full winter and freezing out.”
She lifted the lid off a large iron pot, checked inside: “Almost ready.”
She got down a bottle of wine from a cupboard. “If you eat meat, you drink red wine. Make yourself useful.” She handed me the bottle and a corkscrew. “I’ll be a minute. Glasses are in the dining-room breakfront.”
Grabbing her shoes off the floor, she headed down a hallway toward what I assumed was her bedroom.
“Okay if I call home?” I asked after her. I needed to check in with Riva, let her know I’d arrived safe and sound. Ever since my sojourn into the desert I did this religiously whenever I traveled. And I wanted to hear my son’s voice.
“Mi casa es su casa.” An unseen door closed.
I popped the cork on the wine, a decent Napa cabernet. Pouring two glasses, I took a sip, a second because it tasted good and I’d been on the road all day, dialed my number.
Riva picked up on the second ring. “It’s me,” I told her.
“Oh good. I was beginning to wonder.”
“The drive took longer than I expected. This is big country.”
“And you’re a big man, so it should be a good fit.”
“Something like that.” I took my motel key out of my pocket, read the phone number off to her, along with the room number. “We’re going to have dinner, then Nora will start filling me in. Whatever it is she wants to talk about.” In the background I could hear my son. It sounded like he was beating on his high chair with a spoon, or a hammer. Maybe he’ll be a drummer. “How’s the heir?”
“Kicking ass, of course. Here.”
The phone was silent for a moment, then Buck’s little voice came across the line. “Daddy? Where are you, Daddy? When are you coming home, Daddy?”
“I’m on business, honey. I’ll be home real soon. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day.” God, do I love that voice.
“When are you coming home, Daddy?”
“As soon as I can. What did you do today? Did you go to Mrs. Ferguson’s and play with Jesse?” Mrs. Ferguson is the day-care lady he spends a couple mornings a week with, so Riva can do the rest of her life. Jesse’s his best friend, another boy his age.
I listened to my voice as I talked to him. My voice was slower, more deliberate. I try not to talk young, but it’s hard not to. It feels easier to talk on his frequency.
“When are you coming home, Daddy?” He had that fixed in his head, and that was all he wanted or cared to ask.
“As soon as I can,” I repeated. “Let me talk to Mommy now, honey. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Daddy. When are you coming home?”
“It’s me.” Riva was back on the line. “So to answer his question…”
“Day after tomorrow. Unless we talk out whatever has to be said tonight and that’s it, but I don’t expect that.” I changed the subject. “Anything happening I need to know?”
“Nope, all quiet on the western front. Where’re you eating dinner?” she asked, making conversation, not wanting me to hang up yet.
“Some restaurant. I don’t know. Whatever she chooses.” Riva assumed I was in my motel room, that Nora and I would be going to dinner in a public restaurant.
“I’m sure the choices are many and varied.”
“I’ve got a feeling not.” I was vamping. I didn’t want to tell my wife that I was eating Nora’s home-cooked meal, that it was only the two of us in Nora’s house, out in the countryside.
I didn’t know why I didn’t want to tell her, I wasn’t trying to hide anything, nothing was going on, or would. It just didn’t feel right to tell her; anyone who’s ever been on the road has had this feeling at some time or another. Nora was a part of my life Riva didn’t know about. That Nora and I had never in any way been romantic didn’t matter—she was a woman, she was out of my past. Any explanation, no matter how benign, might not be a satisfactory one.
Nothing was going to happen, so why build a nest of doubt in her head?
Nora’s bedroom door was opening. “We’re about to go have dinner,” I said into the phone. “I’ll call you tomorrow, around this time.”
“Is she there?” Not suspicious, but suddenly curious.
“I see her car pulling up, out the window.” An actual lie, now. Fuck me.
“We’ll be here.”
She’d believed me, of course. Which was the way it should be. I was clean as a whistle. Why give her a reason to feel there’s any mistrust when there is none? Why risk hurt, even if it’s only a paper cut? “Give Buck a kiss for me.”
“I will.”
Nora came into the kitchen. She’d exchanged her work clothes for a loose sweater and jeans. Wool socks, no shoes. I smiled at her, held up a finger. “And you, too,” I told the telephone.
“I love you, Luke,” Riva told me from six hundred miles away.
“Me, too,” I told her back. And hung up.
“Everything okay on the home front?” Nora asked, obviously not wanting to pry.
“Fine and dandy.” I handed her the other glass I’d poured. We clinked, each taking a sip. To twenty years: long time ago.
I sipped my wine in the living room and watched a few minutes of what passes for the news on television these days while Nora put the finishing touches on dinner, then joined her at the table in the kitchen alcove when she announced. it was ready: stew over rice, green salad, Pillsbury Doughboy biscuits thawed in the microwave—a working woman has to use some shortcuts, even my gourmet-chef wife rarely makes biscuits from scratch anymore. I was flattered that Nora had gone to the trouble to cook at all. Of course, I’d traveled several hundred miles to do her a favor, so I guess she thought she should try to please me, and here was a way.
I sat down, placed my napkin on my lap like the little gentleman my mother taught me to be, took a taste. Nora watched, waiting for me to pass judgment on her culinary talents.
The flavors exploded in my mouth. “This is…talk about finger-lickin’ good!” I didn’t have to pretend—it was delicious. A rich mélange of meat, potatoes, tomatoes, other vegetables, thick brown biscuit-sopping gravy. “Range-fed, the beef? Not from some grocery-store meat counter.” I’m a connoisseur of this shit. I can tell.
“It’s venison.” She smiled back. “Deer. Like, you know…?” She made antlers on her forehead with her ringers.
I looked at a square of meat on the prongs of my fork. “How outdoorsy. Did you hunt it?” Making a life up here, wearing lumberjack socks, why not?
She shook her head. “I can eat Bambi, but I can’t kill him. All the guys hunt. One of the sheriff’s deputies bagged this one. I bought half a side off him. Stew meat, steaks, hamburger. I’ve got a big freezer in the garage—de rigueur around here. Nice break from eating cow shot up with steroids, raised in some feedlot.”
“It’s very good,” I said, properly chastised. “My compliments to the chef.”
She smiled—the best smile I’d seen on her face. Even her eyes smiled with this smile.
“It’s nice to cook for someone who appreciates it. Unless I’m having a working dinner, I usually eat alone, a sandwich over the kitchen sink.” She brought the pot over from the stove, ladled me out another helping without asking if I wanted it.
When dinner was over and I was full-and-well-stuffed, we took the bottle and our glasses into the living room. We sat on the couch, discreetly apart, no body parts touching. “Can we talk some business?” she asked. “I didn’t wipe you out with that heavy meal?”
“I’m fine. All I’m doing is listening, right?”
“Okay. Get comfortable.”
She opened her briefcase, pulled out a thick stack of papers. “Tonight’s homework assignment.” She smiled at me. “I’ll tell you what’s in it later. For now I’ll fill you in on what’s happened, what I think.” She plunked the papers on the coffee table, swung around on the couch so that her back was against one edge, drew her legs up. I did the same, so that we were both comfy and facing each other.
It was all very domestic. You wouldn’t have known, looking at us, that we hadn’t laid eyes on each other for almost two decades. You’d probably think we were an old married couple, settled in for the duration, sharing each other’s end-of-the-workday trials and tribulations, the way Riva and I do.
“What do you know about this case?” she began.
“Not much. Big government bust that went south and got some people killed on both sides.”
She nodded. “It falls under the category of ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,’ which they own the patent on. But in this case it was particularly pathetic because they violated a direct order from the top of their own food chain.”
She had my attention. “How?”
“The prisoner who escaped, if you want to dignify what happened, wasn’t supposed to be killed. He was supposed to be brought in alive. That was the entire point of the stupid operation, which was ill-conceived from the get-go. Catch him and bring him back alive. If you can’t, abort. This from her ladyship Reno, no less.”
“So maybe someone wanted him dead, bad enough to incur the wrath of the A.G. herself?” That followed logically, anyone could see where that was going. “Because it’s a tar brush that has to splatter everyone who comes anywhere near contact with it.”
“Which is happening, although the DEA’s been doing their best to paint a happy face on it.”
Now she really had my attention. “How the hell could they do that? The guy was their prisoner, wasn’t he? In their custody?”
“Yes.”
“So…?” If the government was spin-doctoring this, they were really desperate to cover something up. But what? “Hasn’t the DEA been investigating this? This was a federal bust.”
“Oh, yeah.” She was pissed, I could hear it, see it in the wrinkles in her face. “They’ve been investigating the crap out of it for almost six months. You couldn’t walk down a street in this town without encountering a federal agent. Charming men, the locals were in tears when the last stage rolled out of town. They only pulled out a couple of weeks ago. There’s a token unit down in Reno still, but they’re done. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”
“So what did they find out? They do a good enough job with that stuff.”
“Yes. Unless it’s their own people who might be in play, which doesn’t only mean their agency, it can be any alphabet agency, as long as they’re federal. Then maybe they don’t find out what they should.”
I needed to slow this down—she’d had six months to build up a head of steam, and now, with a captive and friendly audience, the lid was blowing.
“Let’s put it this way. If you go into an investigation with a particular theory, you can find facts that support that theory, to the exclusion of others that might be the right ones.”
“Which is what, in this case?”
“It could be a couple of things. Or more. One is that one of the agents shot the prisoner and won’t admit it.”
“On purpose or accidentally?”
“Not exactly accidentally. More in the heat of the moment. Your blood’s up, you’ve been in this incredible firefight which was a horrible miscalculation, some of your friends have been killed, you finally catch your target and then he manages to escape, which is a story unto itself, maybe part of the killing, maybe not. You’re running through the woods like a blind pig, it’s unfamiliar terrain, you’re wired and scared, you aren’t wearing your Kevlar vest anymore because the chase was over, the quarry was taken down, you were relaxing your guard. And you’re the first one to stumble across him and the fear kicks in, you’re not thinking straight, you can’t, you’re scared you’re going to shit your pants your adrenaline’s running so high. You see him and he sees you and you know for sure he’s armed—if he could escape from the heavy custody you had him in, he has to have a gun, too, right? So you take him down. And immediately realize you made a big boo-boo, and you fade away with the rest of the troops and pray they can’t connect you.”
She paused. She was almost out of breath, reliving this plot-line.
I stared at her, trying to catch up. “That’s a lot of coincidences that have to come together,”
She nodded in agreement.
“Tantamount to a whitewash, almost.”
“Yes,” Nora agreed. “It is.”
My stomach felt queasy.
“However, that’s not their main theory, fortunately. It’s a backup.” She pivoted and swung her feet onto the floor. “Do you want coffee?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“It’s already made. How do you take it?”
Above the Law Page 10