Getting into it, the consummate professor now, eyes traveling to faraway places, he said, “If you want, I’ll tell you all about the clay you find opal in, bentonite, and how it’s composed of a mineral called montmorillonite. But I’ve noticed people who don’t share my . . . um . . . what my wife used to call my obsessions, glaze over when I talk in three syllables or more.”
“What can you tell me about these particular samples?” Nina asked.
“I believe pieces this large are quite unusual. Of course, until you rub them, you won’t know if they are crazed or cracked.” Again, he looked through the loupe. “However, most of what I can see looks good.”
“I’m not following.”
“Rubbing is grinding down the outside of a rough opal to get a better picture of where the opal is, and how much there is in the rock. Crazed describes a superficial network of fine cracks that happen when opals dry. Crazing also happens spontaneously, or during the cutting process, which keeps things interesting, doesn’t it? Might have a fabulous-looking stone that can’t take the processing.”
“You mean . . . one of these stones, even if it looks perfect right now . . .”
“After it’s rubbed and you can check out its fire, the dominant color, its translucence . . .”
“Might get . . . crazed later?”
Tim laughed. “Right. You never know how long a stone may last. Obviously, the ones that have been dried and around for a while are going to do better. How long have these been dry?”
“I don’t know. They were stored in a moist environment until some weeks ago. Then they were . . . er . . . buried. So, not dried completely yet.”
He reacted to the burial concept with scientific neutrality, ignoring the irrelevant fact. “Store them in a dark place, in a zip bag with a paper towel or something to absorb moisture. Don’t subject them to too much bright indoor or outdoor light for a few months.”
“You said something about ‘cracking.’ Is that different from crazing?”
“A crack is a fracture. It’s a deeper flaw.”
“Okay,” she said. “Can you evaluate these stones for their . . . uh . . . stability? I guess what I mean is, are they precious gems or worthless junk?”
“I could look into that for you. It’s not something I know offhand. I’m not much involved in the market.”
Someone knocked. Fortunately, the door opened out into the hall.
“Dr. Seisz?” With shoulder-length blond hair and abs of steel defining a tanned midriff, the girl waiting there had that trendy Britney Spears look. Seisz gave her the same polite regard he gave Nina. His ruling passion really was rocks.
“I’m having trouble studying for the midterm,” said Britney’s clone. “I wondered if . . .”
“I have a class to teach in just a few minutes, but if you want to come back here after, I’ll be glad to go through your work with you.”
“I knew I could count on you.” The clone batted her eyes, but Seisz had returned to the rocks on his desk. She left, and only Nina observed the casual swaying down the hall which was probably habitual but was surely wasted on this particular professor.
“So you’re saying this is black fire opal from Australia,” Nina went on. “Assuming it’s not defective. Is it valuable?”
“No, no, no,” said Seisz, shutting the Australia book. He smiled. “You’ve misunderstood. I never said this came from Australia. I said that’s where you find almost all black fire opal.”
“If you find it there, and it doesn’t come from there . . . I’m confused.”
“It could be Australian. However, there is one other place in the world where black fire opals are found and it’s probably a much more likely source of your hoard.”
“Which is . . .”
“The Virgin Valley.”
“And the Virgin Valley is . . .?”
“About a hundred miles from Winnemucca right here in Nevada. Oh, and maybe you don’t know this. Black fire opal is the Nevada state gem.”
“Really.” She didn’t even know the state gem of California, if it had one.
“Yes. If I were to hazard a guess, these opals come from the Virgin Valley, up in the Sheldon National Wildlife Preserve area. Opals found up there have a perhaps undeserved reputation of being more brittle than the Australian blacks. I think that’s arguable. Depends on the water content. Some are, some aren’t.” He touched a stone in her hand. “This is big. Never saw one so large or so immaculate. There have been some incredible finds up there, so I’ve heard. One over ten thousand carats.”
“Wow,” said Nina.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me something, Tim,” Nina said. “How does someone become a geologist?”
“I take it you’re not asking about my course of study at USC.”
“No.”
“I was born to it, maybe the same way you were born to practice law. I see it as a micro-philosophy versus macro. You deal with people and their everyday woes. I deal with the grand scheme. Daily events, people, their little worries, don’t interest me much. I’m also a pilot. I love being up there, looking down at the Earth. Speculating about what formed those hills or why that river ran dry eons ago.”
“But . . . it must be hard on a marriage.” It just came out. She had no business . . .
He broke into a hearty chuckle. “Oh, yes. I should have said my ex-wife earlier. She grew tired of my everlasting field trips and took a hike of her own. So you see, I’m not excused from being human! Believe me, I come down to earth now and then, despite my godlike perspective.”
She knew he was making fun of himself, and she appreciated it.
“I don’t ignore the human links entirely,” he said.
“In fact, I’m quite interested in the folklore associated with stones. I’m working on a book. Don’t know if anyone will be interested besides me, but it amuses me to find connections between elemental Earth and ancient cultures.”
“Do you know any stories about opals?”
“Oh yes. The stones have a long human history. Centuries ago, people called opal ‘opthalmios.’ ”
“What’s that?”
“Means eye-stone. It’s a word they used in the Middle Ages. People then thought opals formed in the eyes of children.”
Nina thought of Nikki.
“The stones were believed to have a magical power: anyone who wore opal became invisible. That’s why they also called the opal the ‘patron of thieves.’ ”
“Really? What an unfortunate name.” Nikki again, the child-thief. If the samurai sword could hold souls, then opals could too, and Nikki’s soul seemed to have attached itself to the dirty gems. Nina couldn’t see how they could protect her, though.
“And as for the question you didn’t ask, whether that secret vein of it you probably found somewhere up there in the Virgin Valley is quite a find, my best guess is yes.” He lifted himself out of his chair, piled books into his arms and went toward the door. “Is it ever.”
Back at the office after the eighty-mile-return drive, Sandy welcomed Nina with a grunt. The outer office was, for a change, empty.
“I said I’d be back by two,” Nina said. “Nobody here?”
“I thought I’d save myself an afternoon round of cancellations,” said Sandy. “In case you didn’t make it.”
“You canceled everyone?”
“Every mother-loving one.”
“I got a speeding ticket coming back.”
“I’m sure you deserved it.”
Sandy squinted at her, and the way she looked straight through Nina to the molten core Nina took such care to hide made her feel uncomfortably exposed. Needing to deflect the focus from her emotional shortcomings to something else, Nina removed the bag from her briefcase, spilling the stones out on the desk. Under Sandy’s decent halogen lamp, with more of the dirt rubbed off the surface of the stones, the opals glinted and flickered.
“Pretty,” she said noncommittally, but Nina noticed she did not take her eyes
off the stones as she spoke.
“They’re called black fire opals.”
“This is something to do with Nikki Zack, isn’t it?” Her eyes dug into Nina’s face.
Nina shrugged. She didn’t know how she would handle the issue of Nikki’s acquisition of the opals, and until she considered the ethical questions and made a decision about that, it was best to say nothing. She gathered up the stones.
“Joe took me mining for opals in the Virgin Valley years ago,” Sandy said unexpectedly.
“Really? How’d you do that?”
“There are a couple of places up there that are open to fee mining. You pay by the day to pick through the tailings or even poke around in the bank. Use a pick and shovel. Spritz the chunks and you can see the lights inside.”
“Did you come back with anything?”
“Rocks. No lights. It’s not that easy.”
“Where is the Virgin Valley anyway? I checked the map but couldn’t really find it.”
“Northwestern part of the state, almost in Oregon.
It’s something like twelve miles long and a couple miles wide.” The phone rang and she picked up. “For you,” she said, handing it to Nina. “It’s Paul.”
Nina handed the phone back. “I’ll take it in my office. Say, Sandy, if I wanted to go up there and mine . . . are those places still open?”
“Every summer. I’ll bring you a brochure.”
“Thanks.”
Sandy nodded.
“Uh, I have to apologize for leaving you in the lurch today. Sometimes I just . . .”
“Hmph.”
“How’s Linda doing?”
“Sobering up. She agreed to go into detox. We’re driving her to Placerville tonight. Now, you better get in there and talk to that man,” Sandy said.
“I’m waiting outside in the lot,” Paul said on the phone. “Too hard to get in and get out and all that. I’ve got to show you something.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Where’s your van?” she said after hurrying outside. Paul was sitting inside an unfamiliar car, the motor growling, his blond hair striking against the bright color.
“Gone,” he said. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
“You bought this? A new car!”
“What do you think?”
He sounded like a little boy. She made an instant decision not to tell him what really flashed in her mind. You didn’t put a damper on adolescent wet dreams. You politely overlooked them.
He had bought a cherry-red Mustang convertible with a white canvas top.
“Sensational,” she said, placing her dusty shoe onto the pristine floorboard.
“V8,” he said cheerfully. “Brand-new, even though it looks classic.”
“What happened to the van?”
“I’m selling it to Wish,” he said, stroking invisible dust off the dash with his left hand while he started the engine with his right. “Didn’t even make a very good deal. I wanted this one too much to dicker.”
“I’ll miss the zebra-skin upholstery.”
“You mean the leopard-skin bed.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe Wish will preserve it for posterity.”
“This is . . . not exactly practical.”
“Depends on what you use it for.”
“Hard to picture you going off-road in this. If a case ever called for it.”
“True. I considered a metallic-blue SUV, four-wheel drive, but I just couldn’t get passionate about it.”
“What’s gotten into you, Paul?” she said. “You’ve got a broken leg you won’t explain, an attitude that won’t quit, and now, out of the blue, a brand-new car. So many changes. I’m thinking . . .”
“What?”
“Oh, never mind.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh?”
“And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
They rode along with the tourist traffic on Lake Tahoe Boulevard in silence for a while. Paul turned into the McDonald’s and bought them both coffee. Then he drove them back to Regan Beach and they sat in the car watching the kids wading in the lake.
Nina thought the choice of location was oddly appropriate. They weren’t more than a few blocks from the house where William Sykes had been murdered. That was what they needed to be thinking about right now, not messing around with low leather seats. Nina didn’t like the car. She didn’t like any changes at all right now.
“Something disturbing has happened,” she told Paul. She related the whole story about Nikki’s rocks and the man who had climbed into the back seat of the Bronco.
“Did you call the cops?”
“I thought about it, but I can’t even describe the guy. He didn’t hurt me.”
As Paul listened, his powerful body gave the impression of growing larger until he barely seemed to fit in the car.
“The worst thing was that I thought at first it was the other one,” she said, and he understood immediately.
“No,” he said. “Stop scaring yourself like this.”
“I can’t control it,” she said. “I sense him around every corner. The only way I can protect myself and Bob is to put my head in the sand and hide. I do my work and then I just want to go home and lock the doors and check and check and check the locks, and then I still can’t sleep.”
“He’s long gone. I told you that.”
“You don’t know he’s gone. You only think he’s gone. You don’t know him like I do, Paul. How he thinks.”
“You might be surprised.”
“Anyway. Let’s just drink coffee and watch the kids and the sky.” They did that for a while, and Nina calmed down, but Paul seemed to have fallen into deep thought.
“What are you going to do about Bob?” Paul said eventually.
Startled, Nina didn’t answer.
“How are his grades?”
“Sliding a little, but still okay.”
“How’s his mood?”
“Boomeranging from one extreme to another. He sinks into moods. He’s jumpy. I tried to put my hand on his cheek yesterday and he flinched. He has nightmares. And now—going over to Nikki’s house—he knew better.”
“How are you going to stop it?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ll call Kurt and talk to him about it.”
“Kurt can’t do much from Germany.”
“No.”
“If I was his dad, I’d take him out behind the wood-shed. He thinks he can get around you on everything.”
“So shall I beat the tar out of him?” Nina said, gloomy. “I’ll tell you, Paul, I feel like it sometimes. Matt recommends it too. Beat his butt, he says.”
“I like Bob,” Paul said. “More now that he’s older. I think he’s going to be all right. Of course, I’m speaking of years from now.”
Nina shook her head.
“When do I get to see the opals?” Paul said. In answer, she opened her purse and took out the pouch and handed it to him. She was keeping them with her. He took out a chunk of raw opal and went through the same double take she had when the sun hit it. When she told him they were probably from the Virgin Valley, Paul said, “Then they’re not from Daria and Beth’s claim.”
She managed to get her coffee swallowed, barely. “Why not?”
“It’s in my report. Their claim is eighty or ninety miles from the Virgin Valley. Nowhere near. Might as well be Australia.”
“Not good, Paul. Speaking as Nikki’s lawyer.”
“Not good? Why?”
“Well, it could have been a main point in the 995 hearing coming up. If I could have established that the opals did come from that property, I could attack the felony-murder rule that’s keeping her in the adult criminal system.”
“And if you can’t?”
“She’ll go in as an adult.”
“And that’s not good.”
“She might get out when she’s in her forties,” Nina said.
Paul was sil
ent for a minute. Then he said, “Think she did it?”
“No.”
“I don’t think she did it either.”
“Well, that’s a first,” Nina said, secretly thrilled. To have Paul on her side somehow added weight to her position. “I don’t think I ever heard you say that about one of my clients. It’s encouraging.”
“Maybe, instead of worrying about legal shenanigans this time around, we should concentrate on finding out who killed the good doctor.”
Nina folded her arms.
“Not that I don’t highly esteem and honor your respectable, integrity-saturated profession,” he added.
“So what’s your plan?”
“Wish is over at Prize’s right now trying to find out what he can about the man Linda saw. If that doesn’t work, we’ll check the description with Daria and Beth and see if they know anything about him.”
“You do that,” Nina said. “I’ll get to your reports right now, Paul. Then I’m going to take advantage of the client cancellations and go over to the law library and do a little research for the 995. Can I use your phone for a second?” She picked out Daria’s number. Nikki answered. Daria was gone again. Nina hung up, frustrated. She was dying to hear an explanation of what Daria had been doing at Dr. Sykes’s house that night. Why hadn’t she told anyone? She hated knowing, hated what it probably meant.
Shutting the door with some care so as not to leave marks on the brand-spanking-new wax job on the Mustang, she waved good-bye to Paul. He revved up the car and tore out of the lot, showing off. She walked slowly back to her office, thinking, whatever gets you through the night. Wasn’t that what John Lennon, keen philosopher of the twentieth century, had said? If a red Mustang did the trick, however temporarily, maybe she ought to be in the market.
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