“I didn’t tell you—I want to—ouch!—give it to Isaiah!”
“DNA,” Ronnie said. “The envelope. Prints. The money.”
“No! I want the money!”
“Honey. Ahh. God, that feels good.” Long pause. “Look. He killed a girl.”
“This is no time to be discussing—ooh! Ooh!”
Brenda tried to wriggle away but Ronnie had her where he wanted her. He pinned her down, saying, “I’m not letting you out of my sight. You gonna tell the cops or do I?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I’m gonna.”
Brenda moaned. Ronnie always said her moans sounded like a spring wind in Kentucky caverns, loud and batty.
“I’m gonna, I’m gonna.”
“You’re the one I’m in danger from! Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“That’s right. Don’t forget how good this feels. And this. Do you like this?”
“No, no, no.”
“Ooh, I love it when you moan.”
“Ronnie, oh!”
“We’ll give it a couple days, but we have to give it to the cops. I insist.” Flipping her onto her back, he loomed above her in the dim light. For the next few minutes, she welcomed his lust; she welcomed the enveloping arms of oblivion, forgetting all about the sad body she had seen and smelled in the hotel bed.
She moaned again, louder. He better not ask any more questions. He could read it in the mornin’ paper. He could hear it on the radio.
CHAPTER 7
I consulted my watch. The luminous dial told me it was 6:30 a.m., dark, temperature twenty-three degrees, clear and icy on the street where I waited near the Minden bus stop.
Here Brenda Bee usually caught the bus up the mountain to her cleaning job five days a week. Although I’ll never know exactly what she saw at Prize’s, I recall her eyes flickering at the sight of me. That scared me. I slept little, after that, reliving the whole mess and the fact that there was a witness.
I waited by the side of the road. Today the crowd arrived and left but she was a no-show so far. I thought, Brenda’s running late. She’ll be here any minute. I had done my homework: her shift started at eight in the morning. Her commute up to the mountains took a long time. She seldom missed a day. She needed the money.
I had already consumed two hot coffees and an almond-covered sweet roll along with several exhilarating pills courtesy of a corrupt Reno doctor. Now I had a third cup in the holder beside the driver’s seat. I drink too much coffee but the alternative is to succumb to alcohol, other addictive drugs, or Jesus. Thank God scientists always try to help us think better, and thank God for all the enhancements people in bug-eyed glasses have invented that involve nuanced alterations of the human body on a subatomic level that make you feel so good when you’re so bad.
I felt good anticipating the bad, loaded up.
A time comes when you’re committed. You’ve done so much, betrayed family, lied, stolen.
Brenda Bee was the last boulder in my way, and she needed removing. Death for me would be a relief. I never thought of it as the end of consciousness. I thought of it as a leap into somewhere new.
I wanted this over. I wanted money. I wanted freedom. I needed not to be caught. I needed her dead.
I sat upright in the driver’s seat, feeling my eyeballs jump around in my head, hepped up. I checked for the knife, accidentally jabbing myself. I examined my finger. No blood. No DNA. Good.
When the old pickup pulled up in front and the good-looking, middle-aged woman got out, kissing her hubby good-bye lovingly, lugging a backpack with a Prize’s logo. I recognized her. She, Brenda Bee, took care of the floor where Cyndi died. She vacuumed, dusted, wiped surfaces. She cleaned that room. Seeing her get out and smooth her hair, blowing a kiss to the man in the car, I felt for both of them, for a moment anyway.
Giving her a fond wave, he drove off. She plunked her backpack down and sat on the bench inside the covered kiosk bedecked with graffiti.
I looked up and down the street. Not a soul drifted in this light fog, but something could come soon, such as the next bus, due in five minutes. Conditions were not ideal, but I was fast and strong. I felt sure I could handle whatever needed handling. Her time had come, in a way, nothing to do with me. We all die.
She hadn’t said much about what she saw that day—I knew this from an associate at the South Lake Tahoe Police Department. She had taken a look at me though, and at some point she would connect me with that moment, Cyndi’s death moment.
That husband of hers had been with her every second since.
Until now.
Time to take her out, decision made.
I breathed in and out. You must stay tuned with your body. When you ski down a hill, when you drive fast, when you take physical risks, you must be vital. I took the time to analyze how I felt at that moment because that had helped me all the way through my life. I closed my eye for one moment to calculate and decide I was rip-cord hard in body, mind, and spirit.
Brenda slouched on the bench, headphones in her ears, parka wrapped tightly around her. The sky lay cold across the mountains.
I took one more long look down the street. I jumped out of my car, knife in hand, and ran at her as if she were a deer to be hunted down and killed in a forest.
Somehow able to ignore the music blaring in her ears, she saw me and recognized danger hurtling toward her as forceful as a train. She ran. I ran faster. I caught up a hundred feet beyond the kiosk. I seized her hair and forced her head back. My sharp knife slid across her throat. She accepted the assault without making a sound.
A gout of blood gushed out onto her parka. She fell limp.
I pushed her forward. Her head knocked against the curb. Blood dribbled out of her like a mountain stream.
Red.
I couldn’t take my eyes away. Her own opened briefly, but she looked at the tall pine along the road, not at me.
Then, a sound.
I looked up.
From far down the cold and empty street a bus rolled toward us.
I ran to my car, set the knife on the newspaper-covered floor on the passenger side, and drove off in the opposite direction. I couldn’t help speeding a little, but at this hour and in this weather the cops must also be drinking coffee somewhere, since traffic kept up with me as we all made our escapes.
In five minutes I had joined the commuter dance, light traffic heading toward Carson City. The sun lit the dry, black desert mountains on my right a cheerful peach. Flipping on the police scanner, I made myself move to the right lane and stay there. I put in Etta James and let her sing “Got My Mojo Working.”
I looked into the mirror, thinking about the husband waving good-bye. I imagined his pain for no more than a moment, then set it aside. I will not go to prison. I will not be executed. I deserve to live. I deserve to live well.
When I could do so without violating any traffic laws, I pulled over and gave myself a reward popper for doing what had to be done.
This time had been much easier.
CHAPTER 8
In the parking lot of the Starlake Building, Nina stepped out of the car and into six inches of spring slush. Though she hopped nimbly to the curb, her open-toed shoes let her feet get soaked.
On the carpet in the hallway she took off the shoes and carried them into the office, wondering if a fresh pot of java awaited her in the conference room, or even an old pot.
She had spent an hour at Burglar Boy’s sentencing hearing. When the moment had come, her client had read a contrite statement; then several of the homeowners he had victimized read statements. They finished before the midmorning break. The judge subjected Burglar Boy to a harsh lecture followed by a lenient sentencing recommendation, a coup for the defendant and his counsel, Nina Reilly, proud graduate of the Monterey College of Law, defender of the innocent—or losers who deserved a little due process.
Removing her coat, Nina glimpsed Sandy through the half-open inner door talking to someone. “We have a pretty good m
ix of clients right now, the respectable ones and the bozos. I found gum under the seat last week. That’s what I get for looking where I shouldn’t.”
Nina stopped in the doorway.
“Hello, beautiful.” Paul van Wagoner stood and wrapped her into a hug. She got up on her toes, but he had ten inches on her with her heels off, and for a moment she thought he’d get carried away and lift her. He bent down nicely, though. His blond hair had grown over his ears. Her fingers ran through it.
Holding on, examining his face, she said, “You hardly resemble a cop these days.”
“Because I haven’t been a cop for a long time now.” He allowed her to move slightly away from him but kept her close, like family, or a dancing partner, or someone in bed, trying to touch as much of her body as he could. “Then again, you never looked like a lawyer.”
She pulled back, releasing his arms, freeing herself from the touch that sometimes felt a little too much like a burning brand. “Is that so? Well, how do you think a lawyer looks?”
“Controlled. Not like you, with that shiny, brown hair like a halo fighting its way out of Hades.”
“Well, now.” Nina regarded Paul. He kept his tall frame muscular these days. He had given up tennis after a knee injury and taken up free weights, which had broadened his shoulders even more and shortened his belt. He looked trim and tan and happy. Nina made a silent vow to go to yoga twice a week from now on.
Sandy said, “He won two hundred bucks on the Wheel of Fortune slots at Crystal Bay last night, so he’s feeling pretty good.”
“A bad moment,” Paul said, smiling. “I won enough so I had to quit. If you lose slowly, you can play all night. Nobody wants to win early. Then you have a moral obligation to try to hang on to it.”
“I wouldn’t mind that problem,” Sandy said. “But Gamblers Anonymous is the biggest social club in this town, and not one I want to join.”
Nina picked up the towel they kept by the door for Hitchcock’s occasional visits and dried her cold toes. “I should have worn my boots.” She told them about her court appearance and suggested lunch.
It felt like every other visit Paul had made to Tahoe, but this time another urgency was between them that she felt in that first touch, a recognition that important matters would have to be dealt with soon.
After some vigorous back-and-forth and reminders of dietary preferences, they all decided on the Driftwood Café past Ski Run Boulevard, past the ski shops and law offices, Paul driving. The remaining snow on the freshly plowed streets had melted under a parade of white-encrusted vehicles and now looked like an oil slick.
A new building complex, keeping the château motif going, sat at the foot of Heavenly Mountain beside the entrance to the Marriott. A lift nearby carried visitors to the lodge at the eight-thousand-foot elevation, for snacks and the view from the broad deck of skiers flying down. The gondola was climbing the mountain just as they drove by on the highway and appeared to have plenty of passengers.
Not long before, South Lake Tahoe had also opened a grand skating rink, a big attraction. But the biggest industry around here after skiing remained gambling, and Nina kept hearing from her clients who dealt cards at the casinos that gamblers were gambling bigger than ever, losing more, and seeking solace in the free booze passed out to good customers. Gambling was like law; there were profits to be made in both happy and unhappy times.
While Paul looked for parking, Nina watched the buildings whirl by in the town she had come to love, enjoying what was new along with the old places, small inns and restaurants that hung in there.
Beyond all the buildings and green trees, the lake lay under the clouds, so much bigger than their cares.
Sandy, in her suede jacket, ten-gallon hat set neatly on her black braid, advised Nina what to order for her, then stopped to chat with a threesome of ladies leaving the café as they walked in. Paul and Nina found a table in back. As always, Paul insisted on sitting with his back to the wall with a clear view of the front door and, when questioned about it, would only refer cryptically to Wild Bill Hickok’s brutal ending. “It’s been a long time,” Paul said.
The waiter came, and they ordered, starting off with shrimp.
“How’ve you been?” Nina asked.
“Consolidating. Pretty good client base right now. Carmel’s hoppin’.”
“That’s not what I meant. Personally.”
“Personally? I’ve been working out a lot, running on the beach, that kind of thing. Recovering from yet another failed relationship.”
Nina was silent. She wanted to know who had replaced Susan but didn’t have the guts to ask outright.
“Give it to me quick now,” Paul said playfully, “anything you don’t want Sandy to note for her novel, before she gets back.”
“What novel?”
“You know. All about a small-town law office?”
The waiter brought their order. Nina speared a shrimp, dunked it in cocktail sauce, ate it, and said, “So that’s what she’s been coming in early to work on. She said she had a project.”
“She has a project all right. She’s gonna pull a Proust on you.”
Across the restaurant, Nina could just make out Sandy’s cowboy hat. “But—she never wrote any fiction before, as far as I know.”
“Even Hemingway had to start someplace.”
Nina put this latest strangeness aside as a puzzle to be dealt with later. “Until Sandy gets back, let’s talk about why you’re here.”
“Fill me in.”
“I’ve told you most of what I know. I’m sorry I didn’t call you before I told Philip Strong I’d take his case. He had a hearing coming up fast and he needed help. The sale is in trouble because of this Brazilian thing, and—”
“You have a conflict of interest, don’t you? Maybe not a legal one, but there’s definite conflict between my interests, our interests you might even say, and the resort.” Paul gave her a knitted-eyebrow look that she couldn’t interpret, then went back to nibbling shrimp.
“If he’s alive, Jim’s actively engaged in ruining his family. If he’s dead, he’s causing harm, too. But here’s the problem. He can’t be alive, can he, Paul? Because you told me he would never threaten us again, and you told Bob you took out the garbage. Bob told Sandy.”
They both searched out Sandy’s cowboy hat with their eyes this time. She was listening to the earnest speech of another woman. She noticed them looking across the crowd and gave a nod. Nina noticed what a handsome nose she had. Some noses can handle cowboy hats; Nina’s nose couldn’t.
“So I indulged in poetic license, honey,” Paul said. “The bit about the garbage pieces. Bob needed reassuring. Tell me it’s okay to stretch the truth with a kid who’s having nightmares.”
She nodded.
“As for Sandy? She can handle the truth. Jim Strong was garbage, garbage who killed a man you loved and went looking to kill you—that’s the truth.”
Nina sipped her ice water, admiring his chin, his clear hazel eyes, his square shoulders. “Where is this garbage, Paul?”
He put his fork down.
“I need to know now.”
“Puts me in a hard place. I wish the evil had been interred with his bones,” Paul said. “Who imagined Jim would turn up again, a vengeful ghost?”
“I wouldn’t demand to know something unless it was necessary.”
Paul watched a couple, smiling, toast each other with red wine at a table near the door. “I can see our future, and it’s not so pretty.” Paul had small laugh lines around his mouth and eyes that at the moment looked more like deep, dark pits. “San Quentin has no indoor pool, I hear, no gym, and a bunch of fellows I’d rather not know better.” He fell silent, then said, “I’d do it again. I fought to save your lives, damn it!”
“My life and Bob’s.” She waited but he didn’t respond. “Now tell me what happened that night.”
* * *
Paul gave himself enough time to imagine himself in prison. He had visited
San Quentin, seen the Northern California oaks and eucalyptus trees leading the way, deceptively alluring, sweet-smelling. Then you got to the prison, and the protocol leading up to a simple visit—well, it stopped just short of an anal search. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
He had also visited Alcatraz when he was a kid growing up in the city. He recalled the clank of the cells when the doors shut, and although nobody lived there anymore, he had no trouble imagining the misery and noise of its inmates, the smells, the hopelessness.
In prison, he would hate his fellow criminals and they would hate him more. His life, with the charms of jogging on the beach, loving a woman in the mountains, feeling the sun, thrilling with the power of his car’s engine—all that would end in such ugliness.
All this because he had killed a man who needed to die. Relying on the law in this case was not an option. The man would have lived on, evading the law as he had always done, protected by an enabling family, a lifelong threat to Nina and Bob.
So here in Paul’s heart, Jim Strong remained alive even in death, a ghost, haunting. He wanted to unburden himself, confess, but he found it hard to trust his instincts in this case. What was right? Killing Jim? Burying him? Confessing? Going to prison for killing a malignant killer?
Paul did not often think of himself in moral terms, but right now, he saw no other option but truth, whatever the cost.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Nina. Taking on knowledge like this is a burden. I’m afraid it may hurt you.”
“I’ve accepted that.”
“Do you consider this information protected by the attorney-client privilege?”
She hesitated.
“I told you there was a conflict. You may need or want to pass this on to Philip Strong sometime. But I want to retain control over the information.”
“I—”
“So right now I’m going to tell you a story I heard about a guy who took out a murderer who tried to kill his own lawyer.
“This guy followed the murderer to your, I mean her, house. He watched the murderer break the lock on her door. She was inside asleep. The men struggled. The murderer had a knife, a long, deadly Bowie knife. He had killed her husband and his own wife. He was almost in.”
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