Unfit to Practice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “Just one more thing, Paul. Talk to Mrs. Vang and make sure she and her son are safe, too. She’s co-owner of the store. She’s my client, too. Just do that. Jack wants to talk about all this some more. I’d like to get his thoughts on this before then.”

  “Find the wife.”

  “Sorry, Paul. It sounds difficult-”

  Back in the house he tried to put a happy spin on Nina’s decision. Yes, she would deliver the check just as fast as she could. Maybe even Monday, wasn’t that a happy thought? There was just this one teeny detail, he had to talk briefly with Mrs. Vang-

  Kao hit the roof. He started shouting again and this time Dr. Mai couldn’t calm him down. Walking into Paul’s face, Kao poked his finger in Paul’s chest. Paul stepped back, telling Wish it was time to go, they’d be in touch. In perfect American English, Kao said, “Get out!” and herded them outside, hard fists at the ready. The door slammed, leaving the lot of them behind, the old man, the angry man, and the teenage Venus of Fresno.

  “What now?” Wish said.

  “Food,” Paul said.

  16

  A BOUT FOUR-THIRTY ON THURSDAY, Paul’s second call came in. Driving back from court in the nice clean Bronco, Nina had just passed the Swiss Chalet Restaurant on the left when she heard the ring from the purse lying next to her on the seat. A warm breeze pouring through the open windows made it hard to hear.

  “Last report of the day,” he said. “We’re en route to the coast to get a line on Brandy’s fiancé, Bruce, so I thought I’d give you the finals. First, Cody Stinson has been arrested for the murder of Phoebe Palladino, as I mentioned in my message this morning. Word is Mario Lopez will be released sometime this afternoon. Then there’s the Vang file. Mrs. Vang wasn’t too hard to track down. We met her at a fabric store in the suburbs, where she works. She says she has a new place.”

  Stuck at a red light, Nina said, “New place? She’s not living with her husband?”

  “No, she isn’t. That’s the key to everything. She’s moved out. She looked fine, by the way. No sign anybody was trying to extort from her. She says her kids are safe and well and I believe her.”

  “You got a lot out of her. It sounds like she knows English better than I thought. But something major has happened?”

  “Well, you were right and you were wrong about that. Before we left town, we talked with a chatty neighbor who is not Hmong. Found a few things out. The family has split up, but that doesn’t seem to have any connection with the lost file. It’s the settlement money. Here’s the story. Vang’s beautiful young daughter took up with a gang member by the name of Song Thoj who lived down here in Fresno. The Vangs lived at Tahoe at that time, and he spent a lot of time up there.”

  “The man Kao shot!”

  “That’s right. Kao found out about the relationship and locked up his daughter. The boyfriend couldn’t get to her, so he drove up to Tahoe one night with a gun and shot Kao.”

  “Why didn’t they tell the police?”

  “And ruin the daughter’s reputation? She’s only fifteen. She never could have married. They wanted to save face. That’s how Mrs. Vang explained it to me.”

  “Poor Kao. And his poor daughter.” Green light. She drove on toward the office.

  “So the parents carried on as well as they could, but Kao started packing a weapon. Sure enough, the boyfriend, Song Thoj, came back again to the store with another guy. This time Kao had to kill Song Thoj or be killed.”

  “What was really going on in that store? Who was this second guy we’re hearing about for the first time? They didn’t tell the police about him.”

  “Apparently, they found it useful to claim these were simply attempted robberies. Then the store was burned down, and I have the impression the second robber was suspected, at least by the Vangs, but they refuse to talk about him and so the complete story about what happened remains murky. The store’s burning broke Kao completely. All he wants is to get back to Laos somehow and save his daughter from this den of iniquity. Dr. Mai helped him make the insurance claim to get the ticket money.

  “Meantime, Mrs. Vang has lived here long enough to undergo a revolution in her thinking. Turns out she’s an excellent seamstress. Hmong women are not supposed to work outside the home, but with the Blue Star situation, Kao had to let her. She’s been studying English and made some new friends, particularly a lady from El Salvador who works with her, a big influence. In short, Mrs. Vang doesn’t want to go back to Laos, and furthermore, she doesn’t want her children to go back. She wants her son and daughter to be American.”

  “But Kao-”

  “She says he’s stubborn. He won’t go to the cops for all the reasons mentioned, and he’s paranoid. She loves him but she says she won’t go with him. She says she’ll die if she has to go back to the old life. I have the impression that there is even more in their past-did you know the men often have several wives? I suspect that there may be another wife in Laos. Anyway, there doesn’t seem to be any solution except for the family to split up.”

  “What about their kids?”

  “The final decision hasn’t been made. Dr. Mai and a few of the senior members of the community are trying to mediate that. Mrs. Vang seems sure the kids will remain here.”

  Nina said, “It’s tragic, Paul. It isn’t fair. They have had to go through so much.”

  “One more twist,” Paul said over the phone.

  “The money?”

  “Right. Mrs. Vang didn’t know you had the check and didn’t know Kao was trying to collect the money without her cooperation. She didn’t say much about that, but I could see the information hit her hard. Evidently Kao figures he’s the head of the family, so he’ll take control of the money. Then he’ll pressure his wife into doing what he wants her to do.”

  “But this is America,” Nina said, “and Mrs. Vang owned half their store. Half the money is hers.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Thanks so much for going the extra step, Paul. I never would have forgiven myself.” Nevertheless, Nina felt sad. The family had cracked. The insurance money couldn’t save them as a family. She couldn’t fix that no matter how hard she tried.

  “None of this has anything to do with the file,” Paul insisted. “You had a gut feeling something was wrong and you made me look into it and we prevented a major injustice.”

  Nina pulled into the Starlake lot and turned off the ignition. “I don’t expect to fix all the problems in the world. I just wish I could.”

  “Take a step back,” Paul advised. “One more thing. I also went to the last known address of the boyfriend Vang shot during the second robbery attempt. It’s a dump under a freeway overpass. I was looking for information on the second robber. The people who live there now are from Alabama and never heard of the kid or his family. I think, since you knew nothing about a second robber, whoever has your file doesn’t know either, so there’s been no contact. I don’t think we need to worry that there’s danger coming from that quarter, and I couldn’t do any more on it today. We have two other files demanding attention, so I quit for now. Is that okay?”

  Holding the phone to her ear, Nina walked into her building. She waved at the real-estate ladies in their office, walking all the way to the other end of the hall to her office, thinking: Was this new information enough to appease her gut-level worry about this case? How far could she go? She now understood Kao Vang’s demand for immediate payment. She didn’t like hearing that there was another loose end, a second robber even the police didn’t know about-but this could go on forever.

  She was satisfied that the Vangs were safe and unthreatened. Her duty now was to give them their money and provide them that resource as they flailed around trying to solve their other family problems.

  “Go on down to Palo Alto and turn that eagle eye to the campground case,” she said. “I’ll tear up the joint check and issue two separate checks, half and half, from my trust account, then have a courier deliver them to Mr. and Mrs. Va
ng separately on Monday. I just want more time to let things settle in my own mind. They’ll get their money. We can’t get involved any further. It’s already Thursday, so first day of business next week.”

  “Good plan,” he said.

  He knew she was delaying, but that was her choice. The jerky, sudden twists and turns of the case continued to make her apprehensive. She needed to sit on the information for the weekend and didn’t want to rush into something she would regret.

  “Vang won’t be happy to be outfoxed by you and the wife.”

  “Tough,” Nina said. “I understand. He’s been hurt. He feels the money is his because of his injury. He’s the father of the girl who precipitated all the problems and the head of the family. But the money can’t make up for all that. The money is for the business, which Mrs. Vang put her toil into, too. So we do this our way. Give me Mrs. Vang’s address.”

  He did.

  “Now, there’s a final issue. Who took the files.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you think, after you visit Palo Alto on the campground case, and after you interview Ali Peck up here on the Cruz case, that you could zero in on which of our three favorite people had means and motive, et cetera?”

  “You mean Lisa Cruz, Jean Scholl, and Riesner. You want alibis for the night the Bronco was stolen?”

  “We’ve been stamping out wildfires all over,” Nina said. “But overall is this burning smell from the big question we haven’t had time to address.”

  “I’ll hang on to the hose until I keel over.”

  Nina heard the fatigue in his voice. “I’m sorry to ask so much,” she said. “But nobody ever said I was easy, even back in the days when I was.”

  He laughed and she hung up, opening the door from the hall to to the outer office. No clients awaited.

  Sandy, bent way over in her chair, filing, sat up when she heard the door. “Good,” she said. “Mountain of messages on your desk.”

  “Anything important?”

  “Well, Jack called twice. He said call him back.”

  Nina closeted herself and answered the other messages. She wrote out two Vang checks while Sandy got ready to go. At just after five, Sandy appeared at the door, saying, “So long.”

  “Have a good night, Sandy.”

  “Don’t be takin’ any files home, now.”

  After Sandy left, Nina picked up the phone message from Jack, put it down and started to get up and leave, sat down, and picked it up again. She wasn’t sure she liked Jack’s sudden devotion. He called her almost every day now with thoughts, advice, and reprovals. She had latched on to him in the first moments of panic, and she was grateful that he had been available and willing to help, but…

  Putting her feet up on the desk, she thought about the three cases. The Vangs were under control. Brandy and Angel were safe and Stinson had been caught, although Paul still needed to find out where Bruce Ford had gone. That left Kevin Cruz, the desperate cop she couldn’t represent anymore. She had cleaned up the harm as well as she could. She could do nothing more for him.

  She flashed to the moment when he had grabbed her, to her disgust at his touch and the nascent fear she now felt. What he had done was an incomplete gesture, so fraught, like an obscene promise that must be kept. Why had Kevin gone so far? He didn’t need her comfort as much as he needed her skills as a lawyer. He knew that. Then why? She searched but could not find a reason why. She didn’t feel able to tell anyone about Kevin. Paul would overreact. Kevin was her client and she couldn’t turn on him for one very bad move, go to the police or something. He was already in so much trouble.

  She hugged herself, remembering. He could have hurt me, she thought. Then she topped that thought: It’s not over with Kevin.

  She called Jack. Predictably, he was still at his office. She imagined him on a high floor of the Transamerica Pyramid, at a wide mahogany desk, an Italian lamp’s hot halogen rays broiling his Harvard blotter.

  “I’m just checking in,” Jack said. “What happened with Taylor and Vang?” The depth of his interest extended beyond his casual words. “Did Paul find everyone?”

  “Vang is under control,” she told him, and explained, then went on to tell him what had happened at the women’s shelter with Cody Stinson.

  “Paul could have handled that better,” Jack said. “Should have held on to the guy at the Hilltop and called the cops.”

  She knew Paul wasn’t happy with the way things had gotten away from him either. “So easy to second-guess people, isn’t it?” she said.

  He laughed. “No need to defend him, honbun. He’s capable of a mean left hook if I get too rough with him.”

  She couldn’t believe he had resurrected the hated nickname of their married days. Through her teeth, she said, “As for the Cruz file, Paul plans to interview Ali Peck tomorrow to try to find out how the secret came out. Kevin’s asked her but I need Paul to cover that ground again.”

  Jack asked more concise questions and Nina responded concisely.

  “You still have no idea who took the files?” he said.

  “For purposes of discussion, we’ve narrowed it down to three potentials, Jeffrey Riesner, Jean Scholl, and Lisa Cruz, but you know, Jack, I have stepped on many toes up here. It could be someone I can’t imagine.”

  “Are you putting Paul to work on it?”

  “I think-I hope the damage is already done when it comes to those files. But I would like to know. So, yes, within limits.”

  “The police aren’t moving on it?”

  “They figure getting the Bronco back is all they can do,” Nina said. “The files have no tangible value and I couldn’t explain why I was so worried.” She told him some more about Officer Jean Scholl and their problematic relationship, but fended off Jack’s offer to get emphatic with the local police.

  “You sure you have enough help? I mean Paul is good, no question, but Wish, he’s not a trained investigator-”

  “He doesn’t work independently. Paul supervises. And Wish is a friend.”

  “Loyal, honest, idealistic,” Jack said. “When will you grow up and get with the dead dust of this cynical, postapocalyptic world, girl?”

  “The day I get cynical is the day I know I’m done. No offense.”

  “None taken. I think it’s essential to be a cynical bastard in this profession, but that’s just me. No, actually, I want to say this. I’ve always been so impressed by you as an attorney, Nina.”

  “But not as a human being?” she asked, unable to resist the provocation.

  “Well,” he said, “now that you mention it, there was that kid plumber. That definitely colors my perception of you. You half-dressed on the couch, legs spread. Him on top.”

  So he had materialized at last, the bugaboo plumber of Bernal Heights, the invisible man that stood motionless between them, undiscussed and misunderstood. “You know, Jack, we should have had this conversation a long time ago. I can’t believe you still hold that guy against me. We were kissing. My legs were not spread. We never even-”

  “You only stopped because I showed up and scared him off. That stupid earring he wore. You ten years older than him.”

  The disgust in his voice drove away all her pretense of composure. Her voice rose. “So? What about the fact that you were sleeping with another woman at the time? Huh? I mean, talk about lonely. I was in hell, and I never knew why. I couldn’t think what I’d done wrong, except maybe work too hard.”

  “People ought to restrain themselves, under the circumstances. Maybe you could have talked to me. We were still new together, only two years into it. Maybe our marriage was salvageable at that point, if you hadn’t-”

  “You cheated. You lied. You blamed me for everything that went wrong-”

  “Nina,” he said softly, “did you ever love me? Did you ever really love me?”

  The question brought her up short. She couldn’t think of an answer. She had married Jack for a million reasons: his sense of humor, his passion for his wor
k, his devotion to her and Bob. They had such fun fantasizing a life together in San Francisco.

  Bob needed a father.

  She needed someone.

  “Yes, I loved you. But you made me so lonely.”

  “I was lonely, too,” he said. “What a shame neither one of us had the guts to deal with the problem without all that drama.”

  Emotion swept over her. “Worse than that. It was melodrama.”

  “We both screwed up,” he said.

  Admitting her role in the breakup was hard. The time had come to make peace. Maybe she knew from the first time she set eyes on Jack again they would arrive at this moment, the chance to nail down the coffin lid on their marriage. “Yes,” she said finally, “we both screwed up.”

  “I regretted it right away, you know. I married her, and I knew it was a mistake from day one. I wish you and I had tried harder.”

  Did she regret the end of her two years of marriage to Jack? The answer came quickly. Not anymore. If she had stayed with Jack, she would never have married a man she had loved with all her heart. After his death, she would never have found her way back to Paul.

  “While we were drinking margaritas at Big Sur,” Jack continued, “I had a fantasy that you and I might fall into each other’s arms again.”

  “Then you saw me and thought again,” she teased, ready to lighten up.

  “I saw you and I saw him. I saw the whole damn thing.”

  “Jack, I’m sorry about the way it ended.”

  “Me, too, Nina-Pinta. Me, too.”

  Papers shuffled over the phone on his end as she closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

  “So,” he said, in one of those rapid turnarounds that made him so successful in his work, “moving on.”

  “Oh, sure. Of course. We have work to do.”

  “What were we talking about?” he asked thoughtfully. “Oh, yes. Your abilities as an attorney. To go on, I’m sorry you’re running into the usual snags, and I know you won’t let it get you down. ’Cause you’re one of the good ones, Nina. Destined to debate. Well-intentioned. The old-fashioned, go-for-real-justice kind of person our profession needs. Unlike me.”