Case of Lies

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “How long have you been employed at XYC?”

  “Two years full-time. Before that I was a student intern for a summer.”

  “How did your brother come to work there?”

  “He had just been discharged from the Navy. He was in an operation in the Indian Ocean and there was an accident. He was injured. His leg. His face was scarred. He decided to get into security work, and there were openings at XYC. After he started working there, he told me he liked it there and he encouraged me to apply for an internship.”

  “What was your relationship with your brother?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you get along?”

  “Yes. He was very protective of me, but he was the one who needed help. He was always athletic-he was physical-but after he got hurt he changed a lot. I worried about him being able to work. Our parents are dead. We had to make it on our own.”

  “What do you mean, he changed a lot?” Nina said.

  “Well, he felt like a pariah. His leg-the corrective surgery only made it worse. He was very angry.”

  “Did he find out about Elliott Wakefield from you, Carleen?” Nina asked gently.

  “Yes. After I started working at XYC I realized that Wakefield’s work could be extremely valuable. I told Lee about the notebook and how much XYC might pay to have it. He knew I-I was mad at Wakefield. He decided to steal the notebook. But I didn’t know! I didn’t know, Mr. Elias! I swear it! He did it to make money for himself, not because I was angry or-he never told me his plan, and as soon as he told me what happened, I went straight to you, and-”

  “And I believed you, Carleen,” Tom Elias said. “Or you wouldn’t still be with us.”

  “So you had no idea he might try to steal the notebook from Mr. Wakefield?” Nina said.

  “None at all. He only told me afterward, when he got back to Boston. I was horrified. I did some research and found out about Sarah Hanna and confronted him. He swore he didn’t shoot her. I couldn’t get him to admit it. It was all a nightmare. I went to Mr. Elias and told him everything, and my brother disappeared. He knew how to hide, how to fake IDs. I didn’t have one word from him for over a year. Then he called me from Nevada. He was living there, in Reno. He asked me not to tell on him a second time. I saw him a few times. I’d fly out to Nevada and do some gambling and see him. I was worried about him. He just kept obsessing about how his life was ruined and that shooting.”

  “Until a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes. You were fighting the motion to throw out the case. It was in the local paper. Lee kept close track of the Tahoe paper. I decided to fly back and help him figure out what to do, and the first night I was at Tahoe, we saw Wakefield wander into Caesars. I was working a blackjack table and I let him find me, and Lee was watching. After Wakefield left, I had a minute to talk to Lee, and we decided I would go back to Wakefield’s place with him and make sure he wasn’t planning to do anything reckless. But we got into an argument instead. Lee’s impossible. I flew back, but I kept getting his phone calls. He didn’t have anyone else on earth to talk to. I couldn’t give him away again.”

  “And Lee didn’t quit,” Nina said.

  “He was afraid. The police seemed to have reopened their investigation, too. He has a thing about small places. A jail would kill him. And-I don’t know.” She had finally begun to cry. “He went back to Tahoe and tried to stop you. I told him-I couldn’t make him see. After-after the girl died-Chelsi Freeman-I told Lee he was on his own. I told him to stay away from me, not to call. I’m the only one-Lee’s my family-but I couldn’t stand it. I went to Mr. Elias again. I told him everything.”

  “And what did you do about it, Mr. Elias?” Nina asked. Branson started to speak, but Elias held up a hand.

  “Nothing,” he said. “We had fired Flint two years before,” he said, “but we were still worried about liability.”

  “Be quiet, Mr. Elias,” Branson said.

  “Shut up, Mr. Branson, your advice got us into the state we’re in today.” The lawyer sat back in his chair.

  “I didn’t bring in the police,” Elias said. “That will always be on my conscience.”

  “You could have prevented the deaths of two more people, Mr. Elias.”

  “That’s why I’m trying to be generous to those who remain.”

  “It isn’t always about money. Sometimes it’s about justice,” Nina said.

  “Mr. Elias,” Branson said, “we have to cut this off. This isn’t advisable.” The other heads nodded. Dietz, the tough guy, was gnawing on his fingernails.

  “Please take the offer, Ms. Reilly,” Elias said, keeping his eyes on hers. “We’re all doing the best we can.” Carleen had lapsed into quiet weeping.

  “You’re still not going to the police.”

  “We have stockholders. We are innocent bystanders in all this. There is no need for police involvement,” Branson said.

  “Mr. Elias?”

  Elias shrugged.

  “Carleen? Where is your brother?” Nina asked.

  “Don’t answer that,” Branson told her. She was still on the payroll. She closed her mouth. One last tear blinked out of her eye. She was miserable, but not so miserable as to ignore Branson.

  Nina stood up and said, “I need to get back and unfortunately won’t be able to stay for lunch. I’ll talk to Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Hanna.”

  “Talk to them in the hall. You need a cell phone? Use mine,” Branson said. They evidently thought the deal was in the bag.

  Nina said, “Mr. Branson, gentlemen, thank you for inviting me here. I will get back to you. I believe the car’s still waiting downstairs.”

  This time they all shook hands. Elias said, “Nice meeting you, Nina.”

  Branson said, “I’ll take you back down.”

  In the elevator, he stood across from her, staring at her, sweating. It’s hard work, wanting to lay waste to somebody and having to restrain yourself. “How’s it going to go?” he asked as they walked across the polished floor toward the front door of the building.

  Oh, shucks. Live a little. “Badly,” Nina said. It was perhaps an ill-advised word choice. Perhaps she had an overwhelming desire to tie Branson’s balls to a string and toss them onto a telephone wire. It was precisely the wrong thing to say, and she knew it.

  “Look,” Branson said. He grabbed her arm and made her face him.

  “Let go of me!”

  “We had our meeting. Now here’s a message from me. You faked your way this far and we’re willing to let you nick us for the money. But no little bitch is going to stop the flow of events as planned by XYC. You have the wrong lawyer and the wrong company. Flint will go down and we won’t get touched on the way. Wakefield is a psycho and he’ll be stopped one way or the other. Your client Hanna is a lying dickhead trying to make a buck off his dead wife. Take the offer and talk them into it or you’re going to get hurt and your client is gonna wish he was as dead as his wife.

  “Have a good flight,” he said. He squeezed her arm hard and pushed her toward the door.

  30

  THEY FLEW BACK TOWARD THE MOUNTAINS. The pilot was occupied with his radio and his instruments. Nina watched California rise toward the snow and ate her peanut-butter sandwich.

  She had behaved badly, not shown cur-like respect for the amount of money arrayed across the table from her in Palo Alto, and she had a bruise on her left upper arm to show for it. She was lucky Branson hadn’t sunk sharp incisors into her neck. She was lucky they hadn’t pulled the plane and made her take a Greyhound bus home. It was probably just an oversight that she was returning in style.

  Or maybe Elias, the billionaire, had lifted a pinky and said, “Leave her alone.”

  They knew where Flint was, but she knew things about Flint, too-that he was probably at Tahoe. It was too cold to camp, so he was staying at a hotel or motel.

  Sergeant Cheney would catch up with him soon, without XYC. The only question was whether he could catch Flint before Flint h
urt someone else.

  She sighed. In a way Branson was right. She had gone as far as she could with the case, spent all the money she could spare for expenses, sacrificed Bob’s stability… Is it really my fault? she thought. Chelsi? Silke and Raj? This thought affected her deeply and she felt helpless. What should she do now?

  First and foremost, she had a duty to the client to find the person responsible for his wife’s death and to try to recompense him for his loss in the only way the legal system could recompense him, with money. Perhaps there would be moral satisfaction and closure for Dave Hanna, too, when Flint was caught. Perhaps there would even be redemption and rehabilitation, but that would be up to Hanna.

  As for herself, she had a strong need for Flint to be caught to avoid further harm and because of Chelsi.

  So-help catch Flint. The course was still clear.

  Her thoughts turned to Elliott. He hid the notebook, she thought, good for him, he let it out of his sight. She hoped he hadn’t buried it in his garden just before a rainstorm. Elliott, she thought, you’re going to have to give it up, the pressure’s too intense, these Pythagoreans are going to drown you if you don’t let them suppress your discovery.

  This mad insistence on finishing the proof-Nina was more familiar now with the math culture, how mathematicians hid in their garrets for years working alone to finish their proofs. A mathematician named Wiles had kept up this solitary secrecy for seven years while working on his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, so others could not piggyback on his work, finish the proof first, and have their names linked with his work forever.

  In the end, mathematicians seemed to be artists of form and number as surely as Picasso was an artist of form and color. They were sensitive and jealous of their work like artists, too. Pure mathematicians didn’t have much to do with the eventual applications of their work. Look at peaceable Einstein, whose work had helped to split the atom.

  What would Elliott do? Elliott with his damping coefficient, his hidden variable behind the veil…

  Resting in that comfortable seat with the drone of the plane and the secure presence of the pilot in his headphones beside her, Nina felt the fatigue of the last month. She closed her eyes and, as happens sometimes, remembered the piggyback dream, allowed it to come to life within her. Yes, the scary old lady approaching her in the lurid half-light of dreams, scary because she was very ugly, smiling toothlessly. Unstoppable, that was what made her so frightening. She hunched her way toward Nina, who in the way of dreams stood petrified. As she came closer, she began to gesture and Nina tried desperately to understand. She wanted something. What? What?

  A piggyback ride. This time Nina bent down in her dream and let the old lady climb on her back. She was heavy and her arms clung tightly. Nina began crawling on all fours. She felt fine now, like she was getting somewhere…

  Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket and she jumped back into wakefulness. She took it out and saw that Sandy was calling, but the pilot had spotted the phone and shook his head and motioned for her to turn it off, so she couldn’t take the call.

  Ahead she saw the peaks of the ten-thousand-footers that ringed Tahoe. She would visit Sergeant Cheney and spill her guts again. She would call Betty Jo, see how Jimmy Bova was doing. Had she gone with Wish to the Ace High only the night before? It seemed like a century ago.

  They had begun their descent. The great lake shimmered in its bowl.

  What had Bova tried to tell her? Flint wanted him to tell Nina that he didn’t kill that woman. He must have meant Sarah Hanna. Flint had beaten Bova and accused him of killing Sarah Hanna. Just how demented was Flint?

  Flint had said, “Nobody rides piggyback on me.” That was how Nina’s dream had returned to her; the phrase was sitting in the back of her mind, waiting to be processed.

  She let it all turn to a mishmash in her mind and watched the mountains, and two phrases kept going round and round.

  Hidden variable. Ride piggyback.

  The case has a hidden variable, she thought. Can’t figure it out the way I’ve been thinking. Look behind the veil. Ride piggyback.

  Somebody’s piggybacking. The hidden variable is piggybacking. On something.

  “Nobody rides piggyback on me.”

  Meaning… meaning… he had done the robbery, no question of that. Did he mean that someone had piggybacked on the robbery?

  Shot Sarah Hanna, with Flint’s gun? Elliott had been alone with Flint. But why would Elliott shoot Sarah Hanna?

  Someone else? The timing had been so quick.

  The chill spread downward and rooted in hell. If Flint hadn’t shot Sarah, had run, and someone had picked up the gun, then who had killed Chelsi, and Silke, and Raj?

  Who was the hidden variable?

  31

  SANDY AND WISH WAITED AT THE runway. The cold dry air of the mountains filled Nina’s lungs.

  “Sergeant Cheney called. Flint is at Dave Hanna’s house in Placerville.”

  “What?”

  “He’s got Mr. Hanna.”

  No one acted as fast as Flint. Nina blinked back tears. “I can’t stand to lose him, Sandy. Not another death.”

  “He’s still alive, we think. The Placerville police got a 911 from Roger Freeman and surrounded the house. We figured you’d want to get down there.”

  Wish took her briefcase. “I’m driving.”

  They tore over Echo Summit, careened down the winding Highway 50. Nina sat in the back, holding the oh-shit strap in the ceiling, numbly watching the snowbanks turn to patchy white.

  She descended for the second time that day, from winter back to autumn. Sandy had brought the running shoes Nina had kept at the office. Nina pulled off her stockings, put on the shoes, and tossed her jacket to the side.

  A parked police car and a yellow tape across the entry to Hanna’s neighborhood greeted them. “I’m Hanna’s lawyer,” Nina said. The officer made a call and let them through.

  There were a dozen police and sheriff’s-department cars a few hundred feet down, past two empty houses. An ambulance idled in back. Hanna’s picket-fence gate hung crookedly on its hinges. The windows were shut, the blinds drawn.

  Roger Freeman stood with Sergeant Cheney. He was shouting something, gesticulating. “Stay here,” Nina said to Sandy and Wish. Sandy nodded.

  “Roger,” Nina said.

  Roger’s arm came down. “Dave’s a hostage,” he said. “I couldn’t protect him after all.”

  Sergeant Cheney said, “I thought you’d be along.”

  “What happened?” she asked Roger.

  “I came over at two to check on Dave. He usually starts drinking at noon, but he promised me he’d stay sober. He said he could take care of himself. Dave’s got a rifle. We used to hunt together. I thought he’d be okay during the daylight hours. What could I do? He wouldn’t come stay with me.”

  “I should have tried to have him put into protective custody. But Flint moves so fast. I worried, but I didn’t really know he’d go after Dave,” Nina said.

  “The gate was like that, and I knew something was wrong. I called to him from outside. Flint shot at me. I heard Dave shout for help, and that’s the last I’ve heard from him.”

  “I don’t think he meant to hit Roger,” Cheney said. “The shot went wide.”

  “Are you sure there’s nobody else in there?” Nina said.

  “Doesn’t seem to be,” Cheney said.

  “What’s happening now?”

  Cheney said, “Placerville police are trying to make contact. He won’t answer the phone, so they’re going to try a bullhorn.”

  “He’ll kill Dave if he wants to,” Nina said. “He’s a security expert. He’ll know whatever hostage-rescue protocol you use.”

  “If we hear a shot, we’ll rush the house. That’s all we plan to do now. When night comes we can do more. Aerosols and so on. Meantime, he has to see that if he shoots again we’ll rush the house.”

  “You talked to Jimmy Bova last night, Sergeant.”
>
  “Yes. Flint again.”

  “He-Flint-was trying to communicate with me. Did Bova tell you that?”

  “It was just junk talk.”

  “I think he believes he didn’t kill Sarah Hanna. Maybe he’s crazy, but that’s how I understand what he told Bova.” She explained her thinking, but Cheney didn’t look impressed.

  “Then he’s a liar,” he said. “Or delusional.”

  His radio crackled and he stepped away from them.

  Roger slumped against a police car. It was five in the afternoon and the shadows lengthened, leaving the house dark. “I’m going to tell you something. The truth is, I never liked Dave. Not from the first day I met him, hanging on Sarah at the Sacramento County Fair. Now I’m wondering if he wouldn’t stay with me because he knew it all along. Because he’s proud. Then Flint wouldn’t have found him at home.”

  “Stop it, Roger. Flint might have come to your house. You might be a hostage, too.”

  “Dave said he had his rifle. He’s a good shot. We’ve hunted wild boar, wild turkeys, deer together. But he’s a drunk.”

  “You couldn’t prevent it.”

  “What did Flint think he could gain?”

  “It’s a surefire way to end a lawsuit,” Nina said. “Dispose of the plaintiff. It’s no way to end a murder investigation, though. Flint is very violent, Roger. Thank you for checking on Dave and calling the police. I believe he would have been dead hours ago if you hadn’t. Flint would have come and gone.”

  “I don’t know if Dave is alive or dead,” Roger said. He breathed out heavily. “I don’t feel well at all. It’s too much. My daughter.” He slipped to the ground. “I’m so tired,” he said.

  “Do you need a doctor?”

  “Just tired.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Nina ran to the van and asked Wish for help. Together they brought Roger back and laid him down in the back seat, covering him with Wish’s parka. “Rest there,” Nina said. “If you don’t feel better soon, we’ll get you to an ER.”

  Sandy had been standing by. She said, “What now?”

  “It’ll get dark, and they’ll make a move.”