"Doesn’t matter," he said. "But, my God, wouldn’t you want to know?"
"Not necessarily." There were many reasons for Michelle to decide the baby’s father should not be known.
"Ms. Reilly, you have very great influence in Michelle’s life right now. You can choose not to believe me, and Michelle will probably not see me again. Please believe me. I mean you and Michelle no harm. I didn’t tell anyone about your trip."
"I’ll give it some thought," Nina said. "Tell me about Peter La Russa."
Rossmoor seemed confused by her sudden change of subject. "I’m not sure—"
"I heard he was fired."
"He was fired. He retained an attorney in Carson City. We’re talking. We don’t want publicity about the card counting. We were supposed to report it. We didn’t."
"That’s of no interest to me," Nina said. "What I want to know is, did he kill Anthony Patterson? Did he receive his share of the profits? He needed the money."
"I know he needed money. I know he was involved. I’ll try to check further for you," Rossmoor said.
"You do that," Nina said. "I’m going to let Michelle make up her own mind about you. But if anything happens to her, anything close to you, I’ll find you and I’ll nail you, Mr. Rossmoor."
"Fair enough," Rossmoor said. "But I ask you to remember this: If you make any more stupid mistakes in Michelle’s criminal defense, I’m going to see to it that she retains an outstanding and experienced criminal counsel, and you are going to be finished in this town."
Then he walked out.
Nina didn’t have to call Anthony’s ex-wife to set up an appointment. Sharon Otis herself called the office and spoke with Sandy about a time she could meet Nina in Reno.
"Did she say why?" Nina asked Sandy when she saw the appointment in her book.
"She said she wanted to make a deal with you," Sandy said. "No details."
"All right. Don’t plan on seeing me tomorrow."
Nina drove her new Bronco. She wished Paul were with her, just to have a reassuring figure next to her on the seat. She kept looking through her rearview mirror, checking out the cars. At one point, going over Spooner Pass, she was sure she was being followed. An old blue Chevy stayed a couple of cars behind all the way down the mountain, through Carson City and into Reno. But she lost sight of it in the city traffic.
Paranoid fantasy? She looked over her shoulder all the time now.
Sharon Otis Honda sat on a good commercial corner on South Virginia, between two auto dealers and not far from the University of Nevada campus, providing an alternative to cars for people who fancied themselves invulnerable to the high desert heat and snow. Instead of neat rows of Preludes and Accords, the cement drive was filled with motorcycles, Hondas, Kawasakis, and a few Harleys.
In back by the offices, her sales force, all young men, patrolled the lot. Sharon apparently liked her employees beefy and long-haired. Two of them turned to watch Nina work her way past the bikes. She had an impression as she hurried along of piranhas massing for a strike, but no one caught up with her by the time she turned into the main office.
She wasn’t sure why she was there, or what Al’s wife could possibly say that would change the depressing facts.
Sharon Otis opened the door. Her fringed black leather jacket had seen some action, and her hair was big. Under the hair her face was small, hard, and thin, her eyes encircled in black. Lines around her eyes put her at about forty, with some tough years behind her. She went around a utilitarian desk and sat down, her hands behind her head, clearly the boss. "Take a load off," she said.
A metal folding chair sat in front of the desk. Nina took it, noting no shelves, just a big table covered with paperwork, a phone, and a computer. A fifties’ table radio played Garth Brooks. Posters of brightly chromed motorcycles and a rather frightening rear view of a male Italian bodybuilder in a G-string decorated the dingy wall. A job ad for a motorcycle salesperson was Scotch-taped to the desk. LONG HOURS, Low PAY, MEAN BOSS said the ad.
"So you’re Misty’s lawyer. I hate lawyers."
"Then why am I here?"
"I have something to tell you, maybe. Want some coffee?"
The coffeemaker on the desk showed a half cup of what might have been coffee yesterday. "No, thanks. Let’s get on with it."
Sharon Otis’s line buzzed. "No. Tell him he has to put five hundred down or get a cosigner. Best we can do. Don’t pass me any calls for a while, okay, Gene?" She talked, waving her hands, while Nina stared in horrified fascination at the woman’s nails, an inch long, deep red, weapons of war.
"So, okay, here it is, Counselor. You met Al. He’s a babe in the woods, a genius at cards and no damn good at anything else. He told you about the setup at Prize’s. You gave him the report; so, okay, he can’t go there anymore. But they’re coming after him now. The Nevada Gaming Commission paid us a visit yesterday. La Russa went to them with his story. I guess Prize’s didn’t offer enough to shut him up. Anyway, they want Al to talk about La Russa and Anthony. That could be dangerous to his health, you know what I’m sayin’? The clubs already hate him. Add a fink reputation and he won’t be safe anywhere."
She reached for a cigarette, which she stuck unlit between her lips. "These state guys are leaning hard on him. They’re telling him, either he helps nail Prize’s or they arrest him for conspiracy."
"He ought to move on, to the Bahamas or something, if he wants to play blackjack," Nina said. "Everybody knows him now anyway."
"He really likes it here. Can you believe it? That tin can we live in. He’s quitting. He’s retiring. He’s got enough socked away and he’s fifty-five, he wants to write up his memoirs. But first he has to get rid of this hassle." She inserted a nail into her hair and scratched thoughtfully. "We figure you could handle it. Get the point across to the State of Nevada that Al can’t help and they should leave him alone."
Sharon the loyal wife? Nina could go along with that, but she had a feeling Sharon Otis wanted more.
"Is that Al’s only legal problem?" she asked.
"Al? Yeah, he’s clean otherwise. But I have a problem or two."
"And you want me to represent you too?"
"Lawyers cost a lot. I don’t want Al to find out about all my business. He doesn’t need the stress. He has high blood pressure. You help me out, I’ll fix you on your case."
"What kind of problems are we talking about?"
"Some grand larceny, some drugs. Major bad guys are mad at me right now. So, are you in?"
"I’m thinking. While I’m thinking, tell me about your marriage to Anthony," Nina said.
"Married to him for about six months in Fresno eight years ago. He was a hot-blooded dude, no mistake, cop to the max. Left him first time he laid a hand on me. Don’t get me wrong, he never had a chance to beat me. But you know, we had a lot in common." She laughed. "That’s why we got married. And that’s how we got involved later. ’Cause he worked at Prize’s and I knew he’d go for a deal."
"How long have you been married to Al?" Nina said.
"Two years," Sharon Otis said. "I sold a little meth about five years ago. In Nevada, that means a year in the women’s pen. A very bad year. Al picked me up hustlin’ downtown at the Glass Slipper. He took me back to the trailer and I’ve been there ever since. He set me up here and gave me a half interest in the business. He gives me space, he doesn’t give a damn when I ride my new bike with the club...."
"Your new Harley?"
"Business is good," Sharon said, tapping the cigarette on the desk.
"You ride one," Nina said, "but you don’t wear the wings."
Sharon looked down at her jacket. "Oh, you mean my pretty silver Harley wings. Al told me you had them."
"In a police evidence storage locker at South Lake Tahoe. Found right outside the bedroom at Anthony’s house. When were you there?"
"The answer to that question is your retainer when you agree to represent Al and me, Counselor." Sharon smiled. Red lips, a flash o
f gold in her mouth. A real rough rider.
"Let me make sure I understand. You want me to perform legal services for you, and in exchange, you will give me some information that you say will help my client. Look, Ms. Otis—"
"Missus," Sharon Otis said. "It’ll pop the DA’s case like a bullet in a bald tire."
"You need a Nevada attorney. I only have a California license. I don’t know the Nevada gaming or criminal laws. It’s not that I don’t want to help, it’s a question of competence."
"Okay, you bring in the Nevada mouthpiece and cover the cost, make sure he handles it right."
"I can’t pay you for providing information. It would make your information valueless, and it would violate legal ethics."
"Far be it ..." was all Sharon Otis said. "But I really have no particular reason to tell you anything, otherwise. This may surprise you, but no matter what your client has told you, Anthony was a good guy. He’d had a rocky life, like me, took it in the gut a few times. When he met Misty, he still had it in him to love her, deep, deeper than I’ll ever get. And she took away every shred of dignity he had left. Pisses me off. I ain’t helpin’ her for nothin’."
"Maybe you don’t know nothin’," Nina said.
"Maybe you’re full of it," Sharon said. "Let me try again with you. Maybe I went to see my ex-husband while little Misty was at work. Maybe we talked money and a few other things. Maybe Misty came home and walked through the front door while I was moving out the back. Maybe I stuck around and saw something very, very interesting. Something that will clear the little brat, not that she deserves my help."
She shrugged. "You’re not the only one I’ve talked to. But I’d rather give you the exclusive, ’cause you can do more for me." The phone buzzed again. She ignored it. "So you better decide quick, Counselor."
"I advise you to tell me now Obstruction of justice is a crime "
"Listen, you want me to help you, you help us only do favors when I get favors in return " She finally lit the cigarette She leaned her head back and opened her mouth with an odd little pop Out floated a series of perfect smoke rings. Nina didn’t know anyone could do that anymore
"Mrs Otis, it’s dangerous to withhold information about a crime," Nina said.
"Ooh, you’re scarin’ me Call me when you decide " Sharon got up, giving Nina her card, trailing the odor of hair spray and smoke through the room. She picked up a gold-glittered, lacquered helmet off the table with the name Sharon emblazoned in flame lettering on the way out When she saw Nina looking at it, she tucked her hair underneath, saying, "I’ve been in trouble too much to get picked up in California for some jack-shit violation of the helmet laws "
"Tell Gene to lock up, baby cakes," she sang to a salesman as they walked out to the bikes, then she swung up into the saddle of a black-and-purple Harley Sportster She pulled goggles out of the saddlebag, kicked the kick-starter a few times, and the machine roared to life "Take it easy, Counselor," she called to Nina, working the throttle a little She gunned it and roared out the driveway, then quickly pulled over a few feet down the street
"Hey! Counselor! C’mere!"
Nina walked over, admiring her style, the way her slim legs straddled the bike, the wrist tattoo, the way she acted like she owned the road The traffic whizzed by the Harley at the curb Sharon seemed to pay no attention "I’ll give you a clue, so you know I’m not kidding," she said, still working the throttle "Check the brand of ciggies in Anthony’s pocket, if you can Virginia Slims He had to borrow mine "
Nina knew it was no accident, because she was turning back toward the lot and saw the car hurtling up the road, veering toward the sidewalk and the Harley and the two of them, speeding up even more as she dove for cover into the bushes, crashing with terrific force into the Harley from behind.
Time stopped after the crash, and the small figure in the gold helmet flew up and slammed into another moving car. Even on hands and knees from the bushes Nina could see the blood leaking out of the helmet as Sharon Otis slid slowly to the curb. Then Nina was scrambling, shouting, and a crowd was gathering. The car backed away from the bike and tore off, its muddy license plate illegible.
An old Chevy with fins. Was it the one that had been behind her? Sharon Otis lay bleeding in the road, her shiny Harley a few feet away as spattered and torn as she was, spectators blocking out her blue sky, one praying, a lone child crying. She died before the ambulance shrieked around the corner.
20
AT FOUR O’CLOCK on the day after Sharon Otis’s death, Nina found Collier Hallowell chatting with the county clerks in their big second-floor office across from Judge Milne’s courtroom. "Could we talk in the law library?" Nina asked. Piling a load of papers into his arms, he followed her next door. In the small library, empty except for them, they looked out the windows toward the new community college campus across Al Tahoe and the cumulating clouds.
The room’s incandescents glowed in a feeble protection against swiftly descending blackness. Windowpanes rattled and trees writhed in the gale winds outside. Nina was tired. Her night had been haunted by the small figure in the golden helmet slamming with bone-crunching force into the car windshield, over and over. "Sharon Otis," she said. "She was murdered."
"Go ahead," Collier replied. His thoughtful face showed the strains of the day. He had already spent several hours at his desk, she knew, lining up witnesses, and several hours in court, and he had probably missed lunch.
"Do you know who I’m talking about?"
"Sharon Otis," Collier said. "Hit and run during rush hour last night on Reno’s busiest boulevard. Anthony Patterson’s ex-wife, ex-inmate at Carson City Women’s Correctional Center, ex-hooker and meth addict, wife of a card sharp, suspected current meth dealer.... Yeah, I know."
"I saw it," Nina said.
"I heard. Was it bad?"
"I had just finished talking to her. She was going to provide me with important exculpatory evidence in the Patterson case. She told me she was at the Keys place and saw something. We were standing together at the curb. I saw the car coming, but she couldn’t see behind her. She never had a chance. I told the Reno police everything."
"What did she see?"
"I don’t know. She insisted I do some legal work or pay her off before she would tell me."
"She said specifically she was there?"
"She said maybe she was there. She played with me."
"Why would she be there?"
"I can’t go into any details of the defense that you don’t have to know now," Nina said. "You understand my position."
"Well, but you have to understand mine, too, Nina. Think about it. Sharon Otis had plenty of enemies. Hard-driving boss who cut deals off the back of her bike."
"She was Patterson’s ex-wife. She was still friendly with him. They did some business together."
"If she was killed so she wouldn’t tell you something," Collier went on inexorably, "why was she killed after she talked to you, not before?"
"Maybe the car was aimed at me, not her."
"I see."
"It could have been the same car that pushed me off the road with my client in May."
"Can you swear it was the same car?"
Nina didn’t answer.
Collier spread working hands with square fingers and calluses. "Suggestive, but I don’t understand what you want from me."
"I want the name of the person that told you about Dr. Cervenka. I want protection for myself and Michelle Patterson. I want you to reopen the investigation."
The storm struck.
Collier’s teeth gleamed in the flash of lightning, disappeared, and showed again as a second bolt slashed through the trees. All of Tahoe, whipped first by wind, now beaten by rain, ran for cover.
"Makes me feel small," he said loudly, his words fighting the thunder. "Scares me. I want to go home, batten down the hatches. This work I do, the files, the people, the whole thing, doesn’t seem important when the sky is falling."
She understoo
d what he felt perfectly. "We’re so exposed up so high in the mountains," said Nina. Matt and Andrea would be scurrying to bring in the patio mats and settling the kids in front of a fire. She wished she could be there. She wished Bobby were back from Jack’s. "The weather. The people. It’s so raw." She turned to look at him. "How do you handle all the suffering you see?"
"Bad things happen, sometimes to people I’ve tried to protect. I lost a witness a year ago. I almost quit. Dangerous people stay out in the streets. Things happen that would tear me apart if I let them."
"By all accounts you’re the best, Collier," she said.
"I’ll call the Fresno police and ask them to watch out for your client, Nina. I’ll send patrol cars by your office and home. Here’s my home phone number. Call me if you need me, and I’ll be there. But—"
"I won’t make you promise everything will be all right. I know I have to look out for myself. Thanks."
"You could just drop the case, Nina. You could go back to appellate work, writing those fine briefs you write."
"Run scared, you mean," she said. "Believe me, I think about that whenever it’s dark outside. At this point sometimes I wish I’d never met Michelle Patterson. But she depends on me. She needs me. She’s so vulnerable. You know she’s going to have a baby?"
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
"Collier. Tell me the name of your informant."
"I already checked," he said. "The informant was sixty miles away from Reno when Sharon Otis was killed. That information is reliable. You can trust me on this."
"But—"
He held up his hand. "Wait. We never know enough to protect ourselves completely. The person who told us about Dr. Cervenka, who you think might have attempted to enter your client’s room at the Lucky Chip, who you think ran you off the road, is not the person who killed Sharon Otis. She could have been killed for some reason totally unrelated to this case. The same is true for all these events.
"Maybe Michelle Patterson’s burglar was a late-night drunk who thought he was locked out of his room," he went on. "It happens. Maybe the car that ran you off the road was another jerk driver who went too far. You said in your report that the car behind you blinked its headlights. Assassin or road hog?"
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