The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday

by David Corbett

  “I read the report,” Preston said. “But try to understand. There’s just too much he-said-she- said for me to move forward. Judge Littmann maintains you came here to shake him down. That’s also a crime, you know.”

  “You’ve talked to him already?”

  “Miss Balamaro—am I saying that right?”

  “I demand those letters back,” Lisa said. “And, really, shake him down?”

  “He says those letters are worthless. And that you know it.”

  “If they’re worthless, why offer five-hundred—”

  “And he says Ms. Vargas here was perfectly fine when she left the Whetstone.”

  “That’s a blatant goddamn lie.”

  Ever so slightly, the lawman flinched at Lisa’s cursing. “All the men who were there back him up.”

  “Ah, the men, yes. Men you know, I assume.”

  Preston leaned forward, elbows on the table, and narrowed his gaze into hers. Spreading his hands, as though to reveal the big ball of nothing they held: “Something happened, I’ll grant you that, but I have two credible and irreconcilable versions of just what that was. I book one of you, I gotta book you all. And where does that leave us?”

  Lisa sat back, arms crossed. “You know, he told me this would happen. Judge Littmann, I mean.”

  Preston gathered his hat, rose from his chair. “I got called away from a crime scene for this. Three illegals, one just a girl, burned up in a fire at a safe house just outside Gleeson. Coroner’s people were waiting for the cinders to cool so they could go on in, bag up the dead, when I got the call to come here, sit with you all.” For the first time, he looked squarely at Rayella. “Time I got back out there. Now I really do wish I could help you. But honestly? I think your best bet is civil court.”

  ***

  They drove back to Tucson, gazing out through the bug-smeared windshield in silence, just a brief discussion of the plan from that point on, such as it was. For the most part, Rayella said nothing, squinting into the sunset as the car sped west along I-10, the highway a blade of asphalt carving the relentless desert in two.

  Lisa booked two rooms at a resort spa in the Catalina foothills on the northeast corner of the city, figuring Rayella could use a little pampering given what she’d been through. She seemed to be bearing up okay but those eyes of hers, normally so raw and availing, apparently made a pact with her tongue to keep everyone out, reveal nothing.

  The resort grounds—trellised bougainvillea and potted bird of paradise, manicured beds of violet pasque flowers and California poppy—passed in a leaden blur as they trudged toward their rooms.

  Lisa said, “Look, I mean it, anything you want—dinner in bed, facial, full massage—it’s on my card.”

  Rayella nodded then vanished into her room, the immediate slam of the deadbolt making it clear what she wanted was to feel safe, nothing more.

  ***

  In her own room, alone for the first time in hours, Lisa stripped off her clothes and stepped beneath a scalding hot shower, trying to scrub off the shame.

  She’d only brought the one suit to wear, expecting to return home that night, so had nothing else but the terrycloth robe on the wall hook, a resort perk, to change into as she brushed her wet hair, then rinsed out her blouse, pitted and rank from nervous sweat. After hanging it up on the shower rod to dry, she repeated the routine with her undies. If they were still wet come morning, she’d hit them with the hairdryer. She’d done it before.

  Barefoot, naked beneath the thick white robe, she ironed her skirt and jacket, to make sure she didn’t look like some vagabond when she had to face the world again.

  Finally, all these minor tasks done, she geared herself up for the thing she’d been dreading most. The phone felt like a lead pipe in her hand as she hit speed dial. Four trilling rings in the static hiss. Then the crackling snap of the connection.

  “Hey, Leezle-Diesel! Wondered when you’d call. So how’d it go?”

  Feathery tremble of her hand against her lips, trying to hold it all in.

  “Oh, Nico,” she whispered. “I screwed up so bad.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Once Lisa explained the full extent of the debacle, Nico told her to fire up her laptop. They’d hammer out strategy over the phone.

  “Given what I’ve heard so far, you want nothing to do with the local courts.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. Extra points for understatement.”

  Phone tucked in her shoulder, she poured herself a tall glass of ice water, picturing Nico at the other end, sipping a Napa pinot blanc, dressed in frumpy sweats with holes at the knees, a T-shirt from some up-and-coming indie band he represented. The ponytail, the soul patch.

  “You can sue in federal court as long as the tortious act took place in the district where you’re filing.”

  “Tucson governs all of southwest Arizona. I already checked.”

  “You’ll base your argument on diversity jurisdiction—defendants are Arizona citizens, but the plaintiff resides in California.”

  “For a second there, I could’ve sworn you said ‘perversity jurisdiction.’”

  “It’s probably what I meant.”

  “I’ve checked the local rules, and it looks like I need to file a formal pro hac vice application, show my license is in good standing, blah, blah, blah, and it can take up to three days before—”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ve had the thing granted when I just showed up with my bar card. Given what happened here, the risk of damage to personal property, and the fact you’re seeking emergency relief, I can’t imagine that won’t get waived.”

  Assuming I’m lucky, she thought. It seemed like a very long time since she’d felt a favorable wind at her back.

  “If you haven’t done it already, you need to draft an ex parte application for injunctive relief, keep these yahoos from destroying the letters, selling them to someone else, whatever.”

  “That was the first thing I thought of. Yeah. Threat of immediate and irreparable loss or damage. It’s pretty much done.”

  “Good. Great. You included a request for an escrow holder pending trial?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Don’t get defensive, she told herself. He’s not browbeating you.

  “Okay, getting back to the complaint, jurisdiction, you’ll need to argue the amount in controversy exceeds seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  She swallowed what felt like a thumb. “Between you and me? I have no clue what those letters are really worth.”

  “Get Hunk—I’m sorry, Tuck—get him to give you an affidavit based on his ‘expert knowledge of historical artifacts’ or whatever.”

  “We’ve been thinking it would be best to keep him out of this, given his background.”

  “Well, think again. If you don’t bring him forward, they will.”

  She remembered Littmann’s parting remark—‘You let Tuck Mercer know…We’re nowhere close to even’—still no clue what he meant. “Right. Of course.”

  “Remember, you’re not just seeking the return of the letters, you’re seeking damages—not legal fees, they’re barred—but travel costs, airfare, car rental, include the hotel you’re at right now, any—”

  “Wait—I can’t claim damages add to the value of the letters.”

  “That’s not the issue. The value of the letters is only part of the amount in controversy. Damages is the rest. Including the cost of any medical treatment your client needs.”

  “She didn’t want any. Made it sound like it’s not the first time she’s been hit.”

  “You may want to talk her out of that attitude. A blow to the head’s no joke.”

  Lisa felt her heart sink a little more. “Will do.”

  “There’s also an intangible property issue, based on what’s in the letters. This is where you can pump up the intrinsic value of the letters themselves. The merger doctrine allows you to incorporate historical value, emotional value. More important, potential commercial value—the rights if they become the basis for
a book, movie, TV series. Might be your strongest argument, especially if anything happens to the letters.”

  She gathered the robe more tightly around her, morbidly picturing one or two candidates for the anything that could happen.

  “The letters were a gift from the client’s—”

  “Rayella’s.”

  “—grandmother. Okay, Rayella, fine. Sorry. There’s your emotional value. And the historical value’s obvious.”

  “Even if they’re fake?”

  “I seem to recall a certain someone mentioning a brilliant astronomer who got hornswoggled into paying good money for letters written by Mary Magdalene in French.”

  “That’s market value. People will buy anything.”

  “If market value’s not relevant, what is?”

  “I’ve got to prove this up before a judge. Not some motivated Frenchman.”

  “Let me tell you a story.”

  In the background, she heard the opening of the fridge, the quick squeal and pop of a cork on an already opened bottle, the familiar glug of a filling glass. It awoke within her a deep nostalgic longing etched with terror. The old days. The previous her. Always there, always waiting for the chance—

  “I read about this just today online,” he said, the thud of the closing fridge door for punctuation. “Your situation made me curious.”

  Situation, she thought. The word every girl longs to hear.

  “Back in the eighteenth century, a man named James McPherson produced a manuscript in old Scottish Gaelic. He identified it as the work of an ancient Celtic bard who called himself Ossian, which is a variant of Oisín, the name of a legendary soldier-poet and the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill.”

  At the sound of the name, she unwittingly flinched, for it called to mind the hotel owner, Phin. The bitterness of the memory only intensified with the hip-sounding surname, which struck her ear as “McCool.”

  “For whatever reason,” Nico went on, “the Celtic Britons left behind hardly any archeological evidence of their existence. There were oral stories transcribed by monks but nothing original. And so The Poems of Ossian caused quite a stir. Helped launch the Romantic Movement, took the blame for a few revolutions, too. Got translated into dozens of languages—Goethe did the job in German himself. Napoleon commissioned Ingres to paint The Dream of Ossian for the Quirinal Palace in Rome, but the Pope found it a little too salaciously pagan.”

  “I love that word,” Lisa said. “Salacious, I mean. Pagan’s not half bad either.” Her thoughts were drifting. She doubted she’d ever felt more tired.

  “Anyway, not everyone fell for the whole Ossian thing. Samuel Johnson came right out and called McPherson a fraud. People argued back and forth for about fifty years, but that didn’t keep writers from gushing about it—or imitating it. Not hacks, either. Blake, Thoreau, Byron. James Fennimore Cooper claimed he wasn’t influenced by it, but apparently he’s as lousy a liar as he is a novelist.”

  “I kinda liked The Last of the Mohicans.”

  “The book?”

  “Okay, no. Got me. I thought the movie was pretty okay. Nice love story.”

  Silence.

  “Back to Ossian?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms all wrote music inspired by the thing. German and Scandinavian royalty named their sons Oskar, after one of the heroes in the story. Oscar Wilde, same deal. Even Selma, Alabama—”

  “I get it,” she said. “The letters don’t have to be genuine to have value.”

  “It’s not your best argument, but it’s one more thing to throw against the wall.”

  She pictured a particularly chaotic Jackson Pollock hanging in the courtroom. My argument, Your Honor.

  “More to the point? These are all intentional torts. You’ve got malice, oppression, fraud. They lured you down there under false pretenses, perpetrated violence. Bottom line: on top of equitable relief, intangible rights, and incidental costs, you’ve got a serious claim for punitive damages. So the seventy-five grand threshold? Even with authenticity in doubt, I don’t see it as a problem, unless you draw an utter bozo for a judge.”

  Lisa imagined the bailiff crowing, “All rise,” then His Honor entering the courtroom on a teeny-weeny tricycle: garish yarn hair, a greasepaint frown. Giant red ball for a nose.

  A sudden wave of static crackled on the line, snapping her back. “Nico?”

  “Okay,” he continued, “that takes care of jurisdiction. The civil cause of action for theft is conversion. You’ll also argue assault, battery, false imprisonment—”

  “Not kidnapping?”

  “Kidnapping is strictly a criminal offense. The tort is false imprisonment.”

  “Huh.” How did he know that? “So I have to prove up—”

  “Willful and unlawful restraint with risk of serious injury or harm.”

  “Slugged, then bound and gagged and terrorized. Check.”

  She decided against specifically mentioning the vulgar things Giordano had whispered in Rayella’s ear. Even victims have a right to privacy, if not their pride.

  “Remember, your focus is emergency injunctive relief—you want those letters back. Yesterday. I had a case like this last year, band manager locked the group out of the recording studio, all their equipment inside, started making crackpot demands, fifty percent of royalties—retroactive ‘to the beginning of time’—utterly nuts. Federal judges tend to have no patience for that kind of thing. Your hearing should be quick.”

  Don’t bet on it, she thought, rubbing her eyes. “From what I’ve seen so far from these people, they’re going to fight this like all hell.”

  “Of course they are. And you’ll fight back.”

  His confidence in her, it felt more kind than convincing. Even so, for just an instant, she imagined resting her head against his chest, feeling his arms wrap around her reassuringly.

  “Nico, say I do win, obtain an order to put those letters into escrow pending trial—what if Littmann just ignores it? Holds onto the letters, says ‘come and get me.’”

  “That’s what the U.S. Marshals are for.”

  Just like Wyatt Earp, she thought. Or was it Virgil? She puffed out her cheeks, let out a sigh. “Looks like I’ve got an all-nighter ahead.”

  “Lisa. Don’t hang up. Know why I took you on as a partner?”

  She resisted the impulse to say, Because I’ve got a nice pair of torts? “Nico, I told you, I’m not putting the firm’s name on the caption, just mine.”

  “Not my point. I saw what you did in the Fordham legal clinic for that digital art collective in Bushwick. They wanted to put in aquaponic tanks for an installation.”

  “I helped them get liability clearance.”

  “You helped them break their goddamn lease with that greedy mouth-breather from Yonkers—which never should’ve happened, but you made it happen. Pro bono, no less. As a second-year law student.”

  “I got lucky.”

  “He tried to shake them down for the whole lease term, which he kinda had a right to do. But you kicked and clawed and wore him down. That’s not luck.”

  She caught her free hand trembling, made a fist to stop it. “I can’t thank you enough, Nico. I’m so sorry to have—”

  “Stop it! Stop being sorry. This point on, you’re a gunslinger. Shoot to kill.”

  CHAPTER 13

  It took two hours of typing with the focus of a concert pianist to get the pleading out. Next, she drafted Rayella’s affidavit, laying out the facts of how Tuck got in contact, her grandmother’s gift, then a blow-by-blow account of the Whetstone Inn ordeal.

  She wrapped up just before midnight—not too late, she hoped, to knock on Rayella’s door, get a signature. After that, she’d move on to Tuck’s account of the facts.

  The resort had an all-night business center she could access with her room key, but her blouse and undergarments still felt damp from their hand-wash. So, naked beneath her suit jacket and skirt, and choosing to go barefoot for the sa
ke of quiet, she padded down the cool tile stairs and along the sandstone walkway past the beds of California poppies, slipped through the lobby to the tiny, glass-walled room, let herself in, plugged in her laptop, and printed out the document.

  Upstairs again, Rayella’s room, right next to her own, she knocked gently on the painted wood door. Less than a mile to the east, the Santa Catalina Mountains rose up like burly, hooded monks—or Klansmen—standing shoulder-to-shoulder under a gaudy moon.

  A tense, guarded voice from beyond the door. “Yeah?”

  Lisa placed her hand gently on the doorframe, as though to offer an oath. “It’s me, Rayella. Hope I didn’t wake you. I have something here I need you to sign.”

  The deadbolt didn’t slide back immediately, so she added, “I’m alone.”

  Just to her right, she saw the curtain jerk back at the edge of the window, Rayella peeking out to make sure no one else was there. Her eyes looked blasted and bloodshot, her mouth a tight thin line. The curtain dropped back in place. The door opened.

  “I’m sorry,” Lisa said, stepping inside, “to come by so late.”

  “Like I could sleep.” Rayella locked the door, sliding the deadbolt home again for good measure. Still dressed in the blouse and slacks she’d worn all day, now badly wrinkled, she dropped onto the bed, tucking her legs beneath the covers.

  Lisa said, “I have something for the filing tomorrow I need you to look over, tell me if there’s anything I got wrong or you want changed. If it’s okay, just sign.”

  Rayella took the three sheets of paper Lisa handed her, glanced briefly at the suit-and-bare- feet ensemble, then leaned into the glow of her bedside lamp to read.

  Lisa found a chair near the wall and waited.

  The room, though it shared a wall with her own, had drastically different décor, less artsy southwestern with its pastel watercolors of wildflowers and the Sky Island mountains, more Old West kitsch: knotty pine paneling, wall-mounted steer horns framed with braided rope, a rodeo poster above the bed. She wondered, given all Rayella had been through, whether the knickknacks felt campy or threatening.