Move to Strike (33 page)

“Evidence of recent digging in one of the walls. I chipped at the wall in the same area and found that the entire ledge at a depth about three feet above ground level and running horizontal for about seventy-five feet was rich in very high-grade rock. Because of the unusual geologic history of the rocks in that area, the opal rock that I was collecting had a rare feature.”

“Which was?”

“The color. It was a very rare color with a very rare quality of fire, known among gemologists as black fire opal. It has been found in Australia, and it has been found in a small valley about ninety miles from the claim I was examining called the Virgin Valley. Other than that, there has never been a major strike of black opals anywhere. Gem-quality black fire opals are incredibly rare. They are—”

Henry broke in. “I really have to object on grounds of relevancy, Your Honor. I’m certainly learning interesting things from the professor’s rock lesson, but how is it going to keep counsel for the defense out of jail?”

Before Flaherty could say anything, Nina said, “Just a few more questions, Your Honor.” Flaherty waved at her to go ahead, and she turned back to Tim and asked, “Professor Seisz, did I subsequently ask you to compare rock samples taken from the Zack claim with certain other rock samples I provided to you?”

“You did.”

“And you made that comparison?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have that second set of rock samples I gave you with you today?”

Tim reached into the chest pocket of his sport coat and answered, “Right here. I’ve kept them with me ever since you gave them to me.” He pulled out the velvet bag Nikki had given Nina, enjoying the undivided attention he was getting, and shook the bag so that the rocks spilled into his hand. Flaherty leaned far to his right to look down on the rocks and the rest of them were craning their necks too.

“Did you come to any conclusions with regard to the similarity or lack of similarity between the two samples in question?” Nina asked.

“I did. I concluded that the rock samples are identical mineralogically. These opal rocks in the velvet bag you handed me come from the property in question. No doubt about it.”

“Thank you. No further questions. Your witness.”

“What would I ask him?” Henry said. “I have no idea why he’s even up there.” Tim left the stand and winked on his way out.

“I will demonstrate the relevance of that testimony with the next witness,” Nina said. “I call myself.”

Henry snorted and shook his head pityingly.

Deputy Kimura made her raise her right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her God or be found in contempt. Barbara gave her the stinkeye. Flaherty continued shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe the squirming he was witnessing.

Nina stepped into the witness box and sat down. It was the first time she had ever testified in any proceeding. The courtroom from this vantage was quite different, ominous: everyone seemed to be facing her with accusatory eyes except for the judge above her and to the side, whom she couldn’t see at all. She was appalled at how nervous she felt.

“My name is Nina Fox Reilly,” she said. “I am an attorney at law licensed to practice in the State of California with my primary offices located in the Starlake Building, South Lake Tahoe, California. I am attorney of record for Nikki Zack, the defendant in this case. On or about June twenty-second, my client handed me the velvet bag previously admitted into evidence as defendant’s exhibit two, containing the same stones which have just been shown to the court. I kept the bag with the stones on my person at all times until June twenty-four, when I placed them in the possession and custody of Professor Tim Seisz.

“At the time she gave me these stones, my client advised that she had taken the bag with the stones from a box hidden in the swimming pool of the decedent, William Sykes, on May eighth, the night of his death, without his permission. As an officer of the court, and mindful of the current criminal investigation, I duly took pains to preserve the chain of evidence should they ever become evidence.”

“Duly? Duly?! Stop right there!” said Henry. “You withheld evidence! And that’s pure hearsay, what the defendant told you!”

“You’re free to object, Counsel,” Nina said. She sat back and waited to let Henry think about this. Nina had just testified that Nikki was at Sykes’s house on the night of the murder and had taken the opals from his swimming pool. It was a dazzling windfall for Henry. She hoped it was so dazzling that Henry wouldn’t see the point she was working toward, and wouldn’t object to bringing in Nikki’s hearsay statement.

A couple of minutes went by, a couple of minutes she no longer had. Barbara was whispering with him and bringing him around. She was smarter than Henry. Maybe, by the time Nina got out of jail, they would be married with a couple of whippets for children.

Henry folded his arms and said, “Well, I’m not going to object to the hearsay statement. It’s actually an admission. Withdraw my objection.”

“Do you have any further testimony, Counsel?” This was said with chilling formality.

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then you may cross-examine,” Flaherty told Henry.

“Your client advised that she had taken the bag from William Sykes’s pool, is that right?”

“That is right.” Nina had never been so nervous. If she had committed a crime she would have confessed immediately. Hold the line, she told herself.

“What, if anything, did she say regarding why she took the bag?”

“Any such statement falls under the attorney-client privilege, which my client has chosen to exercise. Therefore I can’t answer.”

“Oh, no,” Henry said. “Oh, no you don’t. You’ve opened the door. I have a right . . .”

“I will answer questions regarding where my client obtained the opals. Other subjects are beyond the scope of the direct testimony and the privilege still applies,” Nina said. She was thinking, I sound like a robot. Good robot. Keep it up.

“I request that the witness be instructed to answer the question,” Henry said, turning to Flaherty.

“You don’t waive the privilege entirely by testifying with regard to one carefully circumscribed matter,” Nina said. “Henry can’t root around in all my communications with my client because I have made an essential and narrow disclosure as an officer of the court.”

“Do you have some case precedent to aid me on this?” Flaherty said to both of them. He was thumbing through Jefferson’s Bench Book, the red bible used by all California judges and kept on the bench for reference. “Ah. The question is whether a significant portion of the communication has been disclosed.”

“It certainly has,” said Henry.

“But what does ‘significant’ signify?” Flaherty went on, still reading but apparently not finding out what he wanted to know, talking to himself. “We are now entering a dangerous side path without a map.”

“But, Your Honor—” Nina said, half-standing in the box, but Flaherty steamrolled right over her.

“The court will now rule on the privilege objection. The court rules that as to the particular conversation in which the defendant handed her counsel the evidence that has just been admitted, the attorney-client privilege has been waived. A significant portion of the conversation has been disclosed.” Flaherty pressed his lips together.

“What?” Nina said. She couldn’t believe it. The whole conversation? What had Nikki said to her in that conversation? She had just reviewed all those notes, and it came at her in a rush. Nikki had said she was leaving Tahoe when the case was over, had talked about the scene in the woods and the decision not to notify the police—which dragged Bob in!—had talked about her grandfather’s claim, her financial problems, had said—what had she said?—“It was supposed to be fair pay for the land.”

All the things she didn’t want Henry to know about were in that conversation. She felt as if she had walked out into a crosswalk on a green light and been hit without warning by a semi.

Henry said, “Let’s have the reporter read back the pending question.”

“What if anything did she say with regard to why she took the bag,” the reporter read in a monotone.

“You are instructed to answer the question,” Flaherty said.

“I can’t do that. My client asserts the attorney-client privilege as to the remainder of the conversation.”

“Answer the question!” Flaherty barked, all hints of jolliness now buried under his naked anger.

“I can’t do that, Your Honor. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

Flaherty actually stood up and said, “You want to think about it overnight at the County Jail? Because you’re in contempt, do you hear, Counselor? I have made my ruling and you had better abide by it. This is my courtroom and I have made a ruling!”

“I must respectfully submit that your ruling is wrong, Your Honor.”

“I am citing you for contempt! Appeal it! But now, answer the question!” Flaherty shouted. He gripped the edge of the bench and his eyes blazed down at her and his voice was the voice of doom, but if she answered the question, Nikki’s defense would be hopelessly compromised.

“Judge,” Nina said. “Find me in contempt if that’s what the Court is going to do, but the issues that brought us into court today are still pending. I request a separate hearing on the contempt citation. I request to argue the matters before the court today.”

Flaherty seated himself again. “You’re right,” he said. “Argue your 995 motion. You have three minutes.”

Three minutes! “Very well. The testimony regarding blood evidence on the sword must be stricken. There is no scientific conclusion that the blood sample matches that of the defendant. The testimony of Louise Garibaldi must be stricken in its entirety. She is incompetent due to her ingestion of controlled substances within one hour of observing the events about which she testified. Finally, although the defendant did go to the Sykes home on the night of the murder, the only thing missing from that property is the bag of opals, and it is clear from the testimony today that Dr. Sykes had no right of possession to those opals.

“Therefore, there is no evidence of a burglary or attempted burglary or any other linked felony, Your Honor. The 995 motion should be granted.”

Flaherty said, “Henry?”

“If I may, Your Honor.” It was Barbara who stood up and obtained an answering nod from Flaherty.

Barbara turned almost lazily to look at Nikki. “We now have an admission from the defendant’s counsel that the defendant went to the property on the night of the murder. She acted furtively, she took something, no matter who owned it. She spied on Dr. Sykes. She left prints right outside the room where he was murdered. She hadn’t been invited, that’s for sure. She hadn’t established any right to those gems. Her mother had sold her rights to the decedent, and her aunt had no idea she was there. So how is it that she had the right to take them?

“It’s a sad thing to see, Your Honor. This defendant has just been sold down the river by her lawyer in a vain attempt to save her own hide.”

“Just a minute!” Nina said.

“Siddown!” That was Flaherty.

Barbara looked at the clock and said, “It’s exactly four-thirty, Your Honor.” She sat down.

“The Court has heard and considered all the evidence, including the new testimony brought forth in this hearing,” Flaherty said. “The Court finds that there is probable cause to find that the blood sample on the murder weapon is that of the defendant. The Court finds that the testimony of Louise Garibaldi is competent. The defense motions to strike all such testimony are denied. The Court finds that there is probable cause to believe that the defendant went to the Sykes home to commit a felony, and attempted to or did commit a felony. Therefore, the Court finds that the 995 motion is denied. In its entirety.”

“You can’t find that, Your Honor,” Nina said. “I object to all the findings and conclusions of the Court on grounds that the judge herein is biased and affected by a strong prejudice against the counsel for defendant. The Court should recuse itself. The Court is unable to objectively—”

“The contempt hearing will be held on Monday morning at eight o’clock,” Flaherty interrupted.

“Let me finish—”

“Court is adjourned!”

“You’re trying to punish me by punishing my client—”

“Bailiff, arrest her!” Deputy Kimura came out from behind his desk. He liked her, and he didn’t want to do it, but he was about to arrest her.

Nina showed her palms. “Eight o’clock Monday morning it is.” There was a long, strained moment while everyone waited to see what Flaherty would do.

She would never know what stopped him. “Court is adjourned,” he said again. She fell back in her chair, saved for the moment, as he left the bench. The deputy cleared the courtroom.

Nina didn’t want to talk to anybody, but Paul caught up to her at her car. Boosting herself into the seat, she turned on the ignition.

“Let me buy you dinner,” he said.

“No, thanks. I need to hurry home and shoot myself.”

“Now, now. You couldn’t have known Rankin would go to the D.A. We’ll think of something.”

“It’s all my fault. All I had to do was bring the opals to Court and hand them over. Now—I feel like a jack-ass.”

“I’ll still eat dinner with you.”

“No.” Putting the Bronco in reverse, she backed away. She drove fast until the specter of him, hands in pockets, eyes full of concern, shrank to a speck in her rearview mirror.

CHAPTER 27

FOR A REAL change, Paul had the rock-grotto spa at Caesars to himself. Sinking into the hot water, he had one thought, that he hoped Nina had poured herself a really stiff drink and gone to bed.

A few minutes later, his muscles now as soft as pudding, his pain a memory, he stepped out and dried himself off just as the attendant was locking the door and turning off the lights around the tub.

“Nobody else here?” the attendant, a smooth-cheeked fellow, said in surprise.

“No.”

“Amazing, on a Friday night. This must be your lucky night.”

That being so, Paul flexed his poker hand, promising himself an hour at the table before bed to take advantage. Waste no time crying. Always get back on the horse at first opportunity. Back in his room, he changed back into his clothes and counted his cash on hand, finding enough there to make him smile. He stepped toward the door.

The phone rang. He decided to ignore it, but it rang again and again. Turning back, he pressed the receiver to his ear. “Yes,” he said. The “s” extended into a sibilant hiss.

“What’s got you so pissed?” Ginger said. “On a losing streak?”

“Exactly the opposite,” Paul said. “That is, until you called and interrupted a certain aura I had going that was shepherding me downstairs toward a mind-boggling jackpot.”

“I won’t apologize. It’s been a hairy day. I’ve got something for you on the airplane parts. Sorry it took so long. Here’s what we’ve got. That fuel screen you gave me? I discovered a trace substance on it.”

Yes! So, tonight was indeed a lucky one, and the stars had steered him here, to this phone call with Ginger. Here came the culmination to every chase sequence, the crash and denouement that explained all. “You found water,” he said, full of hope.

“No,” she said.

Leading him to a different sort of crash, then. His own. No water, no deliberate stall, no sabotage. Shit.

“Something remarkable. Something I bet you never expected. I found . . . well, I won’t go into the chemistry. Or would you like me to?”

“Just tell me what you found.”

“Okay. Styrofoam.”

“Like the ball I gave you?” he said. Like the ones he had seen in LeBlanc’s apartment.

“Exactly. Like the little white ball that was under the seat.”

“Styrofoam. Uh . . . could you see it on the screen? I mean . . .” What did he mean? He took his old hypothesis out of the fire, shook the ashes off, and looked for something new. “Is it possible this Styrofoam was somehow used to plug the fuel line so that the fuel from the tank couldn’t make it into the line?”

“No. Because I found only traces. Styrofoam degrades in airplane fuel.”

“Huh. Ginger, why would someone put that into the fuel? Can you think of any reason . . .?”

“There’s more. Finding it on the fuel screen did make me fussy about inspecting the ball. After looking at it and taking some pictures, I was going to cut it into thin slices so that I could do three-D imaging on the computer . . . and by the way, that takes me for-effingever . . . but before I got to that point, I took a look at the ball under the microscope. Guess what I found!” she said triumphantly. “Something that didn’t belong. An alien invasion. A solvent-based glue.”

He knew from the sound of her voice that he should be excited. He just didn’t know why. “Go on,” he said cautiously.

“The ball had been cut in half and glued back together.”

He still didn’t get it.

“And hollowed out,” she went on, almost gleeful. “And injected . . .”

“With water!” he hollered. “Hot damn!”

“Well,” she said, “that’s theoretical. I can’t find evidence of water except the hollow in the center of the ball that might have contained it. It’s long gone, if it ever existed. The injection site was fairly large. Probably used a turkey baster. Then your perp stopped up the hole with more glue.”

“But . . .” Paul said, picturing the turkey baster on the floor in LeBlanc’s living room, “why, Ginger? If someone wanted to put water in the tank and force a stall, why not just pour some water into the fuel?”

“The time factor,” Ginger said. “I tested an exact match of this Styrofoam, same density, same glue type, etcetera. Popped it into some fuel. Not airplane fuel, just gasoline, but it would give similar results. It took a long time, over an hour, for the Styrofoam ball to deteriorate to invisibility. How soon enough water might come out of several balls to cause engine failure, I couldn’t say for sure. But various factors within the tank might mean the balls would degrade at a different rate. Enough of the water would have to accumulate to cause more than just sputtering, according to my friend the pilot. Also, the balls alone, if there were enough of them, might displace enough fuel to mean the pilot would have the added problem of not enough gas to make it to his destination, but the fuel gauge would show sufficient amounts.”

“So the plane wouldn’t stall immediately and the crash would happen sometime after the sabotage,” Paul said. “How many balls would it take to make, say, a cup of water?”

“Quite a few, but the tank would hold plenty.”

“The size of the Styrofoam ball was probably dictated by the size of the opening to the fuel tank,” Paul said.

“That’s right. I’m told the opening to the fuel tank on that Beechcraft is about two and one half inches. That would severely limit the size ball that could be inserted.”

“Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure that plane went down.”

Ginger had been thinking. “What I want to know is what kind of person knows that Styrofoam degrades in fuel?”

“Any mechanic,” Paul said promptly, his memory jogged. “I worked in a car repair shop during a summer in high school and I’m sure I heard it mentioned there. And any mechanic would certainly know sufficient water in the fuel tank will bring a plane down.”

And the Beechcraft’s mechanic, Dave LeBlanc, not only knew, he had foam balls and a baster lying around in the stuff in his apartment. Jackpot!

“You sound like you have someone in mind.”

He wondered how soon he could get a plane to LA. He had heard there was a new service operating regular flights out of Tahoe. Maybe he would try them first, save himself a trip to Reno. “I wonder,” Paul said, “how that ball ended up under Christopher Sykes’s seat and not in the tank.”

“What I think? We’ll probably never know, but I think that boy saw a pile of them somewhere, and picked one up before he got on the plane. So many boys find balls irresistible. Can’t imagine why.”

Ginger was making a little joke.

“He was kind of old for that. He was in college,” Paul said.

“And your point?” she said.

“He left something behind for us to find,” Paul said, grappling with the lamentable truth that all the insight in the world could not bring back Skip Bailey or Christopher Sykes. “Without that ball, we would never have known what caused that plane to crash.”

“He didn’t leave you a clue on purpose,” Ginger said, “but if you believe in a just universe once in a while, it has spoken.” She paused. “How old was he, the boy that died?”

“Nineteen,” Paul said. “The pilot, Skip Bailey, was in his fifties. He had a wife that loved him.”

“Sad,” Ginger said.

“At least his reputation won’t go down with him. I have to call the airport. And LA. And the NTSB investigator. I have to call Nina.”

Nina sat in front of the fire eating take-out pizza with Bob, hardly hearing what he was saying. Something about school. The shock was wearing off by now and she was furious at Flaherty for taking his anger at her out on Nikki. He had looked right at her as he denied every motion, letting her know why he was doing it. She had liked Flaherty, but he was a rotten old—and he wasn’t done with her, either. Her head reeled. She would have to spend the weekend trying to save her own hide, as Barbara so elegantly put it. Right now she was so tired she just wanted to fall into unconsciousness and never have to move her brain again.

She woke up in bed with a vague recollection of Bob guiding her upstairs. Nine P.M. Charming. She must have fallen asleep by eight. She was so far beyond screwed this time—next stop, the El Dorado County Jail. Awake again, the kind of awake where her eyes were popping out of her head with fatigue, she trudged downstairs, seeing the light under Bob’s door, and stood at the kitchen window looking out, Hitchcock at her side.

She looked out onto the summer night, at the end of some kind of line. It struck her then that she could look out now, go out now, live now, without worrying every second about Him. Even jail didn’t seem so important when she finally and thoroughly realized this. She spent some time basking in the relief and almost fell asleep standing there. She mumbled a few words in the direction of the moon toward her husband, words like, he’s gone, we’ll be all right.

Leaving the window, she stopped at the kitchen cabinet on her way back up to bed and opened it up to get a vitamin. Vitamins made her think of Ginger and chemistry, which made her think about that funny little word which she’d never heard before this case, an almost unpronounceable word.

Allele. And it was so simple. She thought she knew where the blood on the sword had come from. But she couldn’t do any more, sleep was stealing her consciousness away, the sweet dreamless sleep she’d been denied so long, and she unplugged the phone and tumbled into bed.

Paul arrived in LA at 10 P.M. after a dash to the Reno airport. He rented a car and drove directly to LeBlanc’s apartment building in Newport and rang the manager’s doorbell.

The apartment building looked exactly the same. Eddie opened up, wide awake and holding a beer, the TV mumbling behind him, and Paul said, “Has he been back?”

“Hey, man, I was gonna call you. He came back a couple days ago. He wouldn’t tell me nothing, just handed me a check for the rent plus the damages and went into his place. Said he had a major windfall and was up on his luck. I asked was he gambling but he laughed and said ‘Hope not.’ ”

“That’s so good,” Paul said. “So fine.”

Stopping at the grungy green door of Apartment 108, he knocked. LeBlanc didn’t answer. Big surprise. With Paul outside waiting for him, no wonder he was scurrying for cover like a bunny rabbit caught with prime radishes between his blunt little teeth.

Checking to ascertain that Eddie had indeed retreated back to his TV, he set the cane down, pulled himself back, and gave the door a hard shove. To his surprise, it sprang open immediately. Cruddy hardware; it figured.

Nobody sat on the mud-colored, ripped futon. The television, tuned to an old movie on TNT, but muted, infected the background with a low-level radiation buzz. Just like before, the galley kitchen smelled of old beef, with cupboards a matching color. The only bathroom had been crying for Mr. Clean since the days when his jingle jangled into the minds of all America.

The bedroom door was closed. Paul stayed to one side, turned the handle silently, flung it open, and jumped inside, his gun ready.

Dave LeBlanc lay on the bed. He was dead. He had bled all over the nasty brown comforter that matched the torn futon, the kitchen cupboards, and the stinking beef.