“Think you can find it?”
“I can still muddle my way around Monterey, Dean.”
“Ha, ha! I’ve missed you, dude!”
Paul hung up and started making other wake-up calls. Susan Misumi had left a message on his voice mail a month before. She was a friend, a professional contact, and a sometimes-more.
Not home. She would still be at work. He left a message.
Then he called some clients to let them know he was back in town. Dennis Garcia was tied up in a meeting; Mike Tons gave him about twelve seconds of his time, sounding brusque and bothered; and Ezra Friedman, good old Ez who always had something good going for Paul, had his secretary say to call back some other time. These guys represented accounts he’d had for years. He considered Ez an old friend and couldn’t help feeling deflated when he couldn’t even manage a minute to touch base.
Nothing felt quite right lately. Since he had come back from Washington, he would be sitting in his car and suddenly feel the air grow quiet and still, as if time was suspended and the long parade of minutes left in his life had come to an abrupt halt. Before he thought to take another sip, the coffee in his cup would be cold.
Here he was living his own individual version of the American dream, a fit, single male, still young enough to catch the eye of a pretty girl, footloose, free to drink too much beer when he wanted, stay up all night listening to the Grateful Dead, and do sit-ups out on the deck naked as a jaybird. He ought to be flying high. Instead, he felt bothered.
Back out on the deck, regrouping, binoculars up, he watched a red-tailed hawk coasting on the wind out on the ridge. It drifted in place for a long time, like him, slightly stalled at the moment. He had arrived back at square one. Or, correction, back at minus square one, because the business obviously needed some damage control. For now, he would console himself with another beer.
The phone rang. He took the time to pour his beer into a glass this time and take a long sip before he sat down on the couch and answered it.
“Hi, Paul.”
“Hello, Nina. How’d you know I was here in Carmel?”
“Called Washington. The senator’s office told me you had come back. I figure you’ve had just enough time to take your shoes off and pop one.”
“You know me too well.” He propped his feet on the couch. “What’s up?”
“No ‘how are you?’ No banter? Are you okay?”
“Still a little jet-lagged. So. How are you getting along?” Seven months had passed since her husband’s death. He had called her office now and then, hearing each time that her preoccupations didn’t include him. She was grieving too hard to think about anybody else. He had let her alone.
And he had worked on letting her go in his own heart.
“I’ve been slaving away. Hmm. What else? Well, it’s spring. I can sunbathe out in the backyard even though Tallac is still covered with snow. Bob’s got a yen to join a band. Matt and Andrea and their kids are growing older and wilder, every one of ’em. It’s been a long time since we talked, Paul.”
“There didn’t seem much point in it.”
“Whoa,” Nina said.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so blunt.”
“We’re still friends, aren’t we?”
“Sure. Friends forever. So what’s up?”
“I’m calling about a case. It’s a murder.”
“I figured.”
“I need a top investigator, Paul. The client is a girl, only sixteen. The transfer hearing is coming up in nine days, and they want to charge her as an adult. I’m going over to Henry McFarland’s office to try to talk him out of it this afternoon. Meantime, she’s in custody, and it’s a real strain on her and her mother.
“The victim was her uncle, a plastic surgeon at Tahoe who was slashed with an antique sword from his collection. They’ve placed her at his home about the time of the murder. But that’s only half of it. There’s something extraordinary about this case, and that’s where you come in, I hope.”
“Yeah? What’s extraordinary?”
“Her cousin was killed in a small-plane crash in Nevada at the same time, Paul. I mean the very same moment, practically. A college student named Chris Sykes. The victim’s son.”
“So? What does the NTSB say?”
“They’re hinting at pilot error. But I’ve talked to the pilot’s widow—her name is Connie Bailey and she lives in LA—and she swears her husband was a complete stickler, highly experienced, and it just can’t be.”
“In my experience, coincidences like that don’t happen.”
“No, they don’t. The El Dorado County D.A.’s office isn’t making the connection, though. The crash was in another state. They know there’s no way this girl could have engineered it, and they want to nail her for the uncle’s murder so they aren’t looking into it. I need you to see if you can find a connection.”
Paul took a drink of the fine, faintly astringent beer, smelling hops and Danish summers as he did so.
“Paul?”
“I’m going to have to pass,” he said.
“You’re already tied up with other cases?”
He laughed shortly. “Not exactly. No other cases, and a lot of work I need to do here to get some cases.”
“You can put that off. Give me a week, then you can go back and forth all you want.”
“No can do.”
He could hear her mutter “What the heck?” although her hand was over the receiver. Then she came back on.
“Listen, Paul, let’s not let whatever personal situations we’re having interfere with a successful working relationship,” she said, a note of entreaty entering her voice. “It’s been a long time. Months. I’ve missed working with you, and to get a handle on this case, I need you. I trust you, and you’re the best.”
“Get Tony Ramirez. He’s in Reno. He can handle it.”
“I want you, Paul. Please.”
“Frankly, honey, I just don’t want to see you.”
“But why?”
“Because it would hurt too much.” Because she was so dangerous, impaling him with her sharp chin and making him do things he shouldn’t, like love her, and kill a man . . . “It hurts me just to talk to you.”
“Oh,” she said. After a long pause, she started in with the pressure. “Can’t we put all that aside and just be . . .”
“Listen, Nina. I just got back, I’ve got problems down here, and it’s not a good idea.”
There was a long silence, and Paul thought, well, shit, I’m right. She’s given me nothing but heartache. She won’t let me love her or protect her, so I’m finished; I’m gone, and that’s that. He wanted to get off the line and tailspin into a deep morose drunken stupor. Some days needed to be written off as soon as possible.
“Bye, honey,” he said, and was just about to punch out when he heard her voice again.
“I can’t sleep, Paul,” she said. “Sometimes . . . I know this is ridiculous, but I’m so afraid. I worry that his killer will come back. They never caught him, you know.”
“He’s not coming back. I told you that.”
“I tell myself that too. But then I wake up in the middle of the night, and God, it’s awful . . .”
“I can’t help with that,” Paul said. He knew it had been hard for her to tell him that, and he knew how he sounded—gruff—but that was another thing he couldn’t help.
“I could give you ten thousand up front.”
Having failed to sway him with the straight skinny, she had sunk to bribery. Although he felt pushed and pulled in all directions by her naked maneuvering, he had to smile. She wanted him, and when he didn’t jump, she wanted him more, and when he still didn’t jump, and she couldn’t win him back by engaging him, she pulled out all the stops to win any way she could. It was all so Nina. “I’m not for sale,” he said, and finished off his glass, but then he started thinking about his checking account, which was all he had left since he cashed in the CDs and gave the money to his mother.
“Twenty,” Nina said. “My retainer was fifty. I’ll give you twenty. Just for some follow-up.”
Paul ran his finger across his lips, wiping off the last of the foam, considering this.
“Please.”
“Ah, Nina.”
“What do you say?”
“I’ll come up there and work my tail off for you for a week, all right? Then take some time to deal with my situation here.”
“Absolutely.”
“And there’s one other condition.”
“Anything.”
“You have to sleep with me. I get so lonesome up in that big bed at Caesars.”
Nina laughed. “Oh, Paul. It’s going to be so good to have you back.” The relief came through in her voice. All was restored to normal, her tone said, the Paul who wanted her and couldn’t have her, the lusty jokes.
But all was not normal, whether she realized it or not, and he was no longer that Paul. This Paul simply wanted her money. Her pretty body was wasted on him. He was done trying to seduce Nina, done wanting her. He hereby declared his freedom from her.
Deano could wait a week. Susan had been waiting a long time already. The money would help set everything straight. “Did I say I couldn’t be bought?” he said. “I lied. Where’d this plane go down?”
CHAPTER 5
INSIDE THE ELDORADO County District Attorney’s offices, the militantly mediocre style of furnishings reminded Nina that law and law enforcement met here. The scratched gray desks, the aged government-issue copying machine, the featureless bookcases, and the overworked clerks all spoke of constraints: budgetary, philosophical, and creative.
Also a powerful symbol, Henry McFarland’s sofa was as unyielding as Victorian horsehair to sit on, so uncomfortable that after squirming there for five minutes a visitor was dying to leave. It conveyed Henry’s real message to the various defense lawyers, witnesses, and police officers he entertained: get to the point and get out.
But Henry himself, with the open face and affable manner of a born politician, socialized relentlessly. He was always hosting little get-togethers for the staff and jollying the judges. Nina only resolved this conflict between sofa and personality when she learned that Henry had been an actor in a TV series called
Green
Pastures
before going to law school.
Like an actor, he was all style. Unfortunately, as a lawyer he rated down there with Judge Judy. A pragmatic egotist, he had a heart as cold as a crocodile’s. Nina couldn’t stand him.
“I thought we should talk,” she said.
“Always happy to talk to you, Nina.” His high forehead, which gave such a deceptive impression of intelligence, was exaggerated by a slightly balding scalp of dark brown hair. He wore a classic navy blue Brooks Brothers-type suit with a red silk tie he had not purchased on his salary as district attorney.
“I’m not here to make a deal. My main interest right now is keeping this matter in Juvenile Court. You filed the petition to try my client as an adult. It’s entirely within your discretion to withdraw that petition.”
Expressing only polite interest, Henry nodded. “I assume you’ve read the Probation Department report. Pearl Smith dropped everything to get it done right away. Good job, I thought.”
“Henry. This girl is only sixteen.”
He picked up the report on his desk. “Criminal trespassing,” he said. “Shoplifting. Suspicion of burglary. All in the past year. All tended to in Juvenile Court. All resulting in a short rap on the knuckles. Now this. I think she has graduated, Nina.”
“No hint of any violence in any of that. She fell under the spell of a real idiot named Scott Cabano. It was a period of confusion for her.”
“Even more confusing for her uncle,” Henry said, smiling.
“Look. Why don’t you let the court that has been set up for people her age handle this? Has Barbara described her? She’s a child!”
“So were the assholes who blew away all those other children at Littleton. It’s the public temper to try murders as adult crimes. Have you seen the local paper lately?”
She had. A long article over the weekend had heralded the arrival of a wave of evil young criminals right here in Tahoe, with Nicole Zack leading the crowd. Although the local newspaper had refrained from naming her, the town was hot with gossip. News traveled fast. By now, everyone knew about Nikki.
“We’ve had several cases of violent crime in the Sierra where the kid was tried as an adult at the age of fourteen,” Henry continued. “They’re growing up fast and committing adult crimes.”
“This isn’t Littleton and it wasn’t some gruesome, random hate crime. This young girl didn’t stockpile weapons or shoot strangers.”
“A slashing murder doesn’t do it for you?”
“If she did it—and that remains to be proven—she didn’t go there with a weapon, which means she wasn’t planning a murder.”
“But she seems to have been attempting a burglary. And that’s a felony. And when somebody gets killed in the commission of a felony, it’s first-degree murder. The juvenile court system isn’t set up to handle a crime this serious.”
“It’s set up to handle children under the age of eighteen,” Nina said stubbornly.
Henry turned the pages of the report. “This young girl just turned in a very interesting paper in her World History class at school. The title of it is—let me make sure I read every word—‘Violent Overthrow of the Capitalist-Consumerist System As Explained in the Writings of Che Guevara.’ Well written, except for the spelling and the complete lack of objectivity. She seems to idolize Che, which, let’s face it, is idiotic. Che would have her shot, because she’s not a communist. She thinks once everything is burned down we should start over with complete anarchy.”
“Is that really your problem with her, Henry? A paper she wrote for school? She’s bright and she’s unhappy, whether it’s from poverty and not having a father or just from an upsurge of hormones. A certain kind of smart kid goes political. Eventually, that kid grows up and changes, and maybe she loses interest in radical idealism, maybe not, but for sure her politics are going to mature, too. Anyway, I can’t believe we’re sitting here arguing about a silly paper she wrote for a class.”
“Silly? I would describe it as ominously unbalanced. I would agree that she’s intelligent and she’s unhappy. I would add that she believes in violence as a solution to her problems.”
“A school paper is not evidence, for Pete’s sake.”
“We’re not in court,” Henry snapped. “I’m charged with determining whether I should ask that she be charged as an adult, and that’s what she thinks she is. She thinks the world is out to get her and she thinks she’s fighting back. I’ll bet she doesn’t feel a second’s remorse for the killing. We’ll find out in the postconviction sentencing report.”
Nina’s rear end was numb, but she refused to give up. “Henry, do you have any children?”
“Oh, please,” Henry said, spreading his hands. “No, I don’t. And that has nothing to do with this.”
“I suppose I’d say that too, but I do have a child a couple of years younger. It’s gotten very hard to be an adolescent, Henry. They’ve been stripped of all those comforting illusions of childhood we remember. The ugliest things Planet Earth has to offer is blown in their faces all day long. Boy Scouts, soccer teams, church, school—those old cultural mainstays are fighting a losing battle. These kids turn on the TV to witness a hundred acts of violence every night. They see friends and families loading up on legal and illegal drugs. They click around an uncensored Internet to hate sites from around the world. Their cultural icons pierce and tattoo themselves.
“A lot of kids can’t handle the negativity overload. They get unhappy. They may even act out some, like Nicole Zack. But you know, Henry, in general, they do work through it in time. They find the way to a good life even without Ozzie and Harriet as models.
“It would be wrong to warehouse Nikki and give up on her, even if she did commit this crime. Please, Henry, give her the chance to move through the system that’s set up to help kids, not the one that’s set up to punish adults. You don’t want this on your conscience.”
Henry looked at her. He stood up behind his desk. He put his hands together. Clap. Clap. Clap.
Nina stood up too. “I’m going to beat you anyway.”
“You’re going to take whatever deal we may offer after the prelim, and like it.”
“Uh huh. You know what Che says about that?”
“No. What does he say about that?”
“Nothing. He’s dead. Like your case is going to be.”
Henry laughed. “Let’s have lunch sometime. You can’t really be this wrapped up in your cases, Nina. It’s a great show, though. I respect that.”
Nina shook her head. She picked up her briefcase and went to the door.
“See you at the transfer hearing,” Henry said, chuckling.
“Here you are,” Sandy said. “Months later. Hoo ha.”
“I missed you, too, Sandy,” said Paul. “And yes, my work in D.C. is over. How’s married life? Loosening you up some?”
The strict line of her mouth tightened. She was leaning over a file drawer. A stack of colored folders lay spread on the floor beside her.
“How about a little kiss to say hello?” Paul said and went around behind her bent-over body and gave her a squeeze.
“Hey! You stop that!” She pushed him into the secretarial chair, which rolled away, and he stumbled after it trying to keep his balance, but he went over anyway, landing on the hand with the sore finger just as the outer door opened and Nina walked in.
He sat there rubbing his hand. Sandy shrugged and flicked a file into the drawer, but her shoulders were shaking.
He saw black heels, neat legs which rose to dizzying heights before the skirt began, creamy skin with the beginnings of swelling curves below the throat of the blouse as she leaned over toward him, bright eyes and long brown hair swinging toward him, and he thought to himself, I made a big mistake. I should have stayed in Carmel.
“Welcome to Tahoe,” Nina said. She held out her hand and helped him get up.
As always, Paul looked larger than life to Nina, sitting in the client chair across from her desk, rubbing his hand. He wore khakis, and one long leg extended way across the room toward her. Blond hair fell over his forehead.
She hadn’t seen him for so long. Not since . . . but she wouldn’t think about that right now. Those thoughts owned her nights, not her days.
“You look great,” he said, sniffing. “Smell good, too.”
She laughed. “Barbecue sauce from the chicken at lunch. That also contributed the delicate pattern on my great-lookin’ blouse.”
“But you also look tired.”
She shrugged. “I am tired. Sleep problems. I’ve been spending weekends tramping around in the high desert. I sleep fine after a long day like that. Paul, I saw the plane crash that killed the Sykes boy and the pilot. It was too far away for me to hear anything, but I saw the flash of light as it crashed.”
“What were you doing in the desert?”
“Remember the land Lindy Markov gave me? I go out there.”
“Alone?”
“Sometimes Bob comes.” She turned back to business. “Thanks for dropping everything. I owe you, Paul. I know you didn’t really want to come up.”
“I’m here now. And I’m interested. I already called the NTSB office in Carson City to set up a visit to the crash site.”
“That’s fast work. Did you learn anything?”
“Well, it’ll be a year before they come up with anything other than a ‘preliminary finding,’ but yeah, they’re still tending toward blaming the crash on pilot error. There’s no evidence of equipment failure so far. According to what they’ve been told, the plane was in tip-top shape. They’ve spoken with the mechanic who worked on it before takeoff. Apparently, he’s pretty reassuring. One thing though, he let slip that old Skip Bailey, the pilot, has an error on his record.”
“That’s interesting. Maybe it was pilot error then, and there’s no connection to the doctor’s murder.”
“It needs looking into. I talked to Connie Bailey on the phone last night. She swears her husband was the most careful man on earth. I plan to fly from Reno to LA tonight after the crash-site visit and talk with her some more. What do you think?”
“Go for it. Here’s your check.” She took it out of the drawer and handed it to him. Without looking at it, he stuck it into his pocket. “And here’s a file with all the paperwork we have on the William Sykes murder to date. Police reports, preliminary autopsy report, crime scene photos, and so on.”
“I’ll read it on the flight from Reno down south. I’ll put together a report and make sure you have it in a couple of days, all right?”
“The hearing is next Wednesday, on May twenty-fifth. Do you want to meet Nikki?”
“No need, at this point.”
“I don’t think she did it.”
“You never do.”
“I’ve changed a lot in the past few months,” she said.
“So have I.”
She didn’t like the way he was not looking at her, not trying to figure her out, or listening for the subtle tune that had always run between them.
Her brows knitted.
Sandy appeared in the doorway. “Your three o’clocks are here,” she said. “Two of ’em.” She closed the door behind her.
He got up to leave and Nina was aware of an old feeling streaming over her. She didn’t want Paul to leave. She wanted something from him, more . . .
“Wait,” she said. “I have something else for you to do in LA. I want to check out Beth Sykes’s alibi.” She kept him there a good five minutes longer. When he finally left, she felt vaguely dissatisfied. She didn’t like the cooler atmosphere between them, when she should be welcoming it.
Paul drove the rental jeep up a four-wheel-drive road as far into the Carson Range as he could toward the spot where the Beechcraft had gone down. His directions proved unnecessary. The closest spot along the road was cluttered with trucks and utility vehicles. Today they would be hauling the wreckage away.
He pulled to the side, got out with his water bottle, crammed on a baseball hat the senator had given him that said “Washington Redskins” on it, and began hiking through a good mile of rugged terrain, well marked by the various agencies that had passed through in the past few days. He was glad he had changed into shorts because the sunlight burned steadily at his back.
Breaking through a thick stand of ponderosa pine, he came to the spot where two people had died.
The place looked appropriately forbidding. A long channel of charred grasses marked the area where the plane had tumbled along the ground. It had come to rest against the side of a hill. From where he stood, he could imagine the event in miniature, the plane rising and falling like the plastic toys he had crashed as a boy. Following the path of devastation, he got as close to the plane as he could before an official type tried to stop him. However, stating that he was the representative of the pilot’s widow won him some respect. After a short verbal spar, which he won handily, he was allowed to get in closer.
He pulled out his old silver Nikon and began to shoot, first wide-angle shots that took in the setting, then close-ups of anything that looked even vaguely interesting, especially the engine sections. Moving in as he shot, he found himself peering into the cockpit. Blackened shreds of fabric clung to the pilot’s seat. Behind it, in one of several passenger seats, a burned blue jacket with an emblem reading “Pomona College” lay in a heap. A mangled laptop, curled from the heat and almost unrecognizable, lay next to a phone on the floor between the seats.