Reilly 12 - Show No Fear (22 page)

A
T SEVEN THIRTY IN THE MORNING, THE SKY LIT A PALE GRAY,
Paul drank a second double espresso Nina had made for him. He stretched out his legs and sighed.

“You look tired,” she said. He looked the way she felt.

“I want to ask you something about Matt. Matt told us that he came to meet you at Bob’s nursery school one afternoon in September and witnessed an altercation between you and your ex.”

“Richard?”

“He says he was ready to jump right in if the guy ever really hurt you, but that he decided then he would just bide his time.”

“Matt was watching from the bushes?”

“That’s what he told me.”

Nina let out a short laugh. “He loved spying on me when we were little. But, Paul, don’t imagine he has anything to do with Richard’s murder. He doesn’t.”

“We have to look into it. It’s not impossible, though I hate saying this to you. Maybe he wanted to protect you and Bob from Filsen?”

“He has a good heart, but he’s young and screwed up at the moment. He couldn’t protect a fly.”

“He also told us that your mother seemed not averse to the
idea of a merciful death, one that she would decide on for herself. Did she ever imply that?”

“Well, yes, but—my mother did not kill herself. I will never believe that.”

“Maybe…she asked for help? Maybe Matt wanted to help her in the only way he knew how.”

“By pushing her off a cliff, forcing her to drop groceries and grab a knife? I know you have to examine all the possibilities, but surely not to the point of absurdity?”

“Maybe they planned it together.”

“Maybe you are way off course. Don’t even suggest that my little brother killed our mother or I’ll lose all respect for you. She did everything for him, sacrificed her time and money, placed utter faith in him. He loved her. He would never, ever, harm her.”

Paul directed his hazel eyes into Nina’s brown ones. “Tell me more about you and Filsen. Did you and Matt ever discuss Filsen?”

“No.”

“What about you and your mother?”

She pulled her sweater tightly around herself and frowned.

“Did you?”

“She wouldn’t have said anything to Matt.”

“When did you tell her?”

“I never confided much in my mother, especially lately, with her feeling so rotten all the time.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But after Richard cornered me at Bob’s preschool and Perry served me with papers about custody and visitation, we had a birthday party for Matt at my mom’s house. That’s when I told her what happened. That Richard wanted a DNA test, joint custody, and visitation at the very least.”

“What did your mother say?”

“She said forget he ever had anything to do with our lives and especially with Bob’s. That Richard didn’t have a hope of winning a custody battle. To concentrate on the future. That I was a good mother.”

“Did she talk about the malpractice claim?”

“She hoped the malpractice case would bring in some money to help me and Matt. She didn’t want to be a burden. But it wasn’t all about money. Once she realized what Dr. Wu did to her, I think she saw this as a matter of principle.”

“Were you a witness to the argument between your parents that landed your mother in the hospital some years ago?”

Nina looked down. “You know about that?” she said in a low voice. “No. I was at school. My father told me about it, about how he and my mother had a bad fight. Mom threw a pan at Dad, in self-defense probably. Dad hauled off and hit her and cracked her jaw. Then Matt came in and helped Mom. The police came and charged my mother with assault, can you believe it? Dad was charged, too. Everything was dropped eventually. Oh, no. This just can’t be. Now you’re accusing my
father
of killing my
mother
?”

Nina was still breathing hard. “My father would never kill my mother. My brother would never do such a thing either. I’m not sure I can stand to talk with you anymore right now, Paul.”

“It’s my—”

“I suppose in your professional capacity you have to consider whether I did it, killed Richard at least. And my only alibi is a four-year-old boy.”

“Did you kill him, Nina?”

Nina’s jaw dropped.

“Did you? You have a very strong motive. Tell me if you did and I will help you with all this. I mean it, Nina, tell me right now.”

“No!”

“I didn’t think so.”

Nina collected herself. “Really? You really don’t suspect me?”

“Guess I know a few things about you. You know how to be patient. You aren’t the impulsive type.”

Nina stretched her arms above her head, intertwined her fingers. Paul couldn’t help admiring the result. “You’re wrong. I’m just as impulsive as Matt. But I’m willing to accept that you have a hunch.”

“I don’t believe in hunches, just facts. Besides, I’m quite sure you would not hurt your mother, and I think these two deaths are connected.”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “Anyway. What did you want to know?”

“Your assessment of your mother’s claim against the acupuncturist.”

“All right. I thought at first she had a strong case. Clear-cut right and wrong, that she would have all kinds of sympathy, too, perfect material for a jury trial if it came to that. And with Remy trying the case, well, I just think when Wu took the stand, he would have looked absolutely guilty as hell. He
was
guilty as hell. Of something.” Nina twisted the fringed end of her sweater. “But Remy realized we had a problem with the facts. We had no proof that Mom had been treated with acupuncture, no receipts, nothing. The punctures—they would have been so tiny, and Mom had the—the infection. They had a witness who would call Mom a liar.”

“You can’t pursue this thing legally now?”

“No. We can’t get damages for my mom’s pain and suffering, and she was the main witness. For lots of legal reasons, a death of a party brings an end to a malpractice matter. I hope you’re looking hard at Dr. Wu. I keep thinking he’s the only person I can imagine who might hate my mother. Maybe he hated his lawyer, too, who knows? I’m doing a little digging myself.”

“Stay out of this investigation, Nina.”

“Paul, let me tell you something. You lack bedside manners. You could help people relax and be more—I don’t know, chat a little first, loosen them up, then sound casual when you ask the honking questions.”

“What makes you such an expert on police interrogation techniques?” He was smiling. He had a good smile, full-out, crinkly at the eyes. But he was hard to read.

And now Jack was free.

“I took a class last spring on Trial Psychology. How to approach witnesses at trial, for instance.”

“You find me stiff? Ha-ha, no pun intended.”

“Well, I know you a little, Paul. Your normal manner would work better.”

“Thanks. I’ll take that suggestion to heart.”

“Seriously?”

“Meantime, where were you November twenty-sixth? Let’s go over it again.”

Nina hesitated. “Typical. Monday. I stayed home with Bob in the morning. I had a test that night and needed to study. I wasn’t at work that afternoon. I went to the law library at the courthouse on Aguajito. The clerk wasn’t around. I didn’t see anybody I knew.” She gave him the details and he marked them down, but she knew her movements couldn’t be verified. She had no alibi for the day her mother had died.

“Think back to Thanksgiving Day, November twenty-second,” Paul said, “that morning.”

The morning Richard had been shot. “Slept until Bob woke me up, hungry, around seven a.m. I called Matt. Prepared a couple of vegetable dishes. Got ready to go. From five o’clock on, Bob and I spent the day at Mom’s. We helped with dinner. Matt called me right before I left my house.”

“Was Matt at your mother’s when you arrived?”

“Not till—”

“Go on.”

“He came not long after us. I’m not sure what time. Not long.”

“It would help if you knew what time Matt arrived.”

“I don’t remember.” Nina jumped up. “Sorry, I’m out of time. The day beginneth.”

Nina changed out of her sweat suit and into clean cotton pants. She filled Bob’s backpack with lunch, a blanket, and a bear. She pulled him away from the television and washed the cereal off his face. She put dishes into the dishwasher and considered starting a load of laundry, deciding it would have to wait one more day. After dropping Bob off at preschool, she drove to work.

Her desk, usually buried under piles, sat empty, accusing. She buzzed Jack, who did not answer, then stopped by Remy’s office. Remy stood in front of a case full of books searching for something, mumbling something. Nina waited for her to finish.

“You talk to yourself, too?”

Remy turned and saw Nina. With a small smile, she closed a book. “I think out loud. The trial yesterday got continued to next March. Typical.”

“Do you have work for me, Remy? I know you’re trying to wrap up a lot of cases.”

“I sure do. I’m going to dump most of my cases on Jack, but you can help by organizing some of these files. I’m desperate for breathing space. After I clean up here I take off for Hawaii for a couple of weeks, right after the Christmas party.”

“I’m going to miss you. I’ve learned an awful lot from you.”

Remy said, “Remember, four-inch heels are a girl’s best friend. You’ll be seeing me in court, Nina. I know you’re going to make it.”

Nina had a new realization. Not having Remy around anymore would spell major changes to the firm. With Klaus getting on, Jack threatening to quit, and Remy leaving, who exactly did that leave? Louis, Nina, and the secretaries. The office would have to be reconstituted. Life is flux, the old Greek philosopher had said. But how much flux could she stand?

“Hey, here’s a mystery,” Remy called out a moment later. Nina stuck her head back through the door. “I reviewed the Davidson Marital Settlement Agreement. Some of the attachments are missing.” She handed the file to Nina. “See if you can track down the rest of the dissolution papers.”

Nina located them buried on Jack’s desk with a note from Remy asking him to take a look at them. When Nina finished her required hours for the day, she started typing a draft for schoolwork onto the computer. She ran out of time before finishing, so she saved the file and grabbed her purse. Jack came in before she left, leaving files with handwritten instructions neatly stacked on her desk. She saw
him swing into Remy’s office and heard his casual invitation to dinner. She couldn’t hear Remy’s reply. When she left, she heard a door slam in Remy’s office.

Unfair of her, but she hoped it was Remy slamming it in Jack’s face.

W
ILLS AND
E
STATES, THE OLD-TIMERS STILL CALLED IT, A
deadly subject for law students, the lame joke about deadliness being only an introduction for the most settled, the most precedent-laden, most sedentary subject in law school. Nina knew that in the ancient past of fifty years ago, women law professors were caged in this back-office legal specialty, drafting wills and trusts, never seeing daylight from solstice to solstice. They coddled the elderly and soothed the distraught families when the loved one passed away, leaving the money to the wrong person or charity or to the cat.

The paperwork was detail-oriented, the payment preset, and the opportunity to make new law almost nonexistent.

Residual resentment still kept many women lawyers from going into this specialty. You might as well be a mummy, preserved in aspic or whatever the Egyptian priests had used.

Nina had no intention of enjoying this class, but Tom Cerruti, a lawyer in his forties who maintained an intriguing Italian stubble, had also been thinking about these things. He had announced during the first class in September that estate planning could be sexy—which had gotten him a big laugh from the fifty exhausted students taking his night class—and he had set out to prove it with the cases he chose for the class to study.

He practiced law and ran marathons. He flew down to Rio every February for Carnaval. He liked fly-fishing in Oregon and was a fervent surfer. Every woman in the class had looked at him at least once as a potential lover, but he never dated students. He was a wise man as well as an entertainer.

Tonight the class was discussing the case of the pretermitted heir—the biological child who wasn’t mentioned in the will of a wealthy woman named Florence Connaught, who had passed away in Florida in 1980.

Nina, sitting toward the back, doodled into her notebook. Crosses. Ocean waves. Wiped-out surfers.

A sad attack. They came two or three times a day.

She was floating like flotsam in the flux, and her friend Lacey was sitting right beside her, worrying about her.

Maybe a leave of absence would have been better. She couldn’t concentrate tonight, even with the professor’s slide show and his jokes and Lacey’s concerned looks and hand pats.

“Talk about a dysfunctional family,” Cerruti said. “Look at this guy. Meet Herb Connaught.” A huge, goofy fellow in a wifebeater, at a barbecue, appeared on the screen. “Herb was born stupid, shallow, and in need of lots of chemicals. He put his parents through quite a few challenges: the DUI on his sixteenth birthday in the car his father had given him that day, the cocaine bust, the marriage to a woman twice his age.

“Herb never cottoned to the idea of working for a living. He knew his parents were well-off and he expected to be supported for the rest of his life. His father went along with that, and many were the excuses he dreamed up—Herb was dyslexic, he had attention deficit disorder, he couldn’t handle stress—for many years Herb’s father kept Herb’s shrinks in fine brandy.

“Then easygoing Mr. Connaught passed on, and Herb and his mother took a look at each other. Florence pursed her lips—here’s a photo of her—and said, ‘Herbie, get a job, because I’ll have a new husband in six months.’

“And lo and behold, she did marry a man, who soon after was diagnosed with a fast-developing case of muscular dystrophy. He
became wheelchairbound within a year. The year after that, Mrs. Connaught caught a cold that turned into pneumonia and she also passed away.”

Professor Cerruti snapped his fingers. “Like that, Herb, age thirty-three, was an orphan. He was making porn films out of a cheap apartment in Hollywood and owed a lot of money to several dangerous creditors. He had not had any contact with his scandalized mother for two years.

“At the funeral, Herb and his mother’s husband had an altercation over the burial arrangements. There was some pushing and shoving—funerals are not always entirely sane events.

“A week later, Florence’s most recent will was filed with the probate court by her second husband.” A slide of the will went up. Wow! It was handwritten! Nina had never seen a handwritten will before. “She left everything to her husband. And lo and behold again, there was no mention of Herb in the will. Herb was prominent only by his absence.”

The class laughed appreciatively.

“So Herb went to a probate lawyer. And what advice did he receive? Ms. Reilly?”

Bad luck!
Lacey’s concerned eyes said. But Nina had read the case.

“First, the lawyer confirmed that the will omitted Herb entirely,” she said.

“A faithful reflection of his mother’s mind, no doubt.”

Laughter.

“But that wasn’t the first thing he confirmed, was it, Ms. Reilly?”

“Well, he confirmed that the will was entirely handwritten.”

Cerruti nodded and said, “Yes, it’s a strange and archaic thing, but in California you can still write out a legal will entirely in your own handwriting, leave it unwitnessed, leave out all sorts of boilerplate, and it’s valid. It’s called a holographic will, and all you need to do is state your intention to dispose of your estate, say where you want it to go, date it, and sign it. No need for Dewey Cheatham and Howe in there, right?”

“Wrong,” said Nina. The professor gave her a nod.

“Well, Ms. Reilly?”

“Since she had no legal advice, she didn’t know about the doctrine of the pretermitted heir.”

“Who would?” said Cerruti. “Originally, the idea was to take care of heirs who were accidentally omitted from the will, especially illegitimate children, but soon enough it applied to heirs the decedent might have wanted to omit and failed to mention. So put it in a nutshell for us, please, Ms. Reilly. What happened to Herb after his mother ignored him in her will?”

“He was awarded half his mother’s estate at the succeeding trial. The probate court followed the well-established rule that, in the absence of a specific statement in the will that Florence wanted Herb to take nothing from her estate, Herb would receive what he would have received if Florence had made no will at all.”

“But how could that be?” Cerruti said in mock horror. “She had told both her husband and Herb that she didn’t want Herb to inherit anything.”

“The language specifically omitting Herb had to be in the will, and nothing she said outside the writing of the will could be considered.”

“But it was only a technicality! We knew what her intentions were!”

“I guess that’s why people who love technicalities go into probate law,” Nina said.

Cerruti smiled. “Yes, those pesky technicalities. Listen up, class, because I’m now going to tell you the secret of practicing law successfully. It’s this: Never, never forget the technicalities. When you take a new case, check the other side’s compliance with the technicalities first. Always start there. A case you can’t win may become an easy win because a crucial boring detail was overlooked.

“Now here’s a slide from one of Herb’s movies. He used up his inheritance making several porn classics.” The class stiffened.

On the screen a grotesquely enlarged, jointed portion of the human body suddenly appeared. Impossible to tell which part. The students craned their necks to make it out.

After a minute, Cerruti said, “Actually, that’s my elbow. Sorry, best I could do.”

Nina’s cell phone rang at the break. “I was wondering how you’re doing,” Jack said. “Made it to class?”

“Yes, but I think I’ll leave early. I just feel—I don’t know—”

“I’m still at the office.”

“At nine o’clock? What have you got tomorrow?”

“A preliminary hearing that’s gonna blow up if I don’t put a lot of work in tonight.”

“Can I stop by?”

“Stop by the office? Sure, you need to talk?”

“It’s not that. I have a bad feeling, Jack. That Wu is going to get away with what he did to my mother.”

Jack said in a soothing tone, “We don’t know what happened yet, Nina.”

“And we never will. I’m so angry all of a sudden, Jack. First I just felt sad. Now—” She felt herself choking up.

“Come on by. I should be up to par for the prelim by the time you get here.”

The downstairs offices were dark, but Jack’s light was on. Nina dragged herself up the front steps and he let her in. He had a concerned expression. “You don’t look good,” he said. They went into Jack’s office and sat down across from each other in his client chairs. Jack didn’t represent his best self either in sweatpants and a gray T-shirt, almost half of it wet.

“Sweat,” he admitted, smiling, noticing her reaction. “Disgusting, isn’t it? I lifted weights tonight at the gym, then came straight here feeling buff and strong and ready to beat all bastards with a tire iron. It’s all about balance, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. My balance is so far off right now I feel like I’m about to hit the sidewalk.”

“That’s natural.”

“I don’t get it, Jack. Why would Dr. Wu kill my mother, if her case against him was no good? He had to keep a low profile. All he’s
gotten out of these murders is bad publicity—he closed his office today, before the state regulators closed it down for him. What are the police missing? My prof tonight was talking about paying attention to the details. I’m gonna work on this myself, Jack. Nail him.”

“How?”

“Start by going through the file. Look for some small detail that would explain all this. All my medical research is in there, notes from Remy’s interview with my mother, Mom’s journal, the claim letter, any correspondence with Richard—”

“Sure, take a look at it.” Jack looked at her. “What, you’re gonna do this now? It’s late. You have to be exhausted.”

“It’s amazing what a double espresso at six p.m. can do.”

Jack ran fingers through his hair. “Go home, look at it tomorrow.”

“I have no time tomorrow. Bob’s with the babysitter for another couple of hours tonight. I’m going to find out why Wu did this. I thought solving murders was all forensics and police procedure, Jack, but this is about why. This is about motive.”

He leaned over and rubbed her jeans-covered knee, an unexpected gesture that felt natural. He got up from his chair with a peculiar look on his face and put out his hands and took hers and drew her up so they were standing facing each other. His arms went around her and he gave her a long, tight hug. “Sorry about everything, honey,” he said.

She took a huge breath and let it go, relaxing her body for the first time since her mother’s death. What a relief, being hugged like this. She could feel his warm core, as if a little sun burned in there.

He released her.

“Thanks,” she said. “You know I have a crush on you.”

“This isn’t about a crush. It’s about you being too lonely, with too many cares right now. Please go home.”

“Will you come home with me tonight? Stay?” Nina cursed the smallness of her voice, how fragile she sounded. She heard that midnight-dreamy flaw rising up in her, the one that fell back on men, back on sex, for comfort. But there he stood, so male, so stable, so
damned attractive. She imagined herself inhaling him, taking him in. She imagined herself taken care of.

“Oh, Nina—”

“You asked what I needed.” She heard how she sounded, husky, shaky, even lustful.

He looked at her for what seemed like a long time. “I can arrange a potluck, a babysitter, a driver. But, honey, I’m not over Remy.”

She hit the chair behind her, on wheels, which skidded across the floor as she walked away.

In her office across the hall, she got her computer going, then slammed the keys until she heard the door closing behind Jack.

She indulged herself in naming him awful things, the least of which were idiot and dork.

Later, she was alone in the Pohlmann office. She went back to Astrid’s file cabinet in the reception area, turned on all the lights, and hunted for the file.