Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (37 page)

Nina said, “I’ve got something Jaime doesn’t have, and it helps Wish. Of course I’m grinning.”

“Danny couldn’t have been in on it either. If he was, Coyote wouldn’t have had any reason to kill him.”

“I know. That’s how it must be, and Wish won’t have it any other way. But Britta said Danny was in on it. She heard him plotting with Coyote, for Pete’s sake.”

“She’s lying?”

“Anyway, look at how a jury will see this. Wish up on the mountain, taking photos. Coyote caught in two of the shots. I don’t understand what part Danny may have played, but I do know this, it’s going to look like Wish was trying to catch an arsonist, and the rest is a tap dance. I don’t have to explain everything.”

Paul got up and stretched. “You going to give the photos to Jaime?”

“I have to in order to use them at the prelim. I’m going to have Wish take the stand, Paul.”

Paul shook his head. “You are the only lawyer in the whole world who would do that. Then the D.A. has months to go over what he says and twist it into anything he wants. It’s a murder case. Are you sure?”

Nina ticked the points off on her fingers. “First, he’s led a clean life, Paul. No ugly character evidence or prior felony convictions to come in and slime him if he takes the stand. They can’t mention any juvenile offenses. Second, he’s got a simple story and I think he can handle the cross-exam. Third, he’s innocent, and I think it’ll come across. Fourth, I need him to authenticate these shots and explain what he was doing up there. If he doesn’t take the stand, his story doesn’t come out, the prelim becomes a pro forma exercise, and Wish stays in jail for maybe a year.”

Paul thought about this. “But-”

“Mom?” Bob stood in the doorway in his rumpled skivvies, rubbing his eyes. Nina took in again his height, his long narrow feet, a slight shadowy hint of whiskers above his upper lip. The light fell on his face in a way that made her think of Kurt. “What time is it?”

“Seven. At night. You had a good nap.”

“Hi, Paul.”

“Hi, kid.”

“I am so hungry. Is there any food?”

Nina jumped up. “Sure, honey. What would you like? Cereal? I could fix you some scrambled eggs. Or do you want a sandwich?”

“Oh-whatever. Anything edible.”

“Come on in the kitchen.” Nina went over to Bob and gave him a quick hug.

They went into the kitchen and Nina got out the frying pan. It was seven in the evening and she and Paul had just found an important piece of evidence and Bob was sitting at the table drinking orange juice.

She broke the eggs in the pan and put toast in the toaster. In the other room Paul had passed through the duffel area and sat down at his computer. Bob looked out the doors to the deck and said, “Check that foggy night. In Stockholm it’s summer. It stays light until midnight.”

“It’s summer here too, silly.”

“What’m I gonna do now?”

“Eat. Bob-”

“Yeah?”

“I have to work tonight.”

“On Wish’s case?” She had told him on the phone about Wish.

“That’s right. We have a prelim in his case starting next week.”

“I’ll help you. Sign me up.”

“That’s a nice thing to say, honey, but-the best thing you could do is give Hitchcock lots of love right now and help him get better. Could you take on that responsibility? I would really appreciate your help.”

“Sure.” He petted the dog, who lay at his feet. Poor Hitchcock’s bandages were soiled already. The vet had given him painkillers, which made him drag around and sleep a lot. Nina patted the dog too, and tried without much success to restick the gauze on his neck. “What happened, anyway? Did Hitchcock get hit by a car?”

“A dogfight.”

“Hitchcock fought with a dog? Who won?”

“Hitchcock,” Nina said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like sh-not so good.”

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Nina said, too brightly. She served him the eggs and toast and watched him eat. “Do you want to talk?” she asked.

“No, you’re busy.”

Nina dropped into the chair beside him. “Not that busy. You’ve just come from a far country. I’m sure you’ve had a million adventures, and I want to hear-”

“You have to work tonight, and we’ve got plenty of time to talk later. I have stuff to do. I have to call Taylor and Troy at Tahoe. Call Dad and tell him I made it.”

“Call your grandpa too,” Nina said. “He’ll be happy you’re here in town.”

“Yeah, I want to see Isaiah.”

Nina left him eating and went into the bedroom to get her jacket. From the kitchen to the bedroom she had to go through the living room, where Paul was now sitting on the couch talking on the phone and leaning over at an uncomfortable angle to look at the photos again. Bob’s open duffel lay in the corner, and his carry-on knapsack lay in the middle of the floor.

She picked it up and set it inside the den, saw the sofa sleeper with its roil of blankets taking up most of the room, and got busy.

Kitchen, bedroom, living room, and study. The place already felt like a tiny box, now that Bob was in it.

Isaiah, Angie, Harlan. Family who had been comfortably distant, moving in fast on her radarscope, now that Bob had come. Her father, big, filling up emotional space she couldn’t spare right now.

She sat down on the bed. Between Paul and Wish, she had thought the motel was full up. But now Bob was here. For a moment, she panicked. But following this, she thought of Bob in the kitchen, eating eggs, and inside her, something that had been tense and anxious and incomplete soothed and smoothed itself.

The Boy was back. She was complete again. And happy.

Paul, one finger looped in the top of his shorts, observed. “You’ll be going, then,” he said.

“Not necessarily,” Nina said, punching in Elizabeth’s number.

“Yes, you will. And you will avoid the inevitable confrontation.”

She held the phone to her ear, desperate for an answer.

“Can’t put it off forever, Ms. Reilly,” he said. He drank some cold coffee, making a face. “Things have changed. Must reevaluate options. I’m going if you go. Protect and serve.”

“You can’t, Paul. You’ve been drinking.”

Elizabeth answered. “Nina? You’re coming, aren’t you?”

“I was wondering if we could make this tomorrow?” Nina asked.

“I’m leaving for the weekend. I have to get away. You really ought to make it if you can.”

She let her brown eyes rest on Paul’s bloodshot hazel eyes. “On my way,” she said. He looked away.

Nina drove out Carmel Valley Road listening to the Cal State station blasting hip-hop. She didn’t want to think. Sometimes, and this was the human condition, wasn’t it, sometimes she relied solely upon emotions to inspire her next move.

The human condition, irrational, unpredictable, people just trying to scrabble through life-the truth is, we don’t think very well.

Eminem’s song about cleaning out his closet came on, and she remembered the Boyz cleaning house to that very tune. She turned it up to make it so loud, the people in the car passing her illegally on the right could hear the earth-shattering bass. She sang “I never meant to hurt you-u-u” along with the chorus. Son home, lover drunk.

Fine. Go to work. She felt quite alert after the nap.

At Southbank Road, she turned and climbed up the hill toward Elizabeth Gold’s. The house, larger than she would ever have dreamed, had that expensive up-lighting that turned greenery and home into a movie set.

Elizabeth, luminous in a clingy bamboo-spangled robe, answered the door promptly. Not exactly trained sociologist attire, which caused Nina to think again, she’s in danger of turning into Virginia Woolf.

She took Nina into a living room that resembled the inside of a cathedral. Gigantic, sparkling windows curved along one whole wall, pines and oaks fluttered beyond.

“Wow,” she said, starting off with some especially articulate lawyer talk.

“Thanks,” said Elizabeth. “Want to try some lapsang souchong?”

“Whatever.”

Elizabeth left Nina to admire the scenery, returning after some time with a tray loaded with teapot, honey, noncaloric sweetener, and a colorful tin tea canister.

“I’ll bet you see deer out there,” Nina said, stirring honey into the tea.

“They eat everything.” Elizabeth hadn’t sat down, but had gone to the window, looking dreamily out. “If they don’t, the gophers do. One year I planted three Japanese maple trees. The gophers ate the root balls. They just toppled over one fine day.”

“But it’s beautiful,” Nina said.

“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed. “I wanted a fortress. A nunnery of one. I found an architect who specialized in women like me.” She smiled. “He enjoyed building to the absolute limit allowed by law. The size is obscene, I know. One time the Cat Lady came up to me as I was getting into my car in the driveway and she whispered, ‘Obscenely wealthy people should have their wealth taken.’ ”

“The Twelve Points,” Nina said. “That was only one of her pillars of wisdom.”

“She was right. If you don’t use your surplus money to help others, you ought to have it taken for that purpose. I’ve given so much away, I may have to actually start working for a living.” She laughed. “But the house… it’s my security. I’m trying to decide if it’s my prison too.”

Elizabeth stirred honey into her tea, her movements as exquisite as a geisha’s. It irritated Nina, how much time she seemed to have to pay attention to small things, to be sensitive, to think about herself. She realized she felt envious of the young woman sitting in her luxurious home. She knew from the Siesta Court party that Elizabeth inspired that reaction in others too.

“So what’s on those tapes?” she said abruptly.

Elizabeth sipped. “I don’t know if you’ve studied sociology.”

Nina shook her head.

“I’m working on my Ph.D. thesis. In my branch of study, we look at group dynamics and power struggles.”

Nina said, “You taped those people as a research project?”

“Well,” Elizabeth said, “for years my sister, Debbie, talked about these get-togethers she hosted. I listened, feeling like I was listening to a weekday-afternoon soap. The characters seemed like cardboard. The conflicts between the locals and the newcomers were so aptly illustrated they almost seemed contrived, you know? When I moved here, I really thought it would be interesting to take an objective look-see. I decided to write my thesis about gentrification on Siesta Court.”

Nina said, “How does your sister feel about that?”

“Debbie doesn’t know. None of them know. It would affect their behavior and ruin the study.”

“But-you’re part of it. You affect the parties and their behavior.”

“Not really. I keep a very low profile. You’re smiling. You don’t think I’m sufficiently objective. I can compensate for these problems.” She sighed. “Actually, you’re right. I have just developed a rather significant objectivity problem.”

“And his name is Ben,” Nina said. “We ladies do have a grapevine.”

Elizabeth tensed, then smiled back. “I can find something else to write about,” she said. “I won’t find another Ben. If you know about Ben, I suppose you also know how Darryl Eubanks has been harassing me.”

“That too.”

“I’ve taken care of it.”

Nina said, “You know, Elizabeth, I’m interested in sociology and psychology, and I can’t wait to hear what you’ve discovered in connection with your thesis. But what I’d really, really like to know right now is how you’ve taken care of Darryl.”

Now they were both smiling. “I called Tory, his wife, and had a chat with her,” Elizabeth said. “I took the bull by the horns.”

“Wow,” Nina said again, impressed.

“I explained that Darryl was having a problem, and I suggested counseling.”

“How did she react?”

“She slammed the phone down in my ear. I believe she’ll calm down quickly and have a rational discussion with him and that he will stop bothering me.”

“No doubt.”

“You’re making fun of me?”

“Not at all. I just have less faith in the rule of reason than you when it comes to human beings.”

“Maybe when this is all over we could have lunch together,” Elizabeth said. “I’d like to make some friends. What do you think?”

“Sure.” They nodded at each other. Nina felt as though she had been handed an unexpected gift. She liked Elizabeth, and she also needed a friend.

“I promise not to tape you,” Elizabeth went on, and laughed.

“Speaking of tapes…”

Nina received a ten-minute lecture about the classifications Elizabeth had assigned to each of the neighbors, and her hypothesis that the newbies, though fewer in number, were winning the power struggle, not only because they had a monetary advantage, but also because they possessed what Elizabeth called a “timely” advantage.

“Different groups of people develop at different rates,” she explained. “The newbies live in the twenty-first century. The locals live in about 1960. I have surveyed both groups informally. The mores of the locals haven’t stopped developing, but the rate of development has been slower because they stayed in their enclave and didn’t experience as many upheavals as the newbies. The newbies move all the time. It speeds them up.”

“I never heard this idea before,” Nina said.

“I made it up. It explains so many things. Of course I will have numerous references to other authorities who have said something similar. But no one has put it exactly this way.”

“So never the twain shall meet? The newbies and the locals are fated to slug it out, and the locals will fade away?”

“And then the newbies will become entrenched, and slow down. And they will become locals. If they’re lucky, they will have some time before the next wave of newbies arrives.”

“What happens to this ongoing power struggle if an outside threat comes along that threatens both groups?”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

“That’s exactly what happened? You mean on Siesta Court? When the Green River development started?”

“Obviously.”

“And all this has to do with your tapes?”

“Yes. For all this time I have been quite sure that the core group issue was gentrification. The subjects aligned according to their newbie/local status as predicted.