Reilly 13 - Dreams of the Dead (11 page)

“Good question.” Paul shook his head. “But I do know he’s dead, so Brazil is a scam. I’ll go down there.”

“No. Philip’s investigator’s going. Eric Brinkman. He speaks Portuguese. We’ll get this figured out.”

“I don’t know this guy, Eric Brinkman.”

“He’ll be at the office at four,” Sandy told Paul.

“And I’m not invited?” Paul said.

Nina said, “I just heard about this myself. Can you come?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Ho, ho.” Sandy slapped a hand on the table. “You know you want to be there.”

“Okay. I’ll be there. So how’s the novel going, Sandy? Nina’s dying to hear more.”

Sandy discovered something interesting on her plate.

The waiter stopped by. Nina refilled her black coffee but felt too full to finish it.

“Wimp,” Paul said, finishing his second mug. “Sandy, you coddle her. It’s a good thing I’m here.”

Confession of Guilt
a novel
by Sandra Whitefeather

P
roud descendant of a master basket maker of the Washoe tribe, Sondra Dat So La Lee Filoplume woke up early that morning, almost as if her dreaming self realized the day would be tough. She put on her clothes carefully, choosing a tight skirt that best showed off her fine-looking legs, kissed her current boyfriend good-bye, and climbed into her new Lexus, a gift from her employer for last year’s job well done.

Sam, a tall, rangy Washoe cowboy from down Minden way, stood on the porch waving her off, his hooded eyes tired-looking after last night’s exercise.

It being March and a dry, sunny day, Sondra drove the road from Gardnerville up to Lake Tahoe in record time, admiring the small signs of spring that brought out early birds along with pesky bicyclers that made negotiating the mountain road a little annoying.

Brushing off her mood, which had most to do with Sam’s telling her last night how he wanted to marry her—why did they always want to complicate a good thing?—she decided she would leave work a little early this evening. She and Sam would take the horses out for a sunset ride, and she would set him straight.

She arrived at the foot of Ski Run Boulevard at South Lake Tahoe,
where the ten-story high-rise held the offices of Fox, Wagoner, and Josephson, and pulled into the brand-new underground garage after nodding to the guy in the booth, who had been pestering her for months for a date.

In the elevator to the penthouse suite, she rode up with Barry Manilow. He stared at her beauty through bloodshot eyes.

“Beautiful day,” Sondra commented.

“It’s daytime? Shit,” said Barry Manilow.

By the time the elevator reached the tenth floor, Sondra was alone, with enough time to adjust her coral-colored lipstick in its mirrored surface.

War paint, she chuckled to herself, clicking the lid shut and popping it into a dedicated pocket of her new designer bag. She needed lots of it these days. Her boss hadn’t been herself since her husband had died tragically, smothered by snow, killed by a madman. Sondra had had to pick up the slack in all departments, including creating a cheerful, professional mood every single day.

The doors parted to reveal one of the slickest offices in South Lake Tahoe, the envy of all the other lawyers in town.

[
I
nsert action. Sondra does something—saves Riley. Runaway horse? Then: kick from Sondra that makes Riley Fox get skeptical, like she should be. Then back to the real story of a deceptive client.
]

S
ondra’s door flew open. Her boss stood outside, wet with snow, the outfit that appeared so immaculate that morning now bedraggled and muddy around the cuffs.

“You okay?” Sondra asked.

Her boss sighed and pushed wet hair off her forehead. “Dandy.”

“You know what you have to do now, don’t you?”

“Sure wish I did.”

“Sit.” Sondra directed Riley Fox to one of the plush waiting-room chairs. “Listen. I can help with this. I’ve studied the paperwork and news reports. A good thing is, you trust people. You defend people who
look guilty to everyone else. But this is different. This is your life on the line. Now you should examine that instinct to trust, okay? Time to look on the dark side. He’s bad, Ms. Fox. You need to take him out.”

Her boss tossed her a rare smile. “I’m so lucky to have you on my side,” she said, leaning forward to listen.

[Add that her boss has a hot love life and has to decide between two very different men. Sondra nudges her the right way.].

S
ondra had totally accidentally overheard a few strained conversations taking place in Ms. Fox’s office. “Busy day ahead,” she said, keeping the mood light but professional.

Riley slipped gracefully out of her light jacket and hung it in a spacious double closet flanking the entryway. She stood for a little longer than usual, looking unusually troubled. “I need time this afternoon. An hour.”

Sondra reviewed all the appointments she had booked and how hard she had worked, organizing them, and nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Take an hour and a half, two o’clock on.”

Her boss’s eyelids looked huge as they drooped over unhappy eyes. “Thanks.”

Sondra watched the door close on her office. She would cancel urgent cases, but that’s what she did, watched her boss’s back.

Another relationship bites the dust, she thought. She flipped through the contacts list on her computer, writing down the relevant three, picking up the phone, thinking about what she needed to say to cancel ’em and leave ’em happy regardless.

Another hour and a half wasn’t going to solve their problems, she thought, punching in the first number, but Sondra had never mistaken this guy for the right guy anyway. Her boss would get over it and figure out what was what eventually.

“Hello,” she said into the phone. She explained about the double-booking of clients, all her fault, such busy times, her boss so hugely successful and all. While the client squawked and she took it, she straightened files on her desk and pondered the future. Things in the present appeared so blighted.

Five minutes later, after being subjected to some painfully accurate verbal abuse, she could finally hang up the phone and allow herself a silent parting thought:

Things would end happily.

Somehow.

A
n hour after lunch, Sandy glided into Nina’s office. “Mr. Brink-man is here.” She often gave nonverbal cues about new people coming through the door. This time she betrayed nothing, not even the cock of an eyebrow.

Perplexed, Nina came around her desk and went into the front office.

The man standing there turned around. She had to keep herself from staggering back. He seemed to fill the small office. Well over six feet tall, he had broad shoulders and brought a scent of leather and the outdoors. She reacted to that, partially. She registered a few details; Prada sunglasses, rugged cheeks, creases in his cheeks even though he must be in his midthirties. The smile—whoa! Shiny, happy, expensive dentistry. Harley jacket and jeans, right for the weather. He looked like an advertisement for an outdoorsman. A slender outdoorsman. An elegant man dressed as an outdoorsman?

“Hello, Mr. Brinkman.”

He took off the sunglasses and parked them negligently on his head. “Eric, please.” His eyes were blue, the eyebrows darker than his hair, which was cropped short. He gave her a polite smile.

Sandy, at her computer, watched sidelong while her fingers moved at a hundred words per minute, no doubt on her novel, since Nina hadn’t given her any work this afternoon and the files were in excellent condition.

Nina held out her hand, also smiling, in her usual greeting to professional strangers. Brinkman looked at her hand, took it, turned it over, and bowed and touched his lips to the palm. He had long, white fingers and a thick gold ring with an onyx stone on the index finger.

Resisting the urge to pull back her hand, she wished that she had applied some wonderful-smelling hand lotion.

He returned her hand. “Thanks for seeing me. Phil Strong suggested I stop in.”

“R-right. Sure. Come in.”

He followed her into her office.

“A colleague of mine might join us.” She watched him take in the sliver of lake view, the decor, such as it was, and the banged-up desk.

“Fine.” He sat down and crossed an ankle over his knee. “My card.” He handed it across the desk to her. The embossed card said only
BRINKMAN INVESTIGATIONS
with an e-mail address and website. “I’ve seen you in court. You have a way with a cross-exam.”

Rubbing the card between her fingers, she said, “I’m glad you came. Where’s your office, Mr. Brinkman?”

“Eric, please. I mostly work the Nevada side. Like to play golf, so I set myself down close to Edgewood Tahoe. I share an office with someone you might know, Ed Quinn?”

She had heard of Quinn, a security specialist. She nodded. Brinkman went on, “Actually I work mostly out of my home office, or on my boat.”

“You’re a sailor?”

“I am. Do you like to sail, Nina? May I—”

“Sure, Nina’s fine. I don’t get to sail that often. The demands of my practice, you know. Have you been working at Tahoe long?”

“Just a couple of years. I’m originally from Germany. I was working out of Vancouver before I came here.”

He continued smiling. His confidence was overwhelming as he looked around her office, studying her certificate from the Monterey College of Law, her admissions to various California state and appellate courts, and the Washoe prints Sandy had hung around the office, but he seemed relaxed and reasonable. Nina wrote him up in her mind as a European with a supplemental income who had visited and fallen in love with Tahoe. There were plenty around, especially among the skiers.

She had barely sat down when he started talking again. “How is this going to work, Nina? I’ve been working with Lynda Eckhardt, and before her involvement, you know already, I was looking for Jim Strong in connection with an embezzlement. The hearing on the Paradise sale is tomorrow. You’re stepping in very, very late. Will that be a problem for you?”

“I’ve been in close touch with Lynda. I’m up to speed.”

“You know that Philip needs me to get to Brazil and get some information? It seems we may be out of time.”

“No. We’ll get the time for you to go. I’ll get you the time.”

“Great! Great! I’m glad you’re with us.”

“Between you and me, Eric, I think you need to assume this is a fraudulent scheme and bring us the details.”

“Really? You think there’s no way Strong is alive?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?” Brinkman said. “What about the affidavit?”

Nina got a funny feeling. “Are you recording?”

“Are you?”

“No. We’re on the same side. Besides, this conversation is privileged as attorney work product.”

“I’m not recording.” Brinkman folded his hands in his lap as if waiting for her to spill some beans, as though he already knew what had happened to Jim Strong.

She told herself, watch out, he’s an investigator. “I’m a lawyer. Paranoia is unavoidable.”

“I’m glad Philip retained you. I remember you from the events around the time of his son’s disappearance. You were in the avalanche he caused, I read about that. And your husband. That was terrible. I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you. So you were investigating the embezzlement at Paradise?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m curious. Did you advise Philip to go to the police regarding the theft from the capital account, when he asked you to handle it privately?” Nina said.

“Of course. He said it would ruin his business, and I had to keep it quiet. And as we both know, Jim Strong disappeared off the face of the earth over two years ago. I looked for him then, all over the world. I was stunned to see this affidavit. Like you, right?”

Nina nodded.

“Stunned. I hadn’t caught up with him, and now he was coming out of the woodwork in Porto Alegre of all places, in the southern part of Brazil, not too far from Argentina. I know that city. He picked a sensible place to disappear. The local government will turn a blind eye to a well-behaved foreigner with a little money.”

“I believe you won’t find him there.”

“You sound so sure.” He was studying her harder than she was studying him and not bothering to hide it.

She shrugged. “Did you obtain proof he was embezzling from the resort?”

“There were accounting discrepancies, and soon afterward, one day the whole capital account was emptied. That same day, Jim Strong seems to have left the area. That’s pretty good circumstantial evidence he was involved. But, and this has continued to bother me, I couldn’t find his mark anywhere. Couldn’t find the money trail. It’s one of my few failures, actually, which is why I’m gung ho about having the chance to follow up now.”

“But you’re convinced he had that money when he disappeared, aren’t you?”

To Nina’s surprise, Brinkman answered, “I’m not positive. I don’t know if he had a well-thought-out plan. He was in a highly emotional state, decompensating you might say, during the days before his disappearance. I’m not at all sure he was even sane. I think if he committed the thefts, that it was an opportunistic crime.” Brinkman got up and stood by the door, where Sandy would be getting her earful. “This will surprise you, but I was zeroing in on someone else for the embezzlements. I thought it possible that someone else knew Jim Strong was gone and proceeded to take advantage of the chaos. It was an online theft, you know, a matter of passwords.”

“But who on earth are you talking about?” Nina asked. “I thought—Philip said—”

“Oh, he’s sure it was Jim. He also seems sure Jim is alive. But I think—can you keep a secret?”

“My job in one word.”

“And how about you?” Eric said, getting up and throwing open the cracked door to reveal Sandy.