Unfit to Practice (5 page)

On an ordinary night, at this point in the course of events, she would cook, then tackle the files she had brought home, but the fire continued to burn, Bob had his sandwich, and the rocking-chair pillow lured her with its softness. She sat down to stare into the orange and red, listening to the whine and howl of wind outside. The briefcase was in her car. She was in no mood to stuff her warm feet into stone-cold boots and throw a coat on so that she could fight her way back through the damp, freezing night. She could allow herself to spend an hour this Thursday evening dozing here, stroking her dog.

She yawned and flashed to a memory of Bob as a toddler. They were still living on the Monterey Peninsula, where she worked as a law clerk during the day and studied law at night. His preschool teacher called her in the middle of a meeting. “Bobby won't lie down for naps,” she said. “We've tried everything, Ms. Reilly, but I'm afraid you'll have to come and get him and take him home. He's a disruptive influence on the other chil-dren.”

She hadn't known what to do with him then, and she didn't know what to do with him now. But for now he was safe and warm, and she didn't have to worry.

She woke from a doze and checked her watch. Already nine o'clock! Down the hall, holding a candle like a Victorian to light her way, she opened the door and saw Bob retired safely under his covers, flashlight glowing, his French textbook open beside him.

Hungry, she made herself a grilled-cheese sandwich and poured herself another glass of wine, telling herself that up to twelve ounces actually helps your heart. Scanning the newspaper by the last of the firelight, she yawned again and pushed it into the brown recycling bag in the kitchen. A hundred small tasks in that room drew some spotty attention. She wiped, closed cupboards, listed groceries needed. It was late and too dark to work, but she still should go get her papers out of the truck.

The kitchen lights crackled and died again. She hunted in the cabinets for the big flashlight for a long time, even exploring the dreaded laundry area. Giving up, she felt her way upstairs and down the hallway. Once in her own room, she tossed her clothes on the floor and climbed into bed, pulling the comforter up to her neck. Her files would be safe enough in the Bronco until morning.

But they weren't.

Routines. The first slap of cold water on the face, the scalding-hot shower. The lick and promise of lotion over rough spots on her feet; the peppermint of toothpaste. Bob rummaging for cereal, the clink of his spoon as he ate. The radio flipping from pop to talk and back again.

Friday morning rushed along, the storm over, the world outside steaming and sparkling, Bob late, Hitchcock barking for a walk before she had shaken off her nighttime coma and having to settle for a trip into the backyard, eggs needing to be cooked. The power had been restored and a multichrome rainbow of sunlight drenched the kitchen.

She loved the part where she walked out the door in the morning, loved the blowing leaves, the smell of wood smoke, and heart-piercing mountains all around. Another day awaited, full of large frustrations and small triumphs and more fresh coffee, if she was lucky. Her office was her second home, and Sandy and Sandy's son, Wish, were her second family. Her heart felt full; she felt sharp and cool; her son was ready for school; she had a full day ahead.

But that morning when she went out to the driveway all dressed up in navy blue for morning court she stopped cold in her tracks. Two long seconds of unreality struck before she could collect herself and make sense out of what greeted her.

An empty driveway.

Her car wasn't there.

Stupidly, she walked up the driveway to the street and looked left and right as if it had somehow moved itself in the night. Had it rolled into the backyard? No, she had let the dog into the yard earlier. No Bronco there. She tried to think. Yes, she had definitely driven it home last night, she remembered clearly.

Nikki? Her mountain bike was gone. Anyway, although she bemoaned the fact, Nikki didn't have a license to drive last time Nina heard. Neither did Bob.

The key! The white plastic key still sat in her wallet. But—

A lost vehicle isn't like a lost dog. You can't run around the neighborhood calling for it. Some jerk had stolen her truck right out of her own driveway. Nina went back inside and got Bob, who came out to stare in disbelief at the spot where the Bronco usually sat. Then she called the South Lake Tahoe Police Department and her office. Then she remembered the files.

Her heart fell to her shoes. She had definitely locked the truck, she remembered what a hassle it was with that stupid plastic key. . . .

She counted the files in her mind. Three: the Cruz custody battle, the Vangs and their insurance claim, and—oh no, the new one, the campground-murder case, with the sisters, Brandy and Angel.

Confidential files. Her most sensitive cases, the ones with information no one should see, stuffed inside her briefcase on the floor of the backseat of the Bronco.

Out there somewhere, in someone's sweaty, thieving paws.

3

W
AITING ON THE DRIVEWAY
for the police, Nina walked up and down rubbing her neck, and when that didn't take the rigidity out of it, she rotated it a few times. She had made the mistake that everybody makes once in ten thousand events. Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine correct decisions, one mistake, and with any luck at all, you don't get called on the mistake. You leave something important in the car, smack your forehead in the morning when you realize it, run outside, and find all is well.

Across the street, her neighbor climbed up a steep ladder to his roof and fiddled with green shingles.

He could fall, she thought. He could die. Every day presented new opportunities for catastrophe.

She decided not to wave at him.

A mud-spattered patrol car pulled up in front. Gleaming pines and firs dripped all around, but the asphalt steamed in the morning sun, rapidly drying. Bob, ready to take the bus, ran up behind her begging for money, lunchless because she had been hunting for the extra copy of the Bronco registration and the title. She shoved several crumpled dollars she had in a pocket toward him, leaning out for a kiss on the cheek as he passed.

“Good luck, Mom,” he said, running down the street to the stop where his school bus was already loading.

Two officers, a man and a woman looking like carpenters with all the tools hanging from their belts, hauled themselves out of the car, leaving the police radio on loud to make sure all the neighbors would know there was trouble at the Reilly house. “Counselor. How you doing,” said the tall woman.

“Officer Scholl. Thanks for coming.” Great, Nina thought. Of course they would send Jean Scholl. She didn't feel thankful, she felt annoyed at her rotten luck, but she had no choice but to accept the help on offer.

Scholl stared at her for a minute, tightened her lips, then looked away. She didn't offer to shake and neither did Nina. Her gray eyes raked the empty driveway, looking for traces, suddenly all business.

“Good morning,” Dave Matthias said, introducing himself. Newer in the department, he was narrow-jawed and short on hair.

A major drawback of doing criminal-defense work in a small town was that sometimes Nina had to try to discredit the work and the motives of local cops for the sake of her clients. Some cops lied and some were biased. Whatever the negative attitude, they didn't appreciate being called on it in court. Scholl's outburst on Thursday showed that. The best Nina hoped for from these two would be wary reserve, so she was pleasantly surprised when they listened intently and worked the information like pros. To her relief, Scholl had apparently decided to put their differences aside for the time being and do her job.

Nina spent an hour with them, retracing her trip home the night before, where exactly she had parked, handing over copies of the truck papers, which she had made on the home fax copier. They all went down to the driveway and looked for bits of glass, footprints in the still-damp pine needles in the cracks in the asphalt, anything. The driveway had no conspicuous clues to yield.

“You're sure you lost your car key sometime during the day yesterday,” Officer Scholl said at least five times.

Nina had spent the past few minutes reliving the night's activities in excruciating detail. Her car key was gone. That was a fact. “I can't find it in my purse or the pockets of the clothes I was wearing.”

“But you don't think the key could have fallen between the seats. Or something.”

“I don't know. What I'm saying is that I locked the doors of the Bronco last night with my spare key. So nobody just came up and was searching through an unlocked car and just happened to find my key. Either they broke in and hot-wired the Bronco or they somehow have my lost key.”

“No one could have used your spare key. The plastic one.” The monotonic, carefully nonjudgmental voice made Nina feel worse.

“It was in my wallet in the living room. I always lock the house up tight and turn on the alarm. It was right there. This morning I found it in the wallet where I left it.”

Officer Matthias gave the gate an experimental kick, as though this might make it give up a hint.

Nina went on, “It was the storm. It's a quiet neighborhood. I meant to go back out right away but I got distracted.” Thank God, the house and office keys hadn't been on the same keychain. Nina closed her eyes for a moment, recalling a recent conversation with Paul in the Long's Drug Store parking lot as they had watched a man get out of his car and go into the store, leaving his motor running. “If someone drives off in that car,” Paul said, “he's doing that ass a favor. They oughtta arrest him as an accessory, teach him a lesson.”

The officers wrote down what Nina told them about the three files. “Legal files,” she said.

“Client files?” Scholl asked, scribbling on a notepad.

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

“Names on the files?”

“Yes. The files were labeled.”

“I get that. But what were the names?”

“I can't tell you that.”

“You won't give us the labels on the files? How are we supposed to identify them if they're found in a trash can behind some house in Meyers?”

“Call me and I'll come down and look at any legal-sized manila folders you find.”

“And what if one of the people in your files decided he wanted them back? How are we going to question him if we don't even know his name?” Scholl asked, putting her pad down for the moment, letting only a glint of irritation enter her eyes.

“I can't help you there.”

“Kind of a drawback to our investigation.”

“Yes. It is.”

“What's in the files?”

“Pleadings.” Those she could reproduce, with copies from the clerk's office. Those were public documents. The Decree of Dissolution with the attached Marital Settlement Agreement in Kevin Cruz's case, for instance. “And business correspondence,” mostly boring. Innocuous or technical lawyer letters from the other side. Transmittal memos to the court.

“And?” asked Matthias. Both officers now stood side by side waiting to hear the rest. They already knew, but they wanted her to say it.

“Confidential material.”

Officer Scholl wrote. “That would include what?”

“My attorney work-product, including my legal research notes, my notes of consultations with experts. Confidential.”

“Uh huh. Like what?”

“Like my client-intake notes. I can't give details. Most of it is protected by the attorney-client privilege.”

“Written documents?”

“Right,” Nina said, picturing the client-intake forms in her mind. Addresses for people who did not want to be found. Figures for a hefty insurance settlement that would make some people sit up and take greedy notice if they knew about it. Kevin's secret.

The ramifications rushed at her like a Roman phalanx. Kevin Cruz was a local cop. He would hear about the auto theft and the files and would want to know if his could be involved. He would be concerned.

The custody hearing continued at eleven-thirty this morning.

How could she manage this catastrophe? She had to get into the office, talk to Sandy.

“Because what I'm wondering . . .” said Officer Scholl, digging around in a pocket and putting on expensive-looking mirrored sunglasses against the glare of sun. She faced Nina directly: “Is the auto theft ancillary? You know? Did this thief want your files?”

“How could anyone know I'd be taking them home last night? I don't often do that,” Nina said.

“You don't take files home?”

“Well, yes. But these particular files—”

“Could someone have seen you leave and followed you home?”

“I didn't notice anyone, but I wasn't looking either.”

“This young lady, Nicole Zack. She left after you had arrived.”

“I'm sure she had nothing to do with it.”

“Maybe. But it's raining, it's dark, she's supposed to be biking home. Maybe she opens the Bronco door—”

“It was locked. I locked it.”

“Maybe. But maybe she sees a key on the seat. You dropped it there. Maybe she decides to borrow the Bronco just to get herself home.”

“She'd have to break in, because as I keep telling you, the Bronco was locked with my spare key.”

“You were tired. Maybe you just thought you locked it,” Officer Matthias put in.

“Talk to her if you want,” Nina said. “But it wasn't her. I locked the doors. I didn't hear anything.”

“Well, but, you know? Nikki Zack, right here last night, walking along this very driveway on a noisy, stormy night. We know her. You defended her once.”

“I know what you're thinking, but she was acquitted. She was proven to be innocent of that crime.”

Scholl sighed. Here police butted heads with defense attorneys daily. “Maybe she was proven innocent of
that
crime,” she said. “But, speaking generally, involvement with the law, meaning us, gets to be a bad habit. Like cigarettes.” She smiled in an overly friendly fashion. “People get hooked before they know it. They can't quit.” Below his own sunglasses, Matthias's pale mouth wiggled in response to her joke.

“That may be the opinion around the good old police department,” Nina said, knowing better but unwilling to conceal her disdain, “but she's a friend of my son's, and I trust her.” She didn't, but they didn't have to know that.

“She know any of the people whose files got stolen? Any people who might be mentioned in the files?”

Nina thought about her cases. “No. Look. This is simple auto theft. I believe that, but it's an emergency for me because of the briefcase. The files. This is urgent, Officer.”

Scholl snapped her notebook shut. “We'll give it the same urgent attention we'd give any theft of property.” She delivered the news in that same controlled officious monotone that made Nina think paranoiacally of all sorts of things: whether she was more unpopular than she knew with law enforcement, whether they might actually put the theft on the back burner to cause her further discomfiture, whether Scholl was laughing at her problems behind those unfashionable glasses, for starters.

“I have to get to my office,” Nina said. “I have to call a taxi. I—”

“Call me if you find your files at your office,” Scholl said, handing Nina her card.

“I won't. They were in the truck.”

“Check anyway.” Officer Scholl asked for Nikki's address and phone number and Nina gave the information. As soon as the two officers pulled out, Nina got on the phone to the taxi company. Another half hour passed before she arrived at the Starlake Building and rushed down the hall to her office, feeling naked without her briefcase, stripped, vulnerable, mad, and frightened all at once.

“Three questions,” said Sandy as Nina came into the office. “These points and authorities on the summary-judgment motion . . .”

“I have one for you,” Nina said, tossing her things into her office and turning back to face her secretary. “Did I by any chance leave a pile of files on your desk last night?”

“You always leave a pile.” Sandy pointed to a stack of paperwork Nina had left. Sandy Whitefeather, a member of the local Native American Washoe tribe, had been working with Nina ever since Nina had left her marriage and job in San Francisco and moved to South Lake Tahoe several years before.

“Not those.” But she rummaged through the papers on Sandy's desk anyway.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Sandy said, putting a smooth brown hand with short nails and a heavy silver wristband down on the stack of files just in front of her. “You lost some files?”

“I lost the Bronco.”

“What?”

“I lost the entire Bronco, and my briefcase happened to be in it.” Sandy's eyebrow rose perceptibly as she tapped her fingertip against the tip of her nose, listening while Nina told her in a few words what had happened. “I know, I know,” Nina said. “I never should have left them sitting there on the floor of the backseat. That was foolish. I can't believe my rotten luck. The Cruz case. That's up in the air, and there's something strange going on with Lisa Cruz, who went nuts on the stand yesterday. The third day of Kevin's temporary-custody hearing is in two hours. He wants those kids and she gives him a hard time about letting them visit.”

“He's been waiting a long time. He's not gonna let you put it over.”

“No, he won't. He shouldn't have to.” Interject a massive guilt attack into the hellish clash of emotions she was feeling. “But Kevin told me something in strictest confidence. It's on the client-intake form, information that could ruin his chances to get joint custody of his kids if—if—”

“If his wife finds out. Can you handle the hearing without the file, that's what I wonder.”

“Of course that's my biggest concern at the moment. The basics—most of the prep work for the hearing—we have the computer file.”

“I'll make you a printout.” Sandy started hitting the keyboard keys as they talked. The printer clicked and hummed and sucked in a sheet of paper. They watched the paper fill with words.

“What about the exhibits?” Sandy asked.

“Kevin was bringing the originals to court. I only had copies in the file. This hearing I can manage.”

“What about the others? Kao Vang and the two sisters?”

“All those files contained were my client-intake notes. But they are crucial. Oh, this is such a mess. It's the same as with Kevin's file. Those notes contained material that can't get out.”

Sandy heaved herself out of the tight black swivel chair. “Well, before we get all panicked, let's look around here. Car key. Briefcase. Three files.” She moved around the two rooms, sandals light-footed, long blue cotton skirt swaying, long glass earrings tinkling.

Nothing showed up in Sandy's stack or on Nina's desk.

Sandy searched through the cabinet behind her. Nina moved over to the client area and restacked magazines, checking for anything that didn't belong. They let the voice mail pick up the ever-ringing phone.

“Where'd you see the briefcase last? Maybe we can apply the eighteen-inch rule. Whatever you lost is almost always within eighteen inches of where you saw it last.”

“I saw it on the floor in the backseat of the Bronco.”

“And the key?”