Last Chants (32 page)

“Her spy.” Arthur's eyelids fluttered. He looked pale and exhausted. “Needed more information from her, perhaps—couldn't let her be the only suspect, could he? Didn't know about the new three-strikes law; or didn't know I'd been arrested before. It's not in character otherwise: He's chivalrous. Kind to you when you needed it. Properly laid out poor Pan's body. We should have known then. Understood from the gentlemanliness of the gesture.”

The gentlemanliness of framing an innocent man to cover up your industrial informant's murder? There might be no honor among thieves, but there was arguably gallantry among spies.

It certainly looked like Galen Nelson was right. The man I'd known as Martin Late Rain must be Joel Baker. He'd paid Toni
Nelson for her husband's computer secrets. Toni had been jealous of Nelson's success—of his “children,” whom she wanted to kill.

But Toni couldn't visit a competitor's office without being conspicuous. She was too striking—and too ungoverned. It was safer to meet her in the woods. Maybe Joel Baker enjoyed camping in a lean-to. Maybe he'd hoped to attract Billy Seawuit and talk to him. Maybe it was just convenient in the short run.

“Chivalrous?” I tried to think the concept through.

Arthur's eyes glinted as he winced. “The gun must have a significance, Willa. He'd heard that's how Billy was killed. But there must have been some reason he thought handing it to me would take the brunt of the investigation off
her,
poor woman.”

“It must have been Toni Nelson's gun. Nelson mentioned something of hers being missing from the basement; he thought it might be somewhere else. But I'll bet it was a gun. Joel Baker must have seen it when he was looking at TechnoShaman. He probably took it last weekend, after hearing Billy was shot. Either he assumed Toni killed him or she admitted something.”

“Something but not everything. Not her use of a knife. The proverbial ‘a little information.'”

“Then he must have gone to your hotel—I suppose Billy told Toni you were there; he wouldn't know not to. Baker followed you out Monday morning. He thought Toni shot Billy, so he gave her gun to you, Arthur.”

“To protect her.” There was a hint of admiration in his tone.

“Can we please discuss this tomorrow, people?” Fred sounded highly exasperated. He was taping the thick pad of gauze over Arthur's cut.

“If I hadn't thrown the gun away—”

Fred and Arthur interrupted simultaneously.

“No more!” Fred insisted.

“Ironic,” Arthur agreed.

Had Arthur been arrested with the gun, it might have linked Toni Nelson to a crime for which she wouldn't otherwise have been a suspect. And perhaps the man who'd called himself Pan would be alive now.

Arthur reached out and squeezed my hand.

An hour later, assured that Arthur was all right and sleeping peacefully, Fred left.

He didn't know whether Edward had stayed with the Nelsons or fled. He didn't know what, if anything, Edward planned to do about the fact that 911 had recorded the cell phone's number. But Fred wanted to be home, and ostensibly in bed, if the police came by.

“If I end up in jail for that mutt—” He shot me a look. “I should have drowned him at birth.”

He sped off in Edward's Jeep, leaving me in a house that recalled my solvent days as a corporate lawyer.

But I might as well have been on Mars. The week had carried me light-years from my past.

I sat up half the night watching Arthur, wondering what would happen next.

“I
t's so embarrassing,” I said again to Cary Curtis. “I felt like a fool when I phoned my father and he told me what had happened.”

“Well, I admit, Willa, we thought you'd jumped ship.”

I smiled at my new boss as if the very notion were preposterous. It was one week to the hour since I'd encountered Arthur around the corner from this office.

“I was so surprised!” I lied. “I phoned to check in, and my dad told me you expected me in last week. I couldn't believe it. I had him check my datebook, my computer calendar. I don't know how it could have happened. I don't know how I could have written down the thirteenth when you wrote down the sixth.”

“You can imagine our relief when he phoned on Friday and told us he'd spoken with you. Explained the mix-up.”

My father had taken it upon himself to make excuses for me, though he'd heard nothing from me since Monday. Insurance, he called it, in case things worked out.

“I wish I could have called you myself. But it's not easy to get a good connection from there.”

“As long as you don't do this with your court dates!” He laughed, but we both knew it wasn't a joke.

“No.” I sounded sure. “This definitely won't happen again.”

“By the way,” Curtis said, “I like your hair like that.”

“I got it cut on vacation.” It had taken a very short style to disguise the botch job I'd performed.

“Well, let's go ahead and get you settled into your office.” He stood, preparing to walk me down the hall. “We certainly got to know Lieutenant Surgelato well,” he said archly.

I tried to smile. When I couldn't quite manage it, I preceded him into the hall.

“We hear he even hired detectives to look for you,” Curtis continued.

“No, that's just someone's embellishment.”

The two phony backpackers had indeed been off-duty cops. Surgelato hired them to search the woods near Edward's cabin. Edward was livid when he heard. He was especially angry about his camera, which they took to check for snapshots of me. He was even more displeased that they'd fired into the air to keep him at a distance.

Cary Curtis ushered me into a tastefully furnished office with some phenomenal computer equipment in it.

A newspaper was folded beside a carafe of coffee. I'd already read the story that interested me: that Arthur Kenna had come forward after a brief retreat to learn of the tragic death of his assistant.

The version tucked into the business section had been of greater interest to Curtis & Huston.

“It's awful about Mrs. Nelson,” I said. “I realized when I read the article that it was the Cyberdelics people.”

Curtis nodded. “She's been selling secrets to its competitors. They still haven't found her middleman, though I believe they know who it is. The rumor is he bought himself a mansion somewhere up in Canada. But they don't know what name he's using, and Canada's a hell of a big place.”

It was hard to visualize Joel Baker in a mansion.

“Nelson tried to keep the whole thing quiet,” he continued.
“He's like a lot of us geeks, I suppose—lets the wife handle the money.” He leaned closer. “Confidentially? It turns out she sabotaged the hardware and software he keeps at home. He thought they'd had a break-in. So sad: He'll be way out of pocket by the time he reimburses his partners.”

“Not to mention pays for her defense lawyers.”

“Oh, I don't know about that. I imagine they'll plea bargain. She's admitted the killings.”

She'd used the same knife—tucked in her fanny pack the day she and I grappled—on Billy Seawuit and John Doe, as the police blandly renamed Pan.

“I assume they'll go for an insanity defense?” I tried to sound merely curious.

“Well,” Curtis sighed. “Good thing we don't have to worry about it. We're not down in the trenches like criminal lawyers. We're nice and insulated from the muck. We've got our own kind of muck, but at least it's bloodless; no one loses anything but property or money. Or worse, creative effort.” He glanced at the stack of file folders on my desk. “You know we're defending Cyberdelics in a suit brought by Mrs. Nelson's ex-husband? He was in town last week meeting with his lawyers. He claims Cyberdelics used his beta-wave research. It's tricky: It involves work he and Mrs. Nelson did together.”

No wonder Galen Nelson didn't want to talk to—or even about—him. I just prayed I hadn't been assigned the case.

“I'll be taking care of it personally,” Curtis concluded.

We exchanged a few more pleasantries. Then, with great relief, I shut my office door behind him.

I sat in my swivel chair, absolutely exhausted. I'd only had a day to get everything together.

Edward had persuaded Galen Nelson not to involve “Alice Young” in all this. He'd called it his quid pro quo for disappearing Toni's last victim, Arthur.

Edward had arrived at his ex-sister-in-law's house in the wee hours of Saturday morning, and we'd made our arrangements. Others in Boulder Creek had met Alice, but Edward would pretend she'd been a pickup, just a one-week stand.

The police had Toni Nelson; they didn't care about much else.

Only Don Surgelato had required extra persuasion. But I'd
shortened the time we needed to talk by phoning him at home when his wife was there.

As far as I was concerned, there was only one loose end. I phoned the Biltmore Hotel.

“Hi, Arthur,” I said.

“Willa.” His voice was fond, tired, familiar. “I miss you, my dear. I was just about to phone you.”

I swiveled my chair so that I looked out my window, down at the Financial District's morning foot traffic.

I had nothing in particular to say. “I'm calling from my office. Last Monday seems like a long time ago.”

“Willa?” He sounded apologetic. “Do you really want to be a lawyer?”

“I'm sitting here, aren't I?”

“So they made no fuss?”

“No. They chalked it up to miscommunication.”

“But do you
want
to be there?”

“I went to law school. This is what people do if they've been to law school. It's somewhat expected of them.” That was the sad truth of the matter. If you worked hard enough, you got what you worked for.

I put my hand on my stack of file folders. I couldn't talk long. I'd have to be a real hot dog for a while to make up for the lousy first impression.

“The reason I bring it up, the reason I was going to call . . . ” Arthur paused. I could visualize his face clearly after our week together: I could see the tentative inclination of his head, the brightness of his eyes. “I can't quite cope without Billy, you know. I need an assistant.”

“They'll jump at the chance, anyone you interview.” I imagined Arthur's assistant traveling to visit shamans, living in long-houses, gliding in dugout canoes. What an experience for some lucky young anthropologist or ethnobotanist.

“Will you do it, Willa? Will you be my assistant?”

“Me?” Save me from major life choices at my age.

“Edward didn't feel you had the . . . how shall I put it?” Arthur struggled to edit him. “A Spanish word not used in polite company.”

“Cojones?”
But one thing I was sure of: “Edward knew you'd
tell me that. He thinks I'll do it now just to show him.” To show I had (to sink to guyspeak) the “balls.”

Arthur chuckled. “He suggested I ask you if your new employer considers you a vessel of grace?”

I flipped open a folder: the fine print of a patent application.

The last time I'd made peace with work I didn't like, it backfired. I hadn't been able to hang in long enough to boost my career. I'd run through the money I'd saved, winding up worse off than before.

This job was supposed to be my way out of that predicament.

“Is another law firm really the answer, Willa? Or are you repeating the same mistake?”

I tried to think of a rejoinder: my career, right or wrong. I tried to think of a facet of law, an aspect of practice, I loved. I opened more file folders: unfair competition, software copyright, breach of contract. The cases involved sexy new gadgets and Hollywood special effects, but it was still business law, the same old common law rules and obtuse new regulations. It was back to carping briefs and bad-tempered phone messages, back to twelve-hour days and big-city egos.

Oh God, maybe Edward was right.

I gripped the receiver tightly. I didn't want to hang up, I didn't want to let go.

Perhaps that was my future self, casting its vote.

I closed my eyes, begging my present self to be sensible.

“Arthur, I can't.”

“Oh?” He sounded disappointed. “But I feel certain you'll change your mind. I was sent to Montgomery Street to find you; this has to be the reason.”

There was a knock at my door. “Come in,” I called.

My secretary, a plain young woman with intelligent eyes, walked in. She was carrying a foot-tall live pine tree in a pot trimmed with colored cellophane and ribbon. She smiled as she set it on my desk. She handed me the florist's enclosure card, then left.

“Willa?” Arthur sounded sad. “Will you call me if you change your mind?”

I wondered if I was limited to a certain number of calls per day.

I pulled the card from its envelope. It read,
Go for it.
I knew it was from Edward.

My former boyfriend apparently agreed with my future self.

If only the present Willa weren't so stubbornly practical. “I will call you. Soon. Either way,” I promised.

The scent of evergreen filled my office. It wasn't easy to hang up and get to work.

B
Y THE SAME AUTHOR

Designer Crimes

Face Value

A Hard Bargain

Prior Convictions*

The Good Fight

Hidden Agenda*

The Smart Money

A Radical Departure*

Where Lawyers Fear to Tread*

*A Willa Jansson mystery