Move to Strike (30 page)

“I’ll give you ten seconds to put a Band-Aid on the kiddie and get the hell out. This is my claim.” Bending over Tim, Nina finally recognized the accent. Australian. Agitated, she continued ministering to Tim, her back to Rankin, blocking Tim from Rankin’s view.

“This lady, Nina Reilly, represents Nicole Zack, a young woman who is charged with the murder of Dr. William Sykes,” Paul said. “My name is Paul van Wagoner.”

“Never heard of him. Never heard of any of you.”

“You and Dr. Sykes were seen together at Prize’s, arguing, a few days before his death,” Paul said. “So that’s kind of unlikely.”

“No law against hoisting a few with a fellow in a bar, last I heard,” Rankin said.

“What was the bag on the table? Was it opals? What was your business with Sykes?”

Rankin answered by raising the pickax. “You a little slow, mate? Let me make it easy on you. I want you gone. Go or be damned.”

He spoke through his nose, Nina noticed. Nikki had described that nasal voice, that accent.

He was Nikki’s phone caller, which meant—

“Just give me a second to clear this,” Nina said, gesturing with a plastic jar of antiseptic she had discovered in Tim’s well-stocked backpack. “He’s bleeding.”

“That was you in the woods behind Nikki Zack’s house a few nights ago, wasn’t it?” Paul asked Rankin. “I mean, otherwise there’s another Australian prospector in Tahoe with a ferocious interest in opals, which I find far-fetched, don’t you?”

While he talked, Nina, ostensibly taking care of Tim, was fighting an interior battle. All she could think was: Rankin might have hurt Bob. Anger welled up, so thick and opaque, it temporarily blinded her to Tim, to Paul, to her surroundings. Hot, sweating, she busied herself with Tim’s leg, trying to subdue her fury.

Paul went on, “That arm of yours is looking pretty nasty, Rankin. Did the woman with the shotgun nick you? That must have hurt.”

Keeping the pickax raised and steady, Rankin reflexively drew his arm closer to his body.

Paul placed his hands in his pockets. Nina had noticed this ploy before. He used it to reduce his power superficially while maintaining absolute control. When Rankin spoke, Paul leaned slightly toward him, looking friendly and interested, as innocuous as an applicant hoping to hear something positive from the loan officer of a bank.

But Rankin didn’t underestimate Paul. “Hands out where I can see ’em,” he commanded.

Paul complied, spreading his arms palms up so that Rankin could see he wasn’t looking for a fight. “You went there to steal the opals, didn’t you?”

“I’m no thief!” he snarled. “If I go after something, it’s mine in the first place.”

“How could the opals be yours? Did you dig them up yourself?”

“Maybe I did. And maybe they were owed me.”

“Sykes owed them to you? And then you read that he was dead and Nikki Zack was there that night. Figured she had them, didn’t you?”

“I never hurt anyone,” he said, taking furtive pleasure in this literal interpretation of the truth. “That wood behind the house is public property and that woman with the shotgun should be locked up.”

Paul passed over this. “And for that matter, where did Sykes get opals in the first place? He’s no prospector.” Paul shook a rock out of his shoe. “But you are. So, let’s say, for the sake of argument, you discovered the opals. They belonged to Sykes because you found them on what you thought was his property. Let’s put aside for a moment what you were doing on the claim next door. You brought them to him. That’s the act of an honest man,” he said, and Rankin responded with a nod, following along with some curiosity. “And then, you say, he promised to give them back to you,” Paul continued. “In payment for something? To manage the opal strike on his claim?”

Rankin frowned. “Not even close. Not the deal at all.”

Paul waved a fly away. “So what was the deal?”

Rankin looked at Paul, Nina, and then Tim. Apparently appeased by the sight of three blundering city folk out for a walk in the vicious sun, with no visible weaponry and unthreatening manners . . . whatever it was he saw, he decided to answer. “The deal was that I
wouldn’t
mine the opals.”

Paul seemed momentarily taken aback. “You
wouldn’t
mine the opals?”

“He paid me to stay off the claim and keep my mouth shut about it.”

“So he refused to pay you, and you had an argument at Prize’s.”

“Wrong again. He was holding the opals for a few months to make sure I didn’t tell anyone about the strike. He just got sidetracked by a sword before he had a chance to get them back to me.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Paul said. “Help me out here. You were arguing.”

“That was after I found out . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing. I didn’t kill the doc, and I didn’t break any laws. Which concludes our business here today, in my view.”

“But you were fighting,” Paul persisted. “And you won’t say why. That leaves a huge question hanging out there.”

Nina moved. She got up to stand in front of Rankin, hands on her hips.

“Nina,” Paul said, his voice warning her.

She ignored him. “You chased my son in the woods,” she said, aware only of Dennis Rankin. “You scared him to death. And you would have hurt him, too.” She remembered that night, the smell of the moist clumps of leaves on the ground, how hard Bob’s heart had pounded when she finally got to hug him again. The thought of him running in the dark woods so afraid blinded her momentarily to the brightness all around them. All she could see was Bob’s face when they got back to the house, the new dark place in his eyes that resided there all the time now.

Rankin stared at her, then let out a laugh like a bark. “That was your son? Nimble little bugger.”

She could see every clogged pore on his face, the wild hairs on his eyebrows, the dirt streaming down his neck. “This is for you,” Nina said. She handed him a subpoena.

He took it.

“And so’s this.” Nina’s arm went back and swung forward before Paul could stop it. Her palm connected with Rankin’s filthy face so hard that he reeled back a step. Fast as a scorpion, he jumped toward her, jerking the pickax up over his shoulder, getting ready to let loose . . .

Paul grabbed her and pulled her out of reach.

“How dare you,” she said to Rankin, rubbing her stinging hand. “You were the one in my truck, too, you bastard!”

Tim sprang to his feet and took a position next to Nina and Paul.

Just in time, because Rankin raised his ax and charged, swinging wildly as they scattered. Screaming curses, he followed Nina, who was running pell-mell down the hill, slipping on clods and gravel, falling and picking herself up, with the big man rumbling down after her, heavy as a truck. Paul managed to get between them, and ducked out of the way as Rankin swung. “Run!” he said to Nina and Tim. Nina paused just long enough to notice the mark of her hand across Rankin’s fleshy cheek. Then she ran after Tim, who had put a jackrabbit’s distance between himself and the fight.

Paul, not moving fast, used strategy. He got Rankin running fast down a steep slope behind him, then shifted direction suddenly and watched with satisfaction as the huge man lost his balance and fell. “We’ll be going now,” Paul said before Rankin had time to shake his brain back into place and come after them.

He climbed as quickly as he could to join Nina and Tim, who were waiting for him uphill on the trail. Accompanied by a steady stream of threats and invective from the gully below, they headed back, Tim grabbing his pack on the way. After they got out of visual reach, Tim started to whistle softly.

“You move surprisingly well for a guy who was freaking out a minute ago over a snakebite,” Paul observed, panting.

Tim pushed his pant leg firmly over the spot Nina had neatly cleaned. “I’m tougher than I act,” he said.

“There was no snake. There was no bite,” Nina said.

Paul’s eyebrows shot up.

“He faked it.”

“Got a real good look in those buckets,” said Tim. “Got a good look at the rock wall. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, Nina?”

“That’s what I wanted, Tim. Did you see anything?”

“Bentonite. The right kind of clay. But no opals. He’s not finding anything but low-grade opals he couldn’t sell for a couple of bucks to the rock store. You practically took his jaw off, Nina. I thought lawyers were—”

“Bare-handed, she takes on Charlie Manson and his pickax,” Paul said.

“I never did anything like that before,” Nina said, feeling the contact with Rankin’s grizzled, stinking skin on her hand again. She wiped it on her leg, trying to remove all traces of the encounter. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Paul said nothing, but he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

When they got back to the Bronco, Tim pulled out a small sample he had filched from one of the buckets while Nina had been playing nurse, and examined it. “No. He’s not working a strike. He’s looking, but he’s not finding anything.”

“The opals must be on the Logan claim. Rankin started out prospecting his own land,” Paul speculated. “He found inferior opals there and checked out some nearby properties, maybe without permission. That’s where he found the really good opals Sykes had, that Nikki took.”

“The geology in this area is under-examined.” Tim shuffled the map. “But it seems impossible that black fire opals would be discovered so far from the Virgin Valley. The adjoining claim would have had to have the volcanic action plus the right minerals. I want to see the claim. It’s due east of here, but we have to go all the way out to the main road first.”

“Tim, we don’t have enough time to look at Grandpa Logan’s claim today,” Nina said. “I have to get back to Tahoe tonight. It’s a five-hour drive.”

“Fine,” Tim said from the back seat. “I’ll show you where to drop me. I’ve got a tent, water, supplies, and a phone in the bag. I’ll camp out on the claim tonight, and call one of the T.A.’s from the university to come and pick me up when I’m finished.”

“Your phone might not work this far out,” Nina said.

“I’ve got a satellite phone. I do lots of work in remote places. Now, don’t you worry about old Tim.”

“You’re a good man, for an expert witness,” Paul said. “Tim, those opals Nina showed you in your office, you thought they were valuable, right?”

“They were larger and more stable than any I’ve seen.”

“If another half dozen existed, even larger, the real cream of the collection, would you say they were extraordinarily valuable?”

“Hmm,” Tim said. “Depends on your context. The largest rock she showed me
might
—and highlight that word in your mind with a bright yellow marker— might just fetch a few thousand. So take a dozen, half of them even larger than the ones I saw . . .” A dreamy look came into his eyes. “I’d say that entire stash was worth over $100,000, sold to the right bidders. Maybe more. That’s if they are uncut. Cut and polished by the right expert, much more.”

“It’s a lot,” Nina said. But it was really just money. She felt tired. Was that what this case came down to, another brawl over money?

“Hitchcock’s MacGuffin,” Paul said.

“What?” Nina said. She thought he was referring to a dog toy.

“In every movie of his, there’s some important object everyone’s chasing. Only it isn’t really important what it is. It’s the story that comes out of how much people want it that is important. Remember in
Pulp
Fiction
they opened the attaché case and you never even got to see what was this shining thing they’d all been struggling to get through the whole movie?”

“That wasn’t Hitchcock,” Tim protested. “That was Elmore Leonard, wasn’t it? No, wait. The Italian guy.”

“You think the opals are at the heart of this?” Nina asked.

“No,” Paul said. “That’s what I’m saying. They’re just objects. The heart of the case is inside someone, beating fast.”

“Poetic,” Nina said. “Who?”

“And the suspects, they go round and round,” Paul said. “Or maybe the opals have nothing to do with this, and our original theory, that Sykes’s murder was connected with a malpractice case, is the more likely one.” They continued their discussion until they reached the end of the dirt road. Relaxing his hands on the wheel as they hit smooth asphalt, Paul said, “At least we know one thing. We know who was calling Nikki, who came after you, and who chased Bob through the woods that night. And who argued over something with Sykes at the casino a week before he was murdered. Are you going to sic the police on him, Nina?”

“I think . . . we can use him in our case somehow. So I guess not. And he’s right. He never did hurt any of us, just used scare tactics. I don’t think he’s a danger to us, now his story’s out.”

“He knows we know who he is,” Paul agreed.

They fell into thought. In the back seat, Tim, who had been marking their map with a highlighter, said, “Stop here.”

They all got out and stretched. Late afternoon had brought the long blue-green shadows out. Buzzards circled overhead. A faint track led off across a scrubby meadow with the same line of mountains behind it. A wooden post beside the track was marked with a couple of black stripes. The Logan claim.

“You sure you want to do this?” Paul said.

“I’ve never been so thrilled in my entire professional life,” Tim said. He shook hands with them. “I’ll report in when I get back.”

“Take it easy,” Nina said. Climbing into the driver’s seat, she looked down the dusty track toward the barren hills.

“Maybe there’s a claim I can stake myself nearby,” Tim said.

“I have the feeling all the relevant land is taken,” said Paul.

“Oh, well,” Tim said philosophically. He tucked the map into his bag along with his stolen rock. “There’s still the glory of scientific publication.”

CHAPTER 24

PAUL, NINA, SANDY, Wish, and Dr. Ginger Hirabayashi sat around Nina’s conference table on Monday morning in postures that to Nina’s eyes perfectly exemplified their roles. Paul, the sly spy, lolled innocently on the chair, his leg hanging over its arm as if he were sitting at home watching a ball game, but the eyes in his sunburned face were sharp on Nina. Sandy, the sentry, was parked like a Humvee near the door. Wish, the disciple, listened eagerly, his big ears pricked, eyes wide as he took in everything. And Ginger was the resident skeptic, arms folded, buzz-cut head cocked to the side, scanning for defects in Nina’s train of thinking.

“The worst thing about this whole case is that Henry McFarland is buying into the current hysteria surrounding juvenile violence and has decided to try Nikki as an adult,” Nina said. “I’ve practically gone down on my knees to him . . .”

“You mean, as in groveling, or as in pulling a Monica?” Paul interjected.

Nina looked at him, at his silly smile, at his powerful shoulders, at his capable hands, most of all at his hazel eyes flecked with yellow which caught everything, and she thought again, a basilisk, checking the word against the man she thought she knew. Inhumanly cold on the inside. A killer.

He noticed the look. “Sorry. Lousy joke,” he said.

With an effort, she went on. “But the prosecutor has a lot of discretion in making that decision, and no prosecutor or judge is going to go against the tide of public opinion. The whole country is paranoid about kids her age right now. So she’s charged with murder in the first degree. It can’t be a death penalty case, but there is a possibility of a life sentence.” She shook her head, looking down at her coffee cup. “It’s incredible. It’s all wrong in light of the factors cited in the
Kent
case, and . . .”

“How come she’s charged with first-degree murder?” Sandy said. “It’ll have to look like a crime of passion to a jury. Not cold-blooded. No plan and all.”

“You mean no premeditation, Mom,” Wish told Sandy. Wish was studying law enforcement at the community college and getting much savvier. Sandy slitted her eyes very slightly and Wish said, “Uh oh.”

“I know what I mean,” Sandy said.

“Sure you do, Mom.”

“Damn right she does,” Paul said.

“You stay out of this,” Sandy warned.

“Wish is just trying to be helpful, aren’t you, Wish?” Paul said.

Wish nodded.

“He’s got a lot on his mind,” Paul added.

“That would be a first,” said Sandy.

“What do you have on your mind, Wish?” Ginger asked him. “Now I’m just dying to know.”

Wish said, “I’m buying Paul’s van. I’m getting some work done on it. A ring job, new brake pads, new CD player, and new upholstery in back.”

Paul said, “You’re replacing my upholstery?”

“Well, I mean, leopard skin? Pretty dated. Like the hippies or something.”

“What will you put back there?”

“Industrial carpeting. I’ll have my bike back there a lot and my friends won’t have to wipe their shoes.”

“I just happen to have some surplus industrial carpeting,” Paul said. “Come down to Carmel with me when the hearing’s over and I’ll give it to you. I might even have a job or two to keep you busy until school starts up again.”

“Excellent concept!”

“Excuse me. Can we get back to Sandy’s important question?” Nina asked. “Why is Nikki charged with first-degree murder? With her usual discernment, Sandy has zeroed in on a crucial point in this case. First of all, Sandy, there doesn’t have to be premeditation for someone to be charged with first-degree murder. The charge in this case is based on something called the felony-murder rule.”

“A homicide that occurs during the commission of another crime,” Wish announced, looking sideways at Sandy. She made no sign she had heard.

“That’s right,” Nina said. “The theory is that Nikki was committing, or at least attempting to commit, a burglary at the time of the death. Burglary’s a felony. That’s why we face a first-degree charge. Now, we have to try to get Nikki back into the juvenile system. I think I could manage that if we could convince Judge Flaherty to throw out the burglary portion of the charge. Then the case would become a second-degree murder case and Flaherty would be much more likely to let Juvenile Court take over. That’s going to be the main strategy at this hearing.”

“What would happen to her there?” Wish asked.

“She’d be out at age twenty-five,” Nina said. “At worst.”

“Nine long years from now,” Wish said. “That’s the best we’re hoping for?”

For the length of time it took to adjust a few cramped limbs and take a sip or two of coffee, they all looked at Nina. They would take their cue from her.

“No,” Nina said. “That’s not the best we can hope for her, but it’s all we can do right now. I think we have an innocent client. The problem is, we can’t prove it. It’s too early. We have leads that go all over the place. At this point, I don’t have any way of getting the entire case thrown out. So I’m attacking on a technical point that will substantially lessen our burden at trial.”

“So it’s sort of an intermediate motion. You’re trying to get her into the juvenile system. You’re not trying to prove the girl is innocent,” Ginger said.

“I would if I could.”

“What are the main leads you’re working?”

Paul answered Ginger, counting them off on his fingers. “One. The girl’s mother did it. She was there that night. The girl may be protecting her, or she may be protecting the girl. Two: For several years, Dr. Sykes had been running into trouble with his practice. He made some serious professional blunders that may have generated a motive for murder. I’m thinking of Linda Littlebear in particular.”

Sandy stirred but said nothing.

“Three: Dennis Rankin had an argument with the good doctor over opals soon before his death. Four: Could have been a robbery. A kid named Scott Cabano was making a career of robbing houses along the lake. Maybe he came along after Nikki. Five: Persons unknown wanted both Dr. Sykes and his son dead, and sabotaged his son’s plane flight. And that’s just for starters.”

They thought about this, drinking from their cups, drumming fingers, and in Wish’s case, tapping his heel against the floor until his mother smacked the table and insisted he stop.

“Okay,” Nina said. “We are filing the paperwork this morning to move to strike portions of the testimony that was taken at the preliminary hearing. Does everyone understand that?”

More nods all around.

“I am requesting what’s called a 995 hearing. That’s a hearing based on Penal Code section 995 to review whether, based on the testimony and evidence at the prelim, there was probable cause to bind Nikki over on the first-degree charge. In this hearing, I’m going to move to strike the felony portion of the complaint.

“To do that, I’ll attack two things: all the prosecution testimony about Nikki’s blood being on the sword, and Louise Garibaldi’s testimony.

“There is a problem. A 995 hearing is usually based only on the transcript of the prelim—it isn’t usually an evidentiary hearing. And we need to get Detective Ditmar and Louise Garibaldi on the stand.”

“So?” Ginger said. “How do you get around that and make the judge accept new testimony?”

“Well, there’s this seldom-used subsection I found . . .”

Ginger broke into a broad smile, and Nina smiled back. “Section 995b. Essentially, if we can convince the judge that there is some sort of minor error in the written charges against Nikki, Henry can ask the judge to allow new testimony to correct the error so the information can stand. I can’t ask for it myself. I have to make Henry do it. So I’ll try to make Henry nervous enough about the motion to strike that he asks to bring in some more testimony from Detective Ditmar, his blood expert, and Louise. That will open the door for me to cross-examine them and maybe even put on Ginger in rebuttal.”

“So you have the setup,” Ginger said. “Then what? How, exactly, do you use it to persuade the judge to strike the felony charge?”

“Like this. First, move to strike all testimony placing Nikki in the study. Show the judge that Detective Ditmar, who testified that Nikki’s blood was on the sword, didn’t really conclude that the blood was Nikki’s. Detective Ditmar waffled at the prelim, Paul.

“Without testimony that the blood matches Nikki’s blood, there isn’t any evidence putting Nikki inside Dr. Sykes’s study. It isn’t a felony just to trespass on her uncle’s property, or to jump in his pool, or to look into the study from the outside. None of that is enough to show an intent to burglarize.”

“But she took something out of a box she got in the swimming pool,” Ginger said. “The neighbor—what’s her name . . .?”

“Louise Garibaldi,” Sandy said.

“Louise testified that she saw her take it! How do you get around that?”

“Claim that Louise is an incompetent witness, so her testimony should be stricken,” Nina said. “We’re going to strike out half the prelim evidence if we can.”

“Incompetent? How?” said Wish.

Nina said, “I’m waiting to hear from Ginger on that, Wish.” Paul had finally consented to fill her in on his experience without going into too much detail. “Let’s just say that Louise is amazingly cheerful for this hard world we live in.” She smiled and ignored the puzzlement of Sandy and Wish.

“If all that was stricken, nothing would place Nikki at the scene,” Paul said. “Wait! What about the blood on the wall outside the study? And what about her statement to the cops?”

Nina nodded. “Can’t do much about that at this hearing, Paul. I can’t get the whole case dismissed because of that remaining evidence. That’s why I’m just trying to knock out the felony allegation at this stage.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Paul said.

“No plan comes without a glitch,” Nina said. “Here’s the glitch. I am sitting on what may be some very valuable opals that I know were taken from Sykes’s house that night. I may have to give them to Henry.”

“But then—then it’ll be clear that she did take valuable items, even if she took them from outside, so it’s a felony, right?” Wish asked.

“Except for one thing. You can’t steal your own property,” Nina said. “I’ve done some research on this and I’m going to run with that idea. If I can manage to show they came from Nikki’s family’s claim . . . maybe we can find a way to put on Tim Seisz to testify that he found black fire opals on the Logan claim . . .”

“Your secret plan behind your secret plan,” Paul said. He reached over and patted her knee. “That’s my girl.” His eyebrows drew together as he felt her draw back from him.

Wish pulled on his long chin, saying, “Whoa.” Everybody else looked dubious.

“And how do we prove that?” Sandy asked from behind her notepad.

“Are you sure she’s telling the truth? Has she told you what she took?” Ginger asked.

Nina nodded. “She took a bag of opals given to Dr. Sykes in late March by Dennis Rankin, who thought Sykes owned the property where he found them. Well, Sykes didn’t own the property. The property was owned jointly by Daria Zack and Beth Sykes. So Sykes had no right to take the opals, but he took them anyway. And within days he had persuaded Daria to sell him her share.” She filled in some details of Nikki’s story for them.

When Nina was finished, Ginger ran her hand over her scalp and said, “I have a question.”

“Fire away,” Nina said. She had been thinking about the move to strike for one solid week now, always with trepidation that she might have a blind spot somewhere or was missing something. The whole structure was so convoluted. She tensed, waiting for Ginger to blow it all away.

“Sykes’s wife—Beth—she owned half the opals. So what about community property? Didn’t that make Sykes a part owner too?”

“Good question,” Nina said, relieved. “The answer is that the opals weren’t community property. Under California law, property that is inherited is separate property until the heir expressly or by implication decides to change its character, by using it to buy a joint asset, for instance.

“I talked to Beth again last night. She said that she’ll testify that there was never any intent on her part to convert the claim to community property. She’ll also testify that she has no problem with Nikki retrieving the opals.”

“Well, well, well,” Ginger said. “That’s quite an edifice of legal thought you’ve built. I’m so glad I went into science so I don’t have to build these skyscrapers out of air.”

“It’s like high-school geometry,” Nina said. “You start out knowing what you want to prove, then you work backwards until you find the steps that add up to the answer you already want.”

“What are the chances Tim’s going to find opals on that claim, though?” Paul said. “They shouldn’t be there.”

“But they are.”

“What’s that?” Paul said. “Did Tim call?”

“Twenty minutes ago,” Nina said, sitting back, preparing to enjoy the reaction she was about to get. “You should have heard him, Paul. He says it’s the biggest black fire opal strike since 1972, when an immense gemstone was found in the Virgin Valley. He found the wall where Rankin had been working almost immediately, before dark last night. There were signs of a recent landslide that must have exposed the vein. He took samples back to UN this morning, and he says it’s big.”

In spite of her confusion about him, she found herself offering up a big smile. Paul was grinning too. “Vindication,” he said. “Go on.”

“Okay, where was I? Right. Let’s say the judge lets me run rampant in this hearing. Flaherty has his moments. We’ll see. If he allows it, Tim will testify, then Rankin can confirm where he got the opals and testify that he gave them to Dr. Sykes. Then I’ll put on Daria and Beth and public records to confirm that Sykes had no ownership interest in the Logan claim at the time Rankin gave him the opals. Eh
voilà
! Like magic! Out goes the burglary charge on a lack of probable cause. What’s left?”

“All that work and it’s still a homicide,” Sandy said. “But you have a lot more room.”

“And we have a much more sympathetic-looking kid in trouble,” Ginger said. “I wish you luck. I really do.”

“Ginger, I know you are still working with the DNA findings. Dig deeper. We need you to prepare the attack on the blood testimony. And the sooner I get that chemical analysis on the Louise Garibaldi issue the better. We don’t have much time.”