Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (33 page)

Nina did not agree with this traditional strategy of defense attorneys. With current discovery rules, the defense often knew as much as the police at the time of the prelim, and with hard and fast work could put on a sort of minitrial. Since a defendant might be incarcerated for months before finally going to trial, it made sense to fight hard every step of the way.

So Nina said, “Yes, I’ll call witnesses. Time is of the essence, though.”

“What are you doing for an office?”

“Using Paul’s. He’s got a spare iBook for pounding out paperwork, and a fax and all that.”

“What about a legal secretary?”

“I called a temp service. I’m interviewing a woman at two tomorrow at Paul’s office.”

“You won’t get anybody who knows law.”

“I’ll choose carefully. Don’t worry, Sandy. I’ll do a good job for Wish. But-but if Wish is bound over for trial-I can’t commit to handling a full-fledged murder trial, you know that.”

Sandy said, “Then win the prelim.”

“Right.”

“I talked to Susie Johnson. Robert Johnson’s mother. She’s not close but I know her. She says Robert hasn’t been in touch. She’s telling the truth.”

“Okay.” So Coyote hadn’t called home. Where would he go? Deeper into the forest?

“Social Services for Monterey County called Susie about Nate. They say he’s almost ready to leave. She’s not sure she can take care of him. Did Dr. Cervenka go see him yet?”

“No. I think he’s making the trip down from San Francisco in a day or two. He’ll help. Tell Susie he has to talk to Nate first.”

“Okay. Robert Johnson and Danny Cervantes, they both had Washoe mothers. I checked around. Those boys went to high school together in Minden.”

“What’s their connection to Wish?”

“He and Danny were friends when they were in elementary school, and they stayed in touch. Danny’s family moved from Markleeville down to Minden for a while. His father worked construction down there. Then when Wish came to Monterey County this summer, he looked Danny up. Danny was the only soul he knew, other than you and Paul, when he came down here.”

“Does Wish know Coyote? Robert Johnson?”

“Ask him. But I don’t think he ever went to school with him. I don’t think he knew him from Tahoe.”

“Okay,” Nina said.

Sandy said, “Willis’s father is a tad worried.”

“I’ll call Joseph.”

“That’s all right. We talk every night.”

“Do you miss Tahoe, Sandy?”

“This Washington trip’ll be over whenever I say it’s over. But good things are happening. The Washoe tribe is going to get twelve acres on Lake Tahoe at Skunk Harbor. That’s one of the tribe’s summer spots.”

“Fantastic, Sandy!” The Washoe tribe had summered at Tahoe for ten thousand years, until the previous century, when logging and silver mining interests took it over. Ever since, the tribe had been trying to get recognized and get some land back. “That’s historic,” Nina went on.

“It’s historic, all right,” Sandy said. “Guess what the conditions are.”

“What?”

“We can only do activities that are traditional. Hunt, fish, grind up pine nuts. Act like Indians in the westerns.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we get the land, but in a time warp. It’s okay, we didn’t want to build a casino. We’re just glad to get our toes back in the water.”

“A toe at Tahoe,” Nina said.

“Hmph.”

“Excellent work, Sandy.”

“Did you talk to Crockett?”

“Paul did.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, to Paul’s surprise, he
is
a descendant. And he sounded boastful when he talked about what an Indian fighter his ancestor was.”

“I knew it. I knew it.”

“He’s really not so bad, Sandy.”

“It’s deeper than that. We have to get Willis out of jail.”

“We’re working on it.”

A silence. Then, “Paul treating you right?”

“Great.”

“Good. Hmm.”

“Something else on your mind, Sandy?”

“I just had a thought.”

“Anything you want to tell me?”

“Not yet. You’ll find out.” And with that ominous statement, Sandy signed off.

Nina thought about Sandy in Washington, setting up a Tahoe land trust for the Washoe tribe. She felt quite proud, but not surprised. Sandy was smart and unbelievably sure of herself. Nina had seen that the first day she’d met her, when she showed up for a job interview with Nina with no qualifications to be a legal secretary besides total self-confidence, having been a file clerk at another law firm, and a will to learn.

Sandy was probably regretting that she’d ever met Nina at this point. Wish wouldn’t be in jail if he hadn’t come down here to work for Paul, who’d met Wish through Nina.

Nina closed up her cell phone and pulled the Bronco back out onto Carmel Valley Road. Her mind went back to Britta, to the astonishing thing Britta had told her:
Danny was in on the fires.

25

A ND SO IT CAME TO PASS that on Monday, June 23, Nina went back into law practice, in a half-assed sort of way.

She had a case and half an office, which, because it was shared with a nonlawyer, presented certain ethical problems. She wasn’t supposed to split fees with nonlawyers or partner with them. They might have cooties, the state bar had decided.

She inspected Paul, who leaned back in his yellow leather chair talking on the phone and looking out his window, for those mythical insects. He could use a haircut but looked clean withal. Satisfied, she turned back to putting away the new secretarial supplies purchased that morning from Office Depot into Wish’s old desk. She was a lawyer; she would draft up some paperwork defining her professional relationship with Paul that would leave the state bar puffing uselessly.

Outside, fog blanketed Carmel. Mark Twain once said that the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in San Francisco. He obviously hadn’t spent June in the microclimate of Carmel-by-the-Sea. A few miles inland, the radio said, the central coast was having a heat wave.

Problem: The new temp would have to sit at that desk. So where was Nina going to work? She looked longingly at Paul’s fine desk with its client overhang, covered with Paul’s computers and files. She surveyed the office. In the corner by the door, Paul had a padded leather client chair and a small table beside it with a lamp and some adventure trekking brochures, where his clients could sit.

So be it. She dragged her new cardboard file boxes over there and stacked them. Now she had a file cabinet. She removed the lamp and brochures and pulled the table around in front of the chair. Luckily, it was high and broad. The corner had one electrical plug into which she plugged a power strip with many outlets. She opened her laptop and it brought up its ocean desktop picture, popping up the icons like long-submerged buoys.

No one must ever come in here and see her like Little Jack Horner. But with Wish in jail, her client wouldn’t be visiting, and her tenure here would be short: a few days of preparation for the prelim, the prelim itself, which probably would last about two to three days, and out.

She began filing the material she had on Wish’s case. Paul stretched and said, “Guess it’s about time for your job interview. I’ll make myself scarce. If you need me, I’ll be at the Hog’s Breath having a late lunch.”

“Thanks, Paul.”

“Nice setup.”

“It’ll do.”

Paul went out and Nina continued organizing. Two o’clock came and went, and nobody came from the agency. Nina had to go down the hall to the ladies’ rest room. She left the door to the office unlocked.

When she came back into Paul’s office, the applicant was there, already seated at Wish’s desk, reading a file, her back to Nina. Nina saw black hair and a purple coat.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” she said, and rushed over to grab the file. The woman turned her head.

“Aughh!” Nina cried.

Sandy said nothing. She lifted an eyebrow and continued reading.

“What are you doing here! You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“What does it look like? I’m your new secretary.”

“Where-where’s the temp?”

“I caught her outside and told her the job was taken. You need envelopes and a Rolodex. What are we going to do for a law library?”

Nina sat down at her new desk. Sandy continued her reading. Finally, Nina nodded.

“I thought you had big business in Washington.”

“My son’s in jail.”

“I should have known,” she said. “When you said, ‘Hmm,’ on the phone yesterday.”

“I’ve only got two weeks,” Sandy said. “We could spend that time looking at each other, or we could get to work.”

Paul came in. He saw Sandy in her purple coat and sneakers and broke into a big smile. “Welcome to Carmel,” he said.

“That’s more like it.”

The phone rang, and Sandy picked it up.

“Law offices of Nina Reilly,” she said.

Strange twist of fate: The phone call actually was official, and for Nina. “There has been a development,” Jaime told her, over a wail of sirens. The D.A. sounded unusually calm, a bad sign.

“What?”

“An assault. On a woman who lives on Siesta Court. Her name is Britta Cowan. She’s at Community Hospital.”

Paul and Sandy had stopped moving around and seemed to be listening, too, though they couldn’t possibly know what Jaime was saying. Nina’s shock must have shown on her face.

“How serious is it?”

“Serious. She was hit in the head with a baseball bat. She’s in surgery. Skull fracture. Her husband is with her.”

“Is she going to make it?”

“Only God knows. I’m just a lawyer. She was found this morning by a janitor at the business where she works in Carmel Valley.” By now, Nina had put on the speakerphone and they were all listening.

Jaime went on, “Her associate says you visited her yesterday, and she went home right after your talk.”

“I warned her, Jaime. About the children. Are her children all right?” She gripped the phone.

“You know, Nina, you and I have known each other for a long time. And I want to tell you something today. I always thought you were bad lawyer material. Because you never listen to anybody.”

“Don’t blame me for this.”

“The timing is right. You talk to her, you set the alarm in motion, and this woman gets hurt. Yes, her children are all right.”

Paul looked like he was going to seize the phone. She motioned him away, then said, “Who did it?”

“You might have some ideas on that.”

“So you don’t know?”

“Forensics is working the site right now. I’m standing here looking at travel brochures and blood, and I didn’t call you for nothing. Now you better speak up. You know who did this?”

“No.”

“You have a guess?”

“I think it was Robert Johnson. Danny Cervantes’s buddy. The man called Coyote.”

“Based on?”

“I did see Mrs. Cowan last Thursday. She told me something about Robert Johnson.”

“What?”

Nina didn’t have much time to decide what to tell Jaime. She ran the legal questions through her head: Was the information privileged? No, Britta wasn’t her client, she was a victim, and this was a criminal investigation. But would it hurt Wish’s case in any way to tell Jaime what Britta had said?

It might. If Danny and Coyote were coconspirators, Wish’s story about being on the mountain made little sense. Wish had gone up there with Danny. The judge would assume they were all together.

But she wanted Coyote found, she was hot with anger at what he might have done, and she knew he was the key to the story. Jaime needed to work harder to find him. She could make that happen.

The truth could only help Wish.

Or was she being naive? A D.A. should never be told anything. Too dangerous, and you never could tell how the information could rebound.

“Well, Nina?” Jaime said. “I called you, remember? Instead of bringing you in.”

“She was seeing Danny last year.”

“I knew that.”

“She went to a bar with him. Coyote was there. He and Danny talked about laying in supplies of kerosene. Danny had hired Coyote. They were talking about making a score.”

Jaime digested this.
Danny was in on it.
I shouldn’t have said it, Nina thought. But Britta was lying on a gurney with a skull fracture. She had to say it.

“What else?”

“Only her speculations about what she overheard.”

“Her speculations may have led her to the hospital.” Jaime’s cell phone was whistling. Wind, whistling through a parking lot.

“I hope not.”

“Well?”

“That’s all I can tell you.”

“I can send a sheriff’s car over and pick you up and hold you as a material witness.”

“I won’t have anything to add. I told you what she said. She heard Johnson practically confess to the arsons. Maybe you should use your police car to get some police work done, like finding him.”

“You think a hard-ass attitude is gonna win you any points when you come cryin’ to me for a deal? Her speculations are important. Her state of mind, her motivations, are important.”

He was right. “I’ll search my memory. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Nina said.

Jaime took some more time. She heard him whispering to someone, probably an evidence tech.

“You do that. I have to go, Nina, but before I do, there’s one more thing. The victim wrote your name on an envelope.”

Hearing that, Sandy moved her head on her neck, toward Nina, slowly. With portent. She blinked. Meaningfully. It was an oh-shit moment. They had had so many together. It was really great to have her back.

“What was in this envelope?” Nina said with extreme care.

“Nothing. But there was a sentence written under your name. On the envelope. I’m going to read you this sentence and I expect you to tell me what it means, fully and truthfully. Right now.”

Sandy picked up a yellow pad and a pen. Nina said, “Let’s hear it.”

“The sentence reads as follows. ‘Nina, just in case, I heard about a cute artist’s studio for rent.’ ”

“That’s it?” Nina said.

“Don’t jive me,” Jaime said. “Don’t evade. Don’t act like a lawyer. Somebody is out of control and running around cracking skulls. And maybe a whole lot more. Now. What does it mean?”