Invasion of Privacy (14 page)

13

THE DEPUTY OPENED THE DOOR TO A LONG CORRIDOR and a series of open cubicles facing glass windows. Similar cubicles on the other side of the windows held inmates. Nina sat down, pulled out her yellow pad, and waited to see Kurt Scott for the second time in nearly twelve years.

She picked up the phone, licking her lips to quell the dryness caused by her agitation. She had brought herself to the jail quickly, before she could feel anything. Now the emotions growing in her were entirely personal, not professional. She wondered how much she had changed or if he would notice, then shushed herself, thinking, why should he care? He’s had other things on his mind, such as a life in prison.

She replayed what she knew in her mind: He had killed Terry. He knew Terry, and Terry knew her, hated her. Why? What was going on?

She would ask him. Meantime, another narrow plank fell into the darkness. She looked at her own past.

She had waited for him on the day they were to meet at the Tinnery, the restaurant overlooking Lovers’ Point in Pacific Grove, dressed up for once, excited about her news. He had said he wanted to come straight to the house to meet her father, but she put him off. He should hear about their child first. She wanted to tell him, to toast their new life together in this beautiful place looking out at the ocean and the sunset. They would be leaving for Europe soon. She wanted him to know her favorite spot, and love it like she did. She had arranged for a room for the night at the Seven Gables Inn, with a view and fireplace.

As the hours ticked by and he didn’t come she was worried, then frantic, then dumbfounded. From a pay phone she had called Kurt’s Forest Service work number in California, but no one there knew anything. She had called his apartment without getting an answer.

When night came, bringing with it a heavy drizzle, she walked to the hotel alone, checked in, and sat in her soaked dress on a flowered armchair by the window until she fell asleep there. In the morning, nauseated and faint from the pregnancy, she had gone back to the restaurant, asked for messages, and called again, all for nothing.

She waited all that morning on a bench at the cliff edge, watching the happy people enter and exit the doors to the restaurant. By afternoon she had started to shake.

She had gone home to bed.

The next day she unpacked her bags, filed her passport in a box, and called the Monterey School of Law, saying she hoped there still was a place for her in the fall. There was.

For three or four months, she felt nothing when she thought about Kurt. She was working, pregnant, going to school, trying to stay together. Her pride had come up strong, like iron walls in her heart.

Then, one fine Saturday, she woke up in her aunt’s small Victorian house and looked out the front window. Six blocks down the hill, Monterey Bay floated, emerald and turquoise in a sapphire sky. The view was so heartbreaking that she cried for three days. At first she didn’t know what she was crying about, but when his name came wrenching out of her mouth over and over, she knew. And when the crying finished, she put him away very deep where he wouldn’t ever hurt her again.

Twelve years passed.

Through the glass he suddenly appeared, a man in the orange jumpsuit issued to the guests of El Dorado County. The man who now sat down heavily in the chair opposite her and picked up the phone was not the boy she had loved. The uniform, pushed up on the left arm to reveal a gauze bandage; his long, lank, uncombed hair; the downcast look; the spiritlessness of him made him a stranger. When he sat down, though, he put his hands on the table in front of the window, and she saw that his hands were the musician’s hands she knew, large and long-fingered, with clean, square nails.

He raised his head, and his face still compelled her: the eyes, greenish-blue, darkly fringed; the strong nose and finely cut lips; the narrow jaw. But the hope had left him: this man was marked by experiences that had knitted his brows and hollowed his cheeks.

She heard the unforgettable voice. "Hi," he said. "A blast from the past."

"Hello, Kurt."

"You shouldn’t have come."

"It was the only way I was ever going to see you again."

"I don’t know why you would want to. You don’t owe me anything."

"This was something I owed myself. Besides, you seem to have murdered a client of mine. I was curious." So an oily reservoir of anger still existed to fuel her words. His presence through the glass disturbed the old sorrow, resurrecting it. She didn’t want to feel it again. She had to remember, this was a different person, shaped by unknown forces. "Why did you come back?"

"To find you." He smiled a little, and said, "You look great. But you swore you were going to get through life in jeans. Look at you now. You’re a lawyer."

"And you’re a cold-blooded killer. I never would have predicted that for your future."

Something like pain moved through his eyes and quickly retreated. "Hmm. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you bought the party line."

"Contrary to movie wisdom, the person in custody is almost always the person who ought to be in custody."

"You even talk differently, more authoritatively. And you wear lipstick. But under all that I see you," he said, smiling and nodding a little as if with melancholy pleasure. "And you still doodle what you’re thinking."

With a start, she looked down at the yellow pad she had brought out from habit. She had sketched a few lines, a stick woman in the left margin, a stick man in the right, with a wide expanse of paper between the two.

"Do you still look for the secret of life in your psychology books, with your philosophers? Is your bedside table still stacked high with books?"

"No," Nina said.

"Did you wait a long time at the restaurant, all those years ago?"

"No." Through days of hell and weeks of misery, she had waited. "Not long."

"That’s good. You won’t believe me right now, but I loved you—I never have loved anyone but you. I’m sorry, Nina."

"It doesn’t matter anymore," Nina said. "I moved on."

He dropped the hypnotic gaze that had held her. Suddenly he looked older than he was. "Congratulations," he said. "Mr. van Wagoner told me about your engagement."

Nina dropped her pencil. She took a long minute to find it. When she straightened up again she said, "When did you talk to Paul?"

"He hasn’t told you? You should talk to him."

"Oh, I will."

He had cocked his head to the side, as if to see her from this angle. Every expression on his face reminded her of something long buried.

"You kept up your music?" she said unwillingly.

"I’ve been living in Germany. I worked most of the time in the Taunus Forest in Hessen, not too far from Frankfurt, as a kind of naturalist. I labeled trees, caught poachers, cleared brush. I had decided to give up music, along with everything else, but after a few years I discovered I couldn’t do it. I bought a used spinet piano from an old lady in Wiesbaden. Every night I came home to my apartment on Moritzstrasse and played. There were no distractions. The walls are thick in those nineteenth-century buildings. I entered a local Bach competition, and won."

"The fugues."

"Yes. And so, occasionally, I played concerts here and there under an assumed name. And that became my life, until now, when everything has changed again."

As he spoke, she too was remembering so much happiness, followed by so much anguish.

"How did it go with you?" Kurt’s accent sounded slightly foreign. He had spent twelve years in exile. Why?

"Pretty simple. I finished law school, got married to another lawyer, became an associate in a firm in San Francisco. After five years, I left the firm and divorced. That was last year. My brother had moved to Tahoe. I moved here, too, and started a solo practice."

"If only you hadn’t come here," he said after a minute. "If only Mr. van Wagoner hadn’t found me—"

"Paul went to Germany?" She would have to have a long talk with Mr. van Wagoner.

"He mentioned that you were in South Lake Tahoe. I knew she was here. I decided to come here to warn you."

"About what?" But she already knew, she was only waiting for him to say it.

"About your client. Terry London."

Nina waited.

"She was my wife, when I met you."

"Your wife!"

"I didn’t lie. I had filed for divorce. But I ... omitted some things. That she opposed the divorce. That she and I had a child."

Nina made a sound, a choked-off moan. "It was all based on lies," she said. "You came back here and you killed her. I should go."

"Go. Good idea."

"Why should I stay here!"

"You shouldn’t."

"You killed her!"

"I didn’t kill her. I hated her, but I didn’t kill her. One reason I stayed away for all those years was because of those feelings. I didn’t want to be tested. I never wanted to see her again. Then, when I saw her behind you at the courthouse, I panicked. I thought she was going to hurt you because of me. She had followed me to my hotel, but she didn’t come in, maybe worried about how I might react. So she called me. At first I wouldn’t even talk to her."

"But you did see her. You went to the studio that night, didn’t you? Why did you go? To threaten her?"

"I was throwing my clothes in my bag while I was on the phone, I was so anxious to get out of there. But she was smarter than I was. She came up with a story, the one lie guaranteed to keep me here, and make me think maybe I didn’t waste all those years running. She told me you had my child, a son. She said she met him at your office and learned from him that I’d probably never been told about him. She was so persuasive! All these details! She said she made friends with the boy, told him about me, and arranged for him to come to her house that night."

"A son?" Nina whispered. "She told you you had a son?"

"She’d say anything, Nina. But, of course, it made me think. I knew what you must have felt when I never came for you. I know, it was stupid, but I thought, what if? What if you had decided never to tell me? Is there ... is it possible? Is there a child?"

The mixture of wistfulness and hope in his eyes almost pierced her armor. Almost. "No," she said. The lie sat heavily on her heart.

"That lying—! Goddamn her!" He slammed the table with his hand. The glass shook.

"You went there that night," Nina said.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. "Of course I did. I had to. If she was telling the truth, if I had a—child, she could do anything. Hurt him. You didn’t know her. Nobody knew what she was capable of doing better than I knew.

"So I went, but she was alone. It was a trap. I think she wanted to kill me.

"I tried to leave, but she wanted to rehash some old, old business. We argued. She grabbed my old rifle, and before I could get away she took a shot at me.

"Jesus. Nobody tells you how much it hurts to get shot. I ran like hell out the front door while she was screaming at me."

"Your gun?" Nina asked.

"A Remington. I recognized it. She must have kept it all these years. Everyone up here keeps a rifle."

"Oh, my God, Kurt. This is hard to believe. You didn’t take the gun there?"

"I swear I didn’t."

He shouldn’t tell her any of this; there was no lawyer-client privilege between them, but she didn’t stop him. She had to know.

"She fired a single shot at you?" Nina asked.

"It’s funny you should mention that. I got to my car. I thought I might have heard another one when I was about a block away, but I’m not sure. My windows were up, and I don’t know if trust anything I heard or saw right then. Then I drove around a long time. I parked on Jicarilla in the bushes. My arm bled for a while, but then it stopped. I knew it was nothing serious. I wasn’t going to die that second.

"Then ... I guess the shock or something got me. I sat there for a long time, maybe even dozed off. Next thing I knew it was light. I needed to see a doctor, but I was more concerned that this thing had to stop, so I headed for the police station. You know the rest, probably. I was weaving on the road because of my injury, so a patrolman stopped me."

She had one question, the only one that really mattered. She wanted to be absolutely sure. "Think back. Are you positive there was no one else at Terry’s? On the porch, somewhere around?"

"You mean did I see the real killer?"

Actually, she had been thinking more along the lines of possible witnesses.

"I didn’t see anyone, not that I searched every corner. It was dark, and I didn’t see anyone."

Nina looked down at her yellow pad to hide her relief. She didn’t want to hear anything else. "I have to go, Kurt," she said.

"Sure you do."

"I understand you’ve retained Jeffrey Riesner to represent you."

"He was recommended by the deputy here."

"You never thought of calling me?"

"I’ve done enough to you, Nina," Kurt said. "Go home."

BOOK TWO

Eight Years Ago: Susana

Dangling high above the snow, the weight of her skis tugging on her legs, her face stiffening in a cold wind, Susana stuffed mittened hands into the tight pockets of her fur-lined parka, deciding to make this her last run of the day. Her legs ached, and she could think of a better way to spend the afternoon, a woozy, dreamy, fun thing to do that didn’t involve cold wind and athletics. Her brother, Tom, wouldn’t approve, so she wouldn’t tell Tom. She’d just meet him at home later, and take the flak then. It was worth it.

Beside her on the ski lift, Tom adjusted himself, acting nervous. She knew he was only coming up here to keep an eye on her. They’d skied all the resorts around Lake Tahoe for years, but he didn’t get anything like the kick she got. He was born gutless. Mom and Dad’s good kid, that was Tommy. After a whole day of his vigilant baby-sitting yesterday, and no end in sight, she was sick of it and cooked up this plan to ditch him. To the right, now far below, on a simple, wide plain of white, they could see other people in colored hats and down jackets wobbling down the bunny slope, legs rigidly positioned in the snowplow V of the beginner. Beyond them, the big blue lake spread out like an ocean.

"Susana, this is only your second day skiing this season. Besides, you’re not good enough to hit a black diamond run yet," Tom said, starting in on her. "This guy I talked to said this is the worst run at Heavenly. It’s really narrow, with bumps and turns like you’ve never seen before. Come on, be reasonable. Mom and Dad will kill me if you pop a mogul and crack your skull open today. We can take the lift back down, or an intermediate run."

They were passing over the sunlit tops of tall evergreens where marshmallows of new snow weighed the limbs down, making them droop. Her glasses had fogged over. She took a cotton kerchief out of her pocket and cleaned them. "I don’t want to take an easy run. You don’t have to go with me. You can meet me at the lodge."

"Why do you have to be so damn stubborn!"

"I’m sixteen years old. A hundred years ago, I’d be married with kids by now, so quit telling me what to do, Tommy. I’ll be careful."

Her brother punched her arm, hard. "Yeah, sure. You ski like a locomotive on speed."

She fitted her glasses back over her eyes, slowly. She was surprised to hear her brother say something like that. Even though he was two years older than her, Tom always talked so straight. He probably suspected a few things about her, but was this some kind of nasty little hint that he knew something he shouldn’t?

Before she could frame an innocent-sounding question to find out more, they had reached the end of the ride. They pushed themselves off the moving chair, sliding easily down the small slope from the lift. Susana quickly located the black diamond marker, and skied to the slight hump at the top, looking down at the narrow, winding way full of potholes and rocky moguls, the almost unmarked snow that suggested even the best skiers avoided this run. Tom looked down the run with her, shaking his head. "Jesus. You take too many risks."

"Hey, I just know how to have fun. "

"Don’t go, Susie," he said, but too late. "You don’t even have goggles."

She waved at him with one of her poles, saying, "See you later!" and started down the run.

She took the first moguls cautiously, wending her way around, forging a fresh path through the snow, her excitement growing by the minute. She had found her ski legs, and the careful, slow rhythm of traversing quickly bored her. Halting momentarily beside a wicked pile of snow-covered boulders in the middle of the pathway, she saw a straight shot down a white ribbon of pathway in front of her. Even though the trail intimidated her, it was inspiring, awesome. Partway down, the trail disappeared over a hill. Who knew what horrible obstacles lurked beyond?

She could make it, she told herself. She could do anything and get away with it. She always plunged right into the hottest water, and always got herself out again, right? Today would be no exception. Pointing her skis straight down the mountain, she took off, sliding faster and faster, her arms tucked beside her, her head down, her glasses freezing over, the landscape whizzing by in a blur of green and white. Throw caution to the wind and live, she thought joyfully. Fly!

She beat Tom to the lodge with ease, turned her boots and skis in at the rental counter, and made a quick phone call.

Her ride came swiftly.