Motion to Suppress (26 page)

"I hope you realize that this could be a rather dangerous undertaking. Have you learned who told the authorities about my session with Michelle?"

"No. It could have been Jeffrey Riesner. He’s a lawyer up here who represents Dr. Greenspan. I told Dr. Greenspan about the session. He might have passed the news on to Riesner. Or it could have been Stephen Rossmoor, the manager at Prize’s. I just can’t see any of them trying to kill us, running us off the road, maybe killing the wrong person in Reno."

"You are being careful?"

Nina thought gratefully about the people who were watching out for her: Matt, Andrea, and Collier, even Sandy’s son Wish, whom she still glimpsed now and then as she went about her business. "Yes. I have help. And Michelle seems safe at home. Speaking of home, I seem to have almost forgotten the reason I called you."

"I often have that effect on lawyers," Bruno said. "Excuse me a moment. I’ll be back."

"I’ll be here." He was gone for several minutes. Nina doodled a picture of Michelle, dream lady, liar, trouble following her around like a monkey on a chain.

"Sorry. Intermission for my pills," Bruno said into the phone. "Why did you call, then, my dear?"

Nina explained about Aunt Alice, the fax to Subic, and the payroll records. She told Bruno about her phone call that morning to Barbara Tengstedt, and the reaction.

"Here’s how I feel, Bruno. I want to tell Michelle. The Tengstedts won’t take the responsibility. If she knows this much, she’ll force the rest out of them."

"You’d like to do that," Bruno said. "You can’t tolerate the ambiguity. You want to charge into the field of defenses and secrets and lay about you with your lance of truth."

Feeling slightly foolish, Nina said, "Yes, but I did have sense enough to call you first. I know she’s got a psychiatric problem, though God knows nobody seems to be able to put a nice, clean label on it. I know she’s under tremendous stress from the coming trial and the uncertainty of the future, and worrying about the baby. That’s why I’m calling you."

"For absolution," Bruno said softly.

"How’s that?"

"So you can tell yourself you asked me. It doesn’t matter what my advice is, Nina. You will not be able to keep this to yourself."

"I do want to know what you think, Bruno."

"I think you are right to tell her," Bruno said.

"I want to do more than that," Nina said. "If her parents won’t tell her the rest, and she doesn’t remember after learning this, I want to call Barbara Tengstedt to testify at the trial. And I am going to ask her under oath about Michelle’s past, make her tell her secret in open court."

"I admire your courage," Bruno said. "But please, don’t do that until you have obtained Michelle’s permission."

Nina thought about this. He was absolutely right.

"Bruno ..."

"Yes, my dear," he said with that unfailing patience the university would never find in a younger replacement.

"Do you suspect what happened to Michelle? When she was a child?"

"If you don’t mind a wild stab."

"Please."

"She hurt her daddy, Nina, and he never came back."

"But how?" Nina asked, hiding her frustration. "Emotionally or physically? With a polar bear statue to the head?"

"That doesn’t matter. Don’t ask how. Ask why he never came back."

24

THE TRIAL LOOMED. Jury selection would commence the following Monday. In the midst of the long hours of preparation, Nina thought about Bruno’s words. She read Freud and Jung each night after she climbed wearily into her bed, falling asleep to Kafkaesque dreams of trials, castles, and imprisonment.

After five months of activity into every nook of fact, she knew little more than she had when Michelle first told her the story of the night Anthony disappeared. She reread the reports, drawing diagrams of the living room and the boat. She drew her nine dots in three rows and tried a new series of triangles.

Nothing new came to mind.

Paul was busy all Tuesday. He ran into Sandy on her way out at five. "Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do," Sandy said. She punched him on the arm as he passed.

"She likes you. Did you have good luck?" Nina greeted him smoothly. Only an intimacy of eyes passed between them in reference to their last informal meeting.

"If accumulating locks of men’s hair is good luck. Played dodgeball with the janitor and snagged some of Tom Clarke’s off his chair in the principal’s office and ran into Rossmoor at the casino. Knocked him down in the hall. Think he appreciated it when I helped him up and brushed off his collar for him, although his security guards didn’t."

"What about Tengstedt?"

"Yeah. Fresno at 109 degrees. I finally met our client, the famous Misty. She was propped under a tree in the front yard with an icy drink, long legs under the sprinklers, a chrysanthemum, lush and summery. I now get it about Tom Clarke and that noodle Rossmoor. I had to restrain the impulse to suck her toes. Her mother gave me a glass of lemonade and disappeared. I made up some news about the case for Misty, used the facilities, and ripped hair off the male comb." He handed her a brown paper sack, which crinkled as she set it on the table. "The whole world in a drop of water, or in this case, a strand of hair. Everything’s labeled. I hope it’s not the father, I mean, Carl Tengstedt. That’s a gruesome thought you have there."

"Can you take the samples to Sacramento Wednesday?" said Nina. "I’ve got a sample or two of my own to add."

He nodded, picked up his tennis bag, and said, "Interested in a game before dinner?"

"No," said Nina. "I can’t."

"You need to do something physical or you’ll seize up like an old car engine out of oil."

"After the trial," Nina said, meaning it, hoping he understood.

"One more thing," Paul said. "I ran by the sheriffs office on my way in and looked at the physical evidence again. Virginia Slims. The wrapper had been in his robe pocket. Sharon Otis was there."

Janine Clarke came to the office on Wednesday, looking like she’d won at keno, acting like she knew Nina well. Evidently her husband hadn’t mentioned that he had been subpoenaed. "Tom asked me to stop by, believe it or not. Things have been going so great with us lately...."

"Glad to hear it," Nina said. "What can I do for you today?"

"He wants to get a written copy of the DNA results. Guess he doesn’t want Misty changing her mind later about who’s responsible for her little bastard."

"I don’t have them here," Nina replied, wincing for the sake of Michelle’s child and her own illegitimate son. "And the lab is taking a second look at those tests. Once those results are in, I’ll send out a copy to your husband."

"Just what the hell is going on here?"

"There’s just some doubt that needs to be cleared up on the results," Nina said firmly. "And that’s all I can say about that."

"I don’t believe this. You’re saying there is still some possibility that Tom is the father, and that’s just a damned lie. The test came back negative. This is some kind of sick frame-up. Misty ... oh, hell, this is all her fault."

"Mrs. Clarke, I—"

"Why did he get involved with that witch? He’s broken my heart...." The woman had begun to weep uncontrollably. "This has all been such torture. He was so cruel, coming to the hospital to tell me his ugly suspicions.... We used to be so happy, and now we look at each other and wonder ... He did the right thing, I guess, the only thing a man can do...."

"Who?" Nina was almost shouting to be heard over the wails. "Who do you mean?"

Janine Clarke looked up from her hands and frowned. "He’d throw it all away, just to sleep with that face...."

Nina tried to sort out the referents and failed. Janine Clarke gave her one more tear-streaked, bitter look and ran out of the office.

She pitied her. Tom Clarke she did not pity.

Sandy came in at twelve. "You have to go out today. No more sandwiches on call."

The floor was stacked with law books, files, and papers. Nina searched furiously for a case opinion.

"Three Cal. 3d 82," she said. "Sandy, help me."

"I am helping you," Sandy said. She hung Nina’s purse off her shoulder and walked her out.

In the oven of the Bronco’s interior, Nina started up and drove down Highway 50. She would go for a walk by the lake, fix a salad at Safeway, and get back to the office in half an hour.

Her replacement Bronco proved as rebellious as the old Bronco had been. It drove itself to Caesar’s, parked itself in the parking lot, then ejected her. She walked in, digging into her purse for a couple of twenties.

On her way to the slots she had to pass the blackjack tables. She pulled out a chair at a table and passed over her twenties to the dealer.

A ten and an ace for her first hand, not bad, thought Nina, ignoring the catcalls from her stomach. A white-haired lady close by stacked a tower of chips. Her suffocating perfume warred with the cloud of smoke on Nina’s left. The lady won a hundred bucks while the smoker went down. Nina watched her hands fly, flashing a tight cocktail ring. A very good player, the woman continued to stockpile chips. Nina started betting with her, putting out ten dollars whenever the lady put out a hundred. In a short time, Nina was up three hundred dollars. She tipped the dealer ten dollars as another dealer came in, a young man with a distant expression. All the players felt the change of atmosphere, and the table emptied.

As she wandered toward the slots, her blazer pocket heavy with chips, the lady came up beside her and said, "Nice going, Counselor," in a Southern-inflected bass voice.

"I like what you’ve done with your ring, Al," Nina said. "Doesn’t fit as well as on your pinky, of course. Diamond surround?"

Al Otis smiled under his makeup. "Cubic zirconia. Still brings me luck. The dealers haven’t caught on yet. I’m cleanin’ up. Can’t talk long, though, because they’re gonna know who you are, and they might be watchin’ you out of curiosity."

"Why would they care about me?"

"They keep track," Al said. "Well, got to get back while the lunch crowd is still in. I get too conspicuous after one-thirty." He was turning to go, his skirt brushing against her, when she said, "Al ..."

"Hmmm?" he said in a ridiculous falsetto.

"Did Sharon tell you she was at Anthony’s the night he died?"

"Sharon didn’t have to tell me squat. She was the best thing that ever happened to me," he went on, his eyes inscrutable. "The sharpest babe that ever wore trick leather underwear. And the cops don’t care who offed her, any more than Misty cared about Anthony. So long, Counselor."

On her way back to the office, Nina tried to sort out what Al had really said. Translated: Even if he did know something, he wasn’t going to talk about it, because Misty didn’t deserve it? Was that it?

It hardly mattered. Whatever he had heard was hearsay, and inadmissible as evidence.

When Paul dropped by for last-minute instructions on his way to Sacramento, he found her on the floor, 3 Cal. 3d 82 heavy in her lap.

Driving with both eyes glued to the rearview mirror, Paul breezed down the mountain, making good time until he hit road work after Folsom.

When he got into Sacramento, he lost himself getting off on the Sixty-fifth Street exit, fumed in the early rush-hour traffic, circled around a green park with an inviting swimming pool, and was pleased to finally find himself on the right side street. He slid into a parking space just that moment left empty by an aging red Camaro. Leaping from his seat, he collected the paper bag, ran for the entryway, and got there just in time to hear someone bolting the door from the inside.

"Hello? Hello!" he called. The door opened and a young, dark-haired woman looked out.

"We close the doors at five," she said.

"I have to drop this off." He handed the bag over. The girl took it.

"What is this?"

"Oh, they’re expecting it. They know what to do with it."

"Tahoe paternity case?" The girl’s head came out farther and she looked inside the bag. She had red, Kewpie doll-shaped lips and curly black hair tied back with a shoelace. Noting the hands, and their chewed-off fingernails, and looking more closely at her face, Paul could see that she was in her late thirties at least. "More hair samples?" asked the woman.

"Yeah."

"Every baby’s got a father," the woman said.

"Till they figure out some new way," Paul said.

"Personally, I think in vitro’s as far as they’re taking it." She started to close the door. "Most scientists are still men and they aren’t going to make themselves obsolete." She opened it again, looking at Paul. "You drove all the way from Tahoe just now? In a real hurry."

"I’m the investigator for the attorney for the woman... involved in this. My name’s Paul van Wagoner." They shook hands.

"I’m Emilia Carlos. Listen. I’m going to break for dinner. Why don’t you join me? Afterward, maybe I can show you the lab."

She took him past an empty reception area. They ate microwaved dinners in a lunchroom in the basement, burritos smothered with ketchup. Fluorescent light bounced brightly off cinder-block walls and acoustic ceilings. "Timelessness," Dr. Carlos said when she noticed Paul blinking in the glare. Men and women in lab coats, jeans, and athletic shoes bustled through the halls, passing the door to the room they sat in, greeting the doctor, spilling coffee from a badly adjusted vending machine. "I like days. Swing shift people have the weirdest hours to adjust to, if you want to talk a normal life, I mean."

"Worse than graveyard?"

"Yeah, for some reason the body can adapt to 180-degree switches better."

"It’s a much bigger operation than I expected."

"I founded Cytograph with my husband about five years ago. When he died, I took over. This is our only child. I’ve been up plenty of nights with it."

Still admiring the Betty Boop lips, Paul couldn’t help thinking she might be squandering her native gifts. He would never get over these women, her, Nina, all these women wanting to be more than they already were. Wasn’t goddess enough? Why were they so anxious to sink to being lawyers and scientists?

Thoughts of Nina going about her business today, somehow planning to win this trial with horrible odds against her, assailed him suddenly. He wished he could protect her from the blows to come, not that she didn’t deserve them. Was there a nasty desire in there, a wish that she would be taken down a peg or two in all this? A wish that she would fall into his arms at the end and be his love toy?

He stifled a laugh that would have bounced around the hard room.

Painted Sheetrock walls surrounded the shining lab equipment, which on closer inspection yielded the marks of hard use. Tubes, rubber hoses, metal gadgets, wires twisting from multiple outlets; there were shelves full of equipment whose purpose would forever remain murky to Paul. The room rumbled with machinery, down to its vinyl floor.

Two techies, one wearing a woolly beard and white coat and one decked out in what must be the uniform, jeans and a dress shirt, filtered unknown substances through a fine sieve. The bearded one set down a porcelain cylinder.

Dr. Carlos showed Paul the original results on the first set of DNA tests that had been made, raising her voice above the man-made din, pointing to what looked like photographic prints with variegated strips of gray, white, and black on them. "Electrophoresis," she said. Paul wished that Mrs. Garrigues had done a better job teaching him chemistry. Or was this biology? "This is the fingerprint."

She pulled up some charts on a computer. "We use just a fragment, and count repetitions. Or rather, have the computer do the count and comparison." Paul double-checked that his recorder was on, and adopted an intelligent expression. The doctor went on. "First we extract the DNA from the sample by adding a series of chemicals and doing a series of extractions. Then we add primers: nucleotides; enzyme buffer. Then we take the tube and carry out PCR, by heating and cooling the sample."

"PCR?" asked Paul, contemplating his intellectual blind spots.

"Polymerase chain reaction." The doctor, who had covered her hands with gloves, pulled a hair from one of the sample bags with tweezers, moving it slowly to a glass tube. "Then we load what came out of the PCR into the well of the electrophoresis gel. We apply high-voltage electric current to the gel and make an autoradiograph. That’s what you’re looking at. Nothing to it, really. Of course, you’ve brought us five samples this time. The pool is expanding, I see."