Motion to Suppress (5 page)

Sandy brought in the petition and the application for the restraining orders.

"Okay, let’s get your date of marriage."

"Three years last September twentieth."

"Children?"

"God, no." She paused. "Anthony’s not the daddy type. He wants all my attention."

"Do you have friends, relatives around here?"

"I talk to some of the girls at work. Other than that, just old boyfriends. I’ve been waitressing a year and a half. I wanted to work, and Anthony wanted to keep an eye on me."

"For good reason?" Nina said gently.

She shrugged.

"Where are your parents?"

"Fresno. We moved there from the Subic Navy Base in the Philippines, where we lived until I was ten. No brothers, no sisters, just me."

"Do you see them much?"

"Anthony and my father argue so much ... and then my mom gets all upset and goes to her room. Sometimes my dad comes up and rents a boat and he and I go fishing. We get along better now that we don’t live together. I didn’t like my dad as a teenager. He really overinflated when I started getting interested in boys." She gave Nina a little smile: defiant, shamefaced, and secretive.

"Earlier, you said you didn’t think Anthony knew about your ... friends," Nina said.

"I told you, I’m careful. And I try to do whatever he wants, otherwise. That protects me. At least, it did till last week." She closed her eyes, then opened them and smoothed her forehead with bare fingers. Noticing Nina’s eyes, she said, "Tips are better if you skip the wedding band. We all do it."

"Let’s get a quick listing of your assets and debts for the petition," Nina said. They spent ten minutes listing the maxed-out credit cards, the cars, the VCR and the stereo, the jewelry and the ski equipment. No IRA’s, no Keogh Plan, no stocks, no retirement. Anthony Patterson was the sole signator on the checking account statement Misty had brought. It showed a balance of over forty thousand dollars, an amount that Misty couldn’t explain. Nina made a note to ask for a court order accessing the account. She explained that the judge required specific facts to support the request for restraining orders, and asked if Anthony hit her frequently.

Misty said, "Like I said, he pushed me around. Usually he won’t leave a mark. But Thursday he was so pissed off, I’m still bruised up. Look for yourself." She pulled the T-shirt casually above white shoulders mottled with splotches like purple finger painting. An ugly multicolored bruise defiled her right breast. "Feel my scalp," she demanded. Nina probed under the hair. "Ow!"

"I need pictures of those bruises," Nina said, thinking, that’ll make some judge’s day.

"I’ll get Tom to do it."

"Does he abuse you in other ways?"

"He squeezes and twists my arms. He takes me to bed whether I want to or not. He holds back on money when he’s unhappy: gas money, money for lunches. By December last year, I was drinking a pint of Yukon Jack every night and smoking dope every day before I went to work. I had no friends, you know? Just guys I picked up and got rid of after a few sessions."

"Is that what made you see a therapist?"

"No. Just partly. I had this other major problem. See, I can’t remember much of anything about my childhood. We lived in the Philippines until I was ten, but all I remember are small details—you know, warm air, palm trees, rainbows, flowers, and bugs. What I can’t remember is me there. Okay, so who remembers that much about being a kid? But I started having these nightmares. God, they scare the life out of me." She shivered. She swallowed some coffee, and when Nina said nothing, she continued slowly. "In them, my father is a kind of ... monster from the dead."

She was way off the matter at hand, but Nina was interested.

"Did you ask your parents about all this?"

She shook her head. "I tried, but my dad told me not to be ridiculous, my childhood was fine. He refused to say any more about it. They never talk about Subic."

"Why’d they leave the Philippines?"

"Mom and Dad had some kind of run-in with the Church there. I don’t know the details. They’re less involved now, but seem much happier in Fresno.

"Anyway, I was scared to sleep and got so I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Anthony, big help, told me I was full of shit, pretty much. Told me I looked better smiling.

"He always has something going at work, some deal that is going to make us rich, or somebody who’s done something that bugged him, who he has to pay back, you know? My troubles bore him or make him mad. Sometimes he closes the curtains and lies down in the bed with me on our days off. He gets out the booze and he ... uses me. I lie there thinking about the next time I can see Tom, or thinking, if I die now, who cares? A dumb animal, like a dog, chained to that bed and that man and just worth nothing."

"Why do you stay?"

"Seems so easy to someone like you, doesn’t it?" Misty asked unexpectedly. "I bet you never lost control of a situation in your life. Ever had somebody tell you they’d much rather see you dead than lose you? How about that somebody used to be a cop and knows how to use guns? A guy who cries over sappy songs, a guy who tells me he loves me thousands of times. A guy that watches me every second, who complains when I wear certain clothes, not because he wants me pretty for other people, but because he thinks I should always think about how to please him. A guy I cheat on and don’t love anymore ... but he is not going to let go. Never! So Thursday ..." She paused.

"That night..." Nina prompted.

"I knew I wanted to go. I didn’t know how to leave him. I didn’t know what to say. And when I got there, the mood was evil. Ax-sharp, ready to chop. Before I even said anything." She looked thoughtful for a moment, then sighed. "Do you think he read my mind? Dr. Greenspan says we have a lot of ways of communicating our intentions. But it seemed like maybe he had worked through something, or decided something...." Neither of them spoke for a minute. "Angels passing," Misty said softly, pointing toward the ceiling.

Then she put her elbows on the desk, cupping her face in her hands. "One night a few months ago I went into the kitchen and looked at the oven, thinking, how do you do this? Because I’m not very mechanically inclined. I mean, how do you get the gas to come out without heating it up so you bake to death? How do you stuff yourself in so you won’t fall out?"

She sounded bad, lost, incredibly sad. The only thing Nina could think of to say was, "You didn’t do it."

"That’s when I first went to see Dr. Greenspan, over near the hospital. I asked him to give me some pills, something to cheer me up, but he wouldn’t. He won’t just hand out pills; he tries other things. He gave me some good ideas about eating better, not that I always do, but at least now I think about it. And I’ve been doing hypnotherapy with him, ’cause I feel like if I could just figure out this dream, everything would be fine." She let out a little laugh. "Sure. Even he says that’s not bloody likely."

"And Anthony? What does he think about the therapy?" Nina asked.

There it was, that hard look again. "He didn’t know what kind of a doctor Greenspan was at first. Now he says I have to stop. When he ran off last week I called Dr. Greenspan for a short emergency session this weekend, to help me through all this."

"All right, Misty," Nina said. "I have enough to draft up the paperwork and get you started. Go straight to the police department on Al Tahoe Boulevard and tell them you have a missing persons report. Tell them you and Anthony had a disagreement, without getting into details. Say you’ve been hiding from him and you’re afraid. Tell them I’m getting restraining orders for you. Then check into the Lucky Chip Motel. Come back tomorrow morning and you can read and sign off on the paperwork and sign the retainer agreement."

She nodded. "Okay."

"One more thing. What did you do about the mess from Thursday night? The coffee table that broke and the statue?"

"The statue was gone when I woke up. I guess Anthony took it somewhere. Everything else I cleaned up the next morning, before I left. That stuff went out with the trash."

"Why?"

"I was just about to leave and I thought, Anthony’ll come back and he’ll get reminded. Well, not if I can help it. I even scrubbed off the blood on the couch pillow."

Sandy walked her out and Nina went down the hall to brush her hair and get a drink of water. When she got back, Sandy said, "Mrs. Patterson said she forgot to tell you the police were over at her next-door neighbor’s. Something about his boat."

"Make a note and stick it in the file," Nina said.

"Come in, Mr. Sandoval." Another new client, thanks to Sandy. My, she was a busy lady. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

Something in the interview needed revisiting. She had it for a moment, then lost it. Something the girl had said suggested ... what? She thought hard, closed her eyes to the sight of an unhappy man turned brutal thug, attacking his wife in a scene that happened all over every night, but nothing else came. Opening her eyes, she glimpsed Misty standing on the corner outside her window, waiting for the light to change, tall, pale, young, and lovely, hugging herself against the breeze. Old Mr. Sandoval struggled over to the window, leaning on his cane, and watched her move across the street.

"Ah," he said.

5

NINA BROUGHT MISTY’S paperwork down to the court just before five on Monday, but the hearing examiner who handled temporary restraining orders had already gone home, and Judge Milne had left at three.

"Call in the morning and I’ll let you know if you got your signatures," said the clerk who had been left in charge.

"After looking at our declaration, don’t you think we have an emergency here?" Nina said. "The husband may find her tonight." The petition for restraining orders was always accompanied by a statement of facts by the petitioner, showing why the petition should be granted. Most states used affidavits; California used a special form called a declaration.

"He hasn’t found her in three days. He couldn’t be looking very hard," the clerk said. She was a small, unruffled black lady who had seen it all. There were other people in line behind her, scared-looking young women with kids and a couple of rumpled men who must be lawyers. "That’s the best I can do," she said.

On Tuesday, when Sandy called the court, she was told that an additional declaration would have to be filed showing why the respondent hadn’t been given advance notice that orders were being sought against him. "Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?" Nina said, getting on the phone line.

"Thought you knew what you were doing, so I didn’t check through the papers as carefully as I would for a pro se petitioner," the clerk said. "If you want, you can come down and fill out a form in handwriting and sign off like the wives do."

"I’ll do that." She went straight down to the courthouse, filled out the form, and said pleasantly that she would wait for the orders, hiding her annoyance. Every county had its own peculiar procedures, and sometimes you didn’t find out about them in advance. The orders came back in twenty minutes. She took them over to the sheriffs office. As long as the papers were on file with the sheriff, the sheriff could make an immediate arrest if Anthony came after Misty.

One problem remained about enforcing the restraining orders. By law, Anthony Patterson had to get notice of the orders before he could be held responsible for violating them. Most of the time a friend of the wife’s could go to the husband’s workplace or the local bar and serve him. Here, unless she mounted her own search, that could not be done. Misty could carry around a spare set. If Anthony showed up, she could serve him, though the law said a party to the action wasn’t supposed to do so. Nina went hunting for Misty at the Lucky Chip.

Between the Stateline casinos and the Lakeside Park Beach, on the California side, a warren of anonymous motels had sprung up to accommodate vacationers in various states of financial disarray. The Lucky Chip, with its small, empty pool and small, empty parking lot, had absolutely nothing to recommend it except its nightly rate. Nina wondered why Sandy had chosen this particular one. A young woman in sweats, talking to a baby in an infant seat on the counter, looked up as she came in, and Nina had her answer. Sandy’s young clone. "I’m looking for Art Wong," Nina said.

"He’s the owner. He’s not around. Can I help you?" The baby flung things on the floor in a kind of disgusted commentary as they talked.

"I need to leave some very important papers for one of the people staying here. Michelle Patterson."

"Sure. I can see her room from here. I’ll catch her when she comes in."

"Don’t forget."

"Sandy would call up a devil if I did," the girl said.

"Any idea where Mrs. Patterson might be?"

"Nope. She did say she goes to work at four, so she’ll probably be back before then."

Where was Misty? Should she try to reach her through Tom Clarke? Not a good idea. Misty was a secret in his life and Nina would hate to be the one to drop the gossip bombshell. Anyway, she had a feeling that now that the going had gotten tough, Tom Clarke would be going. That would be tough for Misty. She was used to depending on men, Nina imagined.

Misty arrived at the motel at a little after three o’clock, a bottle tucked under her arm. She waved toward the office, dropped her keys, picked them up and dropped them again. Fitting the key into the lock took some time.

She changed into her skimpy tuxedo, threw a long sweat-shirt over it, and headed out the door wearing run-down shoes, a bag with her heels swinging by her side. As she walked to the casino, letting the wind give her a nudge now and then, she sang to herself. "I’m gonna tell you how it’s going to be. You’re gonna give your love to me. My love for you has got to be real. I want you to know just how I feel." She crossed at a busy corner and resumed her song. "My love is real, not fade away." She walked for a few minutes before she stopped dead in her tracks. The booze wore off too damn quickly these days. That was his song and she was trying hard to forget.

She hurried to her job, resolutely silent, and worked the entire shift with an ache that began in her head and cruised throughout her body in the course of the evening.

At midnight, in the locker room, history repeated itself, as it had every night since she’d last seen her husband. She changed the clothes and wiped off the makeup, horribly conscious of her habits and the fact that tonight she would not be going to the house at the Keys, but to the Lucky Chip. Not even Tom would be there to keep her warm. He was avoiding her. Two police officers from South Lake Tahoe met her in the Lucky Chip parking lot. "Mrs. Patterson?" one said.

"That’s me," she said. "What can I do for you?" She used the polite words she used at the casino every night with certain types of men to subdue her reaction to seeing them, which was fear.

"We need to talk with you."

"What about?"

"Your husband."

"What about him? Do you know where he is?"

The cop cleared his throat. "When did you last see your husband?" he said.

"Thursday night. We had a bad fight."

"You haven’t seen him since?"

"No. I didn’t want to see him again. Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

"I’m sorry. I have to give you some bad news. He’s dead, Mrs. Patterson."

"Oh, no!" Misty wailed. "Where did you find him?"

"At the bottom of the lake."

And then Misty did something that surprised everyone. She took off at a fast trot across the parking lot.

"Mrs. Patterson, wait. Come back here!" The two cops took off after her, one talking into a black box, the other running like a man who knew how to run fast.

She got through the lot to a side street, and started up the hill toward Heavenly’s looming ski trails. Amazed at her own strength, she quickly outpaced her pursuers. She veered off onto Pioneer Trail, losing herself in a path she remembered.

Hearing but not listening to sirens, she found the flat granite rock she and Anthony had picnicked upon when they first came to Tahoe. She stopped, panting, and wiped her wet face. On a blue-and-white cloth decorated with roosters, she had laid out the meal. They drank wine from the bottle and settled in to snuggle on the ground, leaning against the rock. Everything had been so perfect that day, hadn’t it? He must have told her he loved her a hundred times. Strange how, thinking back, the words had been so hard for her even then, the glare of his feelings eclipsing her own pale light.

A long time later, they found her there. "I didn’t mean to kill him," she said. "I didn’t think I hit him that hard. I can’t believe he’s dead." They looked at each other. The tall one nodded.

"You have the right to remain silent," said the small one, the one with the stiff hair, Sgt. Higuera. He talked on.

The other one stood her up and put her hands behind her back. He clicked handcuffs neatly into place.

They led her toward a police car with an open back door. She called up every technique she ever had for controlling herself, imagining herself elsewhere, imagining herself dreaming, imagining herself dead.

She heard herself screaming, but couldn’t stop.

The man in the front seat, the one scribbling into a notebook, looked back at her. "We’ll be there in just a couple of minutes. Settle down. Try to enjoy the ride."

"It was just another fight like a million other fights!" But it wasn’t, she knew it wasn’t. She had hit him and now he was dead. "Guilty as sin," she murmured. That’s what her mother always said, and the words seemed right. She knew she should shut up but she couldn’t. She said a few more things, then she rested her head back against the dirty vinyl and let herself cry.