Reilly 13 - Dreams of the Dead (40 page)

Cheney shook his head again.

“I was there on the mountain that day my husband died. I saw what happened. I spotted Jim up there, watched what he did—” Nina took a long minute. “He had violated me and my family and I continued to be scared to death of him. A few days later, after he had disappeared and everyone thought he had left town, I even thought he might be outside, watching my house in the night. He wanted me dead. I called Paul to tell him how panicked I felt. I had already sent Bob to my brother’s, where I thought he might be safer.”

Cheney had picked up a pencil and was either doodling or taking extensive notes.

“Why not call 911?”

“To say I was afraid? I had Paul.”

Cheney gave Paul a look of disappointment and sadness, like a father who expected so much more. “Strong showed up?”

“I watched from my car as he went to her back door,” Paul said, taking up the story.

“And then?”

“I watched him jimmy the lock on her back door. I watched him pull out a folding knife, snap it open.”

“Ah.”

“I—engaged him.”

“You told him to stop. You showed him a weapon. You called the police.”

“Not exactly.”

“But you went there to protect her. He was out there breaking into her house. With a weapon?”

“Like I said, I saw his knife.”

“And you felt Nina was in imminent danger.”

“Yes. So we fought.”

“He used the knife?”

“I did. The knife nicked an artery. He bled out fast, while I tore off my shirt and was trying to use it as a pressure bandage. Couldn’t believe how fast he went.”

“You didn’t mean to kill him?”

Paul said honestly, “Hard to answer that. Once I realized I hadn’t killed him immediately, I did try to save him. I couldn’t. Then I buried him in the grave you excavated later, Fred. I took a tarp from under Nina’s house, wrapped him in it, and buried him. Like I told Nina, I took out the garbage.” Paul explained that he and Nina had sent the e-mail tip-off about the location of the grave.

Cheney nodded his head slowly. The room was quiet. Outside, Nina could hear a clanking noise, like the jailers coming to lock them up forever. But it was only a deputy’s equipment banging against his hip as he walked past outside.

“Why not come and tell me then, Paul?” Cheney asked. “We’re old friends, or so I thought. I consider myself a fair man.”

“I should have,” Paul said, “but you know, I had a problem with the idea of being locked up. I didn’t think I could take it.”

“What are you saying, Paul?”

“Back then I decided that I’d—well—kill myself before that happened.”

Nina bit her lip.

“What about leaving Strong’s family not knowing he was dead?”

“It caused them a lot of emotional distress and other harm, as it turns out,” Paul said. “I honestly never thought of that. I thought
they’d be relieved. He threatened all of them at various times. I believed they thought he was a monster. I believed they’d be relieved that he disappeared.”

“Hmm,” Cheney said. During the next long silence, Nina kept her gaze on Paul’s boots, covered with wet mud.

“I see the problem,” Cheney said. “You covered it up for two years. You ought to be ashamed.”

“Was it wrong, Paul protecting me? That man came to my home that night to kill me. His sister-in-law, Marianne, told me he told her that,” Nina said hotly.

“I’m disappointed in both of you. I should take you both into custody.”

“I don’t know what is right anymore, Fred,” Paul said quietly. “I’m leaving it to you.”

“Hmm.” Cheney made a loose fist and began hitting it lightly with the palm of his other hand. It was exactly like an old-fashioned cop on the beat hitting his hand on his truncheon as he talked to a couple of juvenile delinquents.

Paul put his hand on Nina’s knee, giving it a squeeze as if it were the last time.

“It’s not my job to be a judge, but here I am. I know you people.” Cheney pointed to Paul. “You killed a man. Not going to the police, burying the body, wasting law enforcement resources—we looked long and hard for this fool—bad judgment, Paul. However, I find it really hard to believe a jury would convict you of much.” Cheney tilted his head. “You read Shakespeare?”

“Not lately,” Paul said.

Nina remembered a night at Sand Harbor in August, warm and beautiful, the lake shining behind the set. They produced Shakespeare plays every summer, and she had seen most of the performances over the past several years.

“‘Which is the justice, which is the thief?’” Cheney said. “That’s in
King Lear
, and it is a line I remember. I wish I knew the answer to that question.”

“I’m not good at literature,” Paul said, “much as I admire it. But, Fred, please, what’s your point?”

Cheney paused for a moment and wrote notes with an old-fashioned pencil. They listened to the
scritch scritch scritch.
“Philip Strong killed his own son and buried him in the woods. Years later, after an investigator came close to discovering that he was the one embezzling from his own business, he dug his son up and permanently disposed of the corpse in Lake Tahoe. He had the idea that he would steal the escrow funds and leave the country, escape before he got found out, and before everything went to the debtors.”

“But Philip hired Eric Brinkman to look into the resort’s finances. Why would he do that?”

“He realized his daughter, Kelly, and daughter-in-law, Marianne, were catching on. He was delighted when Eric Brinkman never found any proof. So he looked around for a fresh start. He killed his girlfriend because he had told her what was going on and she wasn’t about to go along with it. He killed that poor Minden woman, slitting her throat like a monster. All to spare his own curly tail.”

“People are no damn good,” Paul said.

“Maybe I’m no damn good either,” Cheney said, “but I’m not going to do anything with your information because I earnestly do not believe the district attorney will do anything with it. I’ll note you made a full report to me. I won’t go into particulars.”

“You’re not even going to take this to the district attorney’s office and see if they feel it warrants an indictment?” Nina said.

“Those kids? I’ll save them the time,” Cheney said.

U
nder a mountain sky, four bodies lay side by side, dreaming. A warm breeze shifted the bushes around them, and in the distance children laughed and ran in and out of the water, their splashes faint. Dogs barked, but the sound drifted over the lake and far away.

Nina dreamed she was flying—no, riding on the back of a beautiful, fast animal. Tall pines whipped by, and she could smell the grass they ran through. They ran together out of sheer pleasure, not to escape anything, not to go fast, to feel the air slapping her cheeks and the thump of hooves, of life.

Next to her, in Andrea’s active imagination, her children, Troy and Brianna, banged on a door, begging for her attention. The next door over, the women that she worked with every day, victims of violence, hammered as hard. She opened both doors and let the flood commence.

In Matt’s mind, Nina’s and his dead mother, Margaret, offered them advice: help your kids however you can. That serious thought led to another, much more exciting: Andrea and him waving goodbye to the kids, who were going off somewhere good, such as to school or a fabulous job, and then the two of them falling into bed as they had when they were young and full of lust.

On the other side of Nina, Paul lay, receiving the strong, high-altitude sun like a kiss, dreaming of a dead man thrown into

the cold waters of Lake Tahoe. He watched the ruined pieces of a body flutter under its glassy surface and land in the smooth sand far below. Was that peace for a dead man? Did he think anything, two years after his death, drifting toward his final resting place?

Did he deserve peace?

Living people had such vivid dreams. In Paul’s mind, the dead did not dream. They lived on in the living, and that was all.

“O
uch!” Nina cried, sitting up suddenly. Her howl woke her fellow sleepers, who groused around in the hot sand.

“Sorry, Mom.” Bob picked up the Frisbee from next to where she lay on a faded beach towel. He whispered, “Troy’s athletically challenged.”

She dusted her sandy feet, pushing sand off one foot with another. “But a brilliant student.”

“Only because he does homework,” Bob said, frowning, then kicked up sand, running off to toss a hard pass to Brianna, who caught it easily.

Andrea stretched out her arms. “Too much simple carbohydrate added to too much wine at lunch.”

“Enough to get the neural passages relaxed at last,” Paul said.

“Hey, I drank Coke and fell asleep,” said Matt. “What’s with these corporations and their promises? Where’s the mega-caffeine jolt when you need it?”

“Sunshine. Warm weather. The lake so swimmable,” Nina said, enjoying how the sun stroked her skin. “The kids, for once, too busy for angst.”

“Thermos of coffee,” Andrea said, rooting around in the basket. “Cups.” She made up people’s orders, sugar here, cream there, and handed the cups around.

They drank, but soon fell back upon their sandy towels, watching the kids, who had given up their game and run for the lake.

“Got anything chocolate?” Matt asked, and Andrea dug around in a bag for some fudge-iced biscotti.

“What a day,” Nina said, taking a bite out of her biscuit. She watched billowy clouds skim across the sky.

“You must be glad Bob didn’t go to Sweden,” Paul said. “You’re not ready to let go of him.”

“You’re right about that. He’s in school here, in another band,” Nina said. “I think he’s doing great. I can’t wait to see what he’ll do someday.”

“Typical motherly optimism,” Paul said. “But he is an exceptional kid.”

“Yep, he is,” Nina said.

“Kiva’s my favorite beach,” Andrea said, up on her elbows, watching her kids mess around in the lake. “Where locals come, where dogs are allowed. Easygoing. Right for us and right for Hitchcock.”

Hitchcock was on a leash, and Bob was teasing him with smelly bait, driving the dog crazy.

“Who knew you were so provincial?” Matt sprinkled Andrea’s stomach with sand. “Who knew you harbored bad feelings about outsiders?”

“I like being in the know. I like being local,” Andrea replied. She took a handful of sand and piled it on Matt’s stomach, then rubbed it in.

“You bad girl,” he said, brushing it off.

“You bad boy.” Andrea smiled at him. He smiled back at her.

“Hear anything from Kurt?” Matt asked Nina.

“Often. He’s good about staying in touch. He’s living with Dana. They have a two-bedroom apartment in Stockholm, I guess hoping that Bob will visit soon. Frequently. And I think he will visit them soon. He does miss his dad.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Andrea asked.

“Kurt is Bob’s father,” Nina said, thinking, and my first real love. “We did a pile of good together, making that boy. I want him happy. That’s better for all of us.”

“Most women like seeing their exes slapped,” Andrea said. “It’s unusual but admirable, you enjoying his happiness.”

“How about Kurt’s music?” Matt asked. “He’s had issues. He find a way to play and stay in the game?”

So Nina told them all about Kurt’s music, how well he was doing, but really, she was looking up at the clouds, how the shapes changed, how she loved being here in this moment, on the hot sand, watching the kids play mindlessly, next to all the people she loved the most. She knew she needed more sunscreen, but torpor stopped her from moving.

“Okay, well, I’ve made a personal pledge not to trash the guy,” Paul said, “even though I have negative thoughts on the topic of him, his music, and his personal choices that would amuse the world if I blogged.” Paul turned over onto his stomach.

Nina hadn’t seen him in a couple of months. He looked like the lion that lived on in her imagination, the way former lovers did in idealized versions: fit, tanned, confident. After things settled down, and it was clear Cheney was not interested in ruining Paul’s life, Paul had returned to Carmel and his life there. He and Wish were doing well. Economic meltdowns didn’t faze investigators. People were always stealing, and a bad economy meant they stole more. Paul and Wish found themselves in great demand and weren’t hurting for business.

“What happened to Paradise Resort?” Matt asked. “Not much in the
Tahoe Mirror
since the secretive Koreans took charge. I know there’s some local criticism of the sale, but I drove by there a couple of days ago. The changes look good to me. Anything to benefit the local economy, I say hooray.”

Nina took a drink of her coffee. She lived in this place that had moods as drastic as any negligible human but continued to draw her, strong as gravity, holy as air. She had no plan to leave the mountains where she had raised her son, where her brother lived, where her life was. “Marianne and Gene are in charge at the resort. I talked to the Koreans and they were surprisingly okay with their deceptions. They like those two because of how connected they
are to the resort, and how much they love it. They’re working on making it a destination year-round, you know, hiking, biking trails. They’re agitating for a gondola like the one Heavenly has. Their backers are receptive to the concept, even though nobody in the world has money for any such thing these days.”

“And Kelly?”

“That’s a good outcome. After her father died, she straightened up and went back to law school. I’m really happy for her. You know, Paul, what you did, confessing what happened to her brother? That mattered to her. That helped her.”

For a few minutes, they drank their coffee, watching the kids harass each other.

Andrea’s red hair glowed in the sun. Nina thought, What a marvelous human being. How wonderful that my brother found her.

“Time to pack up the day,” Matt said.

“Not yet,” Andrea said, and closed her eyes.

All three other adults followed suit, closing their eyes and giving in a little longer to the mellowness of an August day at the lake, so beautiful you could hardly breathe.