Dreams of the Dead

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  For some reason she lifted her face to look at him as his face was coming down to look at her. They kissed naturally and simply.

  “I don’t think I want a lawyer anymore,” Paul said. “I just want to tell the truth about how I came to kill him. I wish the Strong family—peace.”

  “That wish could land you in prison for life. Please, Paul. I’m a professional. Don’t do it that way.”

  “I’ll think about it. Enough for now.”

  They watched the skaters muscling their ways through tie-ups, laughing, having a good time. She clapped as Brianna made a small jump. “She’s beautiful,” Nina murmured. “So talented. Hard to know what life might bring her.”

  The three kids crashed suddenly. They got rid of the skates and demanded food. Again.

  On the way back to Matt and Andrea’s they stopped at Heidi’s, Paul’s choice. Everyone ate way too much, and the carbs made the backseat a calm and quiet place all the way home.

  “Ahoy,” Matt said. He poked his head into his front door nervously, as if he had expected the whole place to have gone up in smoke.

  “Did you have fun?” Nina asked. She and Paul, silent on a porch swing, rose together leaving it to creak back and forth behind them, empty.

  Matt looked at Andrea with adoration Nina had craved and had never gotten from Kurt. “Oh, yeah,” Matt said. He kissed Andrea on the lips. “I’m a lucky man.”

  Nina filled him in on the morning, stretching out the part where the kids skated.

  Paul walked Nina to her car. It was early afternoon, warm.

  “I note you didn’t mention the hour they spent afterward playing video games,” Paul said.

  “They won’t squeal. Paul, can you please do this for me? Wait a little longer before you talk to Sergeant Cheney.”

  “Why? The court hearing has been lost. The body has been lost. The truth will never come out if I don’t speak up.”

  “Don’t you feel the lines of force? Something bigger than stealing Jim’s body is going on. Can’t you feel it? It’s gathering. It’s coming. I feel like we’ll understand what’s going on in a very short time. Let me think about this for one more day. You should talk to another lawyer—”

  “All right.” He ran his finger along the inside of her arm, a place that in other, more personal times he had described as “sexy with velvet.” “But on the other hand, I’ll do anything for you.”

  That afternoon at just after six, Lynda Eckhardt called Nina at home. Nina recognized the number and for a moment considered not picking up. She and Bob had given Hitch a bath and his heart-worm pill and had dolloped his antiflea serum onto his neck. The three of them sat together on the couch, Hitch’s head in her lap, watching a basketball game. The Golden State Warriors were beating the Raptors 76–74 and the cool day was clouding up.

  “Hi. Look, I feel terrible calling you at home. But you did give me the number.”

  “What’s up, Lynda?”

  “My blood pressure. I’ve been talking to creditors of Paradise all afternoon, making deals, setting pay dates. What a damn shame. I just saw Philip at the hospital.”

  “They let you in? I’m going after dinner.”

  “Not a heart attack as it turns out, but an arrhythmia. Kelly was there. She told me that they implanted a pacemaker and they’re talking about releasing him tomorrow.”

  A sudden thought struck Nina hard. Would Philip have suffered this attack if she and Paul had come forward right away with Jim’s body? She felt a rush of guilt and couldn’t breathe for a minute.

  As if mind reading and giving her one small hope that this was not entirely their fault, Lynda went on, “Turns out he had a minor attack a while back, but got himself to the hospital and told nobody. Has heart disease, that poor man. The debts and the sale together became too much for him. I really tried to prevent this forced sale, Nina.”

  “Sometimes you can’t get the client what they want. You can only get them a chance to move on.” Nina, breathing again, moved into the kitchen with the phone away from the television’s distraction.

  “I wanted to update you.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “And one other little thing. A little favor I need to ask you.”

  “Er, Lynda, I’m kind of tied up at the moment.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Visiting with my son. Petting my dog. Watching TV.”

  “Relaxing, eh? The noive of ya! Okay, let me be brief. You hooked up on Skype?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got a problem. I’m having a nervous breakdown, and I have one more big call to make. I can’t manage it. It’s to the lawyer for the buyers of Paradise. The Korean syndicate. She left a message for me to call her right about now. It’s ten a.m., bright and early for her in Seoul.”

  “You want me to call Korea?” Nina had been pouring a tumbler of water on the nervous geranium in the window above the sink. She stopped and drank the rest of the water instead.

  “Nobody else can handle this. It’s simple enough. She wants a progress report. Her name is Su-dae Choi and she went to the University of Hawaii as an undergraduate. Great English, sharp gal, not all formal like you might think.”

  “Does it have to be right now?”

  “It’ll only be ten minutes. Guess so,” Lynda said. “If you do this for me, I will stay sane, I promise. I will continue to be a contributing member of society. I will also be eternally grateful.”

  “Does she know about Philip’s heart problem?”

  “Well, no.” Above all else, Lynda, who should really have been a gentle librarian, hated bearing bad news. “I know you can keep them from panicking.”

  “I see nothing to panic about. They want the sale, don’t they?”

  “What if, God forbid, Philip should get worse instead of better?” Lynda said. “What if he’s incapacitated? The sale date might have to be extended, and you know what that means, some of their financing may evaporate. I think they’re gonna panic. Like me, like I’m doing right now. I’ve popped enough Librium to make me sleep two days, and my eyes are still bulging outta my head. Please.”

  “You want me to reassure them that things are in order, that we can finish in time?”

  “I’m on my knees.”

  “What’s the number?” Lynda gave her that information. There were a lot of digits.

  Nina went to the cubby in the kitchen where the big iMac was, looked through a couple of drawers and located the tiny camera, mounted that, and set to work getting the Skype software going. Then she realized the Korean lawyer would see her. She went upstairs and put on her blazer over her AC/DC shirt, put on gold earrings, and pulled her hair into a rubber band. Then she brushed her teeth and applied makeup.

  A jiffy.

  The game was over when she went back downstairs, and Bob was watching a Simpsons DVD. “Warriors,” he said. “By twelve.”

  “Okay.” She returned to the kitchen, turned the oven dial, got a pan of chicken and vegetables in to bake, drank half a cup of coffee from the morning pot, and called Su-dae Choi.

  CHAPTER 26

  “Aloha!” Ms. Choi said after her secretary put Nina on the line. On the screen Ms. Choi was a motherly-looking woman with a warm smile, and Nina’s spine got to slump a little. Behind Ms. Choi there seemed to be another desk where another woman worked. Nina saw a watercolor on the wall. The office was not as sumptuous as she had feared.

  “Aloha to you.”

  “How’s the weather at Tahoe?” They compared notes on the weather. Ms. Choi’s English was accented but fluent. “As a matter of fact I just returned from Honolulu,” she told Nina. “My attorney friends are ready to retrain as surfers. Business is terrible. Too many lawyers. I told them, Korea is worse. Nobody’s making any money. How about your neck of the woods?”

  “About the same. You know, business for lawyers is supposed to be great in bad times, but I don’t practice that kind of law.”

  “We’re all going to be coloring ladi
es’ hair in the evenings at this rate. I see you are at home. Is Lynda all right?”

  “I’m actually the litigating attorney in this matter.” A lock of hair escaped Nina’s rubber band and swung to her shoulder. “Lynda felt that I could give you more up-to-date information and asked me to make the call.”

  “I assume we are on track with the sale after the court hearing?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Did it go smoothly?”

  “The net proceeds will have to go into escrow.”

  “Yes, I checked on that with the court. Any other problems showing up? My clients call me every day. This is a big deal for them. First U.S. purchase. They own resorts in Switzerland and Austria, a big one here in Korea. We are fine at this end. The sales price will be wired to the two bank accounts on Tuesday and will be there for the Wednesday closing.”

  “Well, yes, something has come up.” Nina watched a vigilant look flit over her colleague’s face. “Mr. Strong has a medical problem. Unfortunately, he’s in the hospital at the moment. He’s scheduled for release on Tuesday. That’s my information, and I assume he’ll be able to sign the final set of papers in connection with the sale.”

  Ms. Choi took this in stride, and Nina gave her the details, thinking, Lynda could easily have handled this phone call, and I missed the one game I wanted to see. “I’ll call our contact,” Ms. Choi said then. “Marianne Strong. She has taken over in Mr. Philip Strong’s absence, I suppose?”

  “Not that I know of, but please don’t worry. The resort will be managed properly for the next few days. It is possible Mr. Strong’s daughter, Kelly, might oversee it if Marianne does not.”

  Ms. Choi visibly recoiled. “She was in a mental hospital.”

  “Not for some time. She has had problems, yes, but she has studied law and worked at the resort off and on for her whole life.” No need to mention her experience towing cars and running snow-plows.

  “But—” Ms. Choi frowned. “This makes no sense. Marianne is the new manager. Why didn’t Mr. Strong bring her in? She is taking over the general management responsibilities as soon as the sale is complete. Hasn’t she informed you of that? Her half brother also has a management agreement.”

  “I just learned that,” Nina said. “Mr. Strong wasn’t consulted.”

  “He wasn’t consulted? He doesn’t approve?”

  “Let’s back up a little. I’m curious as to how Marianne Strong was hired to run Paradise after the sale.”

  “You don’t know? That is so odd, forgive me.” Ms. Choi frowned, eyes downcast, thinking. “Well, she is a minority owner of Paradise of course. She and her half brother”—Ms. Choi looked down at some paperwork—“Gene Malavoy first approached us about this potential sale almost three years ago. My clients’ company was expanding rapidly at that time. We had interest. I’m not certain what happened, but someone dropped the ball in the negotiations for the past couple of years. Apparently, Mr. Strong was trying to find new financing to keep the resort. Marianne finally persuaded him that it would be wiser to let the resort go and contacted my clients again. She said that her father-in-law was ready to negotiate, at her insistence. We were, of course, grateful.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Nina said. “Did Marianne tie the sale to her being offered the managerial position?”

  Ms. Choi hesitated. “It was not a, uh, kickback, nothing like that.”

  “No, there would have been no reason to offer her the job as part of the negotiations because Mr. Strong was ready to sell.”

  “Honestly? He seemed hostile to the idea, but she was instrumental. She caused him to change his mind. She has many years of experience as the assistant manager there, and her half brother apparently has an MBA from the University of Chicago. She pointed out to us that he has been the chief financial officer at Paradise for three years. She said they would make a solid and stable team, and we were pleased to find them available.”

  “Excuse me,” Nina said, “I’ll be right back.”

  She got up and went into the living room and paced. She hated to think how disappointed Ms. Choi would be to learn that Marianne was only experienced at publicity and giving ski school lessons, while Gene was a high school dropout who worked as a host in the Lodge.

  What now? She had to get back into the kitchen. The Koreans would have to fly in a manager at short notice. They seemed dubious about trusting Kelly, and she was the only other possibility.

  No, worse. Working backward, the sale might be delayed and therefore fail. Would that be in the best interests of her client?

  The phone seemed to buzz in the background. Was there an underground cable in the Pacific? Were coelacanths listening in?

  Worse, this was the sort of bad news regarding which the bearer might get sued. Nina quickly reviewed in her mind a rather arcane area of tort law. The facts were not all in. If Nina told Ms. Choi about her sleazy new managers, would she be sued by Marianne and Gene?

  Hmm. Hmm. Interference with advantageous business relation. Inducement of breach of contract. Those causes of action were just the beginning if the sale fell through. Philip might feel she had committed malpractice in volunteering such negative information.

  Caveat emptor. Apt Latin maxims never die. She returned to the monitor.

  Ms. Choi said, “Is Mr. Strong going to be all right?”

  “We hope so.”

  “He couldn’t, ah, suffer an event before Tuesday?”

  “Life is uncertain,” Nina said. “I am so sorry, it has been a pleasure talking with you, but I have to go. I hope I answered your questions?”

  “I think I have a few more, now.” And Ms. Choi would have a pantload more if Nina kept talking to her. Nina hurriedly said how much she would love to visit Korea someday—which was true, she loved Buddhist temples—and signed off.

  Back upstairs, Nina pulled the rubber band out of her hair, sat on the edge of the bed.

  Should she call Lynda? That would expose Lynda to the same legal and ethical problem that had unexpectedly landed on her. Should she call Philip? Paul? Eric?

  Marianne and her morose half sib were completely unscrupulous. Nina wondered now if they had somehow defeated Philip’s efforts to renegotiate his loans.

  Had they used more than lies and chicanery to take over Paradise? Had they followed her and Paul to Jim Strong’s body? If so, why would they take it?

  She tried for one more connection. Could Gene Malavoy have been Cyndi Backus’s secret lover? An adventurous woman might find him an attractive nuisance.

  Did Cyndi ski? Did she meet him at the resort?

  And if that happened, how then did Marianne feel, with her young half sib taking up with a local stripper?

  Nina’s mind boiled over with possibilities, some outrageous, some that seemed to have a logical basis. The oven timer went off. Hitchcock sat at her feet, imploring her with big, steady eyes for some dinner. It was finally Sunday night, and she had laundry to fold while tutoring Bob for his geometry test, then she had to get over to Boulder Hospital.

  She had to tell someone in authority at Paradise about the phone call. Philip was out of commission. She called Kelly.

  Kelly answered immediately. She sounded rushed. Nina ran through the conversation. “I had heard Marianne make the same claim last week. I should have called you then. I’m very sorry. I know you have problems with Marianne and Gene. For that matter, with your father.”

  Kelly said, “I’m dumbfounded. They don’t have the right.”

  “We have to approach this cautiously, Kelly. Will you let me figure out how to deal with this situation? We don’t want to cause the sale to fall through.”

  “I don’t know what to say. You better talk to my father, as soon as he’s able.”

  “I didn’t even tell you how sorry I am about Philip’s illness.”

  “Seems like just one more evil twist. Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

  Nina hung up. Whew!

  It was called compartmentalizati
on, and men knew the feeling well. Nina plunked it all in a bow-tied box and picked up the pot holder.

  Just off Emerald Bay Road, Boulder Hospital was small, intimate, and gave good personal care. Nina arrived well after dark.

  She swung into the parking lot, remembering a story she had read a few years before about a bear which had stumbled through the automatic doors. The incident was caught on the hospital’s surveillance video. Pulling into an empty spot, she wondered if most people in the world had as chummy a relationship with wildlife as people up here in the mountains, next to a colossal lake where Native Americans still fished. Bears had been bashing in windows lately when the human doors wouldn’t give. One had even broken through the garage door of a local residence and eaten all the frozen chicken in the spare fridge.

  The small community hospital treated roughly sixty-five patients at a time. It had a fully equipped Cardiopulmonary Department. Flowers in Reception held a big card with thanks from a former patient. Everyone seemed busy but happy. The rugs were clean. It was prime visiting time, but things were starting to quiet. Nina quickly found Philip Strong’s room.

  She hadn’t had such a great experience with hospitals herself. Once she had been shot, sustaining a minor wound, and had been taken to Boulder. Giving birth to Bob had been tough, she thought, negotiating the corridors, remembering.

  Back then, it had been just another hard time, Kurt not there, she young and lost.

  The door to Philip’s room was open. She stepped inside. Kelly sat beside Philip’s bed, reading from a book by Roddy Doyle. Philip grunted now and then.

  Nina put a vase full of flowers by his bedside, which already held four other bouquets. She moved some and set hers in a space under the window.

  “Hello, Kelly.”

  Kelly looked up from her book. “Hello, Nina.”

  “Hi, Philip.” Nina hesitated, then came over and hugged him.

  “Understand you saved my sorry ass by calling for help,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Thank you.”

  Relieved that he was making sense, Nina said, “I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. I wish I could make it all better for you.”