Dreams of the Dead

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Kelly and Hendricks. Her part in it would have been to make sure the sale happened. True, she had gone from disinterest to strongly urging that her father let it go. And whaddaya know, the buyers in Korea had no manager all of a sudden, and she knew the business.

  But Kelly hadn’t killed Cyndi Backus and Brenda Bee, not with the description of the boyfriend they had.

  Then Nina had a paralyzing thought: Could it have been Kelly who was having an adulterous affair with Cyndi?

  Nina checked her watch—it was just before 10:00 p.m. She pulled over and did some more online research on her phone. This time it was easy, as she had Kelly’s home phone number already inputted. Another paid service provided the address the phone was billed from.

  She felt she could trust Kelly. Hiding something or not, Kelly was the one person in the Strong family who seemed to understand how troubling a story her family continued to unfold.

  Kelly lived in a condominium over the Nevada line, near the Edgewood Golf Course. Her home sat back from the road with a crabgrass lawn in front and a lot of signs warning people not to park here and not to step there.

  Nina climbed the stairs and rang the bell, feeling déjà vu. Two years earlier, she had talked to Kelly in another apartment, and Kelly had provided key information that had led Nina to realize that her own client Jim Strong had murdered his wife and probably his brother. Kelly was, Nina thought, a kind of Cassandra, a woman of deep understanding, but completely impotent in affecting events. Like Cassandra, she was viewed by everyone who knew her with caution, as someone who might hold together for a while, but could not quite be believed.

  Kelly answered the door or, more accurately, opened it a crack.

  “Hello, Kelly.”

  “What took you so long?” Kelly opened the door wide and Nina went in. The place was just like Kelly’s old apartment, filled with books and prints on the walls. A fire burned in the small fireplace, and a yoga mat was laid out in front of it. Kelly wore leggings and a stretchy top that showed that she had gained weight. She pulled a pareu tight around her waist.

  “My God.” Nina went to the wall near the hallway, where a strange print was tacked to the wall, of a woman on her back, half off her sleeping couch, her eyes closed, sleeping. A small demon perched on her, leering. Looming above her, a hideous white horse, with white eyeballs, breathed horror into the picture.

  “It’s called Nightmare,” Kelly said. “By Henry Fuseli. I think they have it at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. You ever go there?”

  “Not often enough. I think I saw it in a dream.” It was so frightening, this painting, the woman in it so vulnerable and naked, and these monsters all around . . .

  “Remember this one?” Kelly said. “It affected you a lot last time you visited me. The Elephant Celebes.” She pulled out a book and opened it to a page showing a dreadful surrealistic print of an elephantine monster-machine.

  “Not an image I’d forget.” Nina glanced back at the nightmare picture. “I’m afraid of horses. My secretary wants me to go riding. They’re powerful animals. So strange.”

  “I was expecting you would come here. I suppose because Matt’s been so good to me, and then there’s the big thing. As we both know, the money for the sale of Paradise is due to be wired into the escrow account tomorrow.”

  “Yes, that’s why I came.”

  Kelly sat down with a miserable expression on her face. Though she was young, she had something old and wizened about her, like a war refugee who has been deprived of sustenance and dignity.

  “I also need to tell you what happened to your brother Jim.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “No. But I know how he died. He came to my house the night he was last seen.” Nina described it, the doorstep, the lockpicking, the crouched-over man with murder in his mind. She went on from there. All of it came out, in the compressed, analytical tones of a lawyer. Nina didn’t want to feel any of it again. Kelly’s expression troubled Nina. Not shocked, not grieving. Instead, she looked resigned.

  When Nina finished, Kelly said, “So that’s what happened. I imagined—worse.”

  Nina nodded. “Paul’s going to both your father and the police. He’ll make a full statement.”

  “Don’t let him do it. Paul saved your life. Isn’t that self-defense?” Kelly sighed, long and painfully. “Jim. Jimmy. He used to sing nursery rhymes to me in a funny voice. He also beat his wife and killed people. My brother. Holy crap, what a family.”

  “Anyway, this isn’t over.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I believe someone is working with Nelson Hendricks to steal the money that will be wired tomorrow morning from Korea, and I plan to prevent that.”

  “Don’t tell me—are you thinking it’s me?”

  “I don’t know. I’m lost. I want to stop what looks and acts like a train out of control. I don’t want somebody stealing from your family. You have all suffered enough, your father especially.”

  Kelly nodded. She got up and came over to Nina, and suddenly her face was right there close to Nina’s, her blue eyes, the folds of flesh that had come too early to her, an intensity that made Nina want to move away at any cost, but before she could do anything, Kelly said in a gravelly voice, “Where do you think he got it from?” Then tears seemed to spurt from the eyes so close to Nina’s.

  Kelly blinked the tears back hard and moved back a little. “Where did he get it?” she repeated.

  “Who?”

  “Where do you think Jim got his tendencies? His lying. His stealing. His possessiveness. Oh, how blind everybody is! I could laugh! I could laugh! You think Jim started it because that’s what you want to think. Who started it? All of it?”

  “I don’t know,” Nina stammered.

  “Yes, you do. You remember Jim’s wife? She was not loyal. She went elsewhere to find love.”

  “You—you mean—Heidi?”

  “That’s who I mean! Heidi! And so, who slept with Jim’s wife Heidi?”

  “Kelly, let me get this straight. Are you accusing your father of something?” Nina let that fact come back. Heidi had had an affair with her father-in-law, Philip. It had broken Jim Strong.

  “Who slept with his son’s wife? Who set Jim off on his revenge killings, set off all of this? Oh, God!” Kelly fell onto her knees on the floor, sobbing. “Maybe I’m the same. I’ve got a defect, like my brother and my father.”

  So this was what Kelly had been hiding. What a burden. “Philip?” Nina whispered. He had had an affair with Sandy’s mother and his own son’s wife. He was a womanizer.

  Was he a killer like his son?

  “My father ran Paradise Resort into the ground until there was nothing left. Of course he’s working with Nelson! He’s known him for decades! He played on Nelson’s love of his wife, her sickness, his honesty!” Kelly rocked back and forth. “He’s had half the women in this town. I’m surprised he never went after you. He always has a girlfriend but he’s not interested unless they’re married or committed. He needs that. He needs to destroy.”

  “Kelly, are you saying Philip’s planning to steal the money tomorrow morning?”

  “Of course he’ll steal the money! All of it. Who’s to stop him from wrestling every bit from the resort? He feels he’s owed. He hated Jim stealing, pilfering. He was so mad, for a while there I wondered if he had killed my brother.”

  “But now you believe he didn’t.”

  “True. But don’t you get it? He set up this escrow scam to get Jim’s share of the resort. And Marianne’s share. And mine.”

  Nina shook her head. Kelly stared at her as if willing her to understand, those young-old eyes riveted.

  Nina dropped her head, put her hand to her forehead.

  “That’s right,” Kelly said. “Now you get it.”

  “Give me a sec.” Nina let it all in, Philip’s gambling, his creditors, his broken family, his single lifestyle, his many lovers, all of it.

  Everything
fit. “Jesus, Kelly, why haven’t you talked about this? Why didn’t you tell me? You work with my brother. I have always trusted you.”

  “Because I can’t prove anything. I never can. I don’t care about myself anymore, Nina. I’m out of hope. He’s turned my whole life into a nightmare of twisted—of horrible—” Kelly couldn’t finish.

  Nina put her arms around her and let Kelly cry on her shoulder. Kelly calmed a little, while Nina riled up. She understood suddenly how Paul felt, like a poisonous creature puffing up, preparing to fight.

  She had been lied to and manipulated, first by the son, then by the father. They had both put her to work for them. Philip was a scum-sucking liar who had cost her precious sleep and made both her and Paul feel guilty for not saving him. She felt humiliated. She had made the same mistake twice with this family.

  “Kelly, do you know where your brother Jim’s body is?” Kelly, lost in her own world, said nothing. “Where is he?” Nina asked again.

  Kelly seemed to shake off a fog. “He found Jim’s body and took it. Of course he did. He found Jim and dug him out of his grave. I guarantee, my brother’s gone forever. Nobody will ever find him.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you. Who found Jim?”

  “Who else?”

  Nina struggled for clarity. Kelly, Jim, Marianne, Gene—“You can’t be suggesting—”

  “My father. Philip Strong. He’s responsible for everything.”

  “But—why do you believe this?”

  “Call me crazy. That’s what my father will say, not to believe a thing I tell you. But I was there when the police called, in the hall.”

  “Where?”

  “At the resort. Outside the main office in the Lodge. The police called in the morning first thing, when we were opening up, and I heard him talking to them. ‘I want to be there,’ he said. ‘This afternoon?’ he said. ‘Where do I go?’ he said. He wrote down some numbers.”

  “GPS coordinates?”

  “I don’t know, some numbers, and he was—oh, he was livid, frightened and furious and I don’t know what all. He left, and he was gone all day. That night he had the attack.”

  Nina was holding her hand over her mouth.

  “That’s right, the police told him they were going to go dig up a body, and it might be Jim, and he got there first, okay? I think about this all day long. I dream about it at night, our father digging up his son.” Kelly sat back on the floor in front of the fire. “He never liked Jim. He was glad when Jim was gone. You know that?”

  Nina nodded.

  “So now Jim’s gone for good, Nina. You’ll never find the body. It’s gone. Jim couldn’t just show up; if Jim’s body was found, why, that would be the end, no wired money, nothing to steal. Dad has a new girlfriend already. He can’t stand life without one. I don’t know who she is, he calls her and says things, and I hear, but—do you think I’m crazy? Do you?”

  “No. No.” Nina got up. “I’m going to go and see how well he can lie to my face. My own client.”

  “Don’t. He may be just out of the hospital, but he’s dangerous. He’ll lie and lie and then I don’t know what might happen.”

  “I’ll be careful, Kelly. I promise. And after our talk, if he hasn’t completely satisfied me of his innocence, I’ll go straight to the police.”

  “Don’t go. Don’t. He’s a dangerous man.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “He’s not innocent. He’s bad.” Kelly sounded frantic.

  “Don’t worry.” Nina remembered the day Philip had come into her office looking for help, insisting on using Brinkman, not Paul, acting like a poor beleaguered father who has heard news that has burned his world to ash.

  And he and Hendricks had cooked up the whole thing.

  CHAPTER 34

  Paul finished his story. “So it’s all over but the penetentiary.”

  “Come on. They won’t indict you.”

  Eric wasn’t such a bad guy, even with the shoe thing. In fact, knowing that Nina might lose a shoe, but not her virtue, had relieved Paul immensely. He repressed a smile and touched his abraded and bleeding ear, which would give him that artist look for a week or so. “Wanna bet?”

  “Ten bucks says you’ll never see the steel toilet with no lid.”

  “Done.” Paul felt even better, as if maybe Eric were right, he did have a chance.

  “I’m going home,” Eric said. “Are you safe to drive?”

  Paul indicated his tall water glass. “I’ll be okay.”

  Eric left. Paul paid the tab and headed out to his Mustang. The sky was awash in stars, the mountains lightless silhouettes on the horizon.

  He headed back toward Harrah’s at Stateline, back to the South Shore where his action was. There wasn’t a thought in his head.

  Except a wee one.

  Oh, yeah. Hadn’t checked his messages in a while. He fished his phone up on its cord from the passenger-side floor. “Whoa.” Ten messages. He was near Sand Harbor. He went a little farther to a turnout where he could watch the starshine on the lake.

  The messages were all from Nina. Fifteen minutes before, on her last call, she said she was going to Philip Strong’s place. That last message had a small amount of profanity, very unlike Nina, which showed this was major.

  Paul swung back onto the road, sped up, drank more water from the bottle.

  The front door to Philip’s house was unlocked, no lights showing. Nina didn’t bother to knock. She made her way through the cold, dark living room with its smell of an old wood fire. He would be in the bedroom upstairs.

  Nina burst in. Philip looked up in surprise. He was lying in his big four-poster reading a book in the lamplight, a tray table full of medicines beside him, a walker alongside the bed, the picture of a peaceful convalescent. On the wall side of the bed was an open window with a view of the sky. The room was cold, but he had a down comforter. Nina reached into her purse and turned on her portable recorder, then set the purse casually on the dresser by the door.

  “Hello. Hope you don’t mind me dropping in. The door was unlocked.”

  “Damn nurse,” Philip said. “I’ll talk to her in the morning. She just left.” He set the book down.

  “I’ve had a talk with Kelly. And your buddy Nelson Hendricks.”

  Something unknowable chased through his eyes. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m feeling?”

  “Okay. How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit. That’s how I feel. And not in the mood for visitors.”

  Nina stayed away from the man in the bed. “I resign as your attorney. Anything you tell me from this moment on is no longer confidential or protected by any privilege. Do you understand?”

  “Your work’s about over anyway,” Philip said, face impassive, his knuckles white on the book.

  “How dare you. How could you?”

  He fell back onto the pillows, saying, “I’m so tired. I’ll be glad to talk to you about anything at all tomorrow.”

  “After the money gets wired? That’s why I’m here, Philip, to tell you that money won’t be wired if I have to wake up every cop in town tonight.”

  Philip’s face crumpled. He murmured. Nina couldn’t make it out. She moved around to the side of the bed.

  And a still-powerful arm flew out. Strong pulled her onto the bed, onto him. He rolled over on her, both of them thrashing, and somehow grabbed a pillow. Then he had her pinned, the pillow hard on her face, her breath cut off, his legs pinioning her arms as he crouched over her.

  She fought with her legs, trying to buck him off. He sat on her chest, holding the pillow down with terrible ferocity. She kept struggling, but nothing was working even with the strength her boiling rage and fear gave her. He adjusted one knee that had been holding down her arm at the elbow, and she managed to get her arm free. She reached between his legs and he let out a yowl of pain.

  But he didn’t let go, he held the pillow tightly. Down, thick, a deadly weapon.

  She couldn�
�t take in a breath.

  She must have passed out for a second. She heard a high voice.

  He fell away from her. She jumped off the bed and ran to the doorway, where Kelly stood with a small-caliber pistol in her hand.

  Philip did not attempt to get off the bed. He pushed out his lower jaw.

  “Do it,” he shouted. “Go on, do it!” Kelly stood there, blinking hard, the gun shaking. She put her free arm around Nina.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.” Nina was recovering swiftly. She looked back at Philip. For the moment, her body seemed to have no more emotion left in it. Philip seemed spent, but she wasn’t going to get close again. His gray face was covered with sweat.

  “Kelly, give me the gun,” Nina said. Kelly didn’t move as Nina took the pistol and examined it. She held it on Philip.

  “Now where were you, Nina?” Kelly said.

  “He was starting to say something truthful for a change.”

  Kelly turned back to her father. “You planned to leave Tahoe. You were going to leave me. Leave me dead broke with everybody looking at me, the daughter and sister of murdering thieves.”

  “I’m sick.”

  “Answer me!”

  “I’m going into heart failure.”

  “Liar!”

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “You fucking liar. You never thought twice about me. You never cared about Jim or me, just Alex.”

  “I supported you.”

  “If I had money, I’d throw it in your face.”

  “It’s not my fault how Jim turned out.”

  “Are you talking about before or after you started screwing his wife? What did you think he’d do?”

  Philip groaned and pulled up his sheet so that it covered his shoulders.

  “I know about Cyndi Backus, too,” Kelly said.

  Her father’s face tightened. He gritted his teeth, seemingly in pain.

  “You killed her, didn’t you? You were sleeping with her.”