Case of Lies

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “You are actually alone, aren’t you?” he said.

  She wet her lips and said “Yes,” but Elliott thought maybe she was lying. Then-she was willing to walk out on her date?

  But-now that he was calmer-he didn’t want Carleen to join his lonely party. He was reacting to her just as he always had. She put his teeth on edge.

  “I never thought I’d see you here,” she said. “Not after the robbery and all. I thought you and Silke and Raj decided-”

  “They don’t know I’m here. I’m doing some checking.”

  “I was curious, since I was coming here for the gambling. I checked the Tribune archives and found out they haven’t caught the guy. Is that what you’re checking?”

  “Yes. And the case that got filed afterward. By the husband. Why do you care? You weren’t even there. You quit taking trips with us months before.”

  “Oh, I care, Wakefield. If you all got in trouble, do you think I wouldn’t have been dragged in? MIT would have found a way to expel all of us. It would have been very public, and I wouldn’t have gotten a good job. And if it comes out now, how we paid our tuition, all that, it will still cause me trouble.”

  “Relax, Carleen, you weren’t a witness. You’ve graduated. The publicity might not hurt you at all.”

  “I thought you all agreed to stay out of it! It’s too dangerous!” She looked really upset. Carleen always had an opinion on everything.

  “It’s bothering me that they still can’t find the shooter,” Elliott said.

  “No. You can’t be that stupid,” Carleen said. “You can’t be thinking of going to the police after all this time!”

  He retreated into himself and said nothing. It was none of her business, but she knew all about it. The only way he knew how to deal with her incessant questioning was to be silent. Unfortunately, that made Carleen furious every time.

  It had been bad luck, running into her. All thought of picking her up, getting laid-okay, that had been in his mind-fled. Where the hell was his car?

  “Well?”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Yeah, calm down.” She put her hand on his arm, but that wasn’t working either, he could feel the crackle of her edgy energy even better that way. She licked her lips again.

  “So,” she said.

  Elliott thought she was pissed off but still hoping. She really did want to go with him. He’d never understood Carleen, and he really didn’t have the energy to start now. He was weary of her. “So.”

  “Still obsessed with predicting the primes?” Carleen said. “Still addicted to dreams of greatness? Got anywhere yet?”

  “Got to go. Places.” The Neon or Echo, or whatever the little blue car was, had rolled up. Finally! A chunky, red-faced valet got out and gave Elliott his keys.

  Elliott handed him a few bucks.

  “I could use a ride back to my hotel,” Carleen said behind him.

  “Sorry. In a rush. I’m going straight to the airport in Reno.” He opened the car door and climbed inside.

  For a minute she didn’t move, absorbing the insult. Then she got up and stood by his open door and said, “That wasn’t a pass, that was just me needing a ride somewhere.”

  “Next time,” he said. He tried to pull the door closed, but she held on to it, eyes flashing.

  “Silke would never have dumped Raj for you. The way you mooned around after her was disgusting, a real turn-off. I don’t care how brilliant you think you are. You suck.”

  “I need to go, Carleen.” He pulled again. She jerked the door back so that it was open. The valet, arms crossed, watched, wearing a slight smile.

  “I have a boyfriend now, several boyfriends, and maybe this will surprise you, Robot, but I don’t give a shit about you anymore.”

  He disliked the nickname. He hadn’t heard it in so long, he had almost forgotten it.

  “I wasn’t hitting on you,” she repeated. “Is that clear? Is it?”

  The valet exchanged a sympathetic male glance with Elliott.

  “You’re very direct. It’s admirable, in fact, how you state your mind,” Elliott said.

  “Fuck you! I hate you.”

  Elliott said, “I’m getting close to a proof.” He couldn’t help himself. He patted his chest, where he kept the notebook.

  “God! Same old crap!” She made a guttural sound in her throat. “You don’t have anybody else to tell, so you tell me! Screw you, Robot, you big loser.” Her eyes filled with bright angry tears.

  Elliott left Carleen standing behind the car with her fists clenched at her sides. He pulled into the neon boulevard with its miles of traffic.

  She had got to him, talking that way about him and Silke. He had never mooned after Silke. In fact, he hadn’t known that Carleen knew how much he…

  What now? Elliott, who did not have to go to the airport yet, got off the main drag and drove down a dark winding road until he came to some subdivision where the streets were empty.

  It was self-castigation time. He couldn’t talk reasonably for five minutes with Carleen, after four years at college and many successful blackjack trips together. The craziest thing was that she had tried to pick him up, or something.

  He was too lame to even drive her back to her room, a girl he knew and once loved. Well, okay, he made love to her, not the same as loving her but almost. He hadn’t loved her, be honest.

  Actually, he’d never made love to her either, now that he was telling himself the truth. But he could have, she would have let him. She had wanted him. She had been interested in his theories and she had been willing to listen. He’d even seen the glint in her eye when he said just now that he’d almost finished the proof. She knew what that meant, and she was still interested no matter what she said.

  But he’d found reasons to chase her away. As usual.

  He’d never felt so lonely.

  It was getting to be a mantra.

  At a strip mall along the forested road he saw a Mexican restaurant with red and yellow and green pepper lights strung around the front. Fuck it, I’m hungry, he thought.

  Inside, he almost thought better of it. Except for the cooks and the waiter, who scowled at him, the place was empty. When the waiter threw down Elliott’s beer in front of him, Elliott said, “If you want to close up, just say so and I’ll leave.”

  The waiter didn’t answer; he just walked away and stood behind the counter, ignoring Elliott. Fingering the wad of cash in his pocket, Elliott drank his beer. His notebook nestled reassuringly in his pocket, and he thought of getting it out to review some figures, but he didn’t. Pretty soon greasy chiles rellenos arrived on a plate with room-temperature rice and refried beans. Elliott ate until he thought he’d explode.

  When he came outside, he saw a guy in a black leather jacket and baseball cap bending down, looking at the half-bald thirteen-inch wheels of the rental car with a flashlight. When the dude saw him, he gave Elliott a hard stare. Then he turned and left, leisurely, as if he knew Elliott wouldn’t question him or follow him. The way he moved as he walked off into the night scared Elliott.

  It couldn’t be! He stepped back into the shelter of the restaurant and held on to the door, breathing hard.

  So someone had been watching while he and Carleen wrangled.

  “We’re closed,” the waiter said.

  “Just-one second. I have to use the head.” He wasn’t ready to go out there yet. Locking himself into the bathroom, Elliott pulled out his cell phone and called Silke. “He’s here,” he said fast into the phone. “The guy who robbed us at Tahoe. The shooter. He followed me from a casino.”

  “Elliott? Do you know it’s three in the morning? What’s the matter?” came the sleepy voice with its accent that took the r way inside the mouth.

  “You are probably aware that most of what happens on a daily basis follows a pattern, a predictable one,” he said. “Today’s unique. The ski-mask guy has found me.”

  “Hang on a minute.” He heard a male sigh
in the background, all the way from Boston. Raj, next pillow over. Then Silke got back on. “I have turned on the light,” she said. “If this is one of your persecution delusions, I will never talk to you again.”

  “I’m giving you facts, nothing more. I made a few bucks and I got hungry so I stopped at this restaurant…”

  “Are you playing blackjack again? I thought we agreed…”

  “Just a hand or two.”

  “Just wait a minute. Back up. Elliott, where are you exactly? Vegas? Atlantic City?”

  “Tahoe.”

  Silence on the other end of the line while she digested the information and passed it along to Raj. Well, he had wanted to shock her earlier, and now he had gotten his wish.

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “It’s been two years. I wanted to find out whether it was all over. It’s been bothering me.”

  “I don’t know what to say to you, Elliott. You promised you’d stay away from there.”

  “Yes, and that’s not the only remarkable thing happening. I ran into Carleen earlier.”

  “Carleen?” Silke sounded confused. “She was with the robber?”

  “No, no! She was playing cards. I left her at the casino and drove to another part of town. I’m coming out of this restaurant and some dude in a hat has got his hand on my wheel cover and he’s bending down. He stands up and sees me and leaves. It’s him.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No.”

  “You got a good look at him?”

  “It was dark. He wore a baseball cap this time. But it’s him. Ski Mask.”

  “You say he followed you.”

  “I’m at Zephyr Cove in a tract where the locals live. It’s midnight. There’s nobody around but me and the people who work at the restaurant. And I come out to find this guy examining my car.”

  Silke said, “Remember how in junior year you thought a police siren was following you all the time and you had to stop driving…?”

  “I’m not imagining this.”

  “How can you be sure you recognized him?”

  Elliott hesitated. “I still couldn’t tell you what his face looks like. But his right foot turns outward about eighteen degrees.”

  “Oh, no.” She covered the phone and he heard muttering on the other end.

  Raj got on the phone. “Hello, old man. Has he gone?”

  “He left. I’m safe, I think. The car’s right in front of the restaurant front door.”

  “Was it unlocked?”

  “No, and the alarm was on. You think he was trying to steal it?”

  “Maybe he saw you win. Maybe he wanted to steal your money. He robs people. You know that.”

  “He’d know my cash was on me. Damn, Raj. Could it be a coincidence? Do you think he remembered me? Maybe he planned to hide in the back seat and attack me…”

  “Take it easy.”

  “No problem! Meanwhile, you lie peacefully in bed with a-a woman three thousand miles away. I’d better call the cops.”

  “Don’t do that! Look, we’ve kept things controlled all this time. You say you’re safe, and you might still be wrong about who he was.”

  “I recognized him!” Elliott said. He heard a pounding on the bathroom door and some Spanish expletives. “What should I do?”

  “Go home to Seattle. Hurry. Can you manage that?”

  “Okay.”

  “Call us then and we’ll talk. And just to be sure, you might check the underside of the car before you leave.”

  “Oh, hell,” Elliott said, and he couldn’t control the tremor in his voice. “I shouldn’t have come back. It was foolish, wasn’t it?”

  Raj, always the diplomat, cautious with Elliott’s moods, said nothing.

  “I’ll check under the car,” Elliott said. “I definitely will.”

  “Be careful. Call us the minute you get home.”

  The waiter followed him to the door, locking it pointedly behind him. It was only after the lights went out in the building and the dark closed in that Elliott realized the two rear tires on the rental had been slashed.

  Frantic, examining the woods at the edge of the parking lot for a lurking figure, he pounded on the restaurant door, but nobody answered.

  Elliott started to punch in 911, but before he could send the call, the waiter and a buddy walked around the corner into the parking lot, talking loudly. Elliott rushed over to them, wallet in hand. It cost a hundred bucks to get back to the hotel, but he got to ride in an old Trans Am. The whole way, Elliott watched out the back window, but nobody seemed to follow.

  Once in his room, he bolted his door and left a message on the rental-car company’s tape. He could take a shuttle to the airport. Let them deal with their vandalized car.

  It’s him, he kept thinking. He’s letting me know. He wants me to shut up and go home.

  Fingers shaking, he called downstairs for the shuttle number.

  5

  SATURDAY, AN INDIAN-SUMMER DAY: NINA wore hiking shorts and a tank top to the office, with a light sweater in deference to the changeable season. At least she could pretend she wasn’t working. And, indeed, she would be shopping at Costco at the foot of Spooner Pass that afternoon. With any luck, she and Bob could also take a quick hike around Spooner Lake late in the afternoon to take in what remained of any fall foliage.

  Sandy had already come in and brought along Nina’s new investigator. Wish Whitefeather, Sandy ’s son, stepped forward shyly, waiting for his hug.

  “I heard you needed a real pro.” He smiled, white teeth a bright contrast to the brown of his skin. At six-four, a hundred sixty pounds, Wish was all smile and big nose. He had gone back to his old ponytail and familiar denim shirt, but he had passed through the difficult late-teen years and now, entering his twenties, his face had toughened and his body, once so gangly, had knitted itself together. He had finally finished his criminal-justice program and, only a month earlier, received his license to work as a private investigator in California.

  He was an old friend and Paul’s assistant. Wish had worked down in Monterey with Paul for a few months but decided he missed the mountains and his family too much, so he had come home to roost and start his own business. Wish didn’t have Paul’s experience, but he was tireless and devoted. Paul, the master, had trained him well.

  They sat down at the conference table, Paul’s absence as active as a poltergeist in the room. But lovers break up, and they don’t often work together afterward, and Nina had high hopes for Wish. She knew how important he considered the work, and how excited he was.

  “Mom already gave me the files,” Wish said. Sandy nodded. “I have some ideas.”

  “Go ahead,” Nina said.

  “Point one, the obvious thing, we find out who shot Sarah Hanna two years ago, locate the individual, and collect evidence against him. But at the moment, we don’t have a description. We don’t have anything on this individual. Our client doesn’t seem to remember a thing about him.”

  “Except that he was masked.”

  “Right, even though this all happened in October, he wore the good old ski mask. Except at Tahoe it doesn’t look totally crazy, even in early fall. People just think he’s some skidoggy who rents helicopters to take him to the top of Job’s Peak or some other ten-thousand-footer so he can keep skiing through spring and maybe even into summer.”

  “The shooting happened after midnight,” Sandy reminded him. Sitting across the table from him, she took computer notes just in case something important was said. “It can get cold any time of the year.”

  “My point is that anyone seeing this individual on the street wouldn’t automatically call 911, not up here in the mountains,” Wish said.

  “He entered the parking lot of the Ace High,” Nina said, “and probably slipped on the mask then. The motel clerk was instant-messaging her boyfriend in Thailand from the cybercafe next door, so nobody saw him.”

  “Except the three individuals he proceeded to rob, who gave fake I
Ds to the motel to start with, and split in a hurry. I recommend we start with the witnesses.”

  “Be my guest,” Nina said. “Book ’em, Danno.”

  “If the police couldn’t find them, where do we start?” Sandy asked.

  “First, we contact the authorities. Try Sergeant Fred Cheney of the South Lake Tahoe police,” Nina told them. “He’s worked with Paul.”

  The name hung like a cloud in the air for a moment, then dissipated. Sandy liked Paul, too, and while she was no doubt proud of her son, Nina knew she missed him.

  Wish wrote the name down. “And reconnoiter the premises.”

  “You mean the Ace High?” Sandy asked.

  “That’s it, Mom. The premises. The crime scene, where the shooting occurred. I’ll interview the clerk, Meredith Assa-Assawaroj.”

  “Go for it,” Nina said, pleased at his careful attempt to pronounce the unfamiliar name. “Then I’ve got something special for you.”

  “Oh?” Wish said. “What’s that?”

  “I think the motel owner, James Bova, knows something about the witnesses,” Nina said, “but he’s represented by counsel. Now, I can’t talk with him directly.”

  “Does that mean I shouldn’t?” Wish asked.

  “No ethical rule forbids you from talking to his wife or his drinking buddy. Or anybody else he might be inclined to unload on.”

  “Excellent,” Wish said. “It’s so useful, working for attorneys. You people know rules nobody else knows.”

  “Keeps you out of trouble,” Sandy said.

  The comment made them all smile. Wish had had his share of trouble. They all had.

  Flipping through some papers, giving him a home address, Sandy said, “Maybe he talked to the motel clerk. The Meredith individual.”

  “See what you can find out,” Nina agreed. “Also, these three young people-the witnesses-they were outside, evidently on their way back to their rooms. That means they had just returned from somewhere. This is harder, Wish, but if you can get decent descriptions from the clerk, you should check the casinos. It was too late for theaters and restaurants, after midnight.”