Case of Lies

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “A plane?”

  “From California. My card.” She found one in her pocket and handed it to Raj, who scrutinized it and handed it to Silke.

  “You’re a lawyer,” Silke said. Her clipped delivery suggested to Nina that English wasn’t her first language. “Professor Braun told us a lawyer called him.”

  “That was me. I’m here to discuss that trip you guys and your friend took to Tahoe two years ago. No doubt you remember it.”

  Their young faces showed they did and weren’t pleased at the memory, although they tried to hide it.

  “When you got robbed. Not an easy moment to forget, I bet.”

  Silke looked at Raj, who lowered his eyelids.

  “The woman who died that night was named Sarah Hanna. She was pregnant. Her husband watched her die. I represent him.” Nina took guilty pleasure in watching the girl wince. She ought to feel lousy, running away.

  “How did you find us?” Raj said.

  “Why did you run away? Why didn’t you stay and talk to the police?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t talk to her,” Silke said to Raj.

  “What’s the harm?” Nina asked. “You were just witnesses, right?”

  “We can’t be involved,” Raj said.

  “Oh, but you are. I have involved you,” Nina said. “That mode won’t work anymore.” She drank some more coffee, reflecting that her excitement was turning to anger at these cavalier kids who had left Dave Hanna to sink into his misery. Taking a deep breath, she tried for calm, and failing that, decided why shouldn’t they see how upset and mad she was? She flipped open her briefcase and touched a button on the hidden recorder.

  “We don’t have anything to say to you,” Silke said, fright leaking into her voice, her accent more pronounced.

  “Please, don’t give me a hard time about this. I don’t need much of your time, and considering the circumstances, talking to me is the absolute least you can do to make up for fleeing the scene.”

  “Did we break any laws by leaving?” Raj asked. Unlike Silke, he seemed relatively composed. “I don’t believe we did.”

  “Are the police here going to-what does this mean, you coming here after us?” Silke asked.

  “I have a few questions, that’s all. The police here aren’t involved. Not yet.” Thus implying they would have first shot, if the two didn’t cooperate.

  “I never felt right about leaving,” Silke said. She put her laptop on the low table, closing it gently. “But we were so scared.”

  “What’s your last name, Silke?”

  The boy and girl looked at each other.

  Nina drank latte, settled in.

  “Kilmer.”

  “You’re from Germany?”

  “Yes. Heddesheim.”

  “A math student here at MIT?”

  “I’m a Ph.D. student with about two and a half years left until I finish my thesis. If all goes well, that is.”

  “How about you, Raj? What’s your full name?”

  “Sumaraj Das.” He answered pleasantly enough, but she could tell now that he had been deeply shocked by her precipitous arrival. Nina wondered how long her air of authority and their astonishment at being found would keep them talking.

  “And where are you from?”

  “ Silver Spring, Maryland.” Raj had already had enough. “What do you want from us?”

  “I need to know what happened.”

  “Look, I followed the news reports online. We don’t know anything the papers don’t know. We have nothing to add. Why did you come all this way?”

  “The woman’s husband needs to know who killed his wife. Wouldn’t you want to know?”

  Silke put her hand over Raj’s. “We should talk to her,” she said. “It’s wrong to stay silent.”

  Nina observed as Raj sat back in his chair and relaxed, allowing Silke to decide for them both. A complicated man, she could see that. Strong but flexible. Unpredictable, Nina thought.

  Silke turned to Nina. “We were there. We were robbed, as you said.”

  “With your friend. His name?”

  “You must mean Elliott. Elliott Wakefield.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “He doesn’t go to MIT anymore.” She’d obviously just had second thoughts about giving him up after the name had slipped out. “We don’t know where he is.”

  But Nina had his name. The third witness was as good as bagged. “Why were you at Tahoe?”

  “Vacationing,” Raj said. “De-stressing. You can only stuff your brain so full. Once in a while you need to get blank, do you know what I mean?”

  “We gambled,” Silke said simply. “We won a lot of money that night. I had it in my purse. The robber must have followed us from the casino. We were happy, you know, in a celebratory mood. Not noticing him.”

  “What’s your game?” Nina asked.

  “Blackjack.”

  Of course. The game of the smart, or wannabe smart. “Go on.”

  “We got to the motel-the Ace High-late, after midnight. There’s a flight of stairs by the vending machines around a corner of the building, but it’s very dark there, and there are dark corners where you can’t see anything. Before we could climb the stairs to get to our rooms, a man jumped out in front of us.”

  “Pointing a big, fat gun in our faces,” Raj added.

  “Ja, a gun,” Silke said. “He wore a ski mask, dark clothes. He told us to empty our pockets. Well, what are you going to do? Get shot for money? I laid my purse on the ground.”

  “But then our friend got too brave,” Raj said.

  “Elliott rushed toward the man, trying to knock him over or something. The gun went off.” Silke’s white skin whitened further at the thought. “Oh my God. The sound of that shot.”

  “Your friend hit him and the gun went off?”

  “I think he came into contact with him,” Raj said. “The gunman fired one warning shot, and I think the second happened about when Elliott reached him. We always thought he wasn’t aiming, because if he had been, we’d be dead. We were so close, only about ten feet from him, and Elliott was even closer.”

  “Elliott’s a genius, perhaps,” Silke said softly, “but one of those who is not well-adapted to normal life. You can’t depend on him to behave logically-at least, not according to your logic or mine.”

  “When he heard the shot, Elliott let him go, but the gunman fired another shot. It went high, too,” Raj said.

  “Do you think he was trying to kill us or just trying to scare us?” Silke asked Raj.

  He shrugged. “It’s been two years. I’ve thought about that night so many times, and I can’t figure it out.”

  “Did you see a couple on the balcony on the second floor behind you?” Nina asked.

  “No. We never saw them. We read about it the next day, when we got back to Boston, and found out someone died. I guess when he fired those wild shots…” Silke said. “A random death, like a lightning strike or a car crash. So sudden. So awful.”

  “Then what happened?” Nina asked.

  Silke said, “Elliott jumped away. He yelled at us to run. Raj and I ran around the corner. Our room was right there on the ground floor. We were very scared. We grabbed our stuff and about a minute later Elliott was pounding on the door, saying the gunman had run away. We went into his room and got his stuff. We ran back to Harveys. From there caught a cab to the Reno airport. We took the next flight east.”

  “Do you believe the robber followed you from Harveys?”

  “Nobody would mistake us for rich people.” Silke pulled at the few frayed threads around the hem on her wrist. “We look like poor students. We were staying at that cheap motel. No, he knew we had money somehow. He followed us and got all of our winnings.”

  “How much was that?”

  “A lot,” the girl said.

  “Hundreds?” Nina asked.

  Silke shook her head.

  “Thousands?”

  She evaded that. “We didn’t count e
xactly.”

  “Okay, describe this man who accosted you,” Nina said.

  “He wore a mask,” Silke repeated. “It was dark. His voice was soft. He was American. And he stepped forward toward us, and there was something strange about his walk. Something wrong with his leg, I think. His foot turned out. Are you all right?”

  A hot iron burned inside her temple, and a brand-new headache began to pulse. Nina put down her cardboard cup. “Jet lag,” she said. She had fallen back in her mind to the man in the floppy hat, with the funny walk, at Zephyr Cove. Dave Hanna hadn’t mentioned that the shooter had a bad leg, probably because he hadn’t seen the shooter moving in the dark.

  The man in the parking lot who rigged their Bronco with an explosive had to have been the shooter, had to have been watching them in the rain. Why?

  Because he was afraid she’d find these people, who could identify him? Silke still watched her speculatively. Nina struggled to regain her confidence.

  “Now you describe him,” she said to Raj. “Maybe you noticed something different.”

  “Fairly tall, medium weight, wearing sweatpants, just like every second person at Tahoe. I think he said it just exactly like this: ‘Empty out your pockets,’ the whole time, using the gun to gesture. I can’t tell you about the gun except to me it looked big. I’ve never been so close to one before.”

  “If you saw him again, could you identify him?”

  Again they looked at each other.

  “I don’t know,” Silke said. “Probably not.”

  “What about the third shot?” Nina said. “The final shot?”

  “Yes, we heard one more shot while we were running away,” Silke said.

  “As fast as we could. I’ve spent a lot of time on the treadmill since that night,” Raj said, “trotting, cantering, galloping. I plan to run faster if there’s ever a next time.”

  Nina didn’t like him making light of the situation. “‘We’ meaning…”

  “Raj and me. Elliott was a few seconds behind us,” Silke answered.

  “Why didn’t you stay, talk to the police, and make a report?”

  “Personal reasons,” Raj said.

  “Which means that we were utterly freaked,” Silke said in her precise speech.

  Nina sat back in her chair, fighting the headache.

  “You don’t look well,” Silke said.

  “I need you to come back with me,” Nina said, “for a deposition and to talk to the police. We have to locate this guy. I think he may still be in the Tahoe area, keeping an eye on the case.”

  Raj smiled. “I knew you would suggest that. A few minutes of our time multiplied many times over.”

  “Will you come?”

  “Please, no,” Silke said. “Can’t we do something here?”

  “We need you in California. Your expenses will be paid-” She squinted up through eyes that rebelled at focusing and saw two men standing at the table.

  “Professor Braun!” Silke said, her voice shaking. “Hello.”

  “Don’t bother to get up, Ms. Reilly, because I don’t want to shake hands with you. Let me introduce Mr. John Branson, my attorney.” He rubbed Silke’s shoulder avuncularly. “Did you know she is a lawyer? Has she been bothering you?”

  “She’s no problem,” Silke said. “She had a few questions, that’s all.”

  “She’s trying to enmesh you in a major court case on the other side of the country under false pretenses,” Branson said. “The professor is very concerned for you and asked me to assist if I can.”

  “Great,” Raj said. “Here’s a legal question for you. Do we have to go to California for a deposition just because she wants us to?”

  Nina stood up. “Mr. Branson? You don’t understand the situation. These people are witnesses-”

  “Professor Braun filled me in,” the short, small, angry lawyer with him said.

  “You don’t represent these people,” Nina said. “You don’t need to jump all over this. So back off.”

  “You want my help?” Branson said to Raj and Silke. Although Silke hesitated at first, she took her cue from Raj this time. They nodded. “Okay, I’m advising you to leave right now. This lady can’t stop you and she can’t force you to go to California, either.”

  “Keep my card, Silke,” Nina said, rubbing her temple.

  “Go,” Branson told the students. “We can touch base later.”

  Rising immediately, Raj said, “Come on.” Silke picked up their coats and took his hand.

  “I’ve told you how meaningful your evidence could be to the family of Sarah Hanna. I can only hope that, now you know your importance, you’ll do the right thing. You can call me at the Charles River Inn until two-thirty,” Nina said.

  “Good-bye,” Silke said. Raj and Silke gathered their things and left.

  Silke had good manners. Her new lawyer, John Branson, did not. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “Interviewing crucial witnesses. As you apparently know,” Nina said.

  “What did they tell you?”

  “Ask them.”

  “I will.” Branson’s distinguished head was held up by a bandy-legged body, like a pumpkin propped on sticks, but the suit was Italian and did a good job disguising it. “I’ll also tell them they don’t have to talk to anyone in a California civil case, or go there, whatever lies you may have told them.”

  “They can talk to the police, then.”

  “The police here have bigger worries than a two-year-old case from California, which by the way, doesn’t even involve a criminal accusation.”

  “Well, it’s been delightful, gentlemen, but I have to run along. A pleasure meeting you, Professor.” Braun didn’t reply. His hard eyes went well with his black hair, the winter outside, and his general demeanor of one who has had one put over on him, and resents it.

  “Run along and don’t come back,” Branson said.

  Due to the high-octane dose of caffeine she had just imbibed, Nina didn’t sleep when she got back to the hotel, but the headache put her in bed for an hour until the full impact of the ibuprofen kicked in. Then she had a hot bath, went downstairs, and had lunch.

  Then she felt better.

  She made calls. She asked Wish to start searching for Elliott Wakefield electronically. He wasn’t listed in the Boston or Cambridge directories. Sandy was checking out the lawyer named Branson, as Nina thought she might hear from him again.

  At two-thirty Nina checked out of the hotel and went to the main police station in Boston to discuss her situation with someone in charge. She didn’t expect the cops to rush out and arrest the two students as material witnesses in a murder, but she expected respectful attention and for them to fill out a report that might come in handy. The detective she spoke with listened to her tape and asked her what she was supposed to do about it.

  “It’s not our case,” she told Nina. “Have your local police contact us. We have to work through them. That tape you made can’t come in as evidence in a court case, you know. No consent. I’m a second-year law student at BU.”

  “Evidence, shmevidence,” Nina said. “They’re witnesses, and the right people will hear this tape and agree they’re witnesses. The people I taped will come in person to make their statements if I have to dog them all day.”

  The detective said, “Well, I admire your persistence. By the way, a shame, Branson’s involvement.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a tight-ass who never gives an inch.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “And Braun is not just some nobody math professor. He married into a Boston Brahmin family, has more money than Wells Fargo Bank. They live with their two kids, a boy and a girl, straight-A students, no doubt, in a mansion in Newton bigger than Faneuil Hall, and are active fund-raisers for the local pols. He also consults for one of the big research outfits on Route 128. If you could persuade him to help you, he could do you a lot of good.”

  “We got off on the wrong foot,” Ni
na said. “The detective in charge of the Hanna case at Tahoe is Sergeant Fred Cheney. I’ll talk to him tomorrow and see what we can do about getting these witnesses to make formal statements. I have more questions myself.”

  “Can you subpoena them for the civil case?”

  “Not if they’re outside California. Not as witnesses. I have to rely on the police.”

  “Okay. We’ll wait to hear from Cheney.”

  She taxied back to MIT, pulling her carry-on along the street, briefcase slung over her shoulder. She intended to try to collar Silke and Raj again, but they had left for the day and the new kid now manning the math department desk gave her the stink-eye. She was persona non grata at a great university, but such is the life of a lawyer.

  Still, she wanted to try what she could to find Silke’s and Raj’s home addresses, or address, as the case might be. Phone information had no listing. The MIT directory wasn’t available to nonstudents, but she wooed a bored office worker in administration and took a look anyway, without finding them. She tried talking to a few fellows in faded sweatshirts who were lounging around in the lobby of Building 8, but they turned out to be electrical engineers, busy bees, willing but unhelpful.

  Her work in Boston was done. She took a short walk over the Harvard Bridge, enjoying the windy afternoon, then snagged a cab to Logan.

  The flight was delayed an hour and she felt exhausted. She finally fell into her window seat, opened her Vanity Fair, sniffed as a new celebrity scent unfolded from the magazine, and began reading every word of the bilious interviews, self-aggrandizing columnists, and tales of aged billionaires. The case melted away. The magazine lasted all the way back to California.

  15

  AS DUSK FELL OVER THE SIERRA, the Great Tahoe Weekend got going. Winding her way up Spooner Pass from the Reno airport, Nina approached the California state line. The big casino-hotels hove into view, attended by their happy throngs, whose happiness would evaporate bit by bit over the next two days in direct proportion to their stashes of cash.