Motion to Suppress

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  "Archer?"

  "The best. Simple. Elegant. You know the basic strategy for twenty-one?"

  "Well," Paul said. "Hit a stiff hand against the dealer’s seven through ace. Hit soft eighteen against the dealer’s nine or ten. Stand on soft nineteen or above. Double on eleven and on ten against the dealer’s two through nine. Split pairs of aces and eights, never split tens, fives, or fours. Split twos through sevens against the dealer’s two through seven. Split pairs of nines against the dealer’s two through six or eight or nine." He paused.

  "Hey, you got the makings of a star, the way you reel that off." Otis dribbled fresh Scotch into his glass. The mostly empty bottle was now on the table. "Now I’m gonna take you further. Paul, you know we got 16 tens and 36 not-tens in the deck of fifty-two. The face cards count as tens."

  Paul nodded. Nina couldn’t follow, but knew there must be some reason Paul was egging Otis on about the cards. She let her attention direct itself to the way Paul was rubbing his knee. He looked absorbed, and maybe he was. You had to get to know him, to watch the hazel eyes close into slits, to realize how hard he worked to keep powerful impulses under wraps.

  "It’s a simple point-count method. Like an index to the Thorp ratios. The idea is, the more ten cards are left in the deck, the better your chance of getting an early bust out of the dealer. Count the tens and face cards as minus two. Count the other cards as plus one. Keep careful track during play.

  "You got a net plus four in early play on a deck, you’re getting favorable odds. You double your bet then, triple it at plus eight, quadruple at plus twelve. I seen plus sixteens plenty of times."

  "You get bad minus scores, you know there’s not many ten cards left. You bet the minimum, adapt your strategy, like you hit on twelve and don’t double down. Things get seriously into the minus camp—minus eight—you hit all stiffs. It all makes perfect sense. Read the book."

  "That’s it?" Paul said, then took a long drink.

  "It," Al agreed. "Everything flows from that." He poured another hefty straight shot into Paul’s glass.

  "Got to be getting back." Nina stood up, saying, "Thanks for the lesson. Oh, by the way, tell Sharon I found the wings she dropped."

  "Her silver ..." Al threw his head back and snapped his mouth shut, aiming a frown at this new Nina, the one with horns who had just goosed him with a pitchfork.

  "Her Harley wings," Nina said. "I’ll be giving her a call."

  "Sure," Otis said. He set his deck down carefully and followed them to the door, telling Paul to duck on his way out, "to keep the law offa me," he said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  "How about this? Rossmoor had Anthony killed. He was disloyal, he had defrauded the club, and he was a threat to Misty." The van pulled hard up the steep grade back toward Tahoe.

  "That type hires lawyers to fight their battles these days," Paul said. "But we can keep it in the possibility column."

  "How about this? Anthony’s ex, Sharon, and Al killed Anthony so they wouldn’t have to give him a cut."

  "Kill him over a few thousand dollars? Unlikely, but again there may be more to the story. I can think of several more," Paul said. "This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. Maybe somebody else did kill Anthony, and Misty’s psyche really is irrelevant to this case."

  "Maybe I can at least confuse a jury with this card-counting business."

  "There you go. Keep her and her mental condition off the stand, let Hallowell put on his circumstantial evidence, and go for reasonable doubt," Paul said.

  Nina looked down on the report again. "On the night of April twenty-sixth Al Otis was not playing cards, at least at Prize’s, and Anthony wasn’t on shift. I know Misty started work at four that afternoon. She thought Anthony just stayed home until she got home that night. But she said there was a full ashtray and several dishes."

  "A man can generate a lot of dishes—but I follow, we’re betting a visitor or two."

  "Which brings up the police work, at least the way it shows up in those reports. They never looked into Patterson’s last hours, satisfied the only important event occurred after midnight." A yellow pickup truck loomed behind them on the road, tailgating, then blinking its lights.

  Paul’s hands tightened on the wheel. Before he could pull over to let the truck pass, it roared across the double line on his left. A deafening bass line boomed from what must have been ten-inch woofers, and a boy of about eighteen leaned out the window, jabbing his middle finger into the wind. The truck pulled in ahead and out of sight around a curve, leaving a curl of oily smoke for a souvenir.

  Paul sped up, his jaw muscles working. The van went from fifty to seventy on the next curve. "Hey, Paul," Nina said. "Down, boy."

  "That punk needs a word of advice." Tires squealed as he hit the brake and skidded around a curve.

  Nina had fallen against him in spite of her seat belt. "Don’t force me to scream at you, you dumb cop," she said over the roar of the engine. "Slow the hell down."

  He gave one last hard push, then slowly eased up on the accelerator.

  Nina stopped clutching the handle on her side and breathed deeply. "What is your rush? We’ll find him wrapped around a tree any minute now." But the kid and his rude manners did not reappear. Paul glued his eyes to the road. "You’re angry now," she said, "but I’m alive, which makes me happy. Sometimes you forget—"

  "I don’t like to be talked to that way," Paul said.

  "I said I was sorry," Nina said.

  "You did not."

  They settled back into their seats, Paul driving with perfect form.

  "Hope you got all that," Nina finally ventured, trying to make peace. "Al had a lot to say."

  Paul seemed to have calmed down. "Right here in my handy voice-activated recorder," Paul said. "Al’s a bright fellow."

  "Oh, I agree," Nina said.

  "No formal education. He had to make his own career. A little card counting here and coke dealing there."

  "What’s the coke connection with Anthony?"

  "Just like you suggested. Sweetened the deal. Misty say he used?"

  "No. She says they both preferred booze. She says he just brought the coke out when people dropped by, or sold it. Why all the questions about card technique?"

  "Oh, just a theory. I wondered at one point if the casino was trying to cover something up by shoving Al in our faces like a cheap trick, but there’s no doubt. He’s a card maestro. He’s a king."

  "You were listening hard."

  "Hey, I lost a hundred bucks last night playing blackjack, an experience I don’t care to repeat."

  Nina snorted.

  "What did you say?" Paul asked.

  "I said, so is the Harley pin Sharon’s?"

  "Probably," Paul said. "That was a lucky break."

  "Where’s the luck come in there exactly?"

  "Pretty crude tactic. Lulled him with the stockings and legs. My guess is, Al doesn’t make too many mistakes. That one could have backfired on you."

  "My decision to say something," Nina said, "and it worked. That’s not luck."

  "Once you get your teeth into something, you bite till it’s dead, don’t you?"

  As they descended, Paul pulled over at a turnout overlooking the lake.

  "You got a minute for this?" he asked.

  "I guess I do."

  They sat with open windows, enjoying the late afternoon breeze. Two girls were spread out on the rocks below in shorts and halters.

  "Shouldn’t have let Al get me likkered up," Paul said. "It brings out the beast—I mean the best in me." He put his arm around her and pulled her over aggressively. She could feel his heart beating fast, whether it was for her or the aborted drag race she couldn’t tell. She started to laugh and, feeling softened by the booze, found herself leaning toward him.

  "The beast and the boss," Paul said. His voice was husky. He kissed her thoroughly, hungrily, pulling her close with strong arms. Now his face was buried in her neck, kissing her there, and she was m
elting, melting.... His mouth roamed to hers and she let him bend her back onto the seat, settling his body on hers, while his hands moved possessively over her. She opened her mouth and sighed, and then his tongue was muscling down her throat, forcing her to open wide for him. Her skirt had shimmied up and if she didn’t stop right now ...

  She pushed him back. "That’s it. Enough."

  He got out of the car and slammed the door, striding to the edge of the overlook. Nina shook herself mentally. When Paul returned, he flipped on the radio. Only when they were back in town did he say to her, "Who apologizes? Me?"

  "Forget it," she said. She looked once more into the hazel eyes, eyes she’d studied all day, and read his expression. "What, is this supposed to be my fault?"

  "Don’t mind me, Boss," Paul said. "I’m just the hired help. "

  15

  SHE CHANGED HER name as she walked out the last jail door. No more Misty. That had been Anthony’s name for her.

  Her name was Michelle.

  Nina had given her a twenty and the checkbook so she could get into Anthony’s account at the B of A. A cab was waiting. She felt like she was returning from a foreign port, from far away, except there would be no greetings and no happy thoughts about returning home.

  I’m back in the world, but not part of it, she thought, wondering if she would ever be anything like the girl who had gone into that jail. Tahoe looked like a stage set, the sky too blue, the sun artificially bright. Tourist couples walking the sidewalks in their baggy shorts grinned like extras. What truth did they know that she didn’t know, that made them so pleased with themselves?

  She didn’t want to be out here yet. She wasn’t sure her old smile, her old ways, fit the way she felt now. She wanted to hole up.

  Business first.

  At the bank she took out five hundred dollars. The teller just handed it over. Well, why not? It was all hers now. From the pay phone outside she made calls: Nina’s office, her mother in Fresno. Nobody answered. Her mother must be at a Church meeting. She called Dr. Greenspan’s office and left a message with the receptionist that she wanted an appointment. Nina wouldn’t like it, but she needed the support. She climbed back into the cab.

  The jail still had a hold on her, with Gordy and Delores and the overcooked spaghetti and the lights out and the feeling of always being watched. She sat up straight, looking out the window at the flowers and grass that had pushed up since she had gone to jail.

  They pulled into the driveway of the house in the Keys. "I’ll be about fifteen minutes," she said, aware that she was talking too softly, bending toward the driver so that he could hear.

  "I’ll be waiting," he said. "Clock’s running."

  She picked up some old yellow crime scene tape from the grass. Inside, a thick mustiness dried in her mouth. Dirty blinds filtered the light into a daylight dimness. She never even noticed they had any blinds. From the gloom of the entryway she could see the toaster on the kitchen counter. That’s right, she had been looking for the portable phone, and then ... she felt sleepy. Could gas be leaking? She checked the stove, but everything looked normal.

  Dirty dishes and ashtrays lay abandoned in the sink. An inch of coffee in her favorite cup floated green mold on top. Time had stopped on a Thursday night in April in this house.

  She had always liked the living room, with sliding doors opening onto a view of blue canal, but with the shades down its tawdriness jumped out at her. Where had they bought the furniture? Oh, the old Sears in Reno, the day after they got married. Anthony let her pick out the living room set.

  She hated housekeeping, and they were both messy. Threadbare armrests recalled Anthony’s many nights here, watching sports on television, waiting for her. Beer stains, coffee spills, and other old circles, small ones, mostly daubed at but still visible, dotted the rug she had bought from local Indians.

  The missing glass coffee table she remembered cleaning up the day after Anthony disappeared, but where were the couch cushions? Evidence, of course. Anthony’s head had fallen against the couch cushion, had been bleeding in back, and he was still conscious, she remembered now—have to tell Nina, he had touched it with his fingers, and looked at the blood on them so disbelievingly. That was when she ran into the kitchen....

  Looking at her living room, she felt ashamed of the dirt and disorder. Many people had invaded it. Unfriendly eyes had looked at the photo on the wall of her and Anthony, sitting on a verandah at the motel in Napa where they had spent their honeymoon. Anthony looked so much younger, and it had only been three years! How had his life with her become such a hell?

  For a long second she considered and rejected the vacuum. She wasn’t going to clean the place now, with Anthony’s ghost dogging her every step.

  Michelle hauled the empty suitcase into the bedroom and started pulling out her drawers. Anthony’s dirty socks begged for intervention in the corner, and the untidy sheets took up the cry. The plants on the windowsill had turned to dry sticks long ago. His golf magazines fanned out in a pattern over the floor.

  She stared at the bed. She could still see Anthony’s body outlined on the right side. This small double bed held them both, with his feet sticking out past the bottom. She never told Nina or anyone about the good nights, the nights when he rubbed her feet and kissed her all over, when he told her he would love her forever and she wanted to hear it, nights songs on the radio would always remind her about.

  Anthony would always be in her life. She might as well resign herself to his presence, his heart beating forever and her trying to step out of its rhythm. He wanted only to be her husband, but she hadn’t known how to be a wife. He had felt her contempt for herself and for him, even if he hadn’t known the specifics. She had invited his cruelty, and then she had blamed him for everything.

  Her drawers had been searched. She grabbed a handful of panties and mashed them into one suitcase, dumping in her T-shirts and jeans and the contents of her jewelry box. Opening the closet, she smelled Anthony in the stale cigarette scent of the clothes.

  Turning around, she saw herself moving in the dresser mirror, a burglar caught in the act, wild-eyed and pinched in the face. She turned back and reached up for her lockbox of letters and mementos. Gone. Things just disappeared in this house, she found herself thinking, and had to quell a rising tide of laughter.

  "Police," she said. Okay, she didn’t need any of those things to remember. She could get back her old report cards and letters from her parents.

  She took a last look around the kitchen and decided to take the coffeemaker and the juicer.

  On the way back down the highway, she said to the driver, "You want to buy a houseful of furniture?"

  "Moving sale?" he said. He looked like a college kid who could use some beat-up furniture. "I’m flat."

  "Estate sale," Michelle said. "Free cab fare today? And tomorrow, until I pick up my car?"

  "That’s it?"

  "Take everything. Here’s the key. Only one thing. You’ll have a big dump load. You have to take everything, I mean empty it out. Just make sure it’s all gone by Friday."

  She made him stop once more, at Cecil’s just at the state line. Cecil’s had everything, from sweatshirts with sailboats and key rings with dangling dice to groceries and every kind of liquor. She picked up a big bottle of Yukon Jack and some oranges and chips. She looked at the cigarettes, but she hadn’t been smoking and the cartons made her think about Anthony’s odor in the closet. She decided to pass.

  The driver helped her unload into her ground-floor room at the Lucky Chip. "Looks like the makings of a party," he said. "If you want some company ..."

  She backed into the room saying thanks and shut the door and shot the bolt. Then she closed the curtains.

  She was wearing the jeans they had picked her up in. She stripped and ran her fingers through her hair, feeling greasy and tangled. She had some bug bites and her legs needed shaving. Running the water in the tub until her fingers burned, she poured a tumblerful of swe
et golden-brown liquid and put it on a shelf nearby, sinking slowly into the steam.

  About an hour later, lying under the sheet in her clean bikini briefs and a soft T-shirt, she finished her third glass of Yukon. She flipped the channels on the remote control, finding almost nothing but talk shows and CNN.

  In spite of the hour she was not hungry. A Bonanza rerun was on cable, so she watched Little Joe court a fragile blonde in pulled-back sixties hair, its long curly wisps arching in front of her ears, knowing the girl was doomed. All of Little Joe’s women died at the end. She would be buried at the Ponderosa Ranch, right around the corner of the lake, head toward Reno, boots toward Mexico.

  Turning over in bed, she killed the TV. She needed to think, but she was too drunk to think. Her stomach hurt and the way her brain swung when she closed her eyes made her nervous. What was the point of a drunk that didn’t wipe out bad feelings? Falling back against the headrest, trying to hold her head still, she thought about the women’s prison in Santa Rita, as described by Delores. Okay, drink till it’s all gone.

  At two-thirty A.M. she was lying in bed wide awake, wishing she had some aspirin and wondering how much lower she was going to sink, when the doorknob turned softly. She stared right at the knob, willing it to move again, her sore eyes looking hard through the darkness. At first nothing happened, then the handle turned again. The door rattled, very quietly. A moment later she heard a scratch against the screen two feet from her.

  Sc-rr-ape, the window said.

  She was still drunk. She knew it. Her limbs swam spirals without moving.

  A louder, sharper noise explained how the screen was being removed. Cold sweat stuck her T-shirt to her body. Evidence, plain as Michael Jackson’s nose before he cut it, Anthony would say. We got ourselves an emergency. Slowly, slowly she lifted her head and pulled herself on her arms across the sheet toward the phone. She punched 0, despairing at the small sound of its tone. Nobody answered at the desk. With a discreet little screech behind her curtain, the window glass gave in.