Reilly 13 - Dreams of the Dead (12 page)

“Come on in and join us, Sandy.” Nina couldn’t help but crack a smile. Sandy came in and sat down.

Eric smiled at her, too. “To continue, then, I was working on the theory that Marianne Strong, Philip’s daughter-in-law, and her half brother, Gene, stole the money.”

“Was there evidence of that?”

“Opportunity, primarily. Motive. Knowledge. But, no, I never managed to make the linkage. I’m not sure of that now. It would have been easy for anyone with the password to do it. And Philip was bad with passwords. He had written it in his address book, which he left on his kitchen table most of the time. Anyone in the family could have taken note of it. Though I will say if Marianne stole it, she hasn’t deposited the money into any known bank account, and we haven’t caught her spending any of it over the past two years.”

“There was no dispositive evidence as to who did it?” Nina asked. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe,” Brinkman said. “So you think this affidavit is bogus.” He was still standing by the door. Nina let herself waste a moment enjoying his posture, the belt, the chest—that rare event, a man with a sense of fashion.

She had almost missed the change of subject. “Yes. Bogus.”

“You think he’s dead.”

Nina said firmly, “I think it’s fraud, Eric. I want you to know my opinion because I don’t want you to waste a lot of time.”

“I appreciate that.” Brinkman looked away. “He killed your husband. I can only imagine.”

“So you’re going down there?”

Eric half smiled. “As soon as you get me the okay. I’ll enjoy it even though it’s a job assignment. I know Porto Alegre. The inland mountains contain some of the last Atlantic jungle habitat on earth. A lot of Germans immigrated to the area over the past hundred and fifty years. I’ll fit in well. I’ll see what I can come up with.”

The door opened suddenly, and Brinkman stepped back. “Oh, hi, Paul,” Nina said. “Come in. This is Eric Brinkman.”

Paul had to look up at him as they shook hands. Powerful masculine chemistries clashed as the two big men looked around the small office, each angling for the best spot. There were only the two empty paltry-looking orange client chairs. They pulled out the dueling chairs and sat opposite each other, Nina presiding.

Sandy had gone to the door. “There’s the phone. It’s been fun,” she said, and moved without haste into the outer office again.

“Don’t shut it all the way,” Eric said. “Wouldn’t want you to miss anything.” But it sounded witty, not mean.

Nina felt a bristling thing happening in the air. Eric and Paul had glanced at each other’s eyes long enough to decide not to befriend each other. Nina brushed the moment aside as irrelevant. She wasn’t interested in their testosterone issues, and she was sure they could set them aside to do the work. They were professionals on the same side and they would all get along.

“Heard of you,” Brinkman said to Paul. “Ex–homicide detective in the Bay Area, right? Currently working out of Carmel?”

“That’s right. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of you,” Paul said, “considering you’re local.”

“Most of my work is in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. My clients like a low profile. I like a low profile. It’s a relief to meet someone with a lot of local knowledge. Hope you’ll allow me to pick your brain.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Paul said. “Maybe it’ll be the other way around. You’ve been on this a lot longer than I have.”

Eric said to Nina, “Is Paul on this case?”

“If Nina’s involved, I’m involved,” Paul said.

“Paul isn’t formally part of the case but he’s my associate,” Nina said.

“Did you know Jim Strong?” Eric asked Paul.

“I knew him,” Paul said. “I’d recognize him if I ever saw him. Thing is, I find that prospect unlikely.”

“Why, Paul?” Brinkman said. “What do you know we don’t know?”

“Jim Strong’s not the type to sit quietly in some remote corner of the world for years, murder warrant or no.” Paul said this calmly and carefully, and Nina felt the tight grip on her heart loosen. He had it under control.

“You sound so sure,” Brinkman said.

“I know human nature.”

“He’s a fugitive from justice. Seems like he’d have to hide somewhere far away, where he might feel safe. Why not Majorca? Why not Brazil? Is that really so far-fetched?” Brinkman asked.

“If he ran, he could be anywhere, I’ll grant you that. But if he ran south, you’d hear some news out of Brazil that would not be pleasant. He’s a killer. He would never stop killing.”

Brinkman nodded.

“I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject,” Paul continued. “People don’t jump up and kill several other people, unless we’re talking about domestic murder-suicides, which are an entirely different realm. No, men like Jim develop. They start off cruel when they are young, bullying, hurting animals, that kind of thing. It’s easy enough to hide, so they do. Their families might know nothing. Of course, his mother has been dead a long time.”

Nina said, “His father and siblings saw signs of how troubled he was, but they were in denial about what it all meant. Who would imagine your son might kill his wife, his brother, and—” She stopped.

Both men looked at her with sympathy.

“Yes, what parent can stand to think their precious little boy is a monster?” Brinkman asked.

“Exactly.” Paul nodded. “And a monster might disappear for a while, but he would come back to do the things he’s compelled to do. There’s been no sign of him here in South Lake Tahoe in years. In my opinion, what you’re going to end up doing is finding out who is trying to defraud the Strong family of millions of dollars. It’s too bad you have to go all the way to Brazil to do that.”

“Well, you and Nina seem of like mind about that,” Brinkman said, looking back and forth at them. “Old friends get like that.”

Paul shrugged it off. “I am wondering, though. What’s your strategy, once you get down there?”

“Well, I’ll see the lawyer and the notary who executed the papers. I’ve already called the Brazilian lawyer. Her name is Gisele Kraft. She claims a man who looks like the photos I sent down did come to her to get the affidavit prepared and showed her an American driver’s license and a passport.”

“Since it isn’t Strong,” Paul said, “I’d look into Gene Malavoy’s travel arrangements—he’s the half brother of Marianne Strong and he works at Paradise, too.”

“I know Gene. I’m way ahead of you on that.”

“Nina’s also looking at Michael Stamp, the lawyer who threw this phony paperwork at the court.”

“Yeah? Yeah, I see your thinking, Nina, very good. A crooked lawyer, routes the whole thing through his office, gets the money sent to another crooked lawyer.”

“If Gisele turns out to be young and gorgeous, I’ll buy that,” Paul said.

“Stamp is married,” Nina said. “Happily, I think. I think he’s got the skill and nerve to try to carry off something like this. The problem is, he has a very good reputation. He should be checked out anyway.”

“I’ll bring a photo of him,” Brinkman said. His expensive boot moved close to Paul’s retro Hush Puppies. The tension in the air increased infinitesimally. Nina found herself staring helplessly at the boot, hoping it would not accidentally on purpose kick Paul’s shoe.

An angel passed over, apparently, because the room went silent.
Nina was facing two good-looking men, and it felt good at least to receive the vibes coming her way. It had been a while. Eric seemed to be playing up to her. She found herself looking down, blushing a little at the intensity of his stare.

“Nina? I’m confused. Has Paul been hired independently of my company to work on this case?” Eric said again. They had taken a long detour on that question.

“Not at this time,” Nina said.

Eric got up and opened the door. “I’ll be on my way, then. Nice to meet you, Paul, see you around. Nina, I am glad we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

Then Eric was gone. Paul said to Nina, “Is that true? You can’t get me the gig? He’s got it?”

“Philip can’t afford both of you, and Lynda, and me, too, Paul. Brinkman seems to be doing a good job.”

“He’s too smart for his Rolex. He’s going to divine all this fast, Nina. He’s going to catch the con and he’s going to catch me. It’s not good that I can’t work for Strong, too.”

“I’ll talk to Philip again.”

“Let’s get a drink.”

“Sorry, I have to get home,” Nina said.

“What? But we haven’t caught up yet.”

“That may be, but I have supper to make and homework to enforce and other clients whose files I have to work on tonight.”

Paul said to Sandy, who had come in again, “She won’t have a drink with me, can you believe this? A stand-up old friend like me, drives all this way, and she won’t have a drink. And I know you’re with Joseph, Sandy, so I can’t keep you out at a bar.”

“Joe wants to show you his new circular-saw projects. Says he’s fixing you dinner.”

Paul said, “Sounds great. I might jump in the hot springs while I’m out near Markleeville.”

“Come on out to the house at six,” Sandy said. “Bring a bottle of beer.”

Nina said, “See you tomorrow morning, Paul.”

The outer door closed on Paul. Sandy and Nina turned to look at each other.

A lengthy silence led into the exhalatory sound of a long day finally over with.

Sandy broke it. “Now that was fun. In my single days I would have locked the door so neither of them could get away and pulled out a picnic basket and a bottle of gin.”

Nina said, “Why, Sandy. Are you commenting on the, er, looks of the gentlemen we have been meeting with today?”

“Ya think? Smokin’!”

J
im Strong’s face, progressively less human and uglier, showed up again on the inside of Nina’s eyelids when she tried to sleep that night. He smiled at her with those big white teeth of his, a smile that devolved into a leer when she looked hard.

She went down to the kitchen and poured herself a tot of whiskey, usually enough to conk her out for the night. An hour later, she changed the sheets on her bed and stuck an air filter machine in her room to make white noise. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a glowing white dot in the middle of her forehead and blanked out her mind. She tried counting backward from one hundred.

Jim kept staring, baleful on the inside of her eyelids. She lost count around eighty-eight.

Her eyes felt dry with all the staring and staring back.

About two, she made herself hot chocolate in the dark, cold kitchen, sniffing at the greasy pans Bob had left to soak in the sink. Back in bed, she drank the chocolate, fluffed up her pillows, closed her eyes, and watched Jim, no longer smiling, now actively malevolent.

When she failed again to obliterate his face, she turned on the radio, the dullest station she could find, waiting to be soothed by murmuring voices perseverating about war, capitalism, consumerism.

She went into the bathroom and opened the junk drawer. A
minute’s rummaging brought forth her treasure, an allergy pill. She swallowed it and backed it up with an entire glass of water. Then she made sure for the twelfth time that the alarm was set, paced until she felt too tired to walk anymore, and once again lay down on her comfortless bed. At last, sometime around four in the morning, she sank into a nightmare she lived through to the end.

T
hey turned around and headed as swiftly as they could back the way they had come, clumsy on the snowshoes, deep in powder, scared.

The snowmobile took off, straight up the mountain. It peaked almost two hundred feet directly above them and roared down the other side into the trees they headed toward.

Suddenly Nina felt tired, her feet as heavy and awkward as bowling balls. She remembered how mountain climbers at high altitudes take eight breaths after every step. She didn’t want to go toward that revving motor in the trees, but Strong was much faster and could cut them off easily no matter which way they went. She took sharp, shallow breaths and tried to prepare herself as they trudged forward.

Jim Strong gunned the snowmobile and roared away from them, up the mountain, higher than she would have thought possible. About two hundred feet above them now, he sat on the snowmobile, silent.

Cold crept into the gaps between her gloves and her hands and up the legs of her pants. She felt her nose harden and hurt with it. Panting with exertion, barely balanced on her snowshoes, she turned once more to look up.

With a mighty roar, Jim’s machine lurched to life. It cut back and forth above them as they turned, struggling down the mountain as fast as they could. They realized what he was doing now. All that snow, the tons and tons that had dropped from the sky—

The mountain came alive.

They moved even though they stood immobile, Nina’s hand at her throat, her husband’s hand reaching toward her, moving downhill faster and faster as the huge slab of snow they were standing on slid down the mountain toward the valley below. For a second that lasted forever,
they watched the snow above them break into massive, bricklike slabs accelerating at different speeds down the mountain. Right in the middle of the face, traveling down with it, they had no escape. Nina saw Jim Strong, a tiny figure in the blinding sun up above, racing for the side.

Changing direction, desperate, they traversed frantically, trying to sidestep the onslaught of snow, of fate, of death, somehow.

The air around Nina darkened with snow crystals. Her hair whipped around her face. Something hit her in the back. They were moving faster! She threw herself at her husband, held him in a fierce embrace, bracing herself.

No sound. No air. Knocked forward by a wall of snow, she somersaulted down the mountain, wiped out in a tidal wave.

She slammed into something, a rock or a tree, and a mountain slid past. She continued free-falling, out of control, struck over and over by rocks, conscious in spite of the awful pain. As if struggling in the ocean, she tried to swim up, get her head up so she could breathe—but the snow was so deep, and she was drowning . . .