Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

“You want to help him, tell me the truth.”

“Then no.”

“You don’t know anything about someone hiring him to go to the cemetery?”

“I want to help him,” she said urgently.

“Erin, what really happened?”

Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know why he went there that night. Damn it! I knew there was something up when he poured his drink in the plant, but he was being so nice. I just thought he wanted to stay sober for…” She paused and blushed. “You’re a good listener.”

“Do you know his brother, Gabe?”

“I’ve met him a few times. He didn’t exactly hang with us.”

“How close are he and Stefan?”

“Stef loves and admires Gabe. He’s done plenty for him, starting when they were little kids and Gabe was sick. Stef took care of him then, even though Stef was the younger brother. That’s hard on a family. Maybe it’s why Wanda favors Gabe, because he was weaker physically when they were growing up.”

“What was wrong with him?”

“A blood disease. Stefan donated blood or something, and Gabe was cured.”

Blood? Paul’s ears pricked up, but then he remembered an earlier case: a blood transfusion doesn’t change someone’s DNA. Rats. “What does Gabe think of Stefan?”

“Gabe thinks he’s guilty,” she said flatly. “He says the blood evidence can’t lie. Have you met him?”

“He was away most of last week and we haven’t had a chance to hook up. I understand he works for an agency, Classic Collections?”

“When I first heard the name, I thought, wow, fashion. Maybe he can get me clothes cheap.” Her mouth hinted at dimples. “But no, Gabe’s your man when it comes to collecting on a bad debt. He’s their top agent.”

“How does he get along there?”

“He hates his boss. He feels underrespected, underpromoted, underpaid. Wanda hasn’t been a good influence, always building him up, praising him for a C on his report card, you know? I think she feels guilty she was a widow, that she couldn’t give him a father. Isn’t that stupid, as if she could have kept her husband alive when his time came? Have you met Wanda yet?”

“Yes, we’ve met, briefly.” He couldn’t think of a case he had worked on with less lead time and more frustrating, abortive encounters. “I’m seeing her again this afternoon. Any chance Gabe had something to do with putting Stef up to this graveyard job?”

She stared at him. “Why would he?”

“Did Gabe know Christina Zhukovsky?”

“I never heard he did.”

“Do you happen to know if he attended a conference that was held at Cal State Monterey last spring?”

“Something about Russians, right?”

Amazed that he finally had a hit, he said, “Right.”

“Yeah. He went. I think someone from his work was speaking. Maybe they wanted to open up a Russian office. Weird thought, huh?”

“Did Stefan attend?”

“Why would he? No.”

“Does Gabe have a girlfriend?”

“They come and go. You have to be happy in who you are to love and be loved. He isn’t.”

Paul looked at his notes and asked, “Any idea why he consulted the Pohlmann firm? Because apparently, that’s how Stefan ended up hiring them.”

She thought, and Paul almost laughed at how intently she screwed her face up, as if organizing the machinery inside her head had to happen before any real thinking could be accomplished. He could see how she might be perceived as flighty or not too bright. Erin wasn’t dumb. It had taken him a while to figure that out. She had too much going on inside, and hadn’t yet learned to order her thoughts and present them in the way the world liked, strained into a weak juice. “Something about a will. Maybe he needed one? Although it’s not like he has any money, or Wanda, either.”

Paul got up to leave, thanking her.

“My testimony is coming up,” she said. “Shouldn’t we discuss that?”

“We just did,” he said.

“I mean-what should I say?”

“Tell the truth, Erin.”

“I owe him. I want to help.”

“That’s the way to do it.” Even Jaime, not exactly the pit-bull king of all prosecutors, would tear this dark-eyed sweetheart to bits if she tried to pull a fast one.

Paul picked up Wish and stopped for lunch at a corner deli. Breaking his usual rule, Paul ate a turkey on rye in the Mustang and allowed Wish his sloppy salami while driving to Pebble Beach, where Wanda Wyatt lived with her son Gabriel. Paul chatted with the gatekeeper for a moment and followed the directions into the forest, which today looked spectacular in the unusual sun.

“An enclave for the rich and infamous, my mom says,” Wish remarked, using one of the pile of napkins Paul had demanded to wipe up a spill of lettuce on his lap.

Pebble Beach had a rep. Golf, mansions, fog, money-but in fact some people managed to live there without much money. Funky cottages like Wanda and Gabe’s sneaked between the trees.

A tall, blowsy woman with hair falling almost to her waist answered the door. One hand held a silver barrette, a match for her gray hair. She snapped the clip in place before shaking hands. “You again,” she said. “Follow me.” Her skin was lined but fresh looking. She was in her early to mid sixties, Paul decided.

They followed her out to a small, clammy patio shadowed by a six-foot wooden fence that enclosed three sides. Two dogs barked and flung themselves at the visitors for a good long, satisfying time before Wanda ordered them away, then settled for giving them the stink eye from a scrap of grass. A mildewy smell surrounded them.

Glancing critically at the dewy grass, Wanda turned off the sprinklers. “You like Lhasas?” she asked.

Wish nodded. He liked dogs, period.

“I like other people’s dogs,” Paul said. “I don’t know Lhasas in particular. Are yours purebred?”

“Mine come from the pound. Rupso,” she said, pointing. She was sandy-colored with black-tipped ears and a black muzzle. Small teeth gleamed out of a tangled mass of hair. “I like her overbite. Gives her a rakish air. This little one’s Gompa Apso. I call her Bo.”

She looked at her watch. “Gabe should be here by now. He knows you’ve been trying to talk to him.” She plopped herself down in a chair in front of a stone table, and motioned for them to sit. “How’s the case going?”

“Quickly,” Paul said.

“Maybe it seems like that to you, but my son’s in jail, so we’re real happy to see things proceeding. What happened with the old man? Pohlmann?” she asked. “I thought he was running Stefan’s defense. We heard all about his great reputation, and now I hear from Stefan that a woman’s doing most of the work.”

“Nina Reilly. She’s second chair. Klaus is still in charge.”

“I hate not being in court. They said the witnesses can’t be there.”

“Standard procedure. What isn’t standard is that you, Stefan’s mother, are testifying for the prosecution.”

“Look,” she said, sounding depressed. “This is an awful situation. I don’t want to testify against Stefan. I love that kid, in spite of him wringing the color right out of my hair with his troublemaking!” She touched her head. “If my neighbor hadn’t said something to the police, I wouldn’t have told them anything.”

Her cell phone rang and she answered, spoke, and hung up. Her green eyes, along with Bo’s and Rupso’s limpid ochres, pored over him. “That was Gabe. You’ll have to meet him at work, okay? I’ll give you directions.”

Paul nodded. “What were you doing out that night, Ms. Wyatt?”

“I just happened to stop by Stefan’s house to drop off some leftovers and fresh rolls I made for their breakfast. I made extra for them. That girl of his can’t cook for beans. And, more bad luck for my son, I saw him outside.”