Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

“Oh. Wow.” Brandy gave him a radiant smile and Wish dissolved into his high-tops.

Paul didn’t think telling her they weren’t leaving without them would improve the situation. “We’re here to escort you safely to the police. Once the D.A. has your statement about what happened at the campground, you’ve done your duty,” he said. “You’ll be safer. It’s like insurance.”

“Angel, if you don’t come back in here right now,” said a voice from inside the salon, “I’m going to get up and walk out of here with one half of my head full of pink curlers, then I’m going up to Raley’s and tell everybody there why I look so foolish.”

“Coming!” she said. “Look, I have to finish Mrs. Gerdes before I can leave.”

“How long will that take?”

“Let’s see, finish rolling, then the perm, wash it out, dry it. Make it look outstanding. At least an hour, maybe longer.”

“We’ll wait,” Paul said. “But you’ll go?”

Angel looked at her sister, then back at Paul. “Yeah, we’ll go.”

When Paul’s stomach began to rumble as loudly as Wish’s, he sent him out for some food. Paul balanced himself on the flimsy bench in the salon and observed Jill’s frosting of the coneheaded woman and the manufacture of artificial curls on the head of Angel’s client.

Brandy sat with him. She spoke hardly a word to Paul, but she perked up when Wish arrived, slightly bent with the weight of bags full of quesadillas and nachos. They spread the food between them and ate and talked. Brandy asked Wish questions about his studies. Listening to them, Paul learned that she had been a philosophy major at community college and that she didn’t feel like she belonged in Palo Alto. She didn’t talk about her fiancé, Paul noticed. Wish seemed to be making a conquest. Or he was being vanquished, Paul wasn’t sure which.

After a while, Angel finished and joined them. They all piled into the Mustang.

“You know, we always intended to go to the police. We wouldn’t have let that bastard get away with killing her,” Angel said as they drove alongside the lake toward Al Tahoe Boulevard. “We’re just afraid.”

“Sure you are,” Paul said.

“Why did Cody have to kill Phoebe?” Brandy asked.

“You know why,” Angel said. “Sexual jealousy. She was with another guy.” Sitting in the front seat beside Paul, she pulled her feet up on the car seat as if settling down for some titillating gossip. “This is what we heard. Phoebe is sleeping with Mario but he gets arrested and lands in prison for a long time, like maybe a whole year,” she explained. “He and Cody were old friends from way back, and so Phoebe and Cody’re hangin’ out together moaning about poor Mario. And then one fine night they get-”

“Down and dirty,” Brandy said from behind her.

“And Mario gets out of prison earlier than anyone expected,” Angel continued. “He shows up out of the blue at Cody’s house. Well, it makes sense. He goes to see his best friend first thing-”

“Wanting to spend the night on the couch and collect the money Cody’s keeping for him,” Brandy said.

“But Cody’s surprised and not that happy to see Mario after all. He’s cagey. He doesn’t want Mario to know about Phoebe hanging with him, so he makes up an excuse and says, ‘You can’t stay here.’ He swears he doesn’t have the money but promises to get it and bring it to Mario the next day.”

“They were in on a drug deal together and Cody held the money for Mario while he was in prison,” Brandy said.

“Taking the rap, I think,” said Angel.

“So Mario asks, ‘Well, then, where the hell can I go?’ ’Cause you have to remember, he’s got practically no money,” Brandy added.

“So then Cody gives him twenty bucks or so and sends Mario to the campground with a ratty old tent and a bag. Some friend.”

“Meanwhile, guess who’s listening from somewhere behind the drapes?” Brandy asked rhetorically.

“Mario’s old girlfriend, Phoebe, who’s actually been missing him or maybe is just getting very sick of Cody, his second-rate stand-in,” said Angel. “Mario was definitely the better-looking one.”

“So Phoebe sneaks out and follows Mario to the campground. And initiates a rowdy reunion. If she’d only known. It’s so awful. I guess that’s what those other people who had our campsite before really objected to. Probably they were hanging all over each other,” Brandy said.

“Indiscreet,” Angel agreed.

“So Cody-he came back late at night. And he killed her! Angel, should we really do this?”

“It’s for the best, Bran.”

They fell silent, both with one arm folded, the other resting under a chin.

Paul turned up Al Tahoe, intrigued and moved by these two young women. Telling the story lightened their emotional load. Nina, the amateur psychologist, would probably say their reworking of these memories helped them to gain control over their fear. And then there was the relationship between them. They were like children of exactly equal weight on a teeter-totter, shifting back and forth in perfect harmony. He sighed, thinking of his own sister in San Francisco. The last time he saw her, he had been in the hospital with a broken leg. The moment he regained full consciousness and saw her there at the foot of his bed, all he could think about was how to send her scurrying home.

“Then Cody showed up,” Paul said, prompting them.

“He’s got this shattering motorcycle engine. I mean, you couldn’t hear a china cupboard collapse over the noise of that thing,” Brandy said.

“Or a house fall down, for that matter,” Angel added.

“A Harley,” Wish said. “Or maybe Kawasaki? They make some really powerful engines.”

Brandy, sitting next to him, seemed startled at this sudden show of interest. “Who knows?” she said. “Just really loud.”

“Cody hops off the bike,” Angel said, “and the fighting starts. He’s really pissed about Phoebe. He says she’s already jumped in the sack with Mario, hasn’t she?”

“Which is literally the truth,” said Brandy. “I always wondered if those double bags were roomy enough.”

“Mario says, ‘F-off! She was mine before and she’ll always be mine. And by the F-ing way, where the F is my mother-F-ing money?’ ”

Paul stifled a laugh. Mario’s language had even the bold Angel cringing.

“So they got into a fistfight, and I called the ranger and the ranger came and ran Cody off,” Brandy finished suddenly. “That’s the whole story.”

“Except that Cody came back and strangled Phoebe,” Angel said.

This time, no amount of prompting could lift the sisters out of their silent funk.

They found Nina leaning against her Bronco in the parking lot at the county offices. She went into the D.A.’s office with Brandy and Angel while Wish and Paul waited outside for a long time.

When the women returned, Angel looked wrung out down to the ends of her bleached hairdo. Brandy had lapsed into introspective gloom. Nina had a court appearance in another fifteen minutes in the building across from the D.A.’s office.

“We have lined up a place for you two to go that’s safe,” Nina said.

“What?” Brandy said. “I thought you guys said talking to the D.A. was our insurance.”

“This is just intensive short-term protection,” Paul said smoothly. “The D.A.’s office agrees it’s a good move.”

“We’d like you to move into a shelter operated by my sister-in-law, Andrea Reilly, at least for tonight,” Nina said. “The location is kept very private. They have excellent security, and it’s just the spot for you two until the police can arrest Cody Stinson. It’s my advice that you go there immediately. They have everything you need for an overnight stay.”