Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

“Okay, I was a little drunk. I said a few things. He’s a man, supposedly. I didn’t expect him to give in easy. I was just trying to be forceful, but I never laid a hand on him.”

Jack shifted gears. “Mr. Stinson, were there many people camping nearby the night that Phoebe Palladino died?”

“The place was packed.”

“Isn’t it possible someone else at the campground saw something that night, even saw Brandy and Angel leaving their tent, and you leaving Phoebe’s tent?”

“Sure. Anything’s possible. Who would have thought those two would happen to need to pee just the very second I was leaving the tent, huh?”

“Are you hard to find?”

“What?”

“Are you listed in the local directory?”

“Yes.”

“So anyone, anyone at the camp that night, might have called you?”

“Anyone can call me.”

“So an attorney’s missing files aren’t the only way someone might come to know about you or your return to the campground later that night?”

“You’re good, man,” Cody Stinson said. “That’s right except for one thing. How would anyone know my name?”

“Did the ranger take your name?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“Who was there when he took down your name?”

“We had quite an audience, yeah, we did. You’re right! Maybe it was the old guy from Cambria at the campsite on the other side who kept hollering at us to shut up who saw and heard everything. Maybe he called me.”

“Thank you. That’ll be all,” Jack said.

On the way out of court, Nina walked over to Cody Stinson, who was sitting at the small round table in the reception area leafing through a magazine. “Thank you for your testimony,” she said. “I think you tried to be very honest,” which was a way of flattering him without saying he was honest, since she didn’t know.

He put his magazine down. “You’re the first to say so.”

“I’ve been wondering about the woman who alibied you,” she said. “My investigator tells me her name is Carol Ames.”

“She doesn’t know anything. Anyway, she’s out of the picture now.”

“You haven’t spoken with her lately?”

“No. Why?”

Nina smiled. “I don’t know why I thought about her. I guess I wondered if she was a girlfriend or something.”

“Not that it’s your business,” he said, “but I loved Phoebe. Everyone forgets I lived with her for nearly a year before Mario got out.”

“Oh, well. It’s probably nothing-”

“What?”

“Forget it,” she said. “I just-you don’t know where she is?”

“Not at the moment. But I could find her easy enough if I wanted to.”

“Hmm. Well, thanks anyway.”

She walked away, feeling his eyes on her back, a thought forming in her mind. She felt like a girl plucking daisies to determine her lover’s deepest feelings, impractical, but she couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

“T HANKS FOR PICKING ME UP,” Nina told Paul. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. I couldn’t face a two-hundred-mile drive all the way back to Tahoe tonight, and anyway, I left my car there. Wish dropped me here this morning. He said he wanted to play in the city, but I know he just wanted to help.”

They walked side by side through the evening crowd toward a nearby parking lot to retrieve his Mustang. “We’ll be efficient,” Paul said, “make this a nonstop run if you like. But why are you going back tonight? You’re going to have to leave very early in the morning to get back here in time for court.”

“I have to get back to Bob. I spoke with Matt at lunch. He’s spending the night at the hospital with Andrea, and his kids are staying with friends. I couldn’t manage to organize anything else for Bob on such short notice.”

“Is Andrea okay?”

“Fine, I’m told, except her blood pressure’s up. She needs some bed rest. It’s tough when you’ve got two kids already and you’re nearly nine months along.”

“What are you going to do about Bob?”

“Well, after tonight, he could stay with Matt, although it’s a bad time for them.” She fretted. “Maybe I’ll just pack him and his books up and bring him back here. He could stay at the hotel with me or at Jack’s until we’re through.”

“Good plan.”

“Paul, today at court-Brandy mentioned some woman in the campground bathroom at about the same time Cody Stinson returned to the tent. And then Stinson testified and mentioned this woman, Carol Ames. What do you know about her?”

“You mean Cody Stinson’s alibi?”

“Right.”

“I told you I checked into their history. She’s an old flame. They broke up when he took up with Phoebe, nearly a year before Phoebe was killed. She’s been dating other guys since then, although I’m told there’s nothing serious. She’s some kind of freelancer. Works out of her house doing medical billing, I believe.”

He opened the door for Nina, which she appreciated. She reached down and took off her shoes and loosened her belt. “I don’t like being a defendant.”

“Hang in there.”

“Jack seems to know what he’s doing.”

“Seems to.”

“Anyway, about Carol Ames. Wonder what she saw in Cody. She sounds almost respectable.”

Paul got in and buckled up. He looked left, then right, then turned right on Howard and began to zigzag up and down short blocks, apparently hoping to blaze an unknown route to the Bay Bridge that no one else in San Francisco had discovered. “She loved that drug-dealin’, motorcycle-lovin’ Cody Stinson,” he said, “for whatever reason. But then, all couples are hard to picture.” The car lurched across an intersection on a red light. “Look at you and me.”

“Oh, no, let’s not.” She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I just want to hop on the back of your Mustang and ride off into the sunset, or toward the sunrise, in this case.”

“We don’t spend enough time together, Nina. You’re with Jack all the time.”

“I spend more time with him now than I did when we were married, isn’t that odd? I like him better this way, doing his job, being a pro, standing by me like he never did when we were married.” She smiled. “He’s redeemed himself.”

Paul said, watching the road, “He’s seeing someone.”

“Good,” Nina said. She hesitated. She didn’t want to know about it. “Were you worried that Jack and I might-”

“Not a bit,” Paul said. “I’m the better man and you’re smart enough to know it.”

“You weren’t a little bit-jealous?”

Paul snorted.

“You were,” Nina said.

“I’ll be glad when this inquisition is over and we can both get on with our lives. Then let’s resume where we left off in Carmel last summer, Nina. Could we do that?”

“Paul, why did you take the LSAT?”

“Why did you?” He didn’t sound happy.

“Did you really want to be a lawyer?”

“I would have been a terrible lawyer. I’m not a desk type. And lawyers work too many hours. I like what I do now.”

She didn’t quite believe him. Was that why Paul seemed so cavalier about the risk of her disbarment, because of some disappointment in his past? She thought about that, but couldn’t reach any conclusions, so she turned her attention to the erratic behavior of their fellow rush-hour motorists and the way Paul skidded through intersections on reds. Beginning to adjust her belt lower on her hips, she stopped and thought, well, if I die, at least I won’t have to come back here tomorrow morning to face the hangman.

They reached the bridge. Traffic suddenly moved right along. Paul sped up.

“Maybe Carol Ames liked excitement. She got that with Cody. I keep thinking about her,” Nina said. “About the campground. About what happened that night. About how Brandy and Angel saw a woman leaving the bathroom. It could have been any female camper, of course. It probably was. But I just keep thinking about Cody’s friend, Carol. How she loved him. How he came to her that night for the first time in a long time. Don’t you think she’d notice if he left? I would.”