Perri O'Shaughnessy - Case of Lies

September and October passed in a flurry while she reestablished her routines. The fees rolled in and she paid off her debts.

The judges accepted her back. She had a pretty good working relationship with most of the local lawyers, and she finally knew what she was doing.

The small office suite in the Starlake Building on Lake Tahoe Boulevard, right in the heart of town and less than five miles from the Nevada state line, now felt like home, but some part of her was still restless. She had gone from Carmel to San Francisco to Tahoe and back to Carmel and then back to Tahoe again in the past few years. She was starting to ask herself, uncomfortably, if she would ever settle down. Bob deserved stability, and she was going to have to stay put for a while.

She wasn’t even sure why she had returned to Tahoe. She might just as well have stayed in Carmel and joined the Pohlmann firm, which had made her a very good offer.

And she had made one other uncomfortable discovery since returning to Tahoe.

Her ex-lover, Paul van Wagoner, and his new flame, Susan Misumi, had quickly moved in together down in Carmel. Fair enough, since Nina had ended it with Paul. The choice of Susan Misumi, with her black bangs, her humorlessness, escaped Nina, but it wasn’t her business anymore. Nina and Paul still checked in on each other. They managed to stay friendly because they had been friends before they became lovers.

Nina had moved on. She went out, danced, ate good food, had a few unexpectedly intimate conversations. But she had discovered that she didn’t expect much from men anymore. She didn’t want to try for love.

That feeling had been growing in her for a long time, and she sometimes wondered if it had something to do with the breakup with Paul. Finding a partner seemed impossible, based on her experiences, so she put it out of her mind.

Men and places. Still, the restlessness would come over her, and she’d feel a need for another place and another man. Other people followed their lifelines. She careened along, too fast, not able to see her own.

But she would always have two constants to ground her: Bob, and her work.

Today, we persevere, she thought. With the last gulp of coffee, she threw two ibuprofen down her throat.

The phone buzzed. Nina swung her legs down, sighed, and picked up the phone. Sandy must have come in. Her desk was only ten feet away, through the closed door, but Sandy didn’t like getting up.

“He’s here, and so’s she. Your eight o’clocks,” Sandy said.

“And a fine morning it is.”

“Hmph. You have half an hour.”

The man stood with his back to her, hands in his pockets, looking at one of Sandy ’s decorations, a Washoe Indian basket on the shelf. He wore a green-and-black plaid lumberjack shirt tucked into a well-broken-in pair of jeans. The belt, a leathercraft affair, must have dated from the sixties. Work boots, a body used to physical work.

A conservative local, Nina thought, pegging him almost before he turned around. Nice wrinkled tan face. Grim expression. Plenty of gray-brown hair on both head and chin. A belly, that was a surprise.

Behind him, pretty Chelsi nodded. She was taller than her uncle. She wore her hair down today and it fell straight and satiny. Something had turned off the smile.

“Hi. I’m Nina Reilly,” Nina said, looking the man in the eye, holding out her hand.

“David Hanna.”

“Please come in.” After ushering Chelsi in, too, Nina glanced toward Sandy, who, resplendent this morning in a heavy turquoise necklace and a denim jumper, seemed to be writing something in the appointment book. Sandy gave Nina a swift look back, one eyebrow cocked.

Look out.

Now, that was an interesting take, since Uncle Dave looked harmless, but Sandy ’s first impressions had to be taken seriously. Sandy knew where clients hid their guns and buck knives; she knew if the Rolex was real or faux; a few words to her in the reception area revealed if a new client was resentful, desperate, or suicidal. Recently they had installed an emergency button hooked up to the local police under her desk, and the golf club propped behind her desk only doubled as a decoration.

Such is solo law office life in a gambling town. Prepare for Uzis, Sandy frequently said.

Nina closed the door and Hanna pulled an orange chair away from the wide desk. He sat, crossing one leg at the ankle, stroking his beard, looking out the window behind her desk toward the steel gray lake, but not focusing, just gazing. Chelsi sat in the chair next to his, back straight.

Nina took her time getting comfortable, arranging a few papers on her desk, adjusting her chair. Let them get used to her.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” David Hanna said finally.

“Because you need to be,” Chelsi said.

“I’m not working much. Money’s tight. Chelsi and her dad, they’ve offered to pay for your services, but I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem right. I hear Chelsi’s already told you about the case.”

“A little,” Nina said.

“Rog was Sarah’s brother. I know he can’t help wanting to do something. What I can’t figure out, what I haven’t been able to get my head around all along, is what good it does, suing someone. My wife is gone.”

“What’s your brother-in-law’s name again?”

“Roger Freeman.” While Nina made a note on her yellow pad, Hanna watched, squinting. The tops of his ears were red and his nose looked sunburned, too. Either he spent a lot of time outside, or, as Chelsi had suggested, less healthy indoor pursuits heightened his natural color. “What’s your usual line of work, Mr. Hanna?”

“I’m a carpenter. Used to be a firefighter.”

Nina looked at her client-interview sheet. “ Placerville ’s a great town.”

“It’s a long drive up Fifty to get here. I don’t come up the Hill much anymore since it happened. Chelsi said this conversation right now isn’t going to cost us anything?”

“Free consultation,” Nina said. “We have half an hour and you came a long way, so how can I help you?”

Hanna shrugged and said, “That’s the point. I haven’t got a fucking clue.”

When Nina didn’t bridle at that, he added, “Like I said, talk won’t bring her back.”

“But you’re already involved in a lawsuit. Isn’t that right?”

“I had a lawyer in Placerville named Bruce Bennett. Two years ago, after Sarah died, Roger contacted him and had this lawyer file a civil suit against the motel where it all happened. I wasn’t sure about the whole thing, but Bennett got us in his office and oh, he talked it up, how much money we were going to hit them up for, how they were negligent. They let the bastard onto the property. No video camera and the clerk off somewhere. The lawyer talked us into suing the motel. Why, he practically had us convinced that the motel owner, who by the way wasn’t even around that night, did the shooting.”

“Sounds like he was trying to put on a very aggressive case on your behalf.”

“I guess.” He shook his head. “It never sat right with me, blaming the motel, but Roger was so gung ho. We used up some of Sarah’s life insurance to pay Bennett, but when the money ran out he filed a substitution-of-attorney form and left us flat.”

“I guess that didn’t leave you with a very high opinion of lawyers. I know Bruce. The lawsuit stayed active?”

He shook his head. “I really don’t know where things stand with it.”

“You couldn’t pay Bruce Bennett, so he quit?”

“Basically.”

“I would think carpenters were in big demand around here. I can never get anyone to come out and fix my porch,” Nina said.

“I don’t work much lately.” He sighed. “I have problems.”