Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

“Very nice. You don’t mind if I keep it?”

“Of course not.”

She clicked the point of the pen closed, dropped it in her purse and continued to look at the business card as she felt the embossed letters with the tip of her finger.

We talked for a while. She told me about her friend and his business selling rare coins, that he often took her shopping. While she enjoyed this, she was getting tired of it now and missed her family. Then she turned the tables and started her own inquisition.

In ten minutes’ time she learned more about me than some of my friends who have known me for years. She was a Latin litany of questions, where I lived, what I was doing in Del Mar, whether I was married. This as she checked my finger for a ring. When I told her I was widowed, she said she was sorry, and before she could take a breath asked if I had any children.

She was not shy. Still, there was a kind of charm in the innocence of it, as all these questions seemed to come naturally to her, like water from a fountain.

“I have one daughter,” I told her.

“How old?”

“She’s in college, and if I had to guess, I’d say maybe just a few years younger than you.”

“So you think I am young?”

“Like most things in life, age is relative. You are certainly younger than me.”

“Why are American men all like this?” She cradled the coffee in both hands and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t understand. Why do they say I am young and they are old?”

“Maybe because it’s true.”

“Who cares? Makes no difference,” she said. “How old do you think I am?”

“No. No. I don’t play that game.”

“What game?” she said. She looked at me as if she didn’t understand.

“In this country, guessing a woman’s age is a good way to get in trouble,” I told her.

She laughed. “Nooo. I won’t be angry. Please.” Before I realize, she’s reached across the table and brushed the back of my hand with the long nails of two fingers. “Tell me.”

Like a man who has lost a leg, the sensation of her fingernails on the back of my hand seemed to linger long after she had withdrawn her hand from mine.

“Tell meee.” She smiled and gave me a sideways glance, the full two-dimple show, coquette.

“How would I know?”

“Make a guess.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on.” She put the cup down and grabbed my hand with both of hers. She wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Let me see. Twelve.”

She gave me a look as if she might slap me. So I looked at her closely. She turned her face, first one side and then the other.

“Hmm. If I have to guess, maybe twenty-two.”

“Aw, you are not serious.” She pouted a bit.

“Am I close?”

“I’m not telling.”

“No, now you have to tell me.”

“No.” She looked at me with her big, oval dark eyes. The way she sipped her coffee and looked at me over the top of her cup, the calculating gaze, told me that I had probably underestimated by a few years, but not much.

“They must have found the fountain of youth in Costa Rica,” I told her.

She gave me a puzzled look. “Esscuse me?”

“Never mind.”

“I know some lawyers in Costa Rica. In San José there are many.” She looked at my business card. “ Coronado, where is that?”

“Down the coast, just a little south of here. It’s across the bay from San Diego.”

“Ah. And what type of legal work do you do?”

“Mostly criminal trial work.”

“Really? That must be interesting. You must be very intelligent to do that.”

“It has its moments. Sometimes it’s interesting, sometimes it’s stressful, and there are times when it can be boring.”

“So if I get in trouble, I could call you,” she said.

“Well, you have my phone number now.”

“Yes, I do.” She slipped my business card into her purse with the pen.

We finished our coffee. I had to run to catch my friends. We said good-bye. That was nearly two weeks ago.

This morning Katia does not look nearly as young or as innocent. The smile is gone, as is the twinkle in her eyes. But even without makeup, and missing a solid night’s sleep in the women’s lockup of the county jail for the better part of three days, she is still strikingly beautiful.

Harry Hinds, my partner, has insisted on coming along this morning, whether to confirm this fact or to save me from myself, I am not sure. But it seems that Harry now has a stake in all of this. Without realizing what they were doing, the cops have rung Harry’s bell. As a result we may be in this for the duration.

Strange as it sounds, it was the police who came knocking at our door yesterday morning, not Katia who called. Among the items the cops found in her purse when they arrested her was my business card. This piqued their curiosity. Following the murders and the suspect’s arrest, authorities wanted to know what I knew, in short, how my card had gotten into her purse before the events, if, in fact, that was the order in which things had happened.

They asked specifically whether she had ever been to my office on a legal matter regarding business. I told them no. They asked if I’d ever been to the house where she was living with Emerson Pike in Del Mar. Again I told them no. So there was no lawyer-client relationship? No. That opened the floodgates. What did we talk about? They wanted to know every detail. When I explained the quixotic manner of my meeting Katia, in the market that morning two weeks ago, and our conversation over coffee immediately afterward, they seemed to back off.

And that was the only time you met or talked with her? Yes.

Of course, by then it didn’t matter. It was too late. Someone, somewhere leaked to the media that a lawyer’s business card identifying me by name was found in the suspect’s purse. It has been all over the local news for twenty-four hours, the breathless nonstory of the lawyer who may be involved. So now Harry wants to know what the cops know. It has become a game of lawyers’ tag, and for the moment it seems that I am It.

So this morning we are busy pulling together the details, the few things that we think we know, how the police caught up with Katia in Arizona on a bus halfway to Houston, where she was headed. According to the newspapers, because the police have not officially confirmed it, they tracked Katia from a cell phone signal, a phone she had stolen from the man she was living with, her friend, the coin dealer who now is dead, along with his household maid. This is the basis for all this unpleasantness and one more reason why you might want to think twice before shopping for bananas on a Saturday morning in Del Mar.

I must admit that I never connected Katia by name with the crime until the police knocked on my office door. There is enough crime in this part of the state that one more murder, more or less, doesn’t always catch your attention, even if it’s blaring from the evening news. But after the cops left, I went diving for the papers, everything I could find in print since the night Emerson Pike was killed.

Using the public defender, Katia is to be arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder tomorrow morning. At the moment, I’m not sure that we can help her. The mountain of incriminating evidence seems almost overwhelming. Harry and I have consulted the public defender to ensure that we are not stepping on toes. We have established an attorney-client relationship for the purpose of evaluating whether we might take the case. For one of those nefarious reasons that lawyers sometimes seize upon, the public defender was quite happy to have us do this. Why? Because, if nothing else, it will keep me off the stand as a witness.