She wanted to keep it. But he would miss it immediately, and this was no cave she could flee.
Please be true. She wished it passionately for him, because his grief for his friends was real and deep and she might have had a hand in causing their deaths.
After a while she lifted the blue blanket again and opened the parka, slipping the book home again. Elliott dreamed on while Nina watched and wondered. Thirty thousand feet down within the still ocean, whales swam through the night, singular, extraordinary.
26
FIRST SNOW FELL OUTSIDE THE WINDOW. Betty Jo Puckett, Elliott, Sandy, Nina, and a transcriber sat around Nina’s conference table. The espresso machine coughed on the counter nearest the door, and the lamp was lit in honor of winter’s arrival.
Elliott had already told his story, changing nothing from his talk with Nina in Germany.
Betty Jo had caused no trouble about the lack of notice regarding the changed deposition. Nina suspected that she had had second thoughts about not attending and was relieved to be able to do so at Tahoe. She wasn’t her flippant self, though; she said little and listened carefully, making occasional notes.
Elliott stared at the table in front of him. He had been asked about the Heddesheim shooting, but Nina had made it as merciful as possible. Getting him out of bed this morning had been difficult. She was afraid that jet lag and grief were turning into depression.
But he did his duty, and at last an eyewitness account of Sarah Hanna’s death had been given.
“Do you have any questions to ask the witness?” she asked Betty Jo. Though it was Nina’s show, Betty Jo had every right to go over whatever she wanted. She had taken notes throughout Nina’s questioning, and as the story poured out, the card counting, the money, the shooting, the primes, XYC, she never blinked. She was on a mission and she had her own theory, that was obvious.
She regarded Elliott with her head cocked as if taking his measure. She had worn a tweed suit and UGG boots to the deposition, which did not make her look ridiculous, as she had long toned legs, and her fluff of silver hair was set off by the silver of the suit. With her steady eyes and dark eyebrows, the slight shadow of a mustache, she was formidable behind the down-home facade.
“Well, Elliott, you’ve been avoiding having to do this for a long time, haven’t you? I mean, you could have contacted Mr. Hanna a long time ago and shared this information with him, couldn’t you?”
“As I said, I was afraid. I didn’t see how I could help.”
“You were afraid to tell the truth?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Do you agree with Ms. Reilly here that the motel should have done more to protect you?”
“I-I-don’t know.”
“Ms. Reilly must have explained to you that you’re a straw defendant, that she used a legal trick that required callin’ you a defendant. You know that, don’t you?”
“She said she had to do it to get my testimony.”
“And she’s not trying to get any money from you regarding this incident, is she?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You and she are good buddies?”
“I like her all right.”
“Stayin’ at her house, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re workin’ together to get some money from the Ace High Lodge?”
Elliott looked surprised. “No, I don’t want any money.”
“But you’re helping her, to get her off your back so you can go home?”
“It’s about my friends at this point.”
“Feel guilty about them dying, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it was probably my notebook he was after. Like I said.”
“You feel guilty about rushing the robber, don’t you?”
“Not really. Maybe a little.”
“Sure you do,” Betty Jo said. “I would.” She paused and took a sip of water.
“Did you at any time see the motel clerk, Meredith Assawaroj, during this incident?” she went on.
“No, ma’am.”
“Did you at any time see the owner of the motel, James Bova, during this incident?”
“No, ma’am, unless he was the man in the mask.”
Betty Jo showed him an eight-by-ten photograph. “Defendant’s Three,” she said. “Now, I will represent that this is a recent photograph of James Bova.”
She passed another print to Nina.
“I’ll stipulate that this is Mr. Bova,” Nina said.
“Did you ever see this man? Have you ever seen this man?”
“Not unless he was the man in the mask. As I said.”
“I will represent to you that Mr. Bova is just over six feet tall. Counsel?”
“We can verify that later,” Nina said.
“I believe you said that the man in the ski mask was of medium height, is that correct?”
“It was dark. I would say he wasn’t unusually tall or short.”
“In your mind, is someone over six feet tall medium or tall in height?”
“I guess tall,” Elliott said. “I’m five-eleven and I consider myself tall.”
“So this man was not tall?”
“I didn’t notice that he was unusually tall.”
“How much did this man weigh? The robber in the mask?”
“I would say he was on the skinny side.”
“Skinny?”
“I guess so.”
“You don’t have to guess,” Nina said.
“I didn’t notice anything unusual about his weight.”
“I will represent to you that Mr. Bova weighs two hundred and twelve pounds. Do you consider that skinny?”
“Not really.”
“You grappled with this man?”
“I bumped him and hit at his arm, and the gun went flying.”
“So you had physical contact with him?”
“Yes. He was hard-he worked out. That’s about all I could say.”
“Come on,” Betty Jo said. “You can do better than that. When you came into contact with him, was he taller than you?”
“I had my head down.”
“Did he weigh more than you? What do you weigh?”
“One seventy-four.”
“Did he weigh more than you?”
“I’d say so. Yeah, I was wrong. He wasn’t really skinny.”
Betty Jo didn’t like that answer. She moved on.
“After the shots, how much time elapsed before you heard the screaming of the motel clerk?”
“Does he know if it was the motel clerk screaming?” Nina interrupted.
“How long before you heard a woman screaming?” Betty Jo went on.
“Seconds.”
“How many seconds?”
“I had time to run almost all the way to my room. Approximately forty seconds, forty-five seconds.”
“She must have been very close, right?”
“Pretty close. I heard later she was at the Internet cafe next door.”
“Never mind what you heard. So you had attracted a lot of attention at Prize’s, winning all that money?”
“The pit boss was getting too interested.”
“You had made thirty-five thousand dollars at one five-dollar-minimum table?”
“At two tables.”
“Other people were watching you? Guests of the casino?”
“Sure. It was time to leave.”
“Did you ask for any security to carry this large amount of cash?”
“No, we were staying just across the street.”
“Did you make any efforts to avoid being followed?”
“He didn’t have a duty to do that,” Nina said.
Betty Jo said, “He might have. He was a pro in a dangerous business. If you can sue him to bring him here, I may as well sue him, too.” Elliott didn’t look too happy at this.
“Did you? What did you do to protect yourself from robbery?”
“There were three of us.”
“Anything else?”
“Tried to keep a low profile.”
“That didn’t work out, though, did it?” Without waiting for an answer, Betty Jo said, “You were standing right at the vending machine when this man appeared?”
“Yes. We were. Silke had just put in the money.”
“Defendant’s Four. Photo of the area around the vending machine.” The transcriber pasted an identification label on the photo and returned it to Betty Jo, who passed it to Elliott.