“That’s good. Jobs. It’s only raining down here.” Placerville was only at four thousand feet, while Lake Tahoe lay at sixty-two hundred feet.
“Your time will come,” Nina said. She was relieved that he was willing to make small talk. He seemed almost friendly.
“Roger says you’ve been working hard for me. I can’t believe you went all the way to Germany. Too bad about the witnesses. I haven’t been feeling good lately. I guess Roger told you.”
“We have developments. We have the gun, we have a fingerprint, and we have an ID.” She summarized what she knew.
“Unbelievable,” Dave said. “I’d like to come up there and really talk this through, but Echo Summit is closed and I’m kind of a mess.” Echo Summit, the pass into Tahoe from Placerville, was even higher, at seventy-four hundred feet.
“Dave? You need to be careful. We are cornering Leland Flint.”
“Never heard of him. Who is he?”
“We don’t know yet. But we’re going to get him, Dave.”
“I can’t cope with all this pressure.”
“Talk to the police down there. Get some help. Maybe Roger will come and stay with you.”
“Not Roger. He’s always on me. Ragging and nagging. We’re not getting along.”
“Then the police.”
“Why would he come after me, anyway?” The news was sinking in, and his tone was uneasy.
“It’s your case. It’s where the heat is coming from.”
“Not really. It’s your case. It’s always been your case. You took it against my will. If anything happens to me, it’s on you.” She heard the familiar resentment against the world coming through.
“That’s not fair, Dave.”
“None of this will get Sarah back. She’s dead. You can’t fix that, and the rest is crap.”
A surge of anger overtook Nina. “Your wife, your niece-they were murdered,” she said. “Stop fighting me.”
“He’ll go after you first,” Dave said. “You’re the source of the noise. You watch your own back.” He hung up.
She drove home in the early dark. KTHO said Tahoe was expected to have a couple hundred thousand visitors over the weekend. The motels along the way all had No Vacancy signs. The big ski resorts-Heavenly, Alpine, Northstar-were booked solid. On Kulow Street, every house but hers had its lights to keep away the winter ghosts. The lights weren’t about Christmas in the mountains, not really. They were about the dark, keeping it away. Not having Bob with her took away her daily life, her sense of well-being.
She thought about getting out of the Hanna case, because she was so angry at Dave Hanna. Then she thought about Chelsi, and how close they were to finding her killer. Her eyes-so innocent and bewildered in those last moments-
Wish’s van was in the driveway. She pulled in behind it, and struggled through the snow up the icy stairs.
Wish answered the door. He helped her take off her coat, took her briefcase from her, led her to the couch in front of the fire, handed her a glass of wine.
“Stop,” he said. “For a few hours. Lie down there. I’m cooking. We’ll eat soon.”
“Elliott?”
“He won twelve thousand dollars. We stopped at the Raley’s and bought eggs and coffee and milk.”
“All right.”
“Lie down.”
“Just for a minute.”
They met at the dinner table: Elliott, in a funk, his hands shaking; Wish, spooning out mashed potatoes like a lady in a hair net in the asylum cafeteria; and Nina, three-quarters of the way down her second glass of wine. Nina could feel a draft at her feet, probably from the old windows next to the table, which led to the backyard deck, which, she noticed, would have to be shoveled soon, in case the snow kept falling all night. She didn’t have a garage for the Bronco, either, which meant that after supper she’d have to open the ski closet and find shovels and brushes and scrapers.
On the other hand, Wish and Elliott were just right for outdoor tasks, and Elliott especially could benefit from exercise. Yes, it would be for their own good. She had some turkey loaf and complimented Wish on the cuisine, then told them both about Meredith and the gun.
“So you’re vindicated, sort of,” she concluded, as Elliott embarked on his second serving of everything. “Three bullets gone.”
“But was it the third shot that killed her?” Wish asked, breaking the encouraging spell Nina was trying to weave.
But Elliott finally spoke up. “I saw the first two. He aimed high.”
“She was high, on a balcony,” Wish said.
“She was behind him. He shot toward the street entrance at about an eighty-degree angle.”
“Too bad the police couldn’t find the third bullet,” Wish said. “Anyway, I hear you. You saw the first two shots aimed high and in the opposite direction from the woman.”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. He didn’t fire when I struggled with him. I couldn’t have leaned his arm back like the lawyer said.”
“Good, that’s clear, then.” Nina went into the kitchen and put on the teapot and thought, I hope.
“He must have seen the Hannas on the balcony after the students ran, and panicked and shot at them,” Wish offered.
The kitchen and the dining room of the cabin were essentially one room, so she could continue the conversation without a beat. “Why?” she asked. “He wore a mask. They couldn’t identify him.”
“I surprised him,” Elliott said. “He lost his bearings. He couldn’t think straight anymore.”
“Right after dinner I’m getting on the Web and see what I can find on the name,” Wish said. “What did you say his name was?”
“Guess I forgot to say,” Nina said. “He was ID’d as a man named Leland Moss Flint.”
Elliott got up from the table, clumsily. He made fists with his hands and started rhythmically beating them against his head from either side, walking around the living room.
“Elliott, what are you doing?” Nina asked.
“Thinking. Thinking. Am I making this all up? Is this my fantasy? Are you people real?” Nina and Wish exchanged glances.
“It can’t be. She wouldn’t. But I remember she had one. Or maybe I’m making all this up to look important. Maybe the notebook’s full of shit. I knew I should burn it. It’s driven me crazy, like Cantor. I’m crazy, that’s right, that’s the problem.”
Nina went to him and said, “Put your arms down. Please. Come on, sit down again.”
“You better call the loony bin.” But he sat back down, wearing an anguished expression. He looked from Wish to Nina and said, “Is it really because of me? Four deaths? I can’t take that. All I wanted was to figure out the problem. Such a fascinating problem, and I didn’t want to be famous, exactly, I mean posthumous fame would have been fine, it was good enough for Cantor. I wanted people to know and appreciate that I solved it, that’s all.”
The teapot began to whistle, and he jumped. “I never met him, but she had one.”
“One what?” Nina said.
“A brother.”
“Who had a brother?”
“Carleen.”
Somewhere she had heard that name. Oh yes, Carleen had been a card counter with the other three, but left the group months before the shooting. “What about Carleen?” she said.
“Carleen. Carleen Flint. She had a brother. A Flint like her, I’m sure. So she must have told him and he tried to steal my book. Carleen. I suppose I hurt her feelings. She was jealous of Silke.”
Wish leaned forward. “Hey, what was the brother’s first name? Think back.”
“I never knew. But isn’t it clear enough? Carleen knew we were going to Tahoe. She and Silke still talked. Carleen works with Professor Braun at XYC.”
“Now we’re gettin’ someplace,” Wish said. “Nina, I have to go get on the computer. Excuse me.”
“Am I making this up?” Elliott watched him go. “I know that paranoids-they always think their friends have turned against them. They always think they have some great discovery they’re going to give the world. Am I-are you going to have me admitted? Because I want to be in Washington State if I’m going to be in the hospital.”