Breach Of Promise

BOOK TWO. DISCOVERIES

A wonderful fact to reflect upon,

that every human creature is

constituted to be that profound secret

and mystery to every other.

– Charles Dickens

8

On November 12, a week and a half before Thanksgiving, Nina woke to a cold house. Bob was stirring downstairs. During the night, Hitchcock had evidently decided against the hooked rug on the frigid floor and joined her in bed. She was spooning with her dog! Was this the fate of a single woman?

Shoving the dog to one side, she jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, turned on the heater, then ran back up and pulled the feather bed around herself while the heater roared to life. While she lay there in delicious comfort she thought of Paul, missing him. Other than a few brief telephoned hellos, she hadn’t heard much from him since the Markov party.

She never seemed to find the time to call him. She needed him to help her come up with a detailed and impartial history of Markov Enterprises and to carry out preliminary interviews with anyone Lindy might suggest could be a favorable witness.

She needed him in her bed.

The house warmed up and soon she saw Bob’s head peeking around the bedroom door. Seeing that her eyes were open, he ran to the window and pulled the curtain, saying, “It’s snowing! Mom, you have to see this.”

Outside the air had turned white and wispy. The snow was so heavy she could barely see out, but the whiteness moved, drifting downward.

Pulling aside the covers, she threw on her robe and accompanied Bob downstairs. “Get your clothes on, Bob. I’ll drive you to school. We missed the bus.”

“Hey, maybe they’ll call a snow day!”

“I’ll find out.” While Bob started up their new CD of African ska music, she got the coffee going and laid out bowls for the oatmeal, then called the school to find out that, thank God, they hadn’t canceled the school day.

Bob sat down at the kitchen table to wolf down a couple of bowls of oatmeal, and Nina headed back upstairs to put on her warmest wool suit. To keep her hair dry under her hat, she knotted it, pi

Overnight, fall had given way to winter. Nina felt a rush of exhilaration bundling up in the parka and gloves and boots and pushing open the door to a foot of fresh snow. Transfigured overnight, the neighbors’ old junk car next door had become an ice sculpture, and the trees were festooned with white. Not a breath of wind blew to stir the airy, cool flakes melting on her cheeks.

They got into the Bronco and she put it into four-wheel-drive, hoping they wouldn’t have to get out again and shovel the hilly driveway, but it trundled up without a problem.

“What’s the big rush, Mom?” Bob asked as they skidded slightly on a curve.

She slowed down. “We’re trying to get going on the Markov depositions, but we’re having trouble with Mike Markov’s lawyer.”

“Deposition. That’s where you interview the people in the case and it’s all written down, right? And then later you trip them up when they say something different during the trial.”

“How did you know that?”

He shrugged. “I think from TV.”

At Bob’s school, trucks and SUVs and Subarus jammed the parking lot. She kissed him good-bye and watched him disappear into the white, ru

Through the rest of November and into December, Nina continued to fight with Riesner over what documents would be produced at the depositions, which had to be postponed twice so they could go before the Hearing Examiner and obtain rulings. Riesner refused all her calls and she had to fax every communication.

Professional courtesy in this case consisted of faxing motions at five o’clock on Friday so the other guy got them on Monday and lost three days of prep time, informal press conferences in which the object was to influence the entire jury pool, and stonewalling on each and every interrogatory.

She had known how it would go and she paid back each trick, even adding a few of her own. She became friendly with Barbet Schroeder of the Tahoe Mirror and fed her tasty tidbits once a week until Barbet was following her around with her tongue hanging out. The producer of a show on Court TV called and asked what she thought about televising the trial. This kept her up a few nights, until the producer finally called back and said it wasn’t going to happen as there was a juicy sex murder going at the same time in Indianapolis that they had chosen to televise instead.

Lindy called almost every day, demanding detailed progress reports.

“But this case is going very quickly,” Nina reminded her.

“Being broke sure got old fast. Whenever I come into town, Alice has to pay for everything. I hate it. I feel like I owe everyone something all of a sudden. I want this thing resolved. I want to see the look on Rachel’s face when Mike loses. I want my money.”

Nina knew how she felt.

Lindy was spending a fair amount of her time raising hell at the casinos with Alice. A few oblique references in the paper gave way to full-blown mentions on the gossip page of the San Francisco paper after one incident, when they were both thrown out of Prize’s Club.

During one of Lindy’s late night calls to Nina’s house, Nina asked Lindy about it.

“They blow every little thing I do out of proportion,” Lindy said. “Except for that one night. The night before going to Prize’s, I saw Mike. I’m not going to go into that. It was bad. Alice and I went out the next evening to play craps. I guess I had more than my share to drink. She hardly ever drinks but she kept me company. Then we got onto the topic of her divorce and that really set her off. Well, you saw how she gets. She pulled out that stupid gun. Took a few potshots at the craps table.”

“My God!” Nina said. “Did she hit anyone?”

“She hit the table,” Lindy said. By now, she was laughing. “She’s such a nut. I don’t know if she did it out of anger or just to cheer me up because I was losing. I doubt she could tell you, either.”

“Were you arrested?”

“She knew the pit boss so they didn’t call the police. They just tossed us out of there like sacks of rotten potatoes.”

“Lindy, this is serious. No matter how bad you feel, you need to keep a low profile. All of the jurors in your case will come from this area. You don’t want them reading about your wild, drunken exploits right before they decide whether to give you money for being such a hardworking businesswoman, now do you?”

“You’re right, Nina. I’m sorry.”

“And another thing. Your friend should not have a gun.”

“She doesn’t anymore. I took it away from her right then and there.”

“Where is the gun, now?”

“I hid it in my suitcase. She won’t find it there, because she’s a privacy freak.”

After calling Paul’s number in Carmel for weeks and not reaching him, she called his office ten days before Christmas and got a new number for him in Washington. “Run, run as fast as you can,” she teased when he answered. “I will still catch you.”

“I could swear I left my new number on your machine one lonely evening when you were out carousing with another man,” Paul said.

“More like having a late meeting.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, but he didn’t sound worried.

“Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to call more often. I’m really swamped. Why did you change hotels?”

“They moved me to an apartment at the Watergate. It’s more comfortable than a hotel room.”

“More of a long-term place,” she said.

“Well, yes. I couldn’t spend all my time in a hotel. That’s no life.”