Case of Lies

It was past ten. Kurt and Bob waited for them at the back door. The Citroën was ru

Kurt was waiting in the driver’s seat. Nina sat beside him. Bob and Elliott Wakefield sat in back.

Nina realized he hadn’t made a plan during the long hours he had been waiting. Elliott lapsed into a daze in back, gazing dully out the window at nothing.

“The first thing is, let’s get out of here,” Kurt said after a moment. He put the little car in gear and drove swiftly through the town.

“My stuff,” Elliott said from the back seat. So he was still with them mentally. “At the hotel.”

“We’ll have it picked up tomorrow, okay?”

“But where am I going? To the airport?”

“We can’t, not yet,” Nina said. “We have to stay at least through tomorrow. The police-”

“Screw the police! It happened at the police station!”

“You can stay with us,” Kurt said quietly, cutting through it again. “It’ll be safe. No one knows my address.”

“Maybe he’s following us,” Bob said.

“I’d know it.” Kurt was right. The Citroën’s humbleness provided a novel way to avoid a tail. They were on the autobahn, in the slow lane, moving so slowly the cars seemed to whiz past. Anybody following the Citroën would be obvious.

“Silke,” Elliott said, and began sobbing.

PART THREE

We must know; we will know.

– DAVID HILBERT

23

NINA TOSSED IN THE BED AS if floating on a creaky ship in a storm. Yellow streetlight fa

She was through sleeping. Maybe she could sneak by Elliott’s couch and get a glass of milk. She threw back the covers and padded quietly toward the kitchen. But Elliott, dressed in Kurt’s bathrobe, was poking at the fireplace. The living room was stuffy, almost hot. He had turned on a small lamp on the side table.

“Hello,” he said. Red, swollen eyes turned her way.

“Sorry to bother you. I was just on my way to the kitchen. How are you doing?”

“I’m hungry,” Elliott said. They never had gotten around to di

“Then we’ll eat.” She went into the kitchen, found a pan and melted some butter, and added a half-dozen eggs, moving quietly so as not to wake Bob and Kurt, although in the old apartment with its thick walls they might as well have been a block away.

Elliott followed her. “My father makes them with curry and tarragon,” he said. He sounded pitiful. He was a complete stranger, but Nina felt she knew him well. She had been thinking about him, sought him, for some time, and the fact that he had been saved with her linked them.

“Will salt and pepper do? I could grate in some cheese.”

“Sure. Anything. I’m starving.”

“Do you want to talk?” she asked Elliott when the plates were set on the coffee table.

“This is good.” He was already eating like someone famished. He had a doughy face, not unpleasant, rimless glasses, tousled sandy hair. A budding academic if she had ever seen one.

But few academics would say what Elliott said next. “I’ll kill whoever did it,” he said. Nina sat down next to the fireplace, which began baking her right side, wondering how to respond. “I’ll do anything. What should I do?”

“Your life is in danger.”

“So’s yours.”

“And my client’s and maybe others.”

“It’s all about that stupid robbery. How many people has he murdered?”

“Four,” Nina said. “Sarah Ha

“My friends. I’ll do the deposition. I’ll lay out everything I know. I told the officer here-when he took me in the back room-I told him everything I could think of.”

“That would be courageous of you, to do a deposition in my case now.”

“Do we have to do it here, though? He’s here.”

“I’d feel more comfortable back at Tahoe. I have a friend there, a private investigator, who can help us both with protection.”

“Is my father in danger? He’s disabled. But we have an alarm system.”

“I don’t know. But you should alert him,” Nina said honestly. “Let’s do this. Let’s go back to Tahoe and get you on the record as fast as possible. You can talk to the police there. Then go home to Seattle, and you and your father can decide what to do.”

“I can’t figure out if it was the money or my notebook,” Elliott mumbled. “Do you have any whiskey?” Kurt had a table near the kitchen with bottles on it. Elliott brought back a glass for her.

When he had stretched out again on the couch and had a good slug of the stuff, Nina said carefully, “What’s your guess? Was it the money?”

“You already know about it? The card counting?”

“Mm-hmm.” She thought, What were these kids up to?

“We had about thirty-five thousand in wi

“You had fifty-five thousand dollars on you the night of the robbery?”

“You get used to it. With three of us, we felt pretty safe. We took measures. We never flashed that much money. We stayed in cheap places and drove cheap cars. But I was wi

“Where were you playing?”

“Harrah’s first. Then Prize’s. We had supper, then we gambled for about four hours. About average. Who told you about the card counting?”

“Silke, on the phone.” Silke wouldn’t have objected to Nina using her name to elicit the story, Nina felt sure. “She had the cash?”

“Oh, God. Silke.”

“No offense, Elliott,” Nina said gently, “but it sounds to me like you were in love with Silke.”

“I’m still in love with her. I’ll never love anybody else. Only her.” He drank some more, but his voice stayed steady. “Let’s have another one.”

“Let’s wait, Elliott. Talk to me a little more first.”

“Okay.”

“You had already crossed the street and you walked through the covered entry to the vending machines when it happened, right?”

“The three of us. Silke was thirsty. I gave her some change for a soda. She had just put the money in the vending machine when this guy comes in from the street with a ski mask on.”

“What else do you remember about him?”

“I’m sure Silke told you this. He-something was wrong with his left leg. The foot turned outward. But he could still move fast.”

“Yes. He moves very fast.” So it had definitely been the shooter who followed Nina and Bob at Spooner Lake. Bob had told her about the limp. “He has been watching me and my son too,” she said, her voice shaking. “He tried to kill us, too.”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“What happened then?”

“He came up behind us and said, ‘Turn around slowly.’ I couldn’t see the gun very well, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I had never seen a real gun before. There wasn’t much light. The window to the office was right behind us and I was hoping the clerk was dialing 911. Raj said, ‘Everyone please be cool.’ Silke pressed up against him. Her bag was hanging off her shoulder.

“The man said to Silke, ‘Give me your bag.’ She took it off and laid it on the ground in front of her. Then he said, ‘Empty out your pockets and take off your jackets and leave them, too.’ I couldn’t do that.”