Case of Lies

As for herself, she had a strong need for Flint to be caught to avoid further harm and because of Chelsi.

So-help catch Flint. The course was still clear.

Her thoughts turned to Elliott. He hid the notebook, she thought, good for him, he let it out of his sight. She hoped he hadn’t buried it in his garden just before a rainstorm. Elliott, she thought, you’re going to have to give it up, the pressure’s too intense, these Pythagoreans are going to drown you if you don’t let them suppress your discovery.

This mad insistence on finishing the proof-Nina was more familiar now with the math culture, how mathematicians hid in their garrets for years working alone to finish their proofs. A mathematician named Wiles had kept up this solitary secrecy for seven years while working on his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, so others could not piggyback on his work, finish the proof first, and have their names linked with his work forever.

In the end, mathematicians seemed to be artists of form and number as surely as Picasso was an artist of form and color. They were sensitive and jealous of their work like artists, too. Pure mathematicians didn’t have much to do with the eventual applications of their work. Look at peaceable Einstein, whose work had helped to split the atom.

What would Elliott do? Elliott with his damping coefficient, his hidden variable behind the veil…

Resting in that comfortable seat with the drone of the plane and the secure presence of the pilot in his headphones beside her, Nina felt the fatigue of the last month. She closed her eyes and, as happens sometimes, remembered the piggyback dream, allowed it to come to life within her. Yes, the scary old lady approaching her in the lurid half-light of dreams, scary because she was very ugly, smiling toothlessly. Unstoppable, that was what made her so frightening. She hunched her way toward Nina, who in the way of dreams stood petrified. As she came closer, she began to gesture and Nina tried desperately to understand. She wanted something. What? What?

A piggyback ride. This time Nina bent down in her dream and let the old lady climb on her back. She was heavy and her arms clung tightly. Nina began crawling on all fours. She felt fine now, like she was getting somewhere…

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket and she jumped back into wakefulness. She took it out and saw that Sandy was calling, but the pilot had spotted the phone and shook his head and motioned for her to turn it off, so she couldn’t take the call.

Ahead she saw the peaks of the ten-thousand-footers that ringed Tahoe. She would visit Sergeant Cheney and spill her guts again. She would call Betty Jo, see how Jimmy Bova was doing. Had she gone with Wish to the Ace High only the night before? It seemed like a century ago.

They had begun their descent. The great lake shimmered in its bowl.

What had Bova tried to tell her? Flint wanted him to tell Nina that he didn’t kill that woman. He must have meant Sarah Ha

Flint had said, “Nobody rides piggyback on me.” That was how Nina’s dream had returned to her; the phrase was sitting in the back of her mind, waiting to be processed.

She let it all turn to a mishmash in her mind and watched the mountains, and two phrases kept going round and round.

Hidden variable. Ride piggyback.

The case has a hidden variable, she thought. Can’t figure it out the way I’ve been thinking. Look behind the veil. Ride piggyback.

Somebody’s piggybacking. The hidden variable is piggybacking. On something.

“Nobody rides piggyback on me.”

Meaning… meaning… he had done the robbery, no question of that. Did he mean that someone had piggybacked on the robbery?

Shot Sarah Ha

Someone else? The timing had been so quick.

The chill spread downward and rooted in hell. If Flint hadn’t shot Sarah, had run, and someone had picked up the gun, then who had killed Chelsi, and Silke, and Raj?

Who was the hidden variable?

31

SANDY AND WISH WAITED AT THE runway. The cold dry air of the mountains filled Nina’s lungs.

“Sergeant Cheney called. Flint is at Dave Ha

“What?”

“He’s got Mr. Ha

No one acted as fast as Flint. Nina blinked back tears. “I can’t stand to lose him, Sandy. Not another death.”

“He’s still alive, we think. The Placerville police got a 911 from Roger Freeman and surrounded the house. We figured you’d want to get down there.”

Wish took her briefcase. “I’m driving.”

They tore over Echo Summit, careened down the winding Highway 50. Nina sat in the back, holding the oh-shit strap in the ceiling, numbly watching the snowbanks turn to patchy white.

She descended for the second time that day, from winter back to autumn. Sandy had brought the ru

A parked police car and a yellow tape across the entry to Ha

There were a dozen police and sheriff’s-department cars a few hundred feet down, past two empty houses. An ambulance idled in back. Ha

Roger Freeman stood with Sergeant Cheney. He was shouting something, gesticulating. “Stay here,” Nina said to Sandy and Wish. Sandy nodded.

“Roger,” Nina said.

Roger’s arm came down. “Dave’s a hostage,” he said. “I couldn’t protect him after all.”

Sergeant Cheney said, “I thought you’d be along.”

“What happened?” she asked Roger.

“I came over at two to check on Dave. He usually starts drinking at noon, but he promised me he’d stay sober. He said he could take care of himself. Dave’s got a rifle. We used to hunt together. I thought he’d be okay during the daylight hours. What could I do? He wouldn’t come stay with me.”

“I should have tried to have him put into protective custody. But Flint moves so fast. I worried, but I didn’t really know he’d go after Dave,” Nina said.

“The gate was like that, and I knew something was wrong. I called to him from outside. Flint shot at me. I heard Dave shout for help, and that’s the last I’ve heard from him.”

“I don’t think he meant to hit Roger,” Cheney said. “The shot went wide.”

“Are you sure there’s nobody else in there?” Nina said.

“Doesn’t seem to be,” Cheney said.

“What’s happening now?”

Cheney said, “Placerville police are trying to make contact. He won’t answer the phone, so they’re going to try a bullhorn.”

“He’ll kill Dave if he wants to,” Nina said. “He’s a security expert. He’ll know whatever hostage-rescue protocol you use.”

“If we hear a shot, we’ll rush the house. That’s all we plan to do now. When night comes we can do more. Aerosols and so on. Meantime, he has to see that if he shoots again we’ll rush the house.”

“You talked to Jimmy Bova last night, Sergeant.”

“Yes. Flint again.”

“He-Flint-was trying to communicate with me. Did Bova tell you that?”

“It was just junk talk.”

“I think he believes he didn’t kill Sarah Ha

“Then he’s a liar,” he said. “Or delusional.”

His radio crackled and he stepped away from them.

Roger slumped against a police car. It was five in the afternoon and the shadows lengthened, leaving the house dark. “I’m going to tell you something. The truth is, I never liked Dave. Not from the first day I met him, hanging on Sarah at the Sacramento County Fair. Now I’m wondering if he wouldn’t stay with me because he knew it all along. Because he’s proud. Then Flint wouldn’t have found him at home.”