Case of Lies

“Stop it, Roger. Flint might have come to your house. You might be a hostage, too.”

“Dave said he had his rifle. He’s a good shot. We’ve hunted wild boar, wild turkeys, deer together. But he’s a drunk.”

“You couldn’t prevent it.”

“What did Flint think he could gain?”

“It’s a surefire way to end a lawsuit,” Nina said. “Dispose of the plaintiff. It’s no way to end a murder investigation, though. Flint is very violent, Roger. Thank you for checking on Dave and calling the police. I believe he would have been dead hours ago if you hadn’t. Flint would have come and gone.”

“I don’t know if Dave is alive or dead,” Roger said. He breathed out heavily. “I don’t feel well at all. It’s too much. My daughter.” He slipped to the ground. “I’m so tired,” he said.

“Do you need a doctor?”

“Just tired.”

“I’ll be right back.” Nina ran to the van and asked Wish for help. Together they brought Roger back and laid him down in the back seat, covering him with Wish’s parka. “Rest there,” Nina said. “If you don’t feel better soon, we’ll get you to an ER.”

Sandy had been standing by. She said, “What now?”

“It’ll get dark, and they’ll make a move.”

They heard an amplified bullhorn. Nina could see a uniformed man holding it. “Mr. Flint, please pick up the phone. That’s all we ask. We are not interfering with you. Please pick up the phone so we can talk. We need to find out what you need right now.” He lowered it and waited. Nothing happened.

“He doesn’t need a gun to kill Ha

“Maybe he’d like to talk to me,” she said. “He sent me a message last night. Maybe he wants to know how I reacted.”

“Let the cops handle it,” Sandy advised.

“I’m going to ask Cheney.” The sergeant was huddled with a group of Placerville deputies on a neighboring property. Nina steeled herself and went to him. “He might talk to me,” she said. “He has said that he wants to talk to me.”

One of the deputies said, “He’s not talking to anybody.” But Cheney puffed out his cheeks and considered her.

“Better to let trained people try,” he said eventually.

“They’ve been trying.”

“You’d be out of range. You’d be safe.”

“I’m willing.”

“I don’t know. You’re not known for your soothing qualities. What makes you think you can sweet-talk him?”

“I’ll just ask if there’s anything he wants to tell me,” Nina said. “If he doesn’t respond, I’ll get out of the way. I’m very worried about my client, Sergeant. His brother-in-law has collapsed and his wife and his niece have been killed by this asshole. I’m all he has out here. Just knowing that I’m here might help Dave.”

“I’ll go talk to the guy in charge.”

She went back to the car. Roger was sitting up in back, drinking from a bottle of water. Sandy and Wish sat in fold-out beach chairs behind the car.

“Better?” she said.

“I think I had an anxiety attack,” he said. “I felt dizzy, but I’m better now.”

“Good.” She went around the car.

“How’s it going?” Sandy asked. She was just sitting there, under an oak tree that hung over the street, looking comfortable with her legs up on the fender, a thermos on the ground and a cup in her hand. Wish read the Placerville want ads.

“No change. You look all right.”

“As long as it takes,” Sandy said.

“You should go home. I can get a lift with Sergeant Cheney later.”

“Listen to her,” Sandy said to Wish, shaking her head. “Thinks we’re going home.”

“He’s our client,” Wish said to Nina. “We can’t go home until he’s okay.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“We’re sitting with him,” Sandy said. “He’s in there, we’re out here, but we’re with him. He needs us.”

“You need us,” Wish said. He got up and made her sit in his chair. “Coffee,” he said. “Long night ahead, maybe.”

At the bottom of the hill where the police had stopped traffic, Nina could see many more lights and people. “Reporters,” she said. “I wonder what they know.” She drank the coffee gratefully.

Nothing happened for over an hour, except that the sun did a lot of things that must go on every evening, which she didn’t often notice: It sent sharp rays through the trees, it sparkled in the west on a neighbor’s chimney, it withdrew its warmth, it disappeared, leaving its radiant trail. The police grouped and regrouped, talked on their radios, moved their cars around. Now and then the officer with the bullhorn repeated his request that Flint pick up the phone. The Ha

At seven Wish braved the reporters to bring back pizza. Roger huddled in a blanket in the car, and Nina and Sandy continued their vigil from the plastic chairs. It reminded Nina of a Fourth of July at Tahoe when she and Bob had sat on the beach at North Shore with a crowd of people waiting endlessly for the first burst of fireworks in the sky, but the mood was very different now.

They were waiting, helplessly, for a tragedy.

Cheney found them a few minutes later. He ambled up and leaned against the van. “It’s full dark now,” he said. “The talk is of trying tear gas. I mentioned your offer to the Crisis Negotiation Team. The officer in charge wasn’t interested an hour ago, but he just told me if you want to talk through the horn, just to ask if Flint wants to talk to you, he’ll allow that. He’ll be beside you to coach you if Flint responds. If nothing happens, things are going to get rough.”

“Right now?” Nina said.

“Right now.” He extended a hand and Nina took it.

“Hold the fort,” she told Sandy, an old joke between them.

“Good luck,” Wish said. Nina and Cheney moved carefully from car to car, until they came to two uniformed police directly across the street from the house, standing in the dirt of a neighbor’s flower bed. One of them held the bullhorn. “Officer Christian. Nina Reilly,” Cheney said.

“You’re the hostage’s lawyer?” Officer Christian said. He was a tired, square-jawed young man who barely looked at her.

“That’s right.”

“You say Flint has attempted to communicate with you?”

Nina explained.

“There has been zero action inside ever since our arrival. We’re about to quit this attempt. My concern is that you might say something that will set off an incident.”

“I know. I understand.”

“Here’s what you’ll say.” They rehearsed for a couple of minutes. Christian warned her about her tone, which he said would be more crucial than her words. The gravity of what she was about to do made her throat feel tight. All around her were silent police officers standing amid flashing red lights.

“Go.” He showed her how to hold the horn. A cord ran from it to the nearby police car. It was heavy and awkward and rusty. She held it up with both hands.

“Mr. Flint? Mr. Flint, are you there?” She waited a moment to allow the fact of her female voice to sink in inside the house, and to recover from the shock of hearing her voice amplified from, it seemed, Sacramento to Reno. “Mr. Flint, I’m Nina Reilly. I’d like to help. If you’d like to talk to me, all you have to do is pick up the phone. I’m calling you right now.” A uniformed woman nodded and dialed the Ha

“Do you need anything? I’m right outside, and I can help.”

“It’s ringing,” the officer said.

“It won’t hurt just to talk for a minute,” Nina said through the horn.

The officer passed her the phone. Just like that. Nina dropped the horn and it made a loud protest. “Hello? Hello?”

“He says, nobody try anything.”

“Dave?” The voice was ragged, gasping, but recognizable. “It’s Ha