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“Can I talk to him?”
“Sure. Hang on.”
Ha
“Hi. I called to see how you were.”
“Fine. My rib hurts but I have some pills. There are people here. I can’t talk long.”
“I’m glad you made it,” Nina said. “I wanted to apologize. For getting you into it. I guess I really did get Flint going.”
“Yeah, he blamed you for everything. Not that he wasn’t about to kill me, when the cops came.”
“I’m sorry. For what you went through.”
“That’s what I get, for letting Roger and Chelsi talk me into hiring you. It was them, too, pushing, pushing. Flint went crazy.”
“Did he say anything to you-anything strange?”
“Like what?”
“That he didn’t kill Sarah?”
“The opposite. He was real clear about it. He did it.” She heard someone talking in the background. “There’s a guy here who wants to buy the rights to my story. Do you know a lawyer who handles stuff like that?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Listen, I’m go
“How about if we talk tomorrow about it?” Nina said.
“If you want. Bye.”
Nina hung up. She felt sick. It was the whole Ha
Wish burst through the door, Sandy right behind him. “Have to talk to you right now,” he said breathlessly.
Nina held her hand to her chest. “Not another murder!”
He dropped into a chair. Sandy had locked up outside. She took the other client chair. “Stop scaring us, Willis,” she said. “What is it?”
“I talked to Cheney. He says the coroner gave him a preliminary report this morning. The coroner told him that Lee Flint had bruising on his arms and legs and cheeks.”
“So? Dave struggled with him.”
“It’s not like that, Nina,” Wish said slowly.
“Well, out with it,” Sandy told him.
“These are specific marks of being tied up. You know, in the chair at the Ha
“The chair Dave was tied in?”
“Sergeant Cheney had just talked to the hospital. Mr. Ha
“Flint was tied up? Not Dave?” Nina said. “You’re confusing me, Wish.”
“No, you have it exactly right. Flint was tied up, not Mr. Ha
“Why?”
“It’s about our client, Nina. Are you ready?”
“Go ahead,” Nina said.
“The fingerprint report came in on the gun Meredith gave you. The one used in the robbery.”
“And?”
“There was a surprise.”
“Which was?”
“Mr. Ha
Nina said, puzzled, “Dave handled the gun? When could he have done that?”
“Yes, when?” Wish said. “You see?”
“Slow down,” Sandy said. “I’m still thinking about bruises.”
Nina swung her legs down. She put her hands on the desk. “Dave touched the gun.”
“Yes.”
“He came ru
Sandy objected, “But Meredith saw him coming down. That’s when she picked up the gun, when she saw him on the staircase, yelling.”
“If she’s telling the truth, he couldn’t have touched it-”
Wish said, “You see? Unless he had already been down there-”
“And he was going back up the stairs?”
“Not coming down to get help?” Sandy said.
“Going back up, after he touched the gun,” Nina said. “I don’t like what I’m thinking.” The shock made it hard to think clearly. “No possible mistake about the fingerprint?” she said.
“No. It was from his hunting license.”
“He saw the attempted robbery from the balcony, with his wife,” Nina said. “He saw Elliott rush Flint and knock the gun out of his hand. There was an interval between the first two shots and the third shot.”
“The students and Flint-they must have all run away after the second shot,” Wish said.
“What are you saying, Willis?” Sandy demanded. “You’re not saying our client fired the third shot?”
“What do you think, Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nina?” Wish said.
“Let’s say he came ru
“But he didn’t have time to think. He only had time to run halfway up again and pretend he was coming down for the first time when she saw him.”
“He just didn’t have time to deal with the gun,” Nina said.
“There you go,” Wish said.
“I don’t believe it,” Sandy said. “Why would he kill his wife? She was pregnant!”
“Yes. She was thirty-eight and she taught school and she was going to have a baby,” Nina said. “His baby.”
“I just don’t believe it.”
“Hang on.” Nina held up a hand. She struggled with a feeling so intense she couldn’t speak for a minute.
Betrayal. To be betrayed like this by her own client hurt. She breathed in and out, trying to think.
Sandy was still saying it couldn’t be true, but Wish just stared at Nina as she tried to encompass the enormity of Ha
Finally she said, “Remember what Jimmy Bova told me at the Ace High? Flint attacked him because he thought Bova might have shot Sarah. But Bova convinced him he didn’t.”
Sandy’s eyes narrowed into an expression Nina didn’t recognize. Her face changed. Her nose stood out prominently, nostrils wide. Her lips became a thin line.
“I’m starting to believe it,” she said. “Because the next man Flint went to see, the very next day, was-”
“Our client,” Wish said. “He started in on Mr. Ha
“But Flint was making Mr. Ha
“Ha
“And outside, everyone believed it was a hostage situation,” Wish said.
Sandy said, “He was safe that whole time? I don’t want to believe it, because then that man is so cruel. Cruel!”
“Letting Roger and everyone worry,” Wish said. “And he was fine, he was just trying to figure out how to keep Flint from talking.”
“Cruel,” Sandy repeated, shaking her head. Nina closed her eyes and thought back to the awful moments in Placerville when Dave was talking to her on the phone, pretending to relay Flint’s statements.
It was Dave, cruel Dave, who had told her it was all her fault.
When it was really Dave’s fault, Dave who killed his wife and tried to hide his secret, Dave who obstructed Nina’s efforts to find Sarah’s killer.
But Dave couldn’t know then that the robber whose gun he picked up and used wasn’t a random robber, wasn’t some punk off the streets of downtown Reno.
Lee Flint didn’t know who had killed the woman whose death he was being blamed for. He watched and waited for two years while the police investigation fizzled and the civil case wheezed toward dismissal. Then, when Nina came in, he started his own investigation. And he started covering his tracks, eliminating witnesses.
“Ha