Unfit to Practice

Holy-Sandy could leave her? Before she had time to absorb the blow, Wish spoke again.

“Don’t worry, Nina. Don’t get the wrong idea. She would never leave you high and dry. She just went to tell them no. Oh, and she left a note-something she wanted me to tell you.” He shuffled papers. “Here it is. ‘I talked to that graphologist lady after court when I was up there.’ ”

“That’s all it says?”

“Uh oh. There seems to be a second part missing. I tossed a bunch of these tiny sticky yellow slips a few minutes ago. Hang on and I’ll look.”

“Wish, I’m sorry. I don’t have time to wait right now. Tell you what. You call me if you find it, okay?”

“Mom won’t like this. She said it was real important.” He shuffled a few more papers. “But I guess it’ll have to wait. Nina?”

“Yes?”

“Is Brandy around?”

“Not today, Wish.”

The phone on the other side went down with a clunk. When Wish picked it up, he sounded congested. “I’ve got a major problem.”

“Brandy?”

“I can’t stop thinking about her. There’s no future for us because she loves that guy. Maybe someone else will come along like her, someone that-”

“Wish, she’s going to marry Bruce-”

“I’ve been thinking about generosity. Courage. All that stuff. How good people do the right thing even if it costs them. And don’t complain or even blow their own horns about it after, you know, except maybe Peter Pan. He was an awful braggart.”

“Is there something I can help you with, Wish?” She didn’t have time, but he sounded so woeful.

“Let me talk to Paul, okay? I’ll call back when I find that paper Mom wrote.”

Paul had reappeared at her side. She handed the phone to him and went to get her things from the witness waiting room.

“I took your advice,” Wish told Paul. “I told Bruce Ford to get circumcised.”

“You-what?”

“Just think, a girl caring so much that her fiancé wasn’t circumcised that she couldn’t marry him, but was still too chicken to tell him how he could fix things. She’d leave him first!”

Paul put a hand to his mouth to keep it shut.

“What’s fu

“It was the right thing to do.”

Wish made an inarticulate sound.

“Wish, I’m sorry. I have to go.” Nina was standing over in front of the metal detector, pointing to her watch. “Nina says thanks for taking care of the office.”

On the way out, they almost collided with Kevin, who was coming out of the state bar’s witness waiting room and into the hallway, hustling like a man with a plan.

Nina grabbed Paul’s arm, waved good-bye to a surprised Jack, and led him to the stairs. “Let’s go. Kevin already caught an elevator.”

They made their way down to the first floor and into the narrow, T-shaped plaza beside the building in record time and sca

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to stay so close? What if they see us?” Nina fretted.

“We need to be close in case they leave, Nina. We need to watch them.” Paul adjusted a small earpiece that led to a wire directly into his shirt pocket.

“I never saw a white man’s face so red. I’m thinking, I’m hoping he’s mad enough that he gives someone a piece of his mind and we hear every word. But even if we do, Paul, it’s illegal, listening in like this. We can’t use anything we hear in court.”

“We want to know what’s going on,” Paul said. “The rest will follow.”

“Oh, no,” she worried as lunchtime pedestrians whizzed past. “I hope he’s not too mad.”

“All we said was that there’s a change of plans, meet me, essentially.” Paul peered around the fountain. “Kevin’s there sitting on one of those concrete benches, puffing on a cigarette,” he said, holding his finger to his ear. “And it’s quiet. Reception’s good.” Invisible construction efforts involving orange cones had most of the traffic on Spear Street at a dead halt. “I can hear him thinking.”

“If it’s Riesner, he’s thinking Riesner’s going to screw him. If it’s Scholl, she’s going to turn him in. Did you get your gun back from security when we left court?”

“I did.”

“Because I don’t want you to use it.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Litter flew in the wind in misty whirlpools. Nina pulled her jacket tighter. “Too much fog. I can hardly see the spot.”

“It could be worse,” Paul said. “It could be raining.”

“No sign of anyone,” Nina said. “Oh, God, Paul. What if nobody comes?”

Paul stood beside her, eyes narrowed, head turning from side to side. “Don’t these thousands of people have anything better to do on a March afternoon than wander the town? We should have chosen a spot with fewer than seven thousand people at a time.”

“They would want to meet in a public place. Somewhere close to the court.” The letters had been short and to the point. To recipients Scholl and Riesner, Mrs. Gleb had happily, chuckling and drinking tea all the while, forged two separate notes that said, “I changed my mind. I won’t testify. I’ll meet you down in the plaza right outside the state bar building at the Spear Street entrance at twelve-fifteen today if you want to know why.” The signature at the bottom, KC, had all the small crabbed character of Kevin’s real signature, which Nina had brought her.

To Kevin, she had sent another note: “You won’t be testifying. Meet me at twelve-fifteen where the plaza outside the state bar building opens onto Spear Street.” She hadn’t signed it.

If there was no conspiracy, there was no reason for anyone to show up, including Kevin. They would all be mystified, and would continue with the process of bringing Nina to her knees.

“Nina, look.” Paul thrashed back and ducked down, pushing her down beside him.

“Ow. I don’t see anyone.” She poked her head around the fountain. Leading with his finger, he pointed the way.

“What?”

“Can’t you see? It’s Jean Scholl, right by that wall, keeping out of sight.”

So it was Scholl. She had responded to their forged note. Scholl was behind the whole thing. Nina’s thoughts made her shiver. All this because she had crossed the wrong cop in the ordinary course of her business. It seemed incredible, impossible, but here was the living proof.

Simply doing her job was dangerous. Her brother, Matt, had said that more than once.

“See her now?”

“No.”

“Her back is to us, but I’d recognize that rear end anywhere.”

“But, Paul, why is she hiding? Isn’t she supposed to be meeting Kevin?”

“Don’t know,” he said shortly. She noticed his hand.

“There’ll be no shooting here!” she said. “There are too many people! Someone could get hurt!”

“Nina. Nobody gets hurt if they behave. That goes double for you. Now what have we here?”

Kevin Cruz came walking up and looked around. He put his hands in his pockets.

“What’s Scholl doing?” Nina asked, rubbing her ankle with her hand.

“Watching. Waiting.”

Kevin checked his watch.

“He came, Paul. That means he expects to meet her. So why is she hanging back?”

Paul started to laugh. He laughed so hard for so long, Nina got worried. “What’s the matter with you?” she said.

“It’s Scholl,” he finally gasped out. “She’s-she’s-”

“She’s what?”

Suddenly, Kevin shifted his body so that he was facing toward the street, away from them. He tensed with anticipation.

“Someone else is coming,” Nina said.