“Heritage’s first offer is in. They’re starting at a hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
“Glory be,” Nina said.
“It’s like the miracle of loaves and fishes.”
They experienced a rare moment of perfect harmony. Sandy approved. Nina was elated. Sandy liked Nina to win for the less powerful in the community, and Nina liked to imagine that occasionally she actually helped to alleviate some human suffering, her way of giving back to the planet. Even more important, she felt that justice would be served. Wrongs would be compensated. The system was working.
“They’ve decided to work with us,” Nina said. “Call the court and tell the judge’s clerk I’ll be a few minutes late.” Picking up her own line, she called the adjuster, thanked her, and refused the offer.
“But we can’t even read the receipts. As you well know,” Marilyn Rose said.
“Did you see the medical photos?” Nina said. “It makes me ashamed. They come all the way here to start a new life in the land of freedom and-”
“All right already. I’ll get back to you.”
Thursday brought another call. “Two hundred ten thousand,” said Marilyn. “That’s the best I can do.”
“What’s the point?” Nina said. “Why not pay out the limit?”
“Because that puts some new procedures in place with some different oversight. Trust me, you don’t want to go for the limit. Look, you’ve probably only got about sixty thousand that actually meets our documentation standards. This is it, Nina. I’m not holding back a nickel of what I got approved.”
“I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Thanks.” Thrilled, Nina called Dr. Mai and the Vangs and told them about the offer. “I think we should sleep on it,” she said. “Maybe I can squeeze out another ten thousand.”
“It is wonderful. Wonderful,” Dr. Mai said. “Kao calls me every day. He never expected so much, I know.”
“Does the family still plan to return to Laos?”
Dr. Mai hesitated. “It is complicated. Everything in Kao’s life is complicated.” He seemed unwilling to explain further. Again Nina had the feeling that no amount of reading about Hmong culture would give her much useful insight into the family’s American experience. Dr. Mai seemed unnaturally restrained to her, as if he felt shy about sharing the extent of the family’s suffering.
Maybe they were just the kind of people who disliked having to ask for help of any kind. Or perhaps Dr. Mai’s reluctance arose out of embarrassment that the people who had snuffed out Kao’s livelihood and who would come after any money he might possess came from his own hills and his own culture.
“I will call you tomorrow,” she said.
That last call to Dr. Mai had occurred on Thursday, September 6, four days earlier.
And that night, that ill-starred night, wanting to take one more look through her notes to decide whether to try for a larger claim or just shake hands with the princess of generosity who had adjusted the claim, Nina had taken Kao Vang’s file home in the Bronco. The file had been right on top in Nina’s briefcase in the backseat-not the enormous claim file, which was safe, but the client- intake file with her notes of her interviews with Kao and the notes regarding negotiations.
Just the notes that could tell Kao’s enemies just how much money was involved, and contained her speculations that he knew exactly who they were.
And the Vangs’ home address, which they hadn’t wanted to give her. Gone.
Nina hadn’t called Marilyn Rose at Heritage that Friday. She had waited until now to meet with Dr. Mai. Today she had to tell him. Taking a deep breath of cool mountain air, she strapped herself back into the rental car and drove on.
The Strawberry Lodge was a big, beat-up, green-roofed, barnlike edifice alongside the highway. Usually you could stop for a cup of coffee there, and the place bustled on weekends, even in fall. In winter there was cross-country skiing and sledding down the hill, but today, an off-season Monday, the weekend fun-lovers had deserted. A few rebel stragglers had parked SUVs out front. She parked the rental and went inside.
Dr. Mai waited for her on the wooden deck outside the coffee shop in back. In the near distance, the American River, low in September, more like a creek in this spot, swished along. Dr. Mai wore the same suit, a bit thin at the knees, the same shirt, the same dusty sandals, and that somber visage, the look of the priest who can’t understand how the world could have sunk so low. She wondered for a moment what his story was, what persecutions he had endured, what had driven him from his homeland.
No time to find out today.
Sitting across from him at a rustic table, drinking from a glass of water, she gazed out at the scruffy dry grass and trees beyond. “I need to speak with Kao,” she said. “He is my client. I’m concerned about confidentiality.”
“I am his agent and adviser in all legal matters,” Dr. Mai said, not moving.
His demeanor toward her had changed indefinably, and she felt even more uncomfortable, but she had no choice. The information had to be conveyed today.
“You have accepted the offer?” he asked. “The money will be available when?”
“I haven’t called the company back yet. The offer is still on the table. Dr. Mai, I-I’m afraid another matter has come up.”
Dr. Mai unfolded a piece of paper in English with the signature
“Kao Vang didn’t write this himself,” Nina said. The paper appeared to have been copied by hand from a legal form book and was correct in form.
“He asked me to write it. He signed. He dated.”
“All right. We’ll get back to this in a moment. May I please speak to you about the matter about which I contacted you?” They had moved somehow to a very formal basis.
Dr. Mai pushed up his glasses. “Speak, then,” he said.
“Kao Vang’s file has been stolen,” she said. Keeping the story short and straight, she explained the circumstances. As she spoke, not sparing herself, Dr. Mai’s face fell into a grimace of pain and disappointment.
“I am very sorry. I want to say that directly to Mr. and Mrs. Vang,” she said.
He waved a hand at her, his face still screwed up with that awful expression.
“What is wrong?” she said.
“Sad how one ill leads to another,” Dr. Mai said.
“Where is Kao?”
Dr. Mai closed his eyes.
“Where is he? What’s going on?”
“Just get the money to me,” Dr. Mai said. “As soon as possible. Kao cannot talk to you right now. Just do what you have promised.”
“Does someone know about the insurance? Please tell me.”
“I love this family,” he said. “Kao is my wife’s nephew. My wife died in one of the camps. Kao is all the family I have left. I must support him, but it is sad.” He looked out the window, and she caught the same weary expression that she had seen in Kao’s eyes.
“Dr. Mai?” She reached over and touched his hand. “Dr. Mai!”
He turned his head toward her and said, “We mean nothing to you. Nothing at all. Just get the money.”
“It’s not true. I do care. And-and I fear I have-from your reaction I am very concerned. I must know if the Vangs are safe.”
“Just get the money. Please do your job. Get the money. Have your secretary call me when you have the money. That is all I have to say.”
“Let me help to protect the Vangs. I have a friend-”
“No more of your help.” He walked out on her, shaking his head.
9
N INA PICKED UP A SANDWICH in Meyers at the deli and ate it while driving, wondering how long a long Monday could last. A margarita might have temporarily eased her own misery, but that would only lead to more trouble, so she settled for a V8. Although Dr. Mai’s reaction had not been entirely unexpected, his vehemence unsettled her. To prep herself for her next appointment with the girls from the campground, she turned into the Starlake Building parking lot, mentally rehashing the meeting she had hosted in her office with Brandy and Angel four days before, on Thursday.
The two women had shown up at Nina’s office for an emergency appointment late in the afternoon. Although they refused to say why they needed to see her so hastily, Sandy squeezed them in before leaving to run an errand. “The girl that called sounded scared. Terrified.”
“An abusive husband?” Nina asked. Sad that that would be her first thought, but experience taught unhappy lessons.
“I don’t think so.”
One wore her peroxided hair short in rough layers, the other had swinging shoulder-length brown hair, but Nina needed only one look at their wide gray eyes. “You’re sisters,” she said, rising to greet them.
“Angelica Guillaume and Brandy Taylor,” the blond said, shaking her hand. “Call us Angel and Brandy. Thanks for seeing us on such short notice.”
They flopped into the orange client chairs, but Nina could see their casual ease was a pose. The muscles in their identically wiry legs remained tense, as if ready to propel them right back out the door. To give them a minute to orient themselves and calm down, Nina waited while they commented on her view of Lake Tahoe and admired the Washoe baskets on the wall. Nina quickly figured out that the blond, Angel, acted as leader. Twenty-three to Brandy’s nineteen, she wore a hip-hugging skirt and a tiny black cotton shirt that stopped just below the rib cage. Her face was in sharp focus: red lips, each lash carefully highlighted with mascara. Brandy, considerably taller and vaguer, wore a cotton floral skirt and loose sweater. She drooped behind her sister.
“What can I do for you?” Nina asked.
“Brandy saw a murderer,” Angel said.
Nina pulled out the legal pad. She took notes while they told their story in fits and starts with constant sisterly interruptions. The trouble had started right before Labor Day weekend, the week before.
“Brandy. You can’t just leave Bruce and run away to our house every time you have a fight,” Angel’s husband, Sam, said. “If you’re going to marry the guy, you’ve got to learn to work things
