Nina got home about seven thirty. Her dog, Hitchcock, and her teenage son, Bob, were out front under the floodlight. Bob was making a snowman, a very peculiar snowman with a rubber dog ring on top like a halo. Hitchcock ran to the truck and gamboled around it while she swung down and shut the door. “You know he's going to jump on it and destroy all your work,” she called to her son. “He loves that ring.”
As if taking note of her words, Hitchcock turned abruptly and made a beeline for the snowman. Bob grabbed for the ring, snatching it off the snowman's head just before the dog made contact. “What's this, boy? C'mon, what's this?” He waved it at Hitchcock, who jumped vainly, tongue lolling, for his toy, until finally Bob put it back on top of the hillock of snow that made up the snowman's head. In one final heave, Hitchcock leaped valiantly into the air, landing with an audible “oof” near the top. His jaws closed around the ring. Bob jumped on, too. For an instant he clung to the hard- packed snow, arms circling the head as if to protect it. Then the whole shebang, snowman, dog, and boy, toppled into a cloud of snow.
Hitchcock chewed vigorously on his ring, having destroyed an hour of hard work. Lying in the white powder, Bob laughed helplessly. Destruction was still far more gratifying than building.
Nina went into the cabin. Bob had made himself frozen burritos as she had instructed, but appeared to have had a run-in with the microwave in the process. She found that mess easier to clear away than Emily's. Removing the cracked glass tray, Nina swabbed down the insides of the microwave almost gratefully.
By ten o'clock, Bob had been nagged through his shower and into bed. Nina sat on the rug in front of the fire with her glass of sauvignon blanc, comfortable in her silk kimono. She was trying to think, but the thinking kept turning into a kind of dozing, a hypnagogic dreaming. She kept thinking about the rubber ring and Hitchcock, such a patsy, going for it, doing his dogged doggy number, until he actually got what he wanted…
So easy to know what he wanted. In the end, so simple to get it.
“I'm sorry to disturb you,” Nina told Carol Dole the next morning. Carol was in a plaid wool robe and glasses. Nina had watched from the Bronco while Lenny drove off to work.
A small woman, Carol had blue eyes behind the specs that were blinking against some strong emotion right now. She tried to close the door, but Nina's six-hundred-dollar Manolo Blahnik boot heel was wedged between the door and its sill.
“Ah ah ah,” Nina said. “It's me or the cops. You'll do better with me.”
“Go away.”
“It's cold out here. Twenty degrees and dropping, I'd say. We can talk with the door open and run up your heating bill or you can let me inside and we'll both be better off.”
Carol looked once more at the boot in the door and gave up. “Come in,” she said ungraciously, opening the door and turning her back to Nina.
The house showed a lot of pride around its shined surfaces. On the walls, signed lithographs hung: a gaudy Peter Max, an English cottage scene by the guy who billed himself as the Painter of Light in his TV ads, and a Picasso scribble showing hands passing a bouquet of flowers. Showy knickknacks decorated the bookshelf.
“Lenny says he told you about Neal's plan,” Carol said. She was sitting on the white leather couch, bare legs crossed. Her robe gaped a little, exposing an angular bosom.
“How did you get involved?” Nina said.
“He was too worried to keep his mouth shut about this.”
“Lenny saw an opportunity in Neal's plan, didn't he? He could set his sister up for life and get rid of her troublesome husband, all in one stroke. Did he ask you for help, or was it your idea to buy the gas can and put it into the trunk? Neal had no idea it was there, did he? But you and Lenny had easy access to Neal's car, and you fit the description…”
“You're barking up the wrong tree. Lenny and I had nothing to do with it.”
“Short and blue-eyed. That's how the person who bought the gas can was described,” Nina said.
Carol Dole shook her head. “Have you taken a good look at your client lately?” she asked with a smile as wide as a half-moon. She tipped her head back so that Nina could follow the long line of her throat. It reminded her of Emily screwing up her eyes, closing them, leaning her head back…
Emily, petite, blue-eyed.
“Em was my best friend in high school,” Carol said. “That's where she and Neal met. Then just a couple months ago, after her husband died, she came across him again.”
Carol's meaning hit Nina hard. Emily had lied to her. Well, clients lied. She knew that. “So you know Caitlin,” she said.
“Who?” Carol said, and Nina felt like she was drifting off into some kind of space, only it wasn't calm and peaceful there. Supernovas were going off all around her. Through the distant chaos she heard her voice saying quite normally and correctly, “Emily Chuvarsky's little girl?”
Carol's laughter brought her back to earth.
“Em a mom?” Carol said. “You have to be kidding. She hates kids. It was Neal she loved after her husband died. Neal knew it, and he played her for a lot of money before she realized he'd never leave Juliette. She used to go listen to him when he was playing piano, before he got fired. Music is the way to so many women, have you noticed? Neal sure used it that way, when it suited him.”
“If it was Emily, then she was working with you or your husband,” Nina said. “Triple eights.”
“So she was the one who made up the story about our license plate? You really scared Lenny with that one. I thought it must be her. I remember one time she said we were lucky with the eights.”
“You're saying-do you realize…”
“All I'm saying is, I didn't do a thing to anybody.”
“Did you tell her about Neal's plan?”
“Just to show her she was better off forgetting about him. I didn't know she was the patsy.”
“Emily?”
Nina's client looked flushed and pretty, as if she had walked all the way to the office. “Yes?”
“I talked to Carol Dole about you.”
“Oh,” she said, all her prettiness falling behind a frown.
“You lied to me about Caitlin.”
“I always loved that name,” she said after a pause. “She's cute, too, isn't she? I found the photo stuck inside a book I bought at the Salvation Army.”
“You lied about knowing Neal, too.”
She tapped her foot, examined her fingernails, and didn't say anything for a long time.
“Maybe you need to find another lawyer, one you feel comfortable telling the truth to.”
“I just-everything I say to you is confidential, right?”
“That's right.”
“I guess you already figured out most of the story. Might as well know the rest. I did know Neal. He was a liar and a cheat. He gambled away a lot of my money. He hurt me… drew me in and made a fool of me.”
“You hated him.”
“No.” She breathed in short breaths, impatient to be understood. “I never hated him.”
“Carol told you that Neal had come up with a plan.”
Emily studied Nina awhile, then seemed to come to a decision. “When I heard about his idea for a crash scam, it set off something in me, something I didn't even know was there. I started thinking, wouldn't it be perfect if he should get his while trying to screw yet another unsuspecting victim? Almost a biblical justice.”
“You put the gas in his trunk.”
She shifted her body in her chair, looking uncomfortable. “I was over at Carol's when Lenny drove up in Neal's car. He had just had it in for servicing and was about to take it back to Neal, but we were all hungry, so he left the keys on the counter in the kitchen while they went out in Lenny's car to get us some food.
“It was fate, you see? I saw those keys lying there… I thought about Neal, how horrible he was to me. I felt such pain… and I picked them up. I didn't even think. I just took Neal's car and ran over to Chevron for the gas. Disguised myself a little. Then I hid the can under a blanket in the trunk before Carol and Lenny got back. It was cold and I wore gloves. If I thought at all, I guess I thought the car would be destroyed in a crash.”
“You wanted to kill him.” Nina was thinking about the fingerprint leading nowhere. A helper at the gas station? A previous customer?
“I loved him,” she said simply, as if even a child could see that explained everything. “But he hurt me so much. So I… engineered a little divine intervention. God rode beside him that day. If he had done nothing wrong, he would have lived, you see?”
“But you hit him, not someone else.”
“My rotten luck,” Emily said with a bitter laugh. “After that last DUI, I needed new insurance. Carol talked me into buying from Lenny, and he sold me a big fat new policy! So here I am driving home one night and suddenly Neal's in front of me. It happened so fast! I didn't realize it was him right away, but something struck me funny, so I followed close behind to try to see him better. Next thing I know, I'm stepping on the brakes, but the road's so slippery, I slide right into him! God-what a riot-isn't it funny? I can't stop laughing-the bad luck part-but you know, it's a small town-the bad luck part is, Lenny, who had me fresh in his mind and never liked me, must have picked me to be the mark! And I didn't know when they were planning the crash!”
“The triple eights…”
“Oh, Lenny was there that night, whatever he and Carol say, whether I saw him or not. He's the one who cut in front of Neal, wearing a mustache that hung crooked, just like everybody in that whole damn family, including my so-called friend, who never could keep a secret, even when we were thirteen. Oh, God. They'll never be able to keep quiet about this.”
“You realize you're in serious trouble now, Emily. The system doesn't forgive murder.”
“Yes, thanks for nothing! You could have just helped me, forced Juliette to settle within the policy limits instead of dragging up all this old business!”
She didn't really appreciate the extent of the calamity she had set off yet. Her first mistake had been a headlong, thoughtless rush into the fray, but her biggest mistake had been involving Nina.
Clasping her bag, Emily stood up. “I suppose I will get that new lawyer.”
“Good idea.” Nina also stood. “I'll sign the Substitution of Attorney as soon as it comes in.”
“Carol and Lenny have figured everything out by now, thanks to you. They'll hurry to protect themselves. No doubt the cops will follow close behind.”
They would, and they would get her, too. She should have forced her insurance company to settle with Juliette. She should never have put herself in front of the legal machine because now Nina had turned on the ignition and the wheels had started up. They would roll inexorably from here on out until they crushed her beneath them.
“Here's a check,” Nina said, scribbling one out and handing it to her. “Your retainer, less my expenses.”
Emily took the check, studied it, and frowned.
She went out the door. “Shyster,” she said, pulling it shut behind her.
When Nina got home, Hitchcock made a rush for her and began licking her stockings. “Get off me, you damn hound,” she said, making for the upstairs bedroom.
