Page 82 of Pro Bono

“Hello, Peter?”

“Hello, May.” Peter’s voice was distinctly weary and annoyed. “What is it now?”

“It’s a mess, Peter. The State of California is wiring her Danny’s money, probably today, but maybe yesterday. We needed to put her down so we could drain her bank accounts. We went out to the middle of the lake in the kayaks. When Rose went to split her head with a hatchet, she missed, believe it or not. I smacked her in the back of the head with my paddle so Rose would get another chance. This woman didn’t react like normal people do, Peter. She doesn’t get paralyzed and stupid. She starts paddling like she’s the kayak champion of the world. She heads towardshore, and we can’t keep up. She plows right through a bunch of weeds, gets out, and takes off like a goddamned gazelle.”

Peter said, “Honey, this would be a really good time for you to go take that shower. I’ve got to finish this call.”

“You have a woman with you right now?” May said. “Jesus, Peter, it’s not even five o’clock.”

“I’m living in a hotel in Nevada right now because you needed a favor. What am I supposed to do all day, gamble?”

“Rose and I need you, Peter. We’re in kayaks on the lake. Linda Warren is out in the woods, and she’s running. If she makes it to the highway, hell, if she runs into somebody with a phone, we’re all cooked. I don’t mean just us, either. She’s met you, and she’s slept in your house.”

Peter took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He ended the call. He spent a few seconds thinking about what he had just heard. His sisters had not only gotten him involved in this stupid attempt to get brother Danny’s money after seventeen years. They had brought the woman they were going to rob to his house, ignoring his reluctance and stretching the bonds of blood relations beyond any reasonable limits. Now they had tried to murder her. He rubbed his eyes as he sat on the bed getting more and more furious at them.

Peter had never tried to murder anyone. At first it had been because of stories like this. Murdering somebody without getting caught was very complicated, and required incredible attention to detail. As he had gotten older and smarter it had been because he just didn’t care enough about money to do it. Now he knew there was a strong chance he was going to be one of three people charged with attempted murder and convicted. He considered just not showing up. As he got angrier, he even considered going to the police and telling them what was going on. After a moment he abandoned that idea. May and Rose togethercould certainly get the police to believe that Peter was the guilty one. He heard the shower turn off and the hiss of water stop. He went to the closet and began to get dressed. As he was buttoning his shirt, he heard the door open behind him.

He turned and saw Trisha standing in the doorway of the bathroom with a big towel wrapped around her. She said, “You’re getting dressed? Where are we going?”

“I’m afraid it’s something I’ve got to do alone, honey. I should be back by morning. I can pay you now, if you want, and you can go, or if you’d rather just watch TV and get a good night’s sleep, you can order dinner from room service. Just don’t bring any other men to the room. That would piss me off and cost you a great deal of future income.”

“I would never do that,” she said. “That’s so sleazy.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” he said. “I don’t want to be offensive.” He reached into the closet one more time and took a dark gray sport coat off the hanger.

Trisha stepped close to him and hugged him, at the same time letting go of the towel. As the towel slid to the floor at her feet she whispered in his ear, “Oops,” and kissed him. As he pulled away, she didn’t move or pick up the towel. “I’ll be here.”

“I hope so.” He turned and went to the door. As he walked out the door and down the hallway, he thought about how much he resented the living members of his family. Then he thought about the nonliving members and noted that he hated them even more. He got to his car and pulled away from the hotel. He didn’t stop until he could turn into a dark alley, open the trunk of his car, and retrieve his gun from inside the wheel well under the spare tire. Then he got back into the car and drove. He knew the best route and every curve or bump in the road. The place he was going was his own home.

Rose and May were nearly to the eastern shore of the lake. They’d been paddling the kayaks for most of the afternoon, and their shoulders, backs, and even the muscles of their legs were sending pain messages to their brains each time they took another stroke.

Rose said, “It’s getting to be a pretty long time since we last saw her.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” May said. “I think she probably just ran as far as she could into the woods and then collapsed from exhaustion or hurt herself. I’ll bet she’s not more than a hundred yards from us right now, probably with a twisted ankle or a knee injury.”

“I think so too,” Rose said. “I think we should land at the last place we saw her, drag the kayaks up into the brush, and go in after her. Once you’re in among the tall trees, the branches start higher up, and you can see between the trunks.”

“Let’s do it. We can take care of this, and then Peter can drive up the road along this side of the lake, put the body in the trunk of his car, and get rid of it.”

They paddled along the shore to the spot where Rose had last seen Linda, beached the kayaks, and then dragged them up between the trees and left them uphill from a large rock. They walked to the east into the forest searching for any place where the deep layer of pine needles had been run through and displaced. They had only gone a few hundred feet before May said, “Today has been quite a workout. First the hike, then the paddling, and now this, whatever this is.”

Rose said, “This is finishing her off. You gave her a pretty good whack with the paddle. You might have given her a concussion. By now, she could be unconscious. But let’s be quiet so she doesn’t hear us coming.”

“Excuse me for mentioning it, but I’m very tired, and my whole body is beginning to hurt.”

Rose said, “I guess you’ve just gotten too old for this. I hope Danny stashed so much money that your share will be enough to keep you from having to do things like this anymore.”

May picked up the pace, stomping through the woods above the lake so she could get ahead of Rose and stay ahead.

They kept climbing the incline. They both knew that Linda’s best bet was to make it out to the interstate and get picked up by a driver, and the most direct route was straight through the forest from the northern end of the lake, where they’d seen her running. But it was only a few minutes before Rose stopped on the hill, gazed back across the lake from their higher altitude and called, “Look!” May looked and saw what she was pointing at. They could see the distant figure of Linda Warren running south along the crest of the hill toward their brother Peter’s house.

The two sisters moved quickly. They took a diagonal route down the hill to the trail that was the remnant of the road around the lake and raised their speed to a run. Rose gripped the hatchet handle just below the head, and May pressed her right hand against the sheath of the hunting knife so it wouldn’t flap against her as she ran.

Charlie Warren didn’t see his mother running at first. He heard her. She passed a hundred feet above Charlie and Vesper in the deep silence of the late afternoon, straining to keep going. He heard her heavy breathing first, the gasps to bring in enough air, and the huffs to exhale it. Then he heard her steps, the running shoes landing flat on the rocky surface above the road.

He and Vesper stepped out to the edge of the lake so they could see the top of the hill, and there she was. “Mom!” he yelled. “Linda Warren!” He gave a loud whistle, and saw her turn her head, but at first she didn’t stop. Her legs kept moving for four steps, as though they had acquired an independent will that had to be overcome. She stopped and looked down, then bent over for three seconds, trying to catch her breath, and then began to make her way down the hill toward Charlie and Vesper, who were climbing toward her.

When they met, she hugged them both at once. “They’re chasing me,” she rasped. “They’re trying to kill me.”

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