Page 83 of Pro Bono

Charlie realized that the urgent thing was not to talk. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got a car.”

He and Vesper each took one of Linda’s arms over their shoulders and half carried her toward the spot on the road where they had left the car. As she recovered her breath she said, “I don’t know why. They just changed instantly and went after me out on the lake.”

“It’s over now,” Charlie said. “That’s all that matters. We’ll get you out of here.”

Linda half turned her head and her eyes widened. “They’re coming.” The two women were on the road, running to catch up with them. Charlie handed Vesper the keys and said, “Keep going. Head for the car.”

Vesper looked reluctant, but she took Linda’s arm and tugged. “He’s right. Come on.” They began to trot to make it to the car, and Charlie turned to face the two sisters who were approaching at a run.

He stood where he was as they drew closer, but then he identified what the two women had in their hands. One was carrying a hatchet and the other a knife with a blade about six inches long. As they slowed their run to a trot, and finally, to a walk about thirty feet from him, they separated, so that they were advancing on both sides of him. The hatchetand the knife were no longer in sight. Their hands were now visible, so the weapons must have been tucked into their clothes. Was he imagining it, or were they both smiling?

No, he decided. They weren’t smiles, exactly. They were expressions of eagerness. He called out, “Hello. I’d like it if you’d stop where you are, so we can talk. Why are you chasing this other lady?”

Neither of them spoke. They just kept coming, their eyes turning to exchange a look now and then. He realized the strategy was that one would sprint forward to force him to head her off. When he did, she would attack, or at least engage him, while the other would dash at him from behind and stab or hack him. He said, “You can choose to back away. I won’t chase you if you do.”

They kept walking. They had a flexible strategy, almost certain to keep him off-balance while both attacked him at once from different sides. If they wanted to kill his mother—and Vesper—they would have to kill him first, and they knew it. He wondered how long it would be before the police arrived, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off them to look at his watch.

He squatted on the shore and picked up two water-smoothed oblong stones that fit the palms of his hands.

The two women reached positions on either side of him, each only about ten feet away. They both charged at once. He hurled the stone in his right hand first because he could simply pivot and throw. His target was the woman who ran at him holding the hatchet high.

The stone thudded against her just at the bottom of her rib cage. He extended his turn, passing the second stone from his left hand to his right and stepping to the side. The other woman was so close by then that he could hardly miss her. She slashed at him with her knife as he released the stone. It hit her shoulder and she cried out, clutching the spot.

He grabbed the arm and twisted it behind her so she dropped the knife. Then he pushed her away from him so he could pick it up, and kept moving to snatch up the hatchet that lay near the woman, who was lying with her arms hugging her ribs. He said, “Just stay where you are. There’s nothing to gain by doing anything now.”

He stayed close by, watching them. In another five minutes he heard his rental car’s springs creaking as Vesper drove it along the rough road. When she reached the spot above the beach, she stopped. He could see his mother in the passenger seat, staring back at him. A moment later he thought he heard the same sound continuing, but the rental car hadn’t moved. He looked across the lower end of the lake and saw that a police car and an ambulance were coming to a stop beside the house, and then a second police car pulled up behind the ambulance.

Warren felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He took out the phone and heard the emergency operator say, “Mr. Warren? The police and ambulance should be arriving. Do you see them?”

“Yes I do,” he said. “They’re here. Tell them to come ahead.”

A few minutes later, Peter Rickenger was driving along Blucher Lake Road. He reached the spot where he got his first view of the lake, backed up about twenty feet, and got out of his car. He walked close to the edge of the woods, stopped behind the thick trunk of an old pine, and looked across the lake. There were two police cars, one of them parked in the road near his house and the other on the stretch of road on the west side of the lake. There was an ambulance on the road behind it, and the back door was wide open. There was also another car, smaller and white. He wasn’t sure how to interpret that car. Usually white vehicles belongedto coroners, not the police, but this one was too small and it didn’t seem likely that the coroner could be here so soon, even if his sisters had already killed Linda Warren and reported it. Either way, it didn’t change what he had to do now.

Peter walked back to his car, got in and half closed his door very softly so the sound wouldn’t carry, and then backed up to a spot that was wide enough for him to turn around. He drove out to the interstate and headed back toward Reno. Along the way he removed the battery and SIM card from his phone, and stopped to throw the phone out as far as he could into one of the lakes. Some of these lakes were so deep that he felt sure the phone would never be found. As he thought about it, he began to feel pleased. He could buy the newest iPhone tomorrow while he was in Reno. He wouldn’t rush back to his home on the lake. He would wait a few days to get the call from May or Rose to let him know what had actually happened. Either his sisters had succeeded or they hadn’t. At this point he didn’t care very much which it was. They certainly hadn’t cared much about him.

It was another half hour before he arrived at his hotel. When he had parked his car and taken the elevator upstairs, he was pleased that when he tried his key card on the lock of his room the green light went on but the door wouldn’t open. After a few seconds he saw the little peephole in the door darken, and then Trisha disengaged the dead bolt and opened the door. She was wearing one of the two big fluffy white bathrobes.

She kissed him. “I’m glad you made it back so soon,” she said.

“Me too.”

32

Martha heard the outer office door open and looked up. She said, “Good morning, gentlemen. They’re waiting for us in the conference room. We have refreshments in there—coffee, tea, soft drinks, water, Danish pastries, and so on.” Then she closed the office door and locked it. “Follow me.”

She walked ahead of them into the conference room. Seated around the table were Charles Warren, Linda Warren, and Vesper Ellis. Charles Warren stood up and shook hands with Copes, and then with Minkeagan. “Please take what you’d like to eat and drink, and then join us.”

Minkeagan and Copes went to the counter along the wall and took bottled water and pastries, then sat down. Copes said, “I’ve never seen a law office that was open on Sunday before.”

“You still haven’t,” Warren said. “This is a one-time private business meeting. It is now four months since the last of the claims we filed to get the money stolen by Daniel Rickenger, aka McKinley Stone. The final payment of the recovered funds arrived Friday.”

He lifted a loose-leaf notebook that was thick with papers and handed it to Copes. “In that notebook are copies of the documents from thetreasury departments of the six states showing the sums of abandoned accounts that they were transferring to my mother, Linda Warren. The second section is devoted to confirmations of the transfers of investment accounts from his name to hers by financial services companies. The last page is the executive summary that we compiled. As of the close of markets on Friday, the total amount recovered was sixteen million, four hundred eighty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty-one dollars and four cents. The investments have been converted to cash.”

“So what do we get?” Minkeagan said. “And when?”

“Your share will be broken up into parts. You’ve each been paid electronically a million dollars. We checked this morning to see if it was posted in the holding account. The money is officially a fee for finding the Rickenger papers, researching them, and locating the rightful owner. That’s in this set of papers over here on the counter. Fill in your full names, social security numbers, and addresses, and then sign. Do not use fake names or numbers. This is for your new bank accounts.

“You’re also being retained as consultants to the firm of Warren and Associates. For that, you’ll each get two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year deposited to the bank accounts in your names, twenty thousand a month beginning now and ending with your death. Your taxes will be figured and filled out here in this office, and deducted from your pay even if you move to another state. The taxes you owe will be paid on time. The reason for following these procedures is to keep you on the right side of the law and protect us all. Understood?”

---