“They can talk to the police, then.”

“The police here have bigger worries than a two-year-old case from California, which by the way, doesn’t even involve a criminal accusation.”

“Well, it’s been delightful, gentlemen, but I have to run along. A pleasure meeting you, Professor.” Braun didn’t reply. His hard eyes went well with his black hair, the winter outside, and his general demeanor of one who has had one put over on him, and resents it.

“Run along and don’t come back,” Branson said.

Due to the high-octane dose of caffeine she had just imbibed, Nina didn’t sleep when she got back to the hotel, but the headache put her in bed for an hour until the full impact of the ibuprofen kicked in. Then she had a hot bath, went downstairs, and had lunch.

Then she felt better.

She made calls. She asked Wish to start searching for Elliott Wakefield electronically. He wasn’t listed in the Boston or Cambridge directories. Sandy was checking out the lawyer named Branson, as Nina thought she might hear from him again.

At two-thirty Nina checked out of the hotel and went to the main police station in Boston to discuss her situation with someone in charge. She didn’t expect the cops to rush out and arrest the two students as material witnesses in a murder, but she expected respectful attention and for them to fill out a report that might come in handy. The detective she spoke with listened to her tape and asked her what she was supposed to do about it.

“It’s not our case,” she told Nina. “Have your local police contact us. We have to work through them. That tape you made can’t come in as evidence in a court case, you know. No consent. I’m a second-year law student at BU.”

“Evidence, shmevidence,” Nina said. “They’re witnesses, and the right people will hear this tape and agree they’re witnesses. The people I taped will come in person to make their statements if I have to dog them all day.”

The detective said, “Well, I admire your persistence. By the way, a shame, Branson’s involvement.”

“Why?”

“He’s a tight-ass who never gives an inch.”

“I gathered that.”

“And Braun is not just some nobody math professor. He married into a Boston Brahmin family, has more money than Wells Fargo Bank. They live with their two kids, a boy and a girl, straight-A students, no doubt, in a mansion in Newton bigger than Faneuil Hall, and are active fund-raisers for the local pols. He also consults for one of the big research outfits on Route 128. If you could persuade him to help you, he could do you a lot of good.”

“We got off on the wrong foot,” Nina said. “The detective in charge of the Hanna case at Tahoe is Sergeant Fred Cheney. I’ll talk to him tomorrow and see what we can do about getting these witnesses to make formal statements. I have more questions myself.”

“Can you subpoena them for the civil case?”

“Not if they’re outside California. Not as witnesses. I have to rely on the police.”

“Okay. We’ll wait to hear from Cheney.”

She taxied back to MIT, pulling her carry-on along the street, briefcase slung over her shoulder. She intended to try to collar Silke and Raj again, but they had left for the day and the new kid now manning the math department desk gave her the stink-eye. She was persona non grata at a great university, but such is the life of a lawyer.

Still, she wanted to try what she could to find Silke’s and Raj’s home addresses, or address, as the case might be. Phone information had no listing. The MIT directory wasn’t available to nonstudents, but she wooed a bored office worker in administration and took a look anyway, without finding them. She tried talking to a few fellows in faded sweatshirts who were lounging around in the lobby of Building 8, but they turned out to be electrical engineers, busy bees, willing but unhelpful.

Her work in Boston was done. She took a short walk over the Harvard Bridge, enjoying the windy afternoon, then snagged a cab to Logan.

The flight was delayed an hour and she felt exhausted. She finally fell into her window seat, opened her Vanity Fair, sniffed as a new celebrity scent unfolded from the magazine, and began reading every word of the bilious interviews, self-aggrandizing columnists, and tales of aged billionaires. The case melted away. The magazine lasted all the way back to California.

15

AS DUSK FELL OVER THE SIERRA, the Great Tahoe Weekend got going. Winding her way up Spooner Pass from the Reno airport, Nina approached the California state line. The big casino-hotels hove into view, attended by their happy throngs, whose happiness would evaporate bit by bit over the next two days in direct proportion to their stashes of cash.

She turned onto Pioneer Trail with relief, leaving the fortune-seekers behind, and turned left onto the uphill cul-de-sac of Pony Express, where her brother Matt lived, and where she had left Bob twenty-odd hours before.

The house at the end of the block abutted some nice trails and good rock climbing. Although it wasn’t quite dark yet, a full moon peeped over the hill behind Matt and Andrea’s rooftop. She parked and walked up the path to the front door. Light spilled from the windows and she heard within the anxious cry of Matt and Andrea’s baby, June.

“Come on in,” Matt said. “How was your trip?”

“Breathless. How’d it go with Bob?”

“Follow me,” he said. “Stuff to report on that front.” He went to the fridge and pulled out a couple of diet root beers, offering her one, which she took.

“Hungry? Want some leftover spaghetti?”

“No thanks. Where’s Andrea?” Nina asked.

“At a Women’s Center meeting. I’ve got the kids. Bob and Troy are in Troy ’s room playing video games.”

“Should we get June? I heard her crying when I came in.”

“She’s asleep now.” They both listened with the exquisite attention of people who have experienced parenthood. No sound came from June’s crib.

“Bob and Troy have gotten out of hand.”

Matt had had a long day towing vehicles with flat tires around the shoreline. He was thinner these days, and so was his hair. He was only thirty-four, but age and three kids to support already marked him. He ran a parasailing business during the summer months, which made up for the slim pickings in the winter, when he rescued tourists with his tow truck. These days, he and Nina talked a lot about his businesses, his tax problems, employee problems, contract problems. The old carefree Matt still came out now and then, but the adult emerging lately was harassed, unable to be expansive and light.

“What did they do?” Nina said, setting her can down on the table, not wanting to hear the lecture apparently pending. Why couldn’t she collect Bob and head home? Why did every single day have to be so fraught?

“They hung bolos on telephone lines all over town.”

“Bolos?”

“They collect rocks and attach them to a couple of feet of electrical tape, then they skateboard around town until they find an accessible telephone line. They toss the bolo until it falls over the line, with the rocks dangling over either side. Yesterday they spent most of the evening throwing these things.”

“Where in the world did they get an idea like that?” Nina said.

“Ask your son. Troy ’s his minion. He follows the plan.”

“Oh, Matt. Like Troy has no say in the matter. As if he doesn’t love every minute of it.”

“I’m not excusing him, but Bob’s older. He should act his age.”

She thought about that, his age, fourteen, and what that meant.

“You look amused. It’s not amusing,” Matt said.

“Remember yourself at fourteen? The time you crawled through your bedroom window absolutely bubbling from beer, and Mom heard you, but thought you were a burglar and called the police?”

He grimaced. “Don’t remind me. You know we expect better from our kids. And by the way, you could have told her but you didn’t. You let the cops come and hassle me. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that. And all the other stuff.” Matt was upset. He didn’t like it when Bob egged Troy on into trouble. Sometimes Nina thought that he was especially sensitive because when she and Matt were kids, she had done the same thing to Matt, persuaded him into all kinds of harebrained schemes.