In a face-saving gesture, the county fathers have offered her Mario’s old job. But I think they are too late. Lenore is now awash in better offers, including one from the governor to fill Derek Ingel’s old seat on the bench. Somehow I cannot see Lenore in black robes. I think she would find this tedious.
“How are you?” she says.
“Good. You?” The bruise on her cheek and chin have long since healed.
She smiles, like it couldn’t be better.
“You just missed Roland,” she says. “He got the better boxes.”
Overroy has been cleaning out his office as well. He has taken the hint and grabbed the golden handshake, retired while he can. Roland’s stocks have been dipping lately with the powers that be in this county. Besides the unanswered questions about the missing evidence, his part in Adrian’s settlement offers are raising eyebrows in high places, the fact that he was so badly and so publicly duped. That the county leaders would have taken the deals, groveled in the dirt for them, is now forgotten.
“Who’s doing Iganovich?” I say.
“The attorney general,” she tells me. “We thought it was best.” According to Lenore, she will not be around long enough to handle this prosecution.
She tells me that among the things she is looking at is a supervising position with the prosecutor’s office in Capital County.
“Maybe I will see you,” she says, “across the gulf between counsel tables sometime.”
“Maybe.” I smile. I put out my good hand to shake. She steps close, near my ear, and plants a single soft kiss at the nape of my neck, a squeeze, and she is out the door, down the hall.
As I make my way down the gray stone steps toward the plaza and the car beyond, I can see the Sierras a hundred miles away, their outline sharp against an imposing and impossibly blue sky. On the air is a bitter chill as December approaches.
I turn, and look toward the west, toward the plowed fields where dust devils form on the zephyr. In the distance I can hear a whistle, faint and shrill, a sound primordial like the screech of a wild raptor on the wing. I stop, turn and listen. It is a tone crystalline, clear and unquestionable. It is the wind screaming through the canyons of the Putah Creek.