Motion to Suppress by Perri O'Shaughnessy Page A

Nina said. "The husband may find her tonight." The petition for restraining orders was always accompanied by a statement of facts by the petitioner, showing why the petition should be granted. Most states used affidavits; California used a special form called a declaration.
    "He hasn’t found her in three days. He couldn’t be looking very hard," the clerk said. She was a small, unruffled black lady who had seen it all. There were other people in line behind her, scared-looking young women with kids and a couple of rumpled men who must be lawyers. "That’s the best I can do," she said.
    On Tuesday, when Sandy called the court, she was told that an additional declaration would have to be filed showing why the respondent hadn’t been given advance notice that orders were being sought against him. "Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?" Nina said, getting on the phone line.
    "Thought you knew what you were doing, so I didn’t check through the papers as carefully as I would for a pro se petitioner," the clerk said. "If you want, you can come down and fill out a form in handwriting and sign off like the wives do."
    "I’ll do that." She went straight down to the courthouse, filled out the form, and said pleasantly that she would wait for the orders, hiding her annoyance. Every county had its own peculiar procedures, and sometimes you didn’t find out about them in advance. The orders came back in twenty minutes. She took them over to the sheriffs office. As long as the papers were on file with the sheriff, the sheriff could make an immediate arrest if Anthony came after Misty.
    One problem remained about enforcing the restraining orders. By law, Anthony Patterson had to get notice of the orders before he could be held responsible for violating them. Most of the time a friend of the wife’s could go to the husband’s workplace or the local bar and serve him. Here, unless she mounted her own search, that could not be done. Misty could carry around a spare set. If Anthony showed up, she could serve him, though the law said a party to the action wasn’t supposed to do so. Nina went hunting for Misty at the Lucky Chip.
    Between the Stateline casinos and the Lakeside Park Beach, on the California side, a warren of anonymous motels had sprung up to accommodate vacationers in various states of financial disarray. The Lucky Chip, with its small, empty pool and small, empty parking lot, had absolutely nothing to recommend it except its nightly rate. Nina wondered why Sandy had chosen this particular one. A young woman in sweats, talking to a baby in an infant seat on the counter, looked up as she came in, and Nina had her answer. Sandy’s young clone. "I’m looking for Art Wong," Nina said.
    "He’s the owner. He’s not around. Can I help you?" The baby flung things on the floor in a kind of disgusted commentary as they talked.
    "I need to leave some very important papers for one of the people staying here. Michelle Patterson."
    "Sure. I can see her room from here. I’ll catch her when she comes in."
    "Don’t forget."
    "Sandy would call up a devil if I did," the girl said.
    "Any idea where Mrs. Patterson might be?"
    "Nope. She did say she goes to work at four, so she’ll probably be back before then."
    Where was Misty? Should she try to reach her through Tom Clarke? Not a good idea. Misty was a secret in his life and Nina would hate to be the one to drop the gossip bombshell. Anyway, she had a feeling that now that the going had gotten tough, Tom Clarke would be going. That would be tough for Misty. She was used to depending on men, Nina imagined.
    Misty arrived at the motel at a little after three o’clock, a bottle tucked under her arm. She waved toward the office, dropped her keys, picked them up and dropped them again. Fitting the key into the lock took some time.
    She changed into her skimpy tuxedo, threw a long sweat-shirt over it, and headed out the door wearing run-down shoes, a bag with her heels swinging by her