Acts of Malice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  ‘‘Take it easy, Jim.’’

  ‘‘It’s damn hard.’’

  ‘‘I can imagine.’’

  ‘‘The problem is, people have somehow gotten the idea I’m going to be arrested. That makes them nervous about talking to me, know what I mean? It’s self-protection. They don’t want to get involved. I’m guessing, but that’s how it seems to me.’’

  ‘‘You may be right about that.’’

  He was working himself up. ‘‘I can’t sleep at night. I can hardly drag through the days. I can’t stand the way everyone looks at me. What the hell am I supposed to have done? Why do I have to talk to the District Attorney?’’

  The autopsy report was right there in front of her. Like Heidi’s Post-it, it seemed to burn with an inner fire.

  Documents did sometimes come alive. They didn’t always say what they meant. Language could only get so close to the truth; this paper, with all its scientific pretensions, was still written in symbols, rife with allusions, intimations, contexts. For as long as she was involved with Jim, she would have a hostile relationship with it.

  She wished she could soften the blow, but it was time for him to understand his position.

  ‘‘They want to talk with you because of this,’’ she said, pointing at it. ‘‘It’s the autopsy report. Listen carefully, Jim. The coroner filed an amendment concluding that Alex’s death was a homicide.’’

  His face drained of color. ‘‘So they do suspect me,’’ he said so softly, he almost whispered. ‘‘I didn’t really believe it. They think . . . My own brother . . . You’re saying they might really arrest me. . . .’’

  When she tried to hand the report to him, his face clouded over and his eyes narrowed. ‘‘No!’’ he said, pushing it back to her, ‘‘I can’t read it. I don’t want to know what they found in his stomach, what he ate for lunch! Just tell me what you have to.’’

  So she gave him the highlights, hardly daring to look up. She ran down what she had learned, what they would be doing at Collier’s office, hurrying, getting it over with.

  It must have felt like one long shock. She felt as though she were holding his finger in an electric plug the whole time.

  When she finished, there was a lengthy silence. She wanted to reach out her hand, touch his, but she was afraid that at any contact he might jump up and run out.

  ‘‘Listen. You’re not alone in this. I’m good at what I do, Jim, and I’m on your side. I’m here to help you.’’

  ‘‘They think I—I jumped on Alex? That’s what they think?’’

  ‘‘The coroner up here doesn’t know his ass from his scalpel. He’s prosecution-oriented, and he makes mistakes. He should have retired long ago.’’

  ‘‘That’s what they think? That’s it?’’

  ‘‘Yes. That’s what they think. But I’m telling you, now that we know what’s going on, we can turn this around.’’

  He clutched his head with his hands and rocked in the chair. He seemed to be shocked speechless.

  She couldn’t blame him. Getting up from her chair, she turned her back to him and faced the window to give him time to recover, leaving the paperwork between them on the desk.

  She remembered a painting that she hadn’t thought of since college, depicting a strange, hideous, half-alive machine, doing things no one could understand. ‘‘The Elephant Celebes,’’ the painting was called.

  It reminded her of the system that Jim had been forced into. She tried to quell the tide of anger, at Clauson who just plain had it in for everybody, at Jim’s wife for telling her tale and then running around the corner where she wouldn’t get caught.

  ‘‘Where’s Heidi?’’ Jim cried behind her. ‘‘She must be so angry to do this to me. Why’s she so mad? I feel like a damn moron! I thought I knew her.’’

  ‘‘You have no idea at all where she might have gone?’’

  ‘‘I told you! None at all. That doesn’t say much for our relationship, does it?’’ Now the words spilled out. ‘‘She’s pulled away from me the last few months. She has her friends, you know, her job. She’s outside, so I don’t see her much. I work out of the lodge most of the time, keeping the administrative side going. It’s hard work, and I’m trying harder to be good at this than I’ve ever tried to do anything.’’

  ‘‘Who actually owns Paradise?’’ Nina asked.

  ‘‘My father. My father is still the CEO of Paradise. Alex and I were the vice presidents.’’

  ‘‘What exactly does Heidi do?’’

  ‘‘Supervises the Ski Patrol. She’s been working the mountain for twelve years. She trains the new guys, handles the big emergencies, checks out the mountain after each snowfall for avalanche danger. I met her when I started working at Paradise, straight out of college. She’s—she loves to laugh, party, have a good time.’’

  ‘‘Something must have led up to her leaving,’’ Nina said, half to herself.

  ‘‘When we were in bed—the night Alex died...’’ Jim said in a low voice. ‘‘She didn’t want me. That hurt. I needed her.’’

  ‘‘Well,’’ Nina said, tapping the edges of the pages of the autopsy report on her desk to straighten them, ‘‘we’ll learn more this afternoon. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re making a trade. You’re going to go in and talk to Mr. Hallowell. I’ll be right there with you, watching out for you. In return for that, he’ll pass along a copy of Heidi’s statement without giving us any hassle.’’

  She went on for a few minutes, talking about questions to be careful about, warning that his statements could be used against him, making sure his story hadn’t changed and that she understood it. Then she reached for her coat and they walked out together. ‘‘Why don’t we go in my truck?’’ Nina said, pointing toward the faithful white Bronco not far from the door.

  Jim hardly spoke on the short trip, just looked out the window. The snowplows ground through the streets around them.

  The receptionist passed them through to the conference room and they waited a few minutes. The District Attorney’s office consisted of a wide central area for support staff with several small offices coming off it for the lawyers, and a conference room at the far end.

  A couple of uniformed officers were drinking coffee and chatting as she and Jim came in. Jim said, ‘‘Whussup, Charlie,’’ to one of them.

  ‘‘Sorry about Alex,’’ said the one called Charlie, who obviously had no idea why Jim was there. ‘‘Awful. I watched him on the slalom run every year. He skied like a maniac, but he was so fast on his feet I never thought he’d crash so bad. He knew the hill like the back of his—’’

  Collier came in, bearing files. ‘‘Well. Take care,’’ Charlie said. The two cops went out, and Nina introduced Jim. They sat down. Collier offered coffee.

  In spite of the informality Nina was on high alert, acutely aware of being in the enemy camp. Each contact Jim had with law enforcement could bring disaster down on him; a careless statement or a discrepancy could be magnified into a lie, or made to look like guilt. It was how the Elephant Celebes operated.

  Collier seemed ill at ease. He passed by her on his way around the conference table and brushed against her. She gathered her jacket around her as if he’d tried to tear it off.

  ‘‘Sorry.’’

  ‘‘No problem.’’

  Coffee came. They all blew on it. Collier was thinking about something, his approach, maybe. Or maybe this was another witness technique they taught at D.A. training school. Make the witness sweat; that was it.

  She caught him looking at her as she sat across from him, trying not to notice him. Was he thinking about her?

  ‘‘Shall we start?’’ she said, her voice higher than she had intended.

  The tape recorder started to whir. Collier identified the parties present and stated the date and time.

  ‘‘Just for form’s sake, I’m going to give Mr. Strong his Miranda warnings,’’ he said, and took care of that technicality.

  She decided to
wrest what control she could immediately. ‘‘We’re not here for some long inquisition,’’ she said. ‘‘Mr. Strong has already talked to the police on two occasions. You know everything he knows. You mentioned that you had a few more questions. That shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. And we would like to see the statement of Heidi Strong before we begin.’’

  ‘‘I really don’t know how much time we’ll need,’’ Collier said, but he took out a single copy and handed it over.

  Without looking at it, Nina said, looking Collier in the eye, ‘‘We’d like to read this in private.’’

  ‘‘Sure. I’ll go make a phone call.’’ He clicked off the recorder.

  ‘‘There’s a phone here. Feel free. We’ll step outside.’’

  They left. They walked past the busy secretaries through the buzzered door.

  ‘‘You think he bugged his conference room?’’ Jim said.

  ‘‘Maybe,’’ Nina said. ‘‘You make a big production about turning off the tape on the desk, then you leave another one winding away in some closet. It’s his bailiwick and we don’t have much of an expectation of privacy in there.’’

  ‘‘What about attorney-client privilege?’’

  ‘‘Keeps confidential statements out of court, but doesn’t mean they won’t listen when they can.’’

  ‘‘Would you do that? Listen in on a conversation between a lawyer and a client in your conference room?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Nina said. ‘‘But somebody else might. I have had some experience with bugs recently. You never know about these questions of ethics. Lawyers take an exam to prove we know legal ethics, but real life presents ethical dilemmas they never imagined at the good old Board of Bar Examiners.’’

  They found a bench on the sunny side of the building, around to the side where they could get some privacy, and sat down very close together so that Nina could feel Jim’s hard thigh pressed against hers. He seemed oblivious.

  They read the statement.

  It was in the form of a declaration, a statement under penalty of perjury:

  I, Heidi Spottini Strong, declare as follows:

  I am over the age of twenty-one and a resident of the State of California, County of El Dorado. My address is 1225 Forest Road, South Lake Tahoe. I am married to James Philip Strong of the same address. I make this statement voluntarily.

  I make this statement on condition that my current whereabouts be kept strictly confidential. I specifically request that no information whatever regarding my whereabouts be given to James Strong.

  ‘‘Somebody else wrote it,’’ Jim said. ‘‘She would never write like this.’’

  ‘‘She said something like it, and they wrote it up in the proper jargon, and she signed it,’’ Nina said. ‘‘It’s the same thing.’’

  On or about October 5, my husband came home late from dinner with his family. He seemed angry and wouldn’t speak to me for a long time. As we were preparing to go to bed I heard a crash in the bathroom where he was. I looked in and saw that he had smashed the mirrored cabinet door above the sink with a stone we use to hold soap. Half the glass had fallen out of the frame. He was holding his arm and staring at the frame.

  When I asked what had happened, he refused to answer me. I got a broom and swept up around him so he could step out of the bathroom without cutting his bare feet. While I was cleaning up, he sat down on the bed and didn’t move.

  After a few minutes I turned out the lights and got into my side of the bed. Then my husband said, ‘‘The thing he loves most. I’ll show him.’’ I asked him what he meant and he said, ‘‘Alex is a dead man.’’

  I was frightened. Then my husband said, very clearly, ‘‘He’s going to die because I’m going to kill him.’’

  I said words to the e fect that he was talking crazy. He laughed and told me to shut up. After saying this, he lay down on his side of the bed and turned his back to me. I was so upset I got up and slept in the living room on the couch that night.

  The next day, and several days after that, I asked my husband what he had meant by his behavior and statements, but he wouldn’t add anything more. His manner became secretive and he seemed distant.

  Then, on October 23rd, a Saturday, my husband left to go skiing. I did not know that he was planning to ski with Alex. At three o’clock Alex’s wife, Marianne Strong, called me and told me there had been an accident involving Alex. I rushed to Boulder Hospital and saw my husband in the waiting room with Marianne and my father-in-law, Philip Strong. He told me Alex had been skiing out of control and skied off a cliff. I did not believe him.

  The doctor came out and told us Alex had died in surgery. I left the hospital and went home with my husband, but I was becoming more and more afraid. I felt then, and I feel now, that my husband had something to do with Alex’s death. The next morning I went to the South Lake Tahoe police station and spoke to the officer on duty, then made this statement. I have left my home because of this and wish to state again that my husband is not authorized to have any information as to my whereabouts. I declare the above to be true and correct under the laws of the State of California. Executed this twenty-fourth day of October at South Lake Tahoe, County of El Dorado, California.

  The statement concluded with Heidi Strong’s signature, large and round, slanted to the right, just like the writing in the note she had left Jim. Nina moved over slightly on the bench and let him have the copy. He read it several times, as if he couldn’t quite decipher it.

  The statement was clear, convincing, disastrous. No vagueness here, no ambiguities, no grounds for misinterpretation that Nina could see, on this reading anyway.

  Beside her, Jim crumpled up the statement and flung it onto the ground.

  ‘‘Well,’’ Nina said, looking at it, making no move to pick it up, ‘‘she tells a compelling story.’’

  ‘‘This never happened. You have to believe me. Heidi’s the one who broke the bathroom mirror by accident a few weeks ago—I don’t remember the exact day—she was cleaning in there. She wove it into this story. That detail—it makes it sound so real. You don’t believe this, do you?’’

  ‘‘We have to find Heidi and get this straightened out.’’

  ‘‘No shit. What have I been telling you?’’

  Nina gave him a long look. ‘‘She’s trying to put you in jail. This kind of hate doesn’t come out of nowhere, Jim.’’

  ‘‘I love her,’’ Jim said. ‘‘I don’t care what she said. And she loves me. She’s confused is all. I—I’m sorry. I kept reading her note, and I couldn’t stand for anyone else to see it. It was too humiliating. I tore it up.’’

  ‘‘You what?’’ But something else even more important had struck her. ‘‘Wait a minute!’’ she said.

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘What’s the matter with me? They can’t use this!’’ Nina said. ‘‘She’s your wife. She’s repeating statements you made in the course of a private conversation with her.’’

  ‘‘So?’’

  ‘‘Conversations between husbands and wives are privileged. Confidential. What do they think they’re doing?’’

  ‘‘Privileged? What do you mean?’’

  ‘‘I mean this is garbage, legally speaking. You have a right to keep your conversations out of court.’’

  Jim looked skeptical. ‘‘Really?’’ he said. ‘‘But she can still testify against me, can’t she?’’

  ‘‘Nope. Same privilege. She can’t testify about private conversations you had with her. I get it now. You talk about this, you try to explain it, you refute it or deny it or whatever, and Collier has an argument that you’ve waived the privilege. He must think I’m stupid.’’ Angry and relieved at the same time, she jumped up.

  ‘‘All right,’’ she said. She dug round in her purse. ‘‘Take my car keys. Go right now and get in the Bronco. I’ll be right back.’’

  ‘‘I thought you said— Don’t I have to go back in there?’’

  ‘‘Not anymore
,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Not until I understand all this better. It’s too dangerous for you.’’

  His face sagged with relief. He took the keys and bit his lip, saying, ‘‘Okay.’’

  She returned to the conference room alone. Collier was waiting calmly in one of the beat-up chairs around the table, one ankle resting on the other knee, still drinking that godawful coffee. She noticed the ‘‘wanted’’ posters on the cheap wall paneling for the first time, full-face and profile shots of young, unshaven, but otherwise ordinary-looking men. It was like being in a suburb of the police station.

  ‘‘It’s not gonna happen, Collier. I can’t let you have him this afternoon,’’ she said, looking at the posters so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  ‘‘What? Where is he?’’ Collier half rose.

  ‘‘Gone.’’

  ‘‘We’ll see about that.’’ He picked up the phone.

  ‘‘Think, Collier,’’ Nina said. ‘‘You’re not ready to arrest him yet, or you would have done it. He’s under suspicion, and he’s going to assert his right to remain silent. Heidi’s statement isn’t ever going to be seen by a judge or jury because he’s asserting the marital privilege starting now. What else have you got? Doc Clauson? He’s an embarrassment.’’ She leaned against the door frame and closed her eyes. A wave of faintness washed over her. They had been reprieved.

  ‘‘You tried to trick me,’’ she said more quietly. ‘‘It’s not like you.’’

  ‘‘I never said it was hard evidence. You asked for it, I gave it to you. Am I supposed to go into a long lecture about its admissibility? Besides, I think it’s the truth. That girl was scared. The detective who took the statement believed her.’’

  ‘‘You wanted to get my client in here and trick him. And me. You’ve got a lot of nerve.’’

  Collier came around the table, backing her into a corner. His eyes shone with anger. He said, ‘‘I’m not trying to trick you. I gave you the statement so you’d know what you’re defending. You know enough now to see where this is going. It’s early yet. You can still get out of it.’’