Obstruction of Justice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  "Keep your voice down," Nina said. "I understand your worry. You want to be absolutely sure. But if you think someone climbed several thousand feet to kill your son, and lightning conveniently covered traces of the murder, you’re ... Listen, I think you’d better go."

  "Hang on a second here. Wait." He rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing as though the situation hurt him physically. "So you don’t think we could get the coroner to do that, what did you call it ..."

  "Disinterment," Nina said. "The word exhumation isn’t used in California law." She stood up. Usually clients took the cue and stood up with her. De Beers didn’t budge.

  "All right," he said. "Do just one more thing for me, and I promise to shut up or take my wacky suspicions elsewhere. Deal?"

  "Mr. de Beers ..."

  "Please." It was an order.

  She heard Sandy’s chair scrape in the room beyond, and the squeak of rubber-soled shoes halting at her doorway.

  Too inept to get de Beers out of her office through sheer force of personality, too small to deal with him physically, and unnerved by the image that popped into her mind of Sandy rushing to the rescue, tennies squeaking, her hands itching to heave the obstinate old man out the door, Nina sat back down at the still-open connection on her computer, saying loudly, "Okay. Five minutes."

  The footsteps retreated.

  "Look up the statute on grave robbing. No doubt they have some gobbledygook word for that too."

  "Why?" Nina said.

  "I’ll tell you in a minute. Please."

  Shaking her head, Nina entered the search words grave and robbing into the California Codes database. When that didn’t work, she scratched her head and tried using free association: graves, coffins, interment, theft. She was about to give up and send de Beers on his way when she finally pulled up the obscure Health & Safety Code section she had been looking for.

  "Okay," she said. "Disinterring or otherwise disturbing human remains in their place of interment could get you a year in jail. Also, Penal Code section 642 deals directly with the theft of articles of value from a dead human body. It’s petty theft or grand theft, a felony, depending on the value of the items stolen. Another Code section makes it a crime to steal a body for the purpose of sale or dissection. And now, may I ask—why am I performing this morbid exercise?"

  "Wait. So, is it a crime to dig up a body if the purpose is other than to rob it or steal it or harm it in some way?"

  "Yep," Nina said. "It’s a crime to dig up a body in a cemetery, period."

  "Hmm. How about if the body is legally already aboveground? What’s the penalty for borrowing it for an ... some other reason?"

  "I couldn’t say for certain," Nina said. "Now we’ve entered Alfred Hitchcock country. You can’t just keep your mother and stuff her after she dies and sit her in her rocker to keep you company. There are public health rules and notification rules."

  "Would they put you in jail?"

  "That depends," Nina said honestly. "Now you tell me something. What does this have to do with your son?"

  "You’ve been very helpful," the old man said, with a smile close enough to a smirk to set off her internal alarm system. "I won’t keep you any longer. I’ll leave a check with your secretary for the consultation." He got up stiffly.

  "Whatever you are thinking of doing, don’t," Nina said.

  "You don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone you’re involved."

  "I’m not covering myself, Mr. de Beers. I don’t need to do that. But you came to me for advice, not to have me look up statutes and read them to you, so let me make myself perfectly clear. Don’t do it. Even if you don’t break the letter of the law, you may end up being charged with a crime. You also have to consider the possibility of a civil suit by another member of the family. Intentional infliction of emotional distress comes to mind. We didn’t even have time to get into that—"

  "And we won’t," de Beers said. He put on his hat and said, "Good day."

  When he had closed the outer door, Nina came out and lowered herself into one of the new client chairs Sandy had ordered for the outer office.

  Surely the Washoe tribe had not traditionally made chairs like this. They looked just like knockoffs from the Pottery Barn. "The tribe is diversifying," Sandy had told her as she brought them in. Large-seated, with slatted mission-style oak frames, they were so comfortable that Nina preferred them to her own leather high-back. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  "You should have used the golf club on him," Sandy said, referring to the one-wood Nina kept in a corner of her office just in case.

  "He wasn’t threatening, Sandy. I just don’t like it when somebody comes in and I don’t manage to keep control. In a way I feel sorry for him."

  Sandy shut down her computer, sharpened a few pencils with dedicated attention, and stacked her files at a right angle to the desk corner, saying nothing. That was one of the things Nina liked about her. She spoke only when there was something to say.

  "Do you know anything about him?" Nina said finally.

  "I know about the company. My nephew worked as a carpenter for them. They build all the expensive houses in town. They get approvals faster than anyone else."

  "And how do they do that?"

  Sandy was polishing away invisible motes of desk dust with the edge of her skirt. She stopped and cocked her head, looking for more. "How?" Nina said again.

  Sandy rubbed her fingers against her thumb in the universal "money" gesture.

  "He turned the company over to Ray a few years ago," she said. "And Ray started building pieces of shit. They were in court every other day for a while. Quentin finally had to pull Ray up short and bring in a real builder."

  "Leo Tarrant?"

  "That’s right. He’s been straightening it out."

  "And I’ll bet Ray was grateful to him for it, right?" Nina was beginning to get a picture of the three men: Quentin, who started the company; Ray, who took over and began running it into the ground; and Leo Tarrant, the fixer with his eye on his partner’s wife.

  The phone rang and Sandy, unmoving, regarded it with a jaundiced eye. After five o’clock, the machine could answer.

  "Might as well," Nina said.

  Sandy picked it up, saying, "Law office. Oh, it’s you, Paul. Hang on." Heaving herself up, she gathered her things and let herself out. Nina sat down at her desk, resting her elbows.

  "Hey, Paul, how’s Carmel?" she said.

  "Fog when I left this morning. I wouldn’t know now."

  "Where are you?"

  "Tahoe. Caesars Palace, like always. I have a new employer up here."

  "Anybody I know?"

  "Your new boyfriend, Hallowell. The Anna Meade case. Thanks for the referral."

  "He hasn’t said a word to me," Nina said. "Of course, we’ve both been working our tails off, and he’s got the election to worry about. I’m glad you’re helping him, Paul."

  "It’s a challenge," Paul said. "But I’m developing leads here and there."

  "He’s not my boyfriend, you know. That’s a silly word once you hit thirty, anyway."

  Paul said, "Hey. You’re a free agent. You insisted on that. Not my business."

  "So what are we up to tonight?" Nina said brightly. It seemed to her that she had been working since dawn. She envisioned a nice dinner with good old Paul somewhere, a hot tub at Caesars, her own bed back at Matt’s. Paul seemed to have accepted her interest in Collier. She and Paul had the perfect twenty-first-century man-woman relationship: colleagues and friends. "I’ll buy the drinks."

  "I’m sorry," Paul said. "I’m busy. Just called to say hello."

  "You’re busy? You can’t work all the time."

  "I don’t. Unlike you."

  "So what are you doing? Will it take the whole evening?"

  "I sincerely hope so," Paul said, and something in his voice warned her not to ask any more questions. So he didn’t just have plans. He had big plans.

  "Well, how about lunch t
omorrow, then?" Nina asked. "Oh, shoot, I can’t. I have a noon meeting...."

  "I’ll stay in touch," Paul said, and hung up.

  Nina hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair. His call had left her feeling abandoned, which was ridiculous. She couldn’t expect Paul to treat her like a lover without getting some love out of it, and she was focused on Collier.

  She tried Collier’s number at work and got his voice mail. She called his home and got another message. His voice was so kind, so soothing, but he was unreachable.

  Was he? Unreachable? Wherever he was, did he dream about that kiss on the mountain the way she did, at night, alone in her bed, reliving it and wondering what it would have taken to keep him there with her that afternoon, away from the lightning and death that waited at the top?

  Or did he dream of a dead woman?

  She looked at her watch. She was fifteen minutes late for her appointment with the realtor, the usual situation. She grabbed her case full of homework, and ran out the door.

  Paul arrived at the Voss house promptly at seven, bearing gifts. The florist’s had been a problem, because Kim was artistic and he wanted something unconventional. He finally picked out some tall plants with complicated orange flowers that looked like birds’ heads. Then he stopped at Cecil’s for a bottle of British gin.

  After much deliberation, staring at the clothes he had brought, he had opted for khakis and a white fleece shirt with an On the Beach logo. He had also showered, but hadn’t shaved, because in his vision of art world fashion, facial hair was de rigueur.

  On the way to Kim’s, he had found himself thinking about Nina. He had asked her to marry him a few weeks before and she had turned him down flat, explaining that she was still too close to the divorce and wanted to live by herself for a while. Then she had said, let’s be friends and colleagues, get together when we’re in the same town.... Then she had called up Hallowell and asked him for a date, or so Hallowell had told him when he wormed the story out of him over smoked eel at the Robata. She was devious; they were all devious; they were so devilishly devious they didn’t know, themselves, how devious they were.

  She had been hurt when he turned her invitation down. He had to admit, he had enjoyed hearing the hurt tone in her voice. Maybe he had come to Tahoe to let her know that she had made a big mistake choosing Hallowell over him. Maybe his pride was ever so slightly bruised. Maybe he was slightly hurt at her rejection of him.

  She might never recognize his ultradesirability over any other male who happened to cross her path. Fine. Let her lie in a bed heaped high with law books and talk torts with the melancholy Hallowell.

  They would be colleagues and friends. But by God, she wasn’t going to take him for granted.

  At Kim’s driveway, he paused to watch the last glowing light of sunset suspended in the west above the mountains as if reluctant to see the last of summer fading. A star emerged as he watched, and he made a fervent unspoken wish.

  Kim waited for him behind the golden door.

  She wore a gauzy skirt, showing slim, smooth brown calves and bare feet. A white cotton Mexican blouse with a lacy ruffle swung low above her breasts, and her earrings sparkled. She gave him a warm smile. Her white teeth gleamed in the porch light.

  "For you," he said, handing her the flowers. "The gin’s for martinis."

  "The shaker is right this way." She led him through the tall studio into a small kitchen on the right. Paul got onto a bar stool and watched her put the flowers into a blue glass vase while he opened up the gin bottle. "Blue and orange," she said. "My favorite combination."

  As she handed him his glass, she added, "You’re quiet tonight. Everything okay?"

  "Sorry," Paul said. "I’m just a little tongue-tied. When I saw you at the door this morning ... I didn’t realize how beautiful you actually are."

  She lowered her eyes and bit her lip. "I’m not," she said. "Do you like artichokes, Paul? And Spanish rice? I made some to go with the steaks."

  "I couldn’t have picked better myself." He held up his glass. "To painters," he said.

  "And to Anna. Let’s go on out to the patio." They loaded the thick raw steaks onto a platter and went outside to candles in blue glass holders, the white tablecloth, and the silent and dignified forms standing around them. Cacti for friends, Paul thought. Kim had to be lonely, like he was; she just didn’t know it. He relaxed into that other world he had glimpsed earlier, full of enigmatic potential. He still couldn’t believe his luck, happening upon this lovely stranger in her candlelit courtyard.

  The grill set in the fireplace put the steaks at just the right height. Paul lifted his own bare feet up onto the hearth, near his martini. When Kim returned from the kitchen with a steaming tray, she said, "Try this."

  He bit into a puffy hors d’oeuvre. The red pepper was like fire, but there was something cool and creamy in there that converted the flames into rich warmth. He had two more. He had never tasted anything so sensational in his life. He finished off his glass, poured some more from the shaker, and looked for hers.

  "You paint, you cook, you look like Demi Moore. Where is he?" Paul said.

  "Who?"

  "The man. There has to be one. The race of man does not permit a woman like yourself to stay alone long."

  "I told you, I don’t date." She said this simply, without much emotion, as if it was perfectly normal.

  He couldn’t let it go. Why would a woman like this resign herself to a life without men?

  "You’re not used to the idea that a woman might choose to be celibate, I can see that."

  "Goes against the instincts," Paul said. "Mating and maternal. A woman needs a man."

  " ’A man needs a maid,’ " she said, quoting one of Neil Young’s more unfortunate lines, her eyes twinkling. "These days, some of us women aren’t as anxious as we used to be to commit suttee. But it isn’t just that. I love men, I do. It’s just that I love my work more, and those instincts—once they’re awakened, they eat up your life."

  "How old are you?" Paul asked her abruptly.

  "Twenty-nine. And you?"

  "Forty. It’s time to change your ways, Kim."

  She laughed. "Don’t hesitate to say what’s on your mind."

  "Maybe I could find a way to tempt you."

  "I don’t think so. Although I do find you very attractive. There’s a great deal of erotic heat coming from you. The color I feel around you is a hot orange-red. There’s a poem I like...."

  "Tell me."

  "It starts out, ’I blush for you, steaming man.’ I don’t remember the rest."

  She was flirting, but warning him off at the same time. Never had he felt so confused. He leaned toward her, to get closer to the spell she cast.

  "I see your aura too," he said. "It’s half cool and half hot, like that appetizer you brought in. You have a very ambivalent aura."

  "The steaks," she said, smiling.

  "Oh." He turned them over with the ice tongs.

  "Love is too powerful for me. Do you know what I mean, Paul?"

  "It’s a powerful thing, all right." The word love coming from her lips had a whole new resonance to it. She made it sound like the sacred thing it should be.

  They sat for a while, while night seeped across the wall, while the steaks hissed and spit and the heat in Paul grew and grew, until Paul smelled something burning and hastily put the sizzling meat on a platter. Kim got up and went inside, the muscles of her legs straight and firm in the flickering light, while he finished his third drink, letting it go straight to his head. He felt challenged, excited, aroused. He was so fired up he wanted to sweep her into his arms right then and there and find her bedroom, the hell with the dinner.

  On the other hand, he didn’t want to blow it this early. He would wait for the full message first. By the time she came back with her tray he was back under control.

  They ate slowly, talking about Paul now, his work as a cop, his life in Carmel. He let her get to know him, her delicate probing quest
ions like fingers caressing him, charming him. He dropped his guard too low to defend himself from her. She bloomed beside him like a tropical flower with a scent he couldn’t quite identify and he lost himself in her dark-fringed eyes, her gravity and her laugh....

  They walked around the studio and she talked some more about her painting. This time Paul felt as attracted to her work as he was to her. Stopping in front of one with delicate splinters of yellow and white, which resembled a whimsically suggestive piece of the old man cactus, he said, "I want to buy this one."

  "You’re very nice. But—"

  "But nothing. Wrap it for me, I’ll pick it up tomorrow. I want to put it on my office wall."

  "You mean it! But it’s expensive—" "I’m not asking for a special deal," Paul said. "I want to buy it."

  She stood close to him and looked at it with him, her eyes lingering over the painting. Standing next to her, he realized with a shock that she was nearly as tall as he was. "Well now, that’s an impetuous thought. Maybe you ought to think it over."

  "You’ve never met such an impetuous man," Paul said. He couldn’t stand it any longer. He took her by her shoulders and pulled her toward him.

  Crushing her mouth against his, he felt the physical boundaries between them dissolve. Her hand slid down his chest, her touch forcing waves of pure sexual appetite through his body. He shivered as if he were sixteen, the newness of a stranger’s touch as intimately shocking as the directness of it.

  Then he heard her murmur, "Paul, no."

  "Yes."

  "No!" She pushed him away. She was strong.

  He stood there, breathing hard.

  "It’s time for you to go, Paul."

  "Yes. Okay. Sorry."

  She led him as far as the gate, holding it open for him. "Thanks," she said. "I enjoyed it."

  "What?"

  "Enjoyed it. Good night, Paul." The gate bolt clanked firmly into place, expelling him from her garden of earthly delights.

  He returned swiftly to himself. "Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out, buddy," he muttered, searching for his car keys in the dark.