Obstruction of Justice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  "That’s all for now," he said to Nina, as though she were her own client. "Stay available."

  While Nina walked her client back to her car, Paul went over to the lab tech, who was just pulling his gloves off. He closed his case with a snap.

  "What was that garden tool you just bagged?" Paul said. "Looked like a shovel."

  "Can’t say at this time, sir. Excuse me." Toting the case, he walked rapidly toward the patrol car and loaded it into the back, where the big plastic bag was also being loaded. Paul followed him and had a good look, confirming his idea that the item was a shovel.

  "The idea that Ray is out there somewhere wandering around in that blue suit, hating all of us because he’s dead and we’re still alive ..." Mrs. de Beers was saying as Paul caught up. "What’s Quentin doing with him? Why is he torturing us? What have we done to him?"

  "Can I drive you home?" Nina asked, concern clouding her usually translucent brown eyes.

  "No. That’s not necessary. I’m going straight over to see Leo. I’m sure he’s back from ... well, wherever he was this morning when I called. He’s been angry with me because I—I was going to let Quentin have his way. All Quentin had to do was wait! And the kids will have to hear about all this. They’ve been angry at me too, for the same reason. I guess I’ll try to get them all over to the house this afternoon."

  "By the way, Sarah. I stopped by your house briefly last night but no one answered the doorbell."

  "Molly felt better. I thought it would be all right to leave her for a few minutes. I went for a drive. I—I didn’t get back until very late."

  "Molly went out too? By herself? Is that a good idea?"

  "Oh, no! She wasn’t planning to go anywhere. She probably just didn’t feel like answering the door. The doctor started her on antidepressants yesterday. Those things wipe you out." She fiddled in a small red leather bag, eventually locating what she was hunting for, a silver key ring forming twin linking circles around the letters M and J.

  "I know it’s a bad time to ask a lot of questions, and I won’t, but I need to know one thing," said Nina. "Why did you call me at court and instruct me to drop your opposition to Ray’s exhumation? Maybe it’s a bad time to talk about it, but you didn’t call me back yesterday either."

  "Quentin made me. He came to talk to me, and by the time he was done, he had what he wanted. I couldn’t stand up to him when he was right there in front of me. He told me what to say.

  "Then ... I called the court to find out what happened. I was too ashamed to talk to you directly, Nina. And when I learned you had asked for a postponement instead, I was glad. Except now this has happened, and I can’t help thinking that if you’d done what I said, Quentin would have had the exhumation done properly, and I would have been there with a policeman, and we would have been able to keep better control of the situation.... The thing is, Quentin has a different set of values from the rest of us. Ray was just like him. He got what he wanted, just like Quentin."

  She beeped her Pathfinder and the locks popped up. "I’m sorry if I caused a lot of trouble for you," she said, lifting her legs into the truck, watching Paul’s eyes rev up at the sight, and with a brisk slam shutting them down.

  "Sarah," said Nina, but Sarah’s car rolled slowly out of sight, leaving Paul and Nina in its dust.

  "What in the world is going on?" Nina asked with real distress.

  "I don’t like it either," Paul said. "It’s like some ancient drama. Lightning flashes, grieving widow, grave robbers ... how come you never get involved in anything that makes sense?"

  "What do you think happened?"

  "She’s probably right, from what you’ve told me. The grandfather’s lost his grip on reality. It’s a good example of how miserable a mentally ill person can make the people around him."

  "He was pretty irrational, Paul, but he didn’t seem mentally ill."

  "I shudder to think what he’s doing with the body. Too grotesque to contemplate."

  "Maybe it wasn’t him. Like Sarah said, all he had to do was wait a few days."

  "Maybe he thought she’d change her mind again. And he is missing."

  "I don’t know. He was so sure of himself," Nina said.

  "Then ... you’re saying it might have been one of the three people she mentioned as being angry at her?"

  "They were the ones who were about to lose, Paul. Leo Tarrant, Jason, Molly. Why is Ray’s body so important? I knew on the mountain something was beginning, not ending. The power of that flash, taking away my sight and hearing and leaving me in terror, cowering on the ground ... I felt that I was in the presence of some bright death-dealing spirit, not a lightning bolt."

  "Who the hell knows what electricity is, anyway?" Paul said. "It’s a mystery, like where we came from and where we’re going. Like what sleep really is. Maybe God’s a current. I’m having some of the same thoughts on the case I’m working. I’m having weird flashes of insight that don’t even seem to come from me, like something out there wants the case solved and is leading me from clue to clue."

  "I owe you breakfast. Come on. I’ll drive and drop you back here later."

  "It’s getting late. Make it a grilled chicken sandwich at that restaurant on the beach."

  She swung onto the highway, heading west.

  "Bet whoever really was up to all those late-night graveyard shenanigans had a huge appetite this morning," Paul said. "We should check the restaurants, see who had the He-man Special with extra everything for breakfast."

  "Brilliant," Nina said. "And you just know the police are going to overlook that telltale clue."

  "Wait! I’m having a weird flash of insight right now! About the greasy spoon we just passed! Yes. Yes. I hear, oh, Master."

  "What message have you received from on high?" Nina asked, getting into it.

  Paul touched a forefinger to the spot between his closed eyes. "Steak and eggs," he intoned. "Steak and eggs."

  15

  A SHRILL RINGING. NINA’S OFFICE COMPUTER MONITOR told her it was nearly three-thirty in the afternoon. She held her place in the file she was plowing through and picked up the phone with her other hand.

  "It’s Sarah. I have to talk to you about this morning."

  "Have they found—"

  "No. I’ll come to you."

  "All right."

  "Ten minutes." Sarah hung up. Nina’s thoughts had been irretrievably interrupted. She walked down the hall, empty because it was Saturday, to the bathroom, fluffed her hair and washed her hands. When she came back Sarah de Beers was sitting in the outer room. Nina closed and locked the outer door and sat down in the other chair, across from the desk where on weekdays Sandy held sway.

  "He’s gone!"

  "Who?"

  "Jason!"

  "Where has he gone?"

  "I don’t know. I called the boy he’s been staying with. He said Jason took his stuff and split."

  "Sarah, calm down."

  "Where could he be? I called all his other friends this morning. They haven’t seen him since yesterday. Molly doesn’t know either. Jason’s Jeep is in our driveway, where he left it yesterday."

  "I’m sure he’ll turn up," Nina said. "He’s having a hard time. He’s lost a father, no matter how difficult the relationship was."

  Sarah began to tremble, and the trembling changed into a nervous giggle, and the giggle became a laugh. The laugh escalated into a fit that Humphrey Bogart might stop with a slap, but Nina didn’t think Sarah would take that too well from her, so she waited.

  Sarah lifted her hands to her mouth, trying to stifle herself, but she laughed on. Her purse fell to the floor with a crash. She spread her arms out weakly toward the silver wallet and the cosmetics skidding over the floor, as if they were children she loved but couldn’t control.

  Nina got up and picked it all up, placing everything securely in the brass-chased Cartier bag, closing the latch firmly, placing it back into Sarah’s hands, giving her a chance to come back.

  "I’m ...
so ... afraid," Sarah said, the words coming out in short gasps. "Ray has brought death on us.... I’m very afraid of death.... My mother died when I was a child.... It was horrible.... The worst does happen...."

  She wiped her eyes. "I apologize for that. But you must know by now how difficult Jason’s relationship with his father really was. He hated him, but underneath he still loved him, too, the way a child loves a father no matter what. Jason talked me into opposing Quentin in the first place. He even gave me your name. He said you could go up against Quentin and win. He read about your cases in the newspaper. And I ..."

  "What reason did he give for opposing the motion?"

  "He said that Quentin would find some way of accusing Leo of doing something to Ray up on that mountain. Quentin hasn’t been normal. His personality seems totally different. Leo and Molly thought Jason was right, so I came to you."

  "But you wouldn’t let me win it for you."

  "I’m sorry. I’m sorry." It was her mantra. Sarah had found herself in the middle again, Nina thought, and she moved in accordance with who was pushing her at the moment. "I should have talked to Leo and the children, but there was no time. Quentin said I had to tell you to stop right away." She hung her head, seeming to need reassurance, so Nina tried to offer some.

  "I’m sure you did what you had to do."

  "That’s just it. I did what other people wanted me to do, just like I always did with Ray. I don’t know my own mind. I’m going to try to stand up for my own thoughts on things. Like, when I was injured, my legs, you know. I would listen to Ray, and he’d have me thinking I pulled that beam down over myself. Then I’d listen to Jason, and he’d have me believing Ray pulled it down on me. The truth is, it was an accident, nobody’s fault. We had been coping until then as a family, but a ... hatred flared up and grew among us after I was hurt."

  "When did you last speak to Jason?"

  "On Thursday while you were still in court, I told him I was withdrawing my opposition. Yesterday he came to the house to talk to me. Quentin was just leaving. They quarreled. Oh, I’m so afraid!"

  "Why did they quarrel, Sarah? Go ahead, take a minute if you need to."

  Sarah said, "I didn’t hear all of it. Jason was asking him to drop the court proceeding. Quentin said something like ’Ever heard of the Furies, boy?’ Who are the Furies, Nina?"

  "I don’t know," Nina said. "Something to do with Greek mythology. That’s all you heard?"

  "Yes. Quentin left. Jason left without saying good-bye. You see, what I am afraid of ... I can’t say it ..."

  "You’re afraid Jason took Ray’s body and Quentin followed him, and Jason’s ... in trouble? We should tell the police." Nina stood up.

  "Tell them what?" Sarah crossed her arms. "He’s nineteen. Not a kid. They aren’t going to care. And Quentin and Jason—they have always cared deeply for each other, until this. I’m just overreacting, aren’t I?"

  "Sarah," Nina said. "This can’t stay in the family. The police might be able to help."

  "I can’t even say he’s done anything. It’s just a feeling of dread. But I had to tell someone. And you stood up to Quentin. I feel that I can lean on you, Nina. Can you help me find Jason?"

  "There is someone I could call," Nina said. "A private investigator, Paul van Wagoner."

  "That tall man at the cemetery with you?"

  "Yes. If I can reach him, and if he has some spare time."

  "Call him and set it up."

  "I’ll try to help you, Sarah."

  "I knew I could count on you."

  "But you have to stop leaning on people, even me. You have to straighten up for the sake of the twins. I think you are stronger than you know, Sarah. I think you can take whatever comes."

  "I know. I’ll try. I love them so much."

  She stood up, shaking out the soft material of her skirt. "Oh, one more thing. You should try talking with Jose."

  "Jose?"

  "Joe. The gardener. He might know where Jason’s gone."

  "Thanks, Sarah. I’ll be in touch."

  Nina’s hand was on the phone as the door closed. She called Caesars. Paul wasn’t in. She left a message. She called Collier, leaving stilted messages on his machines at both his home and his office.

  Sarah had come to her for help, seeking a more decisive, even a more powerful person in Nina. But what could Nina do? Her only real asset was her mind, and right now, like Sarah’s, it was befuddled by the incidents of the past week. So she shut off the computer at her desk, put her feet up, and reviewed all the small things she had heard about Quentin and the theft of Ray’s body. The Starlake Building was quiet. In her hands, with her legal pad and sharp pencil, she drew quick sketches while she thought.

  After some time, she looked down at the sketch. Lightning zigzagged across the top of the paper. Below were her doodles, outlined again and again with the pencil and cross-hatched into three dimensions: a coffin, Molly hanging from a rope, the empty grave, a body in the bushes.

  Dreadful images.

  Her heart beat faster. She had been stupidly shuffling papers and mouthing legal arguments while the situation opened up under her like Ray’s grave.

  Briefcase loaded with the paperwork she ought to be doing, she headed toward Regan Beach. Sarah had mentioned that Joe might know something. The least she could do was ask him.

  Sarah’s car wasn’t in its parking spot. Joe was loading a bin full of grass clippings into a pickup marked JL GARDENING in the driveway behind the de Beers house, its engine idling.

  "Joe?" The gardener was sweating through the blue denim work shirt, the muscles in the back of his shoulders and the thick neck twisted and straining. She noticed that his profile was noble, incised, with a jutting nose and strong brow under the straw cowboy hat. He turned toward her, and she realized she had never really looked at him when they talked in the house. He had made himself unimportant even while he talked to her.

  At first he didn’t seem to recognize her in her Saturday clothes of jeans and T-shirt. He was older than she had thought, in his thirties. Standing close to him, both of them about the same height, she felt the heat of his masculinity emitting from him, rapidly controlled as he saw who she was.

  "Oh," he said. "The lady lawyer. How are you?"

  "I’m in a hurry," Nina said. "Jason de Beers has disappeared."

  "I told you."

  "What? What did you tell me?"

  "That he was causing problems."

  "I think you know much more about this family’s problems than you told me."

  "I don’t know anything. I’m just—"

  "Yeah, just the gardener. Do me a favor, Joe. Don’t give me that crap, okay?"

  The smooth oval brown face broke into a sullen smile, quickly hidden. "What do you want from me?" he said. "I’m late myself. The dump closes at five."

  "Where were you last night?"

  "Last night? At home with my woman."

  "That can be checked."

  "Who would bother to check?"

  "I would. The police will, when I finish talking to them. I think you helped to dig up the body of Ray de Beers last night. You’ve worked here a long time. I imagine you know how to use a backhoe. Was it Quentin de Beers? How much did he pay you?"

  That blank stare again. She stared right back, through it.

  Joe laughed. His posture relaxed, as if he were throwing off a disguise. Suddenly he took up space, and she felt the heat of his personality again. "You are a very beautiful woman," he said. He was very close to her now. His eyes with their long lashes looked aggressively into her own. "I sat next to you in the house, and I thought to myself, Man, she is a nice lady, she ought to be in the bed, not running around with her little briefcase causing problems. You don’t have any husband, do you?" He reached out, ran his hand along her bare left arm appraisingly. "No ring."

  Nina took a step back. "That’s none of your business."

  "Oh, I see. You can come here where I work, accuse me of bad things, ask me how
much I got paid to dig up a body. You act like the landowner’s wife, huh? I’m not your servant. I don’t answer that kind of talk. I have my own business, plenty of customers—"

  "Okay. Okay. I didn’t mean to jump on you."

  "Anglo women are the worst. In Mexico women show respect to a man. Not in the U.S. The women are the head of the house in this crazy country." His mouth spread into a silly mocking simper. " ’Joe, you didn’t clean up the dog doodoo over there by the bushes. Joe, the fuchsia looks bad, put down some fertilizer. Joe, you stink, don’t you ever take a bath?’ And dirty looks when it’s time to pay me my money."

  "Is she really so bad? Mrs. de Beers?"

  His face softened somewhat. "She’s not as bad as the others."

  "Then let’s give it a rest, Joe. I get the point. I apologize if I offended you."

  "No more padron bullshit."

  "Okay. And no more macho flexing."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Did you help anyone dig up the body of Ray de Beers?"

  "Huh? No."

  "No? You give me your word?"

  "You have my word."

  Nina bit her lip. She believed him. She had been wrong.

  Joe took off his heavy work gloves and stuffed them into his pocket, then slammed the back of the truck closed and climbed onto the back fender to tighten one of the lids on his trash cans. Nina watched him, thinking, he’ll be a rich man someday. Now he was looking up and behind her. She turned in time to see a curtain being pulled shut on an upstairs floor, a white face disappearing.

  "Joe," she said, "Sarah and Molly are very frightened that something has happened to Jason."

  "There is a place at Wright’s Lake—you know it?" Joe said. He put on a pair of sunglasses and opened the door to the truck.

  "No."

  "Take Highway 50 over Echo Summit. Just past Strawberry, you see the turnoff on the right. About half an hour. Then you climb a steep one-lane road high into the mountains. The lake is almost deserted at this time of year, and the summer cabins are empty. The grandfather has a friend who owns one of them." He described the exterior of the cabin and its exact location. "He has a key. He goes up there sometimes. I think he forgot he told me about it a long time ago. The family went up there once or twice, but not lately. If Quentin de Beers dug up the body, he might have gone there. Jason knows about the place too. He drove up to the house one day last summer with a big trout he said he got at Wright’s Lake."