Obstruction of Justice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  "I didn’t kill my grandfather," Jason said. There was a long pause.

  "Then talk to me!" Nina said, abandoning the pretense of walking out. She wanted to shake him. She was thinking about the feel of metal rims, the sooty lenses....

  "Can’t you help me? They have to make a case against me, don’t they? I don’t have to testify, do I? Can’t you sit with me, and make sure it’s fair?"

  She considered this. "It doesn’t all happen at once," she said. "There’s the arraignment and bail hearing, then a preliminary hearing, then other appearances, before there is a trial. Do you know when you’re going to be arraigned?"

  "Tomorrow at one-thirty. Municipal Court. The guard gave me a piece of paper." He held it up to the glass, and Nina read it carefully.

  "All right. I’ll be here at one to talk to you some more and I’ll make a special appearance at the hearing for you even if I don’t end up representing you. Meantime, think about talking to me."

  "Can I get bail?"

  "Unlikely. Not after the trip to Las Vegas."

  He closed his eyes and absorbed this blow.

  "I hate being so useless to Molly and Mom. When can I see Molly?"

  "Tomorrow at court, and then she can come for a visit in the afternoon. How are you doing in there?"

  "It doesn’t matter."

  She looked at her watch. She had to go. She looked at him again. He gave her a small, encouraging smile this time. He was trying to be brave.

  "Your mother and sister want to look out for you, Jason," she said. "You have to think about yourself for a while."

  The kindness in her voice seemed to hurt him. Jason’s throat worked, and he coughed, as if to prevent some other less welcome sound from escaping. "Thank you," he said. "I don’t know why you’re bothering with me. But thank you."

  18

  SEPTEMBER IS CARMEL’S WARMEST MONTH, HIGH summer, the water at the white sand beach as warm as it gets, which is still wet suit temperature. The tourists are back buzzing in the hives of San Jose and the rest of Bay area. The locals can once again walk to the post office without having to push their way through the crowds; they can let their dogs run on the beach, and even shop at the boutiques and galleries that have been too full to walk into for months.

  Paul had been paying attention to business since his return to Carmel, but he had also been cruising the art galleries in search of the perfect present for Kim.

  Kim. The name evoked her fingertips tantalizing him in the firelight.

  Since Tahoe he had been in an uneasy state, irritable, nervous even. Kim had done this to him, provoking him into a state of anticipation and arousal he hadn’t felt since the years of suffering through the frenzy of adolescence. He cut himself shaving; he locked himself out of the van; he wrestled with the pillow at night and dreamed wet dreams of cheerleaders and stewardesses.

  He felt had. He was disgusted at his complete capitulation to her, at how much he had enjoyed displaying himself for her like a slab of meat. And he wanted more, craved it. He wanted her to thrill and bewitch him some more.

  While he was slurping down martinis, she had somehow gotten the upper hand. She had literally caught him with his pants down. He no longer wanted her; he needed her, needed to finish what had started, and soon. He had gone over the scene in his mind a thousand times, wondering what had prevented him that night from seizing her and making love to her, instead of sitting down like a perfect little gentleman to eat his salad.

  He had always considered bedding a woman to be a simple and direct thing. He thought of himself as Ferdinand the Gentle Bull. He bulled his way gently past their defenses, and then it was missionary-style or doggie-style, or bouncy-bouncy on a chair.

  Kim had expanded his horizons. Certain adventurous fantasies that he kept well-hidden had risen up that night with her and now devoured his every waking thought.

  But before going any further he needed to make it clear that he was the boss. That was part of what was driving him crazy, that he hadn’t had a chance to show her who was the boss.

  Afterward she could tie him to the bed and screw him silly.

  Underlying these half-frustrating, half-pleasurable contemplations was a lurking fear that she might not want to screw him silly. What if she wouldn’t let him have her at all? What if she had just been making fun of him? Those possibilities made his blood boil with emotions too chaotic to sort out.

  He had called to invite her to Carmel, and in her infuriatingly teasing manner she had sorta kinda promised to visit him over the weekend. That motivated a second call, to the cleaning lady for a special job on his Carmel Fields condo, a visit to Trader Joe’s for Norwegian smoked salmon and frozen scallops for a tête-à-tête dinner, and a supply run for Sapphire gin and vermouth and no-sulfite organic wine—wouldn’t want her to get a headache. He was ready, except for the present that would demonstrate how much he liked her.

  He decided to buy her a painting, and he began looking around the hundred galleries within a half mile of his office.

  He soon learned that very few of the galleries carried what Kim would call art. Kim liked brilliant color, new ideas. Carmel galleries were not exactly on the cutting edge of the art world. Over and over he saw the same old oceans at sunset, golf links at Pebble Beach, rainy Places Vendôme in an ersatz Paris, nudes with lopsided breasts. Occasionally he would happen upon a neon cactus or a gleaming abstract sculpture, but these didn’t seem right either.

  He was getting an education in upscale popular art, but not having much luck. Flavio’s Art on Mission and Seventh had some small lithographs from Dalí’s last years, pricey and degenerate. Paul liked Dali because you could see what he meant, twisting and bending clocks and other objects to make his own warped sense out of prosaic things. He, at least, showed a sense of humor. He thought about buying one for a couple of days, but finally decided Kim didn’t seem like a Dali type, either.

  As he went in and out of the art emporiums that week, Paul would mention Kim’s name now and then, but her agent evidently hadn’t cracked the Carmel market, because no one he spoke with had ever heard of her.

  On his Friday lunch hour, after his regular char-broiled steak lunch at the Hog’s Breath, Paul set forth again on his walking tour of downtown.

  On Delores, three blocks from his office, he passed one of those quaint alcoves full of tiny shops that never seem to sell anything useful, and he turned into it. The first tiny gallery he saw was selling Henry Miller watercolors.

  Henry Miller was more familiar territory than he’d been traveling. He was one of Paul’s favorite writers. Paul had made the trek to Partington Ridge in Big Sur to see the shanty where Miller spent the seventies, and he had read everything Miller ever wrote, because he got a kick out of the warm, slapdash extravagance of the writing.

  Miller was a heroic figure, much maligned, passionate to the last. He had written a line Paul had read long ago that had stayed with him: "The great artist is he who has conquered the romantic in himself." Miller had never been able to conquer the romantic, any more than Paul ever would. Paul knew that Miller had also painted in watercolor for most of his adult life, so he looked very curiously at the bright pictures on the walls, blotchy, sloppy, but brilliantly colored pictures of people and places.

  Though the pictures weren’t well drawn, they had a joyous, youthful quality. Miller had been like that even as an old man. Paul could imagine Miller sitting outside at his table at Big Sur on a hot Sunday afternoon, half-crocked on sensimilla from the garden or a bottle of Pernod Fils sent by some faraway admirer, enjoying the breeze from the sea spread out below him, humming a ditty as he dotted blues and reds and oranges onto the damp paper.

  The watercolors were grotesquely overpriced, but he was sure Kim would like one. He bought a small picture of a boy in a blue cap and had it wrapped in silver paper with an orange bow. While the gallery owner, a lady in her sixties, patiently cut and folded the paper, Paul said pleasantly, "This is for a friend of mine who’s an art
ist up at Tahoe."

  "How nice."

  "She’s quite a well-known painter, I understand. Her agent sells a lot to foreign markets. Singapore and so forth."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "Her name is Kim Voss. Ever seen any of her stuff?"

  The lady lifted her head, considered, said, "Voss. Not that I recall."

  "You know, I’d be curious to know if anything of hers is being sold around here," Paul said. "Do you have a catalog or something I could look at?"

  "Sure." She pushed a huge book across the counter and said, "It’s alphabetical. Look her up." She reached underneath for the ribbon and began constructing an outrageous, gardenia-shaped bow.

  Paul thumbed through the catalog, which purported to be a kind of Who’s Who of American artists. Voss, Voss ...

  No Voss was listed. He turned to the front and looked at the date. The catalog was only a year old. "This is odd," he said. "She’s not listed at all."

  "Maybe she’s just getting started."

  "No, no. She’s well established. She has a big studio, lots of works—"

  "If she sells mostly in Asia and doesn’t market her work here, she may not have been included," said the lady. "Or she may work under another name. It could be lots of things. Why don’t you ask her?"

  "I wouldn’t want her to think I was checking up on her," Paul said. "I mean, I’m not. I’m just inquiring."

  A beautiful Spanish-looking girl with long bleached-blond hair, wearing cutoffs and sandals, sashayed in, but Paul didn’t even sneak a good look at her. He took the package off the counter, saying admiringly, "Great bow. Better than old Henry’s picture." The sales-woman smiled for the first time. "I can’t understand it," he went on. "How nobody around here knows who she is."

  "As long as you know who she is."

  "But I don’t. That’s the problem. She’s this wonderful, successful artist and nobody’s heard of her."

  "You sound besotted," said the woman, squinting at him through Coke-bottle lenses. She shooed him out.

  Back at the office, Paul set the package carefully on top of his computer hutch. The answering machine blinked. He pressed the rewind button.

  "Paul?" Kim’s throaty voice on the machine. "I can’t make it this weekend. I have this important commission I’m working on. A big picture. Poor Paul."

  Poor Paul saw himself in the little mirror on the door, a snarling, wolflike expression on his face. She was driving him insane!

  "I’m wearing my overalls to paint in, but it’s such a hot day I didn’t bother with a shirt or anything. I hope no one comes to the door, because I look really indecent," Kim was saying. "I wish you were here, Paul. If only you were here. It makes me feel warm just thinking about you."

  He picked up the answer phone, squeezed it with terrible strength....

  "I do wish I could come," Kim’s voice went on. "Think of me, will you? What a shame our work keeps us apart. Well, see you soon, I hope."

  A click. Paul was panting, the little machine raised above his head, about to be hurled at the mirror—

  "Paul?" Nina’s voice now, clear and businesslike. He paused, hands high.

  "I’ve got a new homicide case. Jason de Beers. Charged with killing his grandfather. Remember the man whose body disappeared from the cemetery? That was Jason’s father, and you met his mother there, remember? I’m hoping you’d be able to take charge of the investigation. I want to put on a defense at the preliminary hearing. He was arraigned an hour ago. I just got back from court. We have only ten days. You’d have to start Monday. Uh, sorry to miss you. Let me know. Thanks."

  A beep. As the machine began to reset, Paul punched in Nina’s number. "I’m there," he told her. "Monday at eleven."

  "Same hourly fees as usual?" Nina sounded like usual: brisk, smart as hell, and busy. He heard people talking in the background.

  "Right. See you Monday." He couldn’t keep the impatient note out of his voice. He wanted to call Kim. She thought she was safe, calling him like that, and— taunting him, that was what she had been doing—frustration made him grit his teeth.

  "I’ll have Sandy put a file together for you. Paul ..."

  "Yeah."

  "Don’t you have any questions about it?"

  "I’ll find out more on Monday. Call Ginger Hirabayashi in Sac if you need a good all-around physical evidence expert. She’ll know what other experts you might need."

  "Okay." Paul thought he detected a melancholy note in her voice. "Did Bob get back from San Francisco all right?" he asked belatedly.

  "Yes, he’s back in school. He had a great time. His father’s gone home to Wiesbaden. Bob wants to fly there at Christmas for a visit. He’s only eleven, Paul. I just can’t imagine letting him go. What do you think?"

  "Keep him with you. You’d miss him too much," Paul said a little too brusquely. "You need him around so you’ll do the tree thing and the presents thing."

  "Hey, I’ve got a life, too, you know. I’d be fine. I just think—"

  "You’d be at the office working on Christmas morning."

  "I don’t work all the time. And you don’t have to sound so doggone scornful. Anyway, I’m going to try to get this case dismissed at the prelim stage. I don’t think Collier has the evidence to take it to trial—"

  Paul exploded. "Get real," he said. "It’s a murder case. You can kiss life as we know it good-bye for the next six months. And then you’ll take the next case, and the next. That’s all you do, work. It’s okay, it’s your choice. I’d want you for my lawyer if I got busted on a felony."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence," Nina answered crisply, "but I’m way too fussy about my clients to take on an ill-tempered ex-cop with a chip on his shoulder the size of Gibraltar."

  He was silent.

  "What’s the matter with you, Paul? You’re jumping all over me!"

  "You wish," Paul said cruelly and succinctly. There was a silence.

  In the steely tone she usually reserved for not-very-credible witnesses, Nina said, "Take the burr out of your ass before you walk into my office, or don’t come at all." The phone went down hard.

  Paul looked inquiringly at his phone, as if it might tip him off about why in the world he had lit into Nina. He was completely over her. He had found somebody else. Nina deserved his pity, working all the time, nursing along this love fantasy of Hallowell, a half-man in love with work and a dead woman, in that order. He, Paul, had a life.

  Kim didn’t answer the phone. He snarled again, hanging up to save himself the final insult, the infernal sound of that damned beep.

  19

  MONDAY MORNING AT EIGHT A.M., AMID THE SMELL of Kona coffee rising from five mugs, Jason’s defense team assembled for the first time in Nina’s crowded office. She surveyed Paul propped in the corner chair, reading the Tahoe Mirror’s front-page account of Jason’s arrest, a cranky expression on his face; Sandy, just now rolling in her steno chair, a pen clenched in her teeth; Sandy’s gangly son Wish Whitefeather, who would serve as gofer and apprentice investigator, and Dr. Ginger Hirabayashi, who would handle forensic science and medical issues.

  A cool breeze from the newly unjammed window cut the central heating, which never turned off. Outside, the aspens and a sycamore or two blended their yellows and oranges into the pine forest that stretched down to the lake.

  "Folks, meet Dr. Hirabayashi," Nina said from behind her desk.

  "Ginger, please." The consultant smiled. Wish and Sandy were looking her over. Paul, who had just met her in person after several long-distance associations with her, said, "Welcome to Tahoe."

  "Let me tell you all about this lady," Nina went on. "Ginger has a Ph.D. in biochemistry, an M.D. from Johns Hopkins, and advanced training in forensic sciences from the FBI Intelligence Center at Langley. She left the FBI five years ago and went out on her own. She has sifted the ashes at Waco on behalf of some of the victims’ families, and she helped dismantle the ATF cover-up at Ruby Ridge.

  "Ginger is an expert on forensic
pathology and works with a group of other consultants in the Sacramento area. Through her, we have access to expert help and testimony, if need be, on just about every branch of forensic science and medicine you can imagine. She is the scourge of the law enforcement community in northern California. We are lucky to have her."

  Ginger wore jeans, a houndstooth-check sport jacket, and a white shirt with a Waterman fountain pen firmly affixed to the pocket. On her feet were a pair of black Doc Martens with soles as thick as small tires. Each earlobe was pierced three times and contained various small, unidentifiable objects. She wore no makeup, and her black hair was precision cut into a kind of military flattop. She sat just across from Nina’s desk, skimming through the box of police reports Sandy had just given her, projecting awesome cool.

  "I look forward to working with you guys," she said. She had a deep, confident voice that would be a big advantage on a witness stand. "It’s a juicy murder case. Nina’s pulled off some major upsets since she came to Tahoe. I hope we can make this another one." She crossed one leg over the other at the ankle and gulped coffee.

  "Well, let’s get started," Nina said. "We are going for a dismissal at the preliminary hearing stage. Jason de Beers is nineteen years old and isn’t going to fare very well in a jail cell for the many months it will take to get this case to trial. He’s been denied bail because he fled the state. His family is in disarray. His mother and sister need his help.

  "Here’s how I see it. I think the district attorney’s office has filed the murder charge prematurely. Collier Hallowell is banking on the fact that preliminary hearings are almost always continued by stipulation for weeks or months, giving everybody time to prepare. But the law still says the defendant has a right to the hearing within ten days. I’ve advised the Court and counsel that we won’t agree to a continuance."

  "So we have ... seven days," Sandy said. "Until next Monday. That’s why I Fed Exed a box of reports to each of you on Friday, Paul and Ginger."

  "That’s not very much time to figure this out, is it?" Wish asked.