Obstruction of Justice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  "Let’s not waste time on this, Your Honor," Nina said quickly. "The transcript will be sufficient."

  Suntan continued to look at her, and she didn’t like the look in his eye. But she didn’t dare look away, and for a long moment he held on to her eyes until his steady gaze broke through her fear and she recognized with relief that the look in his eye was a look she had seen before quite recently in the doting eyes of her doggy admirers. Suntan must think she was cute. If she was really lucky, he might be half as stupid as she was. "Why don’t we just get it read and move on?" she entreated the judge.

  "No, I’d like to hear it," Amagosian said. "It won’t take long." If she kept breathing this hard for another minute, she’d need a paper bag.

  Paul reached out one of his long legs and kicked her ankle under the table. On the folded note he passed her he had scrawled the words Shut up. Nina leaned back in her chair, trying to get a little more air and rubbing her ankle.

  Suntan turned on the tape.

  "This is the emergency operator," a vaguely familiar voice said.

  "Fire," a woman yelled. "At Wright’s Lake. Two people are in the cabin! Hurry!" The woman had a much higher voice than Nina’s, a bit of a screech really, and she sounded hysterical. This must be another 911 call. Nina had been perfectly rational at all times....

  "Give me your name, please—"

  "No! I can’t! I can see it from here! It’s burning down!" A distant crash washed over the background. "Oh my God!"

  It was her, all right. Nina looked fearfully around.

  "We need your name."

  "Wright’s Lake! Wright’s Lake!"

  "The caller has disconnected. We’ve placed that call as coming from the Wright’s Lake pay station," said the detached voice of the emergency dispatcher. Nina pried her fingers from their deathly grip on the table and forced them to lie perfectly still on the papers in front of her. "Placerville Fire, come in," the tape said. "Report of a burning building at Wright’s Lake."

  "Call the Lake for an extra unit, Dispatch," said a new voice.

  "Calling now. Could result in a forest fire; it’s been very dry up there. Shall I contact the Forest Service?"

  "Ten-four, Dispatch, have them send a helicopter so we can see if there are any flamers starting up."

  "Ten-four. Over and out."

  "That’s it," Suntan said, clicking the button and returning the recorder to his pocket.

  "Did everybody hear that all right?" Amagosian said. Jason’s head touched hers, and he muttered, "It’s you, all right."

  "Shhh," Nina said.

  "Has the woman making the call been identified to this date?" Collier said, resuming his questioning while seated at the counsel table.

  "Not yet, but we’re working on it. We have some prints from the pay phone station. We’re still sorting them out."

  "What occurred after the 911 call?"

  "Two fire units went up to Wright’s Lake. It’s kind of a shared responsibility area because it’s almost equidistant from Placerville and Tahoe. The Placerville unit arrived at 0257, followed by the Tahoe unit at 0303 hours. The chopper was already circling the building. I have the reports here in front of me."

  "Go on."

  "The firefighters from the first unit went in and removed two adult male bodies from the living room area. Both had been severely burned. With a fire still burning, obviously they couldn’t take photos of the placement of the bodies in situ. Emergency efforts to resuscitate one of the men failed to bring a response. The other body appeared to be partially decomposed and smelled of embalming fluid. It had clearly been dead for some days. Both bodies were taken to the Lake Tahoe morgue on Doc Clauson’s instructions. The firefighters continued efforts to fight the fire and had it under control in under an hour. There were no subsidiary fires."

  "Thank you, Deputy. Now, at some point were you called in to investigate the circumstances of this fire?"

  "Yes. I was hauled out of bed at 0415 hours and reported for duty at the fire site along with my partner at 0500 hours. It took us thirty minutes from Placerville predawn. One of the Placerville fire units was still there, but the chopper and the Tahoe unit had already taken off. I suited up and went in."

  "And what did you personally observe at the fire site?"

  "I have my report right here." While Suntan looked it over, Judge Amagosian said pointedly, "Far be it from me to ask for it." Nina managed a sickly smile.

  "This was a typical summer cabin with two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen area with a long counter, and a living area with a fieldstone fireplace, which remained intact. The walls and ceiling of the living area sustained the worst damage. Wallpaper on one wall hung off in shreds. The roof had burned through near the kitchen area to the point where you could see sky. Although the bedroom walls were blackened with soot and smoke, the fire never made it through the closed doors. In an area about four feet by four feet near the kitchen, the wooden floor had burned through, revealing the crawl space. I got down in there and found this." He held up a large, charred can of lighter fluid.

  "Was there any fluid in the can?"

  "No, sir. And I can tell you the can was empty before the fire started, because otherwise the heat would have caused it to explode. Instead, only the outside showed burning and it was intact."

  "Indicating?"

  "Indicating the floor burned through early and the can fell down there early in the fire. I could smell lighter fluid on what was left of the floorboards all around the living room and on the bodies."

  "And based on this evidence did you arrive at any conclusion regarding the cause of the fire?"

  "I concluded that the lighter fluid was spread around the bodies and the living area, then lit. I found no trace of a lighter or matches, but pocket matches would likely have burned up. We do have a number of samples from the flooring area that we are still analyzing."

  "Could the fire have started by accident?"

  "No, sir. An accidental lighter fluid spill would have occurred in a much more circumscribed area."

  "What did you do next in the course of your investigation, Deputy?" Collier said. He had hit his pace, relaxed and confident, the pace that comes only from years of evidentiary hearings. He was bringing out the important points and leaving the morass of data for trial, where it could all be picked over for weeks or months. Nina felt mingled envy and admiration, watching him move so self-assuredly around the witness, hearing him never stutter, never ask a question she could object to unless he intended it. How could he be such a paragon in his job and such a wreck outside it? With an effort, she concentrated again on the testimony.

  "My partner and I made an inventory of all the objects in the house and their condition. When it got light enough we examined the area for traces of vehicles. We found a lot of tire tracks in the drive. It’s all woods behind the cabin, and there’s only one road."

  "You also photographed and diagramed the tire tracks?"

  "Exactly. We sent the info to a tire tracks expert out of Cameron Park who works with us now and then."

  "And do you have any report from this expert?"

  "No, sir. He says he’s just getting started. He did mention that one of the sets was light-duty truck tires like you would find on an SUV—a sports utility vehicle, like a Ford Explorer or something."

  Or a Bronco, Nina corrected him silently.

  "Did you recover any fingerprints?" Yikes! Nina thought. She would make a terrible burglar. She dug her nails into her palms.

  "The soot was a major problem. We do have prints from the two bedrooms that were relatively undamaged, and we have a preliminary report. They include prints made by Quentin de Beers. Several more are still unidentified."

  "Any prints on the can of lighter fluid?"

  "No such luck," Suntan said regretfully, shifting his weight back and forth on the hard wooden seat. They were all getting hungry, but until the clock on the wall hit the exact moment of twelve, Nina knew Amagosian would not dismiss them, an
d that was still eighteen minutes away.

  Collier plowed on. "Have you since made any determination as to the owner of the cabin?"

  "The sole owner for the last twenty years, a man named Noel Gant, was interviewed and indicated the place was a fishing cabin, and that he had told Mr. de Beers to use it whenever he wanted to. We also talked to several neighbors, none of whom were at their cabins that night.

  "They say Mr. de Beers came up frequently during the summer to go fishing, using the canoe we found beside the house. He occasionally brought up friends and family over the years, including the youngest Mr. de Beers there." Suntan indicated Jason, who sat up straight in his seat. It was the first connection between Jason and the cabin, but it wasn’t very persuasive. So Jason had been up there once or twice as a kid. So what?

  "Over the last couple years, the defendant would go up there alone sometimes, the neighbors said. His grandfather gave him a key, introduced him around."

  "Did you at some point learn that the South Lake Tahoe police had identified the two bodies taken from the burning house?"

  "Yes, I learned sometime earlier that night that the body of a ... a deceased person named Raymond de Beers had been removed from a grave in town. Quentin de Beers’s body was initially identified by a representative of De Beers Construction Company, and later by family members."

  "And did you have access to the reports of the South Lake Tahoe investigation of the incident at the Happy Homestead cemetery on that night?"

  "They were provided to me by Sergeant Balsam. I’ve had a chance to read them."

  "Now let me ask you..." Collier said, and Nina recognized the phrase with which he always introduced important testimony. "You, as a highly experienced sheriff’s department investigator, have reviewed each and every report available as of this morning with regard to this case? All of which have been provided to counsel for the defense?"

  "Well, I don’t know if they’ve been provided—"

  "They have."

  "Yes, I believe I have all the reports except the autopsy report. Your office has also provided me with an account of a civil case to exhume the body of Raymond de Beers, in which Jason de Beers and his grandfather were apparently on opposite sides."

  "The civil pleadings in that case are in evidence by stipulation and are available for the Court’s bedtime reading," Collier said to Amagosian, who blinked his eyes and said, "Very well."

  "Are you able at this time, based on your experience and the reports in question, to reconstruct what occurred at the cemetery in question and subsequently at the cabin at Wright’s Lake on the night of August twenty-second?"

  "Objection!" Nina called out. "Calls for speculation and a conclusion. Vague, ambiguous, and unintelligible. Lack of foundation. Leading. The whole thing is based on second- and third-hand reports. It’s one thing to bring in the facts that way, because the hearing is preliminary. It’s another to draw conclusions as to the ultimate facts in a case."

  Collier said, "Let’s take those objections one at a time." He then proceeded to dismember her objections, mostly on the basis that Suntan was an expert allowed to give his opinions, up to and including reconstruction of a crime scene. After Nina had her chance to speak again, Amagosian made Collier try again twice more until he was satisfied with the form of the question. The clock edged toward twelve, as implacable as Collier, who was now asking again what Suntan made of it all.

  "I would also have to assume that the coroner has found that Quentin de Beers died of foul play," Suntan said.

  "I will represent to the witness and the Court that exactly such a finding has been made and will be discussed when Dr. Clauson is called," Collier said. "Now go ahead."

  "Ask me again. Sorry," Suntan said.

  "Can you at this time, based on your experience in investigation of crimes and your review of the reports and information we have just discussed, reconstruct what occurred at the cemetery, in your professional opinion?"

  "Here’s what I think," Suntan said. "The defendant here was digging up the body of his father at the cemetery. He wasn’t going to let his grandfather get hold of it. I don’t know too much about the family situation, but evidently the family was pitted against the grandfather on this. It was a control thing, some kind of symbol as to whether the grandfather was going to take over for the father who had just died—"

  "Your Honor," Nina said. "Move to strike all the testimony after the word cemetery, even if the witness has hearsay third-hand reports of Sigmund Freud. He’s a policeman, not a psychiatrist."

  "Let’s get this over with," Amagosian said. "The witness thinks the defendant was the one doing the digging. Move on."

  "The defendant was doing the digging, and the grandfather was watching from the bushes," Suntan continued. "How the grandfather knew this was going on has not been established. The defendant had almost completed his task when the grandfather came over and tried to stop him. In the struggle that followed, the defendant grabbed the shovel and hit his grandfather with it. Quentin de Beers was unconscious or dead at that point, I don’t know.

  "Then the defendant dragged both bodies into the trunk of the grandfather’s car and drove to the cabin at Wright’s Lake. He must have been flustered at this turn of events and he felt safe there, or maybe he had planned to go there all along. He got the two bodies into the living room of the cabin and decided to set the place on fire as a cover-up. That’s it in a nutshell."

  "What about the woman who called 911?" Collier said.

  "I don’t think a man could sound that shrill. I do believe it was a woman, so it wasn’t the defendant calling it in. So there was a woman there. A witness or maybe a coconspirator. The defendant might have called somebody to help him. But I don’t believe anyone else was at the grave site, based on the footprints and other evidence."

  "Thank you, Deputy Beatty. I have nothing further," Collier said, and Suntan stepped down, smiling at everyone.

  The minute hand on the clock clicked into its place, exactly on twelve.

  "Come with me," Paul said, and then, whispering into Nina’s ear, he added, "you shrill thing." In a normal voice he said, "We’ve got an hour and a half. We’ll catch a sandwich on the way back. Here, hand me that." He took the briefcase and tossed it in the back of the van.

  "I don’t know."

  "If you stare at the paperwork anymore, you won’t be able to think this afternoon. Let’s go." He tucked her into the seat belt and zoomed off, taking a left at Al Tahoe Boulevard, then a right onto Pioneer Trail.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Close by." They passed Black Bart and Golden Bear and Jicarilla, quiet streets off to their right. To the left was national forest, thick and fragrant. On this afternoon of oranges and yellows, sun fell onto her tired eyes; they closed, and next thing she knew they were parking in the driveway of a chalet-style house in some quiet neighborhood somewhere. A small blue painted sign said 90 KULOW. She frowned, trying to remember where she’d heard that street name before.

  "What’s this?" she said.

  "The house Sandy’s been trying to get you to go and see." He held a key in his palm. "The realtor loaned it to me for the afternoon. I told her you were a hotshot attorney in the middle of a trial who could steal a few minutes to look at it at lunch. Gullible, isn’t she?"

  "You and Sandy cooked this up?"

  Blameless, wide eyes. "We just thought you ought to have a look."

  Her little lapse into unconsciousness had left Nina groggy and all the more finely attuned to her overwhelming fatigue. She shook her head and looked around, at the deep lot with its hundred-foot high ponderosas, at the peaceful street with a few houses here and there, not too close together, not too grand, not too mean, each one different. And this one—oh, it was beautiful with its pointed gable and warm brown color....

  "Come on."

  She followed him up a few porch steps to the solid carved front door, but he took her arm and steered her around to the back. A pine deck about four f
eet above the ground, of the same warm color, encircled most of the house, extending out into the yard about thirty feet in back. The forest beyond was undeveloped. Native shrubs, tall trees, and a soft mat of pine needles preserved the wilderness feeling. They walked down a few steps into the yard, and found at the far boundary a dip near the fence where a creek would run in the spring.

  Nina hadn’t said a word. She just followed Paul around as he went to the front door and opened it to an entry with curved wooden hooks protruding from its walls.

  "For skis, see?" Paul said, demonstrating how they would be hung. "Here’s where you take your winter woolies off." But she had moved on, venturing onward into the living room. This room rose all the way to the exposed ceiling rafters. Past the wood stove, a picture window at least fifteen feet high overlooked the deck and backyard forest beyond.

  "The kitchen," Paul said. Off to the right of the living room, the small and well-equipped room featured the ideal window over the sink opening onto yet another view. She stood at the window for a moment, arms folded, gazing out at the sunlight on the trees, taking in the clarity of the air, which let each leaf and pine needle quiver individually in the breeze, and the tranquil perfection of this artwork composed by nature.

  Then he led her down the hall to a large bathroom with a claw-foot tub, sun pouring through the dust in the air, and two bedrooms beyond, lit from one angle like a Vermeer, still, suggestive, and enticing.

  "It’s beautiful," she breathed.

  "Last but not least." A staircase rose from the entry, and up they went quickly, Paul pushing Nina from behind as if she couldn’t make it on her own. A sort of balcony or loft extended out over part of the living room, opening onto another bathroom and another door. She pushed the door, opening it into a spacious pine-paneled attic room, all eaves, with a small casement window hanging like a European window over the street. While she stood riveted, looking up and down the street at the neighboring cabins and the white-and-blue swirl of the Tahoe sky, Paul went back downstairs.

  When she finally came down, she found him cross-legged on the floor taking in sun by the big window. She sat down next to him.