Obstruction of Justice
Table of Contents
Respectfully dedicated
to the memory of
Collier Vale,
Deputy District Attorney
for the County of Monterey,
a casualty.
HIGH PRAISE FOR PERRI O’SHAUGHNESSY’S
OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
"CAPTIVATING... A BEAUTIFULLY PLOTTED NOVEL ... grave robbery, an unsolved hit-and-run accident and a bizarre death on Mount Tallac are jumbled together to create a story that has so many unexpected twists and turns that not even the most jaded mystery fan will be bored by Obstruction of justice. "
—Monterey County Herald
"THE ACTION IS FAST AND FURIOUS."
—Publishers Weekly
"[A] mystery within a mystery novel ... This book, with two fast action story lines that work well together, provides readers with a roller-coaster ride into the hearts and minds of all the characters. Obstruction of Justice is a tale not to be missed."
—The Midwest Book Review
"A COMPELLING STORY with some great courtroom drama and a likable heroine."
—Library Journal
"OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE GRABS AND HOLDS THE READER FROM THE VERY FIRST PAGE. "
—Elwood Call-Leader (Ind.)
PRAISE FOR PERRI O’SHAUGHNESSY’S
OTHER OUTSTANDING
NINA REILLY NOVELS
INVASION OF PRIVACY
"SUSPENSEFUL AND COMPLEX."
—San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
"[A] ... DEFT, MULTILEVELED TALE OF LEGAL AND CRIMINAL TREACHERY."
—Publishers Weekly
"[AN] EXCELLENT LEGAL THRILLER."
—Library Journal
MOTION TO SUPPRESS
"A REAL PUZZLER, WITH TWISTS DIABOLICAL ENOUGH TO TAKE TO COURT."
—The New York Times Book Review
"[A] GRIPPING LEGAL THRILLER ... A DELECTABLE MYSTERY."
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"FASCINATING ... COMPELLING."
—The Hartford Courant
PART ONE
Love and murder, they’re still a few hours apart. Love and murder, I feel it coming with the dusk....
—Henry Miller, "The Tailor Shop"
1
THE MAN AND WOMAN LEFT EARLY ON THAT SULTRY mid-August day, and had already been walking through the pine forest of the lower elevations for several hours.
The jagged purple mountain they were climbing had stood fast against Ice Age glaciers, though walls of ice had scoured its sides into grooved cliffs and left rubble at its feet. It had brooded over the southwestern portion of Lake Tahoe for three million years, one of the Sierra peaks that divide California and Nevada.
In the year and a half since Nina Reilly had opened her law practice in the rough-and-ready town of South Lake Tahoe, she had watched Mount Tallac from her west-facing office window whenever her mind was troubled, its eternal presence soothing and anchoring her. She thought of it as her mountain, and she wanted to climb it. Although snow blocked the trail until the middle of July, the routes up the mountain didn’t demand any technical knowledge, just a strong pair of legs, and a backpack for those determined to camp out. For a long time, though, Nina hesitated to make the ascent. She wanted someone who had been there before to take her up the first time.
So she waited, leaving the mountain to chance. Then in July of her second year in the California Sierra, while serving as defense counsel in her second grueling murder trial, her respect for Collier Hallowell, the deputy DA prosecuting the case, grew into a more personal interest. And she learned that he had climbed Tallac. So she called him and asked him if he’d like to go up with her, and he told her to bring her sleeping bag because the Perseid meteor shower would make its annual glittering return that weekend. They could watch it from the top of the mountain.
"Nina," Collier called over his shoulder. "Stop thinking so hard. You’re making me tired." Nina, who had been talking steadily about the impact the computer was having on privacy laws, plodded up the steep trail behind him, swiping from time to time at the gnats dancing in front of her sunglasses. She absorbed the mild reproof, thinking that the hike was revealing plenty about her—that lately she could talk only about law, for instance, and that today she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
"Sorry," she said. "I guess a few years of sitting under fluorescent lights have made me slightly cockeyed. I’d like to turn my brain off, but I’ve forgotten how. It just keeps rollin’, rollin’, rollin’—"
"Try looking around you. What do you see?"
Well, she saw Collier’s strong, hairy calves pumping away in front of her, his gold wristwatch, his pack swaying gently with the movement of his body, his red baseball cap—but this wasn’t what Collier was getting at. He wanted her to appreciate the landscape they were walking up and out of, and that was difficult because she was keeping up solely by gluing her eyes onto his legs and moving her own legs accordingly. She wasn’t like the strong, fresh-faced hikers who had just passed them, striding resolutely downward like workers in an old Soviet poster.
She glanced down at her arms, pale even this late in summer. Her back ached and her lungs labored. She would fit better into a poster for The Phantom of the Opera, wan and hollow eyed, haunting the dingy courtroom halls day and night—and she had moved to Tahoe to escape the rat race!
"Well?"
"Okay. I see trees, rocks, shadows, dirt, brush. A fat little animal just skittered off the trail in front of us. What the heck was that? And we have gnats. Many, many gnats. I hate gnats."
"That was a marmot," Collier said. "A rodent that lives in the rocks. Cute little bugger, don’t you think?" He trudged on in an easy rhythm. It wasn’t fair. He was hardly puffing. She was sucking up all the air for ten feet around her.
He waved his hand around and went on: "Red firs. White firs. Jeffrey pines, huckleberry oaks, thorny snowbrush, manzanita. Smell that? Tobacco brush, very aromatic." Then, pointing off into the sky, he said, "The moon."
Sure enough, the moon floated out there in the blue, just as if the sun hadn’t put it to bed long ago. "There. Right next to it. The dot of light. Venus."
"You’re kidding!" She craned her head upward, shading her eyes with her hands. "I don’t see it."
"Try to catch it with your peripheral vision."
"I’m looking. I’m looking." Now, staring into it, Nina saw a sky made up of bright, swimming pixels. Up here, at about eight thousand feet, the star-filled vacuum showed through the deep blue transparence, creating a weird, vertiginous feeling.
"I don’t see it. I don’t like looking through the sky like that," she muttered, turning her eyes with relief back to the familiar muted greens and browns around her.
They came to a broad level area crossed by a dried-up creek. Ahead, through the trees, Nina saw a streak of shining water that must be Floating Island Lake. Patched with snow, the towering dark rock wall beyond it led toward the summit.
Boulders circled the water’s edge, which was nicked with sandy inlets here and there. Nobody seemed to be around, though the Tallac trail had a reputation for getting overcrowded in August. "Bad mosquitoes last time I was up here," Collier said, wriggling out of his pack and setting it against a speckled stone. Then he helped Nina wrestle hers off. She watched him smooth out a sandy place for them.
He had said little so far. She wondered if he was thinking about his wife, Anna Meade, today. She knew he had come with her up this same trail four years before. They had camped near the summit and watched the meteors, and a year later she was dead, killed in a hit-and-run accident. Another lawyer, who knew him well, had told her the lights had gone out for him then and never come back on. That was Collier now—remote, though always kind.
She spread out her towel and Collier unpacked the sandwiches and water. Sinking down on the sand with a sigh of relief, she held her arms around her knees and gazed out at the shallow water.
He handed her a turkey sandwich, and in the process leaned over and seemingly accidentally brushed his lips against hers. It was so unexpected that she dropped the sandwich.
"Look what you made me do." While she said this, she was running a finger along her lower lip, amazed and stirred up a little. She dusted off the sandwich, took a bite.
"You looked so delec
t
able," Collier said.
He finished his sandwich, took a long drink of water, and lay down on his side, facing her. The sun beat warmly down. "Let’s pretend we’re on Olympus, and it’s five thousand years ago," he said. "The gods are watching as we picnic in the sacred grove."
"Aw, Collier, you’ve got a mystical streak. I’ll have to think of a way to use it against you in court," Nina said with a laugh.
"So you don’t feel it? The stillness, like something’s watching?"
"It must be a marmot looking for crumbs. There are no gods. We’re on our own."
"Never," Collier said. "There has to be a heaven, and a hell for the bad guys. And there has to be a goddess of justice who fixes all the mistakes we make down here."
"Justice with a capital J," Nina said. "Toward the end of the Scott trial, the night we had dinner together, you made that toast. And you said—"
" ’May it prevail over all the bullshit.’ That’s always my toast."
Nina ate her sandwich, reflecting that she was having a good time. Collier, who had unlaced his waffle stompers and taken off his socks, was engrossed in flexing his toes. His feet were long and narrow, elegant almost, the soles reddened from the miles walked in his boots since seven A.M.
"You know," she said a little diffidently, "if we, uh, became friends, it could really complicate things down below."
"How so?"
"You know. You being a DA."
"Why? I’m not allowed to hang out with defense attorneys? I socialize with several of them."
"But the other ones are all guys. It’s different. People will talk about us."
"If you think that, why did you call me up and ask me to climb Tallac with you?"
"I don’t know," she said. Then she surprised herself by blurting out, "But I guess I’ve seen you knock down other people’s defenses in court so effectively, I decided to give you a crack at knocking down mine."
He put an arm around her, the first time he had done that, and she felt a current run between them, as if they were natural allies who belonged together. She felt excited but also skittish, wary. "I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!" she went on.
"Defenses, defenses," Collier said. He pulled her down gently onto her back and held her hands against the sand with his. His eyes were gray, outlined in black. His lips were coming toward her now and she couldn’t look anymore, and then they were on her mouth.
He kissed her lightly, but when she turned her head a little he followed her mouth, not letting her slip away, not giving her space to think, releasing some of the intensity he usually hid under his casual manner. She allowed herself to taste him, feel his slightly scratchy cheek, to enjoy his way of touching her. But still a part of her hung back. She was sensing something experimental in the kiss. His lips felt cool.
He released her.
She scrambled up. Her sunglasses had fallen off, and so had his hat. He reached for it, sitting up.
"You all right?" he asked. "What is it?"
"Collier, how many women have you ... been with since ... since your wife died?"
He stood up too. He was a tall man, solidly built, his dark hair under the cap already graying around the ears, a serious man. Nina suddenly realized that she was somewhat afraid of him, which was probably why she had thrown herself into this situation with him. She always drove full speed ahead toward the things she feared, and she didn’t always come out unscathed.
"Why do you want to know that?" he said.
"I’m just trying to figure you out."
He smiled. "I’ll never let you do that. As for your question ..."
She got busy pulling on her pack again, her eyes looking away but her ears scanning for the answer like a bat’s.
"I haven’t been with anyone. Haven’t kissed anyone, held anyone, loved anyone. For three years. Does that scare you?"
"Yep," Nina said. "I’ll be honest. It scares me a lot. So now let me ask you a question."
"I’m listening."
"Does it scare you?"
His eyes told her nothing. "Scare isn’t exactly the word," he said. "Let’s get going."
They moved southwest above the lake, beginning the climb to the saddle of granite they could see far above them, while Nina racked her brain to think what the right word might be. The trail crossed Cathedral Creek, dry in the August heat. Collier continued his running forest ranger lecture. "Currant. See there? Western serviceberry. Do you smell all the sagebrush around here?" He plucked a branch of the nondescript bush and rubbed it into her hand. "Sniff it."
The fresh aromatic smell shamed the gray powder moldering in a spice bottle at home. She tucked the sage sprig into her pack, thinking guiltily that Andrea, her sister-in-law, had been doing almost all the cooking lately. "I’ll rub it on chicken and bake it," she said. "And invite you."
After another steep climb they came to the juniper-covered top of the saddle, just west of a rocky knoll. Lake Tahoe displayed itself for them, the casinos on its southeast shore jutting like concrete fingers from the forest that stretched around the immense bowl of water. As they studied the wide-angle vista the lake turned to pewter, the mountain ranges rimming it turned dark, and a sharp, warm breeze gusted through the trees around them. A solid cloud passed by and they watched its oval shadow flit swiftly across the lake, darkening the places it passed over like the negative of a spotlight.
Voices from the trail told Nina that they weren’t alone any longer. A group of hikers came straggling up to their lookout one by one, led by a strong-looking bald man with a set, hard expression on his face, wearing a heavy aluminum-frame pack and olive-colored golf hat. Behind him came a boy and girl in their late teens, both astonishingly tall and attractive, look-alikes with their fair hair and sunglasses and long legs in hiking shorts. The girl wore a black T-shirt that said WHATEVER. The girl and the man, who appeared to be her father, were arguing, the girl’s voice protesting, the man’s caustic and commanding. The boy, who must have been her brother, lagged behind as if reluctant to get involved.
A few moments later they were joined by a woman in shorts with a tennis visor over her curly black hair, stumbling and breathless, and another man, grim-faced and weathered, wearing a blue and green bandanna around his neck.
Nina and Collier stood aside to let the group pass and take in the best view, but though they walked over to the standpoint, the hikers weren’t interested in the scenery. The tension between the girl and the man occupied them completely. Only the woman in the visor bothered to nod; to the others, Nina and Collier might as well have been rocks.
"We better hustle," Collier said as they moved back onto the trail. "Those clouds make me nervous." As he spoke, another cloud shadow drifted over them like a warning, heading west toward Desolation Valley Wilderness. The wind flowed across the lake from the Nevada desert, picking up speed as it traveled over the water.
"Don’t tell me it’s going to rain," Nina said.
"Maybe rain. Maybe thunder. Maybe worse."
"Should we go on?"
"Now, that doesn’t sound like you."
"I’m only worried that you’ll say we have to go back," Nina said. "We’ve been in a thunderstorm together. Do you remember?" They had met at the law library the year before, during an intense thunder-and-lightning display. Collier had said, "Makes me feel small."
Now he said, "I remember that storm. I respect the natural forces that rule in this place. This time, if the sky falls, we get wet."
"We have a tent."
"Nowhere to pitch it on this trail. C’mon."
They pulled on their packs again and resumed climbing, Nina casting one last glance backward at the unhappy people still standing on the rocky ridge.
The trail led past another small lake on a flat, just before a steep two-hundred-foot slope that led to smooth rock where fresh, cold water ran down. They followed it upstream, glad to be on a level stretch, looking up every once in a while toward the cumulus clouds massing like mushrooms in the east. The trail now rose steadily up the sloping floor of a cirque toward its headwall, which held snow in every crack. Several trails, formed through continual use over the talus, passed dirty patches of leftover snow.