Obstruction of Justice (3 page)

3

TWO DAYS LATER, NINA WAS STILL LOOKING AT Tallac, but once again from the safe distance of her office window. Almost all the snow had melted. She remembered that groove, that ledge of light-colored rock, but the avalanche slope near the summit was hidden behind a jade-colored ridge.

She turned away. She would never feel the same about that mountain.

Sandy Whitefeather, her secretary, knocked and came in with a new stack of files to supplement the pile accumulating on Nina’s desk.

"The coroner’s office called," she said without preamble. "There’s a meeting at two this afternoon. They want you to come, along with the other people who were on that hike. They said to tell you it’s not an inquest, just an informal inquiry."

Sandy set the files down and stood in front of the desk, arms crossed, resplendent in a brilliantly colored Hawaiian shirt over white pants and tennis shoes. A large, formidable woman of indeterminate age, she knew everybody in Tahoe, and nothing fazed her. Her smooth, dignified face and dark hair, which she usually wore pulled back in a severe style, made her look like pictures Nina had seen of Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian queen, but Sandy was actually a member of the Washoe tribe native to Tahoe and the high desert near Carson City. She ran Nina’s schedule. She ran the office. And she wanted to run Nina’s life, but that Nina stoutly resisted.

"I guess I should show up, then," Nina said. "I wonder if Collier will be there. He hasn’t called back, has he?"

"No. But your dental malpractice did. Ed Mills. He wants to know if you got a response to our settlement offer yet."

"Did we?" Nina said.

"And that right there says it all. You haven’t paid a lick of attention to your cases so far this week. Maybe you should go home if all you’re going to do is mope."

"I’m not moping, I’m brooding," Nina said. "There’s a big difference. Moping is an unfocused sort of thing. But brooding, that’s productive. I don’t quite understand what went on up there, and I can’t stand not understanding."

"You don’t have time to brood," Sandy said. "You’re a lawyer, not a poet, and that’s how you get your money to pay your secretary, so please, call Ed back. And Mrs. Bindhari’s husband refused to bring the kids back Friday night. She’s getting frantic. She wants to see you right away. And you have a Settlement Conference Statement due out today on the Texaco case. Also, you asked me to order a lemon cake from the bakery, but didn’t you tell me you were planning to bake one yourself?"

"I know what I told you. I know what I promised. The truth is, I don’t have time. I’ll write a nice card to go with it...."

"They don’t have lemon. You’ll have to order something else."

"All right already," Nina said. She sat down at her desk and opened Ed Mills’s file. A loose pile of dental X rays fell out, reminding her of the state of her unfortunate client’s teeth. "Try Collier’s office again, will you?"

"In due course," Sandy said, but she stood there. Nina remembered that line. Sandy’s former boss, a local attorney named Jeff Riesner, used it all the time. She smiled, thinking that Sandy would be disgusted if she realized she had appropriated anything from him.

"Well?" Nina asked.

"How was it?"

"What?"

"Up there on the mountain."

"Awful."

"But you had to get to the top, didn’t you? Did Collier Hallowell want to go to the top with you or did you badger him into it?"

"What are you getting at, Sandy?"

"It’s always good to have influence with the county district attorney."

"He’s not the county DA yet. He still has to win the election in November. Do you think I’m seeing Collier only so I’ll have a good connection in the DA’s office?"

"It wouldn’t hurt."

"I’m only interested in his body, Sandy." It was hard to tell if Sandy enjoyed the joke. She left in a flurry of parrot greens and hot pinks, and Nina returned to the daily drudgery of small-town lawyering.

At two o’clock sharp Nina walked into the coroner’s office, located just off Al Tahoe Boulevard in the familiar County Office Building, across the patio from the courthouse and jail.

In these two buildings she spent much of her working life. Modern, unassuming structures, the woody brown of their exteriors minimized their impact on the parkland in which they were located. Tall firs shot through with sunlight bordered the buildings. Working in Tahoe had its positive aspects—a splendid, almost spiritual setting, a remove from frenetic city life, the chance to live where many worked hard just to visit. But sometimes just these qualities made it hard to work there. Sitting indoors all day looking out at the beaming tourists at play could be a kind of torture.

Inside the waiting room, the dead man’s family had already assembled. "Hi," Nina said inadequately to the solemn faces. "Mrs. de Beers, how are you?" She shook Sarah de Beers’s hand.

Hardly recognizable as the tired woman Nina had seen on the mountain, Sarah de Beers sat in the chair nearest the door. She had clipped her dark curls at the nape of her neck. Her skin was still reddened from the wind and weather on the mountain, but her eyes weren’t red or swollen, and the thought came unbidden to Nina that she hadn’t cried for her husband. She had chosen a sober navy blue jacket and skirt with a white blouse and black stockings, much like the business suit Nina herself was wearing. The plain style and low-heeled shoes showed off the frail lines of her body.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "It’s just a formality. You were a witness of sorts."

"No problem."

The young girl, Molly, said, "Did you see the lightning actually hit him?"

"Not exactly," Nina said.

"Not exactly? What’s that mean?"

"Shush, honey, we’ll talk about all that in a minute," her mother said. "Please." Mrs. de Beers patted the chair beside her, and her daughter plopped down, picking up a magazine with a picture of Smoky the Bear on the front, and began flipping through it.

Nina smiled tentatively at Molly’s brother, who had taken a seat across the room. "You and Molly are twins, aren’t you?" she said.

"Born thirteen minutes apart," Jason said. He was remarkably tall, about six feet five, but still had filling out to do, so he didn’t seem as overwhelming as he surely would be later in life. He held his finger in the college catalog he had been reading.

"Columbia? Fine school," Nina said, indicating the catalog. "Not that I went there."

"My history teacher in high school was friends with a professor there," Jason said.

"Jason wanted to go to Columbia, and he had the grades and everything, but our father wanted him to go into the family business," Molly said to Nina. "At least he didn’t try to push that on me."

"No," Jason said. "He decided you would marry a rich guy to get some money coming into the company. He had it all figured out."

"Jason, Molly," their mother said sharply. "These are family matters."

The door opened and the man in the blue and green bandanna who had followed the emergency techs down the hill entered. Nina now knew his full name was Leo Tarrant. He looked much the same as he had on the mountain, ruddy and fit in jeans and a pin-striped cotton dress shirt. He had the callused hands and hard body she associated with the construction trades.

"Sarah," he said. "Hey, Molly."

"Hey yourself," Molly said brightly.

"You guys hanging in there?"

"Choking back the sobs."

"Molly!"

"I’m glad he’s dead," Molly said defiantly. "I’m not going to pretend." Her mouth quivered.

"Come on over here and sit with me, Moll," her brother said gently, and she did, avoiding looking at anyone. Jason reached out a hand and smoothed her pale hair back, saying, "It’s all right, Moll."

Her mother whispered, but they all heard, "Don’t be disrespectful." Molly ignored her.

Leo continued his way around the room. "How’s it going, Jason?"

"All right. Mom’s sleeping better," Jason said. "Dr. Lee says she hurt her leg again on the mountain."

"I’ll be fine in a few days, Leo."

Tarrant said, "What fools we were." Then, turning away and holding out his hand to Nina, he went on, "We met on the mountain." He gave a quiet laugh and said, "Sounds like a sad folk song, doesn’t it?"

"Sorry to meet you all again under these circumstances," Nina said, shaking his hand.

"We should have gone down when the clouds came up, when we talked to you. Ray never could do anything halfway, though." The inner door had opened and a young woman in white was gesturing at them.

"He’s ready," she said, and they all got up dutifully to troop into Dr. Clauson’s office.

The coroner sat at a metal conference table, barricaded behind files and papers in a windowless room. They sat on folding metal chairs around the table, the family and Leo huddling close together as if that might create a little haven of warmth in a place with as much atmosphere as a bathroom in a filling station.

Nina was wondering if Collier would make it at all. She couldn’t blame him for skipping this dreary meeting.

"Sorry for your loss," Clauson said to no one in particular in his terse accent. "Call me Doc. Meeting’s called to order. Get their names and addresses."

While the secretary did this, Clauson’s quick eyes darted around at the assembled parties. His job encompassed more than simply determining the facts of the matter. He needed to be on the lookout for anything off-kilter that might suggest something other than an accidental death. Under these circumstances, Nina knew he must be operating from habit. He couldn’t expect to find anything other than an accident in Ray de Beers’s death.

From her tussles with Clauson in court, Nina knew he was a good autopsy surgeon but prosecution-oriented. He had dispensed with his jacket, and his thin white polyester shirt displayed a more substantial undershirt and an honest-to-God plastic pocket protector for his pens.

A knock on the door announced Collier, who came in with a nod and took his seat, looking as crumpled as his clothes. Bags under his eyes signaled a lack of sleep. He nodded at Nina, his expression pleasant and professional, as always.

"Both illustrious counselors here, but no case this time," Clauson said. "Hope we can agree on that right quick."

"Act of God," Collier said, "in the fullest meaning of the legal term."

"Okay." Clauson saw the secretary was finished, and went on: "We’re here pursuant to California Government Code section 27491, which states in pertinent part as follows: ’It shall be the duty of the coroner to inquire into and determine the circumstances, manner, and cause of all violent, sudden, or unusual deaths; unattended deaths; deaths wherein the deceased has not been attended by a physician in the twenty days before death; deaths related to or following known or suspected self-induced or criminal abortion, known or suspected homicide, suicide, or accidental poisoning; deaths known or suspected as resulting in whole or in part from or related to accident or injury either old or recent; deaths due to drowning, fire, hanging, gunshot, stabbing, cutting, exposure, starvation, acute alcoholism, drug addiction, strangulation, aspiration,’ etcetera etcetera." He passed out copies of the statute.

"This death requires at least a good look," he went on. "Violent, sudden, unusual; no physician in attendance ; death related to accident or injury. Agreed?"

They all nodded.

"We’re having an informal inquiry, not an inquest. Read along a few more paragraphs, you’ll see it, and I quote: ’The coroner shall have discretion to determine the extent of inquiry to be made into any death occurring under natural circumstances and falling within the provisions of this section.’ So. Mrs. de Beers, you don’t want an autopsy, you want the body released—or so you told my secretary this morning."

Sarah de Beers said, "He’s already been ... injured enough. I don’t see any point."

"He didn’t have a regular physician?"

"He was healthy, didn’t even get colds. And he didn’t trust doctors." She obviously didn’t mean this as an insult to Doc Clauson, who peered at her as if to assure himself of it before continuing.

"Anyone else want to comment on the autopsy question? I have a report on the incident here from the emergency medical techs. I took custody of the deceased and looked him over. Deceased was struck by lightning. Direct strike. Severe linear burns and lacerations at both the entry and exit sites of the current. Charring through the full thickness of the skin in places.

"The body exhibited lightning prints, reddish streaks that form a skin rash like a fern, on the trunk. The characteristic pattern is called Lichtenberg’s flowers. Clothes burned or torn off, body hurled some distance. Body fluids ejected. Skin cyanotic. The body was banged up on the trip down the cliff, but there’s no medical doubt as to cause of death. I’m not inclined to overrule the wife."

Nobody seemed to have any comments. Sarah de Beers showed no emotion at the listing of her husband’s injuries. She was so abnormally serene under the circumstances that Nina decided she must be on some kind of tranquilizer.

"Okay. Next. Mr. Hallowell, you first. Tell us what you saw."

Collier reported in an unemotional voice how the storm came up suddenly, how they reached the summit just as it broke, how they saw de Beers’s body flung off the summit, how he went down and found de Beers and tried mouth-to-mouth breathing and other resuscitation efforts for a long time, at least half an hour, and how he quit just before help arrived. He made no mention of his own physical condition or the mental confusion he had experienced. Jason’s foot, resting on his knee, jerked up and down with what appeared to be impatience or boredom while Collier spoke, stopping suddenly as he arrived at the end.

"A laudable effort," Clauson said. "Electrocution victims often look dead but aren’t. You did the right thing. And you, counselor. What did you see?"

Before speaking, Nina thought back to right before the lightning strike, recalling vividly that moment when all the passions of the atmosphere gathered themselves, the humming and the bang just before the bolt of lightning rent the skies and the man flew past.