Obstruction of Justice (29 page)

"Who found his body?" Paul asked.

"Some kids from the neighborhood. He wasn’t far off the path at Zephyr Cove, near the beach. It’s a busy place sometimes."

"What did he use, rope?"

Nina remembered Molly gasping at the end of a rope at the de Beers house, the awful sound of her voice.

"Cable, like from a stereo."

"Was there an autopsy?"

"What difference does it make?" Joe asked, tightening the arm he had laced around Mrs. Lauria a little tighter.

Paul seemed to consider his next words. Outside, the rain had briefly resumed its beating on the roof.

Nina watched him frame an answer and discard it. Finally, Paul said simply, "Did you ever consider the possibility that Ruben was murdered?"

"He hung himself," said Mrs. Lauria firmly, as the words alone ought to be convincing enough.

"Sometimes, rarely, I’ll admit it, but sometimes murder is disguised as suicide."

She put her hands on her hips and smiled, a hurt, frozen smile that didn’t fit her age. "So. You think my husband might have been murdered. And all this time his murderer might have been walking around loose while I cried like a fool for Ruben’s immortal soul that I thought was burning in hell. If that’s true, I can’t believe my own stupidity."

"Lucy," Joe said, warning her.

"You better go now," she said to Nina and Paul. "But let me tell you this. If anyone killed Ruben, I am going to find out, and I’m going to kill them. Not just for Ruben. For me and the children. For the hungry nights, and all the crying." Her mouth trembled, but her eyes were like chips of ice.

In those glittering eyes Nina saw the key to her character. The past three years must have been a living hell for her. She had survived, but only by living in the place in which men make war and women make inhuman sacrifices for their children, a place so cold and merciless it had left freezer burns on her soul.

Outside on the road, the shower was ending as rapidly as it had begun. A luminous vapor enveloped the street and trees. The asphalt steamed where the hidden sun’s rays managed to slip through, adding an unreal aspect to the misty scene. At the turnout down the street where they had parked, Nina and Paul leaned on the wet hood of the Bronco. Paul said, "It was time to regroup anyway. I was concerned about alerting him, but..."

"He’s got too much to stick around for. I don’t think he would run."

"He must have done something. He’s close to everything. I’m going to try to find out if Joe had any reason to kill Quentin. Motive is the problem."

"What about Lucy?" Nina said. "She’s formidable. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill anybody who threatened her kids, for instance."

"They didn’t have the marks of people lying," Paul said. "No blinking or body language or stumbles or hesitations. But I really want to make Joe for the killing. Or killings."

Nina said, "Let’s step back. How many deaths have we got here?"

"Where’s ’here’?"

"Floating around. You know." She drew out her yellow pad from the briefcase, which she had propped gingerly on the wet hood, and drew four circles, one in each quadrant of the page. Holding the pen cap in her teeth, she labeled them Anna, Ruben, Ray, and Quentin.

"Oh, no," groaned Paul. "Not another one of your metaphysical diagrams."

"Sorry, but I think best with a pen in my hand." She began writing names radiating out from each circle, ignoring Paul, who had turned his back and was conspicuously taking in the view.

"Paul, take a look; it won’t kill you. See? Anna is connected to Ruben, who is connected to Mrs. Lauria and Joe Marquez. She’s also connected to Kim Voss, who is connected to Quentin."

"The problem is that word connected. Kim saw her die, but so what? It’s a random connection."

"A random connection?"

"Accidental! A coincidence!"

"Ah. Coincidence. Now, Quentin is connected to Joe and Kim, on the Anna side. But he’s also connected to Sarah, Molly, Jason, and Ray. Now, get this. If you just follow the lines, the deaths all connect."

"Wait. I got lost before that, at the place you decided to make Ray and Ruben part of this thing."

"They’re dead," Nina said simply. "That’s a connection. And the deaths came in pairs. Ruben died the same day as Anna, three years ago. Ray died just a few days before Quentin, and Ray’s body disappeared that night."

"But they all died different ways! Ray was struck by lightning, Quentin was killed by a shovel, Ruben killed himself, and Anna was hit by a car!"

"So?" Nina said. "The way they died isn’t connected. I admit that. The question is, Why did they die? Why? What is at the center of this page?"

Nina stuck out her lower lip, pondering her piece of paper, which was rapidly wilting in the damp.

"It’s not your fault," Paul said. "It’s the New Age Celestine Prophecy trendoid way of thinking. You have to be very strong-minded to not sink into it. This idea that everything that happens is somehow related."

Nina said softly. "The ancient Greek concept of fate. Synchronicity. The Buddhist idea of auspicious coincidence."

Paul opened his mouth and jabbed his forefinger toward it, making a gagging sound. "Hot tub philosophy."

"It has its points, like hot tub sex," Nina said dryly.

"No. This situation is more like that game they play on the Internet—the Kevin Bacon game. The object is to relate everyone to Kevin Bacon within a certain number of connections, or degrees. See, Kevin Bacon was in this movie with Leslie Nielsen, who was in a movie with Kirk Douglas, who was married to, I don’t know, Bette Davis in 1940. Presto, Kevin Bacon is related to Bette Davis. I’d call it specious coincidence, not auspicious coincidence."

Nina folded up her paper. "Kirk Douglas never married Bette Davis," she said. "I have to get back to the office. I’ll be working at home for the rest of the afternoon. I’ll be working through the weekend. I’ll be working when the human race dies out and the ants take over. Stop by the office tomorrow and let me know what’s new."

"Do you know what you’re doing, Nina?" Paul said, so seriously that she looked at him in surprise.

"Of course. I’m filling my head with information, and I’m waiting for it to gel. Bob made this fabulous science project at the end of last year. He had this plastic mold of a brain, and he filled it with raspberry gelatin and some extra ingredients. It looked wonderful unmolded on a platter."

"Your head quivering on a platter," Paul said. "That’s where it’s gonna be, all right, once the cops figure out what you’ve been up to."

"Paul? Do me a favor. Get hold of a copy of the police report on Ruben Lauria for me."

24

BY SATURDAY NIGHT, NINA HAD A NEW RECORD for materials amassed after ten days of hard work. One box of pleadings and legal research on her chest of drawers; two boxes of reports, statements, evidence lists, and desiderata regarding Quentin’s death in the bathroom; another box of her copies of case opinions, pertinent statutes, and legal summaries on every aspect of evidence and criminal law that might come up at the prelim on the floor by the bed; and an impromptu law and medical library stacked next to the nightstand.

She sat on the bed in her aquamarine silk night-gown, making notes and looking for angles among the papers scattered everywhere. The phone rang and she grabbed it fast, as though she had been waiting for it. "Paul?" she said.

"Sorry to disappoint you. It’s me, Ginger."

"Well, hi."

"Saturday night is my favorite time to get work done too," Ginger said in her deep, jovial voice. "The one night of the week with no pressure. The rest of the world runs out to pollute their brains with one thing and another, while we the cognoscenti sit in our austere garrets and think great thoughts."

"I take it that you have a great thought that you want to share with me."

"Oh yes," Ginger said. "Listen up, Nina: This makes your case."

"I’m listening, Ginger."

"The primary cause of death, in my opinion, was the aneurysm. Quentin de Beers died of natural causes. In my opinion, the aneurysm was bleeding before he came into contact with the head of the shovel, not after."

"What? Are you sure? How can you tell that?"

"I did a lot of follow-up research on the findings in the autopsy report. The location of the aneurysm and the type of aneurysm are the crucial findings. It’s called a berry aneurysm, from its shape. This type of aneurysm occurs, sometimes in clusters, in a structure at the base of the brain called the circle of Willis, and is very resistant to trauma. From my research, I’m able to testify that those berries are highly unlikely to burst in connection with any outside trauma. Other aneurysms, maybe, but not berries."

"Wait. Let me try to assimilate this. Quentin had a stroke—"

"That’s not the right word. He suffered a ruptured aneurysm."

"Which made him dizzy?"

"Sure. Or unconscious."

"He was hit by the shovel after becoming unconscious?"

"Doesn’t prove anybody hit him. He came into contact with it. That’s all that anyone can say. That’s my opinion as an officer and a gentleman. And a pathologist."

"What about the fingerprints on the shovel?"

"To be finessed."

"If it’s so all-fired simple, I ought to be able to go in there Monday morning and get the case dismissed, then."

"Not so fast. Great minds may differ. Doc Clauson and I, for instance. Doc Clauson is of the opinion that the aneurysm burst as a result of the trauma. Medical opinion in the literature is somewhat divided. Of course, all the second-raters are on the other side."

"So we concentrate on my cross-examination of Clauson," Nina said thoughtfully. "All the rest is just filigree. The case gets dismissed as long as we can convince the judge that it’s just as likely as not that Quentin died of natural causes. When are you coming up? I want to prepare with you so I ask the right questions."

"Tomorrow afternoon be okay? I’ll bring the research to show you."

"Great. My office at two. Great work, Ginger!"

She hung up the phone, bounced off the bed, and danced around the bedroom. Hard-nosed medical testimony in Jason’s favor! Judge Amagosian would love its simplicity!

She would sleep tonight. That by itself was a remarkable concept. She usually was so tired by the time a hearing like this started that she sometimes crawled into the Bronco during the lunch break to nap in private for a precious few minutes. Ginger had given her a monster break!

As she sank thankfully back into her pillow, closing her scratchy eyes at last, all the surrounding circumstances came at her in a rush. She still could not imagine what happened at the cemetery. How could she finesse Jason’s fingerprints? What about the sunglasses? He must have been there. But what had happened? How had Quentin ended up in the burning cabin with Ray’s body? Why burn a cabin containing the bodies of two men who had died natural deaths? Why dig up Ray’s body?

Did Jason do all that? His fingerprints on the shovel said that he did. His sunglasses from the cabin said that he did.

She could face those probabilities now. Assuming he had done all that, what crimes had he really committed? Disturbed a grave and a body? He was a family member, distraught, a shrink could be encouraged to say. No problem there. Burned down the cabin? That was harder. He was very, very distraught, Nina thought cynically.

She could see it all, like a tall white termite hill rising from the moiling facts, the complex construction that would free Jason so that his family could begin to heal at last. And she would be free from the guilt and fear and doubt that had been plaguing her....

Plead him out, put him in counseling, put the Vuarnets in her jewelry box to remind herself that every once in a while a human being can intervene and thwart the will of the gods....

She reached her arm down the side of the bed and slipped it under the mattress, where she had hidden the sunglasses in a plastic bag. They had been right there a foot from her head every night, but now they had lost their power to ruin her sleep and poison her dreams—

They must have slipped away. She slid off the bed to her knees and reached under the mattress, rooting all around, her breath coming in and out in short bursts as fright took hold of her with clammy hands. She ripped off the down comforter, the sheets, slid the mattress off the springs....

The sunglasses were gone. Someone had taken them.

25

"PEOPLE VERSUS JASON QUENTIN DE BEERS," JUDGE Amagosian said in a pleasant and temperate tone. Nina shifted to attention in her seat at the defense table next to Jason. Through the tall windows at their left, amber sunlight sifted into the downstairs courtroom, illuminating motes of dust. The drizzle of the past few days had surrendered to a day of Indian summer, golden and dusty, and today would be a hot one.

Amagosian always began pleasantly and temperately, but often progressed from there along a predictable spectrum to peeved, irked, aggravated, exasperated, frazzled, incensed, outraged, and maddened. The trick was to watch his face, which was of the skin tone once called apoplectic, as it flushed from pale to purple. Many defense attorneys used their peremptory disqualification to avoid getting in front of him, even though he had once been a public defender, appointed by Jerry Brown in California’s last liberal era, and his leanings were left. Amagosian’s leanings didn’t matter to a lawyer being chewed out in front of a client.

Nina liked Amagosian, even if he had the temper of a turkey just before Thanksgiving, even though he couldn’t help looking at her legs, even though he addressed her as Mrs. Reilly rather than Ms. She sensed the innate lack of bias that overshadowed his peccadilloes.

The courtroom was unusually crowded for a prelim. The press was out because the de Beers family was prominent at Tahoe, and because of the uncommonly provocative body-snatching angle. The witnesses under subpoena would have to wait outside in the hall so that they couldn’t hear each other’s testimony, with the exception of Collier’s primary investigating officer, Dan "Suntan" Beatty, so called because he spent most of his days off trolling for beach bunnies from his trimaran in the lake. Paul, decked out in a cream-colored sport coat and brown slacks, had taken his seat next to Jason at the defendant’s table.

Nina had chosen a white suit and gray silk blouse from the only store she enjoyed shopping at, Nordstrom’s. As usual, the shoulder pads looked a little aggressive on her small frame. And how come all the nice suits had hems four inches above the knee? Was this a new plot to keep women so distracted by worrying about what might be showing that they couldn’t think?

Ginger was on call, ready to come up from Sac on two hours’ notice. The ducks were in line.

Jason sat there straight-backed and handsome. His mother had brought him a blue suit and red tie to wear, which contrasted well with his sunblasted California hair.

A few minutes before, in the anteroom where prisoners waited for their cases to be called, Nina had told him Ginger’s good news very quickly, then had said, "Jason, one more time, can you explain your fingerprints on the shovel?" He had shaken his head.

"Okay, but tell me this much," Nina had continued. Leaning close to him to avoid Deputy Kimura’s big ears, she said, "Who did you tell about the sunglasses?"

"Huh?"

"You know. The sunglasses I—"

"I didn’t tell anybody. Who would I tell?" He sprang up and Deputy Kimura, standing near, put his hand on his holster and gave Jason a warning look.

"Watch out, kid," he said. Jason sat back down.

"Someone found out about them. They’re gone."

"Gone!"

"Come on! This is no time to hold out on me! Was it your mom? Or Molly?"

"I—I can’t tell you."

"What happened? Did you tell Molly? Did she tell you she took them from my house?"

"Please." His face was so agonized that she didn’t have the heart to press him. It was clear he was surprised that the sunglasses had been taken, and equally clear he knew who had taken them but wouldn’t tell.

"Okay," Nina had said. "Okay, calm down. We’ll talk more about this later."

Now, listening to Amagosian give his standard speech about the purposes of the preliminary hearing, she tried to thrust away the gnawing fear she felt for Jason and for herself, but it filled all the gaps in her thinking. She had no idea what to do about the missing sunglasses. The additional burden of having them stolen from her room was too much. Every minute that went by, she fought a desperate impulse to corner the nearest person and confess.

"The preliminary examination is not to be used by either side for discovery purposes," Amagosian was saying, adjusting his black robes. "We’re here only to determine whether there is probable cause to believe that the defendant has committed a felony. What I want to hear in the plainest and most efficient manner, Mr. Hallowell, is that there is reason to believe a felony has been committed and that the defendant here is the person who committed the crime.

"I remind you both that the Best Evidence Rule does not apply in these proceedings and that the investigating officer may use police reports and other law enforcement information that would normally be inadmissible as hearsay. How long is this going to take, Mr. Hallowell?"

"Two days on our side, Your Honor," Collier replied. "But I understand the defense may ask to put on some witnesses at the close of my examination of witnesses. If so, I request that Ms. Reilly first make an offer of proof as to the testimony expected from each witness and that such testimony be limited to the specific purposes outlined in Penal Code section 866(b)."

Amagosian said, "You expect to put on a case, Mrs. Reilly? That’s unusual."

Nina said from her seat, "I do have at least one expert witness, and there may be others, Your Honor, depending on how the prosecution’s case goes."

"See if you can squeeze it all into two days," Amagosian told them. "I need to be back in Markleeville for a trial on Wednesday. I’ll do my best to help." Since the court day ran about six hours, excluding breaks, this was very little time, and Collier was grimacing. On the other hand, since there was no jury and the rules of evidence and regarding the burden of proof were relaxed, they could chug right along.

"Call your first witness," Amagosian said, and Collier said, "Sergeant Russ Balsam." Deputy Kimura went out to the hall and came back with a crewcut South Lake Tahoe policeman, hat in hand, middle-aged and pudgy in his uniform. Sergeant Balsam had been with the force for years, but Paul had told Nina he had a gambling problem that had kept him from moving up as high as he would otherwise have gone. Balsam had a permanent glare that said to all it touched upon, Blow it and go to jail.

After the preliminaries, Collier asked, "Were you called to the Happy Homestead Cemetery on Johnson Boulevard on Sunday, August twenty-third of this year, at about seven o’clock in the morning?"

"I was." A growl in the voice. He opened his notebook and said, "At 0706 hours. The care
_t
aker, John Eggers, called and said one of the graves had been disturbed. I took Officer Black out there, arriving at 0718 hours."

"Who, if anyone, did you meet there?"

"The caretaker was waiting, and just as we arrived in the squad car, the manager, Mr. Ricapito, got there too. Mr. Eggers advised he had started his usual shift at 0702 hours. You could see the disturbance from the machine storage shed, which is where he took us first. Eggers then took us to a grave site."

"And what, if anything, did you observe?"

"The grave site of Raymond de Beers was located close to the eastern edge of the cemetery, where new sites are mostly located, to the left of the driveway. Next to one of the plaques, whatever you call those things with the decedent’s name on it, a backhoe had been drawn up. The carrier section still contained dirt and the keys were in the ignition. Lying on the ground not far from the backhoe we located a large pointed-edged shovel with a wooden handle. The area in front of the plaque had been dug up. The hole was quite deep. At the bottom of it we could see the top of a casket. All around the grave there were piles of dirt. It wasn’t a neat job." He consulted the report he had filed on the incident. Nina followed along on her heavily underlined copy.

"Was the casket lid open or shut?"

"Shut. Eggers got down in there and opened it. He told me they aren’t locked shut during the burial process. That’s an old tradition. A superstition kind of thing, just in case somebody isn’t really dead. When he pulled it open we saw it was empty."

"Did someone identify to you the name of the decedent who was supposed to be in that casket?"

"Yes, sir. Raymond de Beers. He had been buried in that casket only a few days before."

"What signs, if any, did you note of a disturbance around the grave site area?" Collier was moving along at a pace that would be dizzying in a jury trial.

"The sun hadn’t burned off the dew yet, and there were footprints in the grass near the grave and on some of the dirt, but they were trampled and not much use for identification purposes. No footprints led in from the driveway, which makes sense if the person doing the digging drove in on the backhoe over the grass. Also, the plaques are close together. You could just step from one plaque to another.

"We also noted a small granite boulder about four feet to the rear of the grave. Officer Black called me over and upon examination I saw an area of discoloration that appeared to be dried blood. I then examined the shovel lying near the rock and noticed the same type discoloration. The backhoe didn’t show any such signs. "

"Did you take samples and were those samples subsequently tested?"

"Yes, sir. Both samples were human blood, Type A-negative. Uncommon type. Only around fifteen percent of people have it."

"And did you subsequently learn the blood type of Quentin de Beers?"

"According to samples taken at the time of autopsy, A-negative." At trial, if there was a trial, it would take several witnesses and at least a day to get this information in, but Balsam had the advantage of being able to relay from reports of all the other law enforcement personnel involved.

The California legislature had abridged the usual evidence rules for these hearings to make sure they didn’t turn into minitrials. As with all the recent changes, this generally worked to the disadvantage of the defense. Though there were technical objections to be made, Sergeant Balsam was experienced and getting his story out efficiently, which was what Amagosian wanted. The judge was taking rapid notes. Nina saw no point in provoking him.

"I proceeded to the shed and noted that the lock was a simple combination lock and appeared to have been broken. Upon entry to the shed I determined that it did not appear that anything else had been taken or disturbed.

"I questioned the caretaker regarding the backhoe.... may I continue?"

"Go right ahead."

"He advised the keys were usually left in the vehicle during the night in the locked shed. They have never had a previous break-in. They had gotten a little lax there." The eyes looked witheringly around as if searching for those responsible.

"What, if anything, did you do as a follow-up regarding the stains you found on the shovel?"

"We wrapped the shovel in a clean paper evidence bag and placed it into the trunk of the squad car, where it was transported directly to the evidence locker at the station."

"Did you observe anything else at the scene indicating signs of a struggle?"

"Objection. Lack of foundation," Nina said curtly. "There hasn’t been any prior evidence of a struggle. Some footprints, some dried blood. That doesn’t have to add up to a struggle."

Amagosian said, "Rephrase the question."

"Did you observe anything else at the scene?" Collier said.

"The eastern boundary of the cemetery was close by the grave, as I’ve stated. The fence separating the cemetery from open marshland behind is just a boundary marker, really. Just on the other side there are bushes about four feet high where a person could hide. Officer Black had a look and found more marks in the soft ground behind those bushes. They were fresh. The grass was pressed down but was already coming back up."

Collier got out the photographs and established the locations of grave, shovel, driveway, boundaries, and backhoe. Then he showed Sergeant Balsam photos of the marks behind the bushes and, after some more objections from Nina, established that Balsam thought the marks behind the bushes were knee prints.

"And what were the weather conditions in the early hours of Sunday morning, prior to your arrival?"

"Objection," Nina said. "I understand the officer can relay hearsay statements, but I’d like to know where this information is coming from, the ten o’clock news on his TV the night before, or something a little more direct. I know we’re trying to move along here, but—"

"I can represent to the court that I took my dog out at about two A.
_M
. the night before," Sergeant Balsam said, twisting in his seat to tell it to the judge. "I live within two miles of the cemetery. I took note of the weather conditions at that time."

Amagosian said, "Well, counselor? Do we have to subpoena the weatherman?"

"I’ll withdraw the objection based on that foundational statement," Nina said.

At Amagosian’s nod, Sergeant Balsam resumed. "The moon was directly overhead, just past crescent. Even though I saw plenty of stars, it wasn’t a really bright night, just clear and still. No precipitation or anything like that."

"So a person installed behind the bushes would have been able to watch the goings-on?" Collier said.

"Yes, sir."

"Did you locate any signs of Raymond de Beers’s body at the cemetery?"

"No, sir. The body was gone."

"Did you note any drag marks in the grass or dirt area?"

Balsam said, "Yes, sir, two sets." Amagosian looked up, and Nina felt Jason stiffen in the seat beside her.

"You say there were two sets of drag marks?" Amagosian said. "Draw us a diagram. I want to have a better picture of this scene." Balsam got down from the witness stand and went to the big easel with its large sketch tablet in the corner by Collier’s table, and began drawing laboriously with a piece of charcoal. While they waited, Paul passed her a note of encouragement behind Jason’s back that said Chin up.

Now Balsam dragged the easel in front of the judge’s bench and angled it so the lawyers at the counsel tables could also see it. The diagram showed the rectangular cemetery and the driveway bisecting it, the toolshed in back to the right of the driveway, and the grave site to the left of the driveway near the back boundary. Small circles indicated bushes just past the boundary line on the left.