Acts of Malice (5 page)

When he died, he had been wearing a down parka, ski bibs, ski boots that had cut into his ankles but prevented any foot fractures, a black turtleneck cotton shirt, silk boxers, wool socks, a silver Piaget watch, and a gold chain around his neck. A small empty flask that had once contained cognac was found in a pocket of the parka.

No signs of vomitus in nostrils or mouth. No external evidence of disease.

Fingerprints and ID photos were taken at the scene. Clauson had gone up the mountain on skis to examine the scene.

Old injuries. A fully healed simple fracture of the left femur. Old arthroscopic surgery on the left knee. Old scar on the scalp just above the right ear. A recent black eye. A hotdogger’s body.

External examination showed numerous contusions, abrasions, lacerations on the posterior—back—skin, from head to toe.

Internal examination. Head, some posterior endodermal bleeding consistent with a fall onto rocks. No skull fractures. Neck, respiratory tract, urinary tract . . . most body systems unremarkable. Slides and toxicological samples had been taken after the major organs were weighed. A preliminary blood alcohol test showed a .13 level, above the legal limit for driving but not stumbling drunk.

A fresh, simple fracture of the right tibia. The fall had broken his right leg this time.

Clauson had saved the abdominal area for last. Area of severe contusion on the upper anterior—front—torso area, consistent with a crushing force. Internally, two lower ribs had fractured above the liver.

And the liver had been completely transected.

She remembered that the liver sat right in the middle of the body, protected partly by the lower ribs. But . . . transected? Nina thought back to a continuing ed course she’d taken in medical terminology. Transected meant split. Transected meant the liver had been torn in half by the force which had struck it.

She put her fork down gently and pushed her plate back, still reading.

Clauson’s original findings and opinion were simple. Death was due to a fall of approximately fifteen feet onto granitic rock, which had resulted in transection of the liver. Strong had died within two hours from massive internal bleeding into the peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity.

The last page contained Clauson’s reconsidered findings. After a second trip to the incident site and further examination of the surrounding circumstances, Clauson had changed his opinion from accident to homicide.

Nina read this section several times, excitement and anger blurring the words. Clauson wrote as laconically as he spoke, and the import of his findings took time to understand.

Transected! she thought, and read on, to three new findings.

First, a statement obtained from Heidi Strong, the wife of the only witness to the fall, indicated that the witness, James Strong, had threatened to kill the decedent only a few weeks before.

Second, a reexamination of the front of the down parka and the bibs revealed no traces of tearing or damage, even microscopically, in the area above the fatal injury. The overall damage to clothing and the pattern of abrasions and contusions on the subject indicated that the front of the subject had not come into contact with rocks before he landed on his back.

However, the front of the turtleneck shirt, which should have been protected under the bibs, showed slight tearing just above the fatal injury.

And third, Clauson now thought, based on photographs taken at the autopsy, that he could see faint patterning in the contused skin above the fatal injury.

She moved on to the conclusions. It was Clauson’s reconsidered opinion that some severe blunt force trauma to the area above the liver had occurred after Alex Strong came to rest in the snow, alive and possibly conscious, on his back. Although Clauson did not rule out a blow with a large, heavy rock, he said that the rock would have to weigh more than a man could carry, and that no such rock had been found in the environs.

Clauson went into a discussion of something called foot-pounds, a measure of force. Then he came to his conclusion. It was his opinion that a party or parties unknown had come upon Alex Strong lying injured on his back, then opened the parka and pulled the bibs down, jumped on the midsection or possibly stomped the midsection with one foot, and then pulled the bibs back up and zipped up the parka in order to make the death look like an accident.

Sickened, Nina said it to herself minus the big words. Clauson was claiming that Jim Strong had jumped onto his injured brother’s midsection, though Clauson hadn’t used Jim’s name. She imagined saying those brutal words to a jury, the scorn she would pour into that interpretation.

Fuming, she drank her coffee. Clauson had nothing! The parka hadn’t been torn above the fatal injury—so what? Those things were made of a nylon blend so strong nothing could hurt them, and she would bet Alex Strong had worn the best parka available.

The fatal injury was in front. So Alex had hit something on the way down, or rolled! How could Clauson be so sure Alex had flown off the cliff and landed, simply and once, on his back? She would go up the mountain herself. There would be another explanation.

And Clauson was claiming that only a person in ski boots could have caused the injury, going way too far in his conclusions. He had a hypothesis, not a conclusion! And what about the ‘‘faint patterning’’? Why hadn’t he noticed it when he looked at the body the first time around?

She would get Ginger Hirabayashi in Sacramento on the forensics. Ginger would straighten it all out.

Heidi’s statement—Nina wished she had it in hand. Clearly, Heidi was upset about something. Finding out what she was upset about and bringing that into focus would help to interpret her motive, maybe cast some doubt on her truthfulness. Or, they might convince her to recant. She had to be found right away. Whatever she had said in that statement, it couldn’t be enough to convict a man of anything under such foggy circumstances. With his physical evidence so ambiguous, Clauson had no business even taking an angry wife’s accusations into account.

Nina balled her fist, slamming it down onto the stapled pages. Clauson was a dangerous incompetent. He had done enough harm. This time, she would take him down.

Slowly, her breathing and heartbeats returned to normal. She could handle this report. If they arrested Jim, she might even get the case thrown out at the preliminary hearing stage. They had nothing but a bunch of medical gobbledygook which was wide-open to reinterpretation.

Nothing except for Heidi.

Outside, slow heavy clouds clumped low in the sky, threatening more snow. By December, they’d be swimming in it. As she drove along the gunmetal lake, Nina saw gulls listlessly riding the air currents above as though wondering where autumn had gone.

She remembered a description she had read of the Donner party, how the starving people built fires on the snow which melted and melted all night from the heat until they found themselves in the morning shivering in a wet pit of ice fifteen feet deep, with more snow below. The Sierra winters had been a harsh lesson to the pioneers, but soon enough the businessmen who followed had figured out a way to turn a profit from it, dressing it up with World Cup races, hot tubs, casino shows, and chalet ambience, at least on the Nevada side of the lake.

Sandy was on the phone when Nina gusted in on a blast of wind. No one was waiting, so Nina dropped her attaché on a client chair and trotted down the hall to brush her hair and finish calming down before returning.

‘‘That was Mrs. Geiger,’’ Sandy told her as she came back in. ‘‘She wants an appointment.’’

‘‘For what? We’re all set. All we need to do is wait for the check from the insurance company and deduct the medical bills so we can cut her a check for the rest. Does she have some questions?’’

‘‘No. It’s a new matter.’’

‘‘Oh, no. She didn’t have another collision?’’

‘‘You might say that,’’ Sandy said, her expression never wavering. ‘‘She wants a divorce. She knows personal injury money is separate property. She says she’s gonna take the money and run.’’

‘‘Really? A divorce? Now I feel guilty. I never dreamed she’d do that.’’

‘‘She wanted me to be sure and tell you that you’re the best thing that ever happened to her.’’ Sandy delivered this news without a flicker of expression.

‘‘And the worst thing that ever happened to her husband. Tell her we’re blocked up. Make her wait at least a week, Sandy. She may change her mind. This may blow over.’’

‘‘Or blow up.’’ They were both thinking about Mr. Geiger. Sandy took a swig of diet Snapple. She had been drinking three or four bottles of the stuff every day, which must cut into her spending money, and where were the frosted Tastykakes that usually rested on the file cabinet?

Nina took a good look at her. Sandy was wearing lipstick, and not only that, she had had a really good haircut, a blunt cut on her coarse black hair that left it full and swinging around her shoulders. She looked younger, even in the voluminous denim skirt and hiking boots.

‘‘Just sprucing up a little,’’ she said when she noticed Nina’s stare.

‘‘Are you going to tell me what you’re up to?’’

‘‘No.’’ Sandy handed her a message slip. ‘‘Collier Hallowell. He wants to meet at three-thirty in the afternoon instead of in the morning tomorrow. When did he show up in town again?’’

‘‘A couple of weeks ago. I ran into him at court. He’s back in the D.A.’s office, back to felony prosecutions. Right in the thick of it.’’

‘‘No kidding?’’

‘‘No kidding.’’

‘‘I thought he was toast.’’

‘‘Me, too. He seems to be over it.’’

‘‘It?’’

‘‘His wife.’’

‘‘Now what?’’

‘‘What do you mean, now what?’’

‘‘You know what. Him.’’

‘‘What about him?’’

‘‘Can we get real? Can we please not avoid the question?’’ Sandy wagged her finger.

‘‘If you want to know so badly, since my private affairs are open for your inspection, as opposed to yours . . .’’

Sandy was immovable, a glacier filling a stenographic chair.

Nina said, ‘‘Burned there, done that. Okay? Call Jim Strong and ask him to come in here tomorrow before we go to the D.A.’s office. I have to talk to him. And call Collier and confirm that we’ll see him at three-thirty.’’

‘‘So we’re gonna earn out that retainer. That’s good, because the rent is due next week.’’

‘‘Leave me to worry about that.’’ Nina went into her office and closed the door. Music sailed up from underneath it on a balmy tropical breeze and she inhaled deeply.

4

BY THREE O’CLOCK snow occupied every crack left in town, dressing up the thrift shops and motels on the California side with another three inches of vanilla sugar. Bob would be catching the school bus about now, heading for Matt and Andrea’s house and his cousins.

Nina lifted her head from the pile of folders on her desk, took a long yearning look out the window, and thought of snowmen, igloos, snow forts. Bob might be growing up in spite of her, but this afternoon he would be out with Troy and Brianna in the front yard under the snow-laden fir trees Matt loved so much, and the snowballs would be flying.

Jim Strong arrived early. Wearing the same boldly colored parka, he came in shedding snow from his shoulders like a buffalo and sat down. Tiny puddles on the rug followed in his footsteps.

‘‘Whew! Hot in here!’’ he said. Standing up, he took off his parka, and her mind flashed back to the autopsy report matching him physically to his dead brother. He was a few inches taller than Alex had been, heavier, one eighty or so. Under the parka he wore a lightweight long-sleeved white sweater, thin enough to see the outline of the well-developed chest muscles underneath.

‘‘We’re opening every lift on the mountain,’’ he told her. ‘‘The place is jam-packed. I had a hard time getting away. And then, of course, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this.’’

Standing across the desk from her his face looked resentful and alienated. He obviously was having a hard time.

‘‘Have you heard any news about Heidi?’’ he asked.

She shook her head. She motioned to the chair, but he ignored her. ‘‘Still not a call, not even a rumor on my end,’’ he said. As he had during their first meeting, he looked past her, to the mountain. ‘‘A big snow year’s coming,’’ he murmured.

‘‘You must really watch the weather.’’

‘‘Like everyone in the resort business. It’s essential to our operation.’’

‘‘How long have you worked at Paradise?’’ Nina wanted to know, but she also wanted to divert him from the session to come.

‘‘Our family’s owned the resort since 1935. We were the pioneers, before Heavenly or Squaw. I’ve worked there since I graduated. I love Paradise and I’ve never thought about working anywhere else. I studied geology and meteorology in college, and then for years, I groomed the mountains at Paradise every morning. I worked with the Ski Patrol on avalanche control, checking the snow depth, setting off explosives.’’

‘‘Explosives?’’

‘‘To clear drifts and shaky terrain. To keep the slopes safe.’’

‘‘Funny. I never thought about that. I guess the snow really piles up around here,’’ said Nina.

‘‘That’s how I got to know Heidi. She was doing the same thing. And then Alex came back from Colorado and he was around too.’’

When he began talking about Heidi, his expression hardened. ‘‘Somebody at Paradise must know where she is. She’s worked there since she was in her teens. It’s her whole life. You haven’t heard anything at all?’’ He was trying to suppress his anger but his voice was acrimonious.

‘‘Take it easy, Jim.’’

‘‘It’s damn hard.’’

‘‘I can imagine.’’

‘‘The problem is, people have somehow gotten the idea I’m going to be arrested. That makes them nervous about talking to me, know what I mean? It’s self-protection. They don’t want to get involved. I’m guessing, but that’s how it seems to me.’’

‘‘You may be right about that.’’

He was working himself up. ‘‘I can’t sleep at night. I can hardly drag through the days. I can’t stand the way everyone looks at me. What the hell am I supposed to have done? Why do I have to talk to the District Attorney?’’

The autopsy report was right there in front of her. Like Heidi’s Post-it, it seemed to burn with an inner fire.

Documents did sometimes come alive. They didn’t always say what they meant. Language could only get so close to the truth; this paper, with all its scientific pretensions, was still written in symbols, rife with allusions, intimations, contexts. For as long as she was involved with Jim, she would have a hostile relationship with it.

She wished she could soften the blow, but it was time for him to understand his position.

‘‘They want to talk with you because of this,’’ she said, pointing at it. ‘‘It’s the autopsy report. Listen carefully, Jim. The coroner filed an amendment concluding that Alex’s death was a homicide.’’

His face drained of color. ‘‘So they do suspect me,’’ he said so softly, he almost whispered. ‘‘I didn’t really believe it. They think . . . My own brother . . . You’re saying they might really arrest me. . . .’’

When she tried to hand the report to him, his face clouded over and his eyes narrowed. ‘‘No!’’ he said, pushing it back to her, ‘‘I can’t read it. I don’t want to know what they found in his stomach, what he ate for lunch! Just tell me what you have to.’’

So she gave him the highlights, hardly daring to look up. She ran down what she had learned, what they would be doing at Collier’s office, hurrying, getting it over with.

It must have felt like one long shock. She felt as though she were holding his finger in an electric plug the whole time.

When she finished, there was a lengthy silence. She wanted to reach out her hand, touch his, but she was afraid that at any contact he might jump up and run out.

‘‘Listen. You’re not alone in this. I’m good at what I do, Jim, and I’m on your side. I’m here to help you.’’

‘‘They think I—I jumped on Alex? That’s what they think?’’

‘‘The coroner up here doesn’t know his ass from his scalpel. He’s prosecution-oriented, and he makes mistakes. He should have retired long ago.’’

‘‘That’s what they think? That’s it?’’

‘‘Yes. That’s what they think. But I’m telling you, now that we know what’s going on, we can turn this around.’’

He clutched his head with his hands and rocked in the chair. He seemed to be shocked speechless.

She couldn’t blame him. Getting up from her chair, she turned her back to him and faced the window to give him time to recover, leaving the paperwork between them on the desk.

She remembered a painting that she hadn’t thought of since college, depicting a strange, hideous, half-alive machine, doing things no one could understand. ‘‘The Elephant Celebes,’’ the painting was called.

It reminded her of the system that Jim had been forced into. She tried to quell the tide of anger, at Clauson who just plain had it in for everybody, at Jim’s wife for telling her tale and then running around the corner where she wouldn’t get caught.

‘‘Where’s Heidi?’’ Jim cried behind her. ‘‘She must be so angry to do this to me. Why’s she so mad? I feel like a damn moron! I thought I knew her.’’

‘‘You have no idea at all where she might have gone?’’

‘‘I told you! None at all. That doesn’t say much for our relationship, does it?’’ Now the words spilled out. ‘‘She’s pulled away from me the last few months. She has her friends, you know, her job. She’s outside, so I don’t see her much. I work out of the lodge most of the time, keeping the administrative side going. It’s hard work, and I’m trying harder to be good at this than I’ve ever tried to do anything.’’

‘‘Who actually owns Paradise?’’ Nina asked.

‘‘My father. My father is still the CEO of Paradise. Alex and I were the vice presidents.’’

‘‘What exactly does Heidi do?’’

‘‘Supervises the Ski Patrol. She’s been working the mountain for twelve years. She trains the new guys, handles the big emergencies, checks out the mountain after each snowfall for avalanche danger. I met her when I started working at Paradise, straight out of college. She’s—she loves to laugh, party, have a good time.’’

‘‘Something must have led up to her leaving,’’ Nina said, half to herself.

‘‘When we were in bed—the night Alex died...’’ Jim said in a low voice. ‘‘She didn’t want me. That hurt. I needed her.’’

‘‘Well,’’ Nina said, tapping the edges of the pages of the autopsy report on her desk to straighten them, ‘‘we’ll learn more this afternoon. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re making a trade. You’re going to go in and talk to Mr. Hallowell. I’ll be right there with you, watching out for you. In return for that, he’ll pass along a copy of Heidi’s statement without giving us any hassle.’’

She went on for a few minutes, talking about questions to be careful about, warning that his statements could be used against him, making sure his story hadn’t changed and that she understood it. Then she reached for her coat and they walked out together. ‘‘Why don’t we go in my truck?’’ Nina said, pointing toward the faithful white Bronco not far from the door.

Jim hardly spoke on the short trip, just looked out the window. The snowplows ground through the streets around them.

The receptionist passed them through to the conference room and they waited a few minutes. The District Attorney’s office consisted of a wide central area for support staff with several small offices coming off it for the lawyers, and a conference room at the far end.

A couple of uniformed officers were drinking coffee and chatting as she and Jim came in. Jim said, ‘‘Whussup, Charlie,’’ to one of them.

‘‘Sorry about Alex,’’ said the one called Charlie, who obviously had no idea why Jim was there. ‘‘Awful. I watched him on the slalom run every year. He skied like a maniac, but he was so fast on his feet I never thought he’d crash so bad. He knew the hill like the back of his—’’

Collier came in, bearing files. ‘‘Well. Take care,’’ Charlie said. The two cops went out, and Nina introduced Jim. They sat down. Collier offered coffee.

In spite of the informality Nina was on high alert, acutely aware of being in the enemy camp. Each contact Jim had with law enforcement could bring disaster down on him; a careless statement or a discrepancy could be magnified into a lie, or made to look like guilt. It was how the Elephant Celebes operated.

Collier seemed ill at ease. He passed by her on his way around the conference table and brushed against her. She gathered her jacket around her as if he’d tried to tear it off.

‘‘Sorry.’’

‘‘No problem.’’

Coffee came. They all blew on it. Collier was thinking about something, his approach, maybe. Or maybe this was another witness technique they taught at D.A. training school. Make the witness sweat; that was it.

She caught him looking at her as she sat across from him, trying not to notice him. Was he thinking about her?

‘‘Shall we start?’’ she said, her voice higher than she had intended.

The tape recorder started to whir. Collier identified the parties present and stated the date and time.

‘‘Just for form’s sake, I’m going to give Mr. Strong his Miranda warnings,’’ he said, and took care of that technicality.

She decided to wrest what control she could immediately. ‘‘We’re not here for some long inquisition,’’ she said. ‘‘Mr. Strong has already talked to the police on two occasions. You know everything he knows. You mentioned that you had a few more questions. That shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. And we would like to see the statement of Heidi Strong before we begin.’’

‘‘I really don’t know how much time we’ll need,’’ Collier said, but he took out a single copy and handed it over.

Without looking at it, Nina said, looking Collier in the eye, ‘‘We’d like to read this in private.’’

‘‘Sure. I’ll go make a phone call.’’ He clicked off the recorder.

‘‘There’s a phone here. Feel free. We’ll step outside.’’

They left. They walked past the busy secretaries through the buzzered door.

‘‘You think he bugged his conference room?’’ Jim said.

‘‘Maybe,’’ Nina said. ‘‘You make a big production about turning off the tape on the desk, then you leave another one winding away in some closet. It’s his bailiwick and we don’t have much of an expectation of privacy in there.’’

‘‘What about attorney-client privilege?’’

‘‘Keeps confidential statements out of court, but doesn’t mean they won’t listen when they can.’’

‘‘Would you do that? Listen in on a conversation between a lawyer and a client in your conference room?’’

‘‘No,’’ Nina said. ‘‘But somebody else might. I have had some experience with bugs recently. You never know about these questions of ethics. Lawyers take an exam to prove we know legal ethics, but real life presents ethical dilemmas they never imagined at the good old Board of Bar Examiners.’’

They found a bench on the sunny side of the building, around to the side where they could get some privacy, and sat down very close together so that Nina could feel Jim’s hard thigh pressed against hers. He seemed oblivious.

They read the statement.

It was in the form of a declaration, a statement under penalty of perjury:

I, Heidi Spottini Strong, declare as follows:

I am over the age of twenty-one and a resident
of the State of California, County of El
Dorado. My address is 1225 Forest Road,
South Lake Tahoe. I am married to James
Philip Strong of the same address. I make this
statement voluntarily.

I make this statement on condition that my
current whereabouts be kept strictly confidential.
I specifically request that no information
whatever regarding my whereabouts be given to
James Strong.

‘‘Somebody else wrote it,’’ Jim said. ‘‘She would never write like this.’’

‘‘She said something like it, and they wrote it up in the proper jargon, and she signed it,’’ Nina said. ‘‘It’s the same thing.’’

On or about October 5, my husband came
home late from dinner with his family. He
seemed angry and wouldn’t speak to me for a
long time. As we were preparing to go to bed I
heard a crash in the bathroom where he was. I
looked in and saw that he had smashed the
mirrored cabinet door above the sink with a
stone we use to hold soap. Half the glass had
fallen out of the frame. He was holding his arm
and staring at the frame.