Obstruction of Justice Page 21
Nina told no one about her visit to Wright’s Lake. She needed some time to sort out why she had picked up a pair of sunglasses from the cabin floor, and why she had used a pay phone to make her 911 call untraceable.
She was obstructing the police investigation and concealing possible evidence in a homicide, offenses that could easily lead to disbarment and the loss of her law practice. Every day that she delayed telling the police what she had seen and done, she knew she exposed herself further. This frightened her very much. Yet she still fought the tide of reasons to come forward, obstinately and instinctively.
About a week after the fire, she woke up at three A.M., her mind racing. She had been dreaming about the waves at Asilomar.
When she was fifteen years old at Pacific Grove High School, Nina had learned to surf. A boyfriend taught her and helped her find a wetsuit and a board she could handle. When they broke up, Nina kept surfing, from Asilomar State Beach near Monterey to Steamer’s Landing at Santa Cruz sixty miles around Monterey Bay. Most of the time she went alone, or with Matt. For two years she lived for the cold clean waves, the moment of truth when she pulled herself up on the board and went for it.
Surfing made her aware of the complete indifference of nature. The waves were powerful forces, predictable sometimes, but utterly unconcerned with the small beings in rubber suits trying to stay astride them. When possible, she cooperated with the waves and enjoyed their power, but sometimes she had to resist them. She learned to watch them and see how they were running before she went out, to pace herself and come in when she was too tired, and to paddle out fast to get over the ones that were too big and dangerous, or dive to avoid them.
Now, in the middle of the night, in the silent sleeping house, at the hour when insights come, she realized that she practiced law like that. She tried to assess the dangers and be prudent, to ride whatever situation she found herself in and save her energy, but sometimes her instincts told her she had to fight, to intervene, to paddle against the tide of events.
During the fire, and most strongly when she saw the sunglasses on the cabin floor, she remembered sensing a force that seemed to her to be as aloof from human concerns as the moon pulling the tidal swell, catching her up and pulling her into the confusion. It had felt like her days in the ocean years before.
Instinctively, she had resisted. She had intervened to try to change the way things were going.
She got up and drank a glass of water in the bathroom, re-living that moment. She had not taken the sunglasses because she thought Jason had killed his grandfather and she wanted to cover up for him. She had intervened because she had instantly known that they would take Jason beyond any help, and that seemed inhuman to her. She had not identified herself to the 911 dispatcher because, as a witness, she would become powerless, just another piece of evidence, losing both her ability to stand outside the situation as a lawyer and her capacity to influence events.
Sure, she had done a risky thing, but when she took on Sarah as a client, she had agreed to become Sarah’s ally in her central struggle, whatever that might be. The legal form the struggle took didn’t matter. That was the kind of lawyer she was, for better or worse. She took on the person, not the case. As it turned out, Sarah’s struggle was very much like her own—to protect the children, to learn how to survive alone, to find solid ground to stand on.
Back in bed, lying under the warm covers in the dark, Nina made one more discovery before she fell back into sleep. There was another, more obscure, reason why she had chosen not to do what the situation at Wright’s Lake called for her to do.
During that one period in her life, day after day, winter and summer, she had plunged into the ocean to test herself against the waves and try her damnedest to make them serve human purposes. This situation felt just the same. She felt as if she were paddling out on a godawful day to test herself against the mysterious workings of the universe, trying to turn them to advantage.
She was playing this high-risk game because she had the chance, and because it was the only game she’d ever thought was worth playing.
Bob came back on the train to Truckee from San Francisco struggling, too, having left his father without knowing when he might see him again. She broke from everything to let him rebalance, go through a combative phase for a day or two while he blamed her for keeping him from his father, and, with the lovely inability of youth to hold a grudge for more than five minutes, return to his normal exuberance. The sixth-grade school year began and he settled into the drudgery of daily homework.
The calm broke almost three weeks after the fire, in the second week of September. Sandy beckoned Nina over to her desk with a finger, which meant there was big news.
"They found him," Sandy said in a discreet undertone. Her one o’clock, a litigious and hot-tempered fellow with a red beard who wanted her to take over a dubious suit against his employer, sat on the edge of a reception-area chair. Nina greeted him pleasantly, and said, "Excuse me just for a minute, Mr. Hogue."
"I have to be back at work."
"I’m sorry. I’ll be right with you."
"I brought all the documents today. Every one. Like you said. This’ll take a lot of time." Three cardboard boxes spilling out dog-eared handwritten papers lay on the floor beside him. Nina cast them an unhappy glance and tried to smile.
"Right with you," she repeated. She followed Sandy into her private office and shut the door. "Found who?" she asked Sandy, who had installed herself in one of the client chairs and was looking critically around the office.
"It’s too hot in here again. You better talk to the landlord. I told you that," Sandy said, starting in on a familiar refrain.
"It’s always too hot in here. I roast or I freeze. I’d rather roast. The landlord can’t fix it. Now, who did they find?"
"Jason. He’s alive and kicking, but he’s sitting in the county jail. Sarah called half an hour ago."
Nina let this sink in. Jason wasn’t dead. "Thank God," she said. "Sarah’s been so anxious. But—he’s been arrested?"
"You don’t push him hard enough. The landlord."
"Tell you what, Sandy. You talk to the landlord. With my blessing." Sandy shook her head. Her long silver earrings caught the light.
"He wouldn’t pay attention to me."
"Now, about Jason!"
"Also, I found a house for you, but you have to be willing to push the seller. A house for you to buy, if you don’t blow it."
"We’ll talk about that later! Jason—"
"Jason’s in jail. He’s not going anywhere. His appointments have all been canceled. This house is in Tahoe Paradise, the neighborhood you wanted."
"Which jail?"
"Right here in town. They picked him up in Las Vegas. You could get this place for under market value. I know the seller. You should go over and look at it."
"Give me the message!" Nina read it, then picked up the phone. "Tell Mr. Hogue I’ll need one more minute."
"You don’t have time to go over to the jail this afternoon—"
"Sandy. "
"You’ve got a deposition at Boulder Hospital at two. And you have four more client appointments this afternoon."
"Sarah? This is Nina." Nina listened on the phone for a few seconds, then said, "I’m really blocked up this afternoon...." She listened a little longer. Sandy sat watching her, hands folded, lips compressed. Nina said, "Okay. I’ll meet you at the jail in ten minutes." She hung up the phone and said to Sandy, "I have to go. I’ll make the deposition and the late-afternoon appointments. But I have to cancel Mr. Hogue."
"He’ll enjoy hearing that."
"Tell Mr. Hogue I had an emergency." She picked up her briefcase.
"There’s no back way out," Sandy said. "I suppose you could climb out the window. Otherwise you’ll have to tell him yourself." Nina remembered the boxes and the joyful anticipation on Mr. Hogue’s face. She actually went to the window that looked out over the lake, trying the latch and finding it jammed.
"Damn!"
"Here’s the address of the house for sale. Stop by when you’re done at the jail." She inserted it into the front pocket of Nina’s briefcase.
"Sandy, you go out and get rid of him. I’ll wait in here. Set it up for tomorrow."
"Oh, no," Sandy said. "He won’t leave without hearing from you personally. He’s a very stubborn man, and he’s waited for two weeks for this appointment."
"This is one of the things I pay your salary for, Sandy. "
"That pittance?"
Neither of them moved. Nina smelled negotiation in the air. "Out with it," she said.
"Wish could fix that window, if you set it up with the landlord," Sandy said immediately. "He would do it for twenty-five bucks." Wish, Sandy’s son, already cleaned the office and delivered papers for the office.
"All right! I’ll talk to the landlord! Now I have to go!"
"Just let me give Mr. Hogue one swift kick, and you’re out of here." Sandy closed the door and Nina heard her breaking the bad news to Mr. Hogue. For a minute her voice and his mingled in a perverse duet, hers low and deep, his high and shrill. Then the outer door slammed shut and Sandy knocked on the door, saying, "It’s safe now."
"Thanks. What did you say?"
"I told him you climbed out the window," Sandy said.
Nina, who was halfway out the door, said, "What? You’re kidding."
"I told you before," Sandy said. "I never kid."
Sarah met her outside the jail building. "I’ve seen him," she said. "He’s in rotten shape. We’ve got to do something right away to get him out of there." Her clothes, a blue raw silk blouse and matching pants, suited her, and her face and voice were resolute. But her legs seemed to be hurting her; she leaned against the wall and shifted from foot to foot.
"Come over here to my portable office, and we’ll talk for a minute." Nina led her to a bench and helped her sit down.
"He’s lost weight. He was staying at some cheap motel right off the Strip in Las Vegas, scrounging for meals. When he got down to his last fifty dollars, he decided to put it all on red on the roulette wheel at Circus Circus. Of course, he lost. Casino security noticed how young he looked and asked for his driver’s license. When they saw he was just nineteen, they took him to a little office and checked him out instead of just eighty-sixing him. They found his face on some kind of computer notice system they have. He tried to run, but the security man knocked him down and arrested him."
"Oh, boy."
"They told him he could talk to a Nevada lawyer, but he said, ’No, just ship me back to Tahoe.’ He says he was too tired to care anymore."
"Because of his age, the transfer may not have been valid. Or the arrest, possibly," Nina said. "He should have had an attorney’s advice. What’s the reason for the California hold on him?"
"Oh, God, Nina, didn’t Sandy tell you? He’s been booked for murdering his own grandfather. He asked me to call you."
Nina’s mind jumped to the fast track.
"Did he say whether he made any statements to the police in Nevada or California?"
"He knows his rights. He’s keeping his mouth shut until you come."
"Good. Very good. Unfortunately, I’m short on time. I’m going over there right now, and I’ll call you about six at home. Okay?"
"Call earlier if you can. Call as soon as you can."
"I’ll try."
"Molly—can she see him? She really wants to. She’s been ... she hasn’t been well."
"Maybe tomorrow."
"Is he going to be all right? I mean, he’s never been in a place like that. They won’t mistreat him?"
"Don’t worry. It’s a well-supervised jail. I’ll see if I can get him into a single. He’s very young. He’ll be watched."
"A single. It sounds like a cheap motel."
"Give me twenty dollars, if you have it. I’ll pass it on to the guard in case there are commissary privileges today. And I’ll let you know what personal things you can bring him tomorrow."
"Thank you, Nina. You know—"
"Don’t worry about it. I’m going now. Can you be strong for Jason, Sarah? He’s going to need you."
"I’ll give it everything I have."
Nina buzzed at the inner door and stood patiently looking at the Police Association athletic trophies in their glass case, the only decoration in the jail anteroom. Why the police would want to display their trophies to inmates and their relatives and lawyers was beyond her. The inner door finally buzzed and she walked down the short, ill-lit hall to the guard at the final door.
Five minutes later she was facing Jason at the glass, she on one side in her cubicle, he on the other. On her side, freedom; on his, captivity. His cubicle was glassed in all around so he could be watched, and she feared, overheard, although she had never been able to confirm her suspicions on that score.
He wore the regulation orange jumpsuit, too short in the legs and arms, his shoulders stretching the material awkwardly tight. His blond hair had grown out somewhat; his sensitive face with the startling dark eyebrows looked thinner than she remembered. Every time she saw Jason, she remembered that Bob might look like this in a few years, a boy peering out of a man’s eyes.
But these blue eyes were wounded. He looked much different from other young men his age; his expression was grave. Nina had never seen him smile. Too heavy a weight had fallen on him too early. Picking up the phone that connected them, he said, "My mother was sure you’d come."
"I just got the message. How are they treating you?"
"Better than the Nevada cops."
"Any injuries?"
"Just to my pride."
"Well, Jason," Nina said. "You’re in some trouble."
"You can say that again."
"You decided on the spur of the moment to take a two-week vacation in Vegas?"
"No. I was running. I admit that. But not because I killed my grandfather."
"Before we go any further, Jason: this conversation isn’t privileged at this point. I’m not your attorney as to the charges that have put you here."
He ran his hand through his hair. His drawn face took on a suffering aspect that was becoming familiar.
"You want me to defend you on this murder charge?"
"Yes. I trust you to help me."
"Did you talk to your mother about it?"
"She’ll pay you. She told me she would."
"Why me?" Nina said. "What do you know about me?" And to her astonishment Jason launched into a detailed synopsis of her professional history, about the five years in San Francisco pursuing criminal appeals, about the two sensational murder trials she’d been involved in at Tahoe in the past two years, about her other criminal and civil trial work.
"I did a search on you on the Internet. Some news stories came up."
"Really? I’ll have to try that."
"That was why I told Mom she should come to you about the motion to exhume my father’s body," he said. "I really look up to you. Before all this happened—I hoped that one day I could go to law school. That’ll never happen now. I was crazy to think I’d ever get out of this town."
As he spoke he stroked his cheek gently with his free hand, looking away from her, comforting himself with his own hand, as if he’d been comfortless all his life.
"Have you been charged with illegally disinterring the body of your father?"
"Not that I know of."
"Okay. I can find out more on that."
"So you’ll represent me?"
"I’m considering that now, Jason. Since we’re contemplating an attorney-client relationship, our conversation has now become privileged."
"Okay."
"So let me ask you some questions. If I don’t want you to go on at any point, I’ll stop you. Understand?" The boy nodded but still stroked his cheek absently and looked away.
"Where were you on the Friday night before you disappeared?" Nina
said, bracing herself.
"I can’t tell you that."
Taken aback, Nina said, "Were you at Kenny Munger’s?"
"I can’t tell you that."
"Were you at the cemetery? Or a cabin at Wright’s Lake?"
"These aren’t questions I can answer. I’m sorry."
"But Jason, I can’t defend you unless you’re willing to tell me your story. Nothing you say to me can be repeated unless we both decide we want it repeated. Not even to your mother."
"You won’t represent me?" he said. "Why not?"
"Because I can’t work in the dark. Come on, now, I know you’re nervous, but you have to trust me."
Some lawyers didn’t want to know. Some lawyers didn’t believe anything the client said. Some clients were too disturbed to know what the truth was.
Nina had to hear it from the client. Truth or lie from here on out, she had to hear it. She hoped to hear why a pair of Vuarnets lay on the cabin floor in the fiery room. But no matter what he said, this was the moment when she would decide whether or not she could help him. She wanted to help him because of Sarah, but she had to feel a connection with him too. A murder defense took such a cruel toll on the defense lawyer; it couldn’t be done for money or for the experience. It had to be worth the hellish pressure.
"I do trust you," Jason was saying. "I just don’t want to talk about Friday night. Or Saturday. I’m sorry."
"You won’t tell me anything about that time period?"
"I can’t."
"Then I can’t help you," Nina said. "Neither can any other lawyer." It was a simple, unsubtle bluff that usually brought people around. She got up.
"Okay," Jason mumbled. "Thanks for coming."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing."
"You have to do something."
"I’ll get along without a lawyer."
"You can’t do that."
"Whatever happens," Jason said.
"Even if you killed your grandfather, you need a lawyer’s help to make sure you’re treated fairly, Jason," Nina said, alarmed, sitting back down.