Acts of Malice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  ‘‘I think—that night on the roof of the casino—I think you were awfully close to death,’’ Nina said. ‘‘I’ll never forget it.’’

  ‘‘Afterwards, I just wanted to hide,’’ Collier said. ‘‘I was in touch with a professor from college who’d left academia and made it big in real estate in Honolulu. He and his wife own the big house next door. I called him. He offered to rent me this cottage. They only use it when their kids come to visit. I didn’t even leave the cottage for two weeks, not even to go to the beach. I felt like I’d been in a fire. Like a burn victim. I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.’’

  ‘‘I wish you’d called me.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t want to be found. But—later, when I started getting better, I looked back at Tahoe and I realized it had all been there, work that I loved and people that cared about me. So I gave myself a goal. To get it back. I didn’t think I deserved it, I wasn’t sure it was possible, but I had to try.’’

  ‘‘Did you ever talk to someone? A professional?’’

  ‘‘Just the local medico. He checked me out and told me to run on the beach and swim twice a day and to make some friends. And the main thing—you’re going to laugh, but he was right—he told me not to read.’’

  ‘‘Not to read anything?’’

  ‘‘Nothing. No newspapers, no magazines, no books. And no TV, no computer. He took away all the entertainments that made it possible for me to live in my head. He sent me outside like I was ten years old on a Saturday morning. I was desperate, so I took his advice. Mainly because I had decided I was the stupidest son of a bitch alive.’’

  They smiled at each other. ‘‘Excuse me. I have to kiss you now,’’ he said. They did that for a while.

  Breaking away finally, Nina said, ‘‘I’d like to hear the rest of your story.’’

  ‘‘Well, I did make some good friends here. Mark and Patty in the big house, and the kid that lives on the other side. Isaiah, his name is. He taught me the best snorkeling spots on the island. I’ll always come back here now. Once or twice a year from now on, I’ll set my work aside and go outside and live. You understand, don’t you, my darling?’’

  ‘‘Oh, yes. You have things to teach me now,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Collier? Have you ever thought—do you have a code of honor?’’

  He looked surprised. ‘‘I wouldn’t call it that, but— once upon a time, I would have said, to try to right all the wrongs. But I couldn’t begin to do that. I thought about that a lot last year. I decided on something more realistic.’’

  ‘‘What was that?’’

  ‘‘To try to right some of the wrongs. Just some of them. Listen. Let’s bring Bob next time. We’ll take a boat out to the Moks.’’

  She looked out to sea. Like the old Hawaiians said, everything was alive and moving: tinted clouds, sky exhaling trade winds, surf brushing shore, ti leaves and coconut palms trembling and waving, even the gullied cliffs behind them standing like leaf-skirted warriors against the sky, holding fast, watching the Pacific.

  Dusk. The sky psychedelic. Collier cut up a mango and shared it with her. They sat outside and talked some more. Collier told her about his family and his childhood. She told him about Kurt, Bob’s father, and Jack, the lawyer she had married and worked with during her San Francisco days. As she talked, she realized that her past had become simple. It was the past, that was all. Now only the present was real.

  Night in their bed. ‘‘I don’t want to go back,’’ she cried. She buried her face in the pillow.

  Collier stroked her hair. ‘‘Let’s pretend this night never ends. Your hair is damp on the pillow. You are beautiful, and you are mine.’’ He stopped for a moment, then said in a low voice, ‘‘Will you agree to that, Nina? To be mine?’’

  Nina got up on one elbow. Her hair fell across her face. He tucked it behind her ear. She wore white shell earrings he had bought her and nothing else.

  ‘‘I agree,’’ she said gravely.

  ‘‘I’m in love with you, Nina.’’

  ‘‘Oh, God. Are you sure?’’

  ‘‘Do you love me?’’

  ‘‘Oh, boy.’’

  ‘‘Tongue-tied, eh? Why can’t I do that to you in court?’’

  ‘‘It’s nothing to laugh about. It’s a very serious—’’

  ‘‘No, it’s not. I just wondered. It’s not a geometry test. You don’t have to try to figure out the correct answer. You know, you have the most remarkably beautiful neck. I like how it sits on your shoulders. I like the slope of your shoulders, and especially your collar-bones.’’ He lay his head on her chest as if he wanted to have a private communication with her heart.

  ‘‘I love you too,’’ she whispered. Relief overcame her as the fortress within her opened its heavy armored gates.

  ‘‘Let’s go for a swim,’’ he said a long time later. ‘‘We have all night. We won’t go to sleep at all tonight.’’

  ‘‘I don’t want to swim. I don’t like the dark water.’’

  ‘‘We’ll just wade.’’ He took her hand and she followed, cut free from all other anchors.

  The sea lapped against their waists as they faced the mainland three thousand miles away. Cassiopeia and the Pleiades glimmered overhead. On the shore the shorebreak and bushes protected them from the view of the houses. The moon cast its familiar line of silver along the water.

  She knew what would happen.

  Collier came up behind her and pressed himself to her so she could feel him hard against her. His hands gripped her hips through her suit as he pulled her even closer against him. She leaned her head back and reached her arms back and held his head.

  He leaned her over and she felt his hand under the water, pulling her suit aside. Waves washed across them and they almost lost their balance. He entered her suddenly, as impersonal as a sea god, and she closed her eyes and let go, letting him keep them both afloat, cool everywhere except in the burning center where he was.

  The call and response of breathing began, and her breathing became moans. The sea moaned with her while the wind caressed her face. She felt his breath in her ear.

  They rocked in the shifting sea. The unknown in her met the unknown in him.

  Straining, he pulled her to him one more time. He groaned.

  He fell away and she slipped under a wave. When she came back up, wiping the water away from her eyes, she saw his dark head deeper out, swimming with long strokes away from her. She let him go and watched for a long time, waiting patiently for him to return to her.

  They had showered and gone to bed.

  ‘‘I want—I need our spirits to intertwine. So you never leave me again,’’ Nina said.

  ‘‘All right. We’ll stay here forever.’’

  ‘‘I’ll become a lei maker,’’ Nina said.

  ‘‘I’ll fish.’’

  ‘‘That’s good.’’

  ‘‘We’ll give Bob thirteen siblings, island princes and princesses, who drink coconut milk and play the ukelele . . .’’

  ‘‘And love to fend for themselves. Otherwise, we could never raise them.’’

  ‘‘Nina?’’

  ‘‘Mmm-hmm.’’

  ‘‘I would so love to have a child. I mean, I know I could love Bob. But, a baby.’’

  ‘‘I know.’’

  ‘‘What do you think about babies?’’

  Dawn.

  The plane left from Honolulu Airport at ten. They barely made it.

  ‘‘Nina?’’ She had been falling into a doze in spite of the noise of takeoff. His intensity had kept her awake all night.

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Do we have to stay alone, live alone, stay lonely all our lives?’’ Collier asked. ‘‘Is that our fate?’’ He was sitting bolt upright beside her.

  ‘‘It doesn’t seem like a very good plan anymore,’’ Nina answered drowsily. ‘‘What shall we do?’’

  ‘‘I’m not sure.’’

  ‘‘There are so many considerations,�
��’ Nina said.

  ‘‘But none of them matter. Not really.’’

  His tone, so definite, woke her fully. She became aware of everything—the slightly stale air, the engine noise, the smell of his shirt, the scratches on the window.

  ‘‘I know we haven’t known each other very long,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Two years,’’ Nina answered. ‘‘I’ve sat opposite you in court many times, trying to understand what you were thinking, trying to figure you out. I know you very well. We think alike. We’re both trying to do the job and be decent about it. I know how intelligent you are, how mature, how good . . .’’ She saw how this praise affected him. He had no idea how good he was. No one had loved him for so long.

  They were landing. ‘‘I can’t really be a lei maker,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Can you live with that?’’

  Wheels bumped against tarmac. He nodded. He knew what she was explaining, that she wouldn’t change her work. It was all she did well and the only way she could help, and she knew he felt exactly the same way about his work.

  ‘‘We’ll figure something out,’’ he said.

  ‘‘The only thing is—I wish I’d never met Jim Strong,’’ Nina said. As soon as it was out, she wished she hadn’t said it. What she meant was, I wish that investigation weren’t between us right now, before we get a chance to figure out how to work in the same town. Collier might take it wrong and think—

  But maybe he didn’t know about the fibers yet. Clauson might not have filed his supplemental report by the time they had left.

  She was sure about it when he answered lightly, in that new warm voice of his, ‘‘Who knows? Maybe it’ll go away.’’

  So she was still a step ahead of him. She knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  She talked to Bob about her feelings for Collier that night. After initially acting very blasé, then asking a question or two about Paul, he began talking about his father and she realized that he had been nursing some private fantasies. He said he would think about all this and get back to her, and retired to the phone in his bedroom, where he would seek advice from people like Uncle Matt.

  Of course, he would need time to get to know Collier.

  It was only nine, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She climbed under the Hudson blanket in the cold attic room and set the alarm.

  On Tuesday morning she had just taken her coat off and hung it on the rack at the office when Collier called, much sooner than she had expected.

  ‘‘You have until close of business today to surrender Jim Strong into custody at the South Lake Tahoe Police Department,’’ he said, his voice not brusque, not cold, just very different from the day before. ‘‘I’m telling you as a courtesy since he’s represented.’’

  She kept her voice as professional as his. ‘‘I appreciate that. What’s the charge?’’

  ‘‘Murder. First degree.’’

  ‘‘I’m going to insist on a preliminary hearing within ten days.’’

  ‘‘Do what you have to do.’’

  ‘‘We’ll produce him.’’

  12

  SHE ACCOMPANIED JIM to the station and stood by him while two detectives read him his rights again and went after him with questions. On advice of counsel, Jim refused to answer. Eventually, he was led over to the jail for booking.

  Barbet Schroeder, who wrote the courthouse stories for the newspaper, had somehow gotten wind of it. Her photographer managed to get a shot of Jim as he was escorted into the jail.

  Tomorrow he would be arraigned. He had roots in the community, came from a prominent family, and had never been arrested for anything before this. Some sort of bail would be forthcoming, and he would be freed after spending just one night locked up, for now at least. But the morning paper would come out, too, and then he would be notorious.

  Polite in their way, the jail deputies moved efficiently through the processes of turning Jim into an inmate. The smell of coffee, the TV with its commercials coming from somewhere within, and their relaxed manner helped. Jim went through it all fatalistically, shrugging his shoulders when she asked how he felt. Only at the last moment, as she was leaving so he could be issued his jail jumpsuit and go through all the other humiliations of being stripped of his liberty, did he turn to her and whisper, ‘‘Don’t give up on me.’’

  As it closed, the jail door sent out a puff of air, closing out all that was fresh and alive.

  On Wednesday, at the one-thirty arraignments, Judge Flaherty set bail at $300,000 after a short argument by the attorneys. Collier was right there in court with her, and they both were very careful not to touch or say anything personal. Collier looked so tall and distinguished, and she was proud—no, she was indifferent.

  Or was she indignant? What she was, was confused, and no time was available for confusion. In a few days, a preliminary hearing would determine if Jim would have to endure a full-scale murder trial.

  After the hearing, Collier handed her an envelope marked with the coroner’s address. He chose that moment to smile, and at that unpropitious moment Barbara Banning walked in, wearing a designer suit, her arms full of files for the hearings to come. She looked at Nina, then at Collier.

  How did she know? How could she know? Had Collier told her? Barbara’s eyes flitted back and forth at them. Her finely plucked eyebrows climbed toward her hairline and a cynical expression appeared.

  Of course. They were so obvious, two smiling lawyers with matching sunburns, not the ski-goggle sunburn, either. They had been caught red-faced.

  Now Nina saw how difficult their jobs might become. She did not look at the envelope; she didn’t want to know yet what they had found on the boots. Besides, instant interpretation was out—her brain seemed to be tangled in kelp. She would study the material later, carefully, when the seaweed dispersed.

  That afternoon, she left work early. She and Bob and Hitchcock took a long walk along the lakeshore, on the thin strand of sand left between snow and water.

  ‘‘Get these away from me,’’ Tony Ramirez said, pushing at the autopsy photos with his index finger. ‘‘I’ve seen enough.’’ Crammed into Nina’s office, Tony, Ginger, Sandy, Nina, and Sandy’s son, Wish Whitefeather, had all found seats somewhere. On Nina’s clean oak desk, the photos were defilements.

  Outside, a few flakes of snow fluttered across the forest and marsh, obscuring the distant lake. They had been talking strategy for the last hour. The mantra of this case was to be: it was an accident. But, since the prosecution theory was murder, they were going to have to deal with that. The best bet seemed to be to find some more suspects.

  Ginger took the photos, eight-by-ten glossies with excellent resolution, and stacked them back into a neat pile. ‘‘A shame they’re so vivid,’’ she said. She put the views of Alex Strong’s stomach, the ones with the patternlike marks, on top. Next to the autopsy photos she placed another blowup of the bottoms of Jim’s ski boots.

  ‘‘See for yourself,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ll have them scanned into the computer and we’ll play around to see if we can sharpen up the details even more. If we want to sharpen up the details.’’

  ‘‘I don’t see anything on the skin,’’ Sandy said. ‘‘Just some marks.’’

  Nina raised her head at this: If Sandy wasn’t sure she saw a pattern, a jury might react similarly.

  ‘‘Although they do seem to run in short stripes,’’ Sandy added. ‘‘Like the boots.’’ Nina’s head sunk back on her chest.

  ‘‘That’s how they look to me too,’’ agreed Wish. ‘‘Like, when I wear my belt buckle too tight and I go to take my pants off, I can see the outline of the whole buckle on my stomach, even the metal thing that you put in the hole in the belt . . .’’

  Wish was studying criminal justice at the community college. He had pulled his long hair into a ponytail that went halfway down his back, accentuating the high forehead and big ears and the innocent look on his face. If he got any taller he wouldn’t fit into the conference room at all.

>   ‘‘I guess we ought to feel lucky that the logo isn’t imprinted too,’’ Nina said. ‘‘There’s obviously some sort of pattern. Ginger, what can you do with this?’’

  ‘‘In two weeks? Here’s the best bet. Have Tony here scrounge up half a dozen other pairs of ski boots with similar bottoms. Let me compare them to these faint markings. I’ll let you know if I can testify that it’s impossible to tell if it’s Tecnicas.’’

  ‘‘I saw a pair of men’s boots at Marianne Strong’s house. They weren’t Alex’s, because they were still wet. The maker was Dalbello. They were about a size eleven.’’

  ‘‘Cool,’’ said Ginger. ‘‘They’re Italian boots. I’ll test a pair of those first.’’

  ‘‘Maybe she has a boyfriend,’’ Tony said. ‘‘I’ll look into that.’’

  ‘‘But if the pattern is boot prints, it’s definitely a homicide,’’ Nina said. ‘‘How could— They didn’t find any blood on the boot bottoms. How could that be?’’

  ‘‘Human skin is amazingly resilient in maintaining its integrity even when it’s dealt a crushing trauma,’’ Ginger explained. ‘‘The external skin doesn’t seem to have shown much bruising. The initial hemorrhage was internal only. So I can’t say that the lack of blood on the boots helps much.’’

  ‘‘They did find some droplets on the black shirt,’’ Nina said. ‘‘That might be important in considering the timing, since the parka would have had to be opened and the bibs pulled down long enough for the blood to trickle there from the face.’’

  She saw Wish grimace. Wish and Sandy’s reactions were important to her, since a jury might be expected to react to these forensic details in a similar manner. In his face, she could follow just how ugly the prosecution’s scenario would look.

  Wish noticed that she was watching him. ‘‘Don’t worry, Nina,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ll find out what happened. We’ll help him.’’ He gave her a sunny smile. Gratefully, she smiled back.

  ‘‘At least we can whack Clauson on some of the other findings,’’ Ginger said. ‘‘Leave that to me.’’ She wore all black again, but without her hat. ‘‘As to the thirty-five additional fibers they found on the Tecnica soles, I can’t help. I’ll go over to the police evidence locker today with some equipment and have a look, but we can assume they will be black cotton fibers, and we can be pretty damn sure they’ll match the shirt. That’s all science is likely to tell us.’’