Read Online Acts of Malice by Perri O'Shaughnessy - Free Book Online Page B

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.
    When I asked what had happened, he refused
to answer me. I got a broom and swept up
around him so he could step out of the bathroom
without cutting his bare feet. While I was
cleaning up, he sat down on the bed and didn’t
move.
    After a few minutes I turned out the lights and
got into my side of the bed. Then my husband
said, ‘‘The thing he loves most. I’ll show
him.’’ I asked him what he meant and he said,
‘‘Alex is a dead man.’’
    I was frightened. Then my husband said, very
clearly, ‘‘He’s going to die because I’m going to
kill him.’’
    I said words to the e fect that he was talking
crazy. He laughed and told me to shut up.
After saying this, he lay down on his side of the
bed and turned his back to me. I was so upset I
got up and slept in the living room on the couch
that night.
    The next day, and several days after that, I
asked my husband what he had meant by his
behavior and statements, but he wouldn’t add
anything more. His manner became secretive and
he seemed distant.
    Then, on October 23rd, a Saturday, my
husband left to go skiing. I did not know that
he was planning to ski with Alex. At three
o’clock Alex’s wife, Marianne Strong, called me
and told me there had been an accident
involving Alex. I rushed to Boulder Hospital
and saw my husband in the waiting room with
Marianne and my father-in-law, Philip Strong.
He told me Alex had been skiing out of control
and skied off a cliff. I did not believe him.
    The doctor came out and told us Alex had died
in surgery. I left the hospital and went home
with my husband, but I was becoming more and
more afraid. I felt then, and I feel now, that my
husband had something to do with Alex’s
death. The next morning I went to the South
Lake Tahoe police station and spoke to the
officer on duty, then made this statement. I
have left my home because of this and wish to
state again that my husband is not authorized
to have any information as to my whereabouts.
I declare the above to be true and correct under the
laws of the State of California. Executed this
twenty-fourth day of October at South Lake
Tahoe, County of El Dorado, California.
    The statement concluded with Heidi Strong’s signature, large and round, slanted to the right, just like the writing in the note she had left Jim. Nina moved over slightly on the bench and let him have the copy. He read it several times, as if he couldn’t quite decipher it.
    The statement was clear, convincing,