Unlucky in Law (12 page)

“That can be done only very rarely, and not in this case.”

Nina noted this, thinking, Maybe Ginger can do better.

“Which leads us to that glass,” Jaime said.

“The broken glass?”

“Yes. Did you find any glass slivers in the clothing or on the body of the victim?”

“No,” Misumi said definitely.

“Lastly, did you do an examination on the bones that were found in Stefan Wyatt's car on the morning he was arrested?”

“We examined the bones and established that they belonged in the coffin found in the grave below the body of Christina Zhukovsky. After that determination was made, the bones were returned to the next of kin, Alex Zhukovsky, and it is my understanding that all the bones were then cremated.” She glanced at some notes. “Oh, let me correct that. The defense forensics expert still has two bones pursuant to an agreement with our office.”

“Thank you.” Jaime sat down. As he did, a stocky blond man sitting at the back of the courtroom left. Nina felt Paul turning to watch, and she glanced at the man, but quickly returned to her study of Susan Misumi. First, Misumi's eyes studied Paul, who was looking away. He turned back to the front and she caught him with her eyes.

She smiled. Nina, observing her, did not see Paul's reaction, but the smile went on for a significant period of time, about as long as it takes for two smiles to tango.

Then, as Klaus took the cross-examination, Misumi looked disappointed, maybe, as though she had wanted to engage Nina. Klaus had two points to make, and he repeated them several times in different ways—the thumbprint couldn't be matched to Stefan, and no other testimony she had given implicated Stefan in the crime. And Christina could have been strangled by a woman.

Klaus seemed full of energy. His questions were pointed, and he really did have a lot of the old charm, working the jury as he went. He didn't forget what he was going to say next.

He was fine. Nina waited from second to second for a lapse, but there wasn't one. Was he having major problems, or wasn't he?

Judge Salas had been watching the clock. At 2:45
P.M.
he began getting restless. The minute Klaus finished, he gave the jury their weekend instructions not to talk to anyone about the case and not to read the papers or watch any TV news.

The gavel rapped. Salas disappeared. All rose while the jurors filed out, looking as if they had paid their dues today. Then the courtroom emptied fast.

“Chin up,” Klaus told Stefan as he was led into the back.

Nina drove them back in the Jag in silence. Klaus rested his head against the back of his seat and closed his eyes, and Nina thought about strangulation and Susan Misumi.

About how she would like to strangle Susan Misumi.

Sandy had already left for the day. Nina returned some phone calls, and when Bear walked past the office, she called out, “Hey, hi, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Sure.”

Bear came in and his bulk filled the tiny office. Nina got up and shut the door. “What's up?” he said.

“I wanted to ask you a question. About Klaus.” She saw the big man tense, and thought, He knows. “About how Klaus is doing.”

“Seems to be fine,” Bear said warily.

“You haven't noticed that he's—sketchy sometimes? Forgetting things? Not quite on the ball?”

“He's old, Nina. What do you expect?”

Nina decided to take the Bear by the horns. “Did you know he wasn't prepared for this trial? His investigator had barely done any work on the case. Klaus didn't file some crucial pretrial motions. He hasn't reanalyzed the blood evidence.”

Bear was examining the old law books on the shelves. “Were you able to catch up?” he asked.

“You knew he wasn't ready. That's why you pushed to hire me.”

“I have the highest confidence in you.”

“The defense in this case is very weak, Bear. I'm not sleeping.”

“I'm sorry about that, Nina. I really am. What can I do to help you?”

Nina folded her arms. “That's not the response I'm looking for.”

“Okay. Okay.” His sheer reluctance halted his habitually antsy style. “I'm going to tell you the truth. When you accepted, I was so happy I would have given you double the pay you asked for.”

“That's good to hear, because I'm asking you right now to double my pay, because I'm doing double the work.”

“All right,” Bear said, humbled. “I'll talk to everyone and get you what you want, although don't expect Alan to be happy. He didn't want the case; he didn't want you; he didn't want the expense. I really feel bad, but I knew you cared about Klaus and could work with him, or around him. Thank you for staying.”

Nina sighed. “He did all right today. We're catching up. I have Paul helping, Ginger, Sandy. If I only had another six months . . .”

“This is his last trial, Nina,” Bear said. “We're going to have to talk to him after this. But you see, he doesn't realize what's happening. He thinks he's still right on top of everything. Or—I don't know, maybe he does realize, but he's hoping nobody else has noticed. It's humiliating for him. He took on Lyndon Johnson in the United States Supreme Court during the Vietnam War, Nina.”

“I know. I'll try to keep him going.”

“Sean wants us to bring you in permanently. Would you be interested?”

Nina put up her hands wearily and said, “That's for another day.”

“You're supposed to say, ‘I'm thrilled.'” He smiled and went out. Nina packed her case and put on her jacket.

In the garage, Alan Turk was just getting into his Ferrari. Nina called to him, “Glad I caught you.” Surprised, he turned off the ignition and said, “Yup?”

“You were the first lawyer to see Stefan Wyatt on the night of his arrest, weren't you, Alan?”

“I was. Then I brought Klaus in.”

“Did Wyatt say anything to you when you talked to him at the jail?”

The lawyer's lean face looked up uncertainly at her through the stylish glasses. “Say anything? Hell, no! I told him not to talk to me. I wouldn't let him. I wasn't going to be his lawyer and I did not want to know. So—that's it? Because I have a friend waiting.”

“I just wondered why they called you.”

“His brother, Gabe Wyatt, was my client.”

“Oh, yes, that was it. What did you do for his brother? A will?”

“Why, Nina, you know that's confidential.”

“We're in the same firm. Is there some conflict I should know about?”

“If there were a conflict, I might not even be able to tell you. The existence of a conflict might be confidential and not in the best interests of my client.”

“Just a minute,” Nina said. “I know you're in a hurry, but I have to get this straight. You won't even tell me what type of matter Gabe Wyatt was pursuing with you?”

“Sorry, no.”

Something about his attitude bothered her. He wasn't just unhelpful, he seemed downright obstructive. “Do you have information from Gabe Wyatt or anyone else that might tend to exculpate Stefan Wyatt?” she asked directly.

“I can't answer that question,” Alan said. Nina thought she saw fright in the flecked eyes behind the glasses. He powered up the car, revved it a few times, and backed out. Nina watched him go, her mind racing alongside.

10

Friday 9/19

A
FTER LEAVING THE OFFICE,
N
INA MET
P
AUL AND
B
OB FOR HOT DOGS
and a sci-fi we-all-die movie downtown. Bob, in good spirits, kept his post-movie critique down to scathing.

“I'm going to Tahoe this weekend,” he announced to Paul, full of plans about who he needed to see and what he would bring back.

“Really?” Paul said. “Well, blow me down. What a surprise.”

“It was a sudden decision,” Nina said. She hadn't told him. Why hadn't she told him? Because she knew what he would say. She spoiled Bob. She gave him anything he wanted. Whatever Paul said, she would feel her jaw clench at the interference. “It'll be a quick trip. He'll stay Saturday night with Matt and Andrea.”

“You're not going?” Paul said.

“No.”

“Good. Hey, Bob, say hi to Uncle Matt and Aunt Andrea for me,” Paul said.

“How much will you pay me?” Bob asked.

Paul cuffed him, but with a smile.

They headed out into the cold night. Paul's car was parked a few blocks down toward the bay. They walked, Bob beside Nina, Paul offering his arm to her, simply out for a pleasant evening. She thought, Does he compare my body with hers? How could he put those sensual hands of his on another woman's body? How could he? I'm full of self-pity and disaster already, she said to herself, and it's only been one week of trial stress. She laid her head against his shoulder.

Surprisingly, Bob wanted to talk about school. They were studying local history this week, and had gone on a field trip to a ranch in Carmel Valley. “We practiced roping skills. We got to try it in a ring.”

“Not on a bull?” Nina asked, grateful for something to think about besides her personal issues.

“A cow,” Bob said. “The guy who owns the bull calls him ‘Devil Boy.'”

“Best stick with Bessie, then,” Paul said. They had reached Fisherman's Wharf, and stood indecisively, the sea lions calling to them, Paul's warm car another block farther.

“Let's walk to the end of the pier,” Bob urged.

“Homework?” Nina asked.

“I got it covered.” He rushed ahead.

Nina and Paul strolled slowly behind him. “How would you say it went today in court?” Paul asked Nina. He had been out much of the day.

She told him. “Of course, we haven't gotten to our own case. So far, they're seeing only the prosecution's story. We have to be patient.”

“I have complete faith in you.”

“We've got a client whose blood was found at the scene of a murder. Alex Zhukovsky is hanging tough with his story. We don't know why anybody would want to kill Christina or want the old man's bones. We don't even have a decent theory. We don't have anything,” Nina said shortly. She wanted to stop into a souvenir shop to buy herself a chambered nautilus displayed in the window. They tested the door. The store was closed.

“We will,” Paul promised. They caught up with Bob, who shooed them away, having run into some kids he knew from school. From a discreet distance, listening to the sea lions making their evening ruckus for a minute, they searched the calm waters to see if they could spot an otter. Paul said to Nina, “Hey, you didn't mention Susan would be testifying today.”

She couldn't decide if he was studiously casual, or just casual. “True.”

“Do you think she makes a good witness?”

“Oh, yeah. Just great. Her and her big fat lips.”

He laughed. “She's not that bad looking,” he said.

“Not surprising you'd feel that way.”

He caught her face between his hands and held on gently. “What is it?”

She shook him off. “I don't expect to like prosecution witnesses.”

“But her testifying against Wyatt isn't what you hold against her,” he said, “is it? You're jealous.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“No need, you know. The minute I decided to get back with you, we broke it off.”

“Did she drop you or did you drop her?”

He wrinkled his nose and sighed. “What's the difference?”

“It matters,” she said stubbornly, arms crossed, unable to say why it should matter.

“I broke it off.”

“Liar.”

“Nina, this isn't like you.”

“Yeah, it's me. It's me, in trial. I'm sorry.”

He pulled her to him, trying to make up, she could tell, but she couldn't. She moved away. She felt his eyes on her as she leaned out over the railing toward the water.

A small cruise boat docked farther down, and they watched the rowdy partygoers unload.

“C'mon, let's clear the air,” Paul said. “Nina, I'm over forty. I've had past relationships. You knew that. I've had two wives, for Chrissake. And I slept with them. I'll bet you slept with your husbands, too, and there's no question about Kurt, either, now that I mention it, given the fact of Bob's existence!”

He had slept with Susan. She had known it, but the blood pounding in her head told her she had held a vain hope that he hadn't.

“You don't want to dredge up this old stuff,” he went on, so reasonable.

The old stuff, as he put it, was already dredged and heaped up high, obscuring her rationality.

“'Cause, just for example, you'd hate me reminding you about that kid you used to go skinny-dipping with, right? I mean, I didn't know you then or anything, so I have no reason whatsoever to picture you and him swimming on a warm evening out there with the bullfrogs and stars. You buck naked. With him.”

Surprised that he was nursing a long-ago, minor mention of herself as a teenager hanging around the rocky pools in Carmel Valley with that wild-kid boyfriend of hers, she couldn't think of anything to say.

“Your clothes tossed behind on the hillside, a little pot in the air. Your hair wet, drifting all over the place. A bright moon. Him some prime example of young manhood. Shit, Nina.” He frowned.

She couldn't help herself. She started to laugh. “Yeah, it was just like that, only you left out the poison oak I got, and the tick he got, and the shouting argument part.”

“Just tell me his name,” Paul said, responding to her, now on a roll and just teasing. “So if I run into him minding his own business one fine day, I know who to pound senseless.”

Pelicans flew overhead and the black water lapped against the pilings and the shopkeepers turned out lights in the stores on each side of the pier. She kissed him. Gathering Bob up, they bought saltwater taffy and chewed on it as they walked back toward Alvarado downtown, past laughter and the smell of coffee and grease coming from the crowded fish joints.

Bob skulked along behind them, kicking anything loose he could find on the pavement. “Being back at the old firm getting to you?” Paul asked Nina.

“It's like coming home after going to college or somewhere. There's a big brother, Bear, who protects Daddy's image, and a new puppy, Sean, who nips. The dynamics are familiar and sometimes hard. I know they mostly support me. That's the good part.”

“The bad part?”

“Progress doesn't usually involve coming home to roost. It's the kind of thing you do after a colossal failure. Now that I'm living here and working here again, I can't help feeling that I'm like a scared person running home. Like I can't cut it on my own somewhere else. Talk of a partnership just makes me nervous.”

“A partnership?”

“Bear approached me about it.”

“That would be good.”

She twisted the ring, which seemed so tight tonight. “That would make Tahoe an impossibility, all right.”

He picked at a splinter he had gotten leaning on the railing. “I like having you close.”

“Maybe you shouldn't watch—I mean worry about me so much.”

“Why shouldn't I try to protect you? You get in the most god-awful messes.”

“I can handle my own messes.”

“No, you can't.” He said this with brutal conviction.

Nina raised her voice. “You're so damn protective, Paul. How long will it be before you try to get me to stop practicing criminal law?”

He unwound his arm from around her waist. “Stop it,” he said. “Susan and I are not seeing each other. All right? Get that through your noggin.”

“Let's forget it,” she said, and she should have apologized again, but she was too angry about too many things and all of them were not about Paul. The best she could do was take his arm.

“What's next?” Paul asked, keeping his voice low with an effort Nina appreciated.

“Sandy set up appointments for you with Alex Zhukovsky; Stefan's girlfriend, Erin; his mother, Wanda; and his brother, Gabe. They'll all be on the stand in the next few days. She faxed you a list of my special concerns about what they might say. And you'll probably want to talk to Klaus's investigator.”

“I meant what's next for tonight.”

“Oh. We find your car and call it a night.”

He nuzzled her hair. “Bob could stay with his grandpa again. He likes staying there.”

“Not tonight.”

“We need to be together. I've barely seen you, and I've slept with you exactly twice in the past two weeks.”

“Don't get mad, Paul.”

“I hate sleeping alone. I want you tonight.” He pressed against her and she almost changed her mind. But she didn't.

“Soon, I promise.”

Saturday morning, before driving Bob to the train, Nina stopped in to see Sandy at the office. She proofed and signed each paper Sandy shoveled toward her for the next half hour.

“When does Bob go?” Sandy asked.

Nina consulted the clock on the wall. Like everything else at the Pohlmann firm, it had a distinguished but dusty venerability. Outside, a few renegade wildflowers still waved between the weed sprouts of late summer. “His train's at around ten-thirty from San Jose. I wish I could go with him. I could check up on your daughter.”

“No need,” Sandy said. “We know what's happening. She calls Joseph every night.”

How nice that Sandy's daughter liked talking to her father. Nina imagined Joe in the kitchen of their borrowed house at Big Sur, drinking a beer, maybe looking out at the pasture full of horses, the phone to his ear, emanating warm, loving vibes for his troubled daughter. That was the way it was supposed to be with fathers and daughters.

She couldn't remember it ever being that way with her and her father, Harlan. Her mother provided the shoulder while her father straggled behind her, a backdrop to her vitality. He beautifully provided all the practical things—the house, the cars, the bacon—while keeping his distance from her and Matt. Maybe his heart was squeezed tight already by their mother. At the end, when their mother was so sick and he had spent so much time nursing her, when was there time for two needy kids? Especially if you considered his girlfriend, Angie, must have been occupying him, too. . . .

“He keeps his mouth shut and lets her vent,” Sandy said, speaking of her husband. “Says it's time for her to decide some things for herself.”

“Sounds like a good relationship. Too bad your son isn't a big talker.”

“I wish Wish would tell me more. I never know what he's up to. Thinks he's all grown up.”

“Boys are hard.”

“Bob stopped by the other day while you were in court.”

“Oh?”

“He's not doing so good at the high school.”

No doubt he had unloaded his closest secrets on Sandy. When had being a parent translated into being a pariah?

“I should go,” Nina said, consulting her watch. She picked up part of a stack of paperwork on Sandy's desk and set it down again. “You go home now. Your work's done. We're okay. You need your weekend.”

“What time will you be back?” Sandy said, rearranging the stack Nina had upset.

“Twelve-thirty?”

“Meet you here.”

Back home, on Aunt Helen's porch, the bald happiness on Bob's face made Nina feel better about her decision to let him go alone. She pulled up to the cottage, but he had run down the front steps and short pathway in front to meet her before she even turned off the car.

“Ready!” he said.

“So glad,” she said.

He ran back and hauled his suitcase off the porch. Hitchcock made a frantic good-bye sprint through the orange poppies and overgrown grasses in the front yard before hurling himself toward the back seat.

She had to go inside to make sure the place was locked up. Bob had done a good job. He had remembered to turn off the fan in the living room and lower the thermostat. Even the windows were shut and locked. Sometimes, he was fourteen going on thirty. That would be when he wasn't fourteen going on two, she laughed to herself, finding a heap of wet towels forming a white scar over the hallway's lovely aged oak boards.

North of Salinas, she started to speed to seventy or seventy-five. But she had forgotten the traffic narrowing from two lanes to one for construction, which caused everyone to slam on their brakes and jerk left simultaneously. The Bronco, tippy and therefore not the best car to maneuver, gave them a minor carnival-ride scare, righting itself just in the nick of time.

Tall pink oleander bloomed on the sides of the road, blowing in the hot summer wind. Her usual driving style, to haul it uphill but drive the speed limit on downhills to avoid lurking patrol cars, wasn't really an option in the heavy weekend traffic, so she had time to admire the yellow mountains in all their splendor. The traffic got bad again in San Jose, at the junction with 280, and they crawled the rest of the way to the station.

She tried to imagine Paul making the much longer drive from Monterey to Tahoe over and over to help her on her cases, as he had so often in the past.

She waited with Bob until the train to Sacramento arrived, then waved him off. He would have to change there, and had to listen to many instructions about what to do if there was a problem. She rode back to Monterey wondering what the hell she was doing, sending her boy up to their home in the mountains while she remained stuck like dried salt along the coastline.