Unlucky in Law (8 page)

“Did the driver say anything on that drive?”

“No, sir. Not one word then or after, so far as I know. He made no attempt to explain.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, Watch Commander said it was okay for him to make a call, so I let the defendant use the pay phone and he called his girlfriend.”

“About what time was this?”

“By then—I would say after three
A.M.
I escorted him into a witness room for questioning, and Detective Banta took custody.”

Jaime turned his back on Millman to look at Stefan. “And can you tell us the name on the driver's license you examined that night?”

“Yes, sir, the name on the license and on the registration was Stefan Wyatt.”

“And do you recognize the person you took in for questioning early on Sunday morning, April thirteenth, based on the events you have just testified about, here in this courtroom today?”

“Yes, I recognize the defendant over there. That is the individual I stopped that night.” Millman pointed with his finger.

“Let the record show Officer Millman has identified the defendant, Stefan Wyatt,” Jaime said. “What, if anything, did you do then in connection with this traffic stop and detention?”

“I was on shift until eight
A.M.
that next morning. Officer Graydon and I called the two cemeteries right across the street from where we first saw the driver—the defendant. At about four-thirty
A.M.
, I got a call on the radio to return to El Encinal Cemetery. Officer Graydon and I returned there and we met Jim Martinez, a groundskeeper. He took us over to a grave in the El Estero Street side of the cemetery, not far from the gate to Pearl Street. In spite of the dark, I could see some evidence of a disturbance there.”

“What sort of evidence?”

“A messed-up surface,” Millman said. “It didn't look right.”

“What happened then?”

“Jim called in a backhoe operator, who brought floodlights. Oh. I almost forgot. There was a name on the grave. Constantin Zhukovsky. Jim went into the office and called his next of kin on the records and got permission from Alex Zhukovsky, the man's son, to do the digging.”

So the potential legal issue that the grave had been searched without authority would go nowhere. Nina crossed off her note and waited. Jaime was covering every bet. His examination was a model of careful preparation. Maybe he would get his way this time, and bring Klaus's distinguished career to a screeching halt. That ought to please Jaime.

“At a little after five-thirty in the morning we—or anyway the backhoe operator—started digging.”

“You were present? Who else was there?”

“Jim Martinez, the operator, Officer Graydon, and myself. And cups of coffee all around.”

“What happened then?”

“We could just see daylight on the horizon. By six-thirty-five
A.M.
the operator had dug a couple of feet down. He hit something, a woman's arm, coming out of a trash bag.”

Well, the moment had arrived. All Nina felt was relief.

Madeleine Frey, plainly disturbed, retied the bow at her neck. The rest of the jurors chewed on the skin inside their mouths, scratched their heads, or engaged in other activities that expressed disquiet. They had been chosen in part because they were not newshounds, unlike the reporters in back who scribbled furiously.

Stefan faded into his chair as if he could disappear. He kept his hands on the table as Klaus had instructed, but balled into fists.

“A woman's arm was sticking out of the trash bag?” Jaime said, although the words had been quite clear.

“A small arm I took for a woman's. Yes.” Millman wasn't an exaggerator, Nina had decided. When he bowed his head, remembering, he needed to do it.

“Protruding from a trash bag about four feet down?”

“That's right. A couple of bags, big, black dirt-covered trash bags with yellow ties.”

Jaime put down his papers, screeched back in his chair, and asked, “What happened then?”

“I called into the station and made contact with Detective Banta. She said she would take over. I stayed and secured the premises until she and other officers from Homicide arrived about half an hour later.”

“And then?”

“And then I wrote up my report, went off duty, and went home.”

“Thank you, Officer Millman. I have nothing further,” Jaime said.

“We'll take our lunch recess,” said the judge, with the usual words to the jury. Stefan, looking flushed, was led into the back room where the guard would give him his lunch. Klaus and Nina stood up.

“The flashlight—I'm going to do a computer search during lunch,” Nina said, feeling unable to avoid the presence of an elephant in the courtroom.

“You think I made a huge mistake there, don't you, Miss Reilly?”

“It's unheard of not to try to suppress traffic-stop evidence in a traffic case,” she blurted.

“You think I'm senile?” Klaus said. “You think I didn't give the matter due consideration?” He wore an expression as proud and sure of itself as an American flag. “Well, I am old but my mind is intact. I didn't judge it to be necessary.”

Nina stashed the files in her case. When the courtroom emptied, they left, Klaus in the lead, Nina following behind his erect posture and immaculate suit.

7

Wednesday 9/17

W
EDNESDAY MORNING
K
LAUS CROSS-EXAMINED
O
FFICER
M
ILLMAN,
who diverged not a whit from his testimony. Nina fed Klaus a list of questions about the flashlight search, and he read them through reading glasses, putting them to the witness as she requested, along with a few of his own thrown in for good measure. For now, he behaved like a lamb, modulated and meek, but Klaus was no lamb. He never broadcasted his strength in advance but saved his power for the attack, or at least he always had in the past. She hoped to see it again during this case when they needed it most.

Nina had tracked down her flashlight case, which turned out not to be so significant. A flashlight search was legal anywhere an occupant of a vehicle could reach within it. Millman and Jaime must have read the case, too, because Millman practically quoted it line for line. Yes, Stefan could have reached into the back seat of his small car. Yes, Millman had merely flashed the light through the window. No, he did not insert the flashlight inside the vehicle.

After another brief but heated argument out of the hearing of the jury, Salas ruled that the search came under the Plain View Doctrine. That was that, until the time came for appeal, if Stefan was convicted. They had lost the skirmish, but at least they had belatedly got onto their horses and come out jousting, which protected the issue for appeal, and peripherally, but seriously, might protect the firm from a malpractice claim.

What a close call. Klaus should have raised the issue long ago, but now they were in the middle of a trial, which was a bad time for self-flagellation.

At lunch, Klaus placed his napkin neatly in his lap and stuck it to her again, suggesting she take the cross-exam on Kelsey Banta.

“I'm not prepared, Klaus,” she said patiently. “We should keep with the plan that you handle it.”

“Of course I am ready and able to do that,” Klaus said. He put a leaf of lettuce into his mouth. He went on eating while Nina chewed on second thoughts.

“Are you tired?” she asked.

“No.”

Why was he doing this to her? To conserve his energy? Because he sensed his powers were fading? Did he believe she might do a better job? She decided he wouldn't ask if he didn't need her. “If you really need me, I can do it if you give me your notes right now.”

Without a word, Klaus passed over his legal pad. “Detective Banta,” said the tall slanted letters at the top of the page. What followed was a concise outline of topics to be covered in Klaus's superbly angular Germanic handwriting.

Nina began feeling better. “But—if you want me to take a witness and it's not an emergency or something—can you please let me know the night before? I could use more time to plan.”

Klaus set down his fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Look here,” he said. “Do you know what happens when a lawyer sits up all night memorizing old testimony and reports and concocting long lists and so forth?”

“What?”

“She sacrifices the ability to listen to the testimony as it comes from the witness's mouth. She is so busy checking off items, thumbing through exhibits, flipping through paper, she hears nothing.”

“I prepare,” Nina said. “That's the way I practice law.”

“Then it is time to jump to a higher level,” Klaus said, “where you demonstrate your mastery of law, not your practice of it. When Detective Banta speaks, don't look at your notes. Don't think about the next thing she might say. Open up to fresh ideas. What does she tell you with her body, her voice, and only last of all, her words? When does she exaggerate? Watch her when she skids over a topic. Note statements in her direct testimony that don't sound right. Go straight to those things and follow them to where they lead.”

“What about this outline you prepared?”

He tapped on it, and she read it. It was unlike any notes preparing for testimony Nina had ever seen. Five topics in capital letters were followed by brief notes in the present tense that summarized the night Stefan Wyatt was arrested and Banta's subsequent activities:

1. STATION
Millman leaves and Banta takes over suspected homicide. Wyatt in an interview room asleep in a chair waiting for his lawyer (Mr. Turk, who got there at 9
A.M.
). Stefan is booked and searched. Medal found and tagged.

2. CEMETERY
Arrives 7:00 with her partner—still pretty dark (fog)—backhoe has encountered a thick clump of black trash bags lying on top of an older coffin. She gets in, wearing gloves, opens the bag, and sees the victim—secures premises—calls investigative team and D.A.'s office. Calls Alex Zhukovsky again for permission to open coffin—inside, body has been removed. Takes statements from cemetery security, checks for ID, finds none, calls in medical examiner and forensics team.

3. STATION
Returns to station and meets Alex Zhukovsky—he's in a very upset state (still doesn't know it's his sister). Takes statement re: his father, Constantin's, burial. Shows Alex the bones and he says clothes are those his father was buried in—but medal is missing—describes the medal of St. George.

4. MORGUE
The medical examiner, Susan Misumi, calls to say Christina's body has been taken to county morgue. Banta takes bones and Alex to morgue where he IDs Christina and breaks down.

5. CHRISTINA'S APARTMENT
Banta and partner now go to Christina's address on Eighth. (Alex gave key. Unable to attend.) They enter. See very little sign of anything at first. Prelim tests for blood on kitchen floor are positive. Find glass. They bring Forensics in. Talk to D.A. Sandoval and decide to hold Stefan on suspicion. Alan has been to station. Then they go off-shift.

“That's it?” Nina said.

“Jaime always asks his questions chronologically,” Klaus told her. “He is as reliable as the annual monsoon floods in Bangladesh. As for what Detective Banta will have to say on these matters, you will have to listen to find out.”

The bill arrived. He pulled out the firm's credit card, leaving a whopping tip on the slip of paper. Bantering with the waiter, he seemed completely relaxed, completely unconcerned. Nina watched, wondering.

Klaus had handled the Millman cross adequately. Maybe he was okay after all, a memory lapse here or there as you would expect from an elderly person, but what about the opening statement? What about the Banta cross? Was he doing this to her on purpose, trying to train her as though she were fresh out of law school?

I have plenty to learn, she thought, looking at the concise notes, but is Klaus still a good teacher?

“What do we want to get from Banta?” Nina said. “Where's a list of discrepancies among the reports? She's a hugely important witness . . .”

“We do not know what she can give us until we hear her,” Klaus repeated. “Shall we go?”

“Klaus, I can't work like this,” Nina said. “Fortifying in advance—it helps me cope with surprises and contributes to my being able to operate on a more intuitive level during trial. Yes, I go on guts at times, but I arrive in court with the facts well analyzed and memorized. I can be more creative on my feet when I've got my background in place. Plus it keeps the anxiety from turning me into a zombie.”

“How long have you been practicing law, Miss Reilly?” Klaus asked without waiting for an answer. “Several years, and in the last couple of years you have conducted major trials. How long do you think you are going to last as a trial lawyer, the way you work? I will tell you. I give you ten years, then you will have to retire into another line, because you are too tightly wound to last any longer. You will give yourself cancer or a heart problem. Look at me, eighty-one years old and I still smoke cigars and my wife and I are still an item.” He put his hands on the table and pushed up. “Listen to the witness,” he said. “She will invite attack. You will notice it in her voice and in that pinched place between her eyes. You will discern fissures in her testimony, and into those cracks, you must go.”

She followed him outside to the old silver Jag. Klaus got into the passenger seat and tossed her the keys. Somehow over the past couple of weeks, in addition to being second chair, she had become the official Pohlmann chauffeur.

“You should have stayed with me,” Klaus said, fastening his seat belt.

“That's not fair,” Nina said. “I learned a lot from you, but I had to leave to learn other things.” She thought for a moment, then said hesitantly, “I'm not you. I don't have your set of talents. I have to work hard to make up for my deficiencies—my lack of experience.”

One thing definitely remained: Klaus's lovely, booming laugh. “I'd trade my talents to have the forty years of law you still have ahead of you. Why pay attention to what I say, anyway? You think I'm very far over the hill, in the next valley wandering aimlessly amid the cows and sheep and goats, don't you?”

“No. Of course—”

“Moo-oo-oo!” He laughed again, looking out the window.

Now did not seem the right time to share her fears. Besides, Klaus seemed spookily aware all of a sudden, as alert as ever. She said, “What exactly are you trying to advise me with regard to this case?”

“You cannot treat this case as an intellectual exercise. It is not. This tragic story holds great mystery and hidden truths we will discover, because our client didn't kill the woman. Somebody else did. We will expose that person, Miss Reilly. That person and the motives behind this crime will leap from the shadows at us, and we will grab for them.”

She checked the street and pulled the car into traffic, enjoying the smooth hum of the engine and incredible receptivity of the steering. Klaus knew how to live, and had shown over and over he knew how to practice law. Nevertheless, she checked again for wayward cars once she got into the flow. She liked to know what was out there. She preferred her shadows mapped.

As she let Klaus out on the curb, he said, “You and I are privileged to be called to practice this great art.” And she thought, Forty more years? I'll never make it.

Inside the courtroom, the bailiff called everyone to order just as Nina slipped into her chair. The jury members appeared to have enjoyed their midday repast in the back room. Stefan had spent the break fulminating about Erin. What did Nina think the jury thought so far? What would the newspapers say? How might Erin respond when she read the reports? As a witness, she couldn't be in the courtroom during the trial, and she was continuing to refuse to see him. “I made the biggest mistake of my life, that night, didn't I? I fucked up!”

Nina worked on him, trying to turn his thoughts to what was happening in the courtroom right now. “Don't finger your tie,” she reminded him. “Keep your hands on the table, relaxed. Face the court. Look strong, but not conceited. Look at the jury.”

He tried. His tie drooped.

“Call Detective Kelsey Banta,” Jaime said. Detective Banta, who had been sitting right next to him, strode quickly, making short work of her journey to the witness box.

A well-respected cop, Kelsey Banta had worked herself up from her initial position as a receptionist into a job as one of only two homicide detectives. It had taken her almost twenty years. Five years before, her brother, a police officer in Campbell, California, had been killed while trying to prevent a bank robbery. Paul had told Nina that Banta had reacted badly, winding up in an alcohol rehab facility eighteen months ago. Since then, her record had stayed clean, though—no DUI's or alcohol-related legal problems.

Busty and long-legged, she had black eyebrows, pink cheeks, deep-set blue eyes, and long bleached blonde hair pulled into a work-time ponytail in back. She wore black pants and a blazer with a lacy beige blouse beneath, one button more than appropriate slyly undone. She didn't seem to have altered her usual style at all for her day in court. Maybe she had been in so many trials she had adopted this low-key uniform for them.

As Banta answered Jaime's introductory questions in a cigarette voice, Nina wondered how well Paul knew her. He had been on the Monterey police force himself, working homicide detail, several years before.

Funny, when she was practicing law at Tahoe, she had never thought about the web of friends and acquaintances Paul would have down here on the Monterey Peninsula. He had been married twice when he was younger, and had always liked women. Right now, she could feel his presence behind her, comfortable in the familiar setting, lounging on an aisle seat so that he could leave when necessary.

Had he and Banta exchanged glances as she came into court? Nina hadn't noticed.

Just as Klaus, who seemed to be snoozing at her left, had predicted, Jaime took the events of Banta's long shift the night of April 12 through 13 in chronological order, starting with taking custody of Stefan Wyatt from Officer Millman at the station.

Trying to take the hint from Klaus's instructions, Nina took no notes. Like most of the jurors, she just watched and listened. Immediately she realized that Kelsey Banta was a straight-shooter. Banta did not infer anything, but offered precise, probing analyses of the facts. She was a good witness with an excellent memory, who only occasionally refreshed her recollection from her report. Talking about booking Stefan on suspicion after a phone conversation with Jaime, whom she woke up at home, she described how the attorney from Klaus's firm, Alan Turk, had come in for a brief conference with Stefan. He later left, with instructions to Stefan to exercise his right to remain silent.

Not very enlightening yet, but Nina did wonder what sort of legal problem had led Stefan's brother, Gabe, to the firm and Alan. She wrote on her pad, “Talk to Alan Turk,” then sat back, folding her arms to listen some more. Banta was answering questions about the search of Stefan's clothing on booking.

“Now, this medal you found on Stefan Wyatt . . .”

“I didn't know what it was at the time,” Banta said.

Stefan folded his arms, whispering to Nina, “As if I did!”

“But the amount of dirt suggested it probably came out of the grave,” Banta continued. “I scraped off a sample for forensics. I could see the remains of a striped orange and black ribbon and a round metal thing about the size of a silver dollar. There was some engraving on it, but the inscription was in Cyrillic.”