Wednesday evening 9/17
BOB AND HITCHCOCK, THE BIG BLACK MUTT, STAYED BEHIND, FEASTING respectively on canned spaghetti and kibble back at the cottage while Paul and Nina grabbed quick bites at The Tinnery, overlooking the ocean. After they ate, Paul asked her if she wanted coffee so they could discuss what he had been working on.
“A room and a car,” Nina said, sighing, looking at Lover’s Point beyond the window. “A car and a room. And then comes the night.”
“What?”
“I spend all my time inside.”
Paul put money on the table and stood up. “C’mon.” They walked outside to a summer evening in full swing. A gaggle of bikers swooped past, spandex taut. Twenty cameras clicked. Children dripped ice creams.
“Can you make it down the hill in those shoes?”
“No problem,” Nina said, letting the tangy ocean air refresh her lungs.
Like licks of transparent watercolors, sunset darted superreally over the beach, transforming Earth temporarily into Mars. Taking the warning signs on the rocky point seriously, they walked to the back side of the cove, where a rough path wound safely down.
Out on the point, closer to the gargantuan power of the ocean but careless of it, a group of Vietnamese tourists read the beware signs, had a good laugh, and headed down to flirt with danger, arms linked. They clung like barnacles to a rock, in a direct line with the treacherous sleeper waves. Arranging them on the rocks like flowers on a sunny, safe, dining room table, a friend snapped endless pictures. No wave knocked them down, nothing disturbed their placid belief in an innocent universe. Eventually, they clambered back up to the street, illusions of immortality undisturbed.
“Such faith,” Paul said, observing them. “Dumb luck?”
“Statistics,” said Nina, pushing hair out of her eyes. “How many tourists die every year, getting swept out to sea by these tides anyway? One out of thousands?”
“You let Bob go out on the rocks?”
“He goes when we walk down here. I yell at him,” Nina admitted.
“You don’t trust the odds, then.”
“If I made all my decisions rationally, would I consider marrying again? I mean, it would be my third time.” Her first marriage, to an attorney in San Francisco, had ended in divorce. Her second husband had died. “Yours, too. The odds aren’t good.”
“Good thing we’re odd, then.”
They laughed and started down the path. “Christina Zhukovsky,” Paul said, holding on to Nina’s hand as they picked their way, “had a lover.”
“I knew it! Great work, Paul! I’m so ready for a break!” Nina’s heels slipped dangerously over the wet rocks. She caught her balance just shy of a twisted ankle. They finally landed on the beach, locating a flat rock that commanded a view of a horizon flicking fire over the mirror water, and gingerly sat down, holding hands.
“And she had neighbors, a husband and wife. Too bad they were out of town the night she died, or we’d have our killer wrapped and waiting for us in the kitchen, with a satin bow tying him to the chair. The husband didn’t like the looks of Christina’s boyfriend,” Paul said.
“Don’t stop.”
The sun sneaked down, coloring the bottom side of the clouds peach.
“The boyfriend’s a Russian man named Sergey Krilov. I got a good description from the wife.” Paul’s voice got high and sweet. “Shiny, scraggly hair, so light it’s almost white, greeny-yellow eyes with brown specks around the edges, a chin you could scoop ice cream with, it’s so sharp, and a really well defined bod.” His own voice returned. “Her husband’s description conflicted slightly. He called Krilov an ugly but strong little runt with a nose big enough to park an SUV in, who didn’t shave as often as he needed to, with the manners of a mutt. He didn’t appreciate his wife’s interest in Krilov or in me, and shut the door soon after we spoke to explain why to her in loud detail.”
“Any time frame on their relationship?”
“They had seen Krilov hanging around for months, then, in the week or so before Christina died, he didn’t come around, as far as they knew. But”-Paul shuffled his position on the rock shelf, trying to get comfortable-“you know Christina organized a conference at Cal State Monterey Bay right before she died?”
Nina nodded. She had seen a mention of it in Klaus’s background materials.
“Well, Krilov showed up there. He went after Christina. They argued.”
“This was when?”
“About a week before she died.”
“Good,” she said. “How’d you find out about this?”
“After talking with our young neighbors, I dropped by the company that catered the conference, Thought for Food. The guy who started the business is only in his twenties, Rafe Barker, a natural-food fan and masterful vegan chef. He says he’s been working at the university since it started, and has grand plans to create the first campus to specialize in healthy eating. Slow food, as opposed to fast. Something different.” The sun slid below the lowest cloud, shooting golden beacons at them.
“Did Rafe witness the argument between Krilov and Christina?” Nina asked.
“No. He overheard two men, one of them Krilov, yelling at each other about it afterward. He got the impression Krilov was supposed to make up with Christina, whatever it took, but she didn’t want to get back with him. This other man was pissed about it.”
“Why?” Nina asked.
“Who knows?”
“Did Rafe know Christina?”
“Only as a person who gave him headaches bringing ‘damn crude foreigners’ around who missed their meat, and let it be known to the administration. He heard shouts that day, the second day of the conference. They caught his attention, and confirmed his negative opinion of all things not American.”
“How did Krilov react to getting dumped by Christina and then criticized for it?”
“With an undignified lack of decorum, according to Rafe. He smacked the other Russian and turned his back on him.”
“Any chance we have a witness?”
“In Russia by now,” Paul answered.
“Don’t tell me Krilov is, too.”
“No record of his departure so far.”
“Find him. Please.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m looking, believe me. Just talked to Rafe today.”
“Don’t call me boss.”
“Okay, my love.”
Nina leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. “I like that. This really could be important. I still think Alex Zhukovsky has to be our killer, but now here’s a rejected lover who gets in violent arguments. That’s an exciting development, Paul. Do you have anything else?”
Paul said, “I wish the sun didn’t do that, dipping below the horizon where we can’t follow it. I hate to see it go, and I’m not sure it really will come back. Let’s walk some more.” They picked their way along the beach. “The neighbor lady said Christina loved to talk politics. Russian politics. She couldn’t believe how ignorant Americans were, and she would cut out news items for them and bend their ears. They had invited her for dinner once, and once was enough, she said.”
“You know anything about it? Russian politics?”
“The Berlin Wall got pulled down, when, in 1989? and the Iron Curtain shredded in ’91. The Russian Mafia got big. Big boys took over a lot of the industry. The average Russian looked around and said, ‘That’s cool, McDonald’s in Moskva, now could I please get paid for a change so I can afford a cup of coffee there?’”
“That’s my impression, too. What was Christina Zhukovsky’s main interest?” Nina asked.
“The future. Post-Communist Russia. Who would rule, according to the neighbors. She bored them to tears, which means I have no idea what was really going on. Not yet anyway.”
They climbed back up to Paul’s Mustang carefully, the darkness another hazard, but also a refuge.
Back at home and sitting on the couch, Nina surveyed some notes, then sat with her eyes closed, awaiting enlightenment while Bob tossed a ball around the living room and Hitchcock chased it. She was still gnawing around the edges of the case, not knowing enough to sound authoritative about anything. Like her father, Harlan, king of blarney, Klaus oozed confidence when he wasn’t even sure where he was-how come she had to know something to sound knowledgeable?
This Wednesday evening’s only enlightenment arrived in the form of a ricochet off the wall beside her that caught her on the head, telling her that ball-playing in the living room, even with a very soft ball, was not to be encouraged. “Homework,” she ordered, pointing a finger toward Bob’s bedroom.
The trial resumed at nine-thirty, Thursday morning. Sitting in court between Klaus and Stefan, Nina remained uncertain about how to approach the cross-examination, so followed Detective Banta’s testimony like any jury member hearing it for the first time.
Banta had added a pink sweater to peek coyly out from underneath her jacket today, and those high-heeled boots would never catch a fleeing suspect. Her laid-back delivery had the jury riding happily along with her.
By ten-thirty Jaime had led Banta to a discussion about the human remains in the duffel bag.
After a few introductory questions, Banta testified that before transporting the bones to the morgue early Sunday morning, she had taken advantage of having Constantin Zhukovsky’s son at the Monterey Police Station and had shown him the duffel. Alex Zhukovsky told her that the remains were those of his father, whom he recognized due to an item of clothing that was still identifiable, a yellow sash he had worn diagonally over his jacket, made of a tough synthetic fabric that had mostly survived its long burial.
“I got Mr. Zhukovsky a glass of water-and he asked me, ‘Where’s his medal? It was pinned to that sash.’ Remembering the metal object we had taken from the defendant, I showed it to Mr. Zhukovsky. He told me it was some sort of military medal from Russia. He told me his father was buried wearing it in 1978.”
“About what time was this?”
“Almost nine-thirty in the morning by then. I then explained about the other body found in the grave. We hadn’t identified it, and I thought it would be worth describing the victim. He became-I would describe him as extremely concerned-and pulled out a cell phone and tried to make a call, but couldn’t get an answer. He demanded to see the body, so I called Dr. Misumi and she said to bring him over to the morgue with the duffel and the remains. She met us and Mr. Zhukovsky at the door. The victim was lying on a gurney covered with a sheet. When he saw the victim uncovered, Mr. Zhukovsky became very agitated.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He fell on the body and sort of lay across it, sobbing, yelling. Doc Misumi and I had to pull him off.”
“And did he identify the body at that time?”
“Yes, sir. He stated it was his sister, Christina Zhukovsky.” Giving everyone time to get that clear, she looked around, then continued. “I took a statement from him. Is that in evidence yet?”
Jaime took a moment to catch up and introduced Alex Zhukovsky’s statement into evidence, as well as a number of photographs and police reports. He handed the photos of Christina Zhukovsky’s body and the crime scene to Madeleine Frey, who passed them around. Frey seemed to be having trouble this morning. She kept rubbing her leg and shifting around in her seat.
A few of the male jurors stared hard at the photos but showed no visible reaction. One of them, a construction contractor named Larry Santa Ana, took his time. He couldn’t get enough of them and passed them along reluctantly. For good or ill, he was one to watch.
A set of the photos lay in front of Klaus on the table. He ignored them. Stefan took his lead and didn’t look, either, but Nina was drawn again to Christina’s face in one of the photos, a proud face even in vulnerable death, with a strong nose and broad forehead, bluish eyelids finally closed on the morgue gurney. Her neck showed obvious signs of strangulation. You didn’t need a pathologist to figure out what had happened to her.
Nina consulted Klaus’s notes. Jaime had one more subject to cover, the introduction of the blood evidence into the case. He shimmied step-by-step through the material exactly as though directed and choreographed by the notes Klaus had given her.
“Did Mr. Zhukovsky provide you with information relating to the residence of the victim?”
“He gave us her address, and he gave us his copy of her key. She lived on the top floor in a condo on Eighth Street in Monterey.”
“What happened then?”
“I took a statement from Mr. Zhukovsky. Then Officer Martinez and I proceeded to the victim’s apartment.”
“What time was this?”
Detective Banta didn’t need to consult her report. “Sunday morning at eleven-forty-five A.M. Her home was only a couple of miles from the station, near Monterey Peninsula College. It’s a four-unit complex. We went up to the third floor, which was entirely taken up by her unit. We knocked and received no answer, and there was no manager on the premises, so we went in.”
Nina scratched her chin and thought, Legal issue: illegal entry? Again, Klaus hadn’t raised this possibility. She scrolled through the details. The cops were investigating a fresh homicide; they had been given a key by the nearest relative; they needed to enter in case another victim was inside, or maybe a killer, or maybe fresh evidence.
Not a prayer on this one. Klaus had called it right. She kept her mouth shut.
Nothing broke open for her in the next few minutes of testimony. Jaime took Banta through the forensics report. She had supervised the fingerprinting and collection of samples.
Banta reported on the fingerprints without expressing the disappointment she no doubt felt. None matched Stefan’s; that was the point Nina would return to on cross-exam. Many could not be identified.
Photos of Christina’s apartment now being passed around the jury were snapshots from the life of a cultured woman who sometimes entertained lavishly. Her large, country-style kitchen gleamed with every kind of copper pot and pan. Her dining room table was-had been; the condo had been sold a month before-a long slab of pine ten feet long, incongruously covered with a white Battenburg lace tablecloth. Her taste in art had run to the Russian avant-garde: Liubov Popova, Tatlin, Malevich. The brightly hued blocks of color in the lithographs were precisely offset by the traditional black Bechstein piano that took up one side of the living room.
Christina had been an intense, intelligent person, Nina decided. A cautious person, with two sets of bolts on the door to keep herself safe. Yet this smart lady had let in-no doubt about it; the door had been unlocked from the inside-her killer.
She had kept a crowbar leaning against the wall by the headboard of her bed. She hadn’t had time to get it and use it. Nina knew about those bedside bats, golf clubs, rebar pieces, makeshift weapons kept just in case, in the homes of women living alone. Long before, her own father had given her a shillelagh, a knobbed club of Irish origin and real heft. She had brought it with her from Tahoe and currently kept it tucked within reach under her bed at Aunt Helen’s.
Maybe she should keep it by the front door.
Jaime moved on to the collection of glass and blood at Christina’s Eighth Street apartment.
Banta testified that, although an effort had been made to sweep up, preliminary tests showed the presence of blood in the kitchen. Several tiny broken pieces of glass had been found on the kitchen floor. They fell around a central point of impact-a bar stool pulled up to the central island. A few slivers were found on the broom, and one had also stuck to the dustpan found in the pantry with the broom, although that had probably been washed.
Pay dirt had been struck in the kitchen trash can: the rest of the glass pieces. Nina had a point to make about that, but she decided to save her questions for the forensic technician who would be coming after Banta.
Banta went on in her relaxed, matter-of-fact voice. The glass came from a set of small Czech tumblers found in the kitchen. Traces of cognac from the bottle of Courvoisier V.S.O.P. found on the kitchen counter could be identified on the broken glass in the trash. DNA testing had picked up Christina’s saliva.
And no one else’s.
Christina had been drinking, but her killer hadn’t. Had the killer turned down an offer? Or had she been drinking to buck herself up and not felt friendly enough to offer the same person she had just let into her place late at night a drink?
And the killer had sat informally at a bar stool, not on the red leather couch in Christina’s art-filled living room. To Nina, all signs pointed to someone she knew very well. Like her brother, Alex. Or maybe this rejected boyfriend Paul had just learned about, named Sergey Krilov.
Or maybe a new man in her life. Larry Santa Ana, the burly juror, studied Stefan’s face, and Nina read his: it wasn’t too hard to picture big, hunky Stefan making eyes at a woman. Nina did not like this sort of juror, who fills the holes in testimony with personal life experience. It wasn’t too hard to picture Santa Ana making eyes at a woman, either.
“Using all the standard presumptive tests, we searched for the presence of blood throughout the apartment,” Banta said, and Nina jerked back to her testimony. “We were able to locate traces of blood that did not match the victim’s on a few pieces of glass found on the floor and in the kitchen trash can.”
“Indicating what, if anything, to you as a trained homicide investigator?”
“That the victim hit her killer with a glass, cutting him. She probably threw it.”
“Did you find blood anywhere else?”
“No.”
A hurting Madeleine Frey fidgeted, massaging her left leg. Nina caught her grimacing as Frey crossed it over her right leg. She hoped Frey could pay attention anyway, as Jaime had come to the final and most damning testimony of the day.
“And did you subsequently compare the blood on the kitchen floor and in the kitchen trash with the blood of the defendant in this case?”
“Yes. The defendant gave his permission to have a blood sample drawn so that DNA comparison tests could be made. Those tests were carried out on May second.” Stefan had sworn the tests would clear him, so Klaus, entirely properly, had allowed them without objection. Ginger would be evaluating the prosecution’s results, and continued to run new tests.
“Did you thereafter receive the certified state laboratory results?”
“Yes. In late May.”
“And what were those results?” Klaus had stipulated that Banta could testify about this, although technically Abbott Lumley, the forensics tech and blood expert, should. Many decisions had been made before Nina’s entry into the case, and she didn’t agree with any of them. She chewed on her thumbnail impotently. Beside her, Klaus listened intently with his little smile, as though he already knew all the answers and would bring them forth at the proper time.
“According to the report, there was one chance in about three million that the blood did not match the defendant,” Banta went on.
“What did you conclude from that scientific result?”
“That the blood in Christina Zhukovsky’s apartment had been left by the defendant, Stefan Wyatt.” Crowning the moment with a long, level, accusatory stare at Stefan, Detective Banta had just produced the piece of evidence that Stefan couldn’t explain, the one that made him look like a liar. Stefan put a hand on his cheek but couldn’t hide the anger in his eyes, which wouldn’t look good to Larry Santa Ana, who had followed Banta’s testimony with trustful approval.
“That test was wrong,” Stefan whispered to Nina. “They screwed up.” A lot of lifers had used that line, and Nina hoped he wouldn’t be one of them.
Ginger would be testifying all too soon, when the defense had a chance to present its case, and her testimony would convict or clear Stefan, Nina was sure of it. Ginger had called at seven to say she was awaiting final results and to wish Nina luck.
The blood was Stefan’s. Then he was guilty, the jurors would be thinking, and they weren’t the only ones. The reporters in the seats at the back energetically scratched on pads, preparing to expose his guilt to the world in tomorrow’s Salinas Californian, Monterey Herald, San Jose Mercury News, and San Francisco Chronicle. Of course, while convicting him in the court of public opinion, they would be sure to include a line about innocent until proven guilty.
Not too far from here, a man named Scott Peterson would be tried for the murder of his wife and unborn son. Although the trial had been moved from his hometown of Modesto, the whole country already knew all about the case from the papers. An “unbiased” jury, even in another county, did not really exist.
It worried Nina that Stefan’s case kept blowing up bigger in the papers. Each night, the jury was told to go home and avoid the speculation on TV and in the newspapers. Was Larry Santa Ana really able to do that?
Jaime put the forensics report on the blood into evidence and Judge Salas read it over carefully. The previously marked report became an official part of the case, the monster land mine Klaus and Nina would have to defuse later if they were to win.
“You may cross-examine,” Judge Salas said after the lunch break and a session in his chambers working on jury instructions.
Nina’s turn had come. She stayed at her table, her notes stacked in front of her. She breathed deeply, going for the receptive, open mood Klaus had suggested. “Detective Banta, you have testified that the blood found on small glass slivers at Christina Zhukovsky’s apartment matched the blood of the defendant, Stefan Wyatt; is that correct?”
“Correct. Actually, the lab tested more than one sample.”
“Did the lab do RFLP DNA testing, otherwise known as restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, on those samples?” She had memorized the words given to her by Ginger just the night before, and hoped she hadn’t scrambled them. Having the terminology correct was important. The jury needed to believe she knew what she was talking about.
“No.”
“You know about this method of testing?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that method likely to yield higher statistically individualizing results than the less delicate PCR DNA analysis?”
“Yes.”
“Why wasn’t that done?”
“You need larger samples than we had.”
“You were able to locate only traces of blood on a few minuscule pieces of glass, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“That would be blood in extremely small amounts?”
“In small amounts. Correct.”
“Are the bits of glass found at the scene and tested for blood here in court for the jury to see today?”
“No.”
“Well, can you help us with this, so that the jury can visualize this. How small were they? This big?” She held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.
“Not that large.”
“This?” She narrowed the gap.
“Smaller.”
“How about this?” asked Nina. She held a pin up.
“They weren’t that large.”
“No, the samples were about as big as the head of this pin-wouldn’t that be fair to say?” Nina asked, knowing full well they were about that big.
“Yes.”
“Your Honor, may I approach the jury?”
“You’re not going to poke me with that, are you, Ms. Reilly?” said the judge, who didn’t approve of her methods but apparently was willing to sacrifice his prejudice in the service of a little humor.
“No. I’m just afraid some of the jurors might not be able to see the extremely small amount of ‘evidence’ we are talking about unless I bring it up very close.”
Some laughter followed her. She enjoyed the attention, and even the jury made an amused show of studying the head of the pin she held. She laid it carefully down on the table and turned back to face Kelsey Banta. “Did you take into account the possibility of contamination of evidence from such small sources?”
“We did. There is always a possibility of contamination if standard protocols for collection of evidence and PCR DNA testing are not followed. However, we were scrupulous.” She looked smug.
Nina knew they would have to come back to the evidence on the glass again, but she felt good about leaving it for now. “At the time of booking, did you have an opportunity to perform any sort of physical survey, or did you observe the defendant’s body?”
“Yes, I took a good look at him.”
“Did you observe his hands?”
“Yes.”
“You took a good look at his face?”
“Yes.”
“Did you observe any dried blood on his hands, his face, his arms, or any other place on his body?”
The smugness dropped. Detective Banta sat up straighter and removed all expression from her face, hiding behind professionalism, which even Larry Santa Ana, Nina was happy to see, duly noted.
Nina repeated, “Any scabs anywhere on Stefan Wyatt?”
“No.”
“So, no blood. But as a seasoned homicide investigator, wouldn’t you expect to find evidence of bleeding on the defendant charged with murdering this woman?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose you should find injuries on the defendant, when his blood was supposedly found at the scene?”
“Yes. I would expect that.”
“Yet you found none. Isn’t that what you stated?”
“There was a small amount at the scene, so the cuts could be tiny. They must’ve dried up. Or he cleaned himself up, would be my take.”
“But at least you saw cuts on him?”
“Not really. No.”
“You looked?” This put Banta in a dilemma. If she said she hadn’t looked, Stefan might have had cuts. But then the police work would have been shoddy, which might put other evidence in jeopardy.
“I looked,” Banta said grimly.
“Ms. Banta, give us your opinion as an experienced police investigator: how could Stefan Wyatt’s blood be in Christina Zhukovsky’s apartment, without the defendant showing any evidence of a cut on his body?”
“Maybe it came from his nose or mouth.”
Every once in a while a witness departed from the expected and rustled up a confounding suggestion like this. Banta appeared amazed at herself. She had apparently just thought of this. At the moment, she probably felt damn cool.
“Do you have any evidence at all it did?” Nina asked quickly, hoping to puncture her confidence.
“Not really, but where else-”
“Detective, are you testifying that your explanation is that Mr. Wyatt had no evidence of cuts because the blood came from his mouth?”
“Where else could it have come from?”
“Let’s see,” Nina said. “Ms. Zhukovsky throws a glass at him and connects, and he bleeds from the mouth?”
“Well…” Banta looked unhappy.
“He opened his mouth really wide and the glass came flying in? I’ve heard of catching thrown grapes, but a brandy glass? Some shot! Amazing!”
“Objection,” Jaime said, drowning out the ripple of laughter behind him.
“Withdrawn,” Nina said before he elaborated. “Have you considered that the blood could be old-from a previous occasion?”
No answer.
“Was the blood sample sent to the lab and found on the glass wet?”
“No.”
“It was dry. And can it be dated exactly, as to when the blood might have been left in the apartment?”
“No.”
“There is no way to say for sure the blood was left that night?”
“No.”
She had pushed a few small holes through the wall of prosecutorial evidence. The jurors seemed relieved to see the defense acting like contenders.
Driving the Bronco slowly home along Highway 68, Nina revisited her cross-examination of Kelsey Banta, this time doing it better, washing away the scenery, the greenery, the bleak gray evening sky. Windows wide open, she tried to take in some fresh air after the close air of court but felt suffocated. She couldn’t remember a time a case had started as dreadfully as this one had, and when one had seemed so fatally proscribed in advance.
Maybe it was the graveyard scene constantly recalled to mind, or maybe it was Stefan, hardly taking a breath beside her at the table all day. She had sensed his desperation, and the jury must sense it, too. He had the attitude of the condemned, and though he rose to the occasion whenever she had a minute to talk to him, he squeezed out his remarks like a man gripped by a vise, out of contact with his own innards.
He looked woebegone, like a sad sack, and Americans don’t trust losers. She wanted the jury to know him as she was beginning to know him, but he couldn’t help. He was afraid. His very presence in the courtroom was working against him.
Stefan needed a pep talk. Klaus could do that. She would ask him to do that.
She stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up place mats, boxed sushi and a bottle of white wine for herself, chicken taquitos and vanilla soda for Bob along with a salad he probably wouldn’t eat, arriving at the shabby white cottage in Pacific Grove late for dinner. As always. As always, she thought of their warm cabin in South Lake Tahoe, and asked herself if she had done the right thing coming back to the Central Coast.
Right after she took the job with Klaus, a few days before Paul had popped the question, Nina and Bob had moved their few things over to the house she had inherited from her aunt Helen, which Nina had been renting out for income.
Paul hadn’t wanted her to leave, but having Bob sleeping in his office wasn’t working, so he came around and helped them in the end, although now she understood his vigorous objections better. Here he was getting up the nerve to propose, and she was moving out.
While Paul had unloaded boxes, Nina cleared dust balls from corners and cupboards, Hitchcock stuck his doggy snout where it didn’t belong, and Bob cut open the small pile of boxes piled on the living room floor. She had tried to stay cheerful and tried to engage Bob in making some future plans about how they would be spending their time here, but the move had been an ordeal.
Coming up the rickety steps, Nina held her case in one hand, and in the other the bag of groceries, which she set on the porch while she found her key and opened the door.
“Bob!” she called out.
“Yo, Mom!” he replied from his bedroom.
Most of their furniture was still at Tahoe, which Nina had left nearly three months before. The couch here was secondhand, and there was no fireplace to cheer the damp coastal nights. Thick area rugs covered the worn hardwood in the living room. Pillows, two easy chairs, a television stand, and a low table made up the rest of the furniture. Cheap vinyl blinds the previous tenants had installed for privacy were the only window coverings.
She put the groceries away and put Bob’s meal into the microwave.
The bare bones of the cottage, an old white frame built over a hundred years ago, would be lovely if you could see them better, she decided, maneuvering herself onto the couch with her tray. She poured herself a glass of wine and popped a wasabi-and-soy-sauced piece of California roll into her mouth. The house was ideally located, up a slope and just a block from Lover’s Point, offering a glimpse of the deep blue Pacific from its front yard. Various utilitarian renovations had taken place over the years to keep the tenants happy.
Some things would have to change, and soon. Nina was not the kind of person who considered her car or her house an outer symbol of some inner person, but she had her standards. The artificial turf leading up to the carport would have to go.
But why worry about this old place? If she married Paul, they would have to find a larger home that would suit all three of them.
After a few sips, Nina got up again. She set two new white plates on the woven blue place mats she had bought and found silverware and napkins. She set a square candle in the middle of the table and lit it, put the food on, then poured Bob a glass filled with ice and soda, and herself a tall ice water to chase the rest of the wine in her glass. The microwave beeped. From the hallway she called to Bob through his open door. “Dinner!”
“Busy,” he said.
“Come and eat,” she said. She waited, but getting no further response, walked to the open door and looked inside.
His room consisted of a bed with a wool blanket borrowed from Paul. His closet, gaping open, held a gym bag spilling its contents on the floor and empty metal hangers on the rod above. No posters decorated the bedroom walls; no bonsai tree like the one he had nursed at Tahoe spruced up this barren windowsill. Bob sat at a bare wooden table with his feet up, wearing headphones and an entranced expression.
She walked over to him and removed the headphones. “I hereby command the pleasure of your company at dinner.” She didn’t make it a question, because that opened up a discussion, and all she wanted to do was to wolf down the rest of her sushi and turn on her precious half-hour news show, which made her forget her own concerns.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You ate?”
“Crackers and cheese.”
She hesitated, then said, “Come anyway.” She led, and eventually, grudgingly, he followed.
He sat down at the table across from her and in front of his steaming taquitos, arms crossed. The late evening sun spilled over the table and over his pinched face. His hair, a dark mop, was getting long.
“So, how was school?”
Eyes as dark as black coffee glowered. “If you really want to know, it sucks.”
“Please don’t use that kind of language,” she said, knowing this was a futile battle, that she should respond to substance not style, but exhausted by the prospect.
“Well, you asked.”
“I know it’s hard, going to a new school-”
“I want to go home.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She closed it.
“Back to Tahoe.”
The final sushi had stuck in her throat, so she cleared it. “High school is always tough. I cried every day for the first three weeks-”
He interrupted. He was not here to listen to her experiences; he was busy fighting through his own. “People here are different.”
“How?”
Sometimes lately this boy she knew so well, inside out, put on a face she didn’t recognize. Now came one of those moments. “I can’t explain, if you don’t know. Plus, I never know what we’re going to do. I mean, are we staying or going? If you get married, do we move back to that condo with Paul? Can I go live with Uncle Matt back in Tahoe, since I don’t like it here? Do I show some guys they can’t screw around with me, or let ’em do it because I’m leaving anyway and it doesn’t matter? Do I go out for cross-country or will I have to quit? Why bother to join a club, if we’re leaving?”
His forcefulness blew her down, typhoon-style. When Bob was a toddler and he cried, she would wrap him up in her arms, kiss his tears away, and make it all better. Unfortunately, that was no longer an option. He was now bigger than she was for starters, and he seemed to have developed an aversion to her touch. “We discussed all this. There will be some changes, but they aren’t decided yet, and you will be in on any further decisions, I promise.”
“You told me I have to go to school here, so I’m going. That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“I went to that high school. Carmel High has a good reputation-you have to give it a chance…”
“Don’t tell me you had a great time, because, Mom, I’m tellin’ you, I won’t believe it.”
He knew she had not. She had rebelled against her parents, given them gray hair, run around, done all kinds of things she shouldn’t have done. “Here’s the thing I’ve learned. High school culture is its own world, and you should know the world’s bigger than that. You don’t have to hook up with that scene. You’ve been to Europe. I mean, you don’t have to wear a letterman’s jacket to be accepted!”
He sighed, a world-weary sigh befitting a traveler who was stuck in a culture where many people did view a letterman’s jacket as the epitome of achievement.
She got up and began to make herself a supplemental chicken sandwich with chicken from a can, contrarily wishing Bob did want a letterman’s jacket. He had once loved sports. “Honey,” she said finally, “I can’t stand having you unhappy. What can I do?” It was the question she had to ask, whether she wanted to hear the answer or not.
He had an answer ready. As an interim measure, until a final decision was made on where they would live, he wanted to go back to Tahoe and get his belongings. He needed his skateboard, his bike, all his things. “I can’t live out of just one bag.” He had only the things with him that he had taken on a summer trip to Sweden.
“We’ll buy you some clothes if you need them.”
“I need my stuff!”
She recognized from when he was little the stubborn yet brittle look that held tears inside. Times like these, she hated being a mother. “After the trial is over.”
“Now!”
“Soon. I can’t go while I’m in trial, Bob. You know that.” She petted Hitchcock, who was the only one who didn’t give a damn where they were, who only cared that he was with them and that his food bowl had been filled.
“I’ll go without you.”
She reacted to the blow by leaping up to tidy. “What?”
“I can take the train to Truckee. Uncle Matt will pick me up from there.”
“But-”
“I’m going.”
For quite a while, they went back and forth. Eventually, her ability to structure a reasonable argument vaporized in the face of his strenuous desire. Nina agreed to drive him up to the train station early Saturday morning. He would go for the weekend.
Her phone rang. Bob cleared the table and went back to his CDs while Klaus spoke.
“You have the autopsy and material sent from the medical examiner’s office?” he asked.
“Of course.” She finished off the sandwich.
“Susan Misumi is up tomorrow.”
“Right,” she said.
“I enjoyed the picture you painted today of the brandy glass flying into Stefan’s wide-open mouth.”
“Thank you. Did you call about anything particular?”
“I was just checking in,” Klaus said hesitantly, and Nina experienced another knuckle-biting moment of doubt. Had he forgotten why he called?
She asked him to talk to Stefan about trying to appear more confident in court, and, with a tolerant sigh, Klaus promised he would. “His courtroom style won’t win the case.”
She knew it, and she knew very well the pitfalls in trying to control every ineffable in a case, but creating a good impression was about the only contribution Stefan could make at this point, and she felt he should be doing it. As for Klaus, he was an enigma.
Only thing she knew for sure was that second chair in this trial was an active place to be.
Later, from her bed, Nina called Paul. “Wish you were here. I could use your-”
“I like the sound of that,” he interrupted. “What are you wearing?”
“A cold compress on my neck.”
“Oh, yeah, you sexy thing.”
She laughed, then said more soberly, “Detective Banta practically convicted Stefan single-handedly today.”
“She’s very experienced.”
Nina heard the comedy station in the background. “You knew her, didn’t you?”
“Way back when. Sure, I knew Kelsey.”
“What did you think of her?” Nina didn’t know what she was looking for and wasn’t sure she wanted to find it anyway.
“Straight arrow,” Paul said.
“Did you date her?”
“Why do you ask?”
“She’s attractive.”
He seemed to find the question amusing. “I like her, and I never knew her to tweak the truth. But no, I never dated her.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Nina, she was married. Then, when her brother got killed, she was a secret drinker. Not my idea of a fun date.” He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t he said, “You there?”
“Just silently finishing my wine here,” she said.
He laughed. “Who’s up tomorrow?”
“Uh, the medical examiner. Dr. Misumi.”
“Susan,” Paul said.
The way he said her name, a kind of warm familiarity as he wound his mouth around the word, made Nina sit up in bed alertly. “That’s right. Susan Misumi. You know her?”
“Her, I dated,” Paul said.