Friday 9/19
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL HAD BEEN THE ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN PAUL and Nina regarding other recent partners. Even the fact that there was an arrangement had been a don’t tell. In truth, they had never talked about it.
Nina admitted to herself now that she had been cowardly. She herself had nothing to tell that he didn’t already know, and she wasn’t certain how she would react to finding out about Paul’s other lovers. She hadn’t asked him for any details, had taken the news the night before with admirable lawyerly equanimity.
Then at four A.M. she woke up worrying, not about Stefan or Klaus or Bob, but about Paul, thinking, I shouldn’t have moved out of his condo like that, on such short notice, without dealing with the implications first. I could have talked Paul into moving somewhere bigger, where he could have his office and space. Bob could be at the far end of the house with the space apart from us that he needs, too. I should have resolved the marriage issue right away, when Paul asked.
She knew the ostensible reason they had moved here. Aunt Helen’s house, Nina’s house now, had been available, and she hadn’t had much time. But she had lurched gracelessly away from Paul, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he held it against her, even if only unconsciously.
Putting the ostensible reason aside, why had she moved so swiftly?
After half an hour of lying in the dark with thoughts stomping heavily through her mind, she gave up and turned on the bed stand light. Her window was open and she could hear the distant bark of seals. The fog moved around in the room with her, like a living presence. In the little room down the hall, Bob muttered restlessly in his sleep.
Paul should give up on me, she thought with a sudden conviction, experiencing an awful mix of fear, insecurity, and loneliness.
After a year of seeing no one but Paul, and years before of seeing him nonexclusively, she should know what to do, but she felt as if she were balanced in the center of the seesaw, unable to move. Either direction, and she would land with a nasty thud.
They had such differences between them, and those differences could be fatal. She flashed to unhappy pictures of Paul in her mind: Paul cleaning his guns; Paul describing various acts of violence he had committed; Paul drunk one night when she had needed him; Paul telling her what to do, trying to push her around, resenting her for being the lawyer employing him as investigator, second-guessing her, not respecting her opinions.
But then: Paul making love to her so sweetly a few nights before. And: Paul’s smarts, Paul’s jokes, Paul’s charm, his devotion over the past years, even when she had been married to another man.
And the moment that had defined their relationship forever: Paul lying in wait outside her house one night, waiting for a killer to arrive and try to break in; Paul killing for her, burying the body God knew where. No one except Bob had any inkling of it. They never talked about it. “I took out the trash,” Paul had once told her, and she-she had thanked him.
She loved so much about him, and she believed he loved her. He thought he had proved he would do anything for her, but she could never bridge the distance that the killing had opened between them. He had fearsome qualities that scared her. Ultimately, she did not trust him completely.
I love him, she thought as she had so many times before. I can’t do without him. But…
She gave up and wandered into the living room. From outside, a streetlight spilled a soft glow over the old couch. She had loaned her cabin at Tahoe to a woman in trouble who had three kids, who now sat on the new brown couch she had bought, used the plates from Mikasa she and Bob had picked out. Another woman lawyer now sat in the Starlake Building office with the orange client chairs Nina had bought at Ric’s in Reno one snowy day…
What am I doing here? she asked herself. Three hundred miles from Tahoe, where her home and her work were, she existed in a time warp, working for her boss from years ago, Bob not happy.
She answered her own question. She was here for herself and Paul.
Paul, who had told her just a few hours before, “You weren’t available at the time, and Susan is an old friend, so we got together a few times. That’s all.” She had heard the small resentment in his voice, as if it were her fault he’d had to find another lover to fill in the space.
Due to other matters Judge Salas had to take up, court resumed at eleven on Friday morning and was scheduled to run only through twelve, then from one-thirty to three. Nina wore her black suit with the white silk blouse with cuffs. After some hesitation she had also sprayed on some ancient Chanel No. 5 of Aunt Helen’s she found hidden at the back of the bathroom cupboard. Two ibuprofen, Rice Krispies, and orange juice sloshed against each other in her stomach.
As usual, all the seats had been taken. Madeleine Frey had brought a cushion for her leg today, and Larry Santa Ana was talking across her to another male juror, who listened attentively. He was a schmoozer, and Nina didn’t like networking jurors. Silently, selfishly, she prayed for Ms. Frey’s leg to feel better fast, and for Larry to take a header. The two young women she had managed to get on the jury seemed relatively indifferent to Stefan’s charm. His perpetually wringing hands and sagging face went beyond the cute-puppy effect, straying into mangy-dog territory, which didn’t help his cause with them.
Today, trying to follow Klaus’s advice about giving a straight-backed, upstanding-citizen impression, Stefan wore another new suit with squarer shoulders.
Jaime had the staunch posture and sanguine smile of a prosecutor who hasn’t been touched yet. Nina wanted to wipe that grin off his face very soon, yet there was little she could do at this phase of the trial, because the police witnesses in general were competent people who had done their job and weren’t playing games. Kelsey Banta slouched in her seat next to him, as relaxed as if she were watching TV, the hard work over for her.
Paul sat in the audience behind them, a fence between her and the tough world out there. And Klaus, beside Nina and smelling like a rose, predominated over a court in some faraway universe, peacefully next to Stefan, speckled hands folded on the table, not a thought in his head, for all she could tell.
“Call Susan Misumi.” Heads craned. Dr. Misumi was brought in from the hall, where the witnesses had to wait, by the bailiff.
She was no raving beauty, Nina was relieved to see as she stepped into the witness box and sat down, placing her reports carefully in front of her. She wore the uniform of women professionals in California, a black suit jacket with a green, lace-tipped tank T-shirt showing a subtle bit of cleavage, expensive black slacks, and shoes with a slight lift to the heel. About Paul’s age, fortyish, reading glasses that dangled from an artistically beaded chain around her neck. She had classic Japanese skin, very pale and fine, bright eyes, and a face that tended toward the round. The feathery bangs probably cost a fortune to maintain.
A smart woman who took care of herself, great, but why would Paul be attracted to her? Nina couldn’t help remembering his comment about having dated her. In her mind, Paul’s type would be a blonde bimbo, lots of makeup-was this Paul’s type? This important lady answering Jaime’s questions in a measured voice, saying she had in fact gotten her medical degree at Johns Hopkins, received specialized training in forensic pathology at Stanford, and been appointed Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the County of Monterey some four years before, couldn’t be Paul’s type. She spent her days cutting open dead people! She did have a nice voice, low and musical, though, and a beautiful mouth, with full cushiony lips.
The mouth must have been what got him.
Nina felt a blurry sea of hot juicy emotion, part anger, part self-dislike, part hatred of this woman, part admiration for her. Sum it up as jealousy, a feeling she remembered well from the days before her divorce from Jack McIntyre had become final.
Klaus was supposed to do the cross-exam, but Nina knew by now not to rely on him, so she began taking notes, though her eyes burned and she found it hard to look at the witness.
Dr. Misumi looked hard back at her. She must know about Nina’s place in Paul’s life, and she must care.
Misumi went through the autopsy report for the jury. She had been called to the scene, made sure photos were taken of the body of Christina Zhukovsky in situ, and ordered the body taken to Natividad Hospital in Salinas, where the county morgue was. She had also supervised the opening of the coffin and the photos and removal of any leftover bits of human remains.
At the morgue, she had determined from the relaxation of rigor mortis and other signs that the victim had been dead for between approximately twenty-six and twenty-eight hours, making time of death between one and three A.M. the previous morning, April 12. The victim had not been killed at the scene, but had been brought there at some indeterminate time-Nina noted this-and then buried. Stefan claimed he had spent Friday night into Saturday morning drunk, in the arms of Erin, who could hardly corroborate, being drunk herself.
“The immediate cause of death was asphyxia. The jugular veins were pressed, which prevents blood returning from the brain. The blood backing up in the brain leads to unconsciousness, depressed respiration, and asphyxia. She suffocated due to blunt force trauma to the neck,” Dr. Misumi said directly to the jury.
“And on what do you base this opinion?” Jaime asked.
“Well, on both exterior and interior evidence. I examined the exterior of the victim, the skin and hair first. The body exhibited obvious contusions on the anterior neck,” she said. “The front of the neck.” Photos went around the jury. Toughened by the relentlessly graphic photos by now, nobody batted an eye. “I noted one thumb touch pad contusion on the left posterior section.”
“Indicating?”
“Manual strangulation. Often only the thumb makes a mark on the neck. The fingers don’t press as deeply.”
“What if anything did you conclude from this mark?”
“That the victim was approached from behind by a right-handed person who reached around”-she clasped her own neck with her right hand-“and squeezed deeply, fingers against the throat. She was probably being held tightly against the body of the killer behind her.”
“Any other bruises?”
“On the neck, there were also two curvilinear abrasions on the anterior neck. The photo marked Exhibit A-twelve.”
“Do you have an opinion as to what would have caused such abrasions?”
“The abrasions were caused by fingernails.”
“The killer’s?”
“No. The victim’s. What happened is that the victim put her hands up to try to pry away the fingers of the attacker.” She paused and looked at the jury. Madeleine Frey’s eyes filled and she rubbed her leg, and Nina thought, This woman is going to be a problem.
“There were also petechiae, small hemorrhages of the skin. They look like pinpoints of red on the skin. They are a sign of asphyxiation.”
“And where were these located?”
“I found petechiae in the mucosa of the lower lip. I didn’t find them on the neck or anywhere on the external skin, on the conjunctiva of the eyes, or on the deep internal organs. You do look for petechiae there, but their absence doesn’t disprove strangulation.”
Copies of photos of Misumi’s “petechiae” were now going around. Even the hardened jurors blanched at the one Misumi was now discussing.
“There were also internal signs of strangulation. Here. Exhibit A-fourteen,” she said. “I took that photograph at the postmortem.”
“And what does it indicate?”
“See the little red spots? Petechiae.”
“Located where?”
“On the underside of the scalp. In the picture, the scalp was shown reflected forward over the face”-and this was something even Nina couldn’t stand to look at-“which shows the undersurface of the scalp. Petechiae due to strangulation were found there.”
“And did you note any other internal evidence of strangulation?”
Misumi picked up her report and read from it. “I did a complete dissection, removing the larynx, including the hyoid bone. It wasn’t broken, but it only gets broken in about one third of strangulation cases, so that’s not telling. I examined the superficial and deep musculature. Nothing there, no contusions. I examined the laryngeal skeleton for fracture. Nothing. I then opened the cervical spine and examined it for injury. Nothing. So the internal examination of the neck was, I would say, inconclusive, but the external evidence was quite clear.”
Jaime had been sitting at the counsel table as he fired these questions. Now he went around the counsel table, sucking in his gut, an imposing, stocky, authoritative figure for the jury to observe. Standing near both the jury box and Stefan, he asked, “Is there any way to tell whether the attacker was a man or woman based on your postmortem, Doctor?”
“You could estimate the amount of force involved, which in this case was considerable, to leave the thumb impression. But no, that wouldn’t rule out a woman. Very little force is needed to strangle someone who is unconscious or intoxicated, especially a small woman like this one. Although the blood tests showed the victim had not been drinking much, even a small force applied in the right place can get past the protective muscles and skeleton.”
“And-”
“May I add something?”
“Surely,” Jaime said, waving his hand in courtly fashion.
“The amount of force required also varies depending on the amount of neck musculature of the victim. In this case the victim was somewhat frail, with rather less musculature than I would expect. That means less force would have been needed, than, for example, to strangle a football player.”
“You’re saying it would have been easy for a muscular young man to do the job?” Jaime asked.
“Oh, yes. If she was unable to get away from him.”
“Did you try to match the thumb contusion with thumbprints of the defendant?”
“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.