Monday 9/15
MAINTAINING THE VALLEY’S REPUTATION AS CALIFORNIA’S FRESH-FOOD heartland, the breeze around the Salinas courthouse carried along the scent of broccoli. Pulling her new gray wool blazer close around her, Nina walked between the columns and headed toward the west wing under the early morning sky. All along the upper walls of the courthouse building, concrete reliefs of faces from California history that had always looked to her like gargoyles seemed to watch her suspiciously. The entryway doors opened like a maw. Her client waited inside, in the belly of the beast.
The first day of trial is overwhelming, as the first day of a war is overwhelming.
She pulled a case full of heavy files and her iBook, purse securely hung from her shoulder, determined to appear resolute however uncertain she might feel. Button that tailored jacket, girl, she told herself, and keep your eyes open.
As she hurried in, Klaus and Deputy District Attorney Jaime Sandoval were already arguing in front of the elevator on the first floor. “Ten minutes,” Klaus was saying. “If you were a gentleman, you would agree.”
“Judge Salas will start on time, unless you fully explain why you suddenly need a last-minute consultation with your client, Mr. Pohlmann,” Jaime said. The prosecutor’s face wore a look Nina had seen before, superficial deference for the old man masking a smirking condescension. He had tried a case opposite Nina early in the summer. With Nina he usually maintained an amiable front, but Klaus had already provoked him out of it.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Ah, now we have a real lawyer here. Please tell this man that we need to speak with Mr. Wyatt before the jury comes in,” Klaus said. The elevator doors swished open and the three of them entered, Nina in the lead, noticing that since she was wearing three-inch heels, Klaus was actually shorter than she was. He wore a red rosebud boutonniere. Jaime, portly and closely shaven, standing on the other side of her, exuded citrus aftershave and irritation.
Why now, Klaus? she thought. Haven’t we already talked to Stefan Wyatt? But since something had apparently come up, her job as second chair demanded that she leap in and support Klaus, so she said to Jaime, “You know he won’t be brought in by the bailiffs until the stroke of nine-thirty, and the jury will be in at nine-thirty-one. We just need a couple of minutes.”
“Then ask Judge Salas,” Jaime said, staring straight ahead at the door.
“He’ll do it if you agree, Jaime. You’ll need a lot of accommodations, too, over the next few weeks. Is this how you want it to be? No mutual courtesy?” she asked.
“Of course not. But Mr. Pohlmann never lets a deadline go by without challenging it. This is the start of a murder trial. He’s had months to talk to his client. Salas is not going to hold things up unless he hears a damn good reason. I haven’t heard one.”
They stepped out into a milling crowd of lawyers, reporters, and spectators, the doors to Courtroom 2 still locked, Klaus gesticulating and excited, saying something about how he didn’t have to give a reason, but Jaime shouldered his way over to the clerk’s office and disappeared from view.
“Mr. Pohlmann, Mr. Pohlmann.” Annie Gee from the Salinas Californian appeared in front of them just as Nina took Klaus’s arm, intending to steer him toward a conference room. “Any comment this morning? Any change in your strategy?”
Nina held on, steering him through the crowd. Over his shoulder, Klaus said grandly, “My client is innocent. He will be acquitted.”
“Come on,” Nina said, and Klaus let himself be led into a quiet waiting room.
As soon as the door closed Klaus sat down, grinning at her. With his tiny beard and ruddy cheeks he appeared as rested and bright as a little old elf. “We have him on the run already,” he said.
“Jaime?”
“He’s off balance.” He chuckled at the thought.
“What do you need to talk to Stefan about?”
Klaus’s white eyebrows raised, as if her question came out of nowhere. “Why, nothing. But it’s all Mr. Sandoval can think about right now. We won’t really ask for extra time.”
“That doesn’t seem very-”
“He told me in the last trial I had with him that he thinks I should retire. He thinks I’m a terror. Unpredictable. Why not encourage that kind of thinking? He makes a weaker opponent when he expects weakness.”
“O-kay.” Nina set her case against the door, looked at her watch, and sat down opposite the old man. Their styles were different, she reminded herself, and this wasn’t her case. “We have five minutes,” she said. “You were going to show me your opening statement.”
Klaus pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them over. Scanning them, Nina said, “Summarize it for me.”
“Well, I greet the judge and jury. Then I talk about what we’re going to prove. Yes. Mr. Wyatt’s alibi. The fact that he is just a patsy for the interests of the Russians. Then we show how Alex Zhukovsky lies. He probably killed his sister, Christina, not Mr. Wyatt.”
Through suddenly parched lips, Nina said, “But we agreed on Friday that we can’t use a third-party defense. Zhukovsky denies he ever talked to Stefan, and Paul hasn’t been able to prove he did at this point. If we tell the jury we’re going to prove something and then can’t do it, they’ll remember. We’ll get into trouble with the judge. It will hurt Stefan.”
“Alex Zhukovsky is lying, that’s a definite fact. You will prove that.”
“Klaus, we’re going to cast some suspicion onto Alex Zhukovsky during the trial, but we’re in no position to do anything more than establish doubt. It’s Stefan’s word against Zhukovsky’s, and we’re not going to let Stefan testify. We’ve talked about this a dozen times.” Panic leaked around the edges of her carefully built composure. “You can’t do this,” she said.
“You are telling me what I can and can’t do?”
Nina tried to keep her tone soft. “But we agreed…”
“You are so smart, Miss Reilly,” Klaus said, “I think you should make the opening statement.” He tapped a finger on the table. “Yes, that is a fine idea. Get your toes wet.”
“But…” She thought, What is going on here? She picked up the yellow lined papers he had given her and inspected them harder this time. A flowery greeting covered the first page, half-illegibly. The other pages, other than some fountain-penned chicken-scratchings of notes, were essentially personal reminders that could speak only to Klaus.
She rocked back, thoughts racing. Why had he fobbed the opening off onto her? He might mean to toughen her up for the long race by demanding an opening sprint. He might be overreacting to her doubtfulness. Or he had reasons she couldn’t yet fathom.
She looked at him. Klaus had lost not a shred of dignity through the years. Though physically small, he gave the overall impression of enormity, which was never so apparent as when he was interviewed or photographed by the press. He was the local legal colossus, as historically significant in his own world of Monterey County as Ernest Hemingway and Franklin Roosevelt were in theirs. He had won cases that couldn’t be won and had made law along the way. Who was she? By comparison, she was a pipsqueak mouse skittering in the corners of the courtroom, hardly one to question him. And yet…
Calmly awaiting her reaction, he tugged on his goatee.
“We’ll reserve our opening statement,” she said, summoning her resolve, frightened for Stefan. “We’ll present it after the prosecution has put on its case, when we put on the defense.” She didn’t want to do it, but they had that right. What a shame, and what a mess. She had spent two weeks getting ready for the witnesses, picking up fallen pieces Klaus apparently had not noticed. She had depended on one of his famous, rip-roaring opening statements today.
She pictured Stefan, as displaced from his normal life as an ocean fish plopped into a fishbowl. He had been in jail before and seemed resigned, but she could see the toll the months away had taken. He was beaten down, upset at losing the girl he loved, and taking on the debilitated air of a loser beyond hope. He needed them to do their best work to get him freed and back on track with his life.
“No.” Klaus shook his head. “We have to establish a good relationship with the jury. The judge barely let us talk to them during the selection process. You will be fine. I will be right there at the counsel table to advise you.” Somberly, contemplatively, he went on. “I have been trying cases for fifty years. I know we will win this one, so please, straighten up. Do not walk into the courtroom like a beautiful partridge in a gun sight, Miss Reilly. Emanate confidence.”
“I was confident a few minutes ago.”
“You will do fine,” Klaus repeated, smiling warmly.
“All rise.” The courtroom unsettled. The audience in the pews, the spanking-new jurors in their weekday best, and the principals at the counsel table stood up. Judge Salas appeared at his dais.
“Oyez, oyez, the Superior Court of the County of Monterey, Judge José Salas presiding, is now in session.” The audience adjusted itself, already sounding like a chorus of critics to Nina, who sat up front at the counsel table nearest the jury box on the left side of the room, Klaus on her left, and nearest of all to those who would judge him, the defendant, Stefan Wyatt.
Stefan wore a sleek suit from the men’s store on Alvarado in Monterey. He tugged on his tie trying to loosen it, pulling it tight instead. His shoulders bulged immoderately. He belonged outside, digging up streets in the hot sun, a young workingman who looked so good in his scruffy leather belt and jeans that women wanted to hoot as they passed by.
“The People of the State of California versus Stefan Alex Wyatt. The defendant is present. State your appearances,” Salas said in his high voice. He had spent years wangling a judgeship and intended to stay and make the most of it. He liked to preserve all the niceties, and Nina, who had already had one trial before him, believed his rigidity would temper as he grew more comfortable with his position. In the meantime, the wise attorney followed the rules precisely.
She glanced at Klaus, but he was busy winking at a juror in the second row, a well-tanned elderly lady wearing a pink golf shirt.
“Jaime Sandoval appearing on behalf of the People of the State of California, Your Honor.” Jaime stood up at his table, voice steady, warm brown eyes sincere. “My designated investigating officer, who will be with me for the duration of this trial, is Detective Kelsey Banta of the City of Monterey Police Department.” Salas nodded in a friendly and approving fashion while Detective Banta also stood up for inspection, her hair highlighted golden by the overhead lights, like hair in sunshine. She beamed California health.
Then Klaus rose to his feet. Posture stern, voice forceful, he said, “Klaus Pohlmann, of Pohlmann, Cunningham, Turk, Your Honor. May I present my second chair, Miss Nina Fox Reilly.”
“I know Ms. Reilly.” Salas inclined his head slightly, formally, not hinting whether he bore any lasting grudges based on their previous skirmish in court. Nina stood, then sat down, tucking her skirt carefully around her knees. Stacked neatly in front of her were the contents of her case: the motion files; the trial briefs, including the one she had whipped out ten days before; her laptop with a fresh battery; research pages downloaded from Lexis, the online research service; and her other lucky pen, labeled “Washoe Tribe Welcomes You.”
From the corner of her eye she surveyed the jury of twelve and two alternates. Madeleine Frey, wearing a stiff expression and a black suit, seemed prepared for a funeral but determined in advance not to weep, not a good omen, but the rest of the eight-woman, four-man jury seemed to be in excellent spirits, leaning forward, eyes bright, eager to do their duty.
Their expressions would change, Nina knew, as the trial went on. A couple of the men would reveal their opinions of the proceedings by dozing, eyes open. Some of the women’s faces would turn fretful, then later on sour, and would ask, Are you people aware that nobody is doing my laundry? And then there would be one or two eerie metamorphoses as a man or woman flamed up, determined to convict or acquit. The job of the rest of the jurors would become to withstand this fiery certainty when the time came, and to vote on the facts.
“Any new motions?” Salas said. With a loud answering squeak, Klaus pushed his chair back. Jaime held his pen at the ready, waiting for Klaus to move for a short continuance before the trial had commenced, as he had threatened.
Thick silence smothered the courtroom.
“No motions, then. Mr. Sandoval, your opening statement.”
Jaime put his pen down and rubbed his mouth as if he were giving it a lube job. Frowning at Klaus for the unexpected switcheroo, he stood up and and walked over to within a few feet of the jury box. Under his sober and appraising gaze, they straightened up.
“On behalf of my office and the State of California, I would like you to know that your services in the pursuit of justice in this courtroom are greatly appreciated,” he began. “I know, Judge Salas knows, that it isn’t easy for you to put aside all the important tasks of your lives for the next several weeks. Your work is the most important work of all here, and you have my grateful thanks for being willing to help us.”
He paused to let those so inclined pat themselves on the back.
“Christina Zhukovsky,” he said. “Forty-three years old, she was a woman respected by her peers, a woman of intelligence and conviction. She had lived in the Monterey Bay area all her life, and was a prominent member of the Russian-American community to which she belonged.” He looked down, then back up at the jurors, as if pausing for a swift, sincere prayer. “Now she is dead.”
Nina thought, Okay, I’m chilled, and that means the jury is, too. Jaime was known for concise but touching opening statements, a characteristic for which he had won praise back when they both attended the Monterey College of Law. She remembered that the defense’s opening statement was nonexistent at the moment. Fretting about that, she lost track of the next few sentences.
“We will prove,” Jaime was saying, “that between one and three A.M. on Friday night, April eleventh of this year, someone came to the door of Ms. Zhukovsky’s home. She let this person in, and together, they went into her kitchen. She was drinking a nightcap, a small glass containing brandy.
“We will show that the visitor attempted to grab Ms. Zhukovsky, and that she fought back-fought for her life, and managed to throw the glass at the attacker, cutting him. We will show that her bravery wasn’t enough. She was strangled. Dr. Susan Misumi, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on this unfortunate young woman, will tell you exactly how that occurred. It wasn’t instantaneous. Christina had perhaps two full minutes to know she was dying and to suffer the awful helplessness of being the victim of murder.”
Nina heard a sort of group exhalation behind her. Jaime Sandoval would never achieve the heroic stature of a Klaus Pohlmann, but he knew how to move the courtroom to care by invoking the spirit of a dying woman.
“We will show you that the killer had prepared and planned his actions. He stuffed Ms. Zhukovsky’s strangled body inside several plastic trash bags and wrapped them with laundry cord. He hid the body, and laid his disposal plans.”
Stefan hadn’t gone to the grave site and discovered Christina’s body until the following night. Since nobody knew where her body had been kept, since they had found no evidence of Christina’s body in Stefan’s car, Jaime was obscuring. Nina made a note to herself to emphasize the lack of proof that Stefan had hidden Christina’s body for a full day.
“The next night, Saturday, he transported her body to Cementerio El Encinal, Monterey’s municipal cemetery.” Jaime came closer, almost to the bar behind which the jury sat, and raised his voice.
“Where better to dispose of a body? No one would look in a grave,” he said. “He hoped she would disappear into the old dust of others who had the dignity of proper burial, maybe never missed. Maybe missed but never found.” He hesitated, to allow the jurors to consider how wrenching that would be. “His footprints were found at the scene. He dug up the grave of her own father, Constantin Zhukovsky, a man who had died more than twenty years before, and he placed her body in that open hole he had dug, and then he covered her up and stamped”-Jaime stamped his foot on the floor-“the earth down.” He lowered his voice again, so low the jurors in back leaned forward to hear. “He used his boots to spread the gravel around, to hide the body he had dumped. There was no grace, no decorum in her burial, no family there to grieve her properly, and no attempt made to restore peace to the grave he had just desecrated. He finished his dirty work.”
Klaus leaped to his feet, vigorous as a boy of twelve. “Objection!” he shouted.
Jaime, startled out of the spell he was casting, jerked his head around.
“I object! He is arguing his case, making poetical leaps instead of telling the jury what facts he intends to prove! Ridiculous-”
“Counsel, come forward to the bench,” Salas said. Nina began to rise but Klaus waved her back. Jauntily, he stepped up to the side of Salas’s dais, where Jaime already stood. They put their heads together and Salas hissed for a full minute. As the judge wound down, both Klaus and Jaime bobbed their heads like marionettes.
Klaus returned and sat down.
“What’d he say?” she whispered.
“He said if I interrupt again in an attempt to force a mistrial he would jail me,” Klaus whispered back, and offered her the small smile. “But I was right, was I not, Miss Reilly?”
“I’m not sure,” Nina said, voice hushed, courage uneven. “Klaus, please. Don’t do that again. He wasn’t that bad, and we don’t want Salas to get-”
“Oh, I promised to be a good little boy from now on,” Klaus whispered, “and I intend to keep my word. Salas doesn’t give second chances.” He chuckled. “Look at Sandoval, so upset to be tripped in the middle of his showy dance number.”
“The objection is denied,” Salas said, face impassive. “Counsel, you may continue.”
“Thank you,” Jaime said. Pointedly turning his back to Klaus, he approached the jurors again. Taking a deep breath, he glanced over some notes in his hand and continued. Unfortunately, when Klaus broke the spell for him, he had broken it for everyone. The emotionally laden graveyard burial had yielded to a procedural mood.
“Officer Jay Millman of the Monterey Police Department will testify regarding a traffic stop he made near that very same cemetery at about two o’clock on Sunday morning, the night of April twelfth into the thirteenth. He will identify for you the defendant over there, Stefan Wyatt, as the person driving the car in question. He will indicate to you what he found in plain view in that vehicle that led to the arrest of Stefan Wyatt for the murder of Christina Zhukovsky.”
Interesting style, Nina thought, momentarily diverted from the notes she was making for her own opening. Jaime was creating suspense. Those jurors were in for a nasty shock when they heard just what it was Stefan had in that duffel bag. She had seen Jaime in action before, and she saw the amount of care that had gone into this argument. She also understood that he was pushing the limits of what he could do in his opening statement.
She would do the same, once she had an opening statement.
Another pause, but one that held no nervousness. Klaus hadn’t permanently dented Jaime’s self-possession. Pacing, arms behind his back, Jaime’s lips whitened with the seriousness of his purpose.
“What Officer Millman saw falling out of a duffel bag in the back seat of the car driven by Stefan Wyatt, ladies and gentlemen, were bones, human bones. Those bones, we will show, were all that was left of a man named Constantin Zhukovsky after twenty-five years of peaceful rest.”
Well, Nina thought, Klaus was right. Jaime was getting more fanciful than he should, but she understood the impulse. He wanted to give the jurors a framework for thinking his way, and he also couldn’t resist exploiting the more bizarre facts of the case.
She made a note to herself. She came after he did, and that position held inherent strength. She needed to use it to mitigate his every harm.
“We will prove that the defendant declined to make any statement about how he could legitimately be in possession of human remains. A thorough search of nearby cemeteries undertaken by the Monterey Police Department resulted in the discovery of the disturbed grave of Mr. Zhukovsky, who had died in 1978, with the surface sloppily restored but not intact.” Jaime wet his lips, giving everyone a chance to hearken back to Stefan’s callousness.
“When that grave was reopened, Christina Zhukovsky’s body was discovered on top of Mr. Zhukovsky’s casket, which had been tampered with. We will present testimony from our forensics investigator, Detective Kelsey Banta, showing that Christina’s apartment was then searched and blood samples collected from pieces of glass found on the kitchen floor. We will show that subsequent DNA testing matched those blood samples with the blood of the defendant, Stefan Wyatt.” A few of the jurors turned to eyeball Stefan, who yanked at his necktie until Nina quietly suggested he stop.
“Detective Banta will testify as to another significant fact. When Mr. Wyatt was searched in the early morning hours of Sunday, April thirteenth, his pocket contained a medal. A small Russian military medal,” Jaime went on, showing them a size with his hands, “very old, a gold medal which had been buried with Constantin Zhukovsky.
“Very briefly, then, this is what we will prove to you in the course of this trial, ladies and gentlemen. One: that Miss Zhukovsky was strangled by a killer who premeditated the crime. Two: that in fighting for her life Miss Zhukovsky wounded the defendant, who left his blood behind in her apartment. Three: that the defendant was stopped soon after the murder, driving away from the cemetery with remains from a grave in which her body had been buried. And four: that the defendant had in his pocket a medal stolen from the same grave.
“There are many other facts which we will prove in the course of this trial, ladies and gentlemen. We will prove, for instance, that the defendant actually left his footprints at the grave site. But I have found that it is best to have in mind the ones which irrefutably must lead to a finding by you that this defendant killed this lady.
“This isn’t a complex case. The defendant was sloppy enough to drive around with his taillight out. All you need to remember right now are three facts about the defendant: bones were found in the back seat of the defendant’s car, an unusual medal was located in his pocket, and he left blood at Ms. Zhukovsky’s apartment.”
Jaime steepled his fingers and held them to his mouth. “It is a serious responsibility,” he said, “to sit in judgment on another human being. Yet you have accepted this awesome duty and I know you will carry it out with diligence and fairness. Thank you.”
The jurors, heads inclined toward Jaime Sandoval as if bent by a powerful wind, nodded, every last one of them. What a fine, upstanding prosecutor, their expressions told Nina. He’s only after fairness for this poor lady who that bastard-sidelong looks at Stefan-probably killed.
Somebody needed to correct that impression. Klaus, unruffled, ostentatiously examined his fingernails. Nina had been trying to write down Jaime’s main points, trying to keep the flood of anxiety down.
“Miss Reilly will make the opening statement on behalf of the defendant,” Klaus said.
“It’s customary for lead counsel in a trial to make the statement,” Salas said, thick eyebrows knitted over his reading glasses.
“We are an equal-opportunity defense team,” Klaus said, on his feet again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jaime asked.
But Klaus, now seated, was enjoying a sip of water. Nina rose and looked down at the notes she had taken while Jaime was making his statement, which seemed so grossly inadequate she had to look up again, swallow, and read them one more time.
Flowery greeting. Right. She introduced herself and Klaus, and presented Stefan, who looked seriously at the jury, biting his lip.
She blanked her mind and waited for the words to flow like magic, unsummoned. This had happened to her many times before. In fact, she could almost rely on the trick, but apparently it only worked when she had already stuffed her unconscious with a prepared statement. Nothing came out, so she walked over to the jury box, put her hands in the pockets of her jacket, took them out again, and put them on the railing, clammy with fear. She forced herself to think about what the jury would want to hear and need to hear.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have already gone through a long process in which you yourselves were judged. You have filled out a questionnaire. His Honor Judge Salas, Mr. Sandoval, and Mr. Pohlmann have each talked to you and asked you questions. Many of the people who were called to jury duty did not become jurors, but you did.
“You were selected because you have demonstrated an ability and a willingness to listen with open minds to the testimony you will hear. You can be jerked left and right, but ultimately, your minds are open and you are thinking and weighing, and coming to the conclusion that fits the evidence you will hear. You have also shown us that you will be able to come to your verdict based on the legal standards that must be followed.
“There may even come a time when you don’t want to follow some of those standards. Like, for instance, the most important of those standards: the weighty burden borne by the prosecution-to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Please remember throughout this trial-you cannot convict Stefan Wyatt of the charges against him unless you find that he is guilty of them beyond a reasonable doubt.” She stopped to let the words gather their full effect. She knew the jurors had heard them a thousand times before, but here was a solemn context, a court case, a life at stake.
No, don’t get into the law any further, she told herself. Salas had begun to fidget on the bench. She anticipated the interruption forming in his mind and changed direction.
“I am not here this morning to talk to you about the specifics of the law, however.” She just had. She hoped she had gotten that all-important standard etched into their brains. “I’m here to tell you about the factual case which is about to be presented to you by the prosecution, and about the defendant’s case.
“Let me explain first that Stefan Wyatt will not be testifying in this case. He has the right not to testify, and later the judge will tell you that his failure to testify cannot be held against him by you.” Nina swiftly continued as Salas again opened his mouth and she moved out of line. “He will not testify in this case. It is up to the prosecution to prove its case, and Mr. Pohlmann and I will be responding to each and every point Mr. Sandoval makes.
“Before I tell you what some of our responses will be, let me point out important issues that will not be explained by Mr. Sandoval: no evidence, no facts, no witness will tell you that Mr. Wyatt, the defendant here, knew the victim in the case.” Pause. “No evidence will prove that he hid the body for a full day before burying it. No witness will tell you that they met or had a relationship, or that they had an argument and that there was bad feeling. Mr. Wyatt and Ms. Zhukovsky did not know each other. You cannot speculate that they did.
“Ask yourselves throughout this trial, Why would Stefan Wyatt kill this woman? He didn’t know her. You will learn that valuable goods and gold jewelry were left untouched in the apartment. In short, you will not hear that this murder occurred as a result of a robbery.
“Why, then, would this defendant kill this woman?” Nina held out her hands and shrugged, but the effect was lost when Jaime, behind her, said, “Approach the bench?” to the judge. It was payback time for Klaus’s interruption of Jaime’s opening statement. Salas motioned to her and, willy-nilly, she was pulled from the picture she was drawing for the jury.
Nina walked up to the bench, heels clacking.
“We don’t have to prove motive,” Jaime said. “Motive isn’t a required element. I request a corrective instruction so the jury sees this is all smoke and mirrors.”
He should talk about smoke, mirrors, and dirty work, but tit for tat, he had to object in order to keep the point count even, and she had to deal with it. “I am sticking to fact,” Nina said. “The prosecution has no idea why this woman was murdered. They can’t link the defendant to the victim. It has nothing to do with motive, it goes to the basis of the prosecution’s case, and we have a right to mention it.”
So no enterprising reporter could read his lips, Salas hid his mouth with his fingers, saying, “Stick to the facts. You’re arguing the case. I know what’s going on. You take your cues from the old man. You’re arguing the law and trying to prejudice the jury from the get-go. Listen. I won’t stand for it. You understand? Talk about what you’re going to prove and then sit down. Is that clear?”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Nina said, hoping she sounded truly grateful. The old game was afoot. The jury must think the judge approved of her whenever she could pull it off. Salas waved them away, and she went back to the witness box.
“Er-as I was saying…” What had she been saying? Something that had got her slammed against a wall-talk about the facts-take control, be bold…
“Four facts,” she said. “The prosecution claims that four facts will show Mr. Wyatt committed this murder. Well, three of them do link Mr. Wyatt to a grave in Cementerio El Encinal.” That got the jurors’ attention.
“Mr. Wyatt’s footprints were indeed found near the grave. Mr. Wyatt did indeed place the remains of Constantin Zhukovsky in his car. When stopped by Officer Jay Millman of the Monterey Police Department, Mr. Wyatt did in fact have a medal in his pocket which had been buried with Constantin Zhukovsky in 1978. Those facts link this defendant to that grave, the grave where the body of the victim in this case was found.
“The evidence also will show that Mr. Wyatt, who had been unemployed for the previous three months, had five hundred dollars in his pocket. It will be up to you to draw a factual inference as to why Mr. Wyatt had that money and whether it was related to disinterring the remains of Constantin Zhukovsky.”
Right, keep the fact that he dug up an old man’s bones and stuck them in a grubby duffel bag at a distance by using words like “disinter.”
Hmm, the forewoman’s face said.
“Digging up a grave for someone is not murder,” Nina told the jurors. “Someone paid five hundred dollars. Who? Who else knew Mr. Wyatt would be digging up the grave that night? Ask yourselves that question as this trial progresses.”
Nina stopped. She could not accuse Alex Zhukovsky of anything outright, because Stefan Wyatt wouldn’t be testifying to say he had hired him in the first place. Zhukovsky denied he had hired Stefan, and all the defense had was five hundred bucks floating around in a pocket that never otherwise sported such riches to show Stefan hadn’t acted on his own.
She had said all she could on that topic. “Ask yourself this, too,” she went on. The inner logician reappeared, unexpectedly. She wasn’t thinking ahead of the words that came out. Silently, she applauded that part of herself that worked in the background, a silicon chip, amassing information, collating, and on top of that, doing the work of a creative artist, figuring out how to adapt the information to best effect. “Where was Mr. Wyatt taking those bones? What earthly use could he have for them? If he just murdered a woman and went to hide the body in a grave, why pick Christina Zhukovsky’s father’s resting place? Why make a spectacle of himself, driving around Monterey with a taillight out and a set of human remains in his car?”
The jurors appeared flummoxed.
Excellent. As the trial progressed, somebody would have to come up with a coherent theory about Stefan Wyatt and that duffel bag full of bones, and it better be Jaime. Thank goodness that wasn’t her job. The burden of proof was on the prosecution. Sometimes the defense’s main job was to sow confusion, and that was the one thing she felt absolutely qualified to do in this case.
“Now, you will also be presented with blood evidence, ladies and gentlemen,” Nina said. “A forensic technician will testify for the prosecution that some small amount of blood found in the victim’s apartment turned out, after all kinds of newfangled DNA testing, to be similar to Mr. Wyatt’s blood. It’s always tempting to accept what a scientist tells you about a test that’s very hard to understand. I ask you not to do that uncritically.
“Instead, I ask you to listen with discerning ears to the testimony of the defense expert, Dr. Ginger Hirabayashi, a top forensic pathologist, who will tell you that-that mistakes can be made.” It was weak, but she had to say something about the blood. Actually, the blood evidence would convict Stefan if Ginger didn’t come up with an alternative explanation, and she hadn’t been able to do that right up to this moment, so…
Forget about Ginger. There was something else about the blood she wanted to say, something helpful. She turned toward Klaus, hoping he would be able to mouth some crucial word at her to help her remember, but Klaus simply waved, the king approving of his resourceful lackey.
“Right,” Nina said. Someone stifled a yawn in the back, which set the tip of her tongue to tickling. The blood, and oh, yes, where there was blood there had to be…
“Mr. Wyatt was arrested the day after this murder, booked, searched, and examined, but please note: here’s the evidence. He didn’t have a single cut or bruise on his body. He was not wounded. So how could he have bled at Christina Zhukovsky’s apartment late the previous night?
“Where did that blood come from?”
Nina put her hand on the railing and asked them the question she had been punishing herself with for the past two weeks. “How could blood possibly come from Mr. Wyatt when he had not bled?” She heard Ms. Frey’s jaw click as she processed the question. Nina didn’t move, holding them in that moment, Stefan’s chance.
Finally, Ms. Frey looked away. The other jurors cleared their throats and stabilized themselves in their chairs. Nina stepped back. “Thank you for your time.”
“We’ll take the mid-morning recess.” Judge Salas rapped his gavel.
Nina recovered from the haze of her thoughts to face the bald glare of the courtroom, smelling the sweat of people too long confined and the ordeal of their thinking. She felt worn out, as if she had run a long way on a boiling hot day. Gulping for breath, dry-throated and unable to speak further, she left the courtroom ahead of Klaus, who stayed behind to talk with Stefan. Her mouth tasted of burnt pudding, cinders, dust. Today stood out among the worst days of her life. She had winged an opening statement in a homicide case. She felt angry, relieved, used, and plain confused.
Making the curve outside the courtroom door in record time, she headed for the ladies’ room, hoping the reporter Annie Gee wouldn’t follow.
She washed her face and hands, got out her brush, bent over so her hair hung toward the floor, and started brushing her hair from the roots up. This ritual blood-stirring always calmed her.
The door opened. Annie’s inquisitive eyes reflected brightly in the mirror behind her.