Unlucky in Law Read online

  “You are right, Mr. Turk,” Klaus said, unperturbed. “We are charging fifty percent of our usual hourly rate, plus actual expenses.”

  “Just so everybody’s straight on this. At the moment overhead’s running sixty-five percent.” Alan glanced at Nina.

  Kachung. Overhead. Negative balance sheet.

  “Is the D.A. offering any kind of plea bargain? Do we really have to try this one?” Sean asked.

  “Any felony conviction runs a risk of a Three Strikes enhancement, so we cannot bargain,” Klaus said. “The trial will take no more than a month by my estimate. We have had a good year, gentlemen. You all received ample year-end bonuses. Now we give back by helping this young man.”

  Alan said in ungentlemanly fashion, “I referred him to you because I felt obligated, but I never understood why you took this case in the first place, Klaus. We’re mixed up in something-unsavory. There’s no new law to be made, no real money in it for the firm, no noble point to his crimes.”

  Klaus stared at Alan, lips turned down, as if generally unhappy with his attitude toward their client. “Alleged crimes,” he corrected softly. “Yes, Mr. Turk, your objections from the start have been noted. However, I did not found this law firm forty years ago to make money. I founded it to seek justice and make law.”

  “Oh, please,” Alan said, rolling his eyes. “The jails are full of guys just like him, probably a hell of a lot more worthy.”

  “I am shocked at you, Mr. Turk,” Klaus said. “Mr. Wyatt’s brother was your client, and he needs help.”

  Silence fell.

  Bear said, “Give it a rest, Alan. You have enough money for a thousand years from your parents. The client’s family is paying most of the freight. Let’s get on with practicing law.”

  “Somebody has to pay the secretaries,” Alan said, but without heat. He had decided not to take Bear on.

  “It’s good to have you on board,” Sean told Nina.

  “Thanks. I’m sure we’ll do fine,” Nina said briskly. “You’ll be seeing a couple of new faces around the office besides me. Sandy Whitefeather, my secretary from Tahoe, has come down to assist me. You’ll pass her in the hall. You might want to take the initiative with her and introduce yourself. She’s a very capable person but, uh, a little shy.”

  “I ran into her this morning,” Sean said. “Shy might not be the right word for her. She’s-prepossessing. From the Washoe tribe, she said?”

  “Right. Descended from the first inhabitants of Tahoe. Good people.”

  “Big money in casinos these days,” Alan said.

  “The Washoe have chosen a different way. Ask her about it. That, she’ll talk about.”

  The meeting had settled back down, to Nina’s relief.

  “You all know Paul van Wagoner, I think. He’ll be taking over as our investigator. And we’re bringing in Dr. Ginger Hirabayashi as our forensic pathologist.” Nina knew Ginger well and had made the suggestion to Klaus. Although he seemed satisfied with the work that had been done already, she had been relieved to discover that he was willing to go further based on her recommendations.

  Klaus broke a smile and pushed his chair back. “And I am happy to repeat that we now have on board this lovely young lady, prepared to stagger us with her energy and legal skill. She will be the saving grace of this unfortunate young man. Let us have lunch and celebrate, eh?”

  And so, although time was tight and Nina knew she should work through lunch, they all piled out the door, Nina in the place of honor, walking alongside Klaus at his sedate pace into Carmel’s tangy ocean air. They made their way through the tourists to the Alpine Bistro. Klaus went through the door into the heavenly smells waiting inside. As Nina prepared to follow, Bear pulled her aside onto the flower-filled veranda.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Nina, really happy. Let us know what we can do to help. Anything.” The weather-beaten lines of his face shaped a wholehearted smile. “Klaus needs the help.”

  Through the window, she saw Klaus sit down in the place where he had eaten lunch for forty years. The waitress and the manager stood by, ready to attend him. He caught her looking his way and grinned so widely she could see his gums, as pink as a baby’s.

  The meeting had disturbed her. It felt as if the other lawyers were indulging Klaus with this case. They hadn’t even tried to quiz him about strategy and defenses, questions she would have expected. Why were they all so worried?

  Walking into the restaurant she received another unearned smile from Sean Eubanks. He was much too glad to meet her, she thought, sitting down beside him. He acted as if her presence relieved him of a burden. Only Alan, chewing sullenly on a carrot, was a relief from otherwise unalloyed delight.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  “You’re a champ for dropping everything to see me,” Nina said to Ginger when Nina finally got back at three. “Sorry I’m late. Lunch ran long.”

  “I enjoyed the ride,” Ginger said. She gave Nina a warm hug, which Nina, surprised, returned. “Sandy and I have been catching up.” Encased in soft black leather from head to boot, she smelled of spicy perfume. Her black hair, tipped with white, spiked out like a sunburst, and she seemed to have a couple of new piercings in her ears. She was forty-five and looked a lot younger. She ran her own business now, after a long stint with the state lab in Sacramento, and was one of the top pathologists on blood evidence questions in California, much in demand by both defense and prosecution as an expert witness.

  “Thanks for coming all the way down from Sacramento. I know how busy you always are, and I think you know I appreciate it. How are you?” she asked as Ginger took her seat. “It’s been a while.”

  “Good work, bad affair, new girlfriend, bought a glam condo near Oldtown Sac since we last worked together,” she said. “You?”

  “Left Tahoe, came here with Paul, so old new love,” Nina said, attempting the same game and giving up. “Let’s just say, after the court case in San Francisco in which my own State Bar tried to take me out and failed, I have been rethinking my life. I’m living too near my father, mostly at odds with him whenever we get together, getting together with Paul, and getting on Bob’s case. He’s mighty intense these days.”

  Ginger spotted Nina’s ring. She took Nina’s hand into her own. “Wow. Fabulous! Art Deco, I do believe.” She lifted Nina’s hand up and down, as if weighing it. “Heavy commitment, this dazzler.” Letting go, she looked into Nina’s eyes, questioningly. “You’re going to marry van Wagoner and stay here? You won’t be going back to Tahoe?”

  “I’m trying out the ring for size. Any words of wisdom?”

  “He’s a pig,” Ginger said, “but you know that, and we love him in spite of his flaws.”

  Nina smiled.

  “You’re not imagining you’ll reform him, are you?”

  “Not really. No.”

  “He’s a macho control freak.”

  “That’s a little harsh. Anyway, so am I.”

  Ginger thought about that. “True. So I don’t know where that leaves you.”

  “Making progress?”

  “Right. Well, we’re not going to resolve your life or mine, but maybe we can make some headway on this case.”

  They got down to it.

  “What I’m seeing,” Ginger said a half hour later, after examining some of the documents the D.A.’s office had provided them, “is that the victim apparently was killed in the kitchen of her apartment in Monterey on Friday night, April eleventh. That’s what-nearly five months ago? It’s a strangulation. Hands-on, no evidence of a cord or anything like that. There were small signs of a possible struggle-some broken glass. Some of the glass had blood on it.”

  “Right,” Nina said. “And as you can see, it appears from this report that all of the blood samples found at the crime scene have been identified as Stefan Wyatt’s.”

  “Not good. The blood seems to have been reasonably fresh. The amounts were small for a decent analysis, so that’s an area we might challeng
e.”

  “Does the state lab work look like it will stand up?”

  Ginger shook her head. “Too soon to draw conclusions for you, Nina. Did you request samples for independent analysis?”

  “You can pick them up this afternoon in Salinas.”

  “Well, you never know. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing. Although Dr. Susan Misumi’s supervising, and she’s no slouch.”

  “You know Monterey’s assistant medical examiner?”

  “Known her for years. We attend the same conferences, and we’re both Asian females in a world of white, whiskery faces. We have some things in common.”

  Nina nodded. “Here’s another tricky aspect of this case,” she said. “I told you Stefan Wyatt took bones from the same grave where the victim, Christina Zhukovsky, was found? The bones of her father, a man named Constantin Zhukovsky?”

  “Yeah, what’s that about?”

  “Wyatt says he was hired to dig them up. While he was digging, he found the second body, of the victim, in the grave.”

  “Sounds like a setup.”

  “I think so, too. The guy who Wyatt claims hired him is a professor at CSUMB named Alex Zhukovsky. And get this, Ginger-he’s Constantin Zhukovsky’s son and Christina’s brother. He denies he hired Wyatt or had any knowledge about any of it.”

  “Could he have tipped off the police to do a traffic stop on Wyatt?”

  “Good question, but there’s no evidence the police were tipped. They stopped Stefan for a silly but legitimate traffic infraction. Anyway, I want you to examine the bones of Constantin Zhukovsky as well as the blood found in Christina Zhukovsky’s apartment. Meanwhile, Paul will be interviewing Alex Zhukovsky.”

  Ginger, surprised, said, “Hasn’t anyone talked to Zhukovsky before? If Wyatt is innocent, Zhukovsky must be the killer.”

  “He’s been interviewed before, but barely.”

  “Where are the bones now?”

  “They’re still in a morgue locker at Natividad Hospital in Salinas, but Alex Zhukovsky recently demanded their return for cremation. The police are inclined to turn them over to him. The bones don’t directly relate to the charges, except as proof that Stefan robbed the grave. And, privately, between you and me, he did. They have plenty of proof, but they didn’t even charge him for that crime.”

  “Why do we want the bones, if the prosecution isn’t even bothering to test them?”

  “Because Alex Zhukovsky wanted them.” Nina propped one of her small, chain-bedecked, pointy-toed shoes on her desk, and wound a finger through her hair. She felt the groove between her eyebrows digging inward, toward unsettling thoughts.

  “What kind of tests are we after, with regard to the bones?” Ginger asked.

  Nina bit her lip. “I’m counting on you to help me with that question.”

  “At least a genetic profile, then, if possible,” Ginger said, making a note. “I’ll look for poison, anomalies, strange diseases, anything that pops up. That okay?”

  “If Zhukovsky wanted those bones for a reason, and you can find it by examining them, I know you’ll find it.”

  “So we’ll grab a couple of bones for me before he burns them. A femur. The pelvis. Big bones, okay? Those are both impressive enough to be fair bets for DNA even after all this time.”

  Nina made notes. “You’ll get them. But we have to work fast.”

  Sandy knocked and brought in coffee for both of them. “I thought you deserved better than that ancient coffeepot in the back room, so I went to the coffee place on Ocean,” she said.

  “You are the best,” Ginger told her as she went out again to answer a ringing phone.

  Nina leaned back, forcing herself to relax. Her body felt constricted in several places by an invisible but robust nylon rope. She couldn’t quite believe how much work lay ahead.

  After a minute, Ginger picked up a file and went on, “Okay, I know what to do on the blood and the bones. Now, let’s talk about the murder itself. I’ve just skimmed the autopsy report, but it’s a clear strangulation death. Have you looked at a domestic violence angle?”

  “Christina wasn’t married, and Klaus’s investigator hasn’t identified a significant other, but we’ll be looking into that. Any thoughts?”

  “Strangulation is statistically suggestive of a male killing a female. I mean, someone who goes for the throat is usually passionately angry and you have to be strong to maintain the sustained force necessary to kill.”

  Nina nodded. “It’s a kind of horrible intimacy.” Ginger raised her eyebrows, and Nina went on, “In answer to your next question, Stefan Wyatt swears he never knew Christina Zhukovsky. Never saw her, never met her, never heard of her.”

  “Is he violent?”

  Nina said slowly, “He does have a couple of violent priors. I plan to talk to him about them. As far as I know now, he was young, drunk, stupid. Things got out of hand. He really isn’t a violent type.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “No women, no strangling.”

  “Still.”

  “I know. It’s possible the priors will come in during the first phase of trial when the jury is considering guilt or innocence. Klaus and I will fight that, of course.”

  Ginger said, “I was hoping I’d meet Mr. Pohlmann today. He’s in charge of the case, isn’t he? The four months of investigating and pretrial work so far?”

  “He’s in charge of the case.”

  Ginger didn’t follow up on that, but her perplexed expression told Nina she was as concerned as Nina about the sparseness of the investigative files. “Okay, back to the body.” She gave the autopsy report back to Nina and pointed to one paragraph. “Christina was small. It’s possible that a woman strangled her. Too bad there’s no sign of drugs. Almost anyone can strangle someone who is already unconscious. Not too much strength needed, you see?”

  Nina sighed. “There’s so much we don’t know.”

  “I don’t see anything about skin cell samples from the neck. Were they taken?”

  “Actually, I think I have another sheet on that.” Nina gave it to her. “Klaus did make sure samples were saved, but they didn’t find any skin cells from Stefan.”

  Ginger moved on to the police report with its series of crimescene photos, looking at the black-and-white photos of Christina’s body for a long time. “The jury will react to these. Her face didn’t hold up well. The plastic bags make the crime seem really depraved.”

  They both thought about that. Nina looked through the photos for the third or fourth time. Christina Zhukovsky’s body had been photographed in various stages as it was removed from the bags. There were close-ups of her neck and face from the morgue. They hadn’t closed her eyes first.

  If Nina let herself really look at that tragic, distorted face, cut off from the world after only four decades in it, she would not be able to sleep at night. She concentrated on the bruising on the neck, then covered the photos.

  “Okay, blood, bones, and body. You got it,” Ginger said. “Pass me copies of whatever you have. I’ve got to stop in Salinas by five and get back to Sacramento.”

  “I’ll walk you out.” Out in the fog, Ginger packed her zippy yellow Porsche with the files and got behind the wheel.

  “Good luck,” Nina said.

  “Luck is roulette,” said Ginger. “This is poker.”

  5

  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.
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  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.