Unlucky in Law (24 page)

He found Deano playing an early racquetball game at the Sports Center in downtown Monterey. In a large glass booth, grunting and sweating, he took on his competition, an athletic sprite who flew from corner to corner, returning every volley, smacking every serve like a pro. With pleasure bordering on the sadistic, Paul watched Deano lose big.

Seemingly undisturbed, Deano shook hands with his partner, even giving him a little congratulatory pat on the arm. Well, you had to expect it. Show me a good loser, Paul thought, and I'll show you a loser.

“Rotten luck,” he said as Deano caught sight of him, raised the racket for protection, and turned as white as a boiled egg.

“It's y-you,” Deano said.

“I'm here on business,” Paul said, not wanting to scare him off. The last time they had met, Paul had been compelled to beat Deano almost senseless for trying to steal his business. Judging by the fresh layer of sweat boiling up on his forehead, Deano hadn't forgotten the encounter.

Deano recovered his cool act fast. “Follow me,” he said, jerking his head toward the locker room. As tall as Paul but dark, with a trim, square jaw and black curly hair, which women found compelling but Paul found effeminate, he led the way, his stride consciously casual but his towel getting a workout on his brow.

“Work going good?” Paul said, adapting his stride to Deano's anxious one.

“Great! I mean, fine. I've got a few pans frying.”

“Such as the one with Klaus Pohlmann's firm.”

“That job's finished. I heard you picked up the investigation.”

“Yeah, Klaus told me he had hired a second grader when the graduate was unavailable.”

They reached Deano's locker. Dean spun the combination lock and opened it. Clothes smelling like dead, wet fur hung on pegs. Pulling out the clothes and setting them into a neat pile on the bench, watching Paul for any sudden moves out of the corner of his eye, Deano said, “You really scared my mom, calling her like that.”

Paul thought about the last time he and Deano's mom had spoken. He had been pretending to be an IRS agent.

“She thought I was in trouble with the government. Wouldn't talk to me for months. Was terrified I was gonna get arrested. Thought it might reflect badly on her.” He glowered.

“Now, why would she think you'd be in trouble with the government?”

Deano slammed the locker shut. “Let's just leave it that you got even, okay? Now what do you want?”

“It's this report you prepared for Klaus Pohlmann's firm, Deano,” Paul said. “You mention a guy named Sergey Krilov.”

Deano took the report and skimmed it. “Oh, yeah. He's nobody.”

“He was Christina Zhukovsky's lover.”

“Really? I guess that makes sense.”

“How do you know that? You don't say here.”

“Stands to reason. She went to Russia to be with him. Lived in his apartment, or whatever they call an apartment over there. He followed her back here, at least for a while.”

“I don't see anything about Christina's trip to Russia here, Deano.”

He leaned over Paul's shoulder and shrugged. “Huh. Guess I didn't put that in there. It was deep background, not relevant. Remember that time she was gone? She went there. Her cleaning lady told me. I don't think I got around to writing up those notes.”

“What was she doing there, Deano?” Paul asked.

Deano blew air from his mouth, but decided to humor Paul. “Screwing Sergey Krilov, obviously.”

“She followed him there, or she met him there?”

“She met him here. I guess you missed the cleaning lady. Oh, right, Genya was just getting ready to go back to the Ukraine when I talked to her.”

“So did Genya tell you why Christina went to Russia in the first place?” Paul asked.

Deano took his shirt off, revealing a nicely muscular torso gleaming like a spritzed model of youthful perfection. He leaned over the report, studying it. “Well, I don't say why, do I? Hmm.”

“No. You don't.” Paul swallowed his anger.

“Guess not, then.” Deano pulled back. From a duffel bag, he extracted a comb, shoes, and fresh socks. “So, why did she go?”

“Deano, how much did the Pohlmann firm pay you? A thousand? Two?”

He looked cagey. “Oh, that was months ago. It's hard to say.”

“More than you deserved for two hours' work, wouldn't you say?”

“Hell, no. I spent at least a day on this.” He appeared truly offended.

“What did Christina Zhukovsky do while she was in Russia? I mean, aside from sleep with Sergey Krilov?”

“I think she was political,” Deano said. “According to Genya the cleaning lady. Genya was a beauty, but what a talker. Talked my ear off.” Paul hadn't run across any Genya. Months had gone by; Deano had interviewed an important witness, but hadn't made a report or even noted her name or her interview, and Genya was probably gone for good. It rankled.

Deano sensed criticism in the air. “Genya didn't know diddly about the murder,” he said. “She was visiting relatives in San Fran when it happened. All she knew was general background.”

“Sergey Krilov is in California. I want to know where he is, Deano.”

“Well . . .” Deano thought. “Not with Father Giorgi.”

“He's connected with Giorgi?”

“They know each other, but I don't think they like each other. Christina ended up tight with the priest and told Sergey to fuck off. Genya really enjoyed eavesdropping on that conversation. She loved listening to Christina on the phone.” He took his stinky socks off slowly and stowed them in the outside zip compartment of a black gym bag.

“Why would Krilov stay?”

“Here's the thing,” Deano said, pulling his pants off to reveal things Paul never wished to see. “These people aren't like you and me. They take no pride in their government. They have no money. They don't have nice houses. They can't afford health clubs, probably don't even give a damn about being buff.” He pushed back his hair, looking astonished at the thought. “They amuse themselves by griping about two things, the scarcity of alcohol and the dirty politicians. Well, you can't blame them. What else is there to keep a person sane in a godforsaken place like that?”

“Where does Sergey Krilov stay when he's in California, Deano?”

Deano stepped into the shower and turned his innocent, unlined face up to its flowing waters. “I haven't got a clue, my man.” He shrugged and rubbed soap into his armpit, giving Paul a roguish look. He had decided that Paul was not going to pound him this time.

He started to sing the song Paul hated the most in all the world. “‘Cherish is a word I use to defi-hi-hi-hi-i-i-i-ine—'”

Paul said, “Give my regards to your mother.”

“What? Sorry, my man, this water—”

Paul grabbed him by the throat with his left hand. He just couldn't help it. With his right hand he turned off the shower.

“Hear me now?” he said.

Deano, a lover, not a fighter, tried to nod his head, his eyes bulging.

“Don't ever take a job from the Pohlmann firm again.”

Big nods.

Paul released Deano, who fell back into the shower and pressed himself against the wet wall.

“Read your spam,” Paul said. “There are a lot of cures out there for conditions like yours.”

Paul drove over the hill to Carmel. Hungry, he decided to stop off next door at the Hog's Breath for lunch before returning to his office. He ordered a turkey sandwich on rye, flipped open his phone, and called the Sacramento police. He spoke with a lieutenant there, Martin Gross, who was working on Ginger's assault case. The Sacramento police had a great interest in the bones that were stolen, and Paul filled him in as well as he could. Even with this strange background, they were working on the premise that this must have been a drug theft gone bad.

Did Ginger or her associates keep useful or illegal drugs on the premises? Paul had asked.

No, they didn't. But why else break into a lab? The suggestion that the bones might have motivated someone made the lieutenant chuckle at first. Then he wanted to know the reason for the suggestion, then grilled Paul for details, asking many questions about Krilov, although remaining somewhat unclear on the connection. He kept Paul on the phone for a long time, trying to collect information.

Maybe they would find Sergey Krilov for him, Paul thought, hanging up, but he wouldn't count on it. He finished his sandwich, punched in the number for San Francisco General, and asked to speak with Father Giorgi.

“Sorry, he doesn't answer,” the switchboard reported.

Did that mean the priest was sleeping, or did it mean he was gone?

“No one has checked out of that room,” said the helpful girl on the phone. “Want me to page him on the hospital intercom?” She did, but he didn't answer the page.

“Get me the nurse on duty,” Paul said.

She did. The nurse on duty confirmed that Father Giorgi was in his bed, sleeping.

“He needs to call me,” Paul said. “It's urgent.”

“I'll make a note of it,” the masculine voice said dubiously. “But I'm off-shift in a couple of hours, and he's been badly hurt.”

Paul considered the chances of one of the nurses remembering to tell Giorgi to call, and even if that happened, the chances of Giorgi calling. Then he estimated how long a trip to San Francisco would take. He paid the tab and walked back out to the Mustang. He could make it by night.

He could think of one place Krilov might be. He might be near the hospital, waiting to finish the job. Although he had notified the police that Krilov might come back, they hadn't put a guard on Giorgi's room, just warned hospital security. But Giorgi knew dangerous things, and maybe he'd be ready to share them now, with Paul, before he had to share them with Krilov.

20

Friday 9/26

“K
LAUS,
”
N
INA SAID BEFORE THEY ENTERED THE COURTROOM,
“I'
M
concerned.”

“Are you?” he said serenely.

“We are losing this trial.”

“That kind of thinking will get us nowhere.”

“I'm concerned that too much is slipping by us. While I'm straining to get us through each day in court, you seem—hardly here.”

“That's the young, untried Nina talking,” he said. “Not the skilled lawyer who can handle anything. Naturally, when you have a failure of nerve, you attack. In fact,” he said thoughtfully, “that's good strategy. You see, you're smarter than you think, and are certainly well able to assist in this case.”

“Don't try to flatter me. You had months to prepare for this trial. I had two weeks. You sit there and you make little comments, and now and then you participate, but the whole thing has fallen on me.”

Klaus cupped his hand to his ear. “Do I hear a whining sound?”

“I don't care that it's hard, and I'm not properly prepared. I care that you aren't giving it everything, and that our client will suffer for it.”

His thin shoulders raised up and lowered. Suddenly he was just a fragile old man, doing his best. “I'll take over,” he said. “It's no problem, if you don't feel ready.”

“That's not what I meant!” she said, exasperated. If anything, she had finally seen a definite need to take over herself. “I just want you to be . . .”
Awake
is what she was thinking, but before she could say more, Klaus had opened the door to the courtroom.

“Yes,” he said mildly, introspectively, “time for me to take over.”

“No!” she said, too late. She followed him into the courtroom.

Erin O'Toole took the stand, got sworn in, and sat down, tucking a loose end of her blouse into black slacks with fold marks. She obviously didn't wear them often. Her long black hair was held back in an orange scrunchie, but wisps framed her pretty face. Beside Nina, Stefan's glumness deepened. “This sucks. If only she didn't have to go through this.”

“She can handle it, Stefan. She's tougher than you think.”

“I wish . . .” he said, but Jaime Sandoval had begun his direct examination with innocuous questions, like the ones you gave to polygraph subjects before dinging them with the real deal.

“If she ever takes me back, I'm getting her that ring,” Stefan continued to whisper while Erin answered tedious questions patiently. “The one she always looks at in the window on Alvarado. I'll sell my car. I'll sell everything.”

“Maybe you should wait on the ring,” Nina said, finding her own in place on her finger, still feeling awkward, and thinking possibly he should think first about finding out if Erin loved him the right way, and enough.

“Don't be so hangdog!” Klaus leaned toward them both, whispering. “We need absolute confidence.”

They all sat back and listened in astonishment to the story Erin was concocting.

“We were drinking tequila that night,” she said. “It wasn't Stefan's choice, but I like it. I got into it back in the old days at Northstar with the ski crowd. I used to waitress, and they always ordered tequila. To me, it's a classy drink.” She laughed deprecatingly, and to Nina's surprise, so did the audience behind her. “If potent.”

“He was drinking?” Sandoval asked, clearly flummoxed by this unexpected line.

“Yes,” she said. “Things got wild. I mean, we were in love, you know what I mean?”

Stefan spoke close to Nina's ear. “She's confusing that night with the night before, you know. When I didn't go to the graveyard. She waylaid me,” he said, apparently unaware of the choice of words, “and I didn't make it to the graveyard.”

Was she confused? Nina didn't think so.

“Ms. O'Toole, are you claiming he drank a lot that night?” Sandoval asked.

“More than usual. And we went to bed early.”

“Are you claiming that Stefan Wyatt did not leave the house that night?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded. “He was busy with me.”

“And . . .” Jaime began.

“And—it was memorable!” She lowered her eyes. “Don't tell me you want details.”

“Ms. O'Toole. Please tell me you are not claiming that he stayed home that night.”

Her head bobbed. “Oh, but he did. He was in bed with me the whole night.”

“You say you were drinking.”

“That's right,” she said, wary. “But I can handle my liquor. I wasn't flat out or anything. I noticed who was in my bed with me.”

“You say you loved each other.”

“Yes.”

“Isn't it true, you'd say anything to get Stefan out of trouble?”

“People who lie are weak. It's cheap. I don't like it.”

Stefan, sighing on Nina's left, certainly knew that to be true.

Jaime knew the answer was unresponsive, but saw Erin had a lot of empathy going with the jury. Rather than alienate them by taking her to task, he said, “You wouldn't lie even if someone's life was at stake?”

“If I knew that person was innocent,” she said carefully, “I would be tempted.”

“So, whatever you say here is subject to that higher purpose.”

“I didn't say I would do it,” she countered. “I don't have to lie when I tell you Stefan's basically an honorable person. Whatever they say about him that's bad, it isn't true. Somebody needed to come up here and say that. Speak in his defense. He never gets a break.”

“You would do anything to save him?”

“Anything?” She sounded disgusted. “I don't have to. He's innocent. He didn't kill that poor woman. It's easy enough to prove. I mean, I couldn't have drunk that entire bottle by myself or I'd be dead.”

“Do you drink often?” Jaime asked.

“I'm not sure what you mean by that.”

“Say, three times a week.”

“Sure, if you include wine or beer in the equation.”

“She doesn't give a damn how she comes off. What a woman,” Stefan said, voice brimming with admiration.

Yes, Nina thought, damn.

“I mean, with a meal, or at a barbecue. We like to socialize. Who doesn't? Stefan's a popular guy.”

“Erin's the popular one,” Stefan murmured.

“How much would you say you drank that night?” Sandoval continued.

“Oh.” Wrinkles formed on her forehead. “Maybe four drinks?”

“Over what period of time?”

“Fast,” she said. “Maybe in an hour.”

“How much do you weigh, Ms. O'Toole?”

“I don't have to say that here, in front of all these people, do I?”

“Answer the question,” Judge Salas insisted.

“I have to tell?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, I'm five feet three inches tall and I weigh, um, oh, this stinks. I weigh a hundred twenty. Okay, I weigh a hundred thirty-two. If you're trying to establish that I ought to consider a diet, I admit it. I could stand to lose a few pounds, okay? You got me, copper.”

A few people on the jury tittered.

Jaime Sandoval brought a chart out. “I have here a chart put out by the DMV suggesting how many drinks a person of your height and weight can drink before being considered legally drunk. According to your own testimony, you were intoxicated.”

“But Mr. Sandoval,” Erin protested. “I never drove anywhere that night.”

“Please wait for a question,” the judge said, studying the chart.

“You were out of it that night, were you not, Ms. O'Toole?” Sandoval asked.

“I didn't drive anywhere.”

“Does alcohol make you sleepy?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Were you sleepy that night?”

“Yes!” she said, triumphant. “We headed off to bed, and after a little bit, we went to sleep. Slept through 'til morning. Nobody went anywhere.”

“How many drinks would you say Mr. Wyatt consumed that night?”

“I can't really tell you.”

Nina could see she really didn't know what to say anymore. Was there a right answer? Erin O'Toole did not know.

“You can't say or you won't say, Ms. O'Toole?”

“I can't.”

“Ms. O'Toole, is it fair to say you were dead drunk that night, and not really capable of knowing whether Mr. Wyatt left?”

“Not fair at all.”

“Are you aware that when Stefan Wyatt was arrested the next morning, a few hours after midnight, he was tested for alcohol?”

“I didn't know that.”

“And that the test showed negligible amounts?”

For the first time, Erin looked toward Stefan. He looked guiltily back at her.

“He looked like he was downing beers. Several.”

“So you assumed he was drinking even though he wasn't. And you thought he stayed home, that's what you've said, isn't it? In that case, how do you explain your signed statement to the police?” He waved it in her face. Then he marked it for identification and had her read from it (“I think maybe he went out for a while”), then he moved to have the statement admitted, and finally he started grilling her like a slab of fresh tuna at Trader Vic's.

“I made a mistake signing that paper.”

“You were lying when you signed that paper? Or you're lying now?”

She didn't answer.

“Miss O'Toole?”

“I shouldn't have signed it,” she said.

Jaime Sandoval smiled. “So you've said. Your witness,” he said to the defense.

“Let me handle this, please, Klaus,” Nina said, starting to stand, but the old man, suddenly spry, was on his feet and talking. “Ms. Wyatt,” he began.

“I'm not married,” Erin said in a soft voice. “My name is O'Toole.”

Stefan winced.

“Pardon me,” Klaus said, discomfited. “Hmm.”

Silence stopped everything cold until he remembered what he was doing. “You've described Stefan Wyatt as an ‘honorable' man,” he said finally. “Will you tell the court why you would say that about him?”

“He's decent and kind. He helps people when they're in trouble. You can depend on him,” she said, foolishly adding, for the belated sake of exact accuracy, “usually.”

“How long have you known Stefan Wyatt?”

“Two and a half years.”

“In that time, has he ever been violent with you?”

“No.”

“He hasn't hit you?”

“No.”

“Put his hands around your throat, or even threatened you, anything like that?”

“No.”

“Would you describe him as hot-tempered?”

“On the whole, no. He's easygoing, like me.”

“As far as you know, did he ever know, or have even casual contact with the victim in this case, Miss, um . . .” Again, Klaus seemed to lose his thread.

“He didn't know Christina Zhukovsky,” she said. “He would have mentioned her to me.” But although Erin tried hard, she was tired and her exhaustion showed. She had already made a full-steam effort and lost the race, and she knew it.

Klaus dragged the cross out for quite a while, but his points were few and far between, and whatever strength they had lost potency under the weight of the irrelevancies preceding them. Erin continued to testify like a little kid with one hand in the cookie jar, chocolate on her cheeks, and a big fat juicy lie on her lips. The jury appeared sympathetic but unconvinced.

Klaus returned to his seat with a nod to Nina that said, All's well that ends well.

Stefan put a hand on her arm. “You have to love Mr. Pohlmann. He really knows his business, doesn't he?” he said, punctuating his hopeful words with a desperate look. Nina was far too busy kicking herself for her weakness in attacking Klaus to say anything.

This whole fiasco was her fault. She could have steered Erin back to the truth. She would have asked her to talk more about their relationship, and why she felt it was necessary to do something, anything, to save this man she obviously still loved—but what was the point, thinking these things? It was too late.

Jaime made short work of Klaus's attempt to rehabilitate Erin, effectively blowing away any molecules of credibility that might hover in the courtroom air. Then, out of the jury's hearing, he asked that Erin be arrested for perjury. Salas should have done it. To Nina's amazement, he turned Jaime down. Maybe he had a daughter Erin's age, or maybe he was just tired of filling up the jail.

Some people just catch the breaks. Maybe lucky Erin could keep Stefan's bad luck at bay.

Wanda Wyatt appeared next as an adverse witness. After Erin's high-pitched sweetness, she smoldered, low-voiced, deep lines sinking around her mouth. She wore a sober brown skirt with a few stray dog hairs attached, and sensible heels, her long gray hair defiantly free down her back.

“You are the defendant's mother?” Jaime asked.

“That's right.”

“Remember back, please, to the night of April twelfth of this year. That was a Saturday night, correct?”

“Yes.”

“You told the police you took a ride that night.”

“Yes.”

“You went out?”

She pulled the words out. “I did.”

“Where did you go?”

“I drove over to my son Stefan's house in Monterey.”

“You drove to your son's house at what time?”

“Late. I can't say exactly what time.”

“Why did you go over there late at night?”

“I knew they were usually up that late on a weekend night. I had cooked a big dinner and had leftovers. I just thought I would drop some by.”

“When you arrived at your son's house, what did you see?”

Wanda became silent.

“Mrs. Wyatt?”

“I saw my son loading things into the trunk of his car.”

“My own mother,” Stefan moaned to Nina.

“She doesn't have any choice,” she whispered. “She can't deny it, Stefan.”

“What kind of things?” Sandoval asked.

“It was dark! I'm not sure.”

“And yet the next morning, didn't you tell your neighbor, Donna Lake, that you saw your son loading gardening implements . . .” He took up a piece of paper and read, “‘A shovel, a pick, that kind of thing'? And isn't that what you admitted to the police?”

“I didn't know what I saw,” she said stubbornly. “I couldn't see what he was putting in there.”

“‘It was bizarre,' you said. ‘I couldn't imagine why he'd need a shovel at that time of night.' You did say that to your neighbor before you heard your son had been arrested, didn't you?”