Unlucky in Law (9 page)

“Cyrillic?”

“The Russian alphabet.”

“You can read it?”

“I studied Russian in high school. All the renegades from French did.” So she had a sense of humor and intelligence in addition to a knockout body, Nina thought. Ouch.

“What did the inscription say?”

“I only took two years, so I'm no expert, but I could tell from the words along with the image on the medal that it said something about Saint George. He's slaying the dragon on the image there.”

“Go on.”

“I put the medal in a plastic bag and listed it. It went into the evidence locker with the clothes.”

“Did you then go out to El Encinal Cemetery?”

“Yes. We arrived at seven
A.M.
, when it was getting light. Officer Graydon, the backhoe operator, and the groundskeeper from the cemetery were waiting outside the tape line Officer Graydon had set up. I pulled on my gloves and went in and looked down in the hole. The floodlights were bright. I clearly saw an arm sticking out of a trash bag.”

“What did you do then?” Jaime had a rhythm going with her; he must have taken her testimony dozens of times.

“I got on the ground on a tarp, reached in with scissors, and opened the bags. There were three layers of trash bag. I cut a slit maybe three feet long. There was a woman's body in there.”

“And what did you do then?”

“We didn't move her. She was cold. She had been dead for a while. I took photos and put a call in to the pathologist, Susan Misumi, and our forensics technician. While Dr. Misumi was en route we checked out the area. Officer Graydon pointed out some apparent footprints. We took casts.

“When Dr. Misumi arrived, she spent some time with the victim. She examined the remains in place, taking photos, then she had us remove the body for transport to the morgue at Natividad. By then the sun was well up and we turned off the lights.

“I had called Alex Zhukovsky again regarding opening up his father's coffin. He gave his permission. The backhoe hit the top of the coffin at about eight
A.M.
and, with the assistance of Officer Martinez, I opened it.”

“And what, if anything, did you find?”

“The mahogany coffin had been recently disturbed. The satin lining inside was ragged. There was some gray hair at the top. Evidence of insect activity. Shreds of clothing. The bones, which I would expect to find, were missing.”

By now, the gasps had abated to
tsk
s, but they were very unhappy
tsk
s.

“Pretty obvious the coffin had contained a human body, which had been removed, although we couldn't tell when. Dr. Misumi came over and looked at it and more photos were taken.”

Surprisingly, Jaime skipped through the details of that hideous early morning find. Nina hurried along with him in her mind, wondering why he was in such a rush to leave the grave, not finding her fissure yet.

“Did you then return to the station?” asked Jaime.

“Yes. I had received a radio message that Alex Zhukovsky had showed up. He'd received two phone calls from us and he wanted to know what was going on.”

Salas called the mid-afternoon break and everybody rushed out for enough caffeine to float them through the final afternoon session. Klaus and Nina stayed at the conference table with Stefan.

When they returned, the jury, so fresh and ironed in the morning, had the look of laundry left too long on the line, shirts and sweaters sagging. Weary hands stroked eyes and foreheads. Concentrating for so many hours took a lot of effort, and the golfing lady Klaus had winked at rubbed her leg often, as if to keep it awake or stave off some pain.

During the break, Nina had decided she understood Jaime's strategy—he had seen the break coming and saved the luscious best for last. He would give those jurors something to dream about! Sure enough, he, who appeared as combed and fresh as he had in the morning, leisurely pulled out the forensics photos and transported them back to the graveyard, evoking the fog, the cool morning, the digging toward the victim, all the time questioning Banta exhaustively on the details. By the time he was finished spinning his scene, the dank soil, black bags, and bones had practically taken seats in the courtroom.

After adjournment for the day, before they took Stefan away, Nina asked, keeping her voice down as low as she could, “Stefan, why did you call Alan Turk?”

Stefan said, “Gabe—my brother. Gabe consulted him a while back, had some legal thing with him.”

“Any idea what it was?”

“Sorry, no.”

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Only as good as you guys in court. In other words,” he attempted a smile, “ups and downs. Like I keep saying, you have to get to Alex Zhukovsky somehow. It's too weird, this thing where his sister's body was found in their father's grave. I mean, he's the link, the only link. Plus, he hired me. He killed his sister and buried her in their dad's grave for his own reasons, or else why lie about hiring me?”

And then why hire Stefan to dig them both up? It made no sense. “We're working on it.”

“It doesn't really matter,” Stefan said in a pragmatic tone at direct odds with his expression of abject defeat.

“Why not?”

“I'm jinxed. Always have been.” He licked his lips and thought about it. “Cursed from birth. I wasn't born to a good life.”

“Has your life been so terrible?”

“Erin was my only good luck, and now she's gone.” He held tight to the chain he always wore around his neck.

“She may still come around.”

“You're a woman,” Stefan said.

Nina laughed. “Well, yeah. Mostly.”

“Do you think—if someone was in jail for a long time—and maybe he would never get out, how would you feel about him?” The hard work of asking made his big shoulders slump. “Could you ever forgive him?”

If Paul went to jail, and she never knew whether he would get out, how would she feel? The question, one she had never asked herself, made her shiver. Paul deserved jail, at least in the eyes of the law. He had killed to protect her at Tahoe, and she was complicitous in that murder, because she knew and because she said nothing. She shook herself free before the alarming swing of her thoughts knocked her down. Focusing on Stefan's earnest, dark eyes, she said, “You need to ask Erin those questions, Stefan.”

“I tried writing to her, but I threw the letter away. Because what could I talk about? The guy two cells over who screams all night, or maybe I could entertain her with stories about the nights I can't close my eyes without seeing that grave. I never saw a dead body until I saw Christina's.”

“Stefan, do you believe Erin loved you before all this happened?”

“Yeah. I believe she did.”

“Then you tell her how you feel.”

“I'm locked up. I have no power. I can't go over there, take her out to the beach where we could really talk . . . And then, even if you pull it off, even if you get me out, would she ever trust me again?” he asked, eyes turning inward. “Nina, I want to marry her. She's my only hope. I'd buy her a house, get a regular job, the whole deal. She could have a baby. I asked her once, and she said she'd like one. I would, too. Cut down on Dart League. No more drinkin' until I'm singin', except on weekends or birthdays.” His grimace held the shadow of a smile. “She says I'm a lousy singer.”

“Write to her again, Stefan. It's been some time. Maybe she's ready to hear from you.” Nina gave him an encouraging squeeze on the arm before they led him away.

Outside, Paul stopped her. “You're doing great in there.”

“We need more to work with. You go get Alex Zhukovsky and nail him. Talk to Stefan's brother, Erin, his mom, Wanda, everyone again. I feel like we're missing a layer of meaning here.”

“Strange way to put it.”

She didn't know how else to describe the feeling, but looking at this case was like looking down a pit without a light. The end remained elusive, and could harbor whales, it was so deep. “Someone knows something. And I need to know everything about Christina Zhukovsky, what she hated, what she wanted from her life. She didn't exist in a void over there in that fancy place on Eighth Street. She had friends, a lover, connections. Important emotional contacts. Find out who they are. We should already know these things!”

He stepped back from her quickly, as if trying to avoid a runaway truck. “Settle down, will you? I'm on it.”

She got up on her tiptoes and kissed him. His cheek smelled outdoorsy, like eucalyptus. “Of course you are. I'm just a little worked up.”

“Dinner at seven, okay? Bring the kid and the dog if you want, but we need to talk business. I'm not just sitting on my hands all day while you wrap those infernally pretty legs around Sandoval and Salas, you know.”

“That's a relief.” Nina hustled out to find Klaus and drive him home, thinking all the while she didn't like knowing about Paul's past relationships. She didn't like knowing about his past, period.

Paul doesn't love me like Stefan loves Erin, she thought. He's too experienced, too complicated. And I'm the same. She twisted the ring on her finger, for a moment wishing fiercely that they were some other kind of people.

Paul had never asked
her
if she wanted babies.

8

Wednesday evening 9/17

B
OB AND
H
ITCHCOCK, THE BIG BLACK MUTT, STAYED BEHIND, FEASTING
respectively on canned spaghetti and kibble back at the cottage while Paul and Nina grabbed quick bites at The Tinnery, overlooking the ocean. After they ate, Paul asked her if she wanted coffee so they could discuss what he had been working on.

“A room and a car,” Nina said, sighing, looking at Lover's Point beyond the window. “A car and a room. And then comes the night.”

“What?”

“I spend all my time inside.”

Paul put money on the table and stood up. “C'mon.” They walked outside to a summer evening in full swing. A gaggle of bikers swooped past, spandex taut. Twenty cameras clicked. Children dripped ice creams.

“Can you make it down the hill in those shoes?”

“No problem,” Nina said, letting the tangy ocean air refresh her lungs.

Like licks of transparent watercolors, sunset darted superreally over the beach, transforming Earth temporarily into Mars. Taking the warning signs on the rocky point seriously, they walked to the back side of the cove, where a rough path wound safely down.

Out on the point, closer to the gargantuan power of the ocean but careless of it, a group of Vietnamese tourists read the beware signs, had a good laugh, and headed down to flirt with danger, arms linked. They clung like barnacles to a rock, in a direct line with the treacherous sleeper waves. Arranging them on the rocks like flowers on a sunny, safe, dining room table, a friend snapped endless pictures. No wave knocked them down, nothing disturbed their placid belief in an innocent universe. Eventually, they clambered back up to the street, illusions of immortality undisturbed.

“Such faith,” Paul said, observing them. “Dumb luck?”

“Statistics,” said Nina, pushing hair out of her eyes. “How many tourists die every year, getting swept out to sea by these tides anyway? One out of thousands?”

“You let Bob go out on the rocks?”

“He goes when we walk down here. I yell at him,” Nina admitted.

“You don't trust the odds, then.”

“If I made all my decisions rationally, would I consider marrying again? I mean, it would be my third time.” Her first marriage, to an attorney in San Francisco, had ended in divorce. Her second husband had died. “Yours, too. The odds aren't good.”

“Good thing we're odd, then.”

They laughed and started down the path. “Christina Zhukovsky,” Paul said, holding on to Nina's hand as they picked their way, “had a lover.”

“I knew it! Great work, Paul! I'm so ready for a break!” Nina's heels slipped dangerously over the wet rocks. She caught her balance just shy of a twisted ankle. They finally landed on the beach, locating a flat rock that commanded a view of a horizon flicking fire over the mirror water, and gingerly sat down, holding hands.

“And she had neighbors, a husband and wife. Too bad they were out of town the night she died, or we'd have our killer wrapped and waiting for us in the kitchen, with a satin bow tying him to the chair. The husband didn't like the looks of Christina's boyfriend,” Paul said.

“Don't stop.”

The sun sneaked down, coloring the bottom side of the clouds peach.

“The boyfriend's a Russian man named Sergey Krilov. I got a good description from the wife.” Paul's voice got high and sweet. “Shiny, scraggly hair, so light it's almost white, greeny-yellow eyes with brown specks around the edges, a chin you could scoop ice cream with, it's so sharp, and a really well defined bod.” His own voice returned. “Her husband's description conflicted slightly. He called Krilov an ugly but strong little runt with a nose big enough to park an SUV in, who didn't shave as often as he needed to, with the manners of a mutt. He didn't appreciate his wife's interest in Krilov or in me, and shut the door soon after we spoke to explain why to her in loud detail.”

“Any time frame on their relationship?”

“They had seen Krilov hanging around for months, then, in the week or so before Christina died, he didn't come around, as far as they knew. But”—Paul shuffled his position on the rock shelf, trying to get comfortable—“you know Christina organized a conference at Cal State Monterey Bay right before she died?”

Nina nodded. She had seen a mention of it in Klaus's background materials.

“Well, Krilov showed up there. He went after Christina. They argued.”

“This was when?”

“About a week before she died.”

“Good,” she said. “How'd you find out about this?”

“After talking with our young neighbors, I dropped by the company that catered the conference, Thought for Food. The guy who started the business is only in his twenties, Rafe Barker, a natural-food fan and masterful vegan chef. He says he's been working at the university since it started, and has grand plans to create the first campus to specialize in healthy eating. Slow food, as opposed to fast. Something different.” The sun slid below the lowest cloud, shooting golden beacons at them.

“Did Rafe witness the argument between Krilov and Christina?” Nina asked.

“No. He overheard two men, one of them Krilov, yelling at each other about it afterward. He got the impression Krilov was supposed to make up with Christina, whatever it took, but she didn't want to get back with him. This other man was pissed about it.”

“Why?” Nina asked.

“Who knows?”

“Did Rafe know Christina?”

“Only as a person who gave him headaches bringing ‘damn crude foreigners' around who missed their meat, and let it be known to the administration. He heard shouts that day, the second day of the conference. They caught his attention, and confirmed his negative opinion of all things not American.”

“How did Krilov react to getting dumped by Christina and then criticized for it?”

“With an undignified lack of decorum, according to Rafe. He smacked the other Russian and turned his back on him.”

“Any chance we have a witness?”

“In Russia by now,” Paul answered.

“Don't tell me Krilov is, too.”

“No record of his departure so far.”

“Find him. Please.”

“Sure thing, boss.” He squeezed her hand. “I'm looking, believe me. Just talked to Rafe today.”

“Don't call me boss.”

“Okay, my love.”

Nina leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. “I like that. This really could be important. I still think Alex Zhukovsky has to be our killer, but now here's a rejected lover who gets in violent arguments. That's an exciting development, Paul. Do you have anything else?”

Paul said, “I wish the sun didn't do that, dipping below the horizon where we can't follow it. I hate to see it go, and I'm not sure it really will come back. Let's walk some more.” They picked their way along the beach. “The neighbor lady said Christina loved to talk politics. Russian politics. She couldn't believe how ignorant Americans were, and she would cut out news items for them and bend their ears. They had invited her for dinner once, and once was enough, she said.”

“You know anything about it? Russian politics?”

“The Berlin Wall got pulled down, when, in 1989? and the Iron Curtain shredded in '91. The Russian Mafia got big. Big boys took over a lot of the industry. The average Russian looked around and said, ‘That's cool, McDonald's in Moskva, now could I please get paid for a change so I can afford a cup of coffee there?'”

“That's my impression, too. What was Christina Zhukovsky's main interest?” Nina asked.

“The future. Post-Communist Russia. Who would rule, according to the neighbors. She bored them to tears, which means I have no idea what was really going on. Not yet anyway.”

They climbed back up to Paul's Mustang carefully, the darkness another hazard, but also a refuge.

Back at home and sitting on the couch, Nina surveyed some notes, then sat with her eyes closed, awaiting enlightenment while Bob tossed a ball around the living room and Hitchcock chased it. She was still gnawing around the edges of the case, not knowing enough to sound authoritative about anything. Like her father, Harlan, king of blarney, Klaus oozed confidence when he wasn't even sure where he was—how come she had to know something to sound knowledgeable?

This Wednesday evening's only enlightenment arrived in the form of a ricochet off the wall beside her that caught her on the head, telling her that ball-playing in the living room, even with a very soft ball, was not to be encouraged. “Homework,” she ordered, pointing a finger toward Bob's bedroom.

The trial resumed at nine-thirty, Thursday morning. Sitting in court between Klaus and Stefan, Nina remained uncertain about how to approach the cross-examination, so followed Detective Banta's testimony like any jury member hearing it for the first time.

Banta had added a pink sweater to peek coyly out from underneath her jacket today, and those high-heeled boots would never catch a fleeing suspect. Her laid-back delivery had the jury riding happily along with her.

By ten-thirty Jaime had led Banta to a discussion about the human remains in the duffel bag.

After a few introductory questions, Banta testified that before transporting the bones to the morgue early Sunday morning, she had taken advantage of having Constantin Zhukovsky's son at the Monterey Police Station and had shown him the duffel. Alex Zhukovsky told her that the remains were those of his father, whom he recognized due to an item of clothing that was still identifiable, a yellow sash he had worn diagonally over his jacket, made of a tough synthetic fabric that had mostly survived its long burial.

“I got Mr. Zhukovsky a glass of water—and he asked me, ‘Where's his medal? It was pinned to that sash.' Remembering the metal object we had taken from the defendant, I showed it to Mr. Zhukovsky. He told me it was some sort of military medal from Russia. He told me his father was buried wearing it in 1978.”

“About what time was this?”

“Almost nine-thirty in the morning by then. I then explained about the other body found in the grave. We hadn't identified it, and I thought it would be worth describing the victim. He became—I would describe him as extremely concerned—and pulled out a cell phone and tried to make a call, but couldn't get an answer. He demanded to see the body, so I called Dr. Misumi and she said to bring him over to the morgue with the duffel and the remains. She met us and Mr. Zhukovsky at the door. The victim was lying on a gurney covered with a sheet. When he saw the victim uncovered, Mr. Zhukovsky became very agitated.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He fell on the body and sort of lay across it, sobbing, yelling. Doc Misumi and I had to pull him off.”

“And did he identify the body at that time?”

“Yes, sir. He stated it was his sister, Christina Zhukovsky.” Giving everyone time to get that clear, she looked around, then continued. “I took a statement from him. Is that in evidence yet?”

Jaime took a moment to catch up and introduced Alex Zhukovsky's statement into evidence, as well as a number of photographs and police reports. He handed the photos of Christina Zhukovsky's body and the crime scene to Madeleine Frey, who passed them around. Frey seemed to be having trouble this morning. She kept rubbing her leg and shifting around in her seat.

A few of the male jurors stared hard at the photos but showed no visible reaction. One of them, a construction contractor named Larry Santa Ana, took his time. He couldn't get enough of them and passed them along reluctantly. For good or ill, he was one to watch.

A set of the photos lay in front of Klaus on the table. He ignored them. Stefan took his lead and didn't look, either, but Nina was drawn again to Christina's face in one of the photos, a proud face even in vulnerable death, with a strong nose and broad forehead, bluish eyelids finally closed on the morgue gurney. Her neck showed obvious signs of strangulation. You didn't need a pathologist to figure out what had happened to her.

Nina consulted Klaus's notes. Jaime had one more subject to cover, the introduction of the blood evidence into the case. He shimmied step-by-step through the material exactly as though directed and choreographed by the notes Klaus had given her.

“Did Mr. Zhukovsky provide you with information relating to the residence of the victim?”

“He gave us her address, and he gave us his copy of her key. She lived on the top floor in a condo on Eighth Street in Monterey.”

“What happened then?”

“I took a statement from Mr. Zhukovsky. Then Officer Martinez and I proceeded to the victim's apartment.”

“What time was this?”

Detective Banta didn't need to consult her report. “Sunday morning at eleven-forty-five
A.M.
Her home was only a couple of miles from the station, near Monterey Peninsula College. It's a four-unit complex. We went up to the third floor, which was entirely taken up by her unit. We knocked and received no answer, and there was no manager on the premises, so we went in.”

Nina scratched her chin and thought, Legal issue: illegal entry? Again, Klaus hadn't raised this possibility. She scrolled through the details. The cops were investigating a fresh homicide; they had been given a key by the nearest relative; they needed to enter in case another victim was inside, or maybe a killer, or maybe fresh evidence.

Not a prayer on this one. Klaus had called it right. She kept her mouth shut.

Nothing broke open for her in the next few minutes of testimony. Jaime took Banta through the forensics report. She had supervised the fingerprinting and collection of samples.

Banta reported on the fingerprints without expressing the disappointment she no doubt felt. None matched Stefan's; that was the point Nina would return to on cross-exam. Many could not be identified.

Photos of Christina's apartment now being passed around the jury were snapshots from the life of a cultured woman who sometimes entertained lavishly. Her large, country-style kitchen gleamed with every kind of copper pot and pan. Her dining room table was—had been; the condo had been sold a month before—a long slab of pine ten feet long, incongruously covered with a white Battenburg lace tablecloth. Her taste in art had run to the Russian avant-garde: Liubov Popova, Tatlin, Malevich. The brightly hued blocks of color in the lithographs were precisely offset by the traditional black Bechstein piano that took up one side of the living room.