Unlucky in Law

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “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 pl
ain 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.