Unlucky in Law

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “You didn’t know he went out.”

  “No.”

  “You had no idea he was digging up a grave that night,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Did you notice what time he left?”

  Erin shifted her legs, which had been crossed, to a more rigid position, parallel and aligned. “I didn’t notice he was gone at first. I didn’t notice until later.”

  “Which was when?” Paul asked.

  “Maybe midnight. I woke up and he wasn’t there. And then a few hours later he called from the police station. Talk about a wake-up call. That was bad.”

  “What do you think of Wanda Wyatt?”

  “Stef’s mother?” She picked at some loose threads along the edge of a pillow. “He’s way more like her than his brother.”

  A bulb flickered. “But she favors his brother?” Paul said.

  “She doesn’t have high hopes for Stefan.”

  “Ah.”

  “He has potential, but she still sees him as an immature child who never got potty-trained and has accidents to this day. Everything’s a personal affront to Wanda, like Stef’s messing up intentionally to make her feel bad.”

  “Messing up, as in lobbing a brick at a police officer?”

  She must have heard his disapproval. Her entire body stiffened, preparing for a strong defense. “That cop was beating a friend of his with a stick. It wasn’t like it sounds.”

  “Or,” Paul consulted his notes, “getting into a bar fracas and sending another man to the hospital?”

  “He was a kid. The other guy picked a fight and he fought back. It wasn’t his fault the guy fell. He hardly touched him.”

  Oh, this girl was the perfect mate for many, many guys Paul had personally helped put away over the years, back when he had been on the force. What a cheerleader! But what an adorable cheerleader.

  “People don’t understand him. You don’t, and you’re supposedly on his side. Let me tell you, Stef’s generous, sweet, a real pushover. He does his mother’s chores, which his brother would never do. He helped our neighbors, buying them groceries, taking them out to run errands, fixing their cars.”

  “He’s been in jail twice before.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Repeat offender. That’s what my folks call him. Every bad thing he ever did, he got caught and punished for. But he would never kill someone, for God’s sake. I just wish-my family is old-fashioned. The truth is, I care about what they think. It’s a mess. I couldn’t stay with him unless they approved. Obviously, they don’t. So who knows what will happen?” She set her cup on the table and ran a finger around its edge. “We need you people to get him out of that place. How can they just lock him up and take away his future? I want him out.”

  Paul thought about how young they were, and how very long even a few months apart must feel. How long had he hung on to Nina? For years. And he was not getting any younger. Distracted by her hunky young jailbird beau, Erin didn’t even bother to flirt with Paul. To her, he must seem out of the running.

  “We want him out, too, Erin. We’ll do what we can.”

  She leaned back in the scruffy chair, smoothing impossibly wrinkled jeans. “I had things all planned out for us,” she said. “I was going to get him to propose to me, then drag him to meet my family and show them how cool he is, really. Then we would have a wedding on the beach at Carmel River, with-oh, flags, a pretty dress. Everyone high! And now when those thoughts come into my head, I just put them aside. Either that, or I have to cry. But whatever happens with Stef and me, he’s innocent. He shouldn’t be in jail.”

  “He’s facing a third strike,” Paul reminded her, afraid to enable such powerful faith. How hard she would fall, if Stefan Wyatt turned out dirty.

  As they usually did.

  “I wanted to talk to you about that. What if I told you-he stayed home that night, and never went to the cemetery at all?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you. You’ve been deposed. You’ve made statements to the police.”

  “What if I could prove it?”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. A video with a date on it?” She leaned toward him.

  So, she was willing to lie. Love conquers all, including distinctions between good and bad. He guessed he knew that better than anyone. “Did he ever speak directly with Alex Zhukovsky in your presence?”

  “Would it help if he did?”

  “You want to help him, tell me the truth.”

  “Then no.”

  “You don’t know anything about someone hiring him to go to the cemetery?”

  “I want to help him,” she said urgently.

  “Erin, what really happened?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know why he went there that night. Damn it! I knew there was something up when he poured his drink in the plant, but he was being so nice. I just thought he wanted to stay sober for…” She paused and blushed. “You’re a good listener.”

  “Do you know his brother, Gabe?”

  “I’ve met him a few times. He didn’t exactly hang with us.”

  “How close are he and Stefan?”

  “Stef loves and admires Gabe. He’s done plenty for him, starting when they were little kids and Gabe was sick. Stef took care of him then, even though Stef was the younger brother. That’s hard on a family. Maybe it’s why Wanda favors Gabe, because he was weaker physically when they were growing up.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “A blood disease. Stefan donated blood or something, and Gabe was cured.”

  Blood? Paul’s ears pricked up, but then he remembered an earlier case: a blood transfusion doesn’t change someone’s DNA. Rats. “What does Gabe think of Stefan?”

  “Gabe thinks he’s guilty,” she said flatly. “He says the blood evidence can’t lie. Have you met him?”

  “He was away most of last week and we haven’t had a chance to hook up. I understand he works for an agency, Classic Collections?”

  “When I first heard the name, I thought, wow, fashion. Maybe he can get me clothes cheap.” Her mouth hinted at dimples. “But no, Gabe’s your man when it comes to collecting on a bad debt. He’s their top agent.”

  “How does he get along there?”

  “He hates his boss. He feels underrespected, underpromoted, underpaid. Wanda hasn’t been a good influence, always building him up, praising him for a C on his report card, you know? I think she feels guilty she was a widow, that she couldn’t give him a father. Isn’t that stupid, as if she could have kept her husband alive when his time came? Have you met Wanda yet?”

  “Yes, we’ve met, briefly.” He couldn’t think of a case he had worked on with less lead time and more frustrating, abortive encounters. “I’m seeing her again this afternoon. Any chance Gabe had something to do with putting Stef up to this graveyard job?”

  She stared at him. “Why would he?”

  “Did Gabe know Christina Zhukovsky?”

  “I never heard he did.”

  “Do you happen to know if he attended a conference that was held at Cal State Monterey last spring?”

  “Something about Russians, right?”

  Amazed that he finally had a hit, he said, “Right.”

  “Yeah. He went. I think someone from his work was speaking. Maybe they wanted to open up a Russian office. Weird thought, huh?”

  “Did Stefan attend?”

  “Why would he? No.”

  “Does Gabe have a girlfriend?”

  “They come and go. You have to be happy in who you are to love and be loved. He isn’t.”

  Paul looked at his notes and asked, “Any idea why he consulted the Pohlmann firm? Because apparently, that’s how Stefan ended up hiring them.”

  She thought, and Paul almost laughed at how intently she screwed her face up, as if organizing the machinery inside her head had to happen before any real thinking could be accomplished. He could see how she might be perceived as flighty or not too bright. Erin wasn’t dumb. It had take
n him a while to figure that out. She had too much going on inside, and hadn’t yet learned to order her thoughts and present them in the way the world liked, strained into a weak juice. “Something about a will. Maybe he needed one? Although it’s not like he has any money, or Wanda, either.”

  Paul got up to leave, thanking her.

  “My testimony is coming up,” she said. “Shouldn’t we discuss that?”

  “We just did,” he said.

  “I mean-what should I say?”

  “Tell the truth, Erin.”

  “I owe him. I want to help.”

  “That’s the way to do it.” Even Jaime, not exactly the pit-bull king of all prosecutors, would tear this dark-eyed sweetheart to bits if she tried to pull a fast one.

  Paul picked up Wish and stopped for lunch at a corner deli. Breaking his usual rule, Paul ate a turkey on rye in the Mustang and allowed Wish his sloppy salami while driving to Pebble Beach, where Wanda Wyatt lived with her son Gabriel. Paul chatted with the gatekeeper for a moment and followed the directions into the forest, which today looked spectacular in the unusual sun.

  “An enclave for the rich and infamous, my mom says,” Wish remarked, using one of the pile of napkins Paul had demanded to wipe up a spill of lettuce on his lap.

  Pebble Beach had a rep. Golf, mansions, fog, money-but in fact some people managed to live there without much money. Funky cottages like Wanda and Gabe’s sneaked between the trees.

  A tall, blowsy woman with hair falling almost to her waist answered the door. One hand held a silver barrette, a match for her gray hair. She snapped the clip in place before shaking hands. “You again,” she said. “Follow me.” Her skin was lined but fresh looking. She was in her early to mid sixties, Paul decided.

  They followed her out to a small, clammy patio shadowed by a six-foot wooden fence that enclosed three sides. Two dogs barked and flung themselves at the visitors for a good long, satisfying time before Wanda ordered them away, then settled for giving them the stink eye from a scrap of grass. A mildewy smell surrounded them.

  Glancing critically at the dewy grass, Wanda turned off the sprinklers. “You like Lhasas?” she asked.

  Wish nodded. He liked dogs, period.

  “I like other people’s dogs,” Paul said. “I don’t know Lhasas in particular. Are yours purebred?”

  “Mine come from the pound. Rupso,” she said, pointing. She was sandy-colored with black-tipped ears and a black muzzle. Small teeth gleamed out of a tangled mass of hair. “I like her overbite. Gives her a rakish air. This little one’s Gompa Apso. I call her Bo.”

  She looked at her watch. “Gabe should be here by now. He knows you’ve been trying to talk to him.” She plopped herself down in a chair in front of a stone table, and motioned for them to sit. “How’s the case going?”

  “Quickly,” Paul said.

  “Maybe it seems like that to you, but my son’s in jail, so we’re real happy to see things proceeding. What happened with the old man? Pohlmann?” she asked. “I thought he was running Stefan’s defense. We heard all about his great reputation, and now I hear from Stefan that a woman’s doing most of the work.”

  “Nina Reilly. She’s second chair. Klaus is still in charge.”

  “I hate not being in court. They said the witnesses can’t be there.”

  “Standard procedure. What isn’t standard is that you, Stefan’s mother, are testifying for the prosecution.”

  “Look,” she said, sounding depressed. “This is an awful situation. I don’t want to testify against Stefan. I love that kid, in spite of him wringing the color right out of my hair with his troublemaking!” She touched her head. “If my neighbor hadn’t said something to the police, I wouldn’t have told them anything.”

  Her cell phone rang and she answered, spoke, and hung up. Her green eyes, along with Bo’s and Rupso’s limpid ochres, pored over him. “That was Gabe. You’ll have to meet him at work, okay? I’ll give you directions.”

  Paul nodded. “What were you doing out that night, Ms. Wyatt?”

  “I just happened to stop by Stefan’s house to drop off some leftovers and fresh rolls I made for their breakfast. I made extra for them. That girl of his can’t cook for beans. And, more bad luck for my son, I saw him outside.”

  “What do you know about Constantin Zhukovsky?”

  “You mean why my son might want his bones? I can’t imagine. It’s very, very strange.” She did indeed appear baffled.

  “Did you know the man?”

  “Me? No.”

  “Did Stefan ever mention Christina Zhukovsky to you?” Paul asked.

  She shook her head. “And he didn’t kill her, either. When he was a little kid I used to think how much he reminded me of one of his tops, just spinning around knocking down everything that he came near. About as powerful and effective as a gnat,” she said. “Any harm he ever did was completely unintentional.”

  “Stefan was arrested twice before.”

  “I thought once kids grew up you could get on with your life, watch from afar while they solved their own problems.” She petted her dog. “Stupid me. They never stop worrying you. Even when they’re adults, you lie awake at night hating that other people hurt and disappoint them, scared they’ll do something asinine, which they will. You never escape from being a mother.” She sighed. “Stefan’s got a good heart,” she said dutifully. “I love my son, but he’s a hopeless idealist, one of those people who thinks you can change things by making waves in a wading pool. I thought I taught him better. I was involved in all that nonsense when I was young, too, but then I grew up. And what did he get for trying to organize a union? Fired. Surprise, surprise.”

  Momentarily sidetracked, she turned attention to her dog. “Get down, Bo, or no cookie.” Bo got down. “Listen,” she continued, “Stefan dug up a grave. I think we all know that. He shouldn’t have done it. But he didn’t kill that woman. He found her there, just like he said. One thing about Stefan-and this sets him apart from most of the world-he’s not a liar. He always openly admitted the cookies he stole: one reason he was always in trouble.”

  “So let’s prove that, Ms. Wyatt. What can you say that will clear him?”

  She shook her head, scratching Bo behind the ear with agitated fingers. “Stefan would never harm another soul.”

  “Ms. Wyatt, did he ever mention that Alex Zhukovsky hired him to dig up his father’s bones?” Paul asked.

  “Here’s what he told me: he said he had a quick job to do, and that he would make enough doing it to buy that girl of his a ring. He said he would have a thousand dollars. So he was hired to dig the bones. Honestly, that kid. How could he not know it was some awful setup or something? Why couldn’t God give him a little common sense?”

  “More like his brother?”

  “Right. Classic mother’s lament.”

  “How do you explain what he did?” Paul asked.

  “For the money. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

  Can’t or won’t? Paul thought, wishing he knew. Classic detective’s lament.

  “You say you’re a widow,” Wish said. “What was your husband like?”

  “A decent man, but distant from us. He traveled a lot. I raised the boys by myself, pretty much. They hardly remember him.”

  “When did your husband die?” Wish persisted.

  “The boys were very young. Stefan was three, Gabe was four. Stefan hardly noticed. Gabe was hit hardest. It’s funny, he never knew his father well at all, it was more the idea of him. He didn’t want to tell kids at school his father was dead. He pretended to have one. I guess I should have remarried.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “One of those breakdowns of the system,” she said. “He was old, and he had a lot wrong with him over the years, things that came and went. One day something got him. I was there with him when he died at the hospital.” Suddenly, she looked ready to cry.

  “What kind of parent was he?” Paul asked hastily.


  “Old-fashioned, courtly but conventional in his attitudes about women’s roles, in spite of my attitude, which was hardly conventional. But I’ll tell you one thing. He loved his children,” she said. She petted the pooch so hard its little eyes bulged, and that made Paul want to pursue the topic, but Wanda didn’t give much up. “I do believe he did.”

  “Did your sons get along as kids?” Paul asked.

  “Not a bit. They fought dirty.” She actually had a lot to say on the topic, many memories, but none of them helped much with the present-day issues. “But Stefan would die for Gabe,” she finished. “He proved it when Gabe got so sick.”

  “With what?”

  “Childhood leukemia. They gave Stefan drugs that made him forget the procedure, and promised me there was a low risk of him being hurt, although I felt terrible when they did the spinal thing and took his donation. He was awfully young. But Gabe’s paying his brother back now, giving his hard-earned savings to save Stefan’s skin. It’s a shame. He’s worked hard for every dime. Stefan has a lot to answer for. Just-not murder.”

  “Notice how happy she is talking about Gabe, and how conflicted when she talks about Stefan?” Paul asked Wish as they drove away.

  “I’m glad to be the only son,” Wish said, accelerating to eighty as soon as they hit Highway 1 going north toward Seaside. “But my parents don’t play favorites anyway. No, they’re equally conflicted over all of us.” He laughed heartily.

  “Stefan’s the worm; Gabe’s the bright, red apple.”

  “Oldest son, and the striver in the family,” Wish said. “Must be a burden for Gabe being her favorite, even though he’s got a brother in jail who is definitely no competition.”

  Seaside, formerly populated almost entirely by transient military families who traded in their thrift-shop furniture to new families when they left, had come up in the world. It had its very own Borders to make up for the bankrupt Kmart. On the eastern fringe of the town, the building housing Classic Collections stood where once acres of artichokes had flourished.