“I’ve got Wanda worked out,” Nina said. She handed Klaus the papers outlining her cross-examination strategy. He folded them neatly and stowed them in his jacket pocket.
“The copy of her marriage certificate is there,” she reminded him. “Sandy had it faxed this morning.”
“We do not need it. She will tell us.” He leaned his head back and fell into a light doze, his eyes fluttering. Nina thought about getting out and leaving him to carry out his courtroom warrioring in his dreams, but he was not really asleep, he was thinking.
“So we have a big family here. The Zhukovskys. Two wives, four children, ties to ancient royalty, however tenuous. The makings of classic tragedy. The Tolstoyan unhappy family.”
Nina hung her purse off her shoulder and put the Jag keys in the flap pocket. “We’d better go. We need to talk to Stefan. This is really two families with the same father,” Nina said. “Wanda, Gabe, and Stefan. Constantin’s first wife, Davida, and their children Christina and Alex. Look. I made a diagram with birth dates.”
Klaus took it. “Thank you,” he said. “You have done well.”
She felt an absurd sense of gratitude for that acknowledgment. “The problem is that connecting Stefan to the Zhukovskys will make him look even more guilty.”
“At first.”
“What if he is guilty? What if he’s part of this conspiracy you’re talking about?”
“Miss Reilly, you have talked to him now how many times? Half a dozen? Can’t you trust your own eyes, your own heart, your own brain?”
“No,” Nina said. “I’ve been lied to and I’ve believed the liar. I’ve watched cases put on by other lawyers, first the prosecution, hugely credible, then the defense, equally sturdy. I believe both of them. I hope I’m never a juror.”
“Hmm. A little more experience and that will never happen to you again.”
“I hope it never will.”
“Well, let me assure you then. Stefan is as innocent as the fuzzy head of a baby. Let us go and talk to him.”
Staring into space, Stefan sat at a conference table in the prisoners’ waiting room. He hadn’t shaved very well, which gave him the slightly dissolute look of a blond Enrique Iglesias, not too bright but oh, so tight. He jumped up when Nina and Klaus came in and pumped the old man’s hand. “Ouch,” Klaus said kindly. “Please sit down, my friend.”
When they were settled, with the rolling file cases parked in the corner, Klaus looked around the ceiling, as if searching for a bug before commencing. Finally he said, “What do you know about your father?”
“My father?” Stefan scratched his head. “John Wyatt was an insurance salesman. He left us when I was, um-three, that would be twenty years ago, man, long time. Gabe was five. He died back East. We barely knew him. Our mom raised us.”
Klaus leaned over, shaking a finger in Stefan’s face. “Lies,” he said, in a quiet voice as startling as a shout. “Your mother lied to you, don’t you know that? Your father was Constantin Zhukovsky!”
“Huh? He was a salesman for Occidental Life…”
“Your mother has a big photograph of him on the piano?”
“She was upset when he left-she didn’t keep photos.”
Klaus pulled the marriage certificate out of his pocket. He stabbed it with his finger. “Look.”
Pale, Stefan read the document.
“Yes. Constantin Zhukovsky was your father,” Klaus said, with the look of a man who had seen plenty worse.
Stefan turned to Nina, a hundred questions flying in his eyes.
“Your mother was married to him, all right,” Nina said. “From 1973 to 1978. You were born in 1975, right?”
“What in hell’s going on here? First my mother testifies against me-I know, she had to-but now you’re telling me she’s been lying about our father for our whole lives?” He seemed truly distraught. “And you’re telling me I dug up my own father’s bones! Shit! What is this craziness?”
“Calm yourself,” Klaus said. “No need for that kind of language.”
“Sorry,” Stefan said, pushing a hand along his forehead.
“We’ll find out more this morning,” Nina said. “Your mother’s taking the stand.”
But he couldn’t let it go. “How could she lie like that to me and Gabe? She never said-she was always like that. Secrets. Always tucking letters away when I came in the room, always hanging up the phone fast when I came in. What was she doing?”
“Russians,” Klaus said. “Secrets.”
“She’s Polish. Wait a minute. But that means-Christina Zhukovsky. We were related? She was my half-sister?” His skin paled down to the white roots of his blond hair. “I saw her dead body,” he almost whispered, “wrapped in garbage sacks. And I put her back in the dirt. Oh, this is so bad.”
Nina said, “Stefan, how did you meet Alex?”
“I told you, he called me. He said he heard I did odd jobs.”
“Yes, but how did he know that?”
“He just said he heard. I never asked him why he called me. He didn’t want me to ask questions. If only I’d turned him down, but five hundred bucks-I couldn’t. Oh, my God. Listen, does this mean I’m related to him, too? Me and Gabe? I need to talk to Mom.” He pounded a fist on the table. “I’m so helpless in here!”
“Stefan, we need you to hold on. I know how hard it’s been, but this isn’t over. We need you strong.” Nina looked at her watch. “Maybe at lunch. She’s testifying in about ten minutes. Klaus, are you ready?”
Klaus got up, straightening his starched cuff. Patting Stefan on the back, he said, “Be patient, my friend. You are in good hands.” They left Stefan wilting at the table like a nutrient-starved plant, waiting for a guard to whisk him away.
In the hall, Wanda Wyatt and Alex Zhukovsky bookended opposite sides of a long hard bench. They spoke quietly to each other. Wanda, in a beige knit pantsuit, looked agitated. She crumpled the subpoena Paul had served on her between twisting fingers. Zhukovsky frowned. His legs were crossed and the raised leg wiggled nervously. The courtroom doors opened. People filed in, leaving the hall empty except for witnesses.
Nina felt like a hunter, barely holding back a desire to pounce and tear the truth out of their throats. Klaus’s confidence had spread to her.
“I thought I was finished on Friday,” Wanda complained. “Why did you do this to me?”
Klaus approached her, goatee bobbing with indignation. “You, dear lady…”-that stabbing finger again, which Nina remembered from her law clerk days-“are going to tell the truth this time.” Alex Zhukovsky turned to watch, annoyed.
Wanda’s chin trembled. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
“You would let your own son be convicted…”
“I can’t help Stefan!”
“If you lie in court this morning,” Klaus said, “I will bring you back in the afternoon. And tomorrow. And so on and so on. Until you tell the truth.”
“Leave her alone,” Alex Zhukovsky said, standing up to step between Wanda and Klaus.
Klaus’s chin lifted higher. Shorter, older, physically no match, he didn’t budge. He looked up at Zhukovsky. The men stood chest to chest. “And you,” Klaus said, “our Russian professor with the execrable memory. Here you go again. You must have known about her all along. You must have remembered her working in your house, and you would know that information could be crucial to figuring out what happened to your father. You make a poor excuse for a son.”
“Hey, today was the first time I recognized this lady, sitting right out here on this bench. I haven’t seen her since I was a kid, and we’re talking once a week over twenty years ago. Anyway, you should talk! A senile old man, a poor excuse for a lawyer,” Zhukovsky said. “You ought to be playing canasta and watching daytime TV. Yeah. Eating cabbage and kasha.”
Klaus’s face reddened. “You two-bit teacher from nowhere. How did you protect your sister? What evil came looking for her and what did you do about it? Coward! I knew you the minute I l
aid eyes on your stupid face! I will take care of you soon! Just wait! I will-I bet that beard isn’t even real…” Klaus reached up and gave Zhukovsky’s beard a sharp tug.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Zhukovsky said in exact imitation of Wanda.
Nina pulled Klaus away. “We’re late. We have to go in.” She managed to get him moving, but he screeched over his shoulder in a high voice, “Call me senile, eh! We will see! We will see!”
Paul was sitting a couple of rows back. He gave Nina a friendly wave. She lowered her head and went on to the counsel table.
As she laid the files out, poured the water, and found a comfortable position in the old wooden chair, she thought: We’re going to break this case wide open.
The jury came filing in, Madeleine Frey limping and Larry Santa Ana, who was going to be their loose cannon for good or ill, telling a story to another male juror. The two young women chatted quietly. Nina gave them all a respectful smile, and a couple of them smiled back.
Judge Salas appeared on the stand, sitting down ritualistically, adjusting his robe and glasses and tidying his papers. Nina had found out one important thing about him during the trial: he might act injudiciously biased and emotional on occasion in proceedings outside the presence of the jury, but he stayed careful when they were seated. Deliberate and calm in his speech, he never exhibited any sign of the favoritism toward Jaime Sandoval that Nina had noted in her previous dealings with him.
He might actually turn out to be a good judge. Anyway, he was a bastion of impartiality at the moment. For that, Nina was grateful.
She looked over at Jaime at the next table, powwowing with Detective Banta. He caught her look and gave her a brief smile. We’re professionals, his look said. Nina thought, Whatever happens with Paul, I could practice law comfortably with this judge and this D.A. for a long time.
The day before, while she sat wedged behind her desk, Bear, accompanied by Sean, his earnest second, had come in to up his offer. A permanent position with the firm, a fast-track partnership, and a nice signing bonus. The money was an enticement she could resist, but a decision to resist could not be casual.
She had worked so hard for so long, and she was hitting her stride at last. The drive into Salinas in the morning, the scent of fields and growing vegetables, the sleepy streets and soft morning sun, the pillars and gargoyles and the old wooden chairs the lawyers sat in-it all had seemed civilized, manageable, easy, not as craggy and challenging as at Tahoe…
Then she thought of Bob, unhappy; their house at Tahoe, empty; her practice up there, waiting; and Sandy, leaving. And Paul, perfidious but loved, still loved. He lived here.
Klaus’s mood remained rambunctious. He talked loudly, aiming oblique insults toward Jaime, who thought Klaus had no business practicing law anymore. Well, maybe Jaime was right. Did Bear and the others view her as merely a baby-sitter, just skilled enough to keep Klaus active for another year or two?
She turned her head. Paul stared at her with an unfathomable expression. He gave her a thumbs-up. She turned back to the judge.
Who was saying, “Call your first witness.”
Klaus rose, all trace of his tantrum in the hall erased.
“Your Honor,” he said, “the defense calls Wanda Wyatt to the stand.”
“Now then, Mrs. Wyatt. When were you born?”
“In 1937.”
“And where?”
“Where was I born?” Wanda looked at the judge. She had put on bright plum-colored lipstick that gave her angular white face a garish look.
“It’s a simple question.”
“In Poznan. Poland.”
“You speak Polish?”
“Yes.”
“Sprechen Sie auch Deutsch?”
Wanda said, “Ja.”
“You learned these languages as a child?”
“That is right.”
“Vui govoritye po-russky?”
“Da,” Wanda said in a thin voice. “Pretty well.”
“And where did you learn Russian?”
“I-I learned it from someone. An employer.”
“Oh-ho. An employer. And who might this employer be?” He had sneaked up on her sideways like a crab, and like a crab he was waving that expressive claw of his already.
“Constantin Zhukovsky.”
Madeleine Frey looked astonished. Larry Santa Ana nodded happily, as if watching a piece of metal clicking into place in a car engine, satisfied with this turn of events. The young women, along with most of the other jurors, simply appeared puzzled.
“You were Mr. Zhukovsky’s housekeeper, that is right? During what years?”
“For a few years in the 1970s, starting about 1972.”
“Ah. During the years your two boys were born, that’s so, isn’t it?”
She appeared to have given herself over to the goateed devil gesticulating in front of her. Without resistance, she said, “Yes.”
Klaus’s finger slashed downward several times as he said loudly, “Why did you lie to the court about your relationship with Constantin Zhukovsky!”
“Why did I…”
“You never told the jury that you were married to the man whose bones were in that grave, did you?”
“Nobody asked.”
Nina looked over at Jaime, who scratched his nose and tapped his pen against his file.
“So it is true? You married Zhukovsky in 1973, after the death of his first wife, Davida. You became his second wife?”
“Yes.” The word forced itself out of her.
“That is better,” Klaus said. “Now, then, tell the jury why you kept your marriage a secret even from your children.” Jaime could have objected on foundational grounds or because Klaus was badgering Wanda, but the other counsel table held to a conspicuous silence. Apparently, Jaime thought Klaus had swerved off on some pointless tangent. He didn’t mind letting Klaus waste his energy in idle pursuits.
Wanda’s eyes flashed.
“Answer!” Klaus said.
“There’s no simple answer.”
“Then we will hear the complicated version.”
“Okay.” She thought. “I worked in his house starting right after his first wife died. He was lonely, and I was…”
“You were lonely, too?”
“Not exactly. I was in my mid-thirties. I had spent all my twenties into my early thirties sleeping around, having fun, using birth control, you know? It was those times. I was a free spirit, no ties, just a party girl. And what happened was, I saw him, and how much he loved his kids. I wanted children.” She shrugged. “I was worried I would get too old, and there he was, needing affection. We got close. I loved him.”
“By his kids you mean Christina and Alex?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I got pregnant. When he found out, he insisted on marrying me. I told him no, but he wouldn’t listen. He wanted our child to be legitimate. But we never planned on a conventional family scene. That was okay. I just wanted kids so much.”
“So your first child, Gabriel, was born in 1974.”
“And my second,” she turned her head toward Stefan, “came in 1975.”
“How did Constantin take the births?”
“He understood I wanted them. He accepted it.”
“Yet he never lived with you?”
“His daughter, Christina, was very attached to her parents, more than normal, I would say. When her mother died, she broke down, needed counseling, the whole nine yards. The son-Alex-hardly talked to anyone for the first year after his mother’s death. They all missed her. Constantin’s first wife was very cultured. Her children knew me as just this low-life hippie housekeeper.”
“This Constantin was a snob, eh?”
She clearly hated this question. “Kind of.”
“What about your children? Gabriel and Stefan? Did Constantin come to visit, bring little toys? Bring hugs and kisses on his visits?”
“When they were babies, he did. B
ut he got sick and aged fast-he let go.”
“He treated them like unwanted illegitimates, it seems.”
Her face gave them an answer.
“He left money for you in a trust?”
“When he was failing, there at the end of his life, he told me he wanted to give some to us. I thought that was great, really generous.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand.”
The jurors appeared shocked.
“Sounded like a lot to me then, too,” Wanda said, “but it amounts to only about four hundred a month. A lot of it goes to pay for health insurance. I still clean houses, and sometimes the companies I work for have bad coverage or none. The rest bought our groceries. We ate a lot of noodles.”
“His other children inherited much more, didn’t they?”
“I didn’t know about that. I thought he was a baker. I didn’t know he had much money. He didn’t act like it.”
“Why keep your marriage secret?”
“He wanted it that way, and so he put it in the agreement. I didn’t care then. Now I see some of my decisions weren’t so smart. I dropped out of high school to get a job so I could leave home, and later I got arrested at peace marches from here to Washington, D.C.” She frowned. “I posed nude for a girly magazine for a few bucks back in my twenties, too. I can’t justify my life, except to say I did what I wanted mostly.” She pulled on her gray ponytail. “One thing right was having those boys.”
Stefan wiped at his eyes with his hand until Klaus handed him an immaculate handkerchief.
“I only wish for their sakes I had never agreed to keep my marriage secret, but I did, so I stuck by the terms for a long, long time. Does my telling everything here in court today mean I’m giving up that money?”
“Maybe not,” Klaus said. “What you testify to as a subpoenaed witness can be protected.”
Jaime was taking fast notes. Nina assumed he was beginning to realize the testimony could be used to hurt Stefan. Klaus rocked back on his feet a moment. Oh, no, she thought, he’s forgotten what he was talking about.
A pall fell over the courtroom. “Klaus,” Nina whispered.
“A moment, Your Honor.” Klaus walked unsteadily back to her.
Unlucky in Law Page 30