Some laughter followed her. She enjoyed the attention, and even the jury made an amused show of studying the head of the pin she held. She laid it carefully down on the table and turned back to face Kelsey Banta. “Did you take into account the possibility of contamination of evidence from such small sources?”
“We did. There is always a possibility of contamination if standard protocols for collection of evidence and PCR DNA testing are not followed. However, we were scrupulous.” She looked smug.
Nina knew they would have to come back to the evidence on the glass again, but she felt good about leaving it for now. “At the time of booking, did you have an opportunity to perform any sort of physical survey, or did you observe the defendant’s body?”
“Yes, I took a good look at him.”
“Did you observe his hands?”
“Yes.”
“You took a good look at his face?”
“Yes.”
“Did you observe any dried blood on his hands, his face, his arms, or any other place on his body?”
The smugness dropped. Detective Banta sat up straighter and removed all expression from her face, hiding behind professionalism, which even Larry Santa Ana, Nina was happy to see, duly noted.
Nina repeated, “Any scabs anywhere on Stefan Wyatt?”
“No.”
“So, no blood. But as a seasoned homicide investigator, wouldn’t you expect to find evidence of bleeding on the defendant charged with murdering this woman?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose you should find injuries on the defendant, when his blood was supposedly found at the scene?”
“Yes. I would expect that.”
“Yet you found none. Isn’t that what you stated?”
“There was a small amount at the scene, so the cuts could be tiny. They must’ve dried up. Or he cleaned himself up, would be my take.”
“But at least you saw cuts on him?”
“Not really. No.”
“You looked?” This put Banta in a dilemma. If she said she hadn’t looked, Stefan might have had cuts. But then the police work would have been shoddy, which might put other evidence in jeopardy.
“I looked,” Banta said grimly.
“Ms. Banta, give us your opinion as an experienced police investigator: how could Stefan Wyatt’s blood be in Christina Zhukovsky’s apartment, without the defendant showing any evidence of a cut on his body?”
“Maybe it came from his nose or mouth.”
Every once in a while a witness departed from the expected and rustled up a confounding suggestion like this. Banta appeared amazed at herself. She had apparently just thought of this. At the moment, she probably felt damn cool.
“Do you have any evidence at all it did?” Nina asked quickly, hoping to puncture her confidence.
“Not really, but where else-”
“Detective, are you testifying that your explanation is that Mr. Wyatt had no evidence of cuts because the blood came from his mouth?”
“Where else could it have come from?”
“Let’s see,” Nina said. “Ms. Zhukovsky throws a glass at him and connects, and he bleeds from the mouth?”
“Well…” Banta looked unhappy.
“He opened his mouth really wide and the glass came flying in? I’ve heard of catching thrown grapes, but a brandy glass? Some shot! Amazing!”
“Objection,” Jaime said, drowning out the ripple of laughter behind him.
“Withdrawn,” Nina said before he elaborated. “Have you considered that the blood could be old-from a previous occasion?”
No answer.
“Was the blood sample sent to the lab and found on the glass wet?”
“No.”
“It was dry. And can it be dated exactly, as to when the blood might have been left in the apartment?”
“No.”
“There is no way to say for sure the blood was left that night?”
“No.”
She had pushed a few small holes through the wall of prosecutorial evidence. The jurors seemed relieved to see the defense acting like contenders.
Driving the Bronco slowly home along Highway 68, Nina revisited her cross-examination of Kelsey Banta, this time doing it better, washing away the scenery, the greenery, the bleak gray evening sky. Windows wide open, she tried to take in some fresh air after the close air of court but felt suffocated. She couldn’t remember a time a case had started as dreadfully as this one had, and when one had seemed so fatally proscribed in advance.
Maybe it was the graveyard scene constantly recalled to mind, or maybe it was Stefan, hardly taking a breath beside her at the table all day. She had sensed his desperation, and the jury must sense it, too. He had the attitude of the condemned, and though he rose to the occasion whenever she had a minute to talk to him, he squeezed out his remarks like a man gripped by a vise, out of contact with his own innards.
He looked woebegone, like a sad sack, and Americans don’t trust losers. She wanted the jury to know him as she was beginning to know him, but he couldn’t help. He was afraid. His very presence in the courtroom was working against him.
Stefan needed a pep talk. Klaus could do that. She would ask him to do that.
She stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up place mats, boxed sushi and a bottle of white wine for herself, chicken taquitos and vanilla soda for Bob along with a salad he probably wouldn’t eat, arriving at the shabby white cottage in Pacific Grove late for dinner. As always. As always, she thought of their warm cabin in South Lake Tahoe, and asked herself if she had done the right thing coming back to the Central Coast.
Right after she took the job with Klaus, a few days before Paul had popped the question, Nina and Bob had moved their few things over to the house she had inherited from her aunt Helen, which Nina had been renting out for income.
Paul hadn’t wanted her to leave, but having Bob sleeping in his office wasn’t working, so he came around and helped them in the end, although now she understood his vigorous objections better. Here he was getting up the nerve to propose, and she was moving out.
While Paul had unloaded boxes, Nina cleared dust balls from corners and cupboards, Hitchcock stuck his doggy snout where it didn’t belong, and Bob cut open the small pile of boxes piled on the living room floor. She had tried to stay cheerful and tried to engage Bob in making some future plans about how they would be spending their time here, but the move had been an ordeal.
Coming up the rickety steps, Nina held her case in one hand, and in the other the bag of groceries, which she set on the porch while she found her key and opened the door.
“Bob!” she called out.
“Yo, Mom!” he replied from his bedroom.
Most of their furniture was still at Tahoe, which Nina had left nearly three months before. The couch here was secondhand, and there was no fireplace to cheer the damp coastal nights. Thick area rugs covered the worn hardwood in the living room. Pillows, two easy chairs, a television stand, and a low table made up the rest of the furniture. Cheap vinyl blinds the previous tenants had installed for privacy were the only window coverings.
She put the groceries away and put Bob’s meal into the microwave.
The bare bones of the cottage, an old white frame built over a hundred years ago, would be lovely if you could see them better, she decided, maneuvering herself onto the couch with her tray. She poured herself a glass of wine and popped a wasabi-and-soy-sauced piece of California roll into her mouth. The house was ideally located, up a slope and just a block from Lover’s Point, offering a glimpse of the deep blue Pacific from its front yard. Various utilitarian renovations had taken place over the years to keep the tenants happy.
Some things would have to change, and soon. Nina was not the kind of person who considered her car or her house an outer symbol of some inner person, but she had her standards. The artificial turf leading up to the carport would have to go.
But why worry about this old place? If she married Paul, they would have to find a larger home that would suit all three of them.
After a few sips, Nina got up again. She set two new white plates on the woven blue place mats she had bought and found silverware and napkins. She set a square candle in the middle of the table and lit it, put the food on, then poured Bob a glass filled with ice and soda, and herself a tall ice water to chase the rest of the wine in her glass. The microwave beeped. From the hallway she called to Bob through his open door. “Dinner!”
“Busy,” he said.
“Come and eat,” she said. She waited, but getting no further response, walked to the open door and looked inside.
His room consisted of a bed with a wool blanket borrowed from Paul. His closet, gaping open, held a gym bag spilling its contents on the floor and empty metal hangers on the rod above. No posters decorated the bedroom walls; no bonsai tree like the one he had nursed at Tahoe spruced up this barren windowsill. Bob sat at a bare wooden table with his feet up, wearing headphones and an entranced expression.
She walked over to him and removed the headphones. “I hereby command the pleasure of your company at dinner.” She didn’t make it a question, because that opened up a discussion, and all she wanted to do was to wolf down the rest of her sushi and turn on her precious half-hour news show, which made her forget her own concerns.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You ate?”
“Crackers and cheese.”
She hesitated, then said, “Come anyway.” She led, and eventually, grudgingly, he followed.
He sat down at the table across from her and in front of his steaming taquitos, arms crossed. The late evening sun spilled over the table and over his pinched face. His hair, a dark mop, was getting long.
