“Made of cloth?”
“A loose-weave cotton.”
“And how much glass did you find on the gloves?” Nina turned to the jury, eyebrows raised.
“None.”
“They were made of rough fabric, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And you picked up pieces so small they were almost microscopic off the kitchen floor?”
“Yes.”
“So wouldn’t you have expected to find glass on those gloves?” She had People’s 37 passed along the jury box. The fabric was rough and porous.
“Maybe he had another set.”
“Did you look for another set of gloves at the victim’s condo?”
“We made a thorough search for anything that might be relevant.”
“And no luck?”
“We found no second pair of gloves there.”
“What about at the cemetery?”
“No.”
“Stefan Wyatt’s house?”
“There were several pairs of gardening gloves similar to those found in Wyatt’s car.”
“Any with glass on them?”
“No.”
“Let’s see,” Nina said. “Your theory is that the killer wore gloves, hence the lack of fingerprints on the broom and dustpan. But they weren’t Stefan Wyatt’s gloves, because those gloves probably would have retained at least a microscopic speck of the glass, isn’t that right?”
They all waited for the response.
“Am I stating your testimony correctly?” Nina said.
“To a point. Maybe the defendant didn’t do the cleanup. Maybe the victim did. There were plenty of her prints on both broom and dustpan. Even on the kitchen trash can.”
Nina had been waiting for that. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s follow that theory. The defendant, fearful for her life, threw her glass of brandy at the killer, and the glass hit him and shattered when it hit. With me so far?”
“Yes.”
“So then, putting aside her fear, the victim calmly got out her broom and dustpan and carefully swept all the glass she could into the dustpan and put it into the trash. Was this before or after the killer was strangling her?”
“It could have happened. Some period of time could have elapsed between the glass being thrown and the murder.”
“Isn’t it much more likely that the killer did wear gloves, the killer did attempt to clean up the glass after the murder, and the killer wasn’t Stefan Wyatt since they weren’t his gloves?”
“Then how come he buried the body at the cemetery?”
“Who says he did? After the body was found, and Stefan Wyatt was arrested, did you also conduct a search of the defendant’s home?”
“We did.”
“Did you find any evidence there linking him to the crime of killing Christina Zhukovsky?”
“No.”
“Any trash bags of the same type used to cover her body?”
“No.”
“Any broken glass which matched glass found at the crime scene of the same type in his vacuum?”
“No.”
“In his trash?”
“No.”
“In his vehicle?” Again, Nina was talking to the jury. She wanted them to know how important this lack of evidence was.
“No.”
Very interesting, Madeleine Frey’s rapid nod said.
“Now let’s get back to that blood. Mr. Lumley, did you supervise the physical examination of my client on the morning of April thirteenth, right after he was arrested?”
“Yes.”
“Was there any proof, however small, that he had handled broken glass recently? Any cuts, any invisible shards, anything?”
“No.”
“You found no evidence of broken glass on his clothes, in his pockets, on his hands, in his car, or in his home, correct, Mr. Lumley?”
“Objection,” Jaime said. “Asked and answered.”
“Overruled,” said the judge, happy to be exercising his voice again.
She repeated the question.
“No.”
“Making it very difficult to imagine how he left blood at the crime scene less than twenty-four hours before, wouldn’t you say?” Might as well grab the opportunity to pound that nail in further.
The jury nodded, meditating on the question. How did Stefan leave blood behind in Christina’s apartment? They should take this conundrum to bed with them tonight, and work it, Nina thought. Maybe they would figure out what Nina couldn’t.
“Mr. Lumley,” she said, when he didn’t answer. “How could my client, Stefan Wyatt, leave blood behind at that crime scene, when he never bled?”
“I don’t know,” he said, showing with a deep sigh how disgusted he was that it was so.
15
THE BAILIFF OPENED THE COURTROOM DOOR AND BECKONED. NINA watched Alex Zhukovsky straighten his tie and follow him in.
On Nina’s left and right, people fidgeted, always keen to see a new face. Zhukovsky walked the central aisle, all eyes fastened on him, looking as conspicuous and anxious as an executioner on his way to the hanging. Passing through the low gate, he looked toward the tables on his left and right, defense on the left, Stefan’s miserable gaze following him, the jury on the left against the wall. Klaus glared at him. Alex didn’t look at the old man but let his own glance catch on Nina, who ignored him and doodled on her legal pad. As if embarrassed by her indifference, he looked at Judge Salas, a head and black-robed shoulders visible above the massive wooden dais. He stopped where directed. The court clerk told him to raise his right hand.
“My name is Alexis Constantinovich Zhukovsky,” he said, swearing to tell the truth. He mounted a step and entered a lower, smaller box attached to the judge’s dais and turned around to the roomful of faces. He looked toward the prosecutor. The questioning began.
Sitting, not standing, the D.A., asked him a series of simple questions about his work. Alex Zhukovsky responded, sounding stiff to Nina. “I am an instructor in Russian language and history at Cal State Monterey,” he said. “I also teach other courses. I’ve been there for the past six years.” He told the court he liked his job, and was brother to the victim in this case, Christina Zhukovsky, and son to the man whose bones had been disinterred.
“My father was named Constantin Nicholaevich Zhukovsky. Our mother, Davida Zhukovsky, died in a car crash when we were young. My sister was eleven. I was only seven.”
For a while Jaime’s questions were simple, and Zhukovsky, required to explain very little, answered yes or no. Then Jaime began asking Zhukovsky about Christina, her life and work.
“How can you reduce a person’s life to a few sentences?” Zhukovsky complained. “She had many facets.”
He told the court about her work at the university. “Her last job was working at Cal State Monterey in the Romance Languages Department as the Public Affairs Officer. She helped with organizing the conference, and was very involved in all aspects of it. It was one of the largest and most successful conferences held at the college so far. People came from all over the world to attend.”
Sandoval gave him a photograph of Christina and, shaking, Zhukovsky studied his sister’s image. In this picture, which Nina also studied, Christina, wearing a neat designer suit, smiled proudly, intelligently. Her face wore hope, ambition, and all the glorious things a human face, a living face could hold, when born to optimism. Holding the photograph, Nina felt sad that nobody would ever see her again as she had undoubtedly been, with shiny brown hair and a shy way of looking up at an observer. Nina would bet she used the weak glasses to disguise a driven nature.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” her brother told the D.A. His voice quivering, he gave the pictures back with a shaky hand. Looking sympathetic, Sandoval gave his witness a minute to get composed, obviously loving this show of emotion and milking it. He wanted the jury to feel for this nice woman with a public conscience, Nina realized. Christina was just like any other friend, family member, or coworker they might call to mind. People could identify with her. She was nobody, just like them.
Except that she had been murdered.
Wasn’t this what the psychologists called cognitive dissonance? Christina Zhukovsky was nobody! She appeared so small in the picture, insignificant, and yet she loomed so very, very big in this courtroom. If Nina had known her as her brother did, would she like her as a woman or pity her as a victim?
While the D.A. returned the photo to a file, Alex grabbed for the carafe of water in front of him, poured, and drank. “Yes, I went to the police station.” He had been shown his father’s body first, what remained of it. He described what he saw, the skull, the eyebrows, the silver hair lying in strings over a dark serge suit. Bones, loosely assembled. Fine shreds of his white collar, tatters that had once been sleeves. Bits of a sash across his chest, bearing the distinctive three black strips on a yellow background, which Zhukovsky said he well remembered. But the medal of Saint George? It was gone by the time he saw his father’s body.
All this he confirmed, remembering, wiping wetness from his brow. Maybe he was having a heart attack, Nina thought.
Stefan hardly blinked at Alex Zhukovsky’s testimony, even though several of the jurors appeared squeamish at many of the details. What a self-absorbed, overgrown adolescent he must be,
