Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

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.”