“Yeah, but now he’s sitting right behind me. And I’m making eye contact with him because that’s all I can do. And I hear Davis say she’s calling Junie Moon to the stand, and the judge says, ‘First we’re going to recess for lunch.’ And Red Dog pushes back his chair, pinning me chest to nose with that creep, Twilly.
“And Twilly sneers. And my stomach clenches and my skin gets cold and he whispers, ‘Point, Davis.’
“Omigod, and so Red Dog turns and gives me that withering look again, and I’m not going to lose this case over the testimony of that shrink, am I, Lindsay, am I? Because I’ll tell you, that just can’t happen.”
“It won’t -”
“Right. It won’t,” Yuki said through her teeth, slamming her fist down on her desk. “Because the jury’s going to see the truth, and they’ve got to come to one of two conclusions.
“Either Junie Moon is guilty. Or she’s guilty as sin.”
Chapter 79
THE STANFORD MALL was an open-air dream market with shops grouped on narrow lanes, embedded in gardens. And what shops they were: the big stores Neiman and Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s, and the high-end boutiques Armani, Benetton, Louis Vuitton.
Hawk and Pidge had taken a seat on a bench outside the Polo shop, surrounded by a small forest of potted topiary, aromas of flowers and coffee wafting all around them. It was a Saturday, and great masses of designer-clad shoppers were out, parading down the little walkways past Pidge and Hawk, swinging their shopping bags, stopping to admire Ralph Lauren’s windows.
Pidge had a video camera about the size of a deck of cards and was filming the parade. If anyone asked what he was doing, he’d tell them the truth – or part of it, anyway. He was in the computer video lab at Stanford. He was making a documentary.
But what he wouldn’t say is that he and Hawk were looking for the winners. The biggest, piggiest oink-oinks of the day.
They had two sets of contestants in mind.
Both couples had college stickers on the rear windows of their cars. They were primo candidates. It was going to be hard to choose, but once Hawk and Pidge had agreed on the winning couple, they would follow them to where they lived and check out their home.
Which one?
The rich and fatty couple loaded down with bags imprinted with designer logos? Or the older, more athletic pair, dressed ostentatiously, sipping lattes as they wandered along the avenues of gluttony.
Pidge was reviewing the footage when the security guard approached. He was late forties, blue uniform with a badge on his breast pocket, a hat, a gun, and a swagger. Every guy in a uniform these days thought he was a U.S. Marine.
“Hi, guys,” the guard said affably. “You can’t take pictures in here. Sign’s right over there.”
“Ah,” said Pidge. He stood. At six two he towered over the guard, so that the smaller man had to step back. “These aren’t pictures. This is a movie. A documentary for school. I can show you my student ID.”
“Doesn’t matter that you’re in school,” the guard said. “For security reasons, no picture taking is allowed. Now you have to either put that thing away or I’ll have to escort you out of here.”
“You dipshit rent-a-cop,” Hawk muttered.
“We’re sorry, sir,” said Pidge, stepping in front of his friend. “We’re going.”
But it was annoying. Hours spent doing their surveillance and now, no winner.
“Gotta make a pit stop,” Pidge said.
The two ducked into the men’s facilities, and Pidge unzipped in front of a urinal. When he’d finished, Hawk took out a book of matches. He lit three or four of them together and tossed them into the waste bin.
They were out in the parking lot when they heard the cry of the sirens on the freeway. They sat in Pidge’s car and watched as the firefighters braked near the Frog Pond, unfurled their hoses, and streamed into the mall.
Many hundreds of customers streamed out.
“I sure love a good fire,” Hawk said.
“Always makes my day,” said Pidge.
Part Four. HOT PROPERTY
Chapter 80
I WAS HEADING “HOME” to Joe’s apartment, battling rush-hour traffic, when my cell phone rang. I jacked the phone off my hip, heard Yuki’s voice screaming my name.
“Lindsay! He’s stalking me.”
“Who? Who’s stalking you?”
“That freak! Jason Twilly.”
“Slow down. Back up. What do you mean ‘stalking’?”
I jerked the wheel left at the intersection of Townsend and Seventh instead of taking a right toward my former apartment on the Hill. It felt like I was swimming against the tide.
Yuki’s voice was shrill. “Stalking as in haunting me, dogging me. Ten minutes ago, he was sitting in the passenger seat of my car!”
“He broke into your car?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember if I locked it. I was carrying like a fifty-pound -”
The signal cut out. I hit speed dial, got Yuki’s outgoing message, disconnected, tried again.
“Fifty-pound what?” I called into the crackle.
“Fifty-pound box of files. I just got my key into the door lock when this arm reached over from inside the car and pushed the door open for me.”
“Before this car thing, did you tell him to leave you alone?”
“Yes! Did I ever!”
“Okay, then, it’s illegal for him to be inside your car,” I said, negotiating a lane switch, passing a rental car whose driver leaned on the horn and gave me the finger.
“You ready to swear out a complaint?” I asked Yuki. “He’s going to go public. So think about it.”
There was a moment of static-filled silence as Yuki considered the media ramifications.
“This guy is sick, Linds. He talks to me like I’m a character in his book. He’s twisted and maybe dangerous. He got into my car. What’s next?”
“Okay,” I said, pulling over to the curb. I took out my notepad and wrote down what Yuki had told me.
“You’re going to have to go to civil court in the morning, get a restraining order,” I said. “But effective now you’ve filed a police report.”
“Tomorrow morning? Lindsay, Jason Twilly wants to scare the hell out of me – and he’s doing it!”
Chapter 81
WHEN I REACHED Twilly’s suite on the fifth floor of the St. Regis Hotel, he was waiting in the doorway, a cockeyed grin on his face, his hair disheveled and shirt untucked and unbuttoned. The fire exit door slammed at the end of the softly lit hallway. My guess, it was Twilly’s paid-by-the-hour guest leaving in a hurry.
I showed Twilly my badge, and he fastened his eyes on the V of my tank top, skimmed the cut of my jeans, then took a slow return trip back to my face. Meanwhile, I was taking in his amazing room – leather-textured walls, a window seat with a great view of San Francisco. Very impressive.
“Working undercover, Sergeant?” Twilly leered.
He’d scared Yuki with this act, but it enraged me.
“I don’t think we’ve met, Mr. Twilly. I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer,” I said, putting out my hand. He grasped it in a handshake and I pulled his arm forward, twisted it high up behind his back, and pushed his face against the wall.
“Give me your other hand,” I said. “Do it, now.”
“You’re joking.”
“Other hand.”
I cuffed him, frisked him fast and rough, saying, “You’re under arrest for criminal trespass. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.” When I finished informing Twilly of his rights, I answered his question: “What’s this about?”
“It’s about your illegal entry into ADA Yuki Castellano’s car. She’s filed a police report, and by noon tomorrow she’ll have a restraining order against you.”
“Whoa, whoa! This is the biggest deal about nothing I’ve ever heard. Her arms were full! I opened her car door to help her!”
“Tell it to your lawyer,” I snapped. I had one ha
nd on Twilly’s arm, my cell phone in my other, and was about to call for backup.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Is Yuki claiming that I’m harassing her? Because that’s crap. I admit I provoked her a little, applied a little pressure just to get her going. I’m a journalist. We do that. Look. If I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Can we talk? Please?”
I’d checked Twilly out, and his record was clean. I had a moment of free fall as my anger evaporated. A stern warning would have been appropriate. Now that I’d cuffed him – that media flap Cindy had warned Yuki about?
It was going to go down.
I could already see Twilly spinning this “bust” to Larry King, Tucker Carlson, Access Hollywood. It would be bad news for Yuki, bad for me, but it would be stupendous publicity for Twilly.
“Sergeant?”
I had to hit rewind. I had to try.
“You want to avoid a court appearance, Mr. Twilly? Leave Yuki Castellano alone. Don’t sit behind her in court. Don’t tail her in supermarkets. Don’t enter her car or premises, and we’ll put this incident aside.
“Yuki files another complaint? I’m taking you in. Are we clear?”
“Totally,” he said. “ Crystal.”
“Good.”
I unlocked the cuffs and started to leave.
“Wait!” Twilly said. He stepped into the other room, with its aqua-striped wallpaper and canopied bed. He snatched a pen and pad from the bowlegged writing desk and said, “I want to make sure I got this right.”
He scribbled notes, then recited my speech back to me, verbatim.
“That was really excellent stuff you just said, Sergeant. Who do you think should play you in the movie?”
He was screwing with me.
I left Twilly’s suite feeling as though I’d been smacked in the face with a shit pie – and I’d done it to myself. Damn it to hell. Maybe I’d jammed myself up, and maybe I was wrong to cuff him, but it didn’t mean that Jason Twilly wasn’t crazy.
And it didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
Chapter 82
JOE AND I had a takeout dinner from Le Soleil and were in bed by ten. My eyes flew open at exactly 3:04, the digits projected on the ceiling keeping track of the time as my sickening night thoughts churned.
An image of Twilly’s sneer had awakened me, but his face dissolved, and in its place I saw the burned and twisted corpses on Claire’s table. And I remembered the dulled eyes of a young girl who’d been orphaned by a nameless teenage boy who might now be lying awake in his bed, planning another horror show.
How many more people would die before we found him?
Or would he beat us at this sick game?
I thought of the fire that had consumed my home, my possessions, my sense of security. And I thought about Joe, how much I loved Joe. I’d wanted him to move to San Francisco so that we could make a life together – and we were doing it through thick and thin. Why couldn’t I take him up on that big Italian wedding he’d proposed and maybe start a family?
I would be thirty-nine in a few months.
What was I waiting for?
I listened to Joe’s breathing, and in a while my rapid nightmare heart thuds slowed and I started drifting off. I turned away from Joe, gripped a pillow in my arms – and the mattress shifted as Joe turned toward me. He enfolded me in his arms, tucked his knees up behind mine.
“Bad dream?” he asked me.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I forget the dream, but when I woke up, I thought about a lot of dead people.”
“Dead people in general? Or real dead people?”
“Real ones,” I said.
“Want to talk about it?”
“I would – but they’ve slunk back to the pit they came from. Hey, I’m sorry, Joe. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s okay. Try to sleep.”
It took a second to understand that that was a dare.
Joe moved my hair away from the back of my neck and kissed me there. I gasped, shocked at the charge that his soft kiss sent through my body.
I hadn’t expected to feel this tonight.
I rolled over, looked into Joe’s face, saw the glint of his smile by the soft blue light of the clock. I put my hands on his face and kissed him hard, searching for an answer I couldn’t find inside myself. He reached his arms around me, but I pushed them away.
“No,” I said. “Let me.”
I put all of my tormenting thoughts aside. I tugged off Joe’s boxers, interlaced my fingers through his, pressed his hands against the pillows. He moaned as I lowered myself onto him and then I eased off, kissed him until he went crazy. Then I rode him, rode him, rode him, until he couldn’t wait another second – and neither could I. There was the undeniable pull of the undertow, before I was released by great cascading waves of pleasure.
I collapsed onto Joe’s chest, my knees still on either side of his body, my cheek resting over his pounding heart. He stroked my back and I told him I loved him. I remember him kissing my forehead, pulling the blanket up over my shoulders as I drifted off with him still inside me.
Oh, my God.
It was just so good with Joe.
Chapter 83
YUKI STUDIED JUNIE MOON as she was sworn in by the bailiff.
Defendants weren’t required to testify. It couldn’t be held against them if they didn’t, and it rarely helped when they did. So it was very risky to put your client on the stand. No matter how well rehearsed, there was no way to know if your client was going to go rogue, or get flustered, or laugh at the wrong time, or in some unique way prejudice the jury against her.
But Davis was putting Junie Moon on the stand. And the citizens of San Francisco and trial watchers across the country were dying to hear what she would say. Junie’s white blouse hung from her shoulders and her plain blue skirt billowed around her calves. She’d lost weight in jail – a lot of it – and when Junie raised her right hand to take the oath, Yuki saw vivid bruising on her forearm.
Spectators gasped and murmured. And now Yuki understood why Davis had risked everything she’d gained to have her client testify. Junie looked nothing like a whore and a ghoul.
She looked like a victim.
Junie swore to tell the truth, stepped up to the witness stand, and sat with her hands in her lap, smiling trustingly as Davis approached.
“How are you doing?” Davis asked.
“In jail, you mean?”
“Yes. Are you doing okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m fine.”
Davis nodded, said, “Good. And how old are you, Junie?”
“I’ll be twenty-three next month.”
“And when did you start turning tricks?” Davis asked.
“When I was fourteen,” Junie said softly.
“And how did that come about?”
“My stepdad turned me out.”
“Do you mean that your stepfather prostituted you? That he was your pimp?”
“I guess you could call him that. He was having sex with me from the time I was about twelve. Later on, he brought his friends over and they had sex with me, too.”
“Did you ever report your stepfather for rape or child abuse, anything like that?”
“No, ma’am. He said it was how I paid my rent.”
“Is your stepfather here today?”
“No. He died three years ago.”
“And your mother? Where is she?”
“She’s doing time. For dealing.”
“I see,” Davis said. “So, Junie, you’re a bright enough girl. Did you really have to be a prostitute? Couldn’t you have gotten a job in a restaurant or a department store? Maybe worked in an office?”
Junie cleared her throat, said quietly, “Doing sex is the only thing I’ve ever known, and I don’t really mind. It’s like, for a little time every day, I feel close to someone.”
“Having sex with strangers makes you feel close?”
Junie smiled. “I know it’s not real, but it makes me feel good for a
while.”
Davis paused to let the tragedy of the vulnerable young woman’s story wash over the jury. Then she said, “Junie, please tell the jury: Did you ever have sex with Michael Campion?”
“No, I did not. Absolutely never!”
“So why did you tell the police that you did?”
“I guess I wanted to please them, so I told them what they wanted to hear. I… that’s the kind of person I am.”
“Thank you, Junie. Your witness,” Davis said.
Chapter 84
YUKI HAD A THOUGHT. It was stark, simple, irrefutable.
When Junie took the stand in her own defense, she had come across so frail and so helpless, it would be best for Yuki to say, “I have no questions,” get the woman off the stand. Then tear her apart in summation.
Nicky Gaines passed Yuki a note from Red Dog. She read it as Judge Bendinger snapped the rubber band on his wrist impatiently, then said, “Ms. Castellano? Are you planning to cross?”
Parisi’s note was short. Three words. “Go get her.”
Yuki shook her head no, whispered across Gaines to Parisi, “We should take a pass.”
Parisi scowled, said, “Want me to do it?”
So much for irrefutable. Red Dog had spoken. Yuki stood, picked up the photocopy of the acknowledgment of rights form, and walked toward the witness stand.
“Ms. Moon,” Yuki said without preamble, “this is an acknowledgment of rights form. Do you remember it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And you can read and write, can’t you?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Okay, then. This form was presented to you by Sergeant Lindsay Boxer and Inspector Richard Conklin when you were interviewed at the police station on April nineteenth.
“It says here, ‘Before we ask you any questions you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.’ And here’s a set of initials. Are they yours?”
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