Chapter 18
HOFFMAN STOOD AS COURT was called to order and the jury filed in. He retook his seat, thinking about juror number three, Valerie Truman, the single mother who worked at a library and earned a thousandth of what Candace Martin made in a year. And he thought of number seven, William Breitling, a retired golf pro with a ton of charisma. Breitling wasn’t the foreman, but Hoffman believed he could influence the jury.
When Judge LaVan asked Hoffman if he was ready to present his case, he said that he was and walked from his seat beside Candace Martin directly to the jury box.
He rested his hand on the railing, greeted the jurors, and began.
“Yesterday, the prosecution gave their opening statement. I think Ms. Castellano did a pretty good job, but she left out a couple of important points. For starters, Dr. Martin is innocent.”
William Breitling smiled with a full set of veneers, and Hoffman felt the ice melt in the jury box.
“Here’s what happened on the evening of September fourteenth,” Hoffman said. “Dr. Martin had just come home from the hospital. She had successfully repaired a man’s heart that day and she was satisfied that her patient was going to recover completely.
“She said hello to each of her children, then went down the hall to her home office to call the patient’s wife.
“Dr. Martin had removed her glasses so she could rub her eyes and was about to make the call when she heard what sounded like shots coming from the foyer.
“The shots startled her and she knocked her glasses to the floor. This is one of those important points I mentioned.”
Hoffman walked the length of the jury box, touching the rail now and then for emphasis. The jurors followed him with their eyes as he described how his client had found her husband lying on the floor, saw the blood, and, after checking, discovered that Dennis Martin had no vital signs.
“When she looked up, she saw someone, an intruder, who was in the shadows of the foyer. Dr. Martin couldn’t make out the intruder’s face and she was terrified. She shouted in surprise, and the intruder dropped his gun and ran. My client picked the gun up and ran after him, through the front door and out onto the front steps.
“Dr. Martin had never fired a gun before, but she let off a couple of shots into the air. She hit nothing. That is how she got gunshot residue on her hands.
“Immediately after firing those shots, Dr. Martin went back into her house and called the police. That is the act of an innocent person,” Hoffman said.
“The prosecution says that Dennis Martin was a philandering rat but that being a rat isn’t a crime punishable by death. Well, that’s true. And Dr. Martin knew it. She also knew that her marriage was going through a bad spell. She, too, was having an affair.
“She wasn’t jealous. She figured the marriage would right itself in due course or it would end. She was prepared for either outcome.
“Candace Martin is a modern and successful woman. She isn’t a Pollyanna and she isn’t the Orange Blossom princess, but she is a highly respected cardiac surgeon and a marvelous mother, and she also loved her husband.”
Hoffman turned toward his client.
“I want you to look at her now,” he said to the jurors, “and see her for what she is: the victim of an overworked police department that took the easy solution — blame the spouse. And she’s being tried by an overzealous prosecutor who, for her own reasons, needs to score a big win.”
Chapter 19
YUKI FELT PHIL HOFFMAN’S smash return right between her eyes. Holy crap. Hoffman’s shot at her was outrageous and maybe even defamatory. She had a flash fantasy of making an objection: “Your Honor, opposing counsel is freaking desperate and should be thrown out of the court.”
Nick Gaines, Yuki’s second chair and wingman, pushed a notepad toward her.0784 He was a gifted cartoonist and in a few strokes had captured a lanky Phil Hoffman grabbing at his throat and a stick-figure Yuki with a slingshot and a title: “Underdog.”
Yuki pushed the pad back to Gaines. She got his point. The jury would like her more as a result of Hoffman’s low blow. She would overcome the slam. As for now she reminded herself, “Never let ’em see you sweat.”
She stood and said, “Your Honor, will you please remind the jury that opening statements are not evidence?”
“Consider it done, Ms. Castellano,” LaVan said with a sigh.
Yuki’s first witness was the uniformed patrolman who answered the radio call to the Martins’ house. Officer Patrick Lawrence testified that he was only blocks away and had arrived with his partner within a minute of the call. He said that he had interviewed Dr. Martin and kept her company as the EMS arrived and until Inspector Chi of Homicide and Lieutenant Clapper of the Crime Scene Unit took possession of the scene.
Yuki established that Dr. Martin seemed in control of her emotions and that because of Officer Lawrence’s quick arrival, Candace Martin hadn’t had a chance to wash her hands or clean up the crime scene.
After Officer Lawrence left the stand, Yuki called private investigator Joseph Podesta, and he was sworn in. Podesta was a neat and pleasant-looking man in his fifties who had been hired by Dennis Martin to snoop on his wife.
Yuki questioned Podesta on his credentials, and he told the jury that he had been an investigator for the district attorney in Sacramento for twelve years and a private investigator, first in Chicago and currently in San Francisco, for a combined twenty years.
“Why did Dennis Martin hire you, Mr. Podesta?” Yuki asked.
“Mr. Martin knew that his wife was having an affair and he wanted pictures of them, uh, in flagrante delicto.”
“Did you get pictures of the defendant with her lover?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you learn anything else during the time she was the subject of your investigation?” Yuki asked.
“Yes.”
“Please tell us what you learned.”
“On one of the nights I was tailing her, Candace Martin met with a man I believe to be a contract killer.”
A rumble came up from the gallery, and Hoffman shot to his feet with an objection.
“Your Honor, this is pure hearsay. How can this witness know that the man he says he saw is a contract killer? If he was so sure, why didn’t he call the police? Instead, the State is using this extremely dubious testimony to impugn the reputation of a heart surgeon. How does this make any sense?”
The judge quieted the room with two hard bangs of his gavel and said, “I’d like to hear this, Mr. Hoffman.”
When she could speak again, Yuki asked, “You have proof of this meeting, Mr. Podesta?”
“I followed Dr. Martin from her house in St. Francis Wood to Hunters Point. I followed her to Davidson Avenue. That’s a dead end. A late-model Toyota SUV was parked at the end of the street, where it butts up against the I-280 overpass. This is a bad neighborhood, but I was able to watch without being seen.”
“Go on, Mr. Podesta.”
“The meeting was clearly clandestine,” Podesta said. “I took photographs of Dr. Martin getting into this SUV. When I downloaded them onto my computer later, I thought I’d seen the man’s face before.”
“And what happened next?”
“Two weeks later Dennis Martin was murdered.”
“What did you do, Mr. Podesta?”
“I compared my picture of the man in the SUV to pictures on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. In my opinion, the man I saw talking to Dr. Martin was Gregor Guzman.”
“And why is Mr. Guzman on the FBI list?”
“Your Honor. Is this witness an FBI agent? What the —?”
“Sit down, Mr. Hoffman. The witness may answer to the best of his knowledge.”
“Gregor Guzman is wanted on suspicion of murder in California as well as a few other states and other countries. He’s never been arrested. I contacted the FBI three times, but no one ever got back to me.”
Yuki introduced the photograph of Candace Martin sitting in a dark sports ut
ility vehicle with a balding man with a shock of hair at the front of his scalp. It was a grainy photo, taken with a long lens at night, but it appeared as Podesta described it.
“Thank you,” Yuki said. “That’s all I have for you, Mr. Podesta.”
Chapter 20
“YOUR HONOR, SIDEBAR?” Hoffman said stiffly.
The judge waved the two attorneys in toward the bench and said, “Go ahead, Mr. Hoffman.”
“Your Honor, this witness is a private investigator. He’s not even a cop. His testimony is pure guesswork. Where is this so-called hit man? Why isn’t he on the witness list? How do we know why my client was seeing this man, or even if this person is who the witness says he is?”
“Ms. Castellano?”
“Mr. Podesta didn’t say he was an expert witness. He followed the defendant, who got into a car with a man who resembles Gregor Guzman. Mr. Podesta took pictures of a clandestine meeting between them. He compared the picture of the man in the SUV with photos of Gregor Guzman issued by the FBI. He made a match — in his opinion. That’s his testimony.”
“Mr. Hoffman, I’ve heard you. Now, please cross-examine the witness,” LaVan said.
Phil Hoffman addressed Joseph Podesta from his seat beside his client, trying to show the jury how little regard he had for the witness.
“Mr. Podesta, I don’t know which piece of fiction to begin with. Okay, I’ve got it,” he said before Yuki could object.
“First, have you ever worked for the FBI?”
“No.”
“Do you have any specialized training in the identification of contract killers?”
“I have a very good eye.”
“That wasn’t my question, Mr. Podesta. Do you have any specialized training in the identification of contract killers? Did you get this man’s fingerprints? Did you get his DNA? Do you have a tape recording of this assumed conversation?”
“Objection,” Yuki said. “Which question does counsel want the witness to answer?”
“I’ll withdraw all of them,” Hoffman said, “but I object to this exhibit. The quality of this photograph stinks and it proves nothing. In fact, I object to this entire testimony and move that it be stricken from the record.”
“Overruled,” said the judge. “If you’re finished questioning this witness, Mr. Hoffman, he may step down.”
Chapter 21
“THE PEOPLE CALL Ellen Lafferty,” Yuki said.
The doors opened at the back, and a pretty, auburn-haired woman in her early twenties wearing a tight blue suit and a blouse with a bow at the neck came into the courtroom and walked down the aisle. She passed through the gate to the witness stand, where she was sworn in.
“Are you employed by Candace and the late Dennis Martin?” Yuki asked her witness.
“I am.”
“In what capacity?”
“I am the children’s nanny. I work days and live out.”
“How long have you worked in the Martin house?” Yuki asked.
“Just about three years.”
Yuki nodded encouragingly. “In your opinion, what was the state of the Martin marriage?” she asked.
“In a word,” Lafferty said, “explosive.”
“Could you give us a couple more words?”
“They hated each other,” said the nanny. “Dennis wanted to divorce Candace, and she was furious about it. She once told me she thought getting a divorce would be messy. It would hurt her children as well as her standing in the medical community.”
“I see,” Yuki said. The witness was describing a marriage held together by practical considerations rather than love, and Yuki knew the jury would understand that.
“Were you in the Martin house on the day that Dennis Martin was killed?”
“Yes. I was,” Lafferty said. She had kept her eyes on Yuki until this moment, but now she swung her gaze toward the defendant and fixed it there.
“Did something remarkable happen that evening?”
“Absolutely.”
“Please go on.”
Lafferty turned back to Yuki.
“I was getting ready to leave for the day. It was six o’clock and I was going to meet a girlfriend at Dow’s Imperial Chinese at six-fifteen. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and I was really looking forward to seeing her.”
“Go on,” Yuki said.
Lafferty said, “I was putting on my lipstick when Dr. Martin came home. She had a funny look on her face. Distracted, or maybe angry. I went into her office to ask her if everything was okay, and when I got there, she was putting a handgun in her desk drawer.”
“You’re sure it was a gun?” Yuki asked.
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Did Dr. Martin ever tell you she wished her husband were dead?”
“Many times. Too many to count.”
“Too many to count,” Yuki said pointedly to the jury.
“And did Mr. Martin tell you about his feelings for his wife?”
“He said she was cold. He used to say that he didn’t trust her.”
“Thank you, Ms. Lafferty. That’s all I have for this witness.”
Hoffman stood, his chair scraping noisily against the oak floor. He put his hands in his pockets and approached the witness, who stiffened her shoulders and looked up at him.
“Ellen. May I call you Ellen?”
“No. I’d rather you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry. Ms. Lafferty. Did you think Dr. Martin was going to kill her husband?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“So, if you thought she was going to commit murder and you saw Dr. Martin with a weapon, why didn’t you call the police?”
Yuki watched Lafferty’s righteous indignation melt into an expression of grief.
She said, almost begging Hoffman and the jury to understand, “I wasn’t thinking about her that night. I was in a hurry. In hindsight, I should have called the police or warned Mr. Martin. I blame myself. If I’d done something, Mr. Martin would still be alive and the children would still have their father.”
The little boy’s wail cut through the air like a siren: “Elllllll-ennnnnnnn.”
The witness leaned forward in her chair and called out across the well of the courtroom, “Duncan. Baby. I’m right here, sweetie.”
That’s when Judge LaVan went nuts.
Chapter 22
YUKI TOOK THE ELEVATOR up to the DA’s offices, her mind still busy with the sound of the child’s scream and Judge LaVan’s reaction.
Christ. It was as if Duncan Martin had yelled, “Stop beating me!” There was a good chance Hoffman’s sympathy ploy had worked.
Yuki left her briefcase in her windowless office, made her way to the corner office facing Bryant Street, and knocked on the open door.
Leonard Parisi, deputy district attorney and her direct superior, asked her to come in and sit down.
Parisi had been nicknamed Red Dog for his thick red hair and his unshakable determination. He was a large, pear-shaped man of fifty with coarse skin and clogged arteries, but the expression on his face was just beautiful.
He was smiling. At her.
“I peeked in this morning. Saw your examination of that private eye. Fantastic job, Yuki,” he said. “I’m impressed.”
“Thanks, Len. LaVan just called us into chambers,” Yuki said, taking the chair in front of his desk.
“Oh? What was that about?”
“Hoffman had the defendant’s kids in the courtroom, half to gain sympathy from the jury, half to rattle me. I objected, but LaVan overruled me.
“So I’ve got the Martins’ nanny on the stand, and she says if she’d called the police on Candace, Dennis would still be alive. And, Len, the little boy just screams for his nanny. Nanny calls out to him from the stand, ‘There, there, I’m here, baby.’”
“Huh, huh, huh,” Parisi grunted sympathetically.
“Court’s adjourned for the day. The judge says to me and Hoffman, ‘You two. See you in back.’ He tells Hoffma
n, any more out of the kids, he’s barring them from the courthouse.”
“Good. LaVan doesn’t kid around.”
“Len, tell me what you make of this. Hoffman came up to me afterward,” Yuki told her boss. “He said, ‘You know, Ellen Lafferty’s testimony was a pack of lies.’ I said, ‘Well, I sure didn’t see that on cross.’ Hoffman wanted to talk to me about it, but I didn’t have time. I knew it was just going to be more of his B.S.”
“Sure. He’s trying to mess with your head, Yuki. Shake your confidence. Disrupt your momentum, that SOB. Listen, switching gears, I’ve been wanting to tell you. Craig Jasper is leaving. Moving to San Diego at the end of the month.”
Craig Jasper was a bright light in the department and had been Parisi’s protégé. Yuki told Red Dog she was sorry, but he waved the comment away.
“I see opportunities for you, Yuki. You just need a couple of wins under your belt.”
Yuki’s face brightened and she nodded. She would love to get an upgrade in status and pay grade. It was really time. The Martin case had been important a minute ago, and it just got more important.
“I’ve got a good feeling about this case,” she said, standing to leave.
“Me, too,” said Red Dog. And he smiled again.
Yuki fixed her makeup in the bathroom at the end of the hallway. She was psyched at the idea of the job and more responsibility, but it also meant more pressure. And she already had no shortage of that.
She had a date later with a guy who was almost too gorgeous for her. She hoped she could calm down and not talk too much, not scare the guy off.
They had a lot in common. The guy was a cop.
Chapter 23
I WAS LEAVING for the day when Phil Hoffman galloped up to me in the all-day lot across from the Hall. I like Hoffman, even though his job is getting off killers and perverts and other living human garbage. He was one of the few criminal defense attorneys I’d met who could actually pull off this kind of dirty work without acting smug about it.
On the other hand, Yuki was locked in mortal combat with Hoffman and she was my friend.
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