16th Seduction

by Patterson, James

  Would he remember Grant’s confession?

  Could he stand up to Grant’s cross-examination?

  I wouldn’t even be allowed in the courtroom to see and hear him for myself.

  I called Yuki.

  “You did fine, Lindsay.”

  “Hah. Let me know how it goes for Joe,” I said.

  “Will do,” said Yuki.

  CHAPTER 36

  THE COURT OFFICER opened the doors, and Yuki watched Joe Molinari enter the courtroom in a wheelchair, pushing the wheels with his hands. When he reached the witness box, the bailiff brought the Bible to him and swore him in.

  Joe asked for assistance.

  He leaned on the bailiff’s arm, pulled himself to his feet, and hopped a short way, then hoisted himself into the chair a step up from the floor.

  Yuki thought that Joe truly looked like a victim of the explosion. Not only was he unable to walk, his hair had grown back enough to highlight the terrible scars on the back of his head.

  She felt tears coming into her eyes as she looked at him.

  Parisi approached Joe and thanked him for coming to court in person rather than being televised by closed-circuit TV.

  Joe said, “No problem. Glad to do it.”

  Len asked, “Mr. Molinari, what’s your occupation?”

  “I’m an independent security contractor.”

  “What kind of work did you do before you went out on your own?”

  Joe thought for a second and then said, “I was deputy director of Homeland Security, and both before and after that I was a senior agent with the FBI.”

  “How would you rate your observational abilities before your recent injuries?”

  “I would rate them as exceptional.” Joe hesitated a beat, then said, “And after my injuries also.”

  “You suffered brain trauma in the second blast at Sci-Tron, isn’t that right?”

  “Correct.”

  Yuki waited for him to continue. His memory was fine. He was articulate. But his responses were slow.

  Joe said, “I’ve had several MRIs and a lot of testing, and my cognitive faculties are intact.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Molinari. Judge Hoffman, I wish to enter exhibits 1 through 9, medical documentation and certification by neurologists and psychologists that Mr. Molinari has no mental incapacity or defect as the result of his injuries.”

  “Go ahead,” said the judge.

  The material was entered.

  Joe looked over at Yuki. Their eyes met. He smiled.

  Parisi moved back toward Joe and asked him, “Do you remember the evening of the bomb incident on Pier 15?”

  “Like it just happened.”

  “Do you remember hearing the defendant, Mr. Connor Grant, describing his role in the bombing to your wife, Homicide sergeant Lindsay Boxer?”

  “I do.”

  “Could you tell the court what Mr. Grant told Sergeant Boxer and yourself?”

  “Yes. She asked him if he’d seen the explosion. He said, ‘Did I see it? I created this—this magnificent event. This is my work.’ Sergeant Boxer asked him his name, and he told us and he described himself as a genius, a creator of beauty. He asked if we had seen all of it. The mushroom cloud. The color of sundown on the glass. He said he gave himself extra points for that.”

  Parisi said, “Do you remember anything else he said?”

  “I do. Sergeant Boxer asked him again, ‘Are you saying you bombed Sci-Tron?’ And he said, ‘Exactly.’ He was emphatic. And he added that if we needed to know why, he said that beauty didn’t need a reason.”

  Parisi asked, “Did you believe this confession?”

  There was a moment of silence. Yuki didn’t breathe as she watched Joe disappear into his memory. And then he snapped his eyes back to Len’s.

  “Yes, I believed him. Mr. Grant confessed, confessed again, gave his reasons for blowing up the museum, and bragged about what a fine job he’d done, how proud he was that he had done it. He was convincing, and despite the fact that, in my opinion, what he did was crazy, he sounded sane to me.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Molinari. Your Honor, I have no more questions for this witness.”

  CHAPTER 37

  YUKI SAW CONNOR Grant speak to Elise Antonelli from behind his hand, and after a moment Judge Hoffman asked, “Mr. Grant, do you wish to cross-examine the witness?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Yes, I do.”

  Grant got up, crossed the room to the witness box, and said, “Mr. Molinari, first, I’m sorry that you were injured. You must still be in a lot of pain.”

  Joe said, “I can handle it.”

  Grant went on.

  “Do you love your wife?”

  Parisi yelled, “Objection, Your Honor. Irrelevant and out of line because it has nothing to do with anything.”

  Grant said, “Goes to the veracity of his testimony, Your Honor.”

  “Overruled, Mr. Parisi. Mr. Molinari, please answer.”

  “Yes. I love my wife.”

  Grant said, “So if your wife said to you, ‘Joe, this is what Connor Grant said to me,’ and you actually didn’t remember hearing anything, you’d be inclined to support your wife, wouldn’t you?”

  “Are you asking me if I’m lying?”

  “Are you?”

  “I am not.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Grant went on. “Did you record my so-called admission?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see me run from the building?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that my so-called confession could have been the dazed mumbling of a stunned bystander—me? Is it possible that your wife made the confession up and you’re just backing her to the hilt?”

  Parisi roared his objection. The judge sustained it. Parisi moved to strike the defendant’s last question, and Hoffman asked the court reporter to so strike. Connor Grant apologized and said that he had no more questions.

  Grant looked quite smug when he returned to his seat, and Yuki understood why. He’d made his point. Then he’d drilled in on it. And he’d concluded his questioning with the simple message that Joe’s corroboration was a feature of his marriage, not his memory.

  Joe’s testimony had been terrific.

  Would the jury believe him?

  Yuki’s silent mantra started up without prompting.

  You’re prepared. Len’s the best. The case is solid. Trust the jury.

  CHAPTER 38

  YUKI, LEN, AND I sat around the big man’s desk with our sandwiches, accompanied by the sounds of traffic whizzing by on Bryant.

  As a witness, I wasn’t allowed inside the courtroom except to give my testimony, but Yuki filled me in on what I’d missed, crowing, “Linds, Joe was perfect. He got it all right, and being a victim of the blast added to his credibility. I wish you could have seen him.”

  Yuki was pumped. Len was confident. I was bummed that Grant had chopped my testimony into pieces with four short, sharp questions.

  “Geez, that’s great. What a relief. And by the way, I want a do-over.”

  “You were fine,” said Red Dog. “You laid it out. The jury got you. Grant’s cross didn’t hurt you, Lindsay.”

  “No,” I said. “So why am I worried?”

  Yuki said, “You’re worried about our lack of physical evidence. Can’t be helped. God knows we turned over every stone—his house, his friends, his story, the pier. Still, if there hadn’t been such a public outcry, if we’d had more time, maybe we could have found something physical in that vast pile of wreckage on Pier 15.”

  I nodded. I understood the pressure. The bombing of Sci-Tron had been worldwide news when it happened and was superheated now because of the trial. Reporters were ambushing court workers in the parking lot. Clogging the street with their satellite trucks. Calling us at all hours for quotes. Until a political or celebrity scandal or an even bigger tragedy pushed the bombing off the front page, the media would feed the beast at our expense.

  And there was also i
nternal pressure to move smartly ahead and get a conviction. Parisi was up for reelection this year. So was the mayor.

  “You think we missed something?” I asked.

  Parisi’s brow wrinkled and he put down his grilled cheese to answer me.

  “No. I don’t, or I would have put the brakes on this thing. Lindsay, you know as well as we do, the city had to crash that crime scene quickly. Had to search for survivors and bodies. Had to reopen the piers and the street. Look, there’s no way that nutjob committed the perfect crime. He’s going away. For good.”

  “Better believe it,” Yuki said.

  When I’d handed Connor Grant off to the squad car in front of Pier 15 two months before, I’d been sure we had the right guy headed for a probable slam-dunk conviction. That was once upon a time, long, long ago.

  Parisi chucked pickles and used paper goods into the trash. He checked the time on the wall clock with the growling red bulldog graphic on its face, and then he addressed my concern again.

  “Lindsay. Juries do what they do. Our case is good and it’s the case we have.”

  “I know.”

  I believed in Parisi and Yuki. I also believed in Connor Grant’s shrewdness. His audacious crime reminded me of the Boston Marathon bombing, with one exception. Connor Grant didn’t run and hide.

  It hit me for the first time.

  Yuki read my expression.

  “What is it, Lindsay?”

  “New thought. Grant wanted to be caught. He stood there. He confessed to a cop. Maybe this trial is part of his ‘magnificent masterwork.’”

  Len said, “Then he’s going to have a lot of time in a cage to think about what he did wrong.”

  CHAPTER 39

  COURT RESUMED AND Judge Hoffman asked the People to call their next witness.

  Yuki called Charles Clapper, director of San Francisco’s forensics lab. After Clapper had been sworn in, Yuki asked him preliminary questions: his title, the scope of his job, his background in forensics. Then she asked him to tell about the defendant’s garage laboratory.

  Yuki asked, “Were there bomb-making materials in Mr. Grant’s lab?”

  “Yes. We found implements and chemicals that could be used to make explosives. Quarter sticks of dynamite, black powder, cardboard tubes, sealing wax, rolls of green stuff that’s called rocket fuse, and chemical colorants often used for fireworks. Glass jars of BBs and nails. Assorted lengths of pipe.”

  Under Yuki’s questioning, Clapper testified that in his opinion the principal bomb used in the museum was a compression bomb that had been made with a gas-filled container and ignited by a detonator, either remotely or with a preset timer.

  He said, “It wouldn’t take much exploded gas to change the pressure inside that building. That’ll cause what’s called a high-order explosion that will disintegrate glass, any kind of paneling.

  “It brought the roof down,” Clapper said, “and the bowstring trusses crushed those second-story pedestrian bridges. The smaller bomb was probably C-4 with a timer device, probably placed near one of the posts supporting the center dome in order to finish off that whole house of cards.”

  “Could that second bomb have been timed to kill fire and rescue?”

  “Secondary blasts are often set for that purpose.”

  Yuki asked, “Were these two types of bombs described and illustrated in Mr. Grant’s notebook?”

  “Yes. Chapter 9 was about the use of C-4 and other plastic bombs. Chapter 14 was devoted to compression bombs.”

  “In your opinion, was Mr. Grant capable of building and setting such bombs?”

  “In my opinion, he could have practically done it blindfolded.”

  Yuki asked if remains of the bombs had been found at the scene, and Clapper answered, “A fire extinguisher with both ends blown off was recovered from the bay off Pier 15. That would be the remains of a compression bomb. The C-would have vaporized without a trace.”

  Yuki thanked Clapper and turned him over to the defendant.

  Grant stood, buttoned his jacket, and approached the witness. Yuki admired his composure. Honestly, if it weren’t for his patchy shave, she could believe that he was an actual high-priced litigator.

  “Director Clapper,” said Grant, “did you find any kind of gas or gas containers in or around my house or car or lab?”

  “No.”

  “Did you find any evidence—a cell phone with a record of an outgoing call that can’t be identified, fingerprints at the scene, records of a fire extinguisher purchase, or anything—that linked me to that explosion?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks, I have no other questions for this witness.”

  Yuki said, “Redirect, Your Honor.”

  The judge said, “Go ahead, Counselor.”

  Yuki stepped out from the prosecution table, walked to the witness box.

  “Director Clapper, where could a person obtain a container for a compression bomb?”

  “Any hardware store, home improvement store. You can get a fire extinguisher, big one, like the one that was used, for about fifty bucks. If you wanted to use a pressure cooker, every big-box store in the country sells them.”

  “And gas. Is that hard to get?”

  “Nah. Bottled gas, natural, propane, argon, it’s all available in those same kinds of outlets. The perchlorate, any chemical supply company has that.”

  “Could you buy these implements for cash?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, no, there wouldn’t be credit card records. And if someone wanted to plant such a bomb anytime in advance of the explosion, hypothetically, would that be possible?”

  “Yes. That building had no metal detectors. They couldn’t. Exhibits were coming through the doors, being set up and changed out nonstop. Someone could have wired up the bomb, brought it into the building. Could have left a fire extinguisher anywhere it wouldn’t have looked out of place, including as a swap for an active fire extinguisher. Easy enough to slap a glob of C-4 onto a girder.

  “In fact,” Clapper said, “hypothetically, if a person had a degree in science and a working knowledge of explosives, it would be ridiculously easy.”

  “Thank you, sir. That’s all.”

  With a stern look the judge silenced the whispers that swept through the gallery. Then Connor Grant stood up and said to Clapper, “Just a couple more questions for you, sir. Hypothetically, you say, a person could have left a bomb in Sci-Tron. Ridiculously easy. The implication is that even you could do it, isn’t that right?”

  “Hypothetically,” Clapper said drily.

  “Did you plant the bombs in that building?”

  “No. I did not.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it, either. That’s all I have for you, sir.”

  CHAPTER 40

  AFTER CLAPPER LEFT the stand, Yuki called Margaret Callahan, a motherly-looking thirtysomething woman in a peach-colored suit and tortoiseshell glasses. She told the court that she was a bank teller and had been on her way home from the Chase Bank at Embarcadero Center when she’d heard what she thought was a sonic boom and had seen the explosion of glass filling the sky. She’d taken a video with her phone.

  Yuki asked, “Is there anyone in this courtroom you recognize from that evening of August 3?”

  “Yes.” She pointed to Grant. “I saw the defendant there.”

  Yuki teed up her video presentation. Len opened the screen, adjusted it so that the jury could see, and asked the court officers to dim the lights.

  Yuki pressed the remote, and after the first frames appeared, Connor Grant objected and Yuki paused the video.

  “Judge, this isn’t fair. The video will only serve to prejudice and inflame the jury.”

  Yuki said, “Your Honor, this video shows the scene at Sci-Tron in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. The jury needs to see the effects of this crime in order to render a verdict.”

  “Overruled, Mr. Grant. Let’s see the pictures,” said the judge.

  Yuki turned he
r attention back to her witness and the frozen first second of the video, and asked, “Will you please describe this image?”

  Callahan said, “That’s the defendant in the left front section of the picture, facing what had been Sci-Tron. A few seconds later he turned for a moment toward where I was standing.”

  Yuki advanced the video, which revealed the defendant’s face.

  “How did he appear to you, Ms. Callahan?” Yuki asked.

  “Delighted,” said the witness.

  “Could you narrate the rest of this two-minute video?”

  Yuki started up the video again. Now the camera was pointing directly at the crowd that was racing away from the explosion and directly toward where Callahan stood with her phone.

  The video was of medium-grade resolution, but even when the shot was marred by shaking or jostling, the image of the skeletal remains of the museum, the whooping sounds of sirens as ambulances and fire engines screamed up to the pier, the distant image of a survivor being pulled from the wreckage, brought the full horror of this scene into courtroom 2A.

  Sounds from the gallery competed with the audio. Cries were heard. An elderly man moaned loudly, then rushed from his seat and ran toward the exit. A woman followed him out.

  Yuki asked for the lights to be turned up, and when the doors were again closed, she thanked the witness. A clearly angry Connor Grant stood and approached her.

  He greeted her and then said, “Ms. Callahan, can you connect me in any way to that explosion?”

  “You were standing on the sidewalk.”

  “And you? Where were you standing?”

  “Behind you.”

  “And were you connected to the explosion?”

  The witness stared at Grant until he said, “I guess that’s a no.”

  The witness was dismissed, and as she left the courtroom, Yuki thought about Grant’s astonishing skill in disabling witnesses without implicating himself.

  Judge Hoffman said, “Will the prosecution call their next witness.”

  Parisi stood, saying, “The People rest.”