Women's Murder Club [07] 7th Heaven

by James Patterson

  Chapter 32

  CINDY ENTERED THE BAR inside the St. Regis Hotel at the corner of Third and Mission in the vibrant SoMa district. Jason Twilly was staying there for the course of the trial, and it was definitely the place to be.

  Twilly stood as Cindy approached his table. He was tall, thin, a young forty-three, with striking features Cindy recognized from his book jackets and recent profile in Entertainment Weekly.

  “Jason Twilly,” he said, stretching out his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Cindy Thomas.” She slipped into the chair Twilly pulled out for her. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “No problem. I was glad to have a minute to do some quiet thinking.”

  She’d researched Twilly before this meeting, adding to what she already knew — that he was very smart, calculating, talented, and a little ruthless. One journalist had written that Twilly was picking up where Truman Capote left off with In Cold Blood, noting that Twilly had a rare talent for getting into the minds of killers, humanizing them so that readers regarded the killers almost as friends.

  Cindy wanted to let herself enjoy the ambience of the place and the fun of being with Jason Twilly, but she couldn’t let down her guard. She was worried for Yuki, wondered how Twilly would depict her and if it was a good or bad thing for her friend that Twilly’s next book would be about Michael Campion. Even though Yuki didn’t seem to care, Cindy knew that Twilly would use anything she said to benefit himself.

  “I just finished Malvo,” Cindy said, referring to Twilly’s bestselling account of the DC sniper who, with his manipulative partner, had killed ten people and terrified the capital in a month-long crime spree.

  “What did you think?” Twilly smiled. It was a charming smile, lopsided, the left side of his mouth twitching up, making the corners of his eyes crinkle.

  “Made me think about teenage boys in a whole new way.”

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Twilly said. “What can I get you to drink?”

  Twilly called the waitress over, ordered wine for Cindy, mineral water for himself, and told Cindy that since Yuki was going to be prosecuting Junie Moon, he wanted to get some sense of her from her closest friend.

  “I spoke with some of her professors at Boalt Law,” Twilly told Cindy. “And a couple of her former colleagues at Duffy and Rogers.”

  “She was really on the fast track to partnership there,” Cindy said.

  “So I’ve heard. Yuki told me that after her mother was killed at Municipal Hospital, she lost her taste for civil cases and went over to the prosecutorial side.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what does that make her? Fierce? Vengeful?”

  “You’re baiting me,” Cindy said, laughing. “Did Yuki strike you as vindictive?”

  “Not at all,” Twilly said, giving her another of his electrifying smiles. “Well, maybe the fierce part is true,” he said. “I’ve seen Yuki in action at the Brinkley thing.”

  Twilly told Cindy that he already had a contract from his publisher to do the unauthorized biography of Michael Campion when, suddenly, Michael disappeared.

  “It looked like an unsolved mystery until the cops found a suspect and indicted Junie Moon,” Twilly said. “And when I heard that Yuki Castellano was going to try Moon for Michael’s murder, it just couldn’t get any better. It should be a hell of a trial. And what I love about Yuki Castellano is that she’s passionate and she’s fearless.”

  Cindy nodded in agreement, said, “L. Diana Davis had better bring her best game.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Twilly. “Because what I was thinking is that it’s good that Yuki has a friend like you, Cindy. I mean, with all due respect to Yuki, Davis is going to slaughter her.”

  Part Two

  HABEAS CORPUS (Produce the Body)

  Chapter 33

  YUKI PUSHED THROUGH the swarm of reporters and cameramen who had surrounded her from the moment she parked her car. She hoisted her handbag higher on her shoulder, clutched her briefcase, and headed toward the street, the press moving along with her, shouting out questions about how she thought the trial would go, and if there was anything she wanted to say to the public.

  “Not now, people,” she said. “I don’t want to keep the court waiting.” She lowered her head, pushed her way out to the intersection, saw the fleet of satellite vans and setups on Bryant: local news, cable news vans, and crews from the networks, all there to cover the trial of Junie Moon.

  The light changed and Yuki crossed the street encased in a mob of reporters. She headed toward the Hall of Justice and into the thicker crowd that had gathered at the foot of the granite steps. Len Parisi had told her he’d field the media, but right now he was locked in a pileup on the freeway, an oil truck having tipped over, blocking all lanes, cars slamming into each other in the slick.

  Parisi didn’t know when he’d get to court, and so Yuki had spent a half hour going over her opening with him again on the phone, and that’s why she’d cut the time too close. She marched up the courthouse steps, eyes front, said, “Can’t talk now, sorry,” to a gang of reporters at the heavy steel-and-glass front doors to the Hall of Justice. And then, to her chagrin, she couldn’t open the doors.

  A reporter from KRON held the door for her, then winked and said, “See ya later, Yuki.”

  Yuki tossed her briefcase and handbag on the security desk, walked through the metal detectors without incident, accepted “luck of the Irish” wishes from the guard, and made for the stairs, taking them quickly to the second floor.

  The golden oak-paneled courtroom was packed to the walls. Yuki took her seat at the prosecution table, exchanged looks with Nicky Gaines, her second chair. He was big-eyed and sweaty, looked as apprehensive as she was.

  “Where’s Red Dog?” he asked.

  “He’s in a traffic jam.”

  The bailiff cut the murmur in the courtroom by calling out, “All rise,” and Judge Bruce Bendinger entered the room through a panel behind the bench, took his seat between Old Glory and the California state flag.

  Bendinger was sixty, gray-haired, recovering from knee replacement surgery. His shirt collar above his robe was pink, his striped satin tie was a vibrant ultramarine. Yuki noted Bendinger’s rumpled brow and thought the normally easy-going judge looked a bit frayed before the trial had even begun. His knee must be giving him hell.

  Yuki half listened as Bendinger instructed the jury. She used the moment to sneak a look at Junie Moon’s formidable, take-no-prisoners attorney, L. Diana Davis.

  Davis was in her fifties, with twenty years’ experience as a champion of abused and victimized women. This morning she appeared in one of her trademark red suits, wearing bright lipstick and chunky jewelry, her short hair in crisp, silver waves. Davis looked ready for prime time, and Yuki didn’t doubt for a minute that she would get it — full frontal TV cameras, bouquets of microphones at every recess.

  And that’s when Yuki realized that it wasn’t just the pressure of the trial and the scorching focus of the media that was freaking her out; it was Junie Moon, sitting now beside her attorney, looking so fawnlike and vulnerable in her cream-colored suit and lace collar that she was almost transparent.

  “Are you ready, Ms. Castellano?” Yuki heard the judge say.

  Yuki said, “Yes, Your Honor.” She pushed back her chair and stepped to the lectern, checking that her one-button jacket was closed, feeling her spine prickle as two hundred pairs of eyes focused on her. Yuki paused for a moment in the well of the courtroom.

  She smiled at the jurors and then began the most important opening statement of her career.

  Chapter 34

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” Yuki said from the lectern. “A great deal is known about the life of Michael Campion. Sadly, this trial is about his death. On the night of January twenty-first, Michael Campion, an eighteen-year-old boy, went to the home of the defendant, Junie Moon — and he was never seen again.

  “Ms. Moon is a prostitute.

&nb
sp; “I mention her profession because Ms. Moon met Michael Campion because she’s a prostitute. The People will introduce witnesses, classmates of the victim, who will tell you that Michael had long planned to visit Ms. Moon because he wanted to lose his virginity. On January twenty-first, he did visit her.

  “And Michael Campion not only lost his virginity, he lost his life.

  “It shouldn’t have happened.

  “Michael shouldn’t have died. And if the defendant had behaved responsibly, if she’d acted humanely, Michael might be here with us today.

  “What happened to Michael Campion after he entered Ms. Moon’s house was told to us in detail by the defendant herself,” Yuki said, pointing to Junie Moon. “She told us. She admitted to the police that she let Michael Campion die and that she treated his remains like garbage.”

  Yuki walked the jury through Junie Moon’s admission of guilt, her description of Michael Campion’s death, grisly dismemberment, and disposal in a Dumpster. Then she turned her back on the defendant, left her notes on the lectern, and took thoughtful, measured steps to the jury box.

  She no longer cared that Red Dog wasn’t in the seat beside her or that half the room was filled with salivating reporters, and she didn’t care that Junie Moon looked as innocent as a flower girl at a summer wedding.

  She was focused purely on the jury.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “The police developed information leading to the defendant three full months after Michael Campion disappeared. His remains were not recovered because it was just too late.

  “The defense will tell you, ‘No body, no crime,’ ” Yuki said. “The defense will say that the police must have bullied Ms. Moon, because she has since recanted her confession. The defense will say that the People have no case. That’s. Not. True. We don’t have to have physical evidence.

  “We have circumstantial evidence, and lots of it.”

  Yuki walked the length of the jury box, trailing her hand along the railing, feeling the power and flow of her opening and that the jury was not only with her, they were waiting for every word. And she would give them everything they wanted.

  “Ms. Moon is charged with tampering with evidence and with murder in the second degree,” Yuki told the jurors. “In order to prove murder, we have to prove malice. This is how the law is worded. Malice can be inferred in that the person acted in such a way that you could construe them to have had ‘an abandoned and malignant heart.’ Think about that.

  “An abandoned and malignant heart.

  “The defendant told us that Michael Campion asked her to call for help and that she didn’t do it — because it was more important to protect herself. She let him die when she might have saved him. That’s the clearest possible example of an abandoned and malignant heart. That’s why the People are charging Junie Moon with murder.

  “And in the course of this trial, we will prove Junie Moon guilty beyond reasonable doubt.”

  Chapter 35

  L. DIANA DAVIS put her hands on both sides of the lectern and wiggled it until it was centered on the jury box. Then she looked up at the jurors, said, “Good morning. I want to thank the prosecution for giving my opening statement for me.

  “Saved us all a lot of time.”

  Davis warmed to the laughter in the gallery and was glad to see that a few of the jurors had joined in. She put one hand on her hip, smiled, and went on.

  “Remember the advertising slogan? ‘Where’s the beef?’ That’s what I want to know, and you’re going to want to know it, too. As the People just told you, ladies and gentlemen, this is a noncase. If the young man in question weren’t a celebrity, I doubt the DA would have the nerve to bring this case to trial.

  “Ms. Castellano is right when she says no body, no crime.

  “Not only is there no body, there’s no weapon, and in this day of advanced forensic science, there isn’t even a microscopic trace of evidence at the so-called crime scene. Oh, yes,” Davis said as if it were an aside. “After an intense, and I would say mind-blowing, interrogation by the police, my client confessed to a crime she didn’t commit.

  “An expert witness will talk about this syndrome of false confessions, a sign of emotional battery, which is what happened to Ms. Moon. And Ms. Moon will tell you about the night of January twenty-first herself. All the prosecution has to present to you is the retracted confession of a terrified young woman who was intimidated by the interrogation of an aggressive, motivated team of homicide inspectors who had an agenda: to hang the disappearance of the governor’s son on someone.

  “They picked Junie Moon.

  “Over the next few days, you will hear the preposterous case against her. There will be no DNA evidence, and Henry Lee won’t be coming here with photos of blood spatter to tell you how this so-called crime went down.

  “Even Ricardo Malcolm, Ms. Moon’s former boyfriend, won’t be called to testify for the prosecution, because he told the police that Junie never met Michael Campion. He said nothing happened.

  “So what did happen to Michael Campion?

  “We know — everyone in the free world knew — Michael Campion had a serious, congenital, and potentially fatal heart condition, and that he was living on borrowed time. After he left his house on the night of January twenty-first, something happened. We don’t know what that something was, but it’s not our job or yours to speculate.

  “When you’ve heard this case in its entirety, the prosecution will ask you to find Ms. Moon guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And common sense will tell you that Ms. Moon is not guilty of any of the charges against her. She’s not guilty of tampering with evidence. She didn’t help dismember a body in her bathtub or dispose of that body.

  “And as sure as I’m standing in front of you, Junie Moon is not guilty of murder.”

  Chapter 36

  THE BAILIFF CALLED MY NAME and I got up from the bench in the hallway, stiff-armed the double doors of the vestibule to the courtroom, and strode up the aisle. Heads turned as I approached the witness stand. And I was reminded again that the case against Junie Moon would hang in large part on my testimony. And that L. Diana Davis was going to do her best to crush me.

  I swore to tell the truth and took my seat, and my good friend Yuki asked me preliminary questions, setting up my time and grade as a police officer.

  Then she asked, “Sergeant Boxer, did you interview the defendant on April nineteenth?”

  “Yes. Inspector Richard Conklin and I first interviewed her in her house, and then later at the southern division of the SFPD, on the third floor of this building.

  “Did she seem afraid or anxious or intimidated?”

  “Actually, no. She seemed quite comfortable. In fact, she agreed to come to the Hall for questioning.”

  “At that time, did you ask her about Michael Campion?”

  “We did.”

  “And what was her response?” Yuki asked.

  “At first she told us that she had never met Michael Campion. Approximately two hours later, she asked us to shut off the video camera.”

  “And what happened after that?”

  In answer to Yuki’s questions, I told the jury what Junie had told me and Conklin — how the victim had expired, that she had called Ricky Malcolm, and what the two of them had done with Michael Campion’s body.

  “Did you have any reason to doubt this story?” Yuki asked.

  “No. I found her quite credible.”

  “Did you interview the defendant at any other time?”

  “Yes. We met with Ms. Moon a few days later at the women’s jail. We hoped Ms. Moon might remember the name of the town where she and her boyfriend disposed of Mr. Campion’s remains.”

  “And did she remember?”

  “Yes. The town of Jackson, about three and a half hours northeast, in Amador County.”

  “So to be clear, this was a second interview?”

  “Correct.”

  “Was the defendant under duress?”

 
“Objection. Calls for speculation,” Davis sang out.

  “Sustained,” Judge Bendinger snapped.

  “I’ll rephrase,” Yuki said. “Did you threaten the defendant? Deny her food or water or sleep?”

  “No.”

  “She gave you this information of her own volition?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Yuki said to me. “I have no further questions.”

  And then L. Diana Davis was in my face.

  Chapter 37

  TO MY SURPRISE, L. Diana Davis was petite, maybe five three, and I guessed that her close-up shots on the small screen and her reputation had made her seem larger than life.

  “Sergeant Boxer,” Davis said. “You’ve been a homicide inspector for over ten years. You’ve investigated countless homicides. You’ve interrogated innumerable suspects, and you knew that eventually you’d be sitting in a courtroom telling us what happened in the case against Junie Moon. Isn’t that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how did you get the defendant to confess, Sergeant? Tell her that accidents happen? That she wasn’t culpable?”

  I knew damned well to keep my answers short and blunt, but looking at Davis’s expression, half kindly grandma, half bulldog, I felt a need to let my mouth do the talking.

  “I may have said things like that. Interrogations aren’t one size fits all. Sometimes you’ve got to raise your voice. Sometimes you’ve got to be sympathetic. And sometimes you’ve got to lie to a subject,” I said. “There are legal boundaries for interrogations, and my partner and I stayed within those boundaries.”

  Davis smiled, turned, and walked toward the jury, turned back to face me.

  “Is that so?” she said. “Now, you’ve testified that the defendant asked you to turn off the tape during your interrogation at the police station.”