Women's Murder Club [07] 7th Heaven

by James Patterson

  “That’s right.”

  “So let me get this straight, Sergeant. You videotaped everything — up to the point when Ms. Moon ‘confessed.’ That confession is not on the tape.”

  “The defendant seemed reluctant to talk because the camera was running. So when she asked me to turn it off, I did so. And then she told us what happened.”

  “So what are we to make of the fact that you recorded everything this young woman had to say except her confession? I guess you’re suggesting that the defendant was being cagey when she asked you to shut off the camera,” Davis said, shrugging her shoulders, sending a nonverbal message to the jury that she thought I was full of crap. “You’re saying she was sophisticated enough to confess off the record.”

  “There is no such thing —”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. That’s all I have for this witness,” said Davis.

  Yuki shot to her feet, said, “Redirect, Your Honor.”

  “Proceed, Ms. Castellano,” said the judge.

  “Sergeant Boxer, are you required to tape a confession?”

  “Not at all. A confession’s a confession, whether it’s written or verbal, on tape or off. I’d rather have a taped confession, but it’s not required.”

  Yuki nodded.

  “Did you have any idea what Ms. Moon was going to tell you when she asked you to turn off the video camera?”

  “Had no idea. I turned off the camera because she asked us to — and I thought it was the only way we were going to get the truth. And you know what, Ms. Castellano? It worked.”

  Chapter 38

  YUKI WISHED ALL of her witnesses were as good as Rich Conklin. He was solid. He was believable. Made you think of a young military officer, a mother’s good son. It didn’t hurt that he was also good to look at. In answer to her questions, Conklin affably told the jury that he’d been with the SFPD for five years and that he’d been in the homicide division for the last two.

  “Did you interview the defendant on the night of April nineteenth?” Yuki asked Conklin.

  “Sergeant Boxer and I talked with Ms. Moon together.”

  “Did you have any preconceived notions about her guilt or innocence before you talked to her?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Did you read Ms. Moon her Miranda rights?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “As I understand it, Ms. Moon wasn’t in custody when you Mirandized her, so why did you warn her that anything she said could be used against her?”

  “It was a gamble,” Conklin told Yuki.

  “When you say it was a gamble, could you explain what you mean to the jury?”

  Conklin brushed his forelock of brown hair away from his eyes. “Sure. Suppose I say to a suspect, ‘I want to interview you. Can you come down to the station?’

  “And the suspect comes in of his or her own volition. That person doesn’t have to answer our questions and can leave at any time. I don’t have to Mirandize that person when we sit down to talk because they’re not in custody.”

  Conklin sat back comfortably in his seat and continued, “But, see, if that subject then starts to get wary, he or she could ask for a lawyer, who would end the interview. Or that subject could simply leave. And we’d have to let her go because that person is not under arrest.”

  “If I understand you, Inspector, you were taking a precaution, so that if Ms. Moon incriminated herself, you’d already be covered by having told her that anything she said could be used against her?”

  “That’s right. I was thinking how Ms. Moon was our only witness, maybe a suspect in a serious crime, and I didn’t want to take a chance that if she had something to do with Michael Campion’s disappearance, we’d have to stop the interview and Mirandize her. That might have ended the interview. And we not only wanted the truth, we wanted to find Michael Campion.”

  “And did Ms. Moon ask for a lawyer?”

  “No.”

  “Did she give you the details of Michael Campion’s death and the disposal of his body?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Inspector Conklin, what was her demeanor as she confessed to you and Sergeant Boxer?”

  “She seemed sad and remorseful,” Conklin said.

  “And how did you determine that?”

  “She cried,” said Conklin. “She said she was sorry, and that she wished she could change everything that happened.”

  Chapter 39

  “INSPECTOR CONKLIN,” Davis said, smiling. “You sound like a very smart police officer.”

  Yuki tensed. She could almost see Davis setting the trap, baiting it, tying the trap to a tree. Conklin just looked at Davis until she spoke again.

  “Isn’t it true that from the beginning, the defendant denied that she’d ever met Michael Campion?”

  “Yes, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a suspect is going to say they didn’t do it.”

  “You’ve interviewed a hundred homicide suspects?”

  “Figure of speech,” Conklin said. “I don’t know how many homicide suspects I’ve interviewed. Quite a few.”

  “I see,” Davis said. “Is it a figure of speech to say that you and Sergeant Boxer tricked and bullied my client until she confessed?”

  “Objection!” Yuki called out from her seat.

  “Sustained.”

  “I’ll rephrase. As we all know, Ms. Moon’s ‘confession,’ ” Davis said, making the universal symbol for quote marks with the first two fingers of each hand, “wasn’t on tape, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So we don’t know the tenor of that interview, do we?”

  “I guess you just have to trust me,” Conklin said.

  Davis smiled, wound up for the pitch. “Inspector, did you take notes of Ms. Moon’s statement?”

  “Yes.”

  “I asked to see those notes during discovery,” Davis said, “but I was told you no longer had them.”

  Conklin’s cheeks colored. “That’s right.”

  “I want to make sure I understand what you’re telling us, Inspector,” Davis said in the snotty tone she’d perfected over decades and was using now in an attempt to undermine and humiliate Conklin.

  “You were investigating a probable murder. As you told us, Ms. Moon was your primary witness, or maybe a suspect. You had no taped record, so you made a written record. That was so you could tell the court and the jury what the defendant said, right? And then you threw the notes away — can you tell us why?”

  “I used my notes as the basis for my report. Once my report was typed, I didn’t need them anymore.”

  “No? But what’s a better record of that interview? The notes you took that night? Or the report you filled out a couple of days later? You’re supposed to keep those notes, aren’t you, Inspector? . . . Inspector?

  “Your Honor, please direct the witness to answer my question.”

  Yuki clenched her fists under the table. She hadn’t known Conklin had destroyed his notes, but while it wasn’t kosher, homicide cops did it all the time.

  Judge Bendinger shifted in his seat, asked Conklin to answer the question.

  Reluctantly, Conklin said, “My notes would be more of a verbatim account, but —”

  “But still, you felt it was appropriate to throw them out? Is there a shortage of storage space at the Hall of Justice? Were the file cabinets full, maybe?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Davis asked, letting the question hang in the dead silence of the courtroom.

  “Do you remember where you threw the notes? In the garbage perhaps, or out your car window? Maybe you flushed them down the toilet?”

  “Your Honor,” Yuki said. “Defense counsel is badgering the witness —”

  “Overruled. The witness may answer,” said Judge Bendinger.

  “I shredded them,” Conklin said, the cords in his neck straining against the white collar of his shirt.

  “Please tell the jury why you s
hredded your notes.”

  Yuki saw the flash in Conklin’s eye but was helpless to stop him from snapping, “The reason we get rid of our notes is so that shyster lawyers like you don’t twist things around —”

  Yuki stared at Conklin. She’d never seen him blow up before. Davis had manipulated him, and she was going to nail him to the wall.

  “Inspector Conklin, is that how you behaved when you interviewed my client? Lose your temper like that?”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Yuki called out.

  “On what grounds?”

  “Defense counsel is objectionable.”

  Bendinger was unable to stifle a laugh. “Overruled. Watch it, Ms. Castellano.”

  Davis smiled, faced Conklin, one hand on her hip. “Only one more question, Inspector. Any other important evidence you shredded that would have exonerated my client?”

  Chapter 40

  STILL FEELING STUNG by Davis’s cross-examination of Rich Conklin and the stress of the entire horrid day, Yuki left the Hall of Justice by the back door and walked several blocks out of her way, checking her BlackBerry as she walked.

  She deleted messages, made notes for the file, sent an e-mail to Red Dog, who was now back in his home office asking for a report. She entered the All Day parking lot from the rear and had just opened the door of her brownish-gray Acura sedan when she heard someone call her name.

  Yuki turned, frisked the crowded lot with her eyes, saw Jason Twilly loping toward her against traffic on Bryant, calling out, “Yuki, hey, hang on a minute.” Yuki reached into the car, put her briefcase on the passenger seat, and turned back to face the superstar writer, who was closing in.

  Twilly looked fantastic, Yuki thought, as she watched him maneuver through the crowded parking lot. She liked everything about the way he put his act together: the cut of his hair, the Oliver Peoples glasses framing his intense dark brown eyes. Today he was wearing a fine blue shirt under a well-fitted gray jacket, and his pants were buckled with a plain Hermès belt that must’ve cost seven hundred dollars.

  Twilly pulled up to where she stood with her car door opened between them, not even blowing hard from his run.

  “Hey, Jason. What’s wrong?”

  “Not a thing,” he said, eyes locking on hers. “I just wanted to tell you that I thought you rocked today.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean it. You’re great on your feet, and it’s smart the way you’re handling the press. Davis is out there campaigning on the front steps and you’re —”

  “The defense has to spin this,” Yuki said. “I have to prove Junie Moon is guilty, and that’s not going to happen in front of the Hall.”

  Twilly nodded his agreement, said, “You know, I wanted to tell you that I overheard a conversation in the hallway, and what I heard is that Junie’s a little slow, below average IQ.”

  “I don’t get that impression,” said Yuki, wondering what the hell Twilly was getting at. Was he working an angle? Or was her six months in the DA’s office making her cynical?

  Twilly set down his briefcase on the asphalt, took a soft leather eyeglass case from his breast pocket, removed a small square of cloth, and massaged the pollution off his Oliver Peeps.

  “I gathered that Davis is going to get an expert shrink to tell the jury that Junie is dumb and suggestible and that the brutal cops could make her say anything.”

  “Well, thanks for the heads-up, Jason.”

  “No problem. Look, Yuki,” he said, adjusting his glasses over the bridge of his nose. “I’m dying to pick your very lovely mind. Would you have dinner with me? Please?”

  Yuki shifted her weight in her narrow, pointy shoes, thought of the nice cold Coors waiting for her at home. The ton of work she had to do.

  “No offense, Jason. When I’m trying a case, I like to be alone at the end of the day. I need the solitude and the time to clear my head —”

  “Yuki. You’ve got to eat, so why not let me treat you to a lavish expense account dinner? Caviar, lobster, French champagne. Anyplace you want to go. You’ll be home by eight, and no business talk either. Just romance,” Twilly said, giving her his full frontal, lopsided grin.

  He was charming and he knew it.

  Yuki laughed in the face of such practiced seduction, and then she surprised herself.

  She said yes.

  Chapter 41

  STEVEN MEACHAM AND HIS WIFE, Sandy, were watching 48 Hours Mystery on TV in their expansive home in Cow Hollow when the doorbell chimed.

  Steve said to Sandy, “Are we expecting someone?”

  “Hell no,” Sandy said, thinking of the door-to-door canvassing that had been going on because of the heated school board elections. She took a sip from her wineglass. “If we ignore them, they’ll go away.”

  “I guess I can always give ’em a couple of shots to the ribs, make ’em take us off the list,” Meacham said, feinting and punching the air, then slipping his bare feet into his loafers.

  He walked to the front door, peered through the fanlight, saw two good-looking boys standing outside, kids about the age of his son, Scott.

  What was this?

  The heavier of the two wore a peachy-colored T-shirt under a camouflage vest, his hair covering his shirt collar, more Banana Republic than Republican, and definitely not a Jehovah’s Witness. The other boy was dressed traditionally in a glen plaid jacket over a lavender polo shirt, hair long in front like a kid from an English boarding school. The boys had unopened liquor bottles in hand.

  Meacham turned off the security alarm, opened the door a crack, said, “May I help you fellows with something?”

  “My name is Hawk, Mr. Meacham,” said the one in the sport jacket. “This is Pidge. Uh, those are our pledge names,” he said apologetically. “We’re friends of Scotty’s, you know, and we’re pledging Alpha Delta Phi?”

  “No kiddin’? Scotty didn’t call . . .”

  “No, sir, he doesn’t know we’re here. We have to do this on the sneak.”

  “Pledges, huh?”

  Meacham fondly remembered his own fraternity days. “So, when’s the initiation?” he asked.

  “Next week, sir,” said Pidge. “If we make it. We have to ask you about Scotty, things people don’t know about him, and we need to score a baby picture, preferably a naked one . . .”

  Meacham laughed, said, “Okay, okay, come on in.” He threw open the door to his spacious home with its heart-stopping view of the bay.

  “Honey, we’ve got company,” he called to his wife, leading the two boys through the foyer. “Hawk, like Ethan Hawke? Or some sort of bird theme, probably.”

  Meacham accepted the bottles from the boys with thanks, then he opened the inlaid wooden liquor cabinet in the living room. He took out glasses as the boys introduced themselves to his wife, who said, “It’s quite nice of you to bring something, but it really wasn’t necessary.”

  “Cointreau,” Meacham said. He poured from the bottle, handed the glasses around. “To the Greeks.”

  Actually, Meacham was trying to cut down on the booze, but Sandy was already half sloshed. She swished her drink in the glass, took a sip, said, “Honey bear, why don’t you show the boys Scotty’s room? I’ll get out the photo albums.”

  “I’ll stay with you, Mrs. Meacham,” Pidge said. “Help you pick out the right picture.”

  Sandy was lost in the photo album in her lap when Pidge’s shadow fell across her face. She looked up, did a double take through her unfocused eyes, finally putting it together. Pidge was holding a gun.

  She took in a deep breath, but Pidge raised a finger to his lips, then said, “Don’t scream, Sandy. Just do what I tell you and everything will be fine.”

  Chapter 42

  “THIS ISN’T FUNNY ANYMORE,” Steve Meacham said to the two boys, wincing as Hawk jammed the gun between his shoulder blades.

  “Go stand by your wife, Mr. M.,” said Hawk. “This is kind of a scavenger hunt, you know? We’re not going to hurt you guys. Not unless
you make us.”

  Meacham went to his wife’s side, looking at each of the two guns in turn, sending his mind toward his own gun, which was wrapped in a towel at the top of the linen closet. He glanced at Sandy’s face, saw that she was sobering up, trying to figure out what was happening.

  He wished he knew.

  He turned back to Pidge, said, “This is just a fraternity prank, right, fellas?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hawk said at his back. “I need you both to lie on the floor, facedown.”

  “Well, I’m not going to do that, you crazy boy,” Sandy said, whipping her head around, eyes flashing furiously. “Get out of here, both of you, now, and tell Scotty I want to hear from him tonight, I don’t care what time —”

  Pidge walked behind Sandy, cocked his arm, and whacked her on the back of the head with the gun butt. Sandy yowled, went down into a crouch, hands covering her head. Steven saw blood seep between her fingers. Steven started toward Sandy, but the chilling metallic clicks of hammers being cocked stopped him where he stood.

  Steven wanted to keep denying the wordless terror that was flooding his mind — but he couldn’t block it out anymore. These kids were going to kill them — unless, somehow . . .

  “I don’t want to shoot you, lady,” Pidge said. “Drop all the way to the floor. You, too, buddy. Hurry up now.”

  Steven got to his knees, pleaded. “We’ll do what you say. Take it all,” he said. “Take everything we have. Just don’t, please, don’t hurt us.”

  “Good attitude,” Pidge said, shoving Sandy Meacham to the floor with his foot, standing behind her as her husband lay facedown on the Persian carpet.

  “Hands behind your backs, if you’ll be so kind,” Pidge said. He took a reel of fishing line out of his back pocket, wrapped the monofilament fiber tightly around the Meachams’ wrists. Then he tugged off their shoes, stripped off Sandy’s socks, and began winding fishing line around Steven Meacham’s ankles.

  “I’ll let you in on something,” Pidge said. “Actually, we’re not fraternity types like Scotty.” He tugged down Sandy’s elastic-waisted pants and underwear in one motion. Sandy yelped.