21st Birthday (Women's Murder Club #21)(60)
Great damned job, Yuki. Flawless.
She thought so, too.
The defense was called to make its opening statement, and Yuki’s sense of a job well done was about to come undone.
CHAPTER 79
CINDY STRUGGLED WITH her phone charger, trying to insert it into the electric socket on the baseboard behind her seat, eventually completing the task.
The judge had asked if defense counsel was ready with his opening statement, and he said he was. This would be a bad time for her phone to run out of juice. Cindy watched as the battery icon showed the phone charging. She picked her notebook off the floor and — along with all 140 people in the courtroom — focused her gaze on Newt Gardner. He was known for his showmanship, and although Cindy was with Yuki all the way, she was a working reporter, and where there was Newt Gardner, there was news.
Gardner stood and moved his chair back so that it rested against the bar. He put his hand on his client’s shoulder familiarly, showing what a good guy Lucas Burke really was. He stood behind his table for a moment, letting the suspense build. Then Gardner walked across the well to the lectern in the center of the floor, where he could speak not only to the jurors but all of the spectators as well.
He introduced himself, casually stating that he had been a defense attorney for thirty years. It was the definition of false modesty, Cindy thought. He might as well have said, “I know I need no introduction,” but he said his name and that he was representing an innocent man.
“I’m glad to be representing Lucas Burke, who has never committed a crime or a misdemeanor; not parking in a no-parking zone, never arrested for vandalism or disorderly conduct, and certainly not murder. The prosecution is asking you to connect dots.
“Anyone see any dots?
“There are no dots. Terrible events happened and Lucas is one of the victims. His daughter, his wife, and yes, his girlfriend, have all been killed in the space of a week.
“But the killer is not on trial.
“The murderer is a serial killer who is still at large. If Ms. Castellano had him in the dock she’d be telling a different story. She would say that this killer has been sought by the FBI for decades. That he is a psychopathic killer. That he was the subject of a manhunt for killing his own wife and daughter, as well as many other innocent young women.
“And the person he hates most in the world is my client.
“His vanity is at stake. His narcissism is in a fury. He may have other reasons for his actions, but we can’t begin to understand a man like this. Top law enforcement have sought him for decades, always missed catching him by a hair that he has never left behind. He has military training. He’s adept at killing by hand.”
Gardner paused to look around at the spectators and swung back to face the jurors.
“In the last twenty years or so, this murderer has been known by many names: the Ghost of Catalina. Quicksilver, for the liquid metal we call mercury. You can’t grab mercury. It slips out of your hands. The killer has had other names but the most powerful one, that one that will grab your heart and squeeze it, is the name my client has called him his whole life.
“Lucas has called him ‘Dad.’”
There was a lengthy rolling gasp throughout the courtroom. Cindy took it all in, the shock on the judge’s face, the way the defendant collapsed onto the counsel table as Yuki sat stone-faced.
Time went by until Judge Passarelli said, “Mr. Gardner?”
“Sorry, Your Honor.”
Gardner walked to his table, lowered his mouth to his client’s ear. Lucas Burke nodded, wiped his face with a pocket handkerchief, and, gripping the arms of his chair, sat more or less erect. Cindy wrote, “Lucas Burke seems broken.”
Newt Gardner went back to the podium and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m not making up this shadow individual. He is real in every way, and according to my contacts with government investigators we don’t know a fraction of the women this man has killed.
“But for the purposes of this trial, we are concerned with three individuals. Tara Burke, Lorrie Burke, and Melissa Fogarty, an eighteen-year-old high school girl who loved Lucas, and who loved her, too.
“I swear to you. Lucas didn’t kill any of them. He’d rather have killed himself.”
CHAPTER 80
YUKI WAS BOTH shocked and awed by Gardner’s presentation.
He made sure when he looked around the small courtroom, to look directly at her, to unnerve her, to loosen her grip.
He was asking the jury to believe that Evan Burke, who did not even appear on the witness list because he was in the wind, was guilty of murdering three actual people.
Yuki knew where Gardener was going with his theory, but she was counting on the jurors to see through the flash of smoke and mirrors to the real flesh-and-blood killer sitting only yards from them and to find him guilty, guilty, guilty.
Tara. Lorrie. Melissa.
Means, motive, opportunity, and a murder weapon with his prints on the handle.
Gardner went on.
“The prosecution has, of course, provided the defense with the same videos they will show you.
“First, you’ll see the images of Lucas leaving his house one Monday morning after a fight with his wife. Thirty-two minutes later, his wife, Tara, leaves with the baby. As ADA Castellano told you, she is carrying some belongings and likely plans to spend the night away from home.