21st Birthday (Women's Murder Club #21)(61)



“Later, past dark on that same day, the camera will record Lucas coming home around eight thirty and leaving again the next morning at seven. Tara’s car is not in the driveway. On Tuesday, he is questioned by SFPD in his office and cooperates fully. The next morning, he gets the horrifying news that his baby daughter is lying dead in the surf of Baker Beach.

“A police sergeant drives him to this very building, where he is questioned and held as a material witness, released the next day. He goes home, and several hours later police cars pull up, several inspectors come to the front door and hand Lucas a search warrant. He is asked to stay outside while they search his premises and Lucas, nearly deranged with grief, gets into his car and drives clear to Sacramento.

“After the police and CSI enter Dublin Street, there is no more video from the Burke house surveillance camera. CSI disconnects the receiver and takes it back to the lab.

“But the most important piece of information in this case is on the video. We see Tara Burke leaving the house and she does not lock the door. My client has told me that his wife never locked the doors, front, back, or side. And so if you were planning to kill her, you would be aware of this, and you would have had access to the Burke house from the rear, where there was no camera.

“This fact will come up again. Tara never locked the doors.

“The prosecution will show you video of Ms. Melissa Fogarty, known as Misty, Lucas Burke’s girlfriend. The video was taken on Friday, two days after Lorrie Burke’s body was found at Baker Beach. This video was taken at 8 p.m. in the parking lot of the school where Luke taught English, and Misty was in the senior class. These two often met at this time in the empty parking lot, but on this night, Lucas Burke was not coming to meet Misty. He had left town, driven from his house to Sacramento, where Alexandra Conroy, his ex-wife, suggested they both travel to Carmel-by-the-Sea for his health.

“The two of them drive to Carmel the next morning. Only a day later, on Saturday, while Lucas and ex-wife are having breakfast in the hotel, Lucas sees a newspaper with a headline he cannot believe.”

Gardner said, “This is the paper.”

He held up the Chronicle Yuki had seen enough times to memorize the headline. “Slash-and-Gash Killer Takes Second Victim.” Misty’s sweet face filled the rest of the front page.

Gardner went on.

“Ms. Conroy will testify that she and Lucas were together from the time he arrived in Sacramento until a day and a half later, when they returned to San Francisco. So how can the prosecution have a video of my client killing Melissa Fogarty, flinging the murder weapon into the weeds, and — voilà — it has Melissa’s blood on the blade and Lucas Burke’s fingerprints on the handle?

“I call bull on the prosecution’s theory. It is a theory full of holes because Lucas wasn’t there. They have a possible murder weapon, and it may have belonged to Lucas. But they don’t have proof it was in his hand when Melissa Fogarty was killed.

“I will prove to you that someone else committed these unspeakable murders. He had access to my client’s house. He had access to his razor blade.

“As for Tara’s body. By the time that poor woman’s car floated up near China Beach she had been in the ocean for nearly a week. She was bloated, and ocean animals — fish, crabs, seals, whatever — had been rough on her. But it was still clear that she had been killed with a straight-edge razor sliced across her throat from left to right. When she was dead or dying, her killer weighed down the accelerator and sent her car into the ocean, with mother and baby daughter inside.

“My client, Lucas Burke didn’t do this. And the prosecution can say what they want, but they have no witness, no trace evidence, no clear video of the person who killed Tara Burke.

“My client didn’t do it.

“Lucas killed none of these people.

“He’s never killed anyone in his life. But as his attorney, I don’t have to prove his innocence.

“The prosecution has to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.”

Yuki watched Gardner thank the jury and return to his seat. He put his arm around Burke’s shoulders, and his client put his head down on the table and sobbed loudly and authentically.

The judge called Yuki and Gardner to the bench and said, “I feel strongly we should recess now and pick up again after lunch.”

Gardner said, “Yes, yes, for the love of God, yes.”

Yuki said, “I agree, Your Honor.”

Court was adjourned until one o’clock.





CHAPTER 81





I WAS IN BRADY’S OFFICE when he got the call.

After a moment, he said, “Hold on, hon. I need you to tell Lindsay, too.”

Brady stabbed a button on his console and I went out to my desk and said, “Yuki? What’s wrong?”

Her voice was strained.

“Linds, I asked Brady if you can you take another stab at finding Evan Burke. I want to talk to him.”

“We’ve kept a camera on his house on Mount Tam. He hasn’t been back. His cabin cruiser is still in its slip at Richardson Bay Marina.”

“So, you’re saying this is a dead end?”

It was ten thirty Monday morning.

Yuki asking us to take another run at Evan Burke meant she was having doubts about her case, and if she was feeling that way, jurors would surely feel the same.

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