The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(51)

Yuki knew that Briana had rolled off Marc’s body, pulled up the blankets around her shoulders, and fallen asleep without untying him or speaking again.

Yuki said, “Your Honor. Both parties slept until the camera’s memory card was full and had stopped recording.”

The judge muttered, “Thank God.”

Art shut down the laptop, crossed to the front of the room, and brought up the lights.

Yuki felt blasted as the dim light gave way to brightness in the courtroom. She looked at the jurors. She had never seen a jury look so shattered.

Even the judge looked disturbed. He grabbed at the tissue box and blew his nose.

Yuki said, “The People enter this recording into evidence, Your Honor.”

“Done. And this would be a good time to take a half-hour recess. Back here at eleven sharp.”

He brought down the gavel and left the courtroom.





CHAPTER 74


DURING THE HALF-HOUR recess Art helped Marc to the men’s room, sat with him in the corridor, and told him that he had done a great job on the stand. He said casually, “I must have missed the part where Briana said she wanted the best bonk of her life.”

Marc answered, “I’d forgotten. It just came back to me.”

Yuki used the time to think through every last word that Marc had spoken. She questioned much of it. She got a bottle of water from the vending machine and, keeping an eye on the time, got back to the prosecution table as Art was helping Marc up to the witness stand.

Arthur joined her at their table and updated her on his brief chat with Marc. “He said he’d had a sudden recurrence of memory,” said Art. “It was like a miracle.”

A moment later Briana Hill and Madison Benson returned to the defense table. Briana was nodding as if Madison had given her an affectionate buck-up speech.

The spectators filled the gallery, no doubt wondering what the hell had happened that had caused the judge to throw them out. Then the jury came in and took their places in the box. Some of them still looked as though a bomb had gone off in front of their faces.

At eleven sharp the judge took the bench, and a moment before the doors were closed, James Giftos sat down at his counsel table. Yuki guessed that he had used the recess to sharpen his knives and prepare himself to give the cross-examination of his career.

Red Dog Parisi had once told Yuki that litigation was a storytelling contest and the best story won. James Giftos had a mighty big job ahead of him if he hoped to undermine the prosecution’s story. Yuki had provided something light-years more effective than a secondhand narrative.

She’d shown Briana Hill threatening and then raping the victim. She had presented proof.

She expected that Giftos would tell the jurors that the video was open to interpretation. But was it? The jury had been exposed to the rape as if they had been inside Marc’s actual bedroom, staring down the barrel of Briana Hill’s actual gun.

The judge said, “Mr. Christopher, you’re still under oath. Understand?”

Marc nodded.

The judge said, “Court reporter has to hear you. Is that a yes?”

“Yes, I understand that I’m under oath.”

Rathburn said, “Mr. Giftos, are you ready to cross-examine the witness?”

Giftos stood, smoothed his tie, and said, “Sidebar, Your Honor.”

Judge Rathburn couldn’t keep the irritation off his face.

“Approach,” he said.

Yuki and Art got up from their seats and met Giftos and Benson at the bench.

Judge Rathburn put his hand over the mike and said to James Giftos, “Make it good, Counselor.”

“We’ve just uncovered some new evidence.”

“During the recess?”

“We found voice mail messages from Mr. Christopher to Ms. Hill after the so-called rape.”

Judge Rathburn growled, “In my chambers.”





CHAPTER 75


THE FOUR ATTORNEYS and the judge trooped out and convened in Rathburn’s office. This time the judge didn’t sit.

He said, “How did these messages come to light at just this moment, James? Convince me.”

“Can do, Your Honor. After the incident in question Mr. Christopher started dogging my client. He wanted to go out with her. She brushed him off. Then he started calling and e-mailing with threats to blackmail her.”

“Judge Rathburn, this is the first I’ve heard about blackmail threats,” said Yuki.

Giftos didn’t look at her. He said, “Until now they were unsubstantiated. Briana avoided Christopher and stopped answering his calls and e-mail. When he went to the police, management at the Ad Shop put Briana on unpaid leave. She never cleared messages from her office phone.”

“Until now?” the judge said.

“We grilled her during the recess,” said Giftos, looking very much like the proverbial cat after consuming the canary. “We asked if there was anything at all we could use to refute Mr. Christopher’s bullshit. Pardon me. His lies. She remembered that there were unanswered calls on her office phone. It was a Hail Mary.”

Yuki’s heart thudded almost audibly. The judge was listening in earnest.

“Keep talking,” he said.

Giftos went on.

“We called her office number and accessed the voice mail system. It still retained her undeleted new messages. There were three messages from Mr. Christopher, none longer than six seconds. The first two messages were essentially, ‘Call me or else.’ The last one was another coded threat.