The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(60)

“Talk to me,” he said.

Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. Joe listened to every word about the Michael Dunn takedown that morning: His discombobulated name-calling as I confronted him. The wild shots he’d fired, one of which put a new part in Sergeant Nardone’s scalp. And his confession to everything but the Kennedy assassination as we locked him in the squad car.

“Dunn is in a cell by himself, under close guard, pending his arraignment,” I concluded. “People on the street can breathe a little more easily tonight. Me, too.”

Joe dished up the meat loaf and fixings, and as I ate, he told me about his Mr. Mom day: ducks in the park; Julie’s new word, panda; a playdate for Martha. And a haircut for him that I admired. I got up from the table to run my fingers through the thick new growth of hair that hid the long, bumpy scar at the back of his head.

“Good haircut,” I said.

“It’s for my interview,” he said.

Even as Joe was excited at the prospect of getting back to work himself, I knew some part of him wanted me to take a desk job, have another baby, stop mixing it up with crazy people with guns.

I’d tried to imagine it, but the picture just wouldn’t gel.

That night I ate dinner with two glasses of a nice Chianti. I slept without moving all night, like a rock or a log or a candle that had been burned at both ends.

Now, at my desk, I saw that the meat loaf Joe had made with loving hands was making an encore.

“I’m in brown-bag mode,” I said to my partner. “Thanks anyway.”

As Conklin made his exit, he passed Yuki coming through the gate. Normally tightly wrapped and focused, she looked frazzled. She pulled out Conklin’s now-empty desk chair and dropped into the seat.

“Brady’s in a meeting upstairs,” I told her.

“I know,” Yuki said. “I came to see you.”





CHAPTER 89


“EXCELLENT TIMING,” I said to Yuki. “I’m lunching at my desk. What’s going on?”

Yuki ran her hands through her hair and gladly accepted half of my sandwich.

Then she said, “My case is going sideways, Linds. I’m starting to think that my star witness is a big fat liar. If that’s true, the whole case against Briana Hill might be a lie, and if so, I have to jam on the brakes, and I mean right now.”

“Back up a little,” I said. “What lies are you talking about?”

Yuki leaned across Conklin’s desk and spilled her fears: that Marc had added fabricated details to his original story of the assault while he was under oath.

“But then it got worse,” Yuki said. “James Giftos turned up some old phone messages from Marc to Briana that sounded like he could have been blackmailing her.”

“Really? You’re serious?”

Yuki went on, saying, “Lindsay, do you remember what I told you about Paul Yates?”

I said, “He’s the one that had a bedroom encounter with Briana Hill and claimed that she threatened him with a gun.”

“Right. Not quite a corroboration, but Yates’s testimony of attempted rape with a gun validated Marc’s story. Now I’m questioning Yates’s story, too,” Yuki said. “I want to talk with him again, drill down hard on his story, and either de-bunk it or settle down the questions in my mind.”

“Sounds right.”

Yuki said, “I’ve called Paul at home and at work. I’ve left messages and I’ve texted him, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. Why not? So before I turn nothing into something, can you run Marc Christopher and Paul Yates through NCIC for me? Both of them.”

I said, “Yeats like the poet?”

“Y-a-t-e-s,” she said. “Paul G.”

I accessed NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, and typed in Marc Christopher. It took only a few minutes to assure myself that Marc Christopher wasn’t in it. He was clean.

“I’ve found nothing on Marc,” I told Yuki.

“Okay. Good,” she said. She got to work on the meat loaf on rye.

I typed in Paul G. Yates and let the software run. I was about to say, “Nothing on him, either,” when Paul Gentry Yates popped up in the Supervised Release file. It was an arrest sheet from ten years ago, when Paul Yates was a college kid of nineteen.

“Yuki. I found something you’re going to want to see.”

I pressed keys and the printer chugged out the arrest report. I wheeled my chair around, took the report out of the tray, and handed it to Yuki.

She read it, then looked up at me with shock on her face. “I’ve got to get this to Red Dog,” she said. “Fast.”





CHAPTER 90


YUKI SHOVED HER chair back from Conklin’s desk and ran, calling back to Lindsay, “I have to be back in court in thirty minutes.”

Lindsay yelled, “Good luck,” as Yuki made for the fire exit and ran down one flight to the third floor.

It was a short dash along the corridor to Parisi’s office.

The DA was in a closed-door meeting, but Yuki couldn’t wait and Len wouldn’t want her to. She announced to his gatekeeper, “It’s urgent,” and, without waiting for a reply, swept past Toni’s desk and barged into her boss’s office, announcing, “I’ve got to speak with you right now.”