12th of Never (Womens Murder Club 12) (19 page)

The main feature of the aquarium was a moving walkway that went through a long glass tunnel, and the fish swam above and around the walkway.

The shapes he saw bobbing in the halo of light were sharks. Perry Judd didn’t feel that this was a dream about sharks. But he did sense danger.

He swung his head from side to side and took in the people who had appeared on the moving walkway with him. There was a girl traveling alone, and two young men talking to one another. Someone else had a camera and was angling for various shots of the sea creatures.

The professor was trying to memorize the sights around him when a sharp, cracking sound tore through his dream. It was a gunshot. He remembered that Sergeant Boxer had told him to look around, to grab the gun, and to remember who the shooter was.

Who had fired?

The professor was startled awake.

He blinked in the blue light of his digital clock, his heart fluttering fast against his ribs like a moth on a lightbulb. He double-checked to be sure. There was his TV. There was his painting of a church in Munich. There was the X on the back of his left hand.

Definitely, he was awake and at his own home.

Still, he was aware that something had happened—or was about to happen—in the Aquarium of the Bay. Trouble was, he had failed to see the shooter. Or had he? Maybe it was one of the people he had seen.

Judd turned on his bedside lamp and called the SFPD. It was only five thirty in the morning, but an operator answered the phone.

“I have to leave a message for Inspector Conklin,” he said. “Tell him I’ll be coming in to see him this morning.”

“Your name, sir?”

“This is Professor Perry Judd.”

“And your number, please.”

Judd gave his number to the operator, who said that she didn’t know what time Inspector Conklin would be coming to work, or if he was coming in at all.

“Tell him that I’ll be there. It cannot wait.”

Judd hung up the phone and closed his eyes. He wanted to fall asleep and find out what happened inside the aquarium. Three hours later, he took a cab to the Hall of Justice and pressed the elevator button that let him out on the third floor. He found the homicide squad assistant behind her desk and demanded to see Inspector Conklin.

“He’s expecting me,” said Professor Judd.

THE LAST THING Judge Nussbaum had said before adjourning court for the weekend was “I can hardly wait until Monday, Mr. Kinsela, to see what you’ve got up your sleeve.”

Kinsela had laughed through his nose, and Keith Herman had nearly grinned his face off, but Yuki hadn’t been amused.

She had left the courtroom and gone directly upstairs, where she found Red Dog Parisi conferring with Chief Jacobi. She pulled a chair up to Parisi’s desk and the three of them discussed Lily Herman’s kidnapping, her mysterious return, and what effect the child’s reappearance might have had on the jury. They also reassured each other that the gun dealer’s recanting of his earlier testimony was meaningless.

The next day, Yuki, Nicky, Red Dog, and all the ADAs had gathered to pick their case apart and to critique the new structure of Yuki’s closing argument. They worked on Sunday, too, and even met again this morning to evaluate the media coverage and to incorporate last-minute thoughts.

The mind meld had been productive and Yuki was glad for the team’s support, but she was still uneasy.

Damage had been done. She’d told the jury in her opening statement that Keith Herman had killed two people, not one. And while the case was still about the murder of Jennifer Herman, Yuki knew that Kinsela had damaged her standing with the jury. And, by the way, he could slip another knife between her ribs before he was done.

There was only one witness on Kinsela’s list. It was another of the prosecution’s former witnesses—undercover cop Lieutenant Floyd Meserve.

Meserve was a good guy and a good cop.

Keith Herman had tried to hire Meserve to kill his wife and child. No question about it. Their interview had taken place in Meserve’s vehicle and had been recorded on video. The video had been shown to the jury. Keith Herman had told Meserve that he wanted Jennifer and Lily killed.

Now, as Yuki sat with Nicky at the defense table, waiting for court to reconvene, Yuki muttered to her associate, “How could Kinsela possibly use Meserve against us? How?”

The minute hand on the big clock moved. The bailiff announced that court was in session. The judge entered the courtroom and so did the jury. The judge banged the gavel, made some general remarks, then asked Kinsela if he was ready to begin.

Kinsela said, “Your Honor, we call Lieutenant Floyd Meserve.”

Meserve came through the front doors of the courtroom. He wore a cheap plaid sport jacket, a starched shirt, and a wide blue tie. His pants were shiny and so were his shoes. His ponytail had been hacked off—an amateur job, as if he had done it himself.

The lieutenant in charge of Crimes Against Persons looked pissed off as he was sworn in. He took his seat in the witness box and John Kinsela, appearing fresh and invigorated in a light gray suit and yellow tie, came toward him.

Yuki thought Kinsela definitely had something up his sleeve, but she couldn’t fathom what kind of something it could be.

JOHN KINSELA GREETED his witness, Lieutenant Meserve, then asked him, “Are you familiar with Lynnette Lagrande?”

Meserve sat back in his chair and looked genuinely puzzled before he said, “I don’t understand what you mean by ‘familiar.’”

“Let me put it this way. Do you
know
Lynnette Lagrande?”

“Yes, I know her,” said the former undercover cop.

“How would you characterize your relationship with her?”

“Social. I go out with her. Dinner and such.”

Yuki felt a chill at the back of her neck. What the hell was this?

“That’s what we call in this country dating, isn’t that right?”

“Your generation calls it dating.”

“Well, humor me and the jury and let’s both call it dating, okay? So how long have you been dating Ms. Lagrande?”

“I really don’t remember.”

“Long enough to become familiar with her?”

Kinsela snorted at his own joke. Someone in the gallery let out a high-pitched giggle, which caught on and became a wave of tentative laughter.

Yuki stood up and said, “Your Honor, I object in the strongest possible terms to the way Mr. Kinsela is fooling around at the expense of this court and the jury’s time. And in the process, he’s taking liberties with Ms. Lagrande’s reputation.”

Nussbaum said, “Sustained. Mr. Kinsela, this is a murder trial. Don’t do that again. This is your last warning.”

Yuki sat down hard in her seat and tried to comprehend the bombshell that had just landed in Judge Nussbaum’s courtroom.

Had she heard it right?

Floyd Meserve was currently a lieutenant in the police force. A year ago, he had been an undercover cop. He had put a video setup inside his vehicle and interviewed Keith Herman, a thug of a lawyer with a reputation for child abuse and jury tampering and maybe far worse. Herman had sought out Meserve, thinking he was a hit man, a contract killer. And Herman had said he wanted to have his family killed.

Now this good lieutenant was telling the court that he was dating Lynnette Lagrande, Keith Herman’s former girlfriend.

How had he met Lynnette?

And why was John Kinsela asking Meserve about dating Lynnette, anyway? What could that have to do with the case against Keith Herman?

There was more to come, Yuki could feel it.

Something big was about to blow.

KINSELA STOOD SIX FEET from the witness box with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make light of the proceedings.”

From the smile in Kinsela’s pale blue eyes, it was clear to Yuki and everyone else in the courtroom that Kinsela was enjoying himself enormously.

The judge said, “Watch yourself, Mr. Kinsela. Don’t make me angry.”

Kinsela apologized again, and then he continued his examination of the witness.

“Lieutenant, were you dating Ms. Lagrande at the time you met with Keith Herman?”

“You mean at the time when Keith Herman asked me to kill his wife and kid?”

“If that’s what he actually did. But let me be more precise. Were you dating Ms. Lagrande before February of last year?”

“I guess so.”

“Please answer yes or no.”

“I don’t keep a date book, for Christ’s sake. What do you think I am? A fifteen-year-old girl?”

Kinsela said, “Your Honor. Please tell the witness to answer the question.”

The judge spoke to the witness. “Lieutenant Meserve, you will either answer Mr. Kinsela’s questions truthfully or you will be held in contempt of court. You will be fined and jailed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir, Your Honor.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Kinsela.”

Kinsela let the moment drag out for a second or two, then said, “Who was the informant who referred Keith Herman to you, Lieutenant?”

“I can’t reveal my sources.”

Kinsela put his hand on the witness stand and leaned toward the witness. “Let me help you, Lieutenant. Lynnette Lagrande sent Keith Herman to you for the purpose of arranging the murder of Jennifer and Lily Herman, isn’t that right? Lynnette Lagrande was your so-called confidential informant.”

“I—I—I refuse to answer on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment.”

“You’re afraid you’ll incriminate yourself, Lieutenant? Is that because Lynnette Lagrande conspired with you to put Keith Herman up to contracting hits on his family? Isn’t it true that it was
Lynnette
who wanted Jennifer and Lily Herman dead? She wanted to marry Keith Herman for his money, and then Keith would have an accident. The fatal kind.”

“I take the Fifth. Didn’t you hear me—”

Kinsela kept going, ran right over what Meserve was saying. “And then, after Keith Herman was in the ground, and Lynnette was a wealthy widow, she could share her life and her new fortune with you. Isn’t that the way it was supposed to go? Isn’t that why you refuse to answer my questions?”

Meserve’s face was florid and yet the skin around his eyes had gone white. He shouted, “Killing Lily was
Keith’s
idea.”

“Is that so?” Kinsela said. “You’re saying Mr. Herman wanted his daughter killed, and yet Lily is alive, isn’t she? And Jennifer Herman is quite definitely dead.”

JOHN KINSELA WAS in his glory and he was basking in it.

Yuki shot to her feet, saying, “Objection, Your Honor.”

“On what grounds, Ms. Castellano?”

She made sure to modulate her voice so that she didn’t sound as furious as she felt. “On the grounds that Mr. Kinsela brought in this so-called rebuttal witness for one reason—to discredit him and to confuse the jury. He’s confused
me
. It’s absurd. It’s insane. It’s total bull.”

The judge said, “He’s entitled to question the witness, and you’re entitled to cross-examine the witness—”

“I’m turning state’s evidence,” Meserve shouted. “I’ll testify that Lynnette Lagrande was behind everything. Judge, I haven’t perjured myself. I didn’t kill anyone. Lynnette wanted Keith dead, that’s true, and I was seeing her, but that’s not important because I did nothing wrong—”

Meserve’s speech was cut off by the word “Liar,” screamed from the back row of the courtroom. Lynnette Lagrande was on her feet, shouting at Meserve, “You liar. You bastard. You weak, lying murderer!”

It was as if someone had shouted “Fire” inside a circus tent.

Yuki saw Jacobi stand up in the back of the gallery. He edged out to the aisle, then walked rapidly toward Lynnette Lagrande. He said her name and she whipped her head around, her face still twisted in anger.

“Ms. Lagrande, we’re gonna hold you on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. You, too, Lieutenant Meserve,” Jacobi said loudly. “We’re going to have some questions for both of you.”

The judge looked stunned. His eyes darted around the court-room as outbursts flared like fireworks going off on all sides. People in the gallery panicked and rushed for the aisle and the exit even as police poured through the courtroom doors.

Kinsela stood at the defense table with his client and shouted, “Judge Nussbaum, I move to dismiss. There is no case against my client. Lily Herman is alive. There is no evidence tying Keith Herman to the death of Jennifer Herman. Lynnette Lagrande is the responsible party—”

Lynnette Lagrande had become a wild woman. She screamed at Jacobi, “Get away from me,” and lashed out at him with her nails. Jacobi was almost thirty years older and weighed a hundred pounds more.

He put his hand on her shoulder so that she couldn’t touch him, then said in a booming voice, “Now you’re also under arrest for assaulting a police officer. Put your hands behind your back.”

Kinsela shouted to the judge, “Your Honor, I strongly urge you to dismiss the charges and release Mr. Herman—”

A juror sitting in the front row of the jury box, a woman in her sixties named Nina Tancho, stood up abruptly and shouted, “I can’t take this anymore. You people are all insane.”

The judge slammed down his gavel again,
bam, bam, bam.

“Everyone freeze.”

There was a moment of relative silence into which Judge Nussbaum said, “I’m declaring a mistrial. Mr. Herman, you will be returned to your cell for now. Bailiff, please take the jury back to their room. Sheriff Calhoun, clear the court-room.

“Mr. Kinsela, Ms. Castellano, please stay where you are.”

Cops pushed and pulled a handcuffed Lynnette Lagrande toward the exit. Her pretty face was unrecognizable as she screamed, “I did nothing wrong. This is slander. I’m going to sue you, Mr. Kinsela. I’m going to sue—everyone. I’m
innocent
.”

Floyd Meserve called out to Kinsela, “I need representation, Mr. Kinsela. I need you right now.”

Kinsela said, “You can’t afford me, Mr. Meserve. But here’s some free advice. Shut the hell up.”