4th of July (18 page)

“Please raise your right hand.”

Sam Cabot cast his eyes wildly from side to side. He sucked in some air and spoke into the small green voice box. The voice that came out was an eerie and unnerving mechanical sound.

“I can’t,” Sam said.

SAM’S VOICE NO LONGER sounded completely human, but his young face and his small frail body made him seem more fragile and vulnerable than any other person in the room. The people in the gallery murmured in sympathy as the bailiff turned to Judge Achacoso.

“Judge?”

“Administer the oath, bailiff.”

“Do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God?”

“I do,” said Sam Cabot.

Broyles smiled at Sam, giving the jury enough time to really hear, see, and absorb the pitiful state of Sam Cabot’s body and imagine what a hell his life had become.

“Don’t be nervous,” Broyles said to Sam. “Just tell the truth. Tell us what happened that night, Sam.”

Broyles took Sam through a set of warm-up questions, waiting as the boy closed his mouth around the air tube. His answers came in broken sentences, the length of each phrase determined by the amount of air he could hold in his lungs before drawing on the mouthpiece again.

Broyles asked Sam how old he was, where he lived, what school he went to, before he got to the meat of his interrogation.

“Sam, do you remember what happened on the night of May tenth?”

“I’ll never forget it . . . as long as I live,” Sam said, sucking air from the tube, expelling his words in bursts through the voice box. “It’s all I think of . . . and no matter how hard I try . . . I can’t get it out of my mind. . . . That’s the night she killed my sister . . . and ruined my life, too.”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Yuki rose and said.

“Young man,” said the judge, “I know this is difficult, but please try to confine your answers to the questions.”

“Sam, let’s back up,” said Mason Broyles kindly. “Can you tell us the events of that night, and please take it step-by-step.”

“A lot of stuff happened,” Sam said. He sucked at the tube and continued. “But I don’t remember . . . all of it. I know we took Dad’s car . . . and we got scared. . . . We heard the sirens coming. . . . Sara didn’t have her license. Then the air bag burst. . . . All I remember . . . is seeing that woman . . . shoot Sara. . . . I don’t know why she did it.”

“That’s okay, Sam. That’s fine.”

“I saw a flash,” the boy continued, his eyes fastened on me. “And then my sister . . . she was dead.”

“Yes. We all know. Now, Sam. Do you remember when Lieutenant Boxer shot you?”

Within the small arc permitted by his restraints, Sam rolled his head from side to side. And then he started to cry. His heart-wrenching sobs were interrupted by the sucking of air and enhanced by the mechanical translation of his wails through the voice box.

It was an unearthly sound, unlike anything I’d ever heard before in my life. Chills shot up my spine and, I was quite certain, everyone else’s.

Mason Broyles quickly advanced across the floor to his client, whipped a hankie out of his breast pocket, and dabbed at Sam’s eyes and nose.

“Do you need a break, Sam?”

“No . . . sir. . . . I’m okay,” he brayed.

“Your witness, Counsel,” said Mason Broyles, shooting us a look that was as good as a dare.

YUKI APPROACHED THE thirteen-year-old killer, who looked even younger and more pitiable now that his face was red from weeping.

“Are you feeling a little better, Sam?” Yuki asked, putting her hands on her knees and stooping a little so that her eyes met his.

“Okay, I guess . . . considering,” said Sam.

“Glad to hear it,” said Yuki, standing, taking a few steps back. “I’ll try to keep my questions brief. Why were you in the Tenderloin District on May tenth?”

“I don’t know . . . ma’am. . . . Sara was driving.”

“Your car was parked outside the Balboa Hotel. Why was that?”

“We were buying a newspaper . . . I think. . . . We were going to go to the movies.”

“You think there’s a newsstand inside the Balboa?”

“I guess so.”

“Sam, you understand the difference between a lie and the truth?”

“Of course.”

“And you know that you promised to tell the truth?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. So, can you tell all of us why you and Sara were carrying guns that night?”

“They were . . . Dad’s guns,” the boy said. He paused for breath and maybe for thought as well. “I took a gun out of the glove compartment . . . because I thought those people . . . were going to kill us.”

“You didn’t know that the police were trying to pull you over?”

“I was scared. . . . I wasn’t driving, and . . . everything happened fast.”

“Sam, were you on crank that night?”

“Ma’am?”

“Methamphetamine. You know—ice, get-go, beanies.”

“I wasn’t on drugs.”

“I see. Do you remember the car accident?”

“Not really.”

“Do you remember seeing Lieutenant Boxer and Inspector Jacobi help you out of the car after it crashed?”

“No, because I had blood in my eyes. . . . My nose broke. . . . All of a sudden . . . I see guns, and the next thing I know . . . they shot us.”

“Do you remember shooting Inspector Jacobi?”

The kid’s eyes widened. Was he surprised by the question? Or was he simply remembering the moment?

“I thought he was going to hurt me,” Sam croaked out at last.

“So you do remember shooting him?”

“Wasn’t he going to arrest me?”

Yuki stood her ground as she waited for Sam’s lungs to fill. “Sam. Why did you shoot Inspector Jacobi?”

“No. I don’t remember . . . doing that.”

“Tell me: Are you under a psychiatrist’s care?”

“Yeah, I am. . . . Because I’m having a hard time. Because I’m paralyzed . . . and because that woman murdered my sister.”

“Okay, let me ask you about that. You say that Lieutenant Boxer murdered your sister. Didn’t you see your sister fire at Lieutenant Boxer first? Didn’t you see the lieutenant lying on the street?”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“Sam, you remember that you’re under oath?”

“I’m telling the truth,” he said, and sobbed again.

“Okay. Have you ever been inside the Lorenzo Hotel?”

“Objection, Your Honor. Where is this going?”

“Ms. Castellano?”

“It’ll become apparent in a second, Your Honor. I just have one more question.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Sam, isn’t it true that right now you’re the prime suspect in the investigation of multiple homicides?”

Sam turned his head a few degrees away from Yuki and bellowed in his soul-searing, mechanically aided voice, “Mr. Broyles.”

Sam’s voice tailed away as the air went out of him.

“Objection! No foundation, Your Honor,” Broyles shouted above the murmurs washing over the room and the slams of Judge Achacoso’s gavel.

“I want that question struck from the record,” Broyles shouted, “and I ask Your Honor to instruct the jury to disregard —”

Before the judge could rule, Sam’s eyes wheeled frantically.

“I take the amendment,” the kid said, getting a fresh infusion of air before speaking once more. “I take the Fifth Amendment on the grounds —”

And with that, a horrific shrieking alarm came from beneath the wheelchair. There were screams from the gallery and from the jury box as the readouts on the ventilator went down to zero.

Andrew Cabot leaped from his chair, shoving the attendant forward.

“Do something! Do something!”

There was a collective intake of breath as the tech knelt, fiddled with knobs, and reset the ventilator. At last, the alarm went silent.

A loud whoosh was heard as Sam sucked in his life-saving air.

Then the roar of the crowd’s relief filled the room.

“I’m done with this witness,” Yuki said, shouting over the rumble that flowed from front to back of the courtroom.

“Court is adjourned,” said Judge Achacoso, slamming her gavel down. “We’ll resume tomorrow at nine.”

AS THE COURTROOM EMPTIED, Yuki directed her full five-foot-two presence toward the judge.

“Your Honor! Move for a mistrial,” she said.

The judge waved her to the bench, and she and Mickey as well as Broyles and his second chair clumped up to the front.

I heard Yuki say, “The jury had to have been prejudiced by that freaking alarm.”

“You’re not accusing the plaintiff of deliberately setting off that ‘freaking’ alarm, are you?” asked the judge.

“No, of course not, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Broyles?”

“Pardon my language, Judge, but shit happens, and what the jury saw is an ongoing feature of Sam Cabot’s life. Sometimes the ventilator malfunctions and the kid could die. The jury saw that. I don’t think it made our case any stronger than the fact that Sam’s in that chair and his sister is dead.”

“I agree. Motion denied, Ms. Castellano. We’re going forward tomorrow morning, as planned.”

I DON’T KNOW WHO was more shell-shocked, me or Yuki. We found our way to the fire exit stairwell, clattered down the concrete stairs, and opened the side door onto Polk, leaving Mickey to handle the press.

Yuki looked positively stunned—and mortified.

“Sam’s testimony was beyond a nightmare,” she said, her voice cracking. “When that alarm went off, my whole cross was obliterated. It was like everyone was thinking, What in God’s name did she do to that child?”

We took the most circuitous and least scenic route to the garage. I had to put my arm across Yuki’s waist to stop her from crossing the wind tunnel of Van Ness against the light.

“My God,” Yuki said again and again, each time throwing her hands out, palms facing the sky. “My God, my God. What a joke. What a complete travesty!”

“But Yuki,” I said, “you got your point across. You said it all. The kids were parked in the Tenderloin. They had no business there. They had guns. You said that Sam was the target of a homicide investigation, and Sam will be arraigned for those murders.

“His prints were found on the lip of the bathtub where that poor kid was electrocuted. He and Sara murdered those kids, Yuki. Sam Cabot is a terror. The jury has to know that.”

“I don’t know that they know. I can’t get away with saying he’s a suspect again because he hasn’t been arraigned. The jury might have even thought I was baiting the kid, trying to get his pathetic little goat. Which, apparently, I did.”

We crossed Opera Plaza, a mixed-use development with restaurants, a bookstore, and movie theaters on the ground floor. Avoiding the stares of the crowd, we took the elevator down to the garage, and after going back and forth several times between the rows of parked cars, we found Yuki’s Acura at last.

We strapped in, and when Yuki turned the key, the engine jumped to life. I was already thinking ahead to tomorrow.

“You’re sure it’s a good idea for me to testify?” I asked my attorney.

“Absolutely. Mickey and I totally agree on this. We’ve got to get the jury’s sympathy going toward you. And to do that, those people are going to have to see and hear what you’re made of.

“And that’s why you’ve got to testify.”

THE NEXT MORNING THE view from Yuki’s kitchenette was gray, as rain gathered for a fall from the huge thunderheads over the city. Strangely, this was the San Francisco that I loved, stormy and tempestuous.

I drank my coffee and fed Martha. Then we went for a quick walk on Jones Street.

“Gotta hurry, Boo,” I said, already feeling the mist in the air. “Big doings today. Mama’s going to be lynched.”

Twenty minutes later, Mickey picked us up in his car. We got to the courthouse at quarter to eight, cleverly missing most of the mob scene.

Inside courtroom B, Mickey and Yuki sat next to each other and argued in whispers, Yuki’s hands fluttering like frantic little birds. As for me, I stared out the courthouse window at the sheets of falling rain as tense minutes ticked off on the electric clock against the side wall.

I felt a touch on my arm.

“I’ll be honest, that alarm was one of the worst things that ever happened to me in a courtroom,” Mickey said, leaning across Yuki to talk to me. “I’d hate to think that Broyles staged that event, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have rigged the electric cord.”

“You can’t be serious?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to do damage control. It’s our turn to put on our case, and we have two messages to convey. The kid’s a horror even on wheels, and you’re a great cop.”

“Look, do not worry about your testimony, Lindsay,” Yuki added. “If you were any more prepared, you wouldn’t sound natural. When it’s time to do it, just tell the story. Take your time and stop to think if you aren’t sure of something. And don’t look guilty. Just be the great cop that you are.”

“Right,” I said. And for good measure, I said it again.

Too soon, the spectators filled the room in their damp raincoats, some of them still shaking out umbrellas. Then the opposition filed in and banged their briefcases down on the table. Broyles gave us a civil nod, barely masking his joy. The man was in his element, all right. Court TV. Network TV. Everyone wanted to speak with Mason Broyles.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Broyles shake Andrew Cabot’s hand, kiss Eva Cabot on the cheek. He even helped the medical attendant position Sam Cabot’s wheelchair just so. He orchestrated everything, so why not that alarm yesterday?

“Sleep okay, Sam? That’s great,” Broyles said to the boy.

For me, the nightmare resumed.

The sound of Sam sucking air through his ventilator tube every few seconds was such a painful and constant reminder of what I’d done that I found it hard to breathe myself.

Suddenly, the side door to the courtroom opened, and the twelve good men and women and three alternates walked to the box and took their places. The judge, carrying a cardboard cup of coffee, took hers as the court was called into session.