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

“It was … terrifying.”

“I’m listening,” Yuki said.

Yates reached over and pressed the Stop button on the tape recorder. Yuki had to let him do it.

“I’ll tell you, but I am not going to testify,” he said.

“Okay. Okay, Paulie. Just tell me.”

CHAPTER 14

YUKI AND MARC Christopher were taking the elevator to the fourth floor of the Civic Center Courthouse, where she would be making her case to the grand jury within the next twenty minutes.

The grand jury hearing was a trial run for the prosecutor. Yuki would present the case against Briana Hill, her few witnesses would testify, and she would introduce her evidence. All of this would be done fairly quickly, and with absolute secrecy.

There would be no judge, no defendant, no other attorneys. Yuki would be entirely in charge of this presentation. Unlike with a petit jury, where the jurors had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, here the grand jurors—or twelve of nineteen of them—had only to find probable cause that Briana Hill had raped Marc Christopher.

If they found probable cause, they would indict and the case would go forward to trial.

The pressure was on Yuki, and on Marc.

While Len Parisi had always shown confidence in Yuki, she had lost big cases. But for the most part, the losses were not because of error, lack of preparation, or poor skills. Once, a star witness for the prosecution had committed suicide; another had choked on the stand and changed her testimony; and in one case the defense had sprung a surprise witness who landed a crushing blow to the prosecution’s case.

Still, Yuki had notched several important wins. Although Parisi was skeptical about the Hill case, he had given her the green light to go to the grand jury. She was sure she was right to have fought for the case.

The elevator lurched and stopped at the third floor. People got out, replaced by others squeezing in, and once the doors closed, the car continued its ascent.

Standing beside Yuki, Marc Christopher was dressed in a navy-blue suit and blue-patterned tie. His hair was recently cut and he’d had a good shave. Yuki was wearing a blue suit, very much like the one Marc was wearing. No tie for her, but a strand of angel skin coral beads Brady had given her as a wedding gift. Unlike Yuki, Marc looked completely numb.

Yuki suspected he’d popped a Xanax or two. If so, he’d made a mistake. Yuki needed him to bring the story of the sexual assault to life for the jury. He had to emote. He had to be able to describe the damaging effects of what he had been through.

Yuki wanted to ask him again if he was feeling okay, but at this point it no longer mattered.

Unless Marc said in the next few minutes, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to drop the charges,” the show would go on. She was ready. She could only hope that Marc would be ready, too.

The elevator doors slid open on the fourth floor. Yuki and Marc exited the elevator and walked down the hallway toward the grand jury room.

Her three other witnesses were waiting in the corridor outside the courtroom door.

Phyllis Chase, the arresting officer in the case, was in uniform. Paul Yates, the copywriter who had had one date with Briana Hill, wore denim and a panicked look. And Frank Pilotte, the tech specialist who would run Marc’s homemade rape video for the jury and testify to its authenticity, had the calm presence Yuki had hoped for in an expert witness.

Yates and Christopher acknowledged each other with nods. Pilotte held open the heavy wooden door for Yuki, and she entered the grand jury room. It was a modern courtroom: wood paneling and white-painted plaster under a drop ceiling lit with embedded fluorescent fixtures.

The judge’s bench, at one end of the room, would not be in use. Instead a massive wooden table had been set up facing the jurors. Yuki took her place behind the table, and her four witnesses sat alongside her.

The nineteen jurors had been impaneled for almost a month and had heard a hundred cases in that time. And still Yuki was pretty sure they hadn’t ever heard a case like this one.

Yuki felt almost calm. She was prepared. Thirty minutes from now she would know if she would be putting Briana Hill on trial for sexual assault in the first degree.

CHAPTER 15

YUKI MADE HER succinct opening remarks to the jurors, each word carefully chosen.

“It may be hard to imagine a woman forcing a strong young man into an act of sexual intercourse against his will.

“Now imagine that this woman is his boss, that she had a gun in her hand, and that she threatened to blow him away if he didn’t perform. In a few minutes Marc Christopher, the victim, will tell you exactly what happened to him. But first I want you to hear from Inspector Chase, of Sex Crimes, who investigated this case.”

Yuki called Inspector Phyllis Chase. The foreperson swore her in, and the forty-year-old police investigator, appearing motherly and calm, took the witness stand.