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

r badge and said to the gathering of bystanders, “I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer of the SFPD. Did anyone see what happened?”

Michael pivoted on his heel and headed away from the crowd, the feeling of exposure making him reel.

Damn her to hell. That bitch cop who’d just snapped his picture had caught him off guard and pinned him in perpetuity to the crowd standing thirty feet away from the body.

All women were trouble, and this one, especially this one, looked like she had mastered the art of female bitchery. When she snapped those pictures, he took the mental image of her. Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. He would remember that.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 38

IN CINDY THOMAS’S view, the gossip, rumors, and overheated cross talk about the alleged rape of Marc Christopher had electrified and divided the people of San Francisco before the trial had even begun.

But in just over an hour the curtain would go up on The People v. Hill, and actual testimony and evidence would deny or feed the internet speculation. With luck, Cindy thought, she would score one of the few available press seats in Judge Rathburn’s courtroom.

Cindy parked her car in the All-Day lot on Bryant, grabbed her computer bag, and, as she got out of her car, was smacked with a gust of chilly morning breeze. She buttoned her coat, got her ticket from the attendant, and hurried toward the corner, where she waited for the light to change.

As traffic sped past her, Cindy took note of the media satellite vans jammed tightly at the curb and the press setups on the sidewalk in front of the Hall of Justice. The excessive media coverage of a local event underscored what she’d been feeling for weeks. A cultural belief was being challenged, and this story was going surprisingly large and wide.

The case against Briana Hill wasn’t Cindy’s first media storm, but it was the first that didn’t involve a kidnapping or loss of life. The rape of a full-grown and athletic man in his late twenties by an attractive young advertising executive weighing in at about 110 pounds had neatly split the followers on her crime blog.

Half of the commenters fiercely maintained that a man couldn’t be raped by a woman. The other half insisted that, yes, a man could be raped by a woman and the determining factor was consent.

Consent was legally correct.

But could Yuki prove her case?

The light changed, and as Cindy crossed the four-lane street and approached the wide front staircase, she tugged on the chain around her neck, freeing her press pass so that security could see it.

She worked her way through the gathering of people at the base of the Hall of Justice steps. She guessed that most of them were hoping to glimpse one of the major players in the trial: Marc Christopher, Briana Hill, either of the attorneys who would be trying the case, or Judge Rathburn, who was known to make colorful, off-the-cuff remarks.

The courtroom itself held only fifty people in the gallery, and as the senior crime reporter for the Chronicle, Cindy generally got a seat. Today, with a trial attracting so much media attention, those precious seats would go fast on a first-come, first-served basis.

Breathless, Cindy joined the line, which went from the steps into the courthouse, and slowly climbed toward the security station just inside the doors. When she got to the walk-through metal detector, she placed her computer bag on the table, showed the guard her pass. He ran the wand alongside her body, and when her bag appeared at the end of the conveyor belt, she slung it over her shoulder and sprinted to catch an elevator.

It was only eight fifteen. Court wouldn’t convene until nine. She would be standing outside the courtroom door when it opened.

Right now, getting a seat in Judge Rathburn’s courtroom was the most important appointment of her day.

CHAPTER 39

COURTROOM 23 WAS a no-frills wood-paneled room with two flags flanking the California state seal on the wall behind the bench, two counsel tables facing it, and eight rows of upholstered, metal-frame seats behind the bar that were divided by the center aisle.

At 8:45 Yuki and Arthur Baron were at the prosecution’s counsel table, and Yuki was nerved up. She felt like an athlete coming into the stadium before the big game against the current champions. Or like a BASE jumper pushing off the cliff into the wide-open air, wearing only a wingsuit. Would the wingsuit support her flight? Or would a stiff breeze dash her into the rocks?

As the hands on the clock over the side door notched ever closer to 9 a.m., Yuki thought about her preparation for this trial.

Since Briana Hill’s arraignment, she and Arthur had dug into relevant case histories of rape trials in California. They had prepped their witnesses and they had fine-tuned their arguments. Yuki had rehearsed her opening statement with Arthur until she could hit every beat without consulting her notes, but not sound mechanical when it really counted.

Last week had been devoted to voir dire.

Judge Rathburn had made good on his promise to help counsel select unbiased jurors, and up to a point, both attorneys were satisfied. As always in picking jurors, attorneys were making calculated guesses but could often be surprised by the decisions the jurors made.

No one knew what a jury was going to do, as Yuki had first learned by watching the film of the O. J. Simpson trial when she was in law school. She would never forget the stunned look on criminal defense attorney Robert Kardashian’s face when his client was found not guilty. His team had won. Their client had been found not guilty—but Kardashian was blindsided.

This morning Yuki had been awake before Brady. She had dressed in her fighting red suit and awoken her husband for a good-luck kiss.

“Today’s the day,” she said.