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

He said, “Let me make sure I’ve got this right. He was shot in the thigh? One shot only?”

“Yep. One shot. Through and through.”

“The slug wasn’t recovered?”

“Not so far,” she said.

“So the shot could have been accidental. Like a random shot from two streets away.”

“Yep. That’s possible.”

“Or maybe the shooter had a motive,” Art said, inserting a long pause before adding, “Like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla wearing a designer suit.”

Yuki said, “The gorilla has an alibi. There’s no evidence that she shot him. In fact, her gun wasn’t recently fired. Video supports her whereabouts. Giftos got Rathburn to reinstate her bail, and she’s been released.”

“Maybe she hired someone to freak him out.”

“So that he wouldn’t testify?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Good theory, Art. That had not occurred to me.”

The bailiff swung open the courtroom doors.

“Let’s go,” said Arthur. “I want to get a good seat.”

Yuki smiled. Art was funny, but he was also very sharp. Committing a sex crime and hiring a hitter were two entirely different kinds of crimes, but they weren’t mutually exclusive. Had Briana paid a shooter to intimidate Marc? Had Marc in fact been intimidated? What kind of testimony would he give today?

Yuki and Art joined the throng entering the courtroom and had just taken their seats at their table when James Giftos strode up the center aisle.

He stopped beside Yuki’s seat.

“Neat trick, Counselor,” he said. “I’m already writing up my appeal.”

Of course Giftos was mad that Briana had been arrested and held overnight. It had weakened and depressed her, and that could make her a poor witness for herself.

Yuki was torn between saying “Dude, she had a loaded gun” and “Knock yourself out, Counselor,” but Giftos was already on the move. He crossed the well and opened the side door that led to the interior stairwell used by court personnel.

Giftos’s second chair came through the doorway with Briana Hill, who was wearing a plain gray skirt and sweater, with a silver cross.

Her polished look was gone.

Hill had just taken her seat between her two attorneys when the jurors entered the courtroom and filled the seats in the jury box. Behind Yuki, the gallery was loud with the sounds of spectators talking, settling into their seats, putting down their computer bags. Yuki looked for Marc but didn’t see him or his parents.

This was very worrisome. It was five to nine.

Judge Rathburn came through his private entrance, and the whispers stopped cold. Right then Yuki heard a ruckus behind her.

She turned in her seat to see the bailiff trying to close the door and heard a man’s voice pleading, “We got here as fast as we could. He has a right to be here.”

The bailiff relented and opened the door, and with the help of his parents, Marc Christopher hobbled into the courtroom on crutches. An elderly man on the aisle got up to give Marc his seat. Marc glanced in Yuki’s direction, and she nodded at him as he awkwardly took a seat in the gallery.

Like Briana Hill, Marc had lost his look of dewy youthfulness.

And now, after he’d been injured and traumatized, the curtain was about to go up on the drama of his life.

CHAPTER 70