I said, “He’s the one that had a bedroom encounter with Briana Hill and claimed that she threatened him with a gun.”
“Right. Not quite a corroboration, but Yates’s testimony of attempted rape with a gun validated Marc’s story. Now I’m questioning Yates’s story, too,” Yuki said. “I want to talk with him again, drill down hard on his story, and either de-bunk it or settle down the questions in my mind.”
“Sounds right.”
Yuki said, “I’ve called Paul at home and at work. I’ve left messages and I’ve texted him, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. Why not? So before I turn nothing into something, can you run Marc Christopher and Paul Yates through NCIC for me? Both of them.”
I said, “Yeats like the poet?”
“Y-a-t-e-s,” she said. “Paul G.”
I accessed NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, and typed in Marc Chri
stopher. It took only a few minutes to assure myself that Marc Christopher wasn’t in it. He was clean.
“I’ve found nothing on Marc,” I told Yuki.
“Okay. Good,” she said. She got to work on the meat loaf on rye.
I typed in Paul G. Yates and let the software run. I was about to say, “Nothing on him, either,” when Paul Gentry Yates popped up in the Supervised Release file. It was an arrest sheet from ten years ago, when Paul Yates was a college kid of nineteen.
“Yuki. I found something you’re going to want to see.”
I pressed keys and the printer chugged out the arrest report. I wheeled my chair around, took the report out of the tray, and handed it to Yuki.
She read it, then looked up at me with shock on her face. “I’ve got to get this to Red Dog,” she said. “Fast.”
CHAPTER 90
YUKI SHOVED HER chair back from Conklin’s desk and ran, calling back to Lindsay, “I have to be back in court in thirty minutes.”
Lindsay yelled, “Good luck,” as Yuki made for the fire exit and ran down one flight to the third floor.
It was a short dash along the corridor to Parisi’s office.
The DA was in a closed-door meeting, but Yuki couldn’t wait and Len wouldn’t want her to. She announced to his gatekeeper, “It’s urgent,” and, without waiting for a reply, swept past Toni’s desk and barged into her boss’s office, announcing, “I’ve got to speak with you right now.”
Parisi told the two men in his office to hang on a minute, stepped out into the corridor, and asked Yuki what was wrong.
“Paul Yates,” she said. “He tried to extort a professor when he was in college.”
“And? Where does that go?” Parisi asked.
“Okay,” Yuki said. “Ten years ago, when he was at UCLA, Yates threatened to expose his sociology professor for using inappropriate language unless he gave him a passing grade. The professor addressed it head-on and took it to the dean, who called the cops. Yates was arrested. Judge gave him a year of probation, and Yates was kicked out of school.”
The spur of the hallway outside Len’s office was starting to fill up. Yuki turned her back and continued.
“Len, I would never have believed Paul Yates was capable of extortion. He’s … timid.”
Len said, “It’s a red flag, I agree, but it doesn’t mean that he perjured himself against Hill.”
“I’m connecting the dots this way,” Yuki said. “Paul knows Marc and he tells him about his UCLA escapade. Briana has testified that she was starting to lose interest and Marc got the message. He feels aggrieved and also greedy. Paul’s extortion gives him an idea. So he sets Briana up and tries to blackmail her. Hill tells him to bug off.”
Parisi said, “So now Marc is mad.”
“Correct. He’s warned her and she’s not going for it, so it’s time to make her ‘pay up.’ Marc takes the sex video to the cops. He’s emotional. He’s got faded ligature marks on his wrists and ankles. He’s got a video. Of course they buy it, and so do we. We charge Briana.”
“Theoretically.”