16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

“Yuki?”

“Len.”

They exchanged a very short volley of awkward pleasantries, after which Parisi got to the point.

“We have a suspect under arrest on Sci-Tron bombing.”

“I heard. The science teacher.”

“I need a lead ADA who thinks like I do to work with me on the trial. Look, Yuki. Will you come back? I need you. The city needs you. Tell me what you want and I’ll break down doors to get it for you. How’s that for an easy-breezy negotiation?”

Pro: Len was going to make her lead ADA, second chair to him, on this enormous and very important trial.

Con: it was going to be unrelenting, exhausting work. There were so many victims and intense public scrutiny and everything at once—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Bottom line, it would be a return to a life not her own.

This morning, as she waited in the hectic area outside Len’s office, Yuki silently continued to debate the possible outcomes of this meeting. After hearing Len out, would she be even more determined to stay in her job at the not-for-profit Defense League? Or was helping Len Parisi put a mass murderer away just too challenging an opportunity to turn down?

The frosted glass-panel office door opened, and the large, rough-looking man came toward her.

She stretched out her hand to shake his, and he bent to her, hugging her so hard that her feet almost left the ground.

“So good to see you, Yuki,” said Len. “Please come home.”

CHAPTER 24

THREE DAYS AFTER we pulled in the Ingleside Four, they were arraigned and remanded to a federal jail, awaiting their hearing by a grand jury. Their video taking responsibility as GAR had been seen throughout the USA, and therefore, their crime of threatening communications was the first charge against them and enough to hold them during further investigation. Now, all four were fully in the hands of the federal judicial system and not in ours at all.

Several rough versions of the GAR video had been filed in a folder on Yang’s computer, but to date the government techs had found nothing about explosives on any of the kids’ computers.

Red Dog Parisi saw nothing to indicate that those kids had actually been involved in the Sci-Tron bombing.

But he felt otherwise about Connor Grant.

Yuki was waiting for me at MacBain’s, the designated Hall of Justice watering hole conveniently located across Bryant and down the street, wedged between two bail bondsmen’s storefronts. As usual, the homey bar and grill was loud, and customers had packed it to the walls.

We hugged, pulled our chairs up to the little table at the front of the room. She looked beautiful. Her straight, dark, shoulder-length hair with a blue streak in front framed her face. She was wearing a perfect size-two midnight-blue designer suit with excellent accessories.

Best of all, she was beaming.

“How’d it go with Red Dog?” I asked, referring to her meeting three days ago with San Francisco’s larger-than-life, red-haired, no-holds-barred district attorney.

“I’m back on the city payroll,” she said, “with a 2 percent increase, and they gave me a one-time exemption. My benefits are restored. Plus, I get reimbursed for overtime parking and two full weeks of vacation, circumstances permitting.”

I laughed along with her.

“So no vacation, right?”

“I pretty much got my old work-till-you-drop job back.”

We ordered BLTs with steak fries and near beer, and then Yuki got into it.

“We’ve got an arraignment in Judge Rabinowitz’s court tomorrow at three,” Yuki told me. “I’ve got some paperwork from Parisi, but you were the arresting officer. Tell me everything.”

Lunch was served. Yuki ate and I just talked and talked. She was not just my friend and member in good standing in the Women’s Murder Club, she was responsible now for getting Connor Grant officially charged and remanded without bail.

I told Yuki that I didn’t even want to think of him getting bail and walking free. And then I told her everything else, including date night at the Crested Cormorant, the sunset-lit explosion, the arrest of the bizarre Mr. Grant, quoting his comments to me in front of Pier 15. And I answered her questions about the evidence we had found in his house.

“CSI is still hacking into his computer, but apparently, he has all kinds of hack blockers in place. Conklin and I are going through reams of school papers he thoughtfully boxed up and stored in his lab,” I told her. “The FBI checked him out. As Grant says, he’s been a science teacher for over twenty years. He’s been written about in local papers for his science projects, et cetera, but this unpublished how-to book was all we found related to bombs.”