4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

It felt good to laugh, and I was glad when Yuki took off her suit jacket and Claire poured margaritas for everyone but me.

“My first one of these,” Yuki said dubiously.

“It’s about time, Counselor. But drink it nice and slow, okay? Now,” said Claire. “Tell us all about yourself. Start at the beginning.”

“Okay, I know, what gives with the funny name?” Yuki said, licking salt from her upper lip. “First, you should know, the Japanese and the Italians are like polar opposites. Their food, for instance: raw squid and rice meets scungilli marinara over linguine.” Yuki laughed, a lovely sound, like the ringing of bells.

“When my petite, demure Japanese mom met my burly, passionate Italian American dad at an exchange student mixer, it was pure magnetism,” Yuki told us in her funny, rapid-fire delivery. “My daddy-to-be said, ‘Let’s get married while we’re still in love,’ which they did, about three weeks after they met. And I arrived nine months after that.”

Yuki explained that there was a lot of prejudice against “half-breeds” in still-conservative Japan and that her family moved to California when she was only six. But she remembered well what it felt like to be tormented in school because she was of mixed race.

“I wanted to become a lawyer from the time I was old enough to know what Perry Mason did on TV,” she said, her eyes glinting. “Believe me, I’m not bragging, but just so you know, I got straight As at Boalt Law, and I’ve been on the fast track with Duffy and Rogers since I graduated. I think that people’s motives are critical to their performance, so you guys should understand mine.

“I’ve always had to prove something to myself: that smart and that super good aren’t good enough. I have to be the best. And as for Lindsay, your old friend and my new one, I know with all my heart that she’s innocent.

“I’m going to prove that, too.”

Chapter 82

DESPITE EVERYTHING YUKI HAD told me about the media frenzy, I was stunned to see the square block of mosh pit at the Civic Center Plaza the next morning. TV satellite vans lined Polk on both sides of McAllister, and a somewhat malevolent, shifting mob fanned out in all directions, blocking traffic to City Hall and the Civic Center Courthouse.

I parked in the garage on Van Ness, only a three-block walk to the courthouse, and tried to blend into the crowd on foot. But I didn’t get away with it. Once I was spotted, reporters stampeded, shoved microphones and cameras into my face, and screamed questions that I couldn’t understand, let alone answer.

The “police brutality” accusations, the baiting, the almost painful noise of the crowd, made me dizzy with a kind of grief. I was a good cop, damn it. How had it happened that the people I’d sworn to serve had turned against me like this?

Carlos Vega from KRON-TV was on the “Dirty Harriet Trial” big-time. He was a tiny man with a rabid style, known for interviewing people so courteously they hardly felt the evisceration. But I knew Carl—he’d interviewed me before—and when he asked, “Do you blame the Cabots for taking this action against you?” I almost snapped.

I was about to give Mr. Vega an ill-advised sound bite for the six o’clock news when someone plucked me out of the mob by my elbow. I jerked away—until I saw that my rescuer was a friend in uniform.

“Conklin,” I said. “Thank God.”

“Stick with me, Lou,” he said, steering me through the crowd to a barricaded police line that offered a narrow path to the courthouse. My heart swelled as my fellow officers, grasping hands to give me safe passage, nodded or spoke to me as I passed.

“Go get ’em, Lieutenant.”

“Hang tough, LT.”

I picked Yuki out of the crowd on the courthouse steps and made straight for her. She took over from Officer Conklin, and together we put all our weight into opening the heavy steel-and-glass doors of the civil courthouse. We climbed a flight of marble stairs and moments later stepped inside the impressive cherry-paneled courtroom on the second floor.

Heads turned toward us as we entered. I straightened my freshly pressed collar, ran a hand over my hair, and walked with Yuki across the carpeted floor of the courtroom to the attorneys’ tables at the front. I had gained a measure of outward composure in the last few minutes, but I was absolutely seething inside.

How could this be happening to me?

Chapter 83

YUKI STOOD ASIDE AS I edged behind the table and took my seat next to silver-haired-and-tongued Mickey Sherman. He half rose and shook my hand.

“How ya doin,’ Lindsay? You look terrific. You okay?”

“Never better,” I cracked.

But we both knew that no sane person would be feeling “okay” in my shoes. My whole career was at stake, and if the jury went against me, my life would go up in flames. Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Cabot were asking $50 million in damages, and although they’d have to get $49.99 million from the City of San Francisco, I would be financially devastated anyway and possibly known as Dirty Harriet for the rest of my life.

As Yuki sat down beside me, Chief Tracchio reached across the railing to squeeze my shoulder in support. I hadn’t expected that, and I was touched. Then voices rolled across the room as the plaintiffs’ “dream team” filed in and took their seats across from us.

A moment later, Dr. and Mrs. Cabot came into the courtroom and sat behind their attorneys. The reedlike Dr. Cabot and his blond and visibly grieving wife immediately fixed their eyes on me.

Andrew Cabot was a trembling rock of contained rage and anguish. And Eva Cabot’s face was a picture of desolation that would never end. She was a mother who’d inexplicably lost her daughter because of me, and I’d crippled her son as well. When she turned her red-rimmed gray eyes on me, all I could see was her bottomless fury.