“Methamphetamine. You know—ice, get-go, beanies.”
“I wasn’t on drugs.”
“I see. Do you remember the car accident?”
“Not really.”
“Do you remember seeing Lieutenant Boxer and Inspector Jacobi help you out of the car after it crashed?”
“No, because I had blood in my eyes. . . . My nose broke. . . . All of a sudden . . . I see guns, and the next thing I know . . . they shot us.”
“Do you remember shooting Inspector Jacobi?”
The kid’s eyes widened. Was he surprised by the question? Or was he simply remembering the moment?
“I thought he was going to hurt me,” Sam croaked out at last.
“So you do remember shooting him?”
“Wasn’t he going to arrest me?”
Yuki stood her ground as she waited for Sam’s lungs to fill. “Sam. Why did you shoot Inspector Jacobi?”
“No. I don’t remember . . . doing that.”
“Tell me: Are you under a psychiatrist’s care?”
“Yeah, I am. . . . Because I’m having a hard time. Because I’m paralyzed . . . and because that woman murdered my sister.”
“Okay, let me ask you about that. You say that Lieutenant Boxer murdered your sister. Didn’t you see your sister fire at Lieutenant Boxer first? Didn’t you see the lieutenant lying on the street?”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Sam, you remember that you’re under oath?”
“I’m telling the truth,” he said, and sobbed again.
“Okay. Have you ever been inside the Lorenzo Hotel?”
“Objection, Your Honor. Where is this going?”
“Ms. Castellano?”
“It’ll become apparent in a second, Your Honor. I just have one more question.”
“Go ahead, then.”
“Sam, isn’t it true that right now you’re the prime suspect in the investigation of multiple homicides?”
Sam turned his head a few degrees away from Yuki and bellowed in his soul-searing, mechanically aided voice, “Mr. Broyles.”
Sam’s voice tailed away as the air went out of him.
“Objection! No foundation, Your Honor,” Broyles shouted above the murmurs washing over the room and the slams of Judge Achacoso’s gavel.
“I want that question struck from the record,” Broyles shouted, “and I ask Your Honor to instruct the jury to disregard —”
Before the judge could rule, Sam’s eyes wheeled frantically.