The 8th Confession (Women's Murder Club 8)

Chapter 42

HOFFMAN AND YUKI walked out of the judge’s chamber and down the buff-painted hallway toward the courtroom, Yuki stepping double time to keep up with the lanky opposing counsel.

Hoffman raked his hair back with his fingers, said, “The jury is going to spit blood when they hear this.”

Yuki looked up at Hoffman, wondering if he thought she was green or stupid or both.

The jury would be pissed, all right. A new juror meant that they had to put aside all their earlier deliberations and start fresh, comb through the evidence all over again, beginning at day one as if it were all new.

Yuki’s fantastic closing argument would be lost in the mists of time, and all that the jurors would be thinking about was how to vote so they could get out of that hotel.

Yuki knew that Hoffman was laughing inside.

He’d had a secret weapon all along in Carly Phelan and hadn’t even known it. If Phelan had tainted the jury, it would have been in favor of the defense.

“Give me a break, Phil.”

“Yuki, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like hell.”

What they both knew was that if the jury voted to convict, Hoffman would appeal. Just the fact that Carly Phelan had lied during voir dire was enough to get the conviction reversed.

On the other hand, if the jury hung again, and it very well could, the judge would have to declare a mistrial.

Judge Duffy didn’t want a mistrial. He wanted this case over and done with.

He needn’t worry, Yuki thought. It would take a year or two to mount a second trial, and by then the DA would weigh the cost and likely say, “Drop it. We’re done with Glenn.”

Of course, the jury could always vote to acquit. Either way, young Stacey would be just as free.

Yuki thought, My damned losing streak is still going strong. Win, lose, or draw, odds were that Stacey Glenn, that heinous frickin’ father-killer, was about to walk.

Chapter 43

CINDY STOOD in front of the chain-link fence outside the Caltrain yard the next morning, put the hot new Metro section down on the sidewalk, weighted it with a couple of candles.

The headline over her story was big and bold: $25,000 REWARD.

Underneath the headline, the lead paragraph read, “The San Francisco Chronicle is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever killed the man known as ‘Bagman Jesus.’ ”

There was a tug on Cindy’s arm. She pulled back, spun around, was a whisper away from a woman of about thirty with stringy hair, a blotchy complexion, a short black coat, and clothes reeking faintly of urine.

“I knew Bagman. You don’t have to look at me like that. I may be strung out, but I know what I’m talking about.”

“That’s great,” Cindy said. “I’m Cindy Thomas.”

“Flora Gold.”

“Hi, Flora. You have some information for me?”

The woman looked both ways at the stream of foot traffic, commuters coming from the white-bread suburbs to their offices in big software companies, Ms. Gold seeming by contrast like a troll who’d crawled up out of a manhole.

She turned her jittery gaze back to Cindy.

“I just wanted to say that he was a good person. He took care of me.”

“How do you mean, ‘took care of me’?”