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

“Sit down, Phil,” Duffy said.

Hoffman sat in the second armchair, asked, “Did you hear from the jury?”

Yuki had already concluded that at this point Hoffman would be as happy with a mistrial as he would be with an acquittal. He’d spent too much time on this case. If there was a mistrial, his client would be released — and he could go back to getting paid.

“I’ve got bad news,” Duffy said. “There was a fight at the jail.”

“What happened?” Hoffman asked.

“Your client acquired a girlfriend over the last couple of weeks, and as I understand it, her girlfriend already had a girlfriend. There was a fight in the showers, and Stacey Glenn lost,” Duffy said. “Ms. Glenn’s girlfriend grabbed her around the neck, the other girl grabbed Stacey around the waist, and they both pulled.”

Duffy shook his head as they all imagined the scene, but Yuki still couldn’t visualize what had been so terrible.

“I’m sorry, I don’t get it, Your Honor.”

“My fault. I’m not explaining this well. Stacey Glenn’s head was separated from her spinal cord.” He put a hand around his own neck, said, “The neck itself — the muscles and so forth — was still in place, but the spine was severed. Medically speaking, Ms. Glenn suffered an internal decapitation.”

“I’ve never heard of an internal decapitation,” Hoffman said.

“First for me, too, but that’s what I got from the Department of Corrections, based upon their autopsy findings, and I quote,” Duffy said, reading from a notepad, “ ‘Those stupid bleeps turned Stacey Glenn into a bobblehead.’ ”

Yuki stood up, stumbled out of Judge Duffy’s office, kept going even as Phil Hoffman called her name. She went for the stairs, kept a firm grip on the handrail as she wobbled down the steps, thinking about how the case had ended.

By the time she reached the lobby, she knew that she had to get ahold of Parisi. They had to really think through what they would put out to the public, and he had to handle it, because it wouldn’t be right to let the public see her almost irrepressible elation.

Stacey Glenn had gotten the death penalty.

No conviction, no dismissal, no mistrial. This was the ultimate resolution.

It was over.

Yuki had not lost her case — and the sociopath Stacey Glenn was dead.

Part Four

DOC

Chapter 76

CINDY AND I were at Susie’s early in the evening, and even at six p.m., the Caribbean- style eatery was jammed.

Crazy jammed.

The steel band was in midset; Susie was drumming up a limbo competition; rowdies, sloshed on tequila, were falling all over the pool table; and Lorraine, who is usually prescient when it comes to timing, had lost her touch.

She took our drink order, came back to read us the specials, came back again to show us her engagement ring, then returned to ask if we had everything we needed.

That was in the first five minutes.

I glared at her until she recoiled and scurried away. Claire and Yuki would be arriving at any moment, and I still hadn’t had it out with Cindy.

“Stop beating around the bush, will you?” said Cindy, my dear friend. She put a little burn on it so that it sounded like a dare.

“Fine. Are you and Conklin dating?”

“He told you? Look, it didn’t start that way, but —”

“Are you sleeping with him?”