10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club 10)

“You did what? I don’t think I heard you right.”

Yuki was only sitting a foot away from me, but she jacked up the volume to a yell. She’d never been angry with me before, and frankly I felt ashamed.

I flashed back to that trial of mine a couple of years ago, when I’d been accused of wrongful death in the shooting of a teenage girl who had fired on me and Jacobi without provocation.

It was absolutely self-defense, but I was put on trial anyway. The city of San Francisco couldn’t help me. I could have lost my job, my life savings, my reputation, but that didn’t happen.

Yuki Castellano had been on my defense team. She had fought for me and we had won. I owed her a lot.

I said to Yuki now, “Phil Hoffman asked me to see her. He said we’ve got the wrong person for Dennis Martin’s killing.”

“Are you ka-razy?” Yuki said.

And then she let loose with her trademark breathless verbal fusillade. “You listened to a defense lawyer? You went behind my back and interviewed the defendant in my case? How could you do that, Lindsay? What made you even think you had the right?”

“Chi and McNeill report to me,” I said, feeling my cheeks flaming. “If they made a bad arrest, I had to know.”

I could have called Yuki. I should have called Yuki. But she would have been aboard the same train as Brady, Chi, and McNeill. She would have said, “Don’t do it.”

“I just talked to her, dammit,” I said. “All I did was talk to her.”

Yuki signaled the bartender, a wiry young woman with big breasts named Nicole.

“Hit me again,” Yuki said, pushing her beer mug forward, dumping a bowl of peanuts over the bartender’s side of the bar.

“That’s three,” Nikki said.

“Yeah?” Yuki shot back. “So what?”

“Just sayin’.”

“Well, don’t.”

Yuki swung around to face me. “So, while you were just talking to Candace Martin, what did she say?”

“She said

that Ellen Lafferty was likely having an affair with her husband and she has a theory. Candace thinks either Ellen got dumped or she knew she was being played by a player. Candace thinks Ellen shot Dennis.”

“Wow,” said Yuki. “Candace is saying, ‘The other dude did it.’ What a shock.”

Christ, Yuki was mad.

I said, “It answers the big unanswered question, Yuki. Who was the unknown intruder? If Ellen Lafferty didn’t leave the house for her evening off, she was already on the scene.”

“Lindsay, this whole setup is a Phil Hoffman distraction. Maybe Santa came down the chimney and did it. Maybe Dennis Martin pressed the gun into his wife’s hand and pulled the trigger on himself. You should have kept your nose out of this. You’ve made me look bad and for what?”

“Paul Chi. It was his case.”

“Good point. Why didn’t Hoffman go to Chi? He went to you because we’re friends and he’s trying to undermine my case,” Yuki said, slamming her beer mug down on the bar.

“You’re being jerked around, so enjoy that. I’m going to get that woman convicted. Because it wasn’t the other dude, Lindsay. Candace Martin did it.

Chapter 34

ENTERING THE COURTROOM the next morning, Nick Gaines said to Yuki, “What’s this? Some adorable little kids are missing from the front row.”

Yuki put her briefcase on the table and stole a look at the row of seats behind the defense table. She saw strangers there. They looked young and intense. Probably law students. The Martin kids were gone. She guessed they’d served their purpose — before Duncan went off-road and got the judge mad.