“Sorry, Judge. I got carried away. Mr. Durden, given the distance, the visual obstacles, and that there are over sixty thousand dark Lexus sedans in San Francisco, could you have been mistaken when you stated that Keith Herman brought his daughter out to the car parked across the street from your house?”
“I saw Keith Herman,” Durden said doggedly. “I saw him. I saw him one hundred percent.”
“I have no further questions for this witness,” Kinsela said, turning his back on Graham Durden.
Judge Nussbaum said, “Ms. Castellano?”
Yuki stood.
“Mr. Herman, you’re wearing glasses. Were you wearing them on the morning of March first?”
“Yes, I was.”
“And what is your vision when you’re wearing your glasses?”
“Twenty-twenty.”
“Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder?”
“No. Never.”
“Thank you. That’s all I have, Your Honor.”
“The witness may step down,” said the judge.
Chapter 15
YUKI ELBOWED HER way out of the courtroom, smiled at the members of the press who were jamming the hallway, and said, “Hi, Georgia. Yeah, thanks. All’s well, Lou,” then, as John Kinsela and his client stood in the hall for an impromptu interview, Yuki headed for the fire stairs with Cindy Thomas on her heels.
“Aren’t you popular?” Cindy said, going through the door behind Yuki.
“Sooo popular,” Yuki said, her voice ringing in the cement-lined stairwell. “By the way, Cindy, you’d better behave yourself. Every word I say to you is off the record.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Yeah,” Yuki said. “You’ve been known to forget. So I’m saying it loud and clear. Don’t mess with me.”
“When did I ever mess with you? When?”
The door on the ground floor, behind the back wall of the grand lobby, swung out into the daylight under the flat of Yuki’s palm and she and her blond-haired, determined friend filed out onto Harriet Street.
“Where to?” Cindy asked, catching up with Yuki.
Fringale was a cute, cozy bistro just a few blocks from the Hall of Justice, a little slice of France on the corner of 4th and Freelon Streets.
When Yuki walked through the door into the little place with its eggshell-colored walls, the aroma of rosemary and thyme filling the air, she felt the stress of the trial fade—all but the hard stone of worry in the part of her skull right between her eyes.
Could she really convict Keith Herman?
Had she forgotten what kind of lawyer John Kinsela was? Kinsela had eviscerated Red Dog Parisi.
The two women ordered salads as entrées, and when the waiter left the table, Yuki asked, “How bad did he hurt us?”
“You talking about how Kinsela gored your witness?”
“‘Gored’ him? It was that bad, huh?”
“Actually, Yuki, I think it made Kinsela look like a bully and a dirtbag. But did it discredit Durden? Yeah, I think so. Depends on what else you have. I take it Lynnette Lagrande is going to put you over the top.”