The Trial (Women's Murder Club 15.50)

Rich and I nodded that we got that.

Schein said, “There’s no judge, no attorney for the defense, as you know. Just me and the jury,” Schein said. “Right now we don’t have sufficient evidence to indict Sierra on a murder of any degree. We can place him at the scene of the crime, but no one saw him fire his gun, and the forensics are inconclusive.”

I said, “I’m ready to hear about your ‘risky’ move.”

Schein straightened his tie, patted down his thinning hair, and said, “I’ve subpoenaed Sierra. This is rarely done, because the putative defendant is unlikely to testify against himself.

“That said, Sierra has to take the stand. Like most people in this spot, he’ll plead the Fifth. So I’m going to try to use that to help us.”

“How so?” I asked.

Schein cracked his first smile of the day.

“I’ll lay out my case to the jury by asking Sierra: ‘You had a plan in mind when you went to the Vault on the fourteenth, isn’t that right? Lucille Stone was your girlfriend, correct, sir? But she rejected you, didn’t she? You followed her and learned that she was involved with a woman, isn’t that right, Mr. Sierra? Is that why you murdered her and Cameron Whittaker?’”

I didn’t have to ask Schein to go on. He was still circling his office, talking from the game plan in his head.

“The more he refuses to answer,” Schein said, “the more probable cause is raised in the jurors’ minds. Could it backfire? Yeah. If the jury doesn’t hold his refusal to testify against him, they’ll hand me my hat. But we won’t be any worse off than we are now.”

An hour later Rich and I were in the San Francisco Superior Court on McAllister Street, benched in the hallway. Sierra had been brought into the courtroom through a back door, and as I’d seen when the front doors opened a crack, he was wearing street clothes, had shackles around his ankles, and was sitting between two hard-boiled marshals with guns on their hips.

Sierra’s attorney, J. C. Fuentes, sat alone on a bench ten yards from where I sat with my partner. He was a huge, brutish-looking man of about fifty wearing an old brown suit. I knew him to be a winning criminal defense attorney. He wasn’t an orator, but he was a remarkable strategist and tactician.

Today, like the rest of us, he was permitted only to wait outside the courtroom and to be available if his client needed to consult with him.

Rich plugged into his iPad and leaned back against the wall. I jiggled my feet, people-watched, and waited for news. I was unprepared when the courtroom doors violently burst open.

I jumped to my feet.

Jorge Sierra, still in chains, was being pulled and dragged out of the courtroom and into the hallway, where Mr. Fuentes, Conklin, and I stood, openmouthed and in shock.

Sierra shouted over his shoulder through the open doors.

“I have all your names, stupid people. I know where you live. Street addresses. Apartment layouts. You and your pathetic families can expect a visit very soon.”

The doors swung closed and Fuentes rushed to Sierra’s side as he was hauled past us, laughing his face off.

It was twenty

past twelve. Rich said to me, “How long do you think before the jury comes back?”

I had no answer, not even a guess.

Fourteen minutes later Schein came out of the courtroom looking like he’d been through a wood chipper.

He said, “Sierra took the Fifth, and the jurors didn’t like him. Before he got off the stand, he threatened them, and he didn’t quit until the doors closed on his ass. Did you hear him? Threatening the jurors is another crime.”

Rich said, “When do they decide, Barry?”

Schein said, “It’s done. Unanimous decision. Sierra is indicted on two counts of murder one.”

We pumped Schein’s hand. The indictment gave us the time we needed to gather more evidence before Sierra went to trial. Conklin and I went back to the Hall to brief Brady.

“There is a God,” Brady said, rising to his feet.

We high-fived over his desk, and Conklin said, “Break out the Bud.”

It was a great moment. The Feds and the Mexican government had to step back. Jorge Sierra had been indicted for murder in California.