16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

He sounded like he wasn’t sure.

“Where are you?”

“We’re on Seventh Street. About five minutes away, right, Kevin? We hit some traffic.”

Five minutes away? He was cutting it very close. If Hoffman hadn’t called a recess, Joe would have been a no-show, leaving Yuki and Len to tap-dance for more time. I flicked that disturbing thought away.

I asked, “Is Kevin your driver?”

/> “That’s right. You okay, Linds? It’s hard to hear you.”

“I’m in the fire stairs. I don’t want anyone to hear me. I just want to tell you, I just got out of court. Grant is a beast.”

“Meaning what?”

“He cross-examined me with a scalpel. Or a chain saw. Not sure. But it was brutal.”

“Yeah. Well.”

Joe’s voice sounded like he was floating away.

“Joe. Joe. Can you hear me?”

“I can now.”

“Do you remember when we talked to him right after the explosion?”

“Sure. He said he did it. He had a cockeyed story.”

I tried not to sigh loudly into the mouthpiece. A couple of people ran past me down the stairs.

“You still there, Joe?”

“Yep. We’re on Bryant. I can see the Hall.”

I said, “Is Kevin bringing you into the building?”

I heard Joe ask, “Kevin, you’re taking me inside?”

Then Joe said, “It’s the second floor?”

“Right. That’s right. Court starts again in fifteen minutes.”

The phone clicked off. I looked. I still had battery life. Joe’s phone had disconnected, not mine.

I went online and looked up Connor Grant on the Chronicle’s website and read Cindy’s update on the trial. She had written that the defendant was a pretty decent lawyer for a schoolteacher and that the witnesses for the prosecution would be questioned today.

She wrote, “The prosecution called their first witness this morning, Homicide sergeant Lindsay Boxer. Sergeant Boxer testified that Mr. Grant confessed to her at the time of the explosion that he had bombed Sci-Tron. He denied this admission in his opening statement.

“Earlier, DA Len Parisi told this reporter that he is confident that the jury will find the defendant guilty. As in all trials, the burden of proof is on the prosecution, who must convince the jury of the defendant’s guilt beyond a shadow of doubt ….”

As I sat in the stairwell, shadows of doubt in all colors and shapes crossed my mind. Most of them pointed to Joe.

Would he remember Grant’s confession?

Could he stand up to Grant’s cross-examination?

I wouldn’t even be allowed in the courtroom to see and hear him for myself.