“That you don’t police our streets when you’re drunk.”
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 86
WHEN I HEARD SAM Cabot, that cold-blooded little psycho, described as the next great sports hero, it almost made me sick to my stomach. I thought, Champion swimmer? Soccer team captain? What the hell did that have to do with the murders he’d committed or with the bullets he’d put into Warren Jacobi?
I struggled to keep my expression neutral as Yuki stood and took the floor.
“The night of May tenth was a Friday night and the end of a rough week for Lieutenant Boxer,” Yuki said, her sweet, melodic voice chiming out across the courtroom. “Two young men had been murdered in the Tenderloin, and Lieutenant Boxer was very troubled by the brutality and the lack of viable forensic evidence.”
Yuki walked over to the jury box and let her hand skim the rail as she made eye contact with each of the jury members. They followed the thin young woman with the heart-shaped face and the luminous brown eyes, leaning forward into every word.
“As commanding officer of the SFPD’s Homicide detail, Lieutenant Boxer is responsible for investigating every homicide in the city. But she was especially disturbed because the victims of these murders were still in their teens.
“On the night in question,” Yuki continued, “Lieutenant Boxer was off duty, having a drink before dinner with some of her friends, when she got a call from Warren Jacobi, inspector first grade. Inspector Jacobi was formerly Lieutenant Boxer’s partner, and because this was a special case, they were working it together.
“Inspector Jacobi will testify that he phoned Lieutenant Boxer to tell her that their one lead—a Mercedes-Benz that had been previously seen in the vicinity of both homicides—had been spotted again south of Market Street.
“A lot of people in Lieutenant Boxer’s situation would have said, ‘Forget it. I’m off duty. I don’t want to sit all night in a police car.’ But this was Lieutenant Boxer’s case, and she wanted to stop whoever killed those two boys before they killed again.
“When Lieutenant Boxer got into the police car with Inspector Jacobi, she told him that she had been drinking but that her faculties were not impaired.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the plaintiffs will make much use of the word drunk. But they are twisting reality.”
“Objection, Your Honor. Argumentative.”
“Overruled. Please sit down, Mr. Broyles.”
“In fact,” Yuki said, standing directly in front of the jury box, “the lieutenant had had a couple of drinks. She was not inebriated, staggering around, slurring her speech, illogical, or out of it.
“And Lieutenant Boxer did not drive. The drinks she had had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the events that transpired that night.
“This police officer is charged with brutally shooting down a young girl with her service pistol. But you will learn that Lieutenant Boxer wasn’t the only person on the scene with a gun in her hand. The ‘victims’”—Yuki made the universal hand sign for quote marks around the word—“not only brought guns to the scene, but they fired first and with intent to kill.”
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 87
MASON BROYLES JUMPED FURIOUSLY to his feet.
“Objection, Your Honor. Defense counsel is mocking the victims and she is way out of line. Sam and Sara Cabot are not on trial here. Lieutenant Boxer is on trial.”
“Well, she shouldn’t be,” said Yuki, pressing on. “My client did nothing wrong. Nothing. She’s here because the plaintiffs are suffering and they want someone to pay for their loss, right or wrong.”
“Objection! Your Honor! Argumentative.”
“Sustained. Ms. Castellano, please hold your argument for summation.”
“Yes, Your Honor. I’m sorry.” Yuki walked over to the table and looked at her notes, then swung back around as if she’d never been interrupted.
“On the night in question, the exemplary Cabot kids evaded the police by driving at over seventy-five miles per hour on crowded streets in wanton disregard for public safety; that’s a felony. They were armed—another felony—and after Sara Cabot totaled her father’s car, she and her brother were helped out of the wreck by two concerned police officers whose weapons were holstered, who were doing their duty to serve and protect, and above all, to render aid.
“You will hear testimony from a police ballistics expert who will tell you that the bullets that were surgically removed from Lieutenant Boxer and Inspector Jacobi were fired from Sara Cabot’s and Sam Cabot’s guns, respectively. And you will also hear that Sara and Sam Cabot fired upon these officers without provocation.
“On the night in question, as Lieutenant Boxer lay on the ground, losing nearly a third of her blood and close to death, she ordered the plaintiffs to drop their weapons, which they did not do. Instead, Sara Cabot fired three more shots, which mercifully missed my client.
“Only then did Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer return fire.
“If anyone else—a banker, a baker, even a bookmaker—had shot someone in self-defense, we wouldn’t be having a trial. But if a police officer defends herself, everyone wants a piece of her —”
“Objection!”
But it was too late for objections. Dr. Andrew Cabot’s stony expression had shattered into shards of wrath. He leaped to his feet and moved toward Yuki as if he were going to throttle her. Mason Broyles restrained his client, but the courtroom boiled over even as Judge Achacoso banged her gavel again and again.
“I’m done, Your Honor,” said Yuki.
“Oh, no, you’re not. I will not have this trial become a free-for-all. Bailiff, clear the courtroom. I’ll see both counsels in chambers,” said the judge.
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 88
WHEN COURT RESUMED, YUKI’S eyes were sparkling. It looked to me as if she felt the butt-kicking she’d taken from the judge had been worth the points she’d scored in her opening.
Broyles put on his first witness: Betty D’Angelo, the ER nurse who’d ministered to me the night I was shot. D’Angelo reluctantly repeated what she had said during the prelim—that my blood alcohol level was .067, that there was no way she could say if I was intoxicated, but that .067 was considered “under the influence.”
Next up, Broyles called my friend Dr. Claire Washburn. He elicited her credentials as the city’s chief medical examiner, and the fact that she’d performed Sara Cabot’s autopsy.
“Dr. Washburn, were you able to ascertain the cause of Sara Cabot’s death?”
Using a line drawing of a human form, Claire pointed out where my bullets had entered Sara Cabot’s body.
“Yes. I found two gunshot wounds to the chest. Gunshot A entered on the left upper/outer chest, right here. That bullet penetrated Sara Cabot’s chest cavity between left ribs number three and four, perforated the upper lobe of the left lung, went into the pericardial sac, tore through the left ventricle, and stopped in her thoracic column on the left-hand side.
“The second gunshot wound,” Claire said, tapping the chart with a pointer, “was through the sternum, five inches below the left shoulder. It went right on through the heart, terminating in thoracic vertebra number four.”
The members of the jury were rapt as they heard about what my shots had done to Sara Cabot’s heart, but when Broyles had finished examining her, Yuki was ready for Claire on cross-examination.