“Then what? I’m on my own?”
I was hoping the drugs would tumble my mind off the hard edge of consciousness into the comfort of slumber, but it didn’t happen. Mentally, I ticked off the remains of the day, the meetings I’d set up with Sherman and my lawyer, a young woman called Ms. Castellano. Molinari had recommended her highly—and it means something when you get a rave review from the deputy director of Homeland Security.
Once again I concluded that I was taking good care of myself, given the circumstances. But the coming week was going to be hell. I needed something to look forward to.
I thought of Cat’s house. I hadn’t been there since she had moved in right after her divorce two years ago, but the images of where she lived were unforgettable. Only forty minutes south of San Francisco, Half Moon Bay was a little bit of paradise. There was a crescent-shaped bay with a sandy beach, redwood forests, and a panoramic ocean view, and it was warm enough in June to relax on Cat’s sunporch and bleach the ugly pictures from my brain.
I simply couldn’t wait until morning. I called my sister at quarter to one. Her voice was husky with sleep.
“Lindsay, of course I meant it. Come whenever you like. You know where the keys are.”
I fixed my thoughts on Half Moon Bay, but every time I nodded off dreaming of paradise, I snapped awake, my heart racing like a cyclotron. Fact was, my looming court date had taken hold of my mind and I couldn’t think about anything else.
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 15
THUNDERCLOUDS GRAZED THE ROOF of the Civic Center Courthouse at 400 McAllister, and a lashing rain soaked the streets. Having dispensed with my cane this morning, I leaned against Mickey Sherman, attorney for the City of San Francisco, as we climbed the slick courthouse steps. I was leaning on him in more ways than one.
We passed Dr. Andrew Cabot and his lawyer, Mason Broyles, who were giving an interview to the press beneath a cluster of black umbrellas. The only blessing was that there were no cameras pointed at me.
I grabbed a quick look at Mason Broyles as we passed. He had hooded eyes, flowing black hair, and a wolfish curl to his lip. I heard him say something about “Lieutenant Boxer’s savagery” and I knew he was going to gut me if he could. As for Dr. Cabot, grief had turned his face to a mask of stone.
Mickey pulled open one of the heavy steel-and-etched-glass doors and we entered the foyer of the courthouse. Mickey was a cool old hand, respected for his doggedness, street smarts, and considerable charm. He loathed losing and rarely did.
“Look, Lindsay,” he said, furling his umbrella. “He’s grandstanding because we have a great case. Don’t let him get to you. You have a lot of friends out there.”
I nodded, but I was thinking about how I’d put Sam Cabot in a wheelchair for life and his sister in the Cabot family plot for eternity. Their father didn’t need my apartment or my pathetic little bank account. He wanted to destroy me. And he’d hired just the guy to do it.
Mickey and I took the back stairs and slipped into courtroom C on the second floor. In a few minutes it was all going to happen inside this small, plain room with gray-painted walls and a window looking out onto an alley.
I’d stuck an SFPD pin in the lapel of my navy blue suit so I’d look as official as possible without wearing a uniform. As I took a seat beside him, I reviewed Mickey’s instructions: “When Broyles questions you, don’t give long explanations. ‘Yes, sir; no, sir.’ That’s it. He’s going to try to provoke you to show that you’ve got a quick temper and that’s why you pulled the trigger.”
I had never thought of myself as an angry person, but I was angry now. It had been a good shoot. A good shoot! The DA had cleared me! And now I felt like a target again. As the rows of seats filled with spectators, I was conscious of the chatter building behind me.
That’s the cop who shot the kids. That’s her.
Suddenly there was a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I turned, and my eyes watered when I saw Joe. I put my hand over his, and at the same time my eyes caught those of my other lawyer, a young Japanese American woman with the unlikely name of Yuki Castellano. We exchanged hellos as she took her place beside Mickey.
The rumble in the courtroom cut out suddenly as the bailiff called out, “All rise.”
We stood as Her Honor Rosa Algierri took the bench. Judge Algierri could dismiss the complaint and I could walk out of the courtroom, heal my body and soul, resume my life. Or she could send the case forward and I’d be facing a trial that could cost me everything I cared about.
“You okay, Lindsay?”
“Never better,” I said to Mickey.
He caught the sarcasm and touched my hand. A minute later, my heart started hammering. Mason Broyles rose to make his case against me.
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 16
CABOT’S LAWYER SHOT HIS cuffs and stood silently for so long you could’ve twanged the tension in the room like a guitar string. Someone in the gallery coughed nervously.
“The plaintiff calls chief medical examiner Dr. Claire Washburn,” said Broyles at last, and my best friend took the stand for the plaintiffs.
I wanted to wave, smile, wink—something—but of course all I could do was watch. Broyles warmed up with a few easy lobs across the plate, but from then on, it was fastballs and knuckle curves all the way.
“On the evening of May tenth did you perform an autopsy on Sara Cabot?” Broyles asked.
“I did.”
“What can you tell us about her injuries?”
All eyes were fixed on Claire as she flipped through a leather-bound notepad before speaking again.
“I found two gunshot wounds to the chest pretty close together. Gunshot wound A was a penetrating gunshot wound situated on the left upper/outer chest six inches below the left shoulder and two and a half inches left of the anterior midline.”
Claire’s testimony was crucial, but still my mind drifted out of the courtroom and into the past. I saw myself standing in a dusky patch of streetlight on Larkin Street. I watched Sara take her gun out of her jacket and shoot me. I fell, rolled into a prone position.
“Drop your gun!”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
I fired my gun twice, and Sara fell only yards from where I lay. I’d killed that girl, and although I was innocent of the charges against me, my conscience was guilty, guilty, guilty.
I listened to Claire’s testimony as she described the second shot, which had gone through Sara’s sternum.
“It’s what we call a K-five,” said Claire. “It went through the pericardial sac, continued on through the heart, and terminated in thoracic vertebra number four, where I retrieved a semijacketed copper-colored, partially deformed, medium-size projectile.”
“Is this consistent with a nine-millimeter bullet?”
“It is.”
“Thank you, Dr. Washburn. I’m finished with this witness, Your Honor.”
Mickey put his hands flat on the defense table and came to his feet.
“Dr. Washburn, did Sara Cabot die instantly?”
“I’d say so. Within a heartbeat or two. Both of those gunshot wounds perforated the heart.”
“Uh-huh. And, Doctor, had the deceased recently fired a gun?”
“Yes. I saw some darkening at the base of her index finger that would be consistent with cylinder flare.”
“How do you know that that’s gunshot residue?”
“The way you know your mother’s your mother,” Claire said, her eyes twinkling. “Because that’s what she looks like.” She paused for the laughter to subside, then she continued. “Besides which, I photographed that smudging, documented it, and did a gunshot wound residue test, which was submitted to the laboratory and came back positive.”