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"Did Mr. Brinkley seem sane to you, Dr. Washburn?"
"No."
"Thank you. I have no further questions."
"Ms. Castellano, redirect?" the judge asked.
"Yes, Your Honor."
Yuki got out of her chair and approached her witness, Mickey noting Yuki's furrowed brow, her fingers knit together. He knew that Yuki was big with hand gestures and was probably training herself to keep her hands still.
"Dr. Washburn," she said, "do you know what Alfred Brinkley was thinking when he shot you?"
"No. I absolutely do not," Claire said emphatically.
"In your opinion, Doctor, when Mr. Brinkley shot you, isn't it likely that he knew the wrongfulness of his acts, that he knew what he was doing was wrong?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, Dr. Washburn. I have nothing else for this witness, Your Honor."
As the judge dismissed Claire Washburn, Mickey Sherman spoke softly to his client, using his hand as a shield, as though what he was saying was deeply private.
"That went pretty well, Fred, don't you think?"
Brinkley nodded like a bobblehead doll, poor guy steeped in medication, Mickey hearing Yuki Castellano say, "Please call Sergeant Lindsay Boxer to the stand."
Chapter 77
I'D JUST SPENT A ROCKY NIGHT on Cindy's couch, waking up at odd hours to patrol the halls of the Blakely Arms. I'd checked the emergency exits, the stairwells, the roof, and the basement, finding no prowler, only a lone elderly woman doing her laundry at two a.m. When the sun came up, I made a quick pit stop at home to change my clothes, and now, sitting outside the courtroom, a trickle of adrenaline entered my bloodstream as the bailiff called my name.
I walked inside through the double doors and the vestibule, and down the well-worn oak floorboards to the witness stand, where I was sworn in.
Yuki greeted me formally and questioned me to establish my credentials.
Then she said, "Do you recognize the man who confessed to the ferry shootings?"
I said "yes" and pointed out the cleaned-up sack of shit sitting next to Mickey Sherman.
In truth, Alfred Brinkley looked very different than he had when I'd seen him last. His face had filled out, his darting eyes were still. Shaved and sheared, he looked six years younger than when he'd confessed to the Del Norte killings.
Scarily, he looked harmless now, like everyone's cousin Freddy, just an average joe.
Yuki spun toward me, pivoting on her pointy heels, asking, "Were you surprised when the defendant rang your doorbell?"
"I was kind of stu
"And what did you do?"
"I disarmed him, cuffed him, then called for backup. Lieutenant Warren Jacobi and I brought him to the police station, where Mr. Brinkley was booked and interrogated."
"Did you read Mr. Brinkley his rights?"
"Yes, outside my doorway and again at the station."
"Did he seem to comprehend what you were saying?"
"Yes. I gave him a mental-status test to make sure he knew his name, where he was, and what he had done. He waived his rights in writing and told me again that he'd shot and killed those people on the Del Norte."
"Did he seem sane to you, Sergeant?"
"He did. He was agitated. He was unkempt. But Lieutenant Jacobi and I found him to be lucid and aware, which is what I call sane."
"Thank you, Sergeant Boxer," Yuki said. "Your witness."
The eyes of the jurors swung toward the dapper man sitting beside Alfred Brinkley. Mickey Sherman stood, fastened the middle button of his smart charcoal-gray suit jacket, gave me a dazzling smile.
"Hi, Lindsay," he said.
Chapter 78
I'D LEANED ON MICKEY some months ago when I was accused of police brutality and wrongful death, took his advice on how to testify, even what to wear on the stand and what tone of voice to use. And he hadn't let me down.
If it hadn't been for Mickey, I don't know what I'd be doing now, but it wouldn't be police work, of that I was sure.
I felt a wave of affection for the man who'd once been my champion, but I put up a mental shield against his wicked charm and focused on the pictures that had never left my mind: Alfred Brinkley's victims. The little boy who had died in the hospital. Claire, gripping my hand, thinking she was dying as she asked after her son.
And Sherman's client was guilty of all of it.
"Sergeant Boxer," Sherman said, "it's rare for a killer to turn himself in to a police officer at home, isn't it?"
"I'd say so."
"And Fred Brinkley specifically wanted to turn himself in to you, isn't that true?"
"That's what he told me."
"Did you know Mr. Brinkley?"
"No, I did not."
"So why did Mr. Brinkley ask you to arrest him?"
"He told me that he'd seen me on TV, asking for information about the ferry shooter. He said he took that to mean that he should come to my home."
"How did he find out where you live?"
"He said that he'd gone to a library and used a computer. Got my address off the Internet."
"You've testified that you disarmed Mr. Brinkley. You took away his gun, isn't that right?"
"Yes."
"Same gun he used to do the shootings?"
"Yes."
"And he'd brought a written confession with him to your doorstep, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"So to get this all perfectly straight," Mickey said, "my client heard your appeal to the public on television and interpreted that as an appeal to him personally. He Googled your name in a library and went to your front door as if you'd ordered takeout. And he was still carrying the handgun he used to kill four people."
"Objection, Your Honor. Argumentative," Yuki said.
"I'll allow it, but please get to the point, Mr. Sherman."
"Yes, Your Honor." Mickey walked over to me, gave me his full-bore, brown-eyed "you can trust me" look.
"Here's what I'm getting at, Sergeant. Wouldn't you agree that for a killer to keep the murder weapon and bring it to the home of a homicide inspector is not only unusual but off the wall?"
"It's unusual, I'll give you that."
"Sergeant, did you ask Mr. Brinkley why he shot those people?"
"Yes."
"And what did he say?"
I wanted to dig in, refuse to answer Mickey Sherman's question, but of course I didn't have that option. "He said he did it because voices told him to do it."
"Voices in his head?"
"That's how I interpreted his statement."
Mickey smiled at me as if to say, Oh, yes. The defense is having a very good day. "That's all I have. Thanks very much, Lindsay."
Chapter 79
YUKI SAT ACROSS FROM ME at a table by the door at MacBain's. She looked more than just worried. She looked as if she were beating herself up horribly.
"I should have done a redirect," Yuki said to me after we'd ordered. The place was absolutely jammed with lawyers and their clients, cops, and Hall of Justice workers of all kinds. Yuki had to raise her voice to be heard over the din. "I should have asked you what you thought when Brinkley told you about the voices."
"Who cares what I thought? It's no big deal."
"Oh, it's a big deal, all right." Yuki raked her hair back with her hands. "Sergeant Boxer, what did you think when Mr. Brinkley said he was hearing voices directing him to kill?"
I shrugged.
"Come on, Lindsay. You would have said that you thought he was already staging his insanity defense."
"Yuki, you can't nail everything down. You're doing a first-class job. I mean, really."
Yuki snorted. "Mickey is successfully flipping every negative into a positive. 'My client killed people for no reason? That means he's insane, right?' "