7th Heaven

Yuki watched Davis pat her client’s hand as Lieutenant Charles Clapper, head of CSU, was sworn in. Then Davis stood and greeted her witness.

“Lieutenant Clapper, how long have you been head of the San Francisco Crime Scene Unit?”

“Fifteen years.”

“And what did you do before that?”

“I started with the San Diego PD right outta school, worked vice for five years, homicide for five. Then I joined the Las Vegas CSU before moving to San Francisco and joining the CSU here.”

“In fact, you’ve written books on trace evidence, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I’ve done a couple of books.”

“You appear on TV a few times a week, don’t you? Sometimes even more times than me,” Davis said, smiling widely, getting the laugh she wanted from the gallery.

“I don’t know about that,” Clapper said, smiling too.

“Very good. And how many homicides have you investigated in the last twenty-five years, Lieutenant?”

“I have no idea.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“A wild guess? Maybe a couple of hundred a year.”

“So it’s reasonable to say you may have investigated as many as five thousand homicides, is that right?”

“Roughly.”

“I think we can accept ‘roughly,’ ” Davis said, good-naturedly. “And as well as investigating fresh crime scenes, you investigate crimes that happened months or even years ago, is that correct?”

“I’ve investigated cold cases, yes.”

“Now, in April of this year, were you called to the home of the defendant?”

“I was.”

“And did it have the appearance of a crime scene?”

“No. The rooms were orderly. There was no evident disturbance, no blood or shell casings, et cetera.”

Davis said, “Now, were you told that a man may have been dismembered in the bathtub of the defendant’s house?”

“I was.”

“And you did all the normal tests for trace evidence, did you not?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Come up with anything evidentiary?”

“No.”

“Find any evidence that showed that the blood had been cleaned up?”

“Nope.”

“No bleach or anything like that?”

“No.”

“Lieutenant Clapper, let me just give you the whole laundry list at once and save a little time here. The walls hadn’t been repainted, the rugs hadn’t been cleaned? You didn’t find an implement that could have been used to dismember a body?”

“No.”

“So it’s fair to say that you and your team did everything you could do to ascertain the ma

“We did.”

“Based on your experience and your examination of the so-called crime scene, please tell the jury – did you find any evidence, direct or indirect, that links Junie Moon to the alleged murder of Michael Campion?”

“No.”

“Thank you. That’s all I have for this witness, Your Honor.”

Chapter 73

YUKI WAS STILL STEAMING from Red Dog’s rebuke. Or maybe she was hot under the collar because he’d been right.

Learn to love the beast.

Yuki slapped her pen down on her notepad, straightened her jacket as she stood, and approached Charlie Clapper at the stand.

“Lieutenant, I won’t keep you long.”

“No problem, Ms. Castellano.”

“You’re a member of law enforcement, right?”

“Yes.”

“And in the course of your twenty-five-year-long career in vice, homicide, and crime scene investigation, have you been involved in matters concerning prostitutes?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you familiar, generally speaking, with the lives of prostitutes and their customs?”

“I’d say so.”

“Would you agree that in exchange for a fee, a prostitute engages in sexual relations with any number of men?”

“I’d say that’s the job description.”

“Now, there are many subsets of that job description, wouldn’t you say? From streetwalker to call girl?”

“Sure.”

“And some prostitutes work mostly out of their homes?”

“Some do.”

“And is it your understanding that Ms. Moon falls into that last category?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“Okay. And would you also agree that as a matter of hygiene and practicality, a prostitute working at home would do her best to shower after her sexual encounters?”

“I would say that would be a common and hygienic practice.”

“Do you happen to know how much water is typically used by a person taking a shower?”

“Twenty gallons, depending.”

Yuki nodded, said to Charlie, “Now, based on your general knowledge of prostitutes, and given that Ms. Moon worked at home, would you agree that she probably showered after having sex with each of her tricks, maybe six to ten times a day, seven days a week -”

“Objection,” Davis called out. “Calls for speculation on the part of the witness, and furthermore, I strongly object to the way counsel is characterizing my client.”

“Your Honor,” Yuki protested. “We all know that Ms. Moon is a prostitute. I’m only asserting that she’s probably a clean one.”

“Go ahead, Ms. Castellano,” Judge Bendinger said, snapping the rubber band on his wrist. “But get to the point today, will you?”

“Thanks, Your Honor,” Yuki said, sweetly. “Lieutenant Clapper, could you tell us this?” Yuki drew a breath and launched into what was becoming her trademark – an uninterruptible run-on question.

“If a man was dismembered in a bathtub, and in the three months between the day the crime was committed and the time you examined the bathtub a large amount of soap and shampoo and water passed through that two-inch drain – by my calculations, 100 gallons of soapy water daily – and now let’s double that for the johns who took a shower before going back to their dorm or office or home to their wives – so even if Ms. Moon practices ‘Never on Sunday,’ that would still be about 130,000 gallons by the time CSU examined the drains – could that activity have completely cleansed that bathtub of residual trace evidence?”

“Well, yes, that’s very possible.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Thank you very much.”

Yuki smiled at Charlie Clapper as the judge told him that he could step down.

Chapter 74

YUKI SAT BESIDE the immense form of Len Parisi as Junie Moon’s sleazebag pimp-boyfriend, Ricardo “Ricky” Malcolm, was sworn in.

Yuki was fully aware that Davis had hired a bounty hunter to drag Ricky Malcolm over the Mexican border for his court appearance, and as Malcolm swore to tell the whole truth, she wondered if Davis really thought this punked-out, tattooed, and homely creep could persuade the jury of anything. Davis ’s voice was confident as she asked Malcolm her preliminary questions, getting out ahead of the prosecution by getting Malcolm to say he’d served time for drug possession.

Then Davis started her direct examination in earnest.

“What’s your relationship to Ms. Moon?”

“I was her boyfriend.”

“No longer?”

“We’re separated,” Malcolm said drily. “I’m in Tijuana and she’s in jail.”

Titters arose in little pockets around the gallery.

“How long have you known Ms. Moon?” Davis asked.

“Gotta be three years.”

“And did there come a time last January twenty-first when Ms. Moon called you at around eleven thirty at night and asked you to come to her house because one of her clients was having a heart attack?”

“No.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re saying Junie didn’t call to tell you she needed help with Michael Campion?”

“No, ma’am. No, she did not.”

“Did the police question you about the dismemberment and disposal of Michael Campion’s body?”

“Yep. I told them I didn’t do it.”

“Were you telling the truth?”

Malcolm started to laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I told them the truth. I never dismembered anybody. I can’t stand the sight of blood. I eat steak well-done. It was one of the wackiest things I ever heard.”