The 8th Confession

Chapter 75

YUKI WAS CLEANING out her fridge, listening to Faith Hill, thinking about piebald ponies and long-legged strangers, when her cell phone rang.

Her stomach clenched instantly – Is it Doc?

She dropped the sponge in the sink, wiped her hands on the back of her jeans, and went for the phone that was warbling on her mom’s coffee table.

The caller ID read SF DOJ. Yuki stabbed the receive button with her thumb, said, “Castellano.”

An hour later she was sitting in a leather armchair in Judge Brendan J. Duffy’s chambers, waiting for Phil Hoffman to arrive.

Duffy looked perturbed, but he wouldn’t even hint to Yuki about why he’d called until Hoffman was present. So Yuki used the time to study the judge’s bookcase and consider the multiple possibilities. But only one possibility seemed probable, and that was that the damned, cursed jury who’d been charged with deliberating Stacey Gle

The jury had hung – again.

So it followed that Duffy would declare a mistrial and that the sassy beauty queen who’d bludgeoned her helpless, loving parents would do the catwalk strut out of the jailhouse.

Duffy didn’t make small talk. He had gone into work mode, opening files, making notes, tossing papers into his out basket as the rays of afternoon sun lengthened across his Persian rug, and Yuki’s heart continued to beat an SOS inside her ribcage.

Finally she heard Hoffman’s voice in the outer office.

He ducked as he walked in the doorway, ran a hand through his rumpled black hair, said, “Sorry, Your Honor. Yuki. My wife and I were in Sausalito. The ferry couldn’t be hurried.”

“Sit down, Phil,” Duffy said.

Hoffman sat in the second armchair, asked, “Did you hear from the jury?”

Yuki had already concluded that at this point Hoffman would be as happy with a mistrial as he would be with an acquittal. He’d spent too much time on this case. If there was a mistrial, his client would be released – and he could go back to getting paid.

“I’ve got bad news,” Duffy said. “There was a fight at the jail.”

“What happened?” Hoffman asked.

“Your client acquired a girlfriend over the last couple of weeks, and as I understand it, her girlfriend already had a girlfriend. There was a fight in the showers, and Stacey Gle

Duffy shook his head as they all imagined the scene, but Yuki still couldn’t visualize what had been so terrible.

“I’m sorry, I don’t get it, Your Honor.”

“My fault. I’m not explaining this well. Stacey Gle

“I’ve never heard of an internal decapitation,” Hoffman said.

“First for me, too, but that’s what I got from the Department of Corrections, based upon their autopsy findings, and I quote,” Duffy said, reading from a notepad, “ ‘Those stupid bleeps turned Stacey Gle

Yuki stood up, stumbled out of Judge Duffy’s office, kept going even as Phil Hoffman called her name. She went for the stairs, kept a firm grip on the handrail as she wobbled down the steps, thinking about how the case had ended.

By the time she reached the lobby, she knew that she had to get ahold of Parisi. They had to really think through what they would put out to the public, and he had to handle it, because it wouldn’t be right to let the public see her almost irrepressible elation.

Stacey Gle

No conviction, no dismissal, no mistrial. This was the ultimate resolution.

It was over.

Yuki had not lost her case – and the sociopath Stacey Gle

Part Four. DOC

Chapter 76

CINDY AND I were at Susie’s early in the evening, and even at six p.m., the Caribbean- style eatery was jammed.

Crazy jammed.

The steel band was in midset; Susie was drumming up a limbo competition; rowdies, sloshed on tequila, were falling all over the pool table; and Lorraine, who is usually prescient when it comes to timing, had lost her touch.

She took our drink order, came back to read us the specials, came back again to show us her engagement ring, then returned to ask if we had everything we needed.

That was in the first five minutes.

I glared at her until she recoiled and scurried away. Claire and Yuki would be arriving at any moment, and I still hadn’t had it out with Cindy.

“Stop beating around the bush, will you?” said Cindy, my dear friend. She put a little burn on it so that it sounded like a dare.

“Fine. Are you and Conklin dating?”

“He told you? Look, it didn’t start that way, but -”

“Are you sleeping with him?”

“Excuse me, but who are you? Sister Mary Margaret of the Little Sisters of the Chastity Belt?”

“Yes, damn it. I am.”

“Why? What is your problem?”

I held up my empty beer mug so that Lorraine would bring me a refill.

“ Corona coming up.”

“ Lorraine,” I said, “listen to this. Cindy is sleeping with my partner, and she didn’t tell me.”

“ Uh-huh.”

“Well, don’t you think that as my friend, she should have told me?”

“Oh, no you don’t, Lindsay,” said Lorraine. “Don’t you drag me into this. I’m a very happy girl right now and I don’t want a beef with either one of you.”

“Fine,” I said. “Hit me again.”

“Be right back.”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you, Lindsay? You think I should’ve told you that I was going out with Rich when I knew all along you were going to make us both feel bad about it – and I don’t even know why!” Cindy sat back in her seat and did, in fact, look confused.

“You don’t know why?” I said. I was getting a swooping feeling in my stomach, telling me that I was wrong and she was right, that I had been uncool. And that whatever Cindy and Rich were doing together, it was their business.

Cindy didn’t know much about my history with Rich, and I wasn’t going to tell her – but maybe he would tell her.

Maybe he had.

Some hesitancy must have passed over my face because Cindy smelled blood. She leaned forward, stuck out her chin, and said, “I get it. Are you two doing it, Lindsay? Is that it? You tell me right now, because if you’re sleeping with him, I will kick that dog to the curb.”

“No. No. We’re not. Don’t want to and never have.”

“Good,” Cindy said. “That’s really great. So tell me again: what’s the problem?”

“It’s a chain-of-command thing, Cindy -”

“Are you ca-razy? I don’t work for you.”

“Conklin does! And he and I talk about stuff that you shouldn’t know – for all our sakes. And I would have liked a chance to remind him.”

“Even if that made sense – which it doesn’t – we don’t talk about you. We don’t talk about your cases. We just have great sex and watch movies in bed.”

My face heated up, and I dropped my eyes to the table. Cindy had just given me way too much information, and I’d completely brought it down on myself.

My beer was climbing into my throat when I heard, “Hey there, girlfriends.”

I looked up to see Claire clearing the aisles as she came toward our table. She had her baby in her arms, my goddaughter, Ruby Rose. And Yuki and Doc were bringing up the rear.

“I’m not finished talking yet,” I growled at Cindy.

“Fine,” Cindy said. “Don’t make me wait too long for your apology.”