The 8th Confession

Chapter 17

CINDY WAS IN the grip of a dead man – heart, mind, and soul. Conklin and I sat with her at MacBain’s Beers O’ the World Pub, a cop hangout on Bryant. The jukebox pumped out “Dancing Queen,” and the long, polished bar was packed three-deep with a buoyant after-work crowd who’d streamed here directly from the Hall of Justice.

Cindy was oblivious to her surroundings.

Her voice was colored with anger as she said to us, “He delivered her baby and she doesn’t know his name. No one does! If only his face wasn’t totaled, we could run his picture. Maybe someone would call in with an ID.”

Cindy downed her beer, slammed her empty mug on the table, said, “I’ve got to make people understand about him. Get their noses out of the society pages for a minute and realize that a person like Bagman Jesus mattered.”

“We get it, Cindy,” I said. “Take a breath. Let someone else speak!”

“Sorry.” Cindy laughed. “ Sydney,” she said, raising a hand, calling our waitress over, “hit me again, please.”

“Rich and I spent our lunch hour sifting through missing persons and ru

“Your lunch hour. Wow,” Cindy said facetiously.

“Hey, look at it this way,” I said. “We bumped your Bagman to the top of a very thick pile of active cases.”

Cindy gave me a look that said “sorry,” but she didn’t mean it. What a brat. I laughed at her. What else could I do?

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

Conklin told her, “No match to his prints. On the other hand, there are a couple of hundred average-size, brown-eyed white men who’ve gone missing in California over the last decade. I called you at two thirty so you could make your deadline. When you dump your voice mail -”

“Thanks, anyway, Rich. I was interviewing. I turned off my cell.”

More beer came, and as di

My feelings for my partner had taken a sharp and unexpected turn about a year and a half ago when we were working a case that had brought us to L.A. We had a late di

It was late, so I expensed two rooms at the airport Marriott. I was in a bathrobe when Conklin knocked on the door. About two minutes later, we were grappling together on a California King.

I’d hauled up the emergency brake before it was too late, and it felt awful, absolutely wrenching – as wrong as if the sun had gone down in the east.

But I’d been right to bring things to a halt. For one thing, even though Joe and I had broken up around then, I still loved him. Besides, Conklin is about ten years younger than I am and we’re partners. I’m also his boss.

After that night, we agreed to ignore the moments when the electricity between us lit up the patrol car, when I’d forget what I was saying and find myself speechless, just staring into Richie’s light-brown eyes. As best we could, we sidestepped the times Rich had burst into thirty-second rants about how crazy he was about me.

But this wasn’t one of those times.

Right now, Inspector Hottie was gri

I could argue that Cindy and Rich would make a terrific couple. They are both single. They look good together. They seem to have a lot to talk about.

“Rich,” Cindy was saying, “I’m having another beer. Think you could make sure I get home okay?”

“I’ll drive you,” I said, putting a sisterly hand on Cindy’s arm. “My car’s out front and I can swing by your apartment on my way home.”

Chapter 18

YUKI NEARLY BUMPED into Phil Hoffman as he stepped out of the elevator.

“What do you think this is about?” Hoffman murmured.

“Weird, huh?” Yuki replied.

It was ten a.m., two days after she and Hoffman had made their closing arguments, and they’d just gotten calls from the judge’s clerk saying that their presence was required in Courtroom 6a.

With Hoffman looming a full fourteen inches above her, Yuki walked beside him down the long buff-painted corridor toward the courtroom, with Nicky Gaines trailing behind.

“Could be nothing,” Yuki said. “I had a jury ask for a calculator once. Thought they were adding up the award for my client. Turned out a juror was doing his income tax during the lunch break.”

Hoffman laughed, held open the first of two sets of doors to the courtroom. Gaines held open the second set, then the three lawyers walked to the front, took seats behind their respective counsel tables.

Judge Duffy was at the bench, the court reporter and clerk in their places, the sheriff’s deputy standing in front of the jury box, patting down his mustache.

Duffy shoved his glasses to the top of his head, closed his laptop, and asked both counsel to approach, which they did.

“The foreperson sent out a note from the jury,” Duffy said. A smile pulled at his mouth as he unfolded a quartered sheet of paper, held it up so Yuki and Hoffman could see the twelve hangman’s gallows that had been drawn on the paper with a black marker. A note had been pe

“Nooo way,” Yuki said. “They’re hung after… what? Ten hours of deliberation?”

“Your Honor,” said Hoffman. “Please. Don’t let them quit so soon. This is absolutely bizarre!”

Yuki couldn’t read Duffy’s expression, but she could read Hoffman’s and knew he felt the same anxiety, anger, and nausea as she did. It had taken months to prepare this case for trial. Dozens of people had been deposed. There’d been uncountable man-hours of prep and six weeks of what Yuki thought to be pretty flawless presentations in the courtroom.

If there was a mistrial, the People might decide not to spend the resources required to retry. Hoffman’s firm would probably pull the plug as well.

And that meant Stacey Gle