A Plague of Secrets

“Well, gentlemen,” she began in a cold fury, “it seems we’ve gotten ourselves into-”

At that moment the first gunshot echoed from somewhere close by, inside the building. And they heard a woman scream.

38

Chiurco didn’t move from the witness stand for a short while after he’d been dismissed. Things had happened fast, but the judge had told him he could go, so long as he returned to court next Monday morning. He heard the back door of the courtroom open behind him, watched Hardy and Stier march solemnly past him on the way out. Still he didn’t move.

At last, though, since the audience had returned en masse to the gallery-in fact, if anything, with the news of the drama, the crowd had increased-the noise level was gearing up again. The mayor and Fisk and Maya’s husband came forward off their seats and Maya had turned around, the bailiff hovering in hesitation about obeying the judge and bringing her back to the holding cell. Everybody talking about his testimony, what had just come down.

Glitsky and DA Jackman were on their feet, stretching their backs, deep in discussion. Debra Schiff, over at the prosecution table, sat hunched over, head down, fingers at her temples. Chiurco’s boss, Wyatt Hunt, had disappeared behind some other standees, everybody up and talking talking talking.

It was now or never.

Chiurco got to his feet, his shoulders squared, face set. Completely within his rights, he got out of the witness chair and crossed the open courtroom. Opening the bullpen gate, he stepped into the center aisle of the gallery, now clogged up with the overflowing crowd. A reporter grabbed at his elbow and said something, but the world had turned into a blurry tu

Off to his side, in conversation with Jeff Elliot, his damn wheelchair in the aisle slowing everything down, Hunt and Gina Roake, at first barely noticing him except, now, for Hunt’s double take as he passed. And hearing, as though muffled through water, Wyatt’s cry-“Abe!” Then louder, “Abe!”

Chiurco getting physical in the crush, pushing at someone, getting people out of his way.

“Hey!”

Now, from Hunt, an actual cry. “ABE!”

Chiurco was so close to the door, five or six steps, but still others clogged the way before him, blocking him as they were filing out for the bathroom, a smoke, a phone call, gossip.

He was stuck.

And so he pushed someone else, took another step, kept moving.

But the door was open, and one small Asian female bailiff had come in from her post at the metal detector outside and was now standing by it. Chiurco tried to squeeze around a fat man, couldn’t move him, got a sense of some activity in the rows behind him.

Hunt pushing his own way out? Trying to stop him?

And then, suddenly, Glitsky was standing on his chair, his voice cutting through it all. “Bailiff! Hold that man! Stop that man!”

The judge may have ordered Chiurco released, but Glitsky on his own had the power of arrest, and with the support of Clarence Jackman, standing next to him, he had decided he had heard enough to at least hold Chiurco for further questioning.

But that was not going to happen, not if Chiurco had any say about it, and he did. He was getting out of here. Pushing again now at the heavy body in front of him.

Glitsky’s rasp again. “Mr. Chiurco! Hold up! Bailiff!”

She had come in from the hall to intercept Chiurco as he tried to make it out of the courtroom, but now the same fat man was trying to make it through the door before him and suddenly she was directly in front of him, blocking his way.

Turning around for a glance, Chiurco saw Hunt coming at him out of one eye, Glitsky out of the other, the lieutenant pushing his own way out of his row toward the aisle, pointing at him, desperation in his voice. “That man! The last witness! Hold him there!”

With the fat man still inside, but pushed out of Chiurco’s way, the bailiff was the last obstruction as she now pulled the door shut. But she was so small it was no contest. Chiurco lashed out, struck her a rabbit punch on the side of the neck, and she would have gone down at once except that the fat man saw what had happened and found himself holding her up.

There was nothing else Chiurco could do.

Though San Francisco bailiffs on courtroom duty didn’t carry guns, this particular hallway bailiff was armed because of her duty outside the courtroom by the metal detector. Now, unsnapping her holster, Chiurco grabbed, pulled out her gun, with all of his might tried to push the fat man and the bailiff to one side, then fired a shot into the ceiling.

Someone yelled out. “Down! Everybody get down!”

And a woman screamed.

The fucking fat guy still in his way, Chiurco pushed again, got his hand on the door, and behind him heard a woman’s voice. “Drop it! Drop the gun now!”

And turning, he saw Schiff by the prosecution table, now with her own weapon drawn, on the far side of the bar rail, taking aim at him over the ducking crowd. No time to think, he brought the gun up, his hands together, and squeezed off two quick shots, textbook. The inspector went down, her gun clattering over the floor.

Chiurco turned to finally get out, but another blast from by the defense table exploded the wood on the door just over his head. And Chiurco, looking left, opened fired again at the big man in the business suit standing in the front row who’d perhaps just fired, and who fell back over the rail onto the floor by the defense table.

And revealed the actual second shooter, the other bailiff, standing, holding Schiff’s gun, over where Maya Townshend lay prostrate on top of her shot brother, sheltering him on the tile. The bailiff had his gun extended in a two-handed grip, drawing another bead.

His hands already up in the classic firing position, Chiurco once again fired twice in rapid succession and the bailiff, too, staggered backward, dropped Schiff’s weapon, and fell.

And then someone out of nowhere grabbed Chiurco’s gun arm and chopped viciously at it. The female bailiff, trying again to restrain him, took another swing at his face, a glancing blow, and now he swung his gun at her. It went off accidentally as the fat man clutched at his shoulder and spun around and down to the ground next to them.

Now Chiurco only needed another step and he’d be outside and free, but the damned bailiff woman was holding on to his leg, so he reached down, got an arm around her neck, and pulled her up against him, holding her there, waving his gun threateningly around at the room at anyone who dared raise his or her head.

But to get the door he had no choice. He needed either to release his hostage or lower his weapon.

He couldn’t let go of the hostage, though. She would attack him again.

He had to let down the gun.

Which gave Glitsky, fifteen feet away, and waiting for just such an opportunity, one and only one clear shot.

It was all he needed.