The 17th Suspect Read online

  “Two weeks after the assault Mr. Christopher goes to the police. Over the next few days Briana Hill is interviewed, arrested, and charged with rape.”

  Yuki let the word rape resonate in the silent courtroom. Then she told the jury about the witnesses who would testify for the prosecution: the police officer; the video technician; the psychologist specializing in human sexuality; and Paul Yates, another man who had gone out with the defendant.

  And then she began to wind her opening statement to a close.

  “We will also introduce to you the unedited recording that Mr. Christopher made of this assault, and you will see for yourself what happened to him on the night of October eleventh.

  “Now, some might say, ‘So she made him have sex at gunpoint. Big deal. They’d had sex before.’

  “But it is a big deal.

  “Marc Christopher said no. As Judge Rathburn told you,” Yuki said, “forcing someone, menacing that person, causing that person to be reasonably afraid that he would be harmed, to have sex with someone without his consent is a felony. You will see that Mr. Christopher did not consent and that Ms. Hill clearly knew that he did not.

  “She took what she wanted for her own gratification, without any regard for Mr. Christopher at all.

  “After our witnesses have testified and you have seen the evidence, the People will ask you to find the defendant, Briana Hill, guilty of rape and punish her for that crime.”

  CHAPTER 45

  YUKI STEPPED AWAY from the jury box filled with a tremendous soaring feeling. She had delivered the best opening statement of her life. No regrets. No wish for a redo. She’d done good.

  As soon as she was reseated at her counsel table, Judge Rathburn said, “Mr. Giftos. Is the defense ready to make their opening statement?”

  James Giftos stood up, looking as straight and sharp as a knife. He responded to the judge, saying, “No, Your Honor. We reserve the right to make our statement at a later time.”

  “Okay, then,” said Rathburn. “Ms. Castellano, please introduce your first witness.”

  Yuki was surprised by Giftos’s decision. He was leaving her version of Marc Christopher’s night-from-hell story uncontested in the jury’s mind until he put on his case. Normally, that would be a risky, even reckless move. But Giftos wasn’t reckless. He had a plan. What was it?

  “Ms. Castellano,” the judge said.

  “Yes, Your Honor. The People call Officer Phyllis Chase.”

  The bailiff opened the heavy wooden door at the front of the room, and Officer Chase, wearing khaki pants and a blue blazer, sporting a choppy blond haircut, entered the room and strode up the aisle. She was sworn in at the witness stand, and after she’d taken her seat, Yuki approached her.

  Yuki had had a good feeling about this Sex Crimes cop from the first time she met her. She was absolutely professional and confident. She was a perfect witness.

  Yuki elicited preliminary information from Chase—where she worked and when she’d received Marc Christopher’s call saying that he had been sexually assaulted.

  “Please go on,” Yuki said.

  “My partner, Officer Phil Thompson, and I invited Mr. Christopher down to the station and took his statement.”

  Yuki asked the officer a series of questions about the interview, and Chase answered that she had observed fading bruises on Mr. Christopher’s wrists and ankles that appeared to be ligature marks. Photos had been taken, and after that Chase and Martinez had accompanied Mr. Christopher to his apartment, where he showed them the clock that was also a low-tech recording device.

  Yuki guided Officer Chase through her testimony that the recorder and the video had been reviewed by the techs at the SFPD, that Ms. Hill had been brought in for questioning.

  Chase said, “She denied that a rape had taken place. She said the sex was consensual. We showed the recording to the DA’s office, and then we arrested Ms. Hill and logged in her S&W .38 handgun.”

  Briana Hill put her folded arms down on the defense table, lowered her head, and began sobbing softly.

  Yuki showed the photographs of Marc Christopher’s faded bruises to Chase, who said, “Yep, I took those photos.”

  Yuki passed the photos to the jury foreman, and then, after entering them into evidence, she thanked Officer Chase for her testimony.

  “Your witness,” Yuki said to James Giftos.

  Giftos had his arm around his client’s shaking shoulders, and he spoke from his seat. “No questions,” he said.

  Of course Giftos had no questions. Chase was unimpeachable. Yuki was thinking ahead to her next witness when Rathburn called for a lunch recess.

  “We will resume at two. Don’t be late,” he said.

  CHAPTER 46

  JAMES GIFTOS’S ARM was still wrapped around Briana Hill’s shoulders as they left the courtroom together.

  Yuki, walking not far behind them with Arthur, thought that Briana Hill looked pitiable, like her heart was breaking, and Yuki didn’t doubt that it was. When she decided to rape Marc Christopher, maybe on impulse, she couldn’t have imagined that it was going to lead to this—a trial where she would be exposed in every sense of the word, with a possibility of going to prison for as long as eight years.

  Yuki shook her head as she walked with Art along the marble-lined hallway.

  Arthur said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I was feeling sorry for Briana. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Trust me. I won’t. And with all due respect, she doesn’t deserve it. Yuki, you’re giving voice to sexual crimes against men. Personally, I appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, Art.”

  Art said that he was going to head for the men’s room and would meet her in the lobby. Yuki pulled out her phone to call Parisi, when James Giftos was suddenly right in her face.

  “Yuki.”

  “James.”

  “Your opening statement was a little wooden but not terrible.”

  “Actually, the jury looked quite moved,” she said.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “I’ve watched you blow up several cases God knows you should have won. Alfred Brinkley. Mass murderer. Not guilty. Junie Moon. Killer. Not fucking guilty. Then, of course, more recently, another mass murderer, this one world class and acting as his own attorney. Hey, I was there. I saw him take your case apart like he was playing pickup sticks. He wasn’t even a lawyer. You know, most people would have gone into a different line of work after a disaster like that.”

  Yuki snapped, “Don’t you get tired of yourself, James? Don’t you want to run home and take a shower? Because you really stink.”

  She was ten yards from the elevator bank and on the move, having to weave through and around clumps of attorneys and court workers clogging the hallway, while trying to fend off James’s jujitsu attacks on her morale. Meanwhile, he tagged right along with her.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Yuki,” Giftos said.

  “I’m sure of that,” she said.

  “You have a real weakness when it comes to running the sword through. You just roll over and show your own underbelly.”

  Shit. How could he see through her like that?

  “Say what you like. Think what you will,” she said, attempting to push past the aggressive jerk. He stuck with her all the way to the elevator.

  “What more can I say? I think you’re a nice girl, but you’re a loser.”

  Briana Hill came out of the ladies’ room into the corridor. She called out to Giftos and he called back, “I’m coming.” To Yuki he said, “You should really go back to that pro bono law firm. What is it called? The Defense League?”

  Yuki stopped walking and Giftos stopped, too. He towered above her.

  She stared up at him and said, “Sounds to me like my opening really freaked you out, James. You’re showing your own underbelly, you know. And I will run the sword through.”

  “Sure you will. Be careful not to cut yourself.”

  James Giftos was laughing as he turned
and walked back to his client.

  CHAPTER 47

  ARTHUR BARON QUESTIONED the prosecution’s next witness, Frank Pilotte, the SFPD’s IT specialist who testified that the video recording had not been altered.

  James Giftos had no questions for Pilotte, and he also had no challenges for the prosecution’s next witness, a seasoned psychologist and author who had well-established credentials in the emotional effects of rape on the victim.

  And then Yuki called Paul Yates to the stand. From the first moment Yates twitched, sweat, and was pretty much a steaming-hot mess.

  Responding to Yuki’s questions, Yates replied that he worked at the Ad Shop as a copywriter, that when his creative group shot a commercial, Briana Hill, as head of production, was in charge.

  Yuki asked, “Did you ever have a social relationship with the defendant?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a relationship. We went out once.”

  “Please tell the court about that date, Mr. Yates.”

  He sighed, then said, “I took Briana to a Chinese restaurant after work. It wasn’t a fancy place. She seemed to like me. We weren’t far from my apartment. I asked her, ‘Do you want to come back to my place and hang out for a while?’ I thought she’d say, ‘No way.’ She said, ‘Sure.’”

  “Please go on.”

  Yates said, “We started making out on my couch, but I felt like it was all happening too fast. I didn’t know her very well. I started thinking what it would mean to have sex with her and how I would handle that at the office. I was in my head too much. I didn’t think I could do it if I tried. So I kind of patted her back and told her, ‘Sorry, no offense or anything, I have an early morning meeting.’”

  “How did she take that?”

  “She got mad. She leapt off the couch in a huff, and when I looked up, she had pulled her gun out of her purse. She dropped her purse and showed me her other hand. It was clenched, like this.”

  Giftos shouted, “Sidebar, Your Honor.”

  “Approach,” said Rathburn, waving them in toward the bench.

  When both legal teams were standing before him, Giftos said in a voice thrumming with barely controlled anger, “Judge Rathburn. Evidence of an uncharged crime is prejudicial and should not be allowed.”

  “Ms. Castellano?”

  “Your Honor, Mr. Yates didn’t go to the police out of fear of retribution by the defendant. But his testimony about the gun shows her pattern of abuse. The jurors have a right to hear what the witness has to say.”

  Rathburn asked, “You deposed the witness, Mr. Giftos?”

  “He wasn’t forthcoming.”

  “Well, I think this is a question of weight versus admissibility. I’m going to allow the testimony, Mr. Giftos. It’s admissible and you can cross-examine as to its weight.”

  When James Giftos returned to his counsel table, his face was stormy.

  Yuki remained standing near the witness box, keeping her elation under wraps. She’d won the very valuable point, the admission of Paul Yates’s testimony. But she’d also seen that Yates was high strung. Even now he looked ready to bolt for the exit. She asked him if he needed to take a short break.

  “No. I’m okay.”

  Yuki nodded and asked, “Do you remember what you were feeling when the defendant pointed her gun at you?”

  “Terror,” said Yates. “Stark terror. It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. I froze. I could hardly hear what she was saying. My mind was jumping all over the place. The phone. The door. Pop her in the face with my fist. Was she jerking my chain or was she totally psycho? Fuck. I didn’t know what to do. She told me to take off my pants. At the moment that seemed like the best thing to do.”

  “Did you take off your pants, Mr. Yates?”

  “I dropped them to the floor.”

  “What did the defendant say to you, Mr. Yates?”

  “She said something like ‘We’re going to, you know, fuck.’ And then she opened her hand and showed me the two blue pills. It was Viagra. She told me to take the pills. I said, ‘Sure,’ and as she held them out, I took a chance and batted her gun away. When she went after it, I pulled up my pants and ran out the door.”

  “And what happened after that?” Yuki asked.

  “I went down to the basement, where I stayed until I thought it was safe to come out.”

  “Paul. Is the woman who assaulted you in this courtroom?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Please point her out for the jury.”

  For the first time since he’d taken the stand, Paul Yates looked at the defense table. He pointed to Briana Hill.

  Yuki said, “Let the record show that the witness has indicated the defendant.”

  The judge said, “The record will so reflect.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Yates. Your witness,” Yuki said to James Giftos.

  CHAPTER 48

  GIFTOS STOOD, BUTTONING his jacket. He kept his eyes on Paul Yates as he crossed the courtroom’s polished wood floor. Giftos greeted him, then launched into preliminary questions about his work as an advertising copywriter.

  Yates described his job. “I write ads and campaigns. Print and TV commercials, et cetera.”

  “Do you do other kinds of writing other than advertising?”

  “You mean for myself?”

  “That’s right,” said Giftos. “Do you write poetry? You know, creative writing.”

  “I’ve written some screenplays,” Yates said tentatively.

  “So, fiction. You’d call yourself—in fact, many people would call you—a creative person, isn’t that right?”

  “I haven’t sold any of my scripts.”

  “Well. Maybe your luck will change. Mr. Yates. The events you just described taking place in your apartment. You said that you and Ms. Hill were making out and you stopped the action.”

  “That’s right.”

  Giftos stood close to the witness without blocking the jurors’ view. He said, “And your testimony is that she pulled a gun. You were terrified. Is that correct?”

  Yates straightened his posture and answered, “Yes.”

  “Did that really happen, Mr. Yates, or did you make this all up once you heard the fantastic story Mr. Christopher spread around?”

  “No, sir. Not at all.”

  Giftos said, “Is this one of your creative ideas? Trying it out for your next script?”

  Yuki jumped to her feet. “Objection. Counsel is badgering the witness.”

  Rathburn said, “Sustained. Don’t do that, Mr. Giftos. Do you understand me?”

  Unruffled, Giftos said, “Sorry, Your Honor. I’ll rephrase. Mr. Yates, is it true that Ms. Hill pulled a gun on you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Giftos walked back to his table. Ms. Benson, his second chair, handed him a manila envelope, and Giftos brought it back with him to the witness stand.

  He said, “You said you were really scared of that gun, Mr. Yates. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must have been staring at it the whole time it was pointed at you,” said Giftos. “I’ll bet you’d say it was etched in your memory, right?”

  “I guess it was,” Yates said.

  Giftos asked, “What kind of gun was it, Mr. Yates?”

  “A .38-caliber Smith and Wesson.”

  “Very good. It’s common knowledge that’s the type of gun Ms. Hill carried, right?”

  “I guess.”

  Giftos said, “Mr. Yates, what I’m going to do is show you pictures of various handguns. Please point out the .38 Smith and Wesson, the type of gun that you’ve testified Ms. Hill used to terrify you.”

  Giftos started slapping eight-by-ten photos down on the arm of the witness stand, one after the other, and asking, “Like this one? How about this one, Mr. Yates? Was it like this one? This?”

  Yuki watched as Giftos worried Yates like he was a dog with a bone. “Is it this? This? This?”

  Paul Yates shook his head, saying, “I don
’t know. Maybe. I don’t think so. No.”

  Giftos picked up the last photo of a handgun that Yates had dismissed and turned it over.

  “Will you please read the notation on the back of this photograph?”

  Yates said, “This isn’t fair.”

  “Your Honor?” Giftos said to the judge.

  “The witness will read the caption.”

  Yates glanced down, then turned his eyes back to James Giftos, saying, “It says that it’s a Smith and Wesson .38-caliber handgun.”

  Giftos gathered the photos together, handed them to Yuki, and said, “Let the record show that the witness failed to identify the gun of the type he testified was used in his terrifying encounter with the defendant.”

  Yuki glanced through the photos, then handed them back to Giftos, and he entered them into evidence. Just when Yuki thought Giftos was going to say that he had no more questions, he turned back to Yates and said, “One more thing, Mr. Yates. When you decided to come forward with this story, did you check out the statutes? Do you understand that perjury is a crime?”

  Yuki objected. Paul Yates looked like he’d been punched.

  Rathburn said, “Sustained, and I want that stricken from the record.”

  “Withdrawn. I’m done with this witness,” Giftos said, turning his back, again returning to the counsel table. Once seated, he took the defendant’s hand.

  Judge Rathburn said, “Mr. Yates. You are excused.”

  CHAPTER 49

  TWELVE HOURS HAD passed since an unarmed middle-aged woman was shot dead on Geary Street for no apparent reason.

  Conklin and I were thinking about the victim as we faced each other across our desks that morning, trying to get a handle on the why in the hope that it would lead to a who.

  Why? She hadn’t been robbed. She hadn’t put up a fight. She’d simply been shot to death at close range.

  Who did it?

  We had no witnesses, no forensics, no motive, no videotape, and it wasn’t our case. But we did have our CI, Millie Cushing, the most productive confidential informant with whom I’d ever had the pleasure of working.