Women's Murder Club [06] The 6th Target Read online

  Stringer’s face seemed to contract as he sent his mind back to that horrific and bloody day. “Mrs. Canello was straightening the kid out, being kind of rough on him, I thought.

  “Don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t abusive. It was just that the kid was taking it hard, and I was thinking about butting in. But I never said anything because the defendant shot her. And then he shot the little boy. And then everything on the boat went crazy.”

  “Did Mr. Brinkley say anything to either of those victims before firing his gun?”

  “Nope. He just lined up his shots. Bang. Bang. Really cold.”

  Yuki let Bernard Stringer’s words hang for a moment in the courtroom, then said, “To be clear, when you say it was ‘really cold,’ you’re not talking about the temperature?”

  “No, it’s the way he killed those people. His face was like ice.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stringer. Your witness,” Yuki said to the defense counsel.

  Chapter 73

  YUKI WATCHED MICKEY SHERMAN put his hands in his pockets, walk toward the witness in the reflected golden glow of the oak-paneled walls of the courtroom. His smile was real enough, but the amble, the common-man language, the whole low-key act, was also a cunning cover for Mickey’s talent for launching surprise attacks.

  Yuki had worked with Sherman at close range before, and she’d learned to recognize his “tell.” Sherman would touch his right forefinger to the divot in his upper lip just before he sprang for the witness’s throat.

  “Mr. Stringer, did Mrs. Canello or Anthony Canello do anything to provoke my client?” Sherman asked.

  “No. As far as I could see, they were unaware of him.”

  “And you say my client looked calm when he shot them?”

  “He had a wild look about him generally, but when he pulled the trigger, his expression was like I said — cold. Blank. And his hand was steady.”

  “When you look at him today, does Mr. Brinkley look the way he did on the Del Norte?”

  “Not really.”

  “In what way does he look different?”

  Stringer sighed, gazed down at his hands before answering. “He looked mangy. I mean, his hair was long. He had a messy beard. His clothes were dirty, and he smelled funky.”

  “So he looked mangy. His face was blank, and he stank to high heaven. And you saw him shoot two people who didn’t provoke him. They didn’t even know he was there.”

  “That’s right.”

  Forefinger to the upper lip.

  “So what you’re saying is, Fred Brinkley looked and acted like a madman.”

  Yuki shot to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Leading the witness.”

  “Sustained.”

  Sherman’s quiet charm returned.

  “Mr. Stringer, did Mr. Brinkley look sane to you?”

  “No. He looked as crazy as hell.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stringer,” Sherman said.

  Yuki tried to summon up a question for redirect that could cancel out the words “madman” and “crazy,” but what came out of her mouth was “The People call Mr. Jack Rooney.”

  Chapter 74

  JACK ROONEY MADE HIS WAY up the aisle, leaning on his three-legged cane, putting his weight on his left leg, then swinging out his right hip, repeating the awkward yet mesmerizing gait all the way to the witness stand.

  Rooney accepted assistance from the bailiff, who put a hand under the man’s elbow and helped him up into the chair. Yuki thought that this witness was surely Mickey-proof.

  Or was he?

  “Thanks for coming all this way, Mr. Rooney,” Yuki said when the elderly man was finally seated. Rooney was wearing a red cardigan over a white shirt, red bow tie. His glasses were big and square, perched on a knobby nose, white hair parted and slicked down like that of a little boy on the first day of school.

  “My pleasure.” Rooney beamed.

  “Mr. Rooney, were you on the Del Norte ferry on November first?”

  “Yes, dear. I was with my wife, Betty, and our two friends, Leslie and Joe Waters. We all live near Albany, you know. That was our first trip to San Francisco.”

  “And did anything unusual happen on that ferry ride?”

  “Oh, I’ll say. That fellow over there killed a lot of people,” he said, pointing to Brinkley. “I was so scared I almost shit myself.”

  Yuki allowed herself a smile as laughter rippled out over the gallery. She said, “Will the court reporter please note that the witness has identified the defendant, Alfred Brinkley. Mr. Rooney, did you make a video recording of the shooting?”

  “Well, it was supposed to be a movie of the ferry ride — the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz and so forth — but it turned out to be a movie of the shooting. Nice little camera my grandson gave me,” he said, holding his thumb and forefinger about three inches apart.

  “It’s only the size of a Snickers bar, but it takes pictures and movies. I just take the pictures, and my grandson puts it on the computer for me. Oh, and I sold the movie to a TV station, and that pretty much paid for the whole darned San Francisco trip.”

  “Your Honor?” Mickey Sherman said wearily from the counsel table.

  Judge Moore leaned across the bench and said, “Mr. Rooney, please answer the questions ‘yes’ or ‘no’ unless you’re asked for a fuller explanation, all right?”

  “Certainly, Your Honor. I’m sorry. I’ve never done this before.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Yuki interlaced her fingers in front of her, asked, “You gave me a copy of the video, didn’t you, sir?”

  “Yep, I did.”

  “Judge, permission to show a copy of this video and enter it into evidence.”

  “Go right ahead, Ms. Castellano.”

  David Hale slipped a disk into a computer, and as faces turned toward two large TVs in the front of the courtroom, the amateur film began.

  The first of two segments showed a happy afternoon on the bay — the long pan of the landmarks, the camera eye coming to rest on a grinning Jack Rooney and his wife, just by happenstance catching an out-of-focus Alfred Brinkley sitting behind them, staring out over the water, plucking at the hairs on his arm.

  The second segment was a scene of bloody horror.

  Yuki watched the faces of the jurors as the gunshots and the terrified screams ricocheted around the small courtroom.

  The pictures on the two screens slewed sideways, catching the shock on the little boy’s face at the moment he was shot, captured his small frame blowing back against the hull before falling across his mother’s body.

  Yuki had seen the film many times, and still the shots were like punches to her own gut.

  Red Dog was wrong. The jurors were anything but bored as they witnessed the slaughter, because this viewing of the Rooney tape was different from seeing it at home.

  This time the killer sat only yards away.

  Some jurors covered their mouths or averted their eyes, and over the course of the two segments, every one of them peered with dismay at Alfred Brinkley.

  Brinkley didn’t look back. He sat motionless in his chair, watching himself mow all those innocent people down.

  “I have no questions,” said Mickey Sherman, turning to whisper into Alfred Brinkley’s ear, the judge saying, “Thank you, Mr. Rooney. You may step down.”

  Yuki waited for Rooney to make his long, hip-swinging return trip up the aisle before saying, “The People call Dr. Claire Washburn.”

  Chapter 75

  CLAIRE FELT ALL THE EYES IN THE ROOM following her as she made her way to the witness stand. Yesterday at this time, she’d been in bed, and she hoped to God that two hours from now, she’d be there again.

  Then she saw Yuki, cute little thing all of twenty-eight years old, all that passion in her face, scared half to death but not wanting to show it. So Claire smiled at her as she dragged her butt through the gate and walked to the witness stand.

  Claire put her hand on the Bible as the bailiff took her through the
“do you swears,” and then she arranged the folds of her dress that now hung loosely around her from having lost fifteen pounds in just under three weeks. The gunshot diet, she thought as she settled into the chair.

  “Thank you for coming today, Dr. Washburn. You just got out of the hospital a couple of days ago?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And can you tell the jury why you were in the hospital?”

  “I was shot in the chest.”

  “Is the person who shot you sitting in court today?”

  “Yes. That’s the little shit-bird. Right there.”

  Sherman didn’t bother to get out of his seat, simply said, “Your Honor, I object. I’m not really sure about the grounds, but I’m pretty sure the witness isn’t allowed to call my client a shit-bird.”

  “Dr. Washburn, he’s probably right about that.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor. It’s just the pain talking.” She looked down at Brinkley. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have called you a shit-bird.”

  The titters in the gallery flowed across the room and into the jury box, until the judge patiently banged his gavel, saying, “Everyone, and I do mean everyone” — he peered over his glasses at Claire — “there will be no more of this. This is not Comedy Central, and I will clear the courtroom if there are any more public outbursts. Ms. Castellano, please control your witnesses. That’s part of your job.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor. I understand.”

  Yuki cleared her throat. “Dr. Washburn, what was the nature of your injuries?”

  “I had a hole in my chest caused by a .38-caliber bullet that collapsed my left lung and nearly caused my death.”

  “That must have been very frightening and painful.”

  “Yes. More than I can say.”

  “The jury saw the film of the shooting,” Yuki said, Claire reading her sympathetic look. “Can you tell us what you said to the defendant before he shot you?”

  “I said, ‘Okay, son, that’s enough, now. Give me the gun.’ ”

  “And then what happened?”

  “He said something about this being my fault, that I should have stopped him. Next thing I knew, I was being carted off the ferry by paramedics.”

  “You tried to stop him from shooting anyone else.”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw other people try to stop him.”

  “Yes. But he took aim and shot us all. Shot Mr. Ng’s brains right onto the deck.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Your witness,” Yuki said.

  Chapter 76

  MICKEY SHERMAN HAD KNOWN CLAIRE WASHBURN for many years, liked her very much, and was glad she’d survived her ordeal on the Del Norte.

  But she was a dangerous threat to his client.

  “Dr. Washburn, what’s your profession?”

  “I’m the chief medical examiner of San Francisco.”

  “Unlike the coroner, you’re a medical doctor, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you were doing your internship, did you do rotations at a teaching hospital?”

  “I did.”

  “And you rotated through the psychiatric ward?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever see any patients walking around with a blank stare in the psych ward?”

  “Objection. Relevance, Your Honor,” Yuki said.

  “Overruled. The witness may answer the question.”

  “I really don’t remember any of my psych patients, Mr. Sherman. All the patients I have now have blank stares.”

  “All right,” Sherman said, smiling, hands in pockets, pacing a little bit in front of the jury box, turning back to Claire, saying, “Well, Doctor, you’ve had a chance to observe Mr. Brinkley, isn’t that right?”

  “Big stretch of the word ‘observe.’ ”

  “Yes or no, Dr. Washburn?”

  “Yes. I ‘observed’ him on the ferry, and I see him right now.”

  “Let’s just talk about what happened on the ferry. You just testified that my client said something like, ‘This is your fault.’ And ‘You should have stopped me.’ ”

  “That’s right.”

  “Were the shootings your fault?”

  “No.”

  “What did you think Fred Brinkley meant?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Did Mr. Brinkley appear to be of sound mind at that time? Did he appear to know right from wrong?”

  “I really can’t say. I’m not a psychiatrist.”

  “Well, did he deliberately try to kill you?”

  “I’d say yes.”

  “Did he know you?”

  “No, sirree.”

  “Did you provoke Mr. Brinkley into shooting you?”

  “Just the opposite.”

  “So you’d have to say that the shooting was basically a random act based upon no foundation whatsoever?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so? You’d never met him before, and he was saying things to you that just didn’t make sense. You saw him shoot four people before he aimed his gun at you, didn’t you? Isn’t there a simple word that describes someone who acts this way? Wouldn’t that word be ‘insane’?”

  “Objection, Your Honor — argumentative, and that’s a legal question for the jury.”

  “Sustained.”

  Yuki sat down, slumped back in her seat. Mickey saw her eyes dart from him to the jury to the witness and back to him. Good. She was rattled.

  “Did Mr. Brinkley seem sane to you, Dr. Washburn?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you. I have no further questions.”

  “Ms. Castellano, redirect?” the judge asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Yuki got out of her chair and approached her witness, Mickey noting Yuki’s furrowed brow, her fingers knit together. He knew that Yuki was big with hand gestures and was probably training herself to keep her hands still.

  “Dr. Washburn,” she said, “do you know what Alfred Brinkley was thinking when he shot you?”

  “No. I absolutely do not,” Claire said emphatically.

  “In your opinion, Doctor, when Mr. Brinkley shot you, isn’t it likely that he knew the wrongfulness of his acts, that he knew what he was doing was wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Washburn. I have nothing else for this witness, Your Honor.”

  As the judge dismissed Claire Washburn, Mickey Sherman spoke softly to his client, using his hand as a shield, as though what he was saying was deeply private.

  “That went pretty well, Fred, don’t you think?”

  Brinkley nodded like a bobblehead doll, poor guy steeped in medication, Mickey hearing Yuki Castellano say, “Please call Sergeant Lindsay Boxer to the stand.”

  Chapter 77

  I’D JUST SPENT A ROCKY NIGHT on Cindy’s couch, waking up at odd hours to patrol the halls of the Blakely Arms. I’d checked the emergency exits, the stairwells, the roof, and the basement, finding no prowler, only a lone elderly woman doing her laundry at two a.m. When the sun came up, I made a quick pit stop at home to change my clothes, and now, sitting outside the courtroom, a trickle of adrenaline entered my bloodstream as the bailiff called my name.

  I walked inside through the double doors and the vestibule, and down the well-worn oak floorboards to the witness stand, where I was sworn in.

  Yuki greeted me formally and questioned me to establish my credentials.

  Then she said, “Do you recognize the man who confessed to the ferry shootings?”

  I said “yes” and pointed out the cleaned-up sack of shit sitting next to Mickey Sherman.

  In truth, Alfred Brinkley looked very different than he had when I’d seen him last. His face had filled out, his darting eyes were still. Shaved and sheared, he looked six years younger than when he’d confessed to the Del Norte killings.

  Scarily, he looked harmless now, like everyone’s cousin Freddy, just an average joe.

  Yuk
i spun toward me, pivoting on her pointy heels, asking, “Were you surprised when the defendant rang your doorbell?”

  “I was kind of stunned, actually, but when he called up to my window and asked me to come downstairs and arrest him, I was ready to go.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I disarmed him, cuffed him, then called for backup. Lieutenant Warren Jacobi and I brought him to the police station, where Mr. Brinkley was booked and interrogated.”

  “Did you read Mr. Brinkley his rights?”

  “Yes, outside my doorway and again at the station.”

  “Did he seem to comprehend what you were saying?”

  “Yes. I gave him a mental-status test to make sure he knew his name, where he was, and what he had done. He waived his rights in writing and told me again that he’d shot and killed those people on the Del Norte.”

  “Did he seem sane to you, Sergeant?”

  “He did. He was agitated. He was unkempt. But Lieutenant Jacobi and I found him to be lucid and aware, which is what I call sane.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Boxer,” Yuki said. “Your witness.”

  The eyes of the jurors swung toward the dapper man sitting beside Alfred Brinkley. Mickey Sherman stood, fastened the middle button of his smart charcoal-gray suit jacket, gave me a dazzling smile.

  “Hi, Lindsay,” he said.

  Chapter 78

  I’D LEANED ON MICKEY some months ago when I was accused of police brutality and wrongful death, took his advice on how to testify, even what to wear on the stand and what tone of voice to use. And he hadn’t let me down.

  If it hadn’t been for Mickey, I don’t know what I’d be doing now, but it wouldn’t be police work, of that I was sure.

  I felt a wave of affection for the man who’d once been my champion, but I put up a mental shield against his wicked charm and focused on the pictures that had never left my mind: Alfred Brinkley’s victims. The little boy who had died in the hospital. Claire, gripping my hand, thinking she was dying as she asked after her son.

  And Sherman’s client was guilty of all of it.