The 6th Target Read online

  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 noth
ing 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.

  Yuki 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.

  “Sergeant Boxer,” Sherman said, “it’s rare for a killer to turn himself in to a police officer at home, isn’t it?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “And Fred Brinkley specifically wanted to turn himself in to you, isn’t that true?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Did you know Mr. Brinkley?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “So why did Mr. Brinkley ask you to arrest him?”

  “He told me that he’d seen me on TV, asking for information about the ferry shooter. He said he took that to mean that he should come to my home.”

  “How did he find out where you live?”

  “He said that he’d gone to a library and used a computer. Got my address off the Internet.”

  “You’ve testified that you disarmed Mr. Brinkley. You took away his gun, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same gun he used to do the shootings?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’d brought a written confession with him to your doorstep, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “So to get this all perfectly straight,” Mickey said, “my client heard your appeal to the public on television and interpreted that as an appeal to him personally. He Googled your name in a library and went to your front door as if you’d ordered takeout. And he was still carrying the handgun he used to kill four people.”

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

  “I’ll allow it, but please get to the point, Mr. Sherman.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Mickey walked over to me, gave me his full-bore, brown-eyed “you can trust me” look.

  “Here’s what I’m getting at, Sergeant. Wouldn’t you agree that for a killer to keep the murder weapon and bring it to the home of a homicide inspector is not only unusual but off the wall?”

  “It’s unusual, I’ll give you that.”

  “Sergeant, did you ask Mr. Brinkley why he shot those people?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did he say?”

  I wanted to dig in, refuse to answer Mickey Sherman’s question, but of course I didn’t have that option. “He said he did it because voices told him to do it.”

  “Voices in his head?”

  “That’s how I interpreted his statement.”

  Mickey smiled at me as if to say, Oh, yes. The defense is having a very good day. “That’s all I have. Thanks very much, Lindsay.”

  Chapter 79

  YUKI SAT ACROSS FROM ME at a table by the door at MacBain’s. She looked more than just worried. She looked as if she were beating herself up horribly.

  “I should have done a redirect,” Yuki said to me after we’d ordered. The place was absolutely jammed with lawyers and their clients, cops, and Hall of Justice workers of all kinds. Yuki had to raise her voice to be heard over the din. “I should have asked you what you thought when Brinkley told you about the voices.”

  “Who cares what I thought? It’s no big deal.”

  “Oh, it’s a big deal, all right.” Yuki raked her hair back with her hands. “Sergeant Boxer, what did you think when Mr. Brinkley said he was hearing voices directing him to kill?”

  I shrugged.

  “Come on, Lindsay. You would have said that you thought he was already staging his insanity defense.”

  “Yuki, you can’t nail everything down. You’re doing a first-class job. I mean, really.”

  Yuki snorted. “Mickey is successfully flipping every negative into a positive. ‘My client killed people for no reason? That means he’s insane, right?’ ”

  “That’s all he’s got. Look, Brinkley seemed rational, and I said so. The jury’s not going to take Brinkley’s word that he was hearing voices.”

  “Yeah.” Yuki shredded her paper napkin. “I wonder what Marcia Clark’s best friend said to her just before the jury found O. J. Simpson ‘not guilty.’ ‘Don’t worry, Marcia. Nobody’s going to care about that glove.’ ”

  I sat back in my seat as Syd brought our burgers and piles of fries. “Hey,” I said, “I saw Mickey on the steps of the courthouse, mobbed by reporters. Funny how much we loved his magic act with the press last summer. Now I think, You media hog.”

  Yuki didn’
t laugh.

  “Yuki,” I said, circling her wrist with my fingers, “you’re coming off smart, on top of your case, and most of all you sound right.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, “I’m done whining. Thanks for your testimony. Thanks for your support.”

  “Do something for me, girlfriend.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Put some calories inside your body and have a little faith in yourself.”

  Yuki lifted her hamburger, then put it back down on the plate without biting into it. “You know what’s going on with me, Linds? I made a mistake. In a case like this one, you don’t make mistakes. Not even one. And for the first time, I really see that I could lose.”

  Chapter 80

  “MACKLIN JUST CALLED,” Jacobi said the minute I returned to the squad room after lunch. Conklin and I walked Jacobi to his office, Jacobi saying, “A kid was snatched off the street in Los Angeles three hours ago. A little boy. Described as some kind of math genius.”

  I didn’t even sit down.

  I fired a flurry of questions at Jacobi: Had the child been abducted by someone in a black van? Was there any evidence at the scene? A tag number, a description — anything? Had the parents of the child been checked out? Had they heard from the kidnapper? In short, did this abduction resemble the kidnapping of Madison Tyler?

  “Boxer, curb your enthusiasm, will ya?” Jacobi said, chuck-ing the remains of his cheeseburger into the trash can. “I’ll give you everything I’ve got, every single detail.”

  “Well, make it snappy.” I laughed. I sat down and leaned forward, putting my elbows on the desk as Jacobi filled us in.

  “The parents were inside their house, and the kid was playing in the backyard,” Jacobi told us. “Mother heard a squeal of brakes. She was on the phone, looked out the window onto the street, and saw a black van speeding around the corner. She didn’t think too much about it. A couple of minutes later, she looked into the backyard, realized the boy was gone.”

  “The kid wandered out to the front yard?” Conklin asked.

  “Possibly. The gate was open. Kid could’ve opened it — he’s smart, right? — or maybe someone else did it. The LAPD put out an Amber Alert, but the father, not taking any chances, called the Feds.”