12th of Never wmc-12 Read online

  Herman’s attorney, John Kinsela, was tall with thinning gray hair and a bloodless complexion that made him look as though he climbed out of a coffin at night. Unlike his client, Kinsela was smooth. He expressed sadness and regret. He listened thoughtfully and spoke well and persuasively on camera. He passed as a reasonable facsimile of a person. A little digging into his past had turned up five divorces and the ownership of a Glock semiautomatic, which he carried at all times.

  Yuki had been with these ghouls through countless hours of depositions and felt that she knew them too well.

  She had dressed this morning in a bright red suit because she had a slight build, could look younger than her years, and because of the fact that red made her look and feel more powerful.

  You couldn’t hang back in red. You couldn’t hesitate. You really had to live up to red.

  She also wore a gold star on a chain around her neck, a graduation-from-law-school gift from her mother, who had been murdered several years earlier.

  Wearing the star kept Keiko Castellano present in Yuki’s mind and might even help her to win.

  She had to win.

  This was a tremendous opportunity to get justice for the victims, to become a hero to female victims everywhere. It was also an opportunity to be humiliated by a savage attorney and his perverted, murdering client.

  It was her job to make sure that Keith Herman didn’t get out of jail—ever.

  The buzz in the gallery intensified, then cut off suddenly as the door leading from the judge’s chambers opened behind the bench and Judge Arthur R. Nussbaum entered the courtroom.

  Chapter 3

  YUKI HALF LISTENED as Judge Nussbaum instructed the handpicked jury of six men, six women, and four alternates, who were as diverse a group as could be imagined: black, white, brown, white-collar, and blue-collar.

  Nussbaum had been a clever trial lawyer, but the judge was new at his job and Yuki was sure he would play this one by the book.

  When he asked her if she was ready to begin, she said she was. Gaines whispered, “Go get ’em,” and Yuki stood, greeted the jury, and walked confidently to the lectern in the well of the courtroom. Then, without warning, she blanked. She couldn’t remember the first sentence in her opener, the key that would unlock her carefully wrought statement.

  Yuki looked over at Gaines. He smiled, nodded, and her mind unfroze.

  She said, “The defendant, Keith Herman, is a killer, and the evidence in this case will show you that the people who depended on Mr. Herman, the ones who looked to him for protection and love, are the people who should have feared him the most.”

  Yuki paused to let her words sink in, looked at every member of the jury, and began to lay out her case.

  “On March first, a day like any other, Keith Herman tucked his daughter’s lifeless body into the backseat of his Lexus, and she was never seen again. Jennifer Herman, Keith Herman’s wife, never reported her daughter missing, because as her husband was driving off with their daughter, Jennifer Herman was already dead by her husband’s hand.

  “You will hear testimony that before she disappeared, Jennifer Herman told a friend on several occasions that she was afraid of her husband and that if anything ever happened to her, the friend should go to the police. Which this friend did. Had Lesley Rohan not called the police, they wouldn’t have looked for Jennifer Herman and her body would have been buried under several tons of garbage in a landfill.

  “You will hear testimony from another witness, an under-cover police officer, who will tell you that he was offered one hundred thousand dollars by the defendant to kill Jennifer Herman.”

  Yuki’s mind unclenched. She knew that she had gotten into the rhythm and the beat of her perfectly choreographed and well-rehearsed presentation. She was in a great groove.

  She told the jury about the witnesses she would introduce—the sanitation worker who found the body of Jennifer Herman in eight separate garbage bags and the forensic pathologist who would talk about Jennifer Herman’s cause of death.

  She walked to the counsel table and picked up an 8 × 10-inch color photo of a young child with dark wavy hair and a captivating smile. Carrying the picture in both hands, Yuki showed it to the jury as she walked along the length of the railing.

  “This beautiful child is the defendant’s daughter, Lily, who has been missing for over a year. You will hear from a neighbor’s housekeeper, Maria Ortega, that a month before Lily disappeared, she became moody and withdrawn and that there were bruises on her arms and legs. Ms. Ortega will testify that she reported her suspicions to the police.

  “The state,” Yuki said, keeping eye contact with the jury, “does not have to prove motive, but if I were sitting in the jury box, I’d be asking, ‘Why would the defendant, a man with wealth and means, decide to put his entire life in the toilet? Why would he kill the beautiful woman who was his wife, and the wonderful little girl who was his daughter?’

  “Did Mr. Herman abuse his little girl, and did his wife catch him at it and try to protect their daughter?”

  Kinsela shot to his feet. “Your Honor, this is argument.”

  “Overruled.”

  Yuki didn’t hesitate.

  She stepped on the gas.

  She said to the jury, “Did Mr. Herman physically abuse his little girl? Did Mr. Herman kill his wife when she tried to protect their daughter? What was his motive for murdering his loved ones?

  “That question is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

  Chapter 4

  WHEN SHE STOOD behind the lectern, Yuki felt like a little kid peering up over the edge of a table. So she stayed close to the jury box and spoke loudly enough for everyone in the courtroom to hear.

  “We can’t know what was in the defendant’s mind when he took the lives of his wife and daughter, and the victims can’t tell us,” she said.

  “We don’t have to know or prove motive, but we do have a witness, Ms. Lynnette Lagrande, who will testify that the defendant wanted to ditch his family. She will testify that she was in love with Keith Herman, that Mr. Herman said that he loved her and wanted to marry her. And so Ms. Lynnette Lagrande, a model citizen, patiently waited for Mr. Herman to make good on that promise for the last three years.”

  There had been no coughing in the gallery, no shuffling in the jury box, and even when the defense team attempted to distract the jurors and the audience, Yuki had kept all the attention on herself.

  But when she said that Lynnette Lagrande would give evidence proving that the defendant wanted to leave his family, John Kinsela snorted—what passed for laughter in his corner of the underworld. Yuki’s cheeks burned, but she didn’t even flick her eyes in opposing counsel’s direction. She had to bring her opening home.

  She moved her glossy black hair away from her face, hooked it around her ears, and said to the jury, “The defense will tell you that there is no evidence connecting the death of Jennifer Herman to Keith Herman. They will say that Keith Herman’s fingerprints and DNA were not on the garbage bags—that in fact, Mr. Herman never saw his wife or daughter the day our witness saw him leave his house and put his daughter into his car.

  “The defense will impugn the character and the veracity of Mr. Herman’s lover.

  “They will tell you that the defendant was misidentified by his neighbor and will maintain that since the body of Lily Herman has never been recovered, there is no evidence that she is even dead.

  “So I ask you and I ask them,” Yuki said, pivoting so that she was staring the defendant and his counsel down. “Where is Lily Herman? Where is that little girl?

  “The defense will tell you that the people’s case is all based on circumstantial evidence. We have nothing to hide. We cannot put a gun in Mr. Herman’s hand. But circumstantial evidence is real evidence.

  “If you go to bed one night and in the morning you see snow in your front yard and there are footprints in that snow, that is circumstantial evidence that snow fell during the night and that som
eone walked across your yard. You don’t have to actually see the snow falling to conclude that there was snowfall.

  “So why are we all here today, ladies and gentlemen?

  “We submit to you that Keith Herman did brutally kill Jennifer and Lily Herman so that he could, for once and for all, be free to pursue his life as a wealthy widower and come to the party with no baggage and no financial overhead.

  “We cannot let him get away with it. At the conclusion of this trial, you will have evidentiary proof that the defendant did callously commit two premeditated murders.”

  The words were just out of Yuki’s mouth when John Kinsela laughed noisily again and once more drew the eyes of the jury to himself.

  Yuki sharply objected.

  Judge Nussbaum sustained her objection and Kinsela apologized for the interruption. But he had stolen her moment, broken the mood. And he had the jury’s rapt attention as he stood to make his opening statement.

  Chapter 5

  JOHN KINSELA BUTTONED his jacket and ran his hand across the lower half of his face. He achieved a look of contrition, as though he was sorry for the interruption.

  It was all theatrics.

  Yuki hoped the jury could read him as the drama whore he was.

  “Folks, again, I’m sorry to have made light of the state’s opening statement. It was rude, but unintentional. The prosecutor is doing her job, a very difficult one, I assure you, because there is no evidence linking my client to any crime.”

  Kinsela put his hands into his pockets, sauntered out into the well, and continued his conversation with the jury.

  “As the prosecutor said, there is no blood, no DNA, no gun in Mr. Herman’s hand. There is no direct evidence against Mr. Herman, because my client didn’t kill anyone, and the circumstantial evidence, such as it is, does not tie him to the death of his wife.

  “Mr. Herman is one of the victims here. He loved his family and is devastated by their loss. And yet, as Ms. Castellano told you, he was having an affair with Ms. Lagrande.

  “For a married man to have an affair may be bad behavior, but it’s not a crime. If it were a crime, about sixty-five percent of married men in the United States would be in the slammer.”

  There was a riffle of laughter in the courtroom, which Judge Nussbaum banged into silence with his gavel. He admonished the audience, and told them that he could have individuals removed or the entire courtroom emptied.

  “You are here at my discretion,” Nussbaum warned. “Go on, Mr. Kinsela.”

  And Kinsela did.

  “Ms. Lagrande has a little cottage in the woods a few hours up the coast. She and Mr. Herman drove up there in her car on the afternoon of February twenty-eighth. My client was spending the night with Ms. Lagrande when the crimes presumably took place. They didn’t see anyone and no one saw them. That is often the nature of a clandestine affair.

  “Now, Ms. Lagrande is going to tell you that she was not with Mr. Herman the day that Jennifer Herman’s body was found, the day Lily Herman tragically disappeared. She’ll say Mr. Herman is making that up to give himself an alibi.

  “Why is she going to betray Mr. Herman? Because they fought that weekend and Mr. Herman ended the affair.

  “Ms. Lagrande is a woman scorned, and she’s not just my client’s alibi, she is the prosecution’s entire case.

  “The neighbor misidentified Mr. Herman and a car that is the same model as the one Mr. Herman owns. Lily Herman did have bruises, but she had them because she had a temper tantrum. Her father wouldn’t buy her a dress she wanted and she flailed and kicked at Mr. Herman and he tried to restrain her. There was no beating, no call to the police, nothing like that.

  “If he could, he would buy her a million dresses now.

  “Mr. Herman did not report that his wife and daughter were missing on March first because he didn’t know it. He was occupied with Ms. Lagrande at the time of this tragedy, which has unquestionably destroyed his life.

  “That’s it, folks. That is our case. Mr. Herman didn’t kill anyone. This trial is about whether or not you believe Ms. Lagrande beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  John Kinsela thanked the jury and sat down. For a second, Yuki couldn’t quite believe that Kinsela had singled out her star witness, shot a cannonball at her, then took a bow.

  Yuki had hoped he would do exactly that. It was now in Kinsela’s best interest to strip Lynnette Lagrande’s testimony bare, break her, and throw her bones under the bus. He could only do that if she testified.

  Her witness would appear.

  Lynnette Lagrande, a woman with an exotic dancer’s name, was in fact a grade-school teacher, twenty years younger than the defendant, and possessed of a spotless reputation. She’d never gotten so much as a parking ticket in her life.

  Gaines showed Yuki the cartoon he had doodled on his iPad. It was a Yuki character dunking a basketball into a net. Yuki never liked to say that a case was a slam dunk.

  But the battle was shaping up and Yuki liked the look of the field.

  “We’re good,” she whispered to Gaines as the judge called the court into recess. “We’re looking good.”

  Chapter 6

  JULIE HAD BEEN wailing since we left the hospital, hardly stopping before revving her engine and howling again. It had been going on for weeks and I was mystified and a little alarmed.

  What was wrong? What was she trying to tell us?

  It was just about 8:00 p.m. when Joe settled me into the big rocker in Julie’s room. I reached up and Joe handed me our screaming little bundle of distress. I tried to nurse her again, but as usual, she refused me.

  What was I doing wrong?

  I said, “Please don’t cry, baby girl. Everything is okay. Actually, everything is perfect.”

  She took in another breath and cried even harder. As much as her first cry felt like a hug around my heart, now her cries felt like my heart was being squeezed in a vise.

  “What is it, darling? Are you hot, cold, wet?”

  She was dry.

  “Joe, she’s hungry. Okay, she might nurse a little bit if we wait her out. But listen, she clearly prefers the bottle.”

  “Be back in a sec,” Joe said.

  I rocked my daughter. Even with her fists waving and her little face as pink as a rose, she was a spectacular, fully formed human being made from love. I was in awe of her perfection. And more than anything, I wanted her to feel good.

  I jounced her in my arms and sang a nonsense song that I made up as I went along. “Ju-lee, you’re breaking my heart. What can I do for my bay-bee?”

  I fished an old Irish lullaby from the vault of long-buried memories, and then hauled out a couple of nursery rhymes. Mice ran up a clock, cradles rocked, but nothing worked.

  Joe appeared, like a genie, with a warm bottle of formula. I tested a drop on the back of my hand, and then I tried the bottle on Julie. And—thank you, God—she began to suck.

  I was elated. Euphoric. Ecstatic. Julie was eating. Joe and I watched our daughter pulling at the bottle with intense attention, and when a few ounces had gone down and she turned away from the bottle, Joe said, “I’ll take her, Blondie. You go to bed.”

  He put Julie over his shoulder and burped her like a pro.

  “I love you, Julie Anne Molinari,” Joe said to our baby.

  “You’ve told her twenty eleven times today. She knows it,” I said, standing up and kissing my husband.

  “She can’t hear it too much. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “I believe that. But I think something is bothering you,” I said.

  “God. I can’t sneak anything past you, Blondie. Even when you’re dog-tired. Even when you shouldn’t notice anything but Julie’s fingers and toes.”

  I felt the first frisson of alarm.

  “Is something going on? Tell me now.”

  Joe sighed. “How can I put this delicately? I got fired.”

  “What? Come on. Don’t kid with me about this.”

&nbs
p; I was searching his eyes, looking for the joke.

  “Really,” Joe said. He looked embarrassed. Honest to God. I’d never seen this look on his face before.

  “I got axed. It’s being chalked up to cutbacks due to the financial deficit. Naturally, freelancers are the first to go. Don’t worry, Linds. I know things about homeland security very few people know. As soon as the word gets out, I’ll get calls.”

  My mouth was dry. My heart was thudding almost audibly.

  I make a cop’s salary. It isn’t bad money, but it wouldn’t support our airy three-bedroom apartment on Lake Street, which Joe had rented when he was working for the government as deputy director of Homeland Security.

  When he was making a ton.

  “How much money do we have?”

  “We’ll be fine for quite a few months. I’ll find a job before we run dry. We’ll be fine, Lindsay,” he said. “I’m not going to disappoint my two fabulous girls.”

  “We love you, Joe,” I said.

  Our little daughter started to cry.

  Chapter 7

  YUKI WAS NAKED, lying flat on her back on the bedroom carpet, panting, her pulse slowing after her heart’s wild gallop over the hills during the morning’s romp.

  She turned her head and looked at her gorgeous and in every way fantastic lover.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried, but I was distracted. Thinking about other things.”

  Brady laughed.

  He rolled toward her, put his arm across her body, and pulled her to him. “You’re too much fun. I’m crazy about you, you know that?”

  She knew. She was crazy about him. Was this just the best sex she’d ever had? Or were she and Brady traveling in lockstep toward the real deal?

  She touched Brady’s mouth and he kissed her palm. She swept his damp blond hair back from his eyes and kissed the side of his mouth.