The 6th Target

piano. But why bother with the gas?'

'He either wanted to make sure she was discovered,' I said, 'or he wanted to make sure she was dead.' I looked at Cindy. 'Not one word of this in the Chronicle.'

Chapter 71

YUKI COULDN'T STOP THINKING about Len's face, twisting with pain as his heart attack tried to kill him. She'd left him in the hospital last night, stabilized but incapacitated, and called David Hale's answering machine at home. 'There's been an emergency. Meet me at the office at six a.m. and be ready to go to court.'

Now Yuki sat across from David in the grungy, pine-paneled conference room, her notes and instant coffee in front of her, bringing her fellow ADA up to speed.

'Why aren't we getting a continuance?' he asked her. David was presentable today, in a tan herringbone jacket, blue pants, striped tie. Needed a haircut, but that couldn't be helped. Of all the people available to her at short notice, she'd get the best work from Hale.

'Three reasons,' Yuki said, tapping the table with a plastic spoon.

'One, Leonard doesn't want to lose Jack Rooney as a witness. Rooney is frail. He was on vacation when the shooting occurred. We might not be able to get him back when we need him, which means his tape might be excluded.'

'Okay.'

'Two, Len doesn't want to chance losing Judge Moore.'

'Yeah, I get that, too.'

'Len says he'll be in court in time to do the summation.'

'He said that?'

'Yep, when they were prepping him for surgery. He was lucid and adamant.'

'What did his doctor say?'

'His doctor said, and I quote, 'There's a reasonable possibility that the damage to Leonard's heart is reversible.' '

'Did they have to crack open his chest?'

'Yes. I checked with Len's wife. He came through the surgery fine.'

'And so he'll be doing a summation in a little more than a week?'

'Probably not. And he won't be doing the tarantella, either,' Yuki said. 'So that brings me to number three. Len said that I'm as prepared as he is, that he's confident in us. And we're not to let him down.'

David Hale stared at her, openmouthed, before finally saying, 'Yuki, I don't have any trial experience.'

'I do. Several years.'

'Your experience is in civil cases, not criminal.'

'Shut up, David. I was a litigator. That counts. So we're gonna give Red Dog our best. We're gonna spend the next three hours going over what we both already know.

'We've got credible eyewitnesses, the Rooney tape, and a jury that is going to be rolling its eyes at the insanity defense.

'It's what Len said at the prep meeting: The more random the crime, the less motive for the killings, the more afraid the jury is going to be that Brinkley will get forty-five minutes in a nuthouse and then go free -'

Yuki stopped to take in the grin spreading across David Hale's face.

'What are you thinking, David? No, I take it back. Please don't say it,' Yuki said, trying not to laugh.

'Open-and-shut case,' said her new teammate. 'Slam dunk.'

Chapter 72

YUKI STOOD IN THE WELL OF THE COURTROOM, feeling as green as if she were trying her first case. She clutched the edges of the lectern, thought how when Len stood behind this thing, it appeared to be the size of a music stand. She was peering over the top of it like a grade-schooler.

The jury looked at her expectantly.

Could she actually convince them that Alfred Brinkley was guilty of capital murder?

Yuki called her first witness, Officer Bobby Cohen, a fifteen-year veteran of the SFPD, his just-the-facts-ma'am demeanor setting a good solid tone for the People's case.

She took him through what he had seen when he arrived at the Del Norte, what he had done, and when she finished her direct, Mickey Sherman had only one question for Officer Cohen.

'Did you witness the incident on the ferry?'

'No, I did not.'

'Thank you. That's all I have.'

Yuki checked off Cohen in her mind, thinking that although Cohen didn't see the shootings, he'd set the stage for the jurors, putting the picture of human destruction in their minds – an image she would now build upon.

She called Bernard Stringer, the fireman who'd seen Brinkley shoot Andrea and Tony Canello. Stringer lumbered to the stand and was sworn in before taking his seat. He was in his late twenties, with the open-faced, all-American looks of a baseball player.

Yuki said, 'Mr. Stringer, what kind of work do you do?'

'I'm a firefighter out of Station 14 at Twenty-sixth and Geary.'

'And why were you on the Del Norte on November first?'

'I'm a weekend dad,' he said, smiling. 'My kids just love the ferry.'

'And did anything unusual happen on the day in question?'

'Yes. I saw the shooting on the top deck.'

'Is the shooter in court today?' Yuki asked.

'Yes, he is.'

'Can you point him out to us?'

'He's sitting right there. The man in the blue suit.'

'Will the court reporter please note that Mr. Stringer indicated the defendant, Alfred Brinkley. Mr. Stringer, how far were you standing from Andrea Canello and her son, Anthony, when Mr. Brinkley shot them?'

'About as far as I am from you. Five or six feet.'

'Can you tell us what you saw?'

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