Nick Gaines, Yuki’s second chair and wingman, pushed a notepad toward her.0784 He was a gifted cartoonist and in a few strokes had captured a lanky Phil Hoffman grabbing at his throat and a stick-figure Yuki with a slingshot and a title: “Underdog.”
Yuki pushed the pad back to Gaines. She got his point. The jury would like her more as a result of Hoffman’s low blow. She would overcome the slam. As for now she reminded herself, “Never let ’em see you sweat.”
She stood and said, “Your Honor, will you please remind the jury that opening statements are not evidence?”
“Consider it done, Ms. Castellano,” LaVan said with a sigh.
Yuki’s first witness was the uniformed patrolman who answered the radio call to the Martins’ house. Officer Patrick Lawrence testified that he was only blocks away and had arrived with his partner within a minute of the call. He said that he had interviewed Dr. Martin and kept her company as the EMS arrived and until Inspector Chi of Homicide and Lieutenant Clapper of the Crime Scene Unit took possession of the scene.
Yuki established that Dr. Martin seemed in control of her emotions and that because of Officer Lawrence’s quick arrival, Candace Martin hadn’t had a chance to wash her hands or clean up the crime scene.
After Officer Lawrence left the stand, Yuki called private investigator Joseph Podesta, and he was sworn in. Podesta was a neat and pleasant-looking man in his fifties who had been hired by Dennis Martin to snoop on his wife.
Yuki questioned Podesta on his credentials, and he told the jury that he had been an investigator for the district attorney in Sacramento for twelve years and a private investigator, first in Chicago and currently in San Francisco, for a combined twenty years.
“Why did Dennis Martin hire you, Mr. Podesta?” Yuki asked.
“Mr. Martin knew that his wife was having an affair and he wanted pictures of them, uh, in flagrante delicto.”
“Did you get pictures of the defendant with her lover?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you learn anything else during the time she was the subject of your investigation?” Yuki asked.
“Yes.”
“Please tell us what you learned.”
“On one of the nights I was tailing her, Candace Martin met with a man I believe to be a contract killer.”
A rumble came up from the gallery, and Hoffman shot to his feet with an objection.
“Your Honor, this is pure hearsay. How can this witness know that the man he says he saw is a contract killer? If he was so sure, why didn’t he call the police? Instead, the State is using this extremely dubious testimony to impugn the reputation of a heart surgeon. How does this make any sense?”
The judge quieted the room with two hard bangs of his gavel and said, “I’d like to hear this, Mr. Hoffman.”
When she could speak again, Yuki asked, “You have proof of this meeting, Mr. Podesta?”
“I followed Dr. Martin from her house in St. Francis Wood to Hunters Point. I followed her to Davidson Avenue. That’s a dead end. A late-model Toyota SUV was parked at the end of the street, where it butts up against the I-280 overpass. This is a bad neighborhood, but I was able to watch without being seen.”
“Go on, Mr. Podesta.”
“The meeting was clearly clandestine,” Podesta said. “I took photographs of Dr. Martin getting into this SUV. When I downloaded them onto my computer later, I thought I’d seen the man’s face before.”
“And what happened next?”
“Two weeks later Dennis Martin was murdered.”
“What did you do, Mr. Podesta?”
“I compared my picture of the man in the SUV to pictures on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. In my opinion, the man I saw talking to Dr. Martin was Gregor Guzman.”
“And why is Mr. Guzman on the FBI list?”
“Your Honor. Is this witness an FBI agent? What the —?”
“Sit down, Mr. Hoffman. The witness may answer to the best of his knowledge.”
“Gregor Guzman is wanted on suspicion of murder in California as well as a few other states and other countries. He’s never been arrested. I contacted the FBI three times, but no one ever got back to me.”
Yuki introduced the photograph of Candace Martin sitting in a dark sports utility vehicle with a balding man with a shock of hair at the front of his scalp. It was a grainy photo, taken with a long lens at night, but it appeared as Podesta described it.
“Thank you,” Yuki said. “That’s all I have for you, Mr. Podesta.”
Chapter 20
“YOUR HONOR, SIDEBAR?” Hoffman said stiffly.
The judge waved the two attorneys in toward the bench and said, “Go ahead, Mr. Hoffman.”
“Your Honor, this witness is a private investigator. He’s not even a cop. His testimony is pure guesswork. Where is this so-called hit man? Why isn’t
“Ms. Castellano?”
“Mr. Podesta didn’t say he was an expert witness. He followed the defendant, who got into a car with a man who resembles Gregor Guzman. Mr. Podesta took pictures of a clandestine meeting between them. He compared the picture of the man in the SUV with photos of Gregor Guzman issued by the FBI. He made a match —
“Mr. Hoffman, I’ve heard you. Now, please cross-examine the witness,” LaVan said.
Phil Hoffman addressed Joseph Podesta from his seat beside his client, trying to show the jury how little regard he had for the witness.
“Mr. Podesta, I don’t know which piece of fiction to begin with. Okay, I’ve got it,” he said before Yuki could object.
“First, have you ever worked for the FBI?”
“No.”
“Do you have any specialized training in the identification of contract killers?”
“I have a very good eye.”
“That wasn’t my question, Mr. Podesta. Do you have any specialized training in the identification of contract killers? Did you get this man’s fingerprints? Did you get his DNA? Do you have a tape recording of this assumed conversation?”
“Objection,” Yuki said. “Which question does counsel want the witness to answer?”
“I’ll withdraw all of them,” Hoffman said, “but I object to this exhibit. The quality of this photograph stinks and it proves nothing. In fact, I object to this entire testimony and move that it be stricken from the record.”
“Overruled,” said the judge. “If you’re finished questioning this witness, Mr. Hoffman, he may step down.”
Chapter 21
“THE PEOPLE CALL Ellen Lafferty,” Yuki said.
The doors opened at the back, and a pretty, auburn-haired woman in her early twenties wearing a tight blue
