”
Yuki stood up, stumbled out of Judge Duffy’s office, kept going even as Phil Hoffman called her name. She went for the stairs, kept a firm grip on the handrail as she wobbled down the steps, thinking about how the case had ended.
By the time she reached the lobby, she knew that she had to get ahold of Parisi. They had to really think through what they would put out to the public, and he had to handle it, because it wouldn’t be right to let the public see her almost irrepressible elation.
Stacey Glenn had gotten the death penalty.
No conviction, no dismissal, no mistrial. This was the ultimate resolution.
It was over.
Yuki had not lost her case – and the sociopath Stacey Glenn was dead.
Part Four. DOC
Chapter 76
CINDY AND I were at Susie’s early in the evening, and even at six p.m., the Caribbean- style eatery was jammed.
Crazy jammed.
The steel band was in midset; Susie was drumming up a limbo competition; rowdies, sloshed on tequila, were falling all over the pool table; and Lorraine, who is usually prescient when it comes to timing, had lost her touch.
She took our drink order, came back to read us the specials, came back again to show us her engagement ring, then returned to ask if we had everything we needed.
That was in the first five minutes.
I glared at her until she recoiled and scurried away. Claire and Yuki would be arriving at any moment, and I still hadn’t had it out with Cindy.
“Stop beating around the bush, will you?” said Cindy, my dear friend. She put a little burn on it so that it sounded like a dare.
“Fine. Are you and Conklin dating?”
“He told you? Look, it didn’t start that way, but -”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Excuse me, but who are you? Sister Mary Margaret of the Little Sisters of the Chastity Belt?”
“Yes, damn it. I am.”
“Why? What is your problem?”
I held up my empty beer mug so that Lorraine would bring me a refill.
“ Corona coming up.”
“ Lorraine,” I said, “listen to this. Cindy is sleeping with my partner, and she didn’t tell me.”
“ Uh-huh.”
“Well, don’t you think that as my friend, she should have told me?”
“Oh, no you don’t, Lindsay,” said Lorraine. “Don’t you drag me into this. I’m a very happy girl right now and I don’t want a beef with either one of you.”
“Fine,” I said. “Hit me again.”
“Be right back.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you, Lindsay? You think I should’ve told you that I was going out with Rich when I knew all along you were going to make us both feel bad about it – and I don’t even know why!” Cindy sat back in her seat and did, in fact, look confused.
“You don’t know why?” I said. I was getting a swooping feeling in my stomach, telling me that I was wrong and she was right, that I had been uncool. And that whatever Cindy and Rich were doing together, it was their business.
Cindy didn’t know much about my history with Rich, and I wasn’t going to tell her – but maybe he would tell her.
Maybe he had.
Some hesitancy must have passed over my face because Cindy smelled blood. She leaned forward, stuck out her chin, and said, “I get it. Are you two doing it, Lindsay? Is that it? You tell me right now, because if you’re sleeping with him, I will kick that dog to the curb.”
“No. No. We’re not. Don’t want to and never have.”
“Good,” Cindy said. “That’s really great. So tell me again: what’s the problem?”
“It’s a chain-of-command thing, Cindy -”
“Are you ca-razy? I don’t work for you.”
“Conklin does! And he and I talk about stuff that you shouldn’t know – for all our sakes. And I would have liked a chance to remind him.”
“Even if that made sense – which it doesn’t – we don’t talk about you. We don’t talk about your cases. We just have great sex and watch movies in bed.”
My face heated up, and I dropped my eyes to the table. Cindy had just given me way too much information, and I’d completely brought it down on myself.
My beer was climbing into my throat when I heard, “Hey there, girlfriends.”
I looked up to see Claire clearing the aisles as she came toward our table. She had her baby in her arms, my goddaughter, Ruby Rose. And Yuki and Doc were bringing up the rear.
“I’m not finished talking yet,” I growled at Cindy.
“Fine,” Cindy said. “Don’t make me wait too long for your apology.”
Chapter 77
YUKI WAS ALMOST giddy with delight.
They were all jammed together in the booth at Susie’s, and her friends liked Doc. Correction. She could tell by their faces that all of them loved him. He was telling them about his day in the ER, saying, “A female patient comes in, says she’s been doing unaccountable stuff at night since she started taking sleep meds. Apparently she unwittingly went to her medicine chest and swallowed down a whole bottle of pills.
“She shows me the empty bottle,” Doc said.
Claire leaned forward, Yuki getting this great feeling that Claire was glad to have another doctor to talk to. She asked Doc what the pills were.
“Dramamine.”
“For seasickness?” Claire said. “Those can’t kill her.”
Doc grinned, said, “She wanted to have her stomach pumped, but I just told her it wasn’t necessary. I said, ‘Helen, you’re all set. Book a cruise!’ ”
Claire started laughing, and the baby reached out, knocked a bottle of beer into Cindy’s lap, and Lindsay broke up, laughing until tears came out of her eyes.
“I’m sorry for laughing,” Lindsay said to Cindy. “No, I mean it. It’s not funny.”
Claire handed the baby to Doc so she could wipe Cindy down, and the baby pulled on Doc’s nose and called him “Boog-ah.” And he laughed at her, and she gave him a gummy chortle.
And the evening just kept coming on that way, one laugh leading to another even bigger one, Yuki feeling like
