The 8th Confession

under her chin and beamed her thoughts to her own mother, Keiko Castellano, who had died before her time and who was highly ticked off about it. Keiko had loved her only daughter fiercely, and Yuki felt her mom’s comforting presence around her now.

“Mommy, stay with me in court today and help me win, okay?” Yuki said out loud. “Sending kisses.”

With hours to kill, Yuki cleaned out her pencil drawer, emptied her trash can, deleted old files from her address book, and changed her too-sweet pink blouse to the stronger, more confident teal man-tailored shirt that was in dry cleaner’s plastic behind her door.

At eight fifteen, Yuki’s second chair, Nicky Gaines, ambled down the corridor calling her name. Yuki stuck her head out of her doorway, said, “Nicky, just make sure the PowerPoint works. That’s all you have to do.”

“I’m your man,” said Nicky.

“Good. Zip up your fly. Let’s go.”

Chapter 13

YUKI STOOD UP from her seat at the prosecutors’ table as the Honorable Brendan Joseph Duffy entered the courtroom through a paneled door behind the bench and took his seat between the flags and in front of the great seal of the State of California.

Duffy had a runner’s build, graying hair, windowpane glasses worn low on the slope of his nose. He yanked out his iPod earbuds, popped the top on a can of Sprite, then, as those in attendance sat down, asked the bailiff to bring in the jury.

Across the aisle, Yuki’s opponent, the well-regarded criminal defense attorney Philip R. Hoffman, exchanged whispers with his client, Stacey Glenn.

Hoffman was tall, stooped, six-foot-four, forty-two years old, with unruly dark hair. He wore a midnight-blue Armani suit and a pink satin tie. His nails were manicured.

Like Yuki, Hoffman was a perfectionist.

Unlike her, Hoffman’s win-to-loss ratio put him in the all-star league. Normally, he commanded fees upwards of nine hundred bucks an hour, but he was currently representing Stacey Glenn pro bono. Hoffman was no altruist. The courtroom was packed with press, and their coverage of this case was worth millions to his firm.

Stacey Glenn was a stunning blue-eyed brunette with two spots of blush on her cheeks emphasizing her jailhouse pallor. She wore a frumpy suit in an unflattering olive-toned plaid, conveying schoolteacher or statistician rather than the calculating, murdering, moneygrubbing psychopath that she was.

Beside Yuki, Nicky Gaines, with his perpetual adenoidal wheeze, breathed noisily as the jurors entered the small courtroom from a side door and settled into their seats in the jury box.

Judge Duffy greeted the jurors, explained that today both sides would summarize their cases and that afterward, the jury could begin its deliberations.

Duffy took a long pull of soda right out of the can, then asked, “Ms. Castellano, are the People ready to proceed?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Taking her notes from the table, Yuki walked to the lectern in the center of the oak-lined courtroom. She smiled at the twelve jurors and two alternates she’d come to know by their tics, grimaces, laughter, and eye- rolling over the past six weeks, said, “Morning, everyone,” then, pointing to the defendant, spoke from her heart.

“Stacey Glenn is a depraved and unrepentant murderer.

“She killed her father, who adored her. She did her level best to kill her mother and thought she had. She bludgeoned her parents without mercy because she wanted to collect their life-insurance payout of a million dollars.

“She did it for the money.”

Yuki went over the timeline she’d established during the trial – the tollbooth attendant’s testimony and that of the Glenns’ neighbor – and she reminded them of the insurance broker Stacey had called to check on the status of her parents’ policy.

Last, she asked the jury to recall the testimonies of Inspector Paul Chi, a decorated Homicide investigator with the SFPD, and Lynn Colomello, a seasoned paramedic.

“Inspector Chi and EMS Sergeant Lynn Colomello have both testified that although Rose Glenn was close to death when she was found in bed beside her murdered husband, she had cognition and she was lucid,” Yuki told the jury.

“Rose Glenn obeyed the paramedics’ directions. She knew who had attacked her and, most important, she was able to convey this information to the police.

“You know that Inspector Chi had a video camera with him when he was called to the scene of a homicide that morning. When he realized that Mrs. Glenn was still alive, he videotaped their conversation, believing it to be Mrs. Glenn’s dying declaration.

“Rose Glenn knew full well who had attacked her. And on this videotape, she tells this story more powerfully than anything I can say.

“Nicky, please roll it.”

Chapter 14

A VIDEOTAPE OF the dimly lit murder scene appeared on the screen to the side of the judge’s bench closest to the jury.

The camera’s eye focused on a bedroom dominated by a king-size bed. The linens were in disarray and dark with drying blood. A man’s twisted body was on the far side of the bed, his face turned away from the camera, blood and brains spattering the headboard, deep wounds visible on his scalp and throat.

A woman’s ghostly hand lifted from the bed and motioned the viewer to come closer. The sound of labored breathing intensified as the camera neared the bed.

It was shocking and horrifying to see that although her jaw was clearly smashed and one eye was gone, Rose Glenn was alive.

“I’m Inspector Paul Chi,” said a man’s voice off camera. “An ambulance is on the way, Mrs. Glenn. Can you hear me?”

Amazingly, the woman’s chin moved slowly downward and then back.

“Is your name Rose Glenn?”

The woman nodded again.

“Is Ronald Reagan president of the United States?”

Rose Glenn turned her head from side to side – no.

“Rose, do you know who did this to you and your husband?”

The woman’s breathing became more ragged, but she tilted her chin down and then up, nodding.

“Was your attacker a stranger?” Chi asked her.

Rose Glenn shook her head no.

“Was your attacker a family member?”

She nodded yes.

Suddenly, police radios crackled and a gurney rolled noisily into the room, blocking the camera’s view. Then the scene cleared once more.

A paramedic, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, said in a raspy smoker’s voice, “Holy Mother of God. She’s alive.”

The paramedic, who had testified before this jury, was Lynn Colomello. On screen, she hurried to Anthony Glenn and felt for his pulse. Chi asked the dying woman, “Rose, was it your son? Did your son, Rudy, do this?”

Rose Glenn shook her head in agonizing slow motion – no.