Conklin nodded and said, “Oh, absolutely.”
I noticed something of a frisky nature in their body language. They were standing hip to hip. Making lots of eye contact. What was going on between those two, exactly? Was this your typical workplace flirtation? Or was it something more?
I didn’t have a chance to chase down this train of thought because to my left, coming from the direction of the Ferry Building, a female voice shouted out, “No, no, nooo.”
I picked her out of the crowd.
A teenage girl in a Catholic school uniform was making a run for the streetcar. Cops grabbed her by the arms before she breached the tape, but they were having a hard time restraining her. She was determined and desperate and she was breaking my heart.
“Mom-ma,” she screamed. “Mom-maaaa.”
Chapter 51
ONCE AGAIN, CONKLIN and I were closeted in an interview room with the little professor and his gigantic ego. Professor Judd had predicted a second murder and he could not be happier with himself.
Right then, he was drawing a diagram on a pad of paper.
“Clairvoyance means ‘clear seeing,’” Judd said. “There are several forms of clairvoyance—for instance, telepathy. With telepathy, a person reads another person’s thoughts. Remote viewing is when you can see what someone else sees, as they are seeing it.”
Judd drew circles and arrows to illustrate what he knew about extrasensory perception. If he really was clairvoyant, I had to say it was an impressive talent. Still, he didn’t seem to care that another person had died. And that his “talent” was useless unless it led to catching a killer.
“I have precognition,” Judd said. “I see events before they happen. Frankly, I don’t yet understand how I suddenly came to have this gift.”
The professor was musing. He’d gone into his head—a scary, mysterious, and also tedious place to be.
A good interrogator befriends the subject, flatters him, encourages him to talk, hoping he’ll trap himself in a lie or make a confession.
But patience was my partner’s forte, not mine.
I was overtired and in a bad mood. Also, I couldn’t stand this guy.
I slapped Janet Rice’s photo ID down on the table and said, “Do you know this woman?”
“Is this the driver who was shot?”
“Yes. This is our victim. Janet Rice. Married. Two children. Churchgoer. Taxpayer. Home owner. Employee of the city of San Francisco. Friend to many, enemy to none. Do you recognize her?”
“She’s not the person I envisioned. So … what could this mean?”
“Have you seen her before?” I asked for the third time.
“No. Never.”
“Where were you this morning between eleven and twelve noon?”
“I told you, Sergeant Boxer. I was in class with thirty students,” Judd said. “We’re reading
Conklin said, “Why do you suppose you saw a blond driver in your dream? I mean, this woman isn’t blond and she has never been blond. You think she was a victim of circumstance? She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I am wondering the same thing, Inspector. But I have absolutely no idea.”
His sappy voice made my last nerve snap like an old guitar string.
“What happened inside that streetcar?” I said to the professor. I grabbed the pad and pencil away from him and drew an arrow off the word
“Give us an educated guess. Maybe you have an idea that doesn’t involve extrasensory malarkey.”
Judd looked shocked. Then he got pissed.
“Don’t talk to me that way, Sergeant. I came here at your request and of my own volition. I’ve told you everything I know. Where’s the thanks I deserve?”
“You know about lucid dreaming?” I asked him.
“Well, yes. Lucid dreaming occurs when a person is conscious that he is having a dream. He’s lucid. According to the literature, if the dreamer is aware that he’s dreaming, he can change the direction, even the outcome of the dream.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Try lucid dreaming, would you, Professor Judd? Next time you’re in a dream, get your head on straight. Grab the gun. And then remember who the killer is and tell us. Thank you for coming in. Always a pleasure seeing you. Please don’t leave town.”
I flipped the pencil into the middle of the table, said to Conklin, “My baby is sick. I’m going home.”
Chapter 52
YUKI AND HER associate, Nicky Gaines, returned from the lunch recess a few minutes before court reconvened and took their seats.
Yuki had rested her case, and now it was the defense’s turn to present theirs. She hoped like mad that her case was strong enough to hold up no matter what Kinsela said to convince the jury that Keith Herman, a subhuman piece of garbage, was not guilty.
Yuki thought about Patricia Reeves, a woman who was tried for the murder of her two-year-old daughter. Reeves’s lawyer had stated that his client had been sexually abused by her father and that the father had been complicit in covering up the child’s accidental death.
In Yuki’s opinion, the defendant had lied, the lawyer had lied, too, and Patricia Reeves had gotten away with murder.
Like Reeves’s attorney, Kinsela was a master of the ad hominem attack. He’d assaulted Lynnette Lagrande’s character to discredit her. And he would certainly come up with a load of random bullcrap in his client’s defense.
Thinking over Kinsela’s case, looking for holes in her own, Yuki didn’t see any quicksand.
Come to think of it, she also didn’t see the defense.
Yuki poked Gaines with her elbow and angled her chin toward the defense table. No one was there; not the lawyers, not Keith Herman. Where were they?
Just then, Judge Arthur R. Nussbaum came through his private door and the bailiff called the court to order. Nussbaum saw the void at the defense table, called the bailiff over to the bench, leaned down, and whispered loud enough for Yuki to hear, “Have the clerk call Kinsela. Find out where the hell he is.”
Worst-case scenarios were now rising in Yuki’s mind. Had Keith Herman escaped from jail? Had he hanged himself? Had her wish that John Kinsela would eat shit and die actually come true?
The judge apologized to the jury for the delay, saying, “If the defense and the defendant aren’t here in five minutes, I’m going to adjourn court for the day.” Then he muttered, “And there will be hell to pay.”
Five minutes passed. Very. Very. Slowly.
The bailiff returned to the bench and had another whispered conversation with the judge, which was interrupted by a young lawyer in a severe charcoal-gray suit and high heels coming up the aisle in a great clacking hurry.
“Your Honor, I’m Linda Gregory from Mr. Kinsela’s office.”
“What’s going on, Ms. Gregory?”
“May I approach?”
As the attorney came toward the judge, the doors at the end of the aisle opened again. Nicky said to Yuki, “Lookit this, will you?”
