Yuki ran her hands through her hair and gladly accepted half of my sandwich.
Then she said, “My case is going sideways, Linds. I’m starting to think that my star witness is a big fat liar. If that’s true, the whole case against Briana Hill might be a lie, and if so, I have to jam on the brakes, and I mean right now.”
“Back up a little,” I said. “What lies are you talking about?”
Yuki leaned across Conklin’s desk and spilled her fears: that Marc had added fabricated details to his original story of the assault while he was under oath.
“But then it got worse,” Yuki said. “James Giftos turned up some old phone messages from Marc to Briana that sounded like he could have been blackmailing her.”
“Really? You’re serious?”
Yuki went on, saying, “Lindsay, do you remember what I told you about Paul Yates?”
I said, “He’s the one that had a bedroom encounter with Briana Hill and claimed that she threatened him with a gun.”
“Right. Not quite a corroboration, but Yates’s testimony of attempted rape with a gun validated Marc’s story. Now I’m questioning Yates’s story, too,” Yuki said. “I want to talk with him again, drill down hard on his story, and either de-bunk it or settle down the questions in my mind.”
“Sounds right.”
Yuki said, “I’ve called Paul at home and at work. I’ve left messages and I’ve texted him, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. Why not? So before I turn nothing into something, can you run Marc Christopher and Paul Yates through NCIC for me? Both of them.”
I said, “Yeats like the poet?”
“Y-a-t-e-s,” she said. “Paul G.”
I accessed NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, and typed in Marc Christopher. It took only a few minutes to assure myself that Marc Christopher wasn’t in it. He was clean.
“I’ve found nothing on Marc,” I told Yuki.
“Okay. Good,” she said. She got to work on the meat loaf on rye.
I typed in Paul G. Yates and let the software run. I was about to say, “Nothing on him, either,” when Paul Gentry Yates popped up in the Supervised Release file. It was an arrest sheet from ten years ago, when Paul Yates was a college kid of nineteen.
“Yuki. I found something you’re going to want to see.”
I pressed keys and the printer chugged out the arrest report. I wheeled my chair around, took the report out of the tray, and handed it to Yuki.
She read it, then looked up at me with shock on her face. “I’ve got to get this to Red Dog,” she said. “Fast.”
CHAPTER 90
YUKI SHOVED HER chair back from Conklin’s desk and ran, calling back to Lindsay, “I have to be back in court in thirty minutes.”
Lindsay yelled, “Good luck,” as Yuki made for the fire exit and ran down one flight to the third floor.
It was a short dash along the corridor to Parisi’s office.
The DA was in a closed-door meeting, but Yuki couldn’t wait and Len wouldn’t want her to. She announced to his gatekeeper, “It’s urgent,” and, without waiting for a reply, swept past Toni’s desk and barged into her boss’s office, announcing, “I’ve got to speak with you right now.”
Parisi told the two men in his office to hang on a minute, stepped out into the corridor, and asked Yuki what was wrong.
“Paul Yates,” she said. “He tried to extort a professor when he was in college.”
“And? Where does that go?” Parisi asked.
“Okay,” Yuki said. “Ten years ago, when he was at UCLA, Yates threatened to expose his sociology professor for using inappropriate language unless he gave him a passing grade. The professor addressed it head-on and took it to the dean, who called the cops. Yates was arrested. Judge gave him a year of probation, and Yates was kicked out of school.”
The spur of the hallway outside Len’s office was starting to fill up. Yuki turned her back and continued.
“Len, I would never have believed Paul Yates was capable of extortion. He’s … timid.”
Len said, “It’s a red flag, I agree, but it doesn’t mean that he perjured himself against Hill.”
“I’m connecting the dots this way,” Yuki said. “Paul knows Marc and he tells him about his UCLA escapade. Briana has testified that she was starting to lose interest and Marc got the message. He feels aggrieved and also greedy. Paul’s extortion gives him an idea. So he sets Briana up and tries to blackmail her. Hill tells him to bug off.”
Parisi said, “So now Marc is mad.”
“Correct. He’s warned her and she’s not going for it, so it’s time to make her ‘pay up.’ Marc takes the sex video to the cops. He’s emotional. He’s got faded ligature marks on his wrists and ankles. He’s got a video. Of course they buy it, and so do we. We charge Briana.”
“Theoretically.”
“Len, my theory that Marc and Paul colluded is speculative. This thought occurred to me when Marc told his new and improved story on the stand. Were old memories just coming to him? Or was he lying? And if he was lying, I have to ask. Is his whole story a lie?”
Len looked perturbed, but he was hanging in with her.
Yuki said, “In sum, we’ve got a witness with a history of extortion. I can’t prove that Marc was untruthful, but I’m questioning his veracity. As for the defendant, her testimony was heartbreaking.”
“Heartbreaking as in good acting? Or heartbreaking, she’s been framed?”
Yuki shrugged. “I’m on the fence. I want some evidence before we ditch.”
The prosecution had a legal obligation to withdraw charges if the case against Briana Hill was wrong. If Yuki proceeded without confidence in the defendant’s guilt, she could get disbarred.
She said, “I need to talk to Yates again. If he changes his story, says he made up what he said happened between him and Briana, I’ll go back to Marc and squeeze him until he yelps.
“Can you ask Rathburn for a continuance?”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Len said.
Parisi used Toni’s desk phone and called Judge Rathburn. In twenty-five words or less he explained the new situation to the judge, who agreed to recess court until tomorrow morning.
“It’s a gift,” Parisi said to Yuki. “Make the most of it.”
CHAPTER 91
AS YUKI HEADED toward her office, she phoned Arthur and left him a message, updating him on the situation, including that court was adjourned until morning. She had just gotten back to her desk when her phone rang.
She said into the mouthpiece, “Art?”
“It’s Cindy.”
There were very few people Yuki would be willing to talk to in the middle of this mess, but Cindy was on the short list.
Yuki said, “I’m kinda in a rush.”
Cindy said, “Me, too. Did you hear?”
“Maybe not,” said Yuki. “Tell me.”
“This is a girlfriend-to-girlfriend heads-up,” Cindy said. “I got it off the police scanner and I made a couple of follow-up calls to confirm. Paul Yates. He’s your witness, right?”
“Right. What about him?”
“He committed suicide this morning. He hanged himself.”
Yuki sat down hard behind her desk.
“Noooo. That can’t be true.”
Cindy assured her that her sources were good.
“I’m posting a cloaked version of this story to my crime blog in about ten minutes,” Cindy said. “Claire should have Yates’s body by now, so talk to her.”
Yuki sat for a moment, trying to put this news flash in the context of her meeting with Parisi and her past meetings with Yates, and to consider the impact of his death on her case, which was coming apart at high speed, the wheels flying off and littering the roadway.
Cindy said, “Yuki? Yuki?”
“I’m here. I’m just stunned, that’s all. Thanks, Cindy.” Yuki hung up with Cindy, phoned Claire’s office, and was told that Claire wasn’t available. She asked to speak with Claire’s lab assistant, Bunny Ellis. After several crazy-making minutes of ’80s Muzak, Bunny got on the line.
“Bunny. This is ADA Castellano. Do you have the body of Paul Yates?”
“Uh-huh. Claire’s with him now.”