Kingfisher was a notorious drug lord, said to be based in Southern California, though no one knew for sure. But evidence of his manufacturing and distribution enterprise was widespread. Was this big-time player somehow involved in small-time takedowns in San Francisco?
Brady wasn’t done. He pushed his fingers through his hair. He looked at his computer screen and pressed some keys.
I thought maybe he’d forgotten about us. But then he was saying, “Maybe I’m just trying to make sense of unrelated incidents by making lists, turning the pieces around, hoping they’ll fit. Or maybe there’s something happening here that we can’t quite see.
“We don’t stop until we know.”
PART TWO
CHAPTER 56
COURTROOM 5A WAS small, paneled in cherry-wood with matching cherry benches, tables, and chairs. The judge had turned to speak to his clerk. Behind him was the golden seal of the State of California flanked by two flags: the Stars and Stripes and the California state flag.
The room was full, but court was not yet in session. Yuki and her second chair, Natalie Futterman, sat behind their counsel table. Yuki skimmed the notes in front of her, rehearsing her opening lines in her mind like a mantra.
Beside her, Natalie whispered, “I can’t wait.”
Yuki said, “I can. I may be a pit bull, but he’s a lion, Nat. An angry one.”
Natalie said, “New thought for a new day.”
“Do not tweet that,” Yuki said.
Yuki wished she felt as excited as Natalie. Her eager second chair was a forty-six-year-old recent graduate of law school. Her kids were out of the house. Her husband had left her. And Natalie finally had the degree in law she’d put off twenty-five years ago. She was sharp, bookish, organized, had passed the bar on the first try, and was ready for prime time. Or as Natalie had put it, “You can only learn so much in a classroom.”
Natalie had nothing to lose but her novice status.
Yuki, on the other hand, had a pretty substantial reputation at stake, and if she lost this case, she would be known for it: Kordell v. City of San Francisco. Yuki Castellano. She sued the SFPD and they destroyed her.
Across the aisle, the defense looked as calm as still waters. Len Parisi, Red Dog himself, filled the chair on the aisle. Sitting next to him were two partners from Moorehouse and Rogers, one of whom was the legendary Collins Rappaport as second chair. Parisi, as co-counsel to the law firm, would be first chair, and he would be doing hand-to-hand combat with her.
Yuki had dressed in red today. It was a big color that required big action. You couldn’t equivocate in red. You had to go for the jugular, and that was her plan.
Strike first. Strike hard.
Natalie wore almost-matching black separates, a jacket and pants that had probably come from a consignment shop twenty years before. But that was OK. The two of them were representing the victims here. They were the lawyers for the poor and the unfairly persecuted, and Natalie looked the part.
Parisi’s suit was moss green and made him look like a heart attack ready to happen.
Yuki smiled to herself.
Whatever helped her through the fight.
She and Natalie had worked hard prepping for this trial and had spent two days just going over her opening statement. She knew what she had to do and what she had to say; if she rehearsed anymore, her impassioned true feelings for the Kordell family would sound overly rehearsed.
She didn’t want that.
Yuki was deep in her thoughts when she felt a touch on her shoulder. She turned to see Mrs. Kordell giving her a teary smile. Yuki squeezed her hand and smiled at the rest of the Kordell family seated behind her, about eleven people all told.
Yuki was here today for them: for Bea and Mickey Kordell and for Aaron-Rey’s grandfather, cousins, and friends, who were counting on her to bring justice to Aaron-Rey’s name.
She turned to the front of the room as Judge John G. Quirk finished speaking to the clerk.
She liked Judge Quirk. Despite the miserable people he’d dealt with in his twenty years on the bench, she’d found him to be kind. In chambers, he showed that he had an understanding of impulses and frailties of character.
Would that generosity of spirit work for or against her?
And now the bailiff announced that court was in session. She watched as the jury came in through a side door and took seats in the box. She wished she could have gotten more than one person of color on the jury, but it was what it was. Judge Quirk welcomed the jury and spent a little time giving them instructions and answering questions. Then he turned his bespectacled eyes on her.
“Ms. Castellano. Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Go get ’em,” Natalie said, her voice carrying in the lull.
There was a smattering of laughter. Yuki pushed back her chair and, propelled by an adrenaline rush, walked to the lectern in the center of the well.
CHAPTER 57
AS YUKI STOOD behind the lectern, she felt warm all over, her heart and adrenal glands giving her a little more rush than she actually needed. But she composed herself and lifted her eyes and said to the jurors, “Good morning, everyone.
“I represent the family of Aaron-Rey Kordell, a fifteen-year-old boy with a below-average IQ who was arrested, then bullied by two very experienced police officers who deprived this young man of sleep for sixteen hours, lied to him about his right to counsel, and induced him to confess to a crime he did not commit. After being coerced into giving a false confession, Aaron-Rey was incarcerated and was murdered while awaiting trial.
“Why was Aaron-Rey coerced? Why did he have to die?
“Because the police had no witnesses, but they had a suspect, and they were going to make sure they nailed him. Which they did.”
Yuki paused to make sure she had the jurors’ attention. Then she continued.
“Here’s what happened in February of this year.
“Aaron-Rey was hanging out at the neighborhood crack house after school. If he had lived in a different neighborhood, maybe he would have spent after-school hours in the gym or at a friend’s house. But this crack house was a block from where he lived with his parents, and to him, it was where he waited until his folks came home from work.
“You will hear from witnesses who will tell you that Aaron-Rey didn’t use drugs. He just liked to be around the big boys at that house, who teased him and made him laugh and sent him out for cigarettes and treated him like a mascot.
“On this particular day, Aaron-Rey was on the top floor of the drug house at 463 Dodge Place when unknown persons robbed and killed three drug dealers on the floor below, then fled the scene, along with all the other people who were in the house at that time.
“Aaron-Rey had an IQ of seventy, which is thirty points below average. He was functional, and he was also exceptionally inquisitive, trusting, and childlike.
“After this shooting occurred and the scores of people ran down the stairs, Aaron-Rey also ran. As he told the police and others, he was on his way out of the house when he found a gun on the stairs, which he stuck into the waistband of his pants, like the big boys do. He had this gun in his possession as he ran east on Turk, a very scared and freaked-out boy of fifteen.
“Two patrolmen in a cruiser witnessed Aaron-Rey running along Turk Street. They turned on their lights and sirens and ran their car up on the sidewalk, after which they tackled Aaron-Rey to the ground.
“And what did Aaron-Rey say, ladies and gentlemen?
“He said, ‘I didn’t do it.’ You will hear these patrolmen tell you that when they asked him what he didn’t do, Aaron-Rey said he didn’t shoot the three men in the drug house.