“Adam did. I live in Almaden.”
“Which is a suburb of San Jose. How long does it take you to drive from your home to the marina in Emeryville?”
“It depends on traffic,” Fuller said.
“On average, say. How long?”
“About an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.”
“So despite you and Adam living near each other, you would both drive an hour, and sometimes more, to meet, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you choose someplace closer to home?” Barlow asked. “Why all this rigmarole? It sounds like a spy novel.”
“Objection,” Maben said.
“Withdrawn,” Barlow said. “I’ll rephrase, Your Honor.”
“Please do,” the judge said.
“Mr. Fuller, why did you and Adam choose to meet over an hour from home?”
Fuller said, “We preferred it.”
“What about it did you prefer?”
“The atmosphere.”
“Oh, for sure. It’s a really nice boat. What is it, like a hundred feet long?”
“A little less.”
“That’s right,” Barlow said. “It’s only ninety-five feet.”
“Objection,” Maben said. “Relevance.”
“It’s highly relevant,” Barlow said. “I’m trying to understand why Mr. Fuller would drive over an hour from home to meet Adam Valois. A luxurious boat like that might be worth the effort. I don’t know, I don’t own a boat of any size.”
“Overruled,” the judge said. “Though I remind counsel not to get carried away.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Barlow said. “I can’t help thinking, Mr. Fuller: Surely you could find somewhere closer, so you didn’t have to drive an hour or more. Were you hiding something?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained. Knock it off, Mr. Barlow.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Fuller,” Barlow said, “in your opinion, do you consider Adam Valois an honest person?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
Fuller said, “I never saw Adam do anything dishonest.”
“He brought people to your boat without your permission.”
There was no question. Fuller didn’t answer.
“What did you and Adam do together,” Barlow asked, “on your ninety-five-foot yacht?”
“Talk.”
“Did you drink?”
“Occasionally.”
“Use the hot tub?”
“Occasionally.”
“Did you have sex?”
“Occasionally.”
“How often did you have sex?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Mr. Fuller, are you married to Nina Fuller?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
“Yes,” Fuller said.
“Were you married to her while you were having a sexual relationship with Adam?”
“Part of the time.”
“Can you clarify what you mean by ‘part of the time’?”
“Just that.”
“Your Honor?” Barlow said.
“Answer the question, Mr. Fuller.”
“My relationship with Adam predated my marriage.”
“Did it continue, the sexual relationship, after you were married?”
“Yes.”
“Would it be accurate to characterize that portion of your sexual relationship with Adam as an extramarital affair?”
“Yes.”
“Did your wife know about that affair?”
“She knows now,” Fuller said. “She didn’t then.”
“What about Olivia Parisi? Did she know?”
“I don’t know what she knows,” Fuller said.
“No,” Barlow said, “Olivia didn’t know, because Adam never told her.”
“Objection.”
“Sustained. Members of the jury, you are to disregard that last statement.”
“Mr. Fuller,” Barlow said, “I’ll ask again whether you think Adam was an honest person, bearing in mind that he was having an affair with a married man, not to mention accessing your boat and bringing people there without permission. Is that what an honest person does?”
Fuller said, “It’s not up to me to decide.”
“Do you have an opinion?”
“My opinion is that Adam was as honest as any of us are.”
“I have to say,” Barlow said, “that’s a pretty dim view of humanity.”
Fuller knew better than to answer.
I wasn’t in court the day Tessa Maben called to the stand a Haven Harbor employee named Rosa Pons; I read the transcript later.
Alan Mendes was there. He’d interviewed Pons and came to show support, knowing she felt nervous about testifying.
After establishing that Pons had worked the overnight shift on New Year’s Eve, Maben asked her to describe what she was doing at approximately twelve forty-five a.m. on January 1, 2026.
“I was delivering a bottle of champagne to a vessel.”
Maben submitted to evidence an enlarged diagram of the Haven Harbor docks, labeled with Fuller’s Dock Eleven end berth. Pons indicated her own location, near the end of Dock Ten.
Maben asked if, from that spot, Pons had a clear view of Motion Sickness.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please tell the jury what you saw.”
“A man and a woman on the balcony.”
Maben asked Pons if the woman on the balcony was in the courtroom.
Pons nodded.
“Could you point her out for the jury?”
Pons pointed to Olivia Parisi.
“And what were they doing on the balcony,” Maben said, “this man and woman?”
“Carrying a body.”
Pons described seeing the man and woman lift the body over the railing and drop it. The person hit the water and splashed around — she saw an arm fly up; that’s how she knew it was a body — before sinking and vanishing. The man and the woman watched and waited. The person never resurfaced.
In the front row, Linus Hao’s mother wept quietly.
“What did the man and woman do next?” Maben asked Pons.
“Started kissing.”
“Kissing?” Maben asked. “Like a peck on the cheek?”
“Nuh-uh,” Pons said. “Making out.”
When it was Barlow’s turn, he asked Pons how she could see that far, in the dark, from an angle? Wasn’t she tired, at that hour? Did she know how high the railing was? Did she know how much Linus Hao weighed? How tall Olivia was? Eventually he got Pons to concede that she couldn’t be 100 percent certain that Adam and Olivia had both thrown the body over, as opposed to Adam acting alone.
With her credibility dinged, Barlow started in on her interpretation of the aftermath. Could Pons be 100 percent certain what Adam and Olivia were looking at, when they watched the water? Did she know, really know, what was behind that kiss?
Pons replied that she’d been married for fifteen years. She knew what a kiss was and wasn’t.
Why, Barlow asked, if she saw suspicious activity, why in the world didn’t she report it?
It wasn’t her business.
But if she really thought it was that bad, didn’t she think she had an obligation to say something? Or maybe it wasn’t that bad, after all.
Pons started to cry.
Sympathetic looks from the jury.
Barlow hurried to get her off the stand.
“Redirect, Your Honor,” Maben said.
“Go ahead,” the judge said.
Maben approached the witness box, leaned in. “You didn’t say anything because you were afraid of losing your job. Is that right?”
Pons nodded.
“No further questions.”
I wasn’t in court the next day, either, when Damian Roby took the stand. I wanted to come, but Maben had instructed everyone to stay away to avoid spooking him.
Afterward she texted the cops. He did great.
Barlow had torn into Roby, accusing him of assaulting Olivia after she refused to have sex with him and stealing Adam’s wallet. Roby didn’t take the bait, repeating no, sir.