The Fall (28 page)

“In the here and now, the jury feels there’s going to be a riot or something very much like it if they don’t come back with a guilty verdict, so they’ll be twice as reluctant to let him go, since if they do that, the whole city might explode. Which is probably what you’ve been hoping all the while, so you can get more media face time.

“So what I’d like, call it a demand if you want, is for all those people to get out of the gallery, now if not sooner, and for the rest of the trial. Beyond that, I don’t want to hear another word out of you about how this city doesn’t arrest and doesn’t convict on black homicides. It’s hard enough getting justice done without stacking the deck against it with all this political posturing so you can get your stupid votes.”

Goodman waited, but nothing else was coming. At last he said, “Is that it? That’s all you want?”

“That’s it. Call it your lucky day. Let’s go, Abe.”

The two men got up. Hardy opened the door and held it for Glitsky, then closed it on Goodman just as Diane was returning with Glitsky’s tea. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you all done already in there? If I’d known . . .”

Glitsky took the mug from her, blew on it and sipped, then handed it back. “Excellent,” he said. “Thank you.”

On their way down the Grand Stairway, Hardy said, “Told you that was going to be fun.”

“Oh, yeah. A laugh riot.”

“You didn’t like it? I thought he was going to keel over and croak there for a minute.”

“More than a minute. But you could have gotten a lot more out of him.”

“Like what?”

“Quit politics entirely. Join a monastery. A million bucks. Almost anything.”

“I didn’t want
to be greedy. I just wanted his goons out of the courtroom, and I suddenly realized I had a way to do it.”

Glitsky clucked. “Wasted opportunity.”

“Home run.”

“I wish you wouldn’t use those words.”

T
HE
DNA
EVIDENCE
was crucial for the prosecution for no other reason than if Greg and Anlya were having sex, it helped fill in the three hours between the end of their dinner at the Imperial Palace and the time of the murder. Beyond that, it firmly established the true nature of the couple’s relationship—at least for that one night, they had been lovers.

From Rebecca’s point of view, the most frustrating thing about the DNA was Greg’s adamant denial, even in the face of this apparently irrefutable evidence, that he and Anlya had ever had sex of any kind. As to the presence of his DNA on her underwear, he had no explanation except that the test must have been flawed.

But that was between lawyer and client.

Rebecca had already failed in her earlier motion to exclude the DNA testimony on the theory that the preservation of evidence and the testing were so flawed as to be unreliable. Besides, the DNA evidence did not place Greg at the scene of the crime. Indeed, the sexual encounter could have taken place at any time after they’d met that day. Or, not impossibly, on an earlier day. Bakhtiari had ruled, to no one’s surprise, that because Treadway had denied a sexual relationship, the DNA evidence was both reliable and relevant to prove motive, and that he would admit it.

Now, in the courtroom, Braden had brought it in with over two hours of tediously detailed testimony. The lab analyst and forensics expert was a woman named Nancy Sciavo, about forty-five years old and dry as toast.

Rebecca had about an hour before they adjourned for the day, but she was still pumped about what she considered her success with Sergeant Faro, and she knew just where she would begin. She didn’t think it was going to take longer than fifteen or twenty minutes.

“Ms. Sciavo,” she began. “We have heard you describe the tests you
ran on the DNA present on Anlya Paulson’s underwear, and the conclusions you drew from those results. Let me ask you, were you called in especially to run these tests?”

“I’m not sure I understand. It’s part of my regular job. So no, I guess. It was just a normal day’s workload.”

“And you work during the day shift, do you not?”

“Uh, yes.”

“What time do you get in to work?”

“Eight o’clock in the morning.”

“But we have heard Sergeant Faro’s testimony that this evidence was delivered to the lab at seven-sixteen
P.M.
on Thursday, May eighth. Did you have an opportunity to inspect this evidence or supervise its storage that night?”

“No. I had already gone home for the day.”

“When did you first come into contact with the DNA evidence that you’ve just testified about in this case?”

“I guess the next morning.”

“You guess? You’re not sure?”

“Well, it had to be the next morning, because I logged on to the computer for the analysis at eleven o’clock. So it was before then.”

“It wasn’t first thing in the morning, then.”

“It must not have been, but not too much after that, probably. If I had the sample ready by eleven.”

“And how about the storage of the sample? Was it kept refrigerated?”

“Yes. That’s standard procedure.”

“After you got it to your workstation, while you were getting ready to work on it, did you happen to notice the packaging of the clothing evidence?”

“Not particularly. There was nothing strange or unusual about it. It was all labeled correctly with the case number and so on.”

“Were all the articles of clothing separately wrapped?”

“Yes.”

“And all in plastic Ziploc-type bags?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Rebecca said. “No further questions.”

Rebecca was setting up an argument, however feeble, that the difference
between a paper and a plastic wrapping was an issue—just one more thing for a juror to hang his hat on.

•  •  •

T
HEY WERE IN
recess, and the jury had been excused while Braden gathered his next witnesses, who had been kept out of the courtroom until it was their time to testify. Rebecca and Allie flanked Greg at the defense table, and they were conversing in muted tones. “Don’t get me wrong,” Greg was saying. “I thought that was great. I’m just not sure that the jury is going to make the connection between the long storage in plastic and the deterioration of the DNA.”

“You’re right,” Rebecca said. “If we stop now, some of them might miss it, but fortunately, we’ve got Hiram Kincaid as our expert witness on DNA evidence for when we get to our case in chief. His job is to connect the dots, and I think so far we’ve made those dots pretty obvious. He’ll get it done, don’t worry.”

“I’m trying, but it’s a little hard not to worry.” He looked at Allie on the other side of him and gave her a tight smile.

She put her hand over his. “I know I’m the new kid, but I thought The Beck made it pretty obvious. Even without the expert witness to explain it, it seemed clear to me how the evidence got tainted.”

“If, in fact, it is. At least it’s a theory,” Rebecca said.

Allie reacted as if she’d been poked. “Beck! What are you saying? Of course it is.”

“I didn’t mean it isn’t. I was just saying we want to avoid getting into the plain fact of whether it’s tainted or untainted. That’s not going to be Hiram’s testimony, in any case.”

“So what’s he going to be doing?” Greg asked.

“He’s going to be talking about the likelihood of deterioration given the storage time in plastic. And that’s all we need. Not the deterioration itself, which we can’t prove. We’re just trying to sow some confusion here. The point is, it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me, Beck.” Greg spoke with some of his too-familiar heat. “Listen. We know that something clearly went wrong somewhere with this evidence, because I guarantee you that sample is not my DNA. If it is, they got it from someplace in my apartment when they did their searches there.”

“That’s a definite idea,” Allie said. “Is there any way we can check if they did that?”

Rebecca was shaking her head. “Not at this stage of the game, Al.”

“But, I mean, really,” Greg said. “Don’t we all know, doesn’t everybody know, that the lab cheats all the time? Especially with the hurry they were in with me. They shouldn’t have gotten to my stuff for a couple of months at least, right? And you’re telling me they get a match the next day? Give me a break.”

They all knew what he was talking about. Within recent memory, the San Francisco police lab had been the subject of a huge scandal involving both the skimming of drugs from samples in narcotics cases and, more pointedly, outright mistakes and sample switching on DNA analysis in rape and homicide cases. In theory, these problems had been dealt with, but given the culture at the lab, no one believed they couldn’t reappear.

“I completely hear you,” Rebecca whispered. She’d had enough of this pointless conversation. “That’s a different can of worms and a hill we probably don’t want to die on. Unless we’ve something specific to accuse somebody of, and we don’t.”

Greg shook his head in disgust. He turned back to Allie. “If this weren’t so goddamn tragic, it would be farcical. Isn’t it obvious to both of you, especially after what Honor said? I didn’t kill Anlya. I never had sex with her. How can the judge let this keep going on?”

“I know,” Rebecca said. “Do you think this isn’t eating me up as well? The only thing I can say is we have to be patient and keep to the game plan.”

Greg drew in a breath, closed his eyes, and breathed all the way out before opening them again. He looked to each of the women in turn. “Patience,” he said. “Patience. Jesus.”

Allie squeezed his hand, which Rebecca noticed she’d never let go of during the whole impassioned discussion. “The Beck’s right, Greg,” she said. “You can do this. We can do it together.”

Suddenly, something broke in Greg. His shoulders shook. He extricated his hand from Allie’s and pounded at the table, firmly but quietly, with both fists. “I didn’t do this,” he said. “Why can’t they see that? I’m not that kind of person. I just couldn’t do it.”

On her side, Allie put an arm around him and pulled him to her, her
hand over his again. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Shh.” As though he were a baby. “It’s all right.”

She looked up when she heard the harsh male voice—one of the bailiffs, who’d come up to their table. “Is everything under control over here?”

“Fine,” Rebecca said. “We’re all fine.”

Greg regained his composure as the jurors and spectators began to file back into the courtroom. But no sooner had everyone taken their place than there was another commotion. Most everyone’s attention got diverted to the gallery, where there was a mass exodus of the thirty- or forty-member African-American caucus that had been simmering inside the courtroom since the opening of the proceedings. They arose almost as one with the same type of nearly paramilitary discipline they’d been exhibiting since they arrived, when it had seemed that they were waiting for a call to action. Apparently, it was not going to come.

By the time Rebecca heard something behind her and was turning around to look, six of the rows behind Braden’s desk were already empty and a queue had formed by the back door, nearly half the gallery waiting to file out.

•  •  •

T
HE BULLET FROM
Yamashiro’s Glock went through Royce Utlee’s left side, just a little above his hips. There was a hole in his front and one in his back, and blood was all over the side of his shirt and jacket and seeping down his pants and into his shoes. He was finding it hard to breathe.

He’d made it around the corner after being hit and then down four entryways on the right side of the street. He’d gone down to one knee, wheezing, as he ducked into another filthy entryway that looked exactly like his own, around the corner—six metal mail holders with doorbell buttons under them, two doors leading inside to the right and the left. Here, out of the street’s line of sight, he turned back, stuck his head barely out, and saw the cop get to the corner and look this way and not see him. If he’d started down this way, Utlee had no doubt or hesitation, he would have waited until the cop was close and then shot him dead.

Instead, the cop had turned back.

That had been about two hours ago. Utlee’s original plan had been to keep going up the street, around a few more corners, where he’d wait and pull
somebody out of his car—alive or dead, it didn’t matter. And then he’d get to his mama’s place. Somehow.

But he found standing up from his kneeling position almost impossible. And severe pain was kicking in on his side. So he leaned back against the mailboxes, bleeding and thinking, his gun hanging down in his right hand. He’d fired three times, he was pretty sure. So the gun ought to have six bullets.

He had heard sirens.

Shit.

He pushed all six of the doorbell buttons and waited.

Nothing.

He had to move. Get out of here, onto another block.

When he tried to walk, his left leg went numb on him. Still, he forced himself to break out of the entryway onto the sidewalk. He made it to the next building’s recessed entrance but had to stop again and get his breathing under control.

This was a bigger apartment building, with twelve units and twelve doorbells. He pushed all of them.

Up at the corner to his right, the opposite corner from where he’d come, a black-and-white cop car, its lights flashing, stopped in the middle of the intersection.

So that way was blocked. There was only going back the way he’d come. Or go through the building and out the back, if there were an alley or some connected backyards. Through them and out.

He looked out to his left. A cop car had parked in that intersection, too.

He’d backed all the way into the recess when the door to his right buzzed. He pushed at it and the thing opened.

Now he had barged his way into the lower-left-hand apartment, facing the street. There was no getting out the back way, even if there were one. He hadn’t been able to make it much farther than the front door to this place. Through the drawn curtains, he could see a semicircle of cop cars closed in up and down the street, having somehow figured out—maybe from the track of blood—where he must be. He could also see three snipers who had set themselves up on the roofs across the street, and somebody else was trying to talk to him through a bullhorn, but he knew if he
stuck his head out to answer, one of the snipers would take him out. Or one of the guys huddled behind the cars in the middle of the street.