The 9th Judgment (7 page)

“I’m Yuki Castellano,” she said, shaking his hand. “What do you drink to celebrate a good day in court?”

“You beat a traffic ticket?”

Yuki laughed.

“Do that again,” Miles said. “I think the sun just came out.”

“I’m a prosecutor,” she said. “Things turned out fine for the good guys today. So what do you think? What am I drinking?”

“Classic. Traditional. Always in style.”

“Perfect,” Yuki said as Miles poured champagne. “You know, today was stupendous, except for the one stone in my shoe.”

“Tell me about it.”

Yuki ordered a spicy crab salad, then told Miles about the case against Jo-Jo Johnson and how the victim, the dead Dr. Harris,
was a very bad dude but that Jo-Jo was worse. He’d let the man die in his own vomit over the course of fifteen hours.

“Should have taken the jury about five minutes to find Jo-Jo guilty,” Miles said.

“Shoulda, but it took a day and a half. Jo-Jo’s lawyer is very smooth, and Jo-Jo is disarmingly simple. Like, you could believe
that he really didn’t know that Harris was dying if you totally squinted your eyes and put your common sense in the deep freeze.”

“So it’s terrific that you won.”

“Yeah. I’ve been at this a couple of years. I’ve had a lot of losses.”

“So you didn’t say. What’s the stone in your shoe?”

“His name’s Jeff Asher. Opposing counsel. He came up to me after his client was taken out in handcuffs and said, ‘Congratulations
on your win, Yuki. What is that? One in a row?’”

“He’s a sore loser,” the bartender said. “You hurt him, Yuki. Definitely. Guess what? Your champagne’s on the house.”

“Thanks, Miles. Yeah. You’re right. He’s a sore loser.”

“Bartenders never lie,” Miles said.

Yuki laughed.

“Here comes the sun,” he said.

CINDY’S BLOUSE WAS a cloud of silk chiffon in the rear foot well of Rich Conklin’s car. Her skirt was rolled up to her waist,
and her panty hose dangled from one foot. She was damned uncomfortable, but she wouldn’t change a thing.

She rested her hand on Rich’s chest, damp from the romp, and felt his heart thudding. He pulled her in tight and kissed her.

“What a concert,” he said.

“Tremendous rhythm section,” she said, both of them cracking up.

They were parked in an alley near the Embarcadero, where Rich had pulled the car into the shadows because Cindy’s hand on
his leg had made it impossible to wait.

He said now, “I can almost hear the cop knocking on the window with his flashlight, saying, ‘Hey, what’s going on in there?’”

“And you putting your shield to the glass, saying, ‘Officer down.’”

Conklin started laughing. “I don’t have any idea where my shield is. You are so witchy, Cin, and I mean that in the nicest
possible way.”

She gave him a sly smile and ran her hand over his naked chest and slid it down, then kissed him, starting up his breathing,
and there he was, hard again, kissing her, pulling her on top of him.

“Keep your head down,” he panted. “Headlights.”

Cindy leaned over and fastened her mouth to his, broke away, raised and lowered her hips, and worked him with her eyes open,
watching his face change, letting him see her, really see her. She slid up and away from him, and he put his hands around
her waist and pulled her down on him, hard.

“You drive me crazy, Cin.”

She put her cheek down on his collarbone, letting him drive the action, feeling secure and at risk the whole time, a powerfully
explosive combination. And then she was calling his name, and he released himself into her.

“Oh my God,” she said, panting, then fading, wanting to fall asleep in Rich’s arms. But there was something bothering her,
something she’d never felt it was okay to ask him until now.

“Rich?”

“Want to go for three?” he asked her.

“Dare you,” she said, and they both laughed, and then she just blurted it out. “Rich, have you ever—”

“Maybe, once or twice before.”

“No, listen. Did you ever do it with Lindsay?”

“No. No. C’mon, Cindy. She’s my
partner.
”

“So that’s what—illegal?”

“I think my arm’s dead,” he said to her.

Cindy shifted her weight, and then there was a whole lot of looking for articles of clothing and deciding where to spend the
night.

She’d spoiled the mood, Cindy thought, buttoning her blouse. And she wasn’t even sure he’d told her the truth.

PETE GORDON WAS standing in the kitchen, whipping up some instant mashed potatoes on the stove while watching the baseball
game on the undercabinet TV, when his wife came through the door.

“Whatcha burning?” she asked.

“Listen, princess, I don’t need your frickin’ cooking tips, and now you made me miss that pitch.”

“So why don’t you rewind it, sweetie?”

“Do you see a DVR in here? Do you?”

“Sorry, Mr. Cranky. I’m just saying you could save that if you put a little milk in it and turned down the flame.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Pete said, switching off the gas, scraping the potatoes into a bowl. “You just can’t let me have a single
simple pleasure, can you?”

“Well, I have a surprise.”

“Let’s hear it.” He dialed up the volume and ate the potatoes standing in front of the set. He spit into the sink as the food
burned his mouth, glancing up in time to see the opposing team crossing the plate. “NO!” he screamed. “Goddamn Giants. How
could they lose this game?”

“My aunt said she’d like to take all of us out to dinner tomorrow. Special treat—on her.”

“Yippee. Sounds like fun. Your fat-assed aunt and all of us around a table at the Olive Garden.”

“Pete.”

No answer.

“Pete,” she said, reaching up and turning off the television. He swung his head around and glared at her.

“It’s not about you, handsome. It’s about the kids having dinner with their family.”

“You guys can get along without me. Just wing it, princess,” Petey said, not quite believing it when she took the remote off
the counter, jammed it down the disposal, and hit the switch.

“Go to hell, Petey,” she said as the machine gnawed on the plastic. “No, I really mean it.”

Pete shut off the grinder and watched his fucking wife flounce out of the room. He reran the last scene in his mind, only
this time he put wifey’s hand into the grinder. Yeah. The metal teeth chomping through muscle and bone as she screamed her
head off.

He was going to get her.

He was going to get her and Sherry and the stink bomb one day really soon.

WCF, people. Wait for it.

MY EYELIDS FLEW open at 5:52 a.m. exactly. I know because Joe has a projection clock, a high-tech gadget that shows the time
and temperature in red digits on the ceiling.

I like knowing this information by simply opening my eyes. But this morning, I saw the red numerals and thought,
WCF
.

That goddamned baby-killing psycho had infiltrated my mind, and I didn’t hold it against Claire one bit that she was so incensed
and freaked and practically murderous herself. The insidious lipstick letters—the clue that led to nothing—were like the freight
train heading toward the house when there was no place to run.

I wondered how Chi and McNeil were doing with the phone list that matched those initials. Man, it would be great if it led
to the shooter, but a killer signing his work with his actual
initials?
Forget it.

I closed my eyes, but Martha was on to me. She put her snoot on the mattress, pinned me with her gorgeous brown eyes, and
started thumping her tail. Then Joe turned over. He wrapped his arms around me, brought me into a bear hug, and said, “Linds.
Try to sleep.” It was now 6:14.

“Okay,” I said, turning away from him so that he could hold me in the hollow of his body. He was breathing softly over my
shoulder, so I sent my mind back to the days when I lived in my own place on Potrero Hill. My life had been very different
then, jogging with Martha most mornings, running the squad, coming home to Martha at night. I remembered the microwaved, one-dish
cooking, a little too much vino, wondering when I’d hear from Joe. Wondering when I’d see him.

And then my apartment burned down.

And now Joe was living here, and I was wearing his ring. At this moment it felt almost as though he were riding along with
my thoughts. He held me closer and cupped my breasts. He got hard against me, and then he ran his hand down to my belly and
pressed me to him.

As his breathing sped up, so did mine, and then he was turning me as though I were a tiny thing—a feeling that I just love.
I squirmed from his touch, heating up under this new kind of loving that felt so different from the roller-coaster craziness
of the time before Joe and I finally committed to a shared life.

I faced him and wrapped my arms around his neck, and he pulled my legs up to his waist, and this incredible, breathtaking
moment bloomed. I waited through the tension of those long seconds before he entered me. I looked into his deep-blue eyes—and
gave myself over to him.

“I love you, Blondie,” he said.

I nodded because I couldn’t speak. Tears were in my eyes and my throat ached as we joined together. He held me and rocked
me, and I was happy. I loved this man. Our lives were finally blending in a delicious and balanced way.

So what was nagging me from a cul-de-sac in my mind? Why did I feel that I was letting myself down?

SHOWTIME

SARAH WELLS FLIPPED the chicken-fried steak in the pan and removed the garlic bread from the oven, thinking that it was all
heart-attack food—or was that just wishful thinking?

The TV was on in the next room. Sarah could see it through the wall opening and could hear Helen Ross, the pretty, blond talk-show
host, over the crackling of grease in the pan. Ross was sympathizing with Marcus Dowling about the pain of losing his wife.

“Come on, Helen,” Sarah muttered. “Put him on the grill. Don’t be a jerk.”

“She was so happy,” Dowling was saying. “We’d had this lovely dinner with friends. We were going on holiday, and then—this.
The unimaginable.”

“It
is
unimaginable,” Ross said. She reached out to touch Dowling’s hand. “Casey had such spirit, such charisma. We did a Red Cross
fund-raiser together last year.”

“There is no way to describe the agony,” Dowling said. “I keep thinking,
If only I hadn’t done the washing up—
”

Trevor came into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and bent to take out a beer, his girth falling over the waistband of his
underwear. He popped the top, took a swig of Bud, then walked behind his wife and grabbed her ass.

“Hey,” she said, moving out of his reach.

“What’s with you?”

“Here,” she said, handing him the tongs. “Take over, okay?”

“Where’re you going?”

“I’ve had a tough day, Trev.”

“You ought to see a doctor, you know.”

“Shut up.”

“Because you’re on the rag all the time.”

Sarah sank into the couch and turned up the volume. All she’d thought about since she stole the jewelry was Marcus Dowling,
trying to understand what the hell had happened once she’d bailed out the window.

“You couldn’t have known,” Helen Ross was saying.

The pan slammed on the stove behind her, Trevor trying to get her attention. On the TV, Dowling was saying, “The police haven’t
turned up anything, and meanwhile this killer is
free.
”

Sarah finally got it. She didn’t know
why
he did it, but it was
he.
Dowling had killed his wife! There was no one else it could be. How convenient that Sarah had broken into his house so that
he could set her up to take the fall.

Trevor said, “Chow’s on, darlin’. Your Cheerios are just the way you like ’em.”

Sarah turned off the TV and went to the dinette. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said, thinking it was better to apologize
than to get him more wound up. Sometimes he could get physical. When she talked to Heidi about Trevor, they called him “Terror.”
It was an apt nickname.

Trevor grunted, sawed on his steak, and said, “Don’t worry about it. I just wonder sometimes what you did to the sweet little
girl I married.”

“One of life’s mysteries,” she said.

“What you meant to say was, ‘I’ll make it up to you tonight, sweetie.’ Isn’t that right?”

Sarah ducked Trevor’s glare and dipped her spoon into the bowl of cereal. She was going to have to step up the schedule. Maybe
it wasn’t right, but she was going to get rich or go to jail.

There really wasn’t any other choice.

SARAH WENT THROUGH the yard. Everything was dark except for the twinkle of the small light on the back porch, and where moonlight
filtered through the tree limbs. The light was a signal that the back door was unlocked behind the screen.

The door swung open under Sarah’s hand, and she walked quietly up to the woman who was washing some dishes in the sink. Sarah
put her arms around the woman’s waist and said, “Don’t scream.”

“Wow. You got here fast,” Heidi said, spinning around.

“Terror was passed out, as usual,” Sarah said, kissing Heidi, swaying with her in the dim light of the kitchen. “Where’s Beastly?”
she asked, referring to Heidi’s husband.

Heidi reached up to a cabinet, took out two glasses, and said to Sarah, “You know what he always says. ‘Anywhere but here.’
Want to get the bottle out of the fridge?”

The staircase creaked under their feet, and so did the floorboards in the hallway that led past the kids’ room to a dormered
bedroom at the back of the second floor.

“How long can you stay?” Heidi asked. She turned up the baby monitor, then unbuttoned her pale-yellow sweater and stepped
out of her jeans.

Sarah shrugged. “If he wakes up and finds me gone, what’s he going to do? Call the police?”