Yuki wanted to rewind the last ten seconds and turn up the volume. Had Caitlin Martin just said that she killed her father?
It just couldn’t be true.
Yuki shot to her feet, clutched her hands into fists, and kept her jaws so tightly clenched, they might as well have been wired shut. She’d been warned not to object, but she was screaming in her mind, I object to this witness. I object to this — stagecraft. I object, I object, I object.
“Counsel, approach. Both of you,” LaVan snapped.
As the two attorneys came toward him, the judge swiveled his chair ninety degrees so that he would face the emergency exit rather than the witness and the jury.
Yuki and Hoffman stood at an angle to the bench and looked up at the judge.
LaVan said to Hoffman in a low voice that was thrumming with anger. “I take it that neither your client nor the prosecution knew that you were calling this child to the stand.”
“I got a call from the young lady’s maternal grandmother last night saying that Caitlin wanted to talk to me this morning. I met with Caitlin in the lobby of this building, Your Honor, right after our meeting with you. I knew nothing about her testimony until fifteen minutes ago.”
“Your Honor,” Yuki said, “this is an obvious ploy by the defense. Caitlin has either been coached, or she came up with this idea on her own. Either way, she is trying to save her mother’s butt. And either way, she has created reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury.”
LaVan said, “I’m calling a recess. I want to see Caitlin in chambers. Don’t either of you disappear. After I’ve talked to the child, I’ll speak to the jurors.
“And after that, we can discuss the future of this trial.”
Chapter 93
YUKI WAS in Len Parisi’s office when her phone buzzed.
“Here we go,” she said to her boss. She read the text out loud: “‘Judge LaVan is ready for you in chambers.’ What’s your bottom-line advice, Len?”
Parisi hauled his bulk out of his chair, then opened the blinds on the Bryant Street side of the building. The light was translucent. Yuki couldn’t see anything through the fog.
“You want to cross-examine the witness,” Red Dog said. “It’s the best and only thing you can do.”
“What if she’s telling the truth?”
“Is she telling the truth? What do you really think?”
“I think she’s throwing herself under the bus. She’s eleven. It’s heroic, like in the movies. But it’s a lie. I can shake her on the stand, but I don’t know if I can do that and keep the jury on our side.”
“It will be like walking a tightrope with diarrhea. But I have faith that you can do it.”
Yuki walked out of Parisi’s office and down the hall on autopilot. Phil Hoffman stood when she entered the judge’s chambers, and after she took the seat she’d occupied only a couple of hours ago, he sat down.
LaVan had removed his robes and his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves and was standing behind his desk. Yuki thought he was going to pace, but instead he reached down, picked up the metal trash can at his feet, two feet tall and eighteen inches in diameter. He raised it over his head and hurled it toward the far wall.
The trash can ricocheted against the edge of the liquor cabinet before taking out a framed picture of the judge with the governor.
After the explosion of glass and the echo of the racket died down, LaVan threw open the liquor cabinet doors and said, “Who wants a drink? I’m buying.”
Hoffman said, “Scotch works for me.”
“I’m fine,” Yuki said, but she was not fine. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for a case that slid sideways every twenty minutes. Was she winning or losing? She had no idea.
The judge poured shots for himself and Hoffman, then retook his seat behind his desk.
“Phil, do you know the difference between a lie and the truth?”
“Yes, Your Honor. You are not the president of the United States.”
“Did you have anything to do with shaping Caitlin Martin’s testimony?”