21st Birthday by Patterson, James (mystery books to read txt) 📗

half dragged, half pulled her out of the courtroom. It was awful. Cindy was about to go after her, comfort her, get her a ride home, but at that moment Yuki called her next witness: Inspector Richard Conklin.

Cindy sat back down. Richie put his hand on her shoulder as he entered the room. She touched his fingers. He winked at her and proceeded up the aisle to the witness stand.

After he’d been sworn in and seated, Yuki asked preliminary questions meant to establish his role both within the SFPD and the task force assigned to this series of murders. Rich testified that he had been a witness to every step of the investigation.

In answer to Yuki’s questions, Rich gave a timeline of the multiple cases that he characterized as having a connection to the defendant.

Cindy knew all of this by heart. She and Rich had talked, but she, too, had been present at the crime scene on Baker Beach, watching from the parking lot as Chief Clapper lifted the baby out of the receding surf. She hadn’t been inside Burke’s house, but she’d been parked across the street beyond the tape with her cameraman. She easily visualized the scene from Rich’s description of where Burke had gotten into his car and accelerated into the distance as CSU and Homicide went through the little house on Dublin Street.

Yuki asked, “Did you find anything of note inside the Burke house?”

“We found what appeared to be feces, loosely wrapped in a baby blanket on the floor of an upstairs closet. And we located the receiver for the security camera. We watched video of both Lucas Burke and Tara Burke, who was holding Lorrie, leave the house, separately. We viewed the video after we had obtained search warrants for the house and everything inside, including electronics.”

“Can you tell the court what was on the video?”

“A whole lot of not much until the morning in question, when the Burkes left the house I made a general observation that they were having a disagreement, but nothing that would indicate imminent homicide.”

Yuki said, “Your Honor, we’d like to enter this video into evidence and show it to the jury.”

Gardner stood, shouting, “Objection, Your Honor. Showing this video is purely intended to traumatize my client. It has nothing to do with any alleged crime. Prosecution simply wants to bring the dead to life in order to get the jurors’ sympathies.”

“Ms. Castellano?”

“The video is clearly relevant. The jury needs to judge for themselves the last known sighting of two victims.”

“Overruled, Mr. Gardner,” said Judge Passarelli. “I’d like to see it myself.”

CHAPTER 89

YUKI ASKED THE GUARDS to shut off the lights, and Nick Gaines lined up the laptop and hit the Play button on the video file.

The video rolled against the whiteboard.

It was as Conklin had described it; Lucas Burke leaving the house like a thunderbolt. Face dark, getting into his silver sports car, speeding up the street.

As Gardner had said, the sight of Tara Burke in her denim dress, the straps of her various bags crossing her chest, the baby on her hip, one small fist gripping a hank of her mother’s hair, was enough to humanize them for the jurors. Those images could shatter a heart made of marble.

When it was over, as the overhead lights came on, Yuki glanced over to Gardner. But the defense counsel was leaning back in his chair, his face bare of expression as if to show her his contempt. Is that all you’ve got?

He knew it wasn’t.

Yuki walked to the whiteboard and, after wheeling it around, pointed to the photo of Misty.

“Inspector Conklin, you were at the scene of Melissa Fogarty’s murder.”

“Yes, I was. Correct.”

“Can you tell us about that?”

Conklin removed a couple of sheets of stapled and folded pages from his inside jacket pocket, flattened them, skimmed them, and said, “This is my report for the task force and our Lieutenant three days after Lorrie Burke’s body surfaced at Baker Beach. Tara Burke was still missing and Ms. Fogarty’s body had just been found in her car that morning by school security.”

Yuki said, “Please go on.”

“Well, Ms. Fogarty was killed on Friday night, discovered on Saturday morning. Like I said, we searched the Burke house the next day. Because of this rash of murders, our squad was working round the clock. On Saturday, Mr. Burke and his ex-wife, Alexandra Conroy, showed up in our squad room. He was in a rage, waving a newspaper with the picture of Ms. Fogarty on the front page.”

Richie rested his arms on the railing surrounding the witness chair, and spoke directly to Yuki.

He said, “Okay. So, we know Melissa Fogarty is — was — Lucas Burke’s girlfriend. Sergeant Lindsay Boxer and I separated Mr. Burke and Ms. Conroy so we could interview them individually.

“Burke tells us that he and Ms. Conroy had been in Carmel until early that morning. Now, they’ve returned back to confront the police and to find out the truth about Ms. Fogarty’s murder, instead of getting it off a tabloid.”

“Were you able to confirm Mr. Burke’s whereabouts at the time of Fogarty’s murder?”

“Much of it,” Conklin said. “The drive to Carmel-by-the-Sea is confirmed. That the two shared a room in the resort is also confirmed. The missing piece is a big one. We cannot confirm whether Mr. Burke left Carmel and returned to San Francisco on Friday evening.

“These are critical hours.

“Ms. Fogarty was murdered at eight o’clock. Mr. Burke and Ms. Conroy state that this is when Ms. Conroy was occupied at the spa.”

Yuki said, “Inspector, at the time Mr. Burke and Ms. Conroy came to the Homicide squad, did you have reason to doubt Mr. Burke’s timeline?”

“Well, that Ms. Conroy was otherwise occupied at the precise time Ms. Fogarty was killed is a little pat as an alibi. This was a conflict we could not resolve. We checked out all the information we had, and I couldn’t