4th of July

Chapter 46

THE SUN WAS ONLY a blush on the dawn sky when a loud ringing jarred me out of sleep. I fumbled for the phone, nailed it on the fourth ring.

“Lindsay, it’s Yuki. I hope I didn’t wake you. I’m in the car and this is my only free minute, but I can tell you everything fast.”

Yuki was passionate and smart, and I knew this about her—she always spoke at ninety miles an hour.

“Okay. I’m ready,” I said, flopping back into the bed.

“Sam Cabot is out of the hospital. I deposed him yesterday,” Yuki said, her voice a rhythmic rat-tat-tat. “He recanted his confession of the hotel murders, but that’s the DA’s problem. As for the action against you, he says you fired first, missed him, and that he and Sara returned fire in self-defense. Then you gunned them down. Crock of shit. We know it and they know it, but this is America. He can say whatever he wants.”

My sigh came out as a kind of strangled groan. Yuki kept on talking. “Our only problem is that he’s such a heartbreaker, that pathological little crud. Paralyzed, propped up in that chair with his neck in a brace, quivering lower lip. Looks like a cherub who’s been blindsided —”

“By a vicious, gun-happy chick cop,” I interrupted.

“I was going to say blindsided by a sixteen-wheeler, but whatever.” She laughed. “Let’s get together and strategize. Can we make a plan?”

My calendar was so sparkling clean it was practically virginal. Yuki, on the other hand, had booked depositions, meetings, and trials almost every hour for the next three weeks. Still, we picked a date a few days before the trial.

“Right now the media are churning up the waters,” Yuki continued. “We leaked to the press that you’re staying with friends in New York so they won’t hound you. Lindsay? Are you there?”

“Yep. I’m here,” I said, eyes fixed on the ceiling fan, ears ringing.

“I’d suggest that you relax if you can. Keep a low profile. Leave the rest to me.”

Right.

I showered, dressed in linen slacks and a pink T-shirt, and took a mug of coffee out to the backyard. I had a question for Penelope as I scooped breakfast into her trough: “How much chow can a big pig chow if a big pig chows pig chow?”

City girl talking to a pig. Who woulda thunk it?

I considered Yuki’s advice as the sea breeze wafted across the deck. Relax and keep a low profile. It made good sense, except that I was in the clutches of a monster desire to do something. I wanted to shake things up, bang heads, right wrongs.

I really couldn’t help myself.

I whistled to Martha and started up the Explorer. Then we headed out toward a certain house in Crescent Heights—the scene of a double homicide.