12th of Never

Chapter 15

YUKI ELBOWED HER way out of the courtroom, smiled at the members of the press who were jamming the hallway, and said, “Hi, Georgia. Yeah, thanks. All’s well, Lou,” then, as John Kinsela and his client stood in the hall for an impromptu interview, Yuki headed for the fire stairs with Cindy Thomas on her heels.

“Aren’t you popular?” Cindy said, going through the door behind Yuki.

“Sooo popular,” Yuki said, her voice ringing in the cement-lined stairwell. “By the way, Cindy, you’d better behave yourself. Every word I say to you is off the record.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Yeah,” Yuki said. “You’ve been known to forget. So I’m saying it loud and clear. Don’t mess with me.”

“When did I ever mess with you? When?”

The door on the ground floor, behind the back wall of the grand lobby, swung out into the daylight under the flat of Yuki’s palm and she and her blond-haired, determined friend filed out onto Harriet Street.

“Where to?” Cindy asked, catching up with Yuki.

Fringale was a cute, cozy bistro just a few blocks from the Hall of Justice, a little slice of France on the corner of 4th and Freelon Streets.

When Yuki walked through the door into the little place with its eggshell-colored walls, the aroma of rosemary and thyme filling the air, she felt the stress of the trial fade—all but the hard stone of worry in the part of her skull right between her eyes.

Could she really convict Keith Herman?

Had she forgotten what kind of lawyer John Kinsela was? Kinsela had eviscerated Red Dog Parisi.

The two women ordered salads as entrées, and when the waiter left the table, Yuki asked, “How bad did he hurt us?”

“You talking about how Kinsela gored your witness?”

“‘Gored’ him? It was that bad, huh?”

“Actually, Yuki, I think it made Kinsela look like a bully and a dirtbag. But did it discredit Durden? Yeah, I think so. Depends on what else you have. I take it Lynnette Lagrande is going to put you over the top.”

The waiter placed a salad in front of each of them: a beautiful dish of frisée with bacon dressing, pine nuts, and a poached egg. Yuki broke the yolk with her fork, speared a leaf of lettuce, chewed it, and sipped her water.

“I feel good about my case. It’s solid. But let’s face it, John Kinsela has about twenty years of criminal law to my three.”

“Lay out your case for me,” Cindy said.

Yuki told Cindy the details of her case in the rapid, machine-gun style she was known for. She talked about the bruises on the child, and the fact that Jennifer Herman had confided in a friend, saying that her husband might harm her. She cited Keith Herman’s paramour, Lynnette Lagrande, who not only refuted Herman’s alibi for the time of Jennifer Herman’s murder but would also testify to and document the fact that Keith Herman wanted out of his marriage.

“It’s a good case,” Cindy said. “What does Red Dog say?”

“He says that I’ve got Herman nailed on the evidence, and that he has total faith in me,” said Yuki.

She and Cindy both nodded, Yuki wishing that she weren’t remembering cases she’d lost.

“It’s always about life and death,” Yuki said.

“I have faith in you,” said Cindy. “You can do this.”

Yuki saw doubt in her good friend’s eyes.