Chapter 51
YUKI CASTELLANO TRIED not to jerk the witness’s arm as she led him out into a waiting area in the Hall of Justice.
The slightly built twenty-two-year-old had just frozen on the witness stand.
He hadn’t even been under examination yet.
All he’d been asked so far was to state his name.
Still, the judge had graciously allowed a brief recess.
He knew about witness intimidation. Yuki appreciated that kind of practical approach to justice.
Yuki had picked this specific waiting area because she knew it was where cops about to testify often congregated.
She wanted the witness to feel safe. A quick look around the assorted benches and plastic chairs told her she’d accomplished her goal.
The place was positively jammed with young, muscular patrol officers and a few weary detectives.
She settled her shaken witness in the middle of a sea of police officers. No one even glanced her way. They all knew who Yuki was.
“I don’t understand, Carlos. You didn’t have any problem talking to me about what you saw,” Yuki said.
The young man was sweating profusely despite the air-conditioned courthouse. His dark hair stuck up on the side from a ferocious cowlick. It was so distracting she wanted to pat it down on his head.
Carlos nodded his head vigorously. “I know, I know. But you didn’t see the way Elio looked at me in the courtroom. It was like he was telling me what was going to happen to me without ever speaking.”
Yuki had been through this many times before with other witnesses. Still, she didn’t need it during a trial that had already had its share of problems. There were a lot of defendants. Elio Huerta was only one of them. But arguably the scariest of the bunch.
“C’mon, Carlos. You saw that man shoot the grocer who told him to sell drugs somewhere else. What’s going to happen to the kids in your neighborhood if these guys are cut loose and allowed to return?”
It took another couple of minutes to calm the witness down. Finally, he said he had to use the bathroom. She told him she’d wait right there for him.
Yuki sat for a moment, nodding hello to some of the people who passed by. She didn’t even want to look down at her notes. Her brain was already flooded with facts and witness testimony.
She overheard a young patrolman behind her telling a detective about an incident the previous evening. It didn’t sound like much. He’d stopped to talk to a girl who was walking with a man, and the man had hustled away.
The young patrolman said, “You should’ve seen this girl. She was an absolute knockout. She told me she was in a Toyota commercial for that dealership south of the city. I looked it up online—she really was. She walks up to a pickup truck and sits in the driver’s seat.”
The detective said, “I think I know the one you’re talking about. Does she have long, straight black hair?”
“That’s her,” the patrolman said. “But she’s fallen on hard times. We had to find her a place to stay for the night. There was something up with the man walking with her, but she wouldn’t give us any details. Dude creeped me out, though.”
Suddenly everything the young cop had said seemed to click into place for Yuki. It sounded like the story Cindy Thomas had been working on, and that Lindsay Boxer was also involved in.
Yuki turned around and said, “Excuse me. I couldn’t help overhearing what you guys were saying. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, Counselor. Fire away,” the patrolman said.
“Can you tell me what the guy you were just talking about looked like?”
“I only got a glimpse of him. He was tall, maybe six foot two. I’d say he was probably in his early forties. Dark hair, not ugly.” He paused. “Is this a case you’re prosecuting?”
“No, but I’m aware of an ongoing case that involves pretty girls and a tall guy with dark hair,” Yuki told him. “Where’d you take the girl?”
“We got her into a women’s shelter over in the Mission off South Van Ness.”
“I know the place. You think she still might be there?”
“Unless she suddenly found a job this morning. She seemed pretty relieved to have a safe place to stay.” He gave her the girl’s name and the identifiers he had. Yuki appreciated a cop this sharp.
A safe place. Isn’t that what we all want?