Джеймс Паттерсон - 14th Deadly Sin:

She faced Whitney square on and said, “Inspector Whitney, will you agree that before Aaron-Rey said he shot those ‘scumbags,’ he said he didn’t shoot anyone?”

“Like everyone else we ever had in the box.”

“Please answer the question. In fact, Mr. Kordell said he didn’t shoot anyone, isn’t that correct?”

Whitney said, “Yes, that’s true.”

“And would it surprise you to know that during the course of your interrogation of him, Mr. Kordell said he didn’t shoot anyone on sixty-seven different occasions?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, we counted.”

“OK.”

“And would it also surprise you to know that during the course of your interrogation, he denied owning the gun on twenty-two different occasions?”

“Again, I wasn’t counting.”

“Again, Inspector, we counted. So, adding this up, on sixty-seven different occasions Mr. Kordell denied shooting the gun, and on twenty-two different occasions he denied owning the gun. And Inspector Whitney, how many times did he say he shot these three drug dealers?”

“Once, I guess.”

“Once. And that was after more than fifteen hours in the box, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Whitney said, showing no emotion at all.

“And you had no witness or evidence to impeach this boy’s statement, did you?”

“No.”

“And so you wore this boy down until he finally said, ‘I did it,’ isn’t that right?” Yuki asked.

Whitney just looked at her.

Yuki said, “You can’t answer, can you?”

She let her question hang in the air, then said, “Nothing further, Your Honor. I have no more questions for this witness.”

CHAPTER 72

NATALIE FUTTERMAN PUSHED her tablet toward Yuki so that she could read the word Awesome in giant letters. Yuki smiled, then got to her feet and called Inspector William Brand.

Brand came in through the swinging doors at the back of the room, walked across the hardwood floor, and pushed through the bar to the witness stand. He put his hand on the Bible, said his name and that he agreed to tell the truth, then sat in the chair in the witness box.

Yuki approached him, seeing the anger coming off his square face, the tension in his muscular form, his collar denting the flesh around his neck.

She got right to it.

“Mr. Brand, were you familiar with Aaron-Rey Kordell before he was your suspect in the murders of three drug dealers?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know him?”

“I’ve seen him in that crack house at Turk and Dodge when we made busts there a couple of times.”

Yuki asked, “And did you ever search him for drugs or weapons?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Twice, I think.”

“And you never found drugs or weapons on his person, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“Was he belligerent?”

“No.”

“How would you characterize his personality?”

“He was a big dumb kid in a crack house. I didn’t give him a personality evaluation. And I didn’t think about him too much.”

“He had no criminal record prior to his arrest for carrying a weapon, isn’t that right?”

“Correct.”

“Was he belligerent when you interrogated him in conjunction with the shootings on February sixteenth of this year?”

“Not really.”

“Could you describe his demeanor in a few words?”

Brand sighed, shrugged, and then said, “He cried. He denied having anything to do with the crimes.”

Yuki said, “So just to make sure I understand this: You’d seen Mr. Kordell before. You didn’t know him to be a drug user or to carry a weapon, and he had no prior record, isn’t that right?”

“Right.”

“But in this instance, you pushed him to confess to a crime that he denied committing, isn’t that true?”

“He had the smoking gun, miss. Those guys were shot in the chest at close range. Only a dummy could get close enough with a gun to kill A. Biggy and his crew. Understand what I’m saying? They weren’t afraid of the shooter, of A-Rey. Anyone else, they woulda defended themselves.”

Brand had just told Yuki something she hadn’t heard before. If he had made a mistake, she might be able to capitalize on it and destroy his credibility.

On the other hand, she could be about to make a big mistake of her own.

CHAPTER 73

THE FIRST RULE of cross-examination was never to ask a witness a question if you didn’t know the answer.

Sometimes, though, you had to gamble.

“Inspector Brand, you just stated that Aaron-Rey Kordell, a ‘dummy,’ was the only person who could have gotten close enough to the drug dealers to shoot them at close range, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“But you didn’t know that the shots that killed those three men were fired at close range, did you?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“I’ll rephrase it. Mr. Kordell was arrested for carrying a gun at around noon on February sixteenth. He was brought to your station, and almost immediately thereafter, you interrogated him until the morning of the seventeenth. When did you see the bodies of the dead drug dealers?”

“Couple days after,” said Brand.

“Couple of days after you interrogated Mr. Kordell?”

“That’s right.”

“So, just to make sure I understand: When you saw their bodies, they were in the morgue , isn’t that right?”

Brand looked confused. Like he was double-thinking what he’d said, trying to follow her, maybe realizing his mistake. “Right.”

“And so, to be clear, your testimony a few moments ago was untrue , wasn’t it? You only saw the bodies several days after you’d extracted a confession from Mr. Kordell, correct?”

“I got mixed up about the times, that’s all.”

“So you didn’t know how close or how far away the shooter was to the victims when you interrogated Mr. Kordell, right?”

“I said, I got my timeline wrong.”

Yuki pushed on.

“And so, as I understand it, you were interrogating a ‘dummy’ without representation and you decided to make a case against him without a witness, without forensic evidence, without even a theory —you came up with that later. But first, you sweated this poor kid until you finally got a confession, which is all you wanted, isn’t that right, Inspector Brand?”

“That’s your way of putting it,” said Brand.

“Yes, it is,” said Yuki. “I have no other questions, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Parisi?” the judge asked. “Do you want to cross-examine this witness?”

Parisi spoke from his seat behind the defense table. He looked unfazed, like a man with all the right answers.

“Inspector Brand, did you have friendships with or loyalty to the drug dealers who were killed?”

“What? No.”

“Did you have anything against Mr. Kordell?”

“No. Not at all.”

“So, regarding your vigorous interrogation of Mr. Kordell: That’s what you do when you have a primary suspect, isn’t that right?”

“Correct.”

“Do you stand by the confession you obtained from this suspect?”

“Absolutely,” said Brand. “He said he did it. We saw him say it. We believed him.”

Parisi said, “Thank you, Inspector Brand. I have nothing else for this witness.”

“If Ms. Castellano has no further questions,” said the judge, “the witness may stand down.”

CHAPTER 74

COURT HAD BEEN adjourned for the day when Yuki got a text from Brady saying, Tony Willis was beaten. He’s in the prison ward at SF Gen. Asked for you.

Yuki ran to her car, got into the crush of traffic, and headed toward San Francisco General, where inmates requiring hospitalization were housed.