James Patterson: 12th of Never

But when she said that Lynnette Lagrande would give evidence proving that the defendant wanted to leave his family, John Kinsela snorted—what passed for laughter in his corner of the underworld. Yuki’s cheeks burned, but she didn’t even flick her eyes in opposing counsel’s direction. She had to bring her opening home.

She moved her glossy black hair away from her face, hooked it around her ears, and said to the jury, “The defense will tell you that there is no evidence connecting the death of Jennifer Herman to Keith Herman. They will say that Keith Herman’s fingerprints and DNA were not on the garbage bags—that in fact, Mr. Herman never saw his wife or daughter the day our witness saw him leave his house and put his daughter into his car.

“The defense will impugn the character and the veracity of Mr. Herman’s lover.

“They will tell you that the defendant was misidentified by his neighbor and will maintain that since the body of Lily Herman has never been recovered, there is no evidence that she is even dead.

“So I ask you and I ask them,” Yuki said, pivoting so that she was staring the defendant and his counsel down. “Where is Lily Herman? Where is that little girl?

“The defense will tell you that the people’s case is all based on circumstantial evidence. We have nothing to hide. We cannot put a gun in Mr. Herman’s hand. But circumstantial evidence is real evidence.

“If you go to bed one night and in the morning you see snow in your front yard and there are footprints in that snow, that is circumstantial evidence that snow fell during the night and that someone walked across your yard. You don’t have to actually see the snow falling to conclude that there was snowfall.

“So why are we all here today, ladies and gentlemen?

“We submit to you that Keith Herman did brutally kill Jennifer and Lily Herman so that he could, for once and for all, be free to pursue his life as a wealthy widower and come to the party with no baggage and no financial overhead.

“We cannot let him get away with it. At the conclusion of this trial, you will have evidentiary proof that the defendant did callously commit two premeditated murders.”

The words were just out of Yuki’s mouth when John Kinsela laughed noisily again and once more drew the eyes of the jury to himself.

Yuki sharply objected.

Judge Nussbaum sustained her objection and Kinsela apologized for the interruption. But he had stolen her moment, broken the mood. And he had the jury’s rapt attention as he stood to make his opening statement.

Chapter 5

JOHN KINSELA BUTTONED his jacket and ran his hand across the lower half of his face. He achieved a look of contrition, as though he was sorry for the interruption.

It was all theatrics.

Yuki hoped the jury could read him as the drama whore he was.

“Folks, again, I’m sorry to have made light of the state’s opening statement. It was rude, but unintentional. The prosecutor is doing her job, a very difficult one, I assure you, because there is no evidence linking my client to any crime.”

Kinsela put his hands into his pockets, sauntered out into the well, and continued his conversation with the jury.

“As the prosecutor said, there is no blood, no DNA, no gun in Mr. Herman’s hand. There is no direct evidence against Mr. Herman, because my client didn’t kill anyone, and the circumstantial evidence, such as it is, does not tie him to the death of his wife.

“Mr. Herman is one of the victims here. He loved his family and is devastated by their loss. And yet, as Ms. Castellano told you, he was having an affair with Ms. Lagrande.

“For a married man to have an affair may be bad behavior, but it’s not a crime. If it were a crime, about sixty-five percent of married men in the United States would be in the slammer.”

There was a riffle of laughter in the courtroom, which Judge Nussbaum banged into silence with his gavel. He admonished the audience, and told them that he could have individuals removed or the entire courtroom emptied.

“You are here at my discretion,” Nussbaum warned. “Go on, Mr. Kinsela.”

And Kinsela did.

“Ms. Lagrande has a little cottage in the woods a few hours up the coast. She and Mr. Herman drove up there in her car on the afternoon of February twenty-eighth. My client was spending the night with Ms. Lagrande when the crimes presumably took place. They didn’t see anyone and no one saw them. That is often the nature of a clandestine affair.

“Now, Ms. Lagrande is going to tell you that she was not with Mr. Herman the day that Jennifer Herman’s body was found, the day Lily Herman tragically disappeared. She’ll say Mr. Herman is making that up to give himself an alibi.

“Why is she going to betray Mr. Herman? Because they fought that weekend and Mr. Herman ended the affair.

“Ms. Lagrande is a woman scorned, and she’s not just my client’s alibi, she is the prosecution’s entire case.

“The neighbor misidentified Mr. Herman and a car that is the same model as the one Mr. Herman owns. Lily Herman did have bruises, but she had them because she had a temper tantrum. Her father wouldn’t buy her a dress she wanted and she flailed and kicked at Mr. Herman and he tried to restrain her. There was no beating, no call to the police, nothing like that.

“If he could, he would buy her a million dresses now.

“Mr. Herman did not report that his wife and daughter were missing on March first because he didn’t know it. He was occupied with Ms. Lagrande at the time of this tragedy, which has unquestionably destroyed his life.

“That’s it, folks. That is our case. Mr. Herman didn’t kill anyone. This trial is about whether or not you believe Ms. Lagrande beyond a reasonable doubt.”

John Kinsela thanked the jury and sat down. For a second, Yuki couldn’t quite believe that Kinsela had singled out her star witness, shot a cannonball at her, then took a bow.

Yuki had hoped he would do exactly that. It was now in Kinsela’s best interest to strip Lynnette Lagrande’s testimony bare, break her, and throw her bones under the bus. He could only do that if she testified.

Her witness would appear.

Lynnette Lagrande, a woman with an exotic dancer’s name, was in fact a grade-school teacher, twenty years younger than the defendant, and possessed of a spotless reputation. She’d never gotten so much as a parking ticket in her life.

Gaines showed Yuki the cartoon he had doodled on his iPad. It was a Yuki character dunking a basketball into a net. Yuki never liked to say that a case was a slam dunk.

But the battle was shaping up and Yuki liked the look of the field.

“We’re good,” she whispered to Gaines as the judge called the court into recess. “We’re looking good.”

Chapter 6

JULIE HAD BEEN wailing since we left the hospital, hardly stopping before revving her engine and howling again. It had been going on for weeks and I was mystified and a little alarmed.

What was wrong? What was she trying to tell us?

It was just about 8:00 p.m. when Joe settled me into the big rocker in Julie’s room. I reached up and Joe handed me our screaming little bundle of distress. I tried to nurse her again, but as usual, she refused me.

What was I doing wrong?

I said, “Please don’t cry, baby girl. Everything is okay. Actually, everything is perfect.”

She took in another breath and cried even harder. As much as her first cry felt like a hug around my heart, now her cries felt like my heart was being squeezed in a vise.

“What is it, darling? Are you hot, cold, wet?”

She was dry.

“Joe, she’s hungry. Okay, she might nurse a little bit if we wait her out. But listen, she clearly prefers the bottle.”