YUKI SAT AT the prosecution table between Nicky Gaines and Len Parisi, waiting for court to convene. It was Friday. The jurors had deliberated for three days, and word had come down late last night that they’d arrived at their verdict. Yuki wondered if the jurors had rushed their decision so they could have a weekend free of responsibility and tension. And if so, would that be good or bad for the People
She felt overcaffeinated because she was. She’d been swigging coffee since six this morning and hadn’t slept more than two hours the night before.
You okay?” she asked her second chair. Nicky was breathing through his mouth, the odor of VapoRub coming off him in waves.
I’m good,” he said. “You
Peachy.
To Yuki’s right, Red Dog was writing a memo on a legal pad. He appeared blasé, carefree, a mountain of calm. It was an act. In fact, Parisi was a volcano resting between explosions. Across the aisle, L. Diana Davis looked fresh, powdered, and coiffed. She put a mothering arm around her client’s frail shoulders.
And then, at nine on the dot, the bailiff, a sinewy man in a green uniform, called out, “All rise.” Yuki stood, then sat back down as the judge took the bench. Nicky coughed into his handkerchief. Parisi capped his pen and put it in his breast pocket. Yuki clasped her hands in front of her, swung her head to the right as the door to the jury room opened and the jurors entered the courtroom.
The twelve men and women were wearing church clothes today, hair combed and sprayed into place, men in jacket and tie, the women sparkling with jewelry.
The foreperson, a woman named Maria Martinez, was about thirty, Yuki’s age, a sociology teacher and mother of two. Yuki couldn’t see Martinez coming out in favor of a prostitute who would let a boy die, then cover up the fact with a body dump.
Martinez put her handbag on the floor next to her chair.
Yuki felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck and her arms as Judge Bendinger opened his laptop, made a joke to the court reporter that Yuki couldn’t hear. Then he swiveled his chair face-forward and said, “Order, please.
The room quieted, and Bendinger asked if the jury had a verdict.
Martinez said, “We do, Your Honor.
The verdict form moved from Martinez to the judge and back again to Martinez. Nicky Gaines coughed again, and Parisi reached behind Yuki and flicked Gaines on the back of his head, frowned a rebuke.
Will the foreman please read the verdict?” Bendinger asked. Martinez stood, looking small in her charcoal-gray suit. She cleared her throat.
We, the jury, find the defendant, Junie Moon, not guilty in the charge of murder in the second degree.
We find the defendant, Junie Moon, not guilty in the charge of tampering with evidence . . .
The packed courtroom erupted in loud exclamations punctuated by the sharp slams of Bendinger’s gavel.
What did she say? What did she say?” Gaines asked Yuki, even as the judge thanked the jury and dismissed them.
Yuki felt sick, physically ill. She’d lost. She’d lost, and she’d let everyone down - the police, the DA’s office, the Campions, and even Michael. Her job and her passion had been to get justice for the dead boy, and she’d failed.
I shouldn’t be doing this kind of work,” Yuki said to herself. She stood abruptly.
Without speaking to Parisi or Gaines, she turned around and said to the Campions, “I’m very sorry.
Lowering her eyes, Yuki pushed her way into the crowded aisle and left the courtroom.
