The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,48
turned left on Bryant, dashed two and a half blocks northeast, and still had enough wind to sprint up the courthouse steps.
The security guard just inside the courthouse gave her a look—well, Yuki did look frazzled—but after checking her ID and running her bag and laptop through the magnetometer, he let her through.
“You really shouldn’t run in heels,” he called out. “My wife…”
She was out of range before he finished his sentence.
The elevator door opened on two, and Yuki forced herself to wait for the frail elderly man standing in front of her to exit the car.
Then she flew down the marble hallway with her ID in hand. The large wooden doors to courtroom 21 were closed, but when the court officer saw the look on Yuki’s face, he was persuaded to let her in.
Judge Innello’s court was in session.
Chapter 59
Cindy was sitting in the back row of courtroom 21, writing the opening to the Varela story in her head.
She would first set the scene.
Eduardo Varela, exhausted from his day at the auto shop, has come home for a hot dinner with his wife and kids. He changes into his uniform, his name stitched over the breast pocket of his pressed white shirt. But he’s early for his night shift at the convenience store. Getting behind the wheel of his car, parked along Bartlett Street, he reclines the seat and naps until he is startled awake. He’s scared. Gunshots have been fired, and by someone close by.
Okay. That would work. But Cindy was sweating it.
She was an investigative crime reporter. Her work read like fiction, but it was solidly based on journalistic ethics and principles. Professional. Unbiased. Facts only. Facts checked.
Cindy wanted a good outcome for Eduardo, but if it went badly for him today, Cindy was going to have to write a Christmas tragedy.
Earlier, as the gallery filled, Cindy had made her way down to the front row of the courtroom and met Eduardo for the first time. She’d seen many photos of him as a free man, and she was shocked by how shrunken and pale he was now, how much older he looked than his forty years.
When she told Eduardo who she was, he teared up.
Cindy hugged him, then reached over the seat and hugged his dear wife, Maria, and their three teenage children, sitting behind their father. And she shook Zac Jordan’s hand, wishing him the best of luck.
After returning to her seat in the back row, she texted Henry Tyler, the newspaper’s editor in chief, to say that she was on the job and would alert him as soon as the case had been dismissed.
Tyler texted back, Always the optimist.
She replied with a smiley face.
Tyler was supportive and he trusted her. Good outcome for Eduardo or bad, she must write this story as if her job depended on it.
Today, Judge Lauren Innello would hear dozens of case summaries presented in brief by both the prosecution and the defense counsel. She would weigh mitigating or aggravating circumstances and negotiate sentences or pleas for those defendants who wanted to avoid going to trial.
Would Eduardo get a break? Would he go home or would he go back to jail to keep waiting for trial?
Cindy was jolted out of her thoughts by someone shaking her shoulder.
“Yuki!” Cindy said. “What’s wrong?”
Normally, Yuki was immaculately put together, but right now she looked as though she’d taken a few spins inside a clothes dryer. She put her finger to her lips and indicated to Cindy that she needed to speak with her outside the courtroom, then she went to grab Zac.
Cindy left her jacket on her seat and waited for Yuki and Zac outside the courtroom.
What had happened?
Her thoughts went directly to the worst thing she could imagine: that the murder weapon had been recovered, that it was registered to Eduardo, and that his prints were on the gun.
When Cindy, Zac, and Yuki were all gathered in a corner of the teeming corridor outside the courtroom, Yuki said, “I found this.”
She pulled a document out of her handbag and showed it to Zac. After he’d read it, Yuki asked, “What do you think?”
“We need to get Palermo in on this,” Zac said, referring to the ADA who had brought the homicide charges against Eduardo. “And we have to meet with Judge Innello in chambers.”
Chapter 60
At just before six on Christmas Eve, William Lomachenko strolled through the International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport. He wore a loud Christmas sweater—red and green with