Page 13 of 25 Alive

Brady said to Chi, “Your thoughts?”

“We’ve sent Robinson’s computer and phone to the lab. They may get lucky and find something on them,” Chi said. “But we had our best people on both crime scenes and it’s clear this killer isn’t sloppy. He picks up after himself. I’m hoping the perp will show up on surveillance footage from Robinson’s building. We’re still looking at the last twenty-four hours and working back hour by hour.”

Conklin said, “People who knew Robinson said that she was quiet. Friendly. That she didn’t socialize much or at all. Neighbors figured she was too busy writing. Nothing suspicious about or around her. We’re talking to her agent and lawyer today and going back to her friends to see if there’s any crossover with the lieutenant.”

Brady said, “Good,” pushed back his chair, stood up, and said to all of us, “Dig hard into their social lives. Conklin. See if Cindy can find out anything from her coworkers.”

To me, he said, “Boxer, I want a written report by end of day, every day. Email is fine. Thank you.”

The desk chair Brady had been sitting in spun as he got up abruptly and left the room.

I said, “Let’s go.”

We stood and slapped hands across the table. It was bravado, but still, we all meant it. I touched Jacobi’s morgue shot on my way out of the room.

CHAPTER19

YUKI GREETED THE jurors, who were giving her their full attention. Her job with the opening statement was to tell the jury about slick and stealthy Dario Garza.

Yuki had spoken to potential jurors during voir dire, and despite the horror of the recent crime with which Dario was charged, these jurors had been willing to serve.

She began. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant, Mr. Esteban Dario Garza, has been charged with the murder of a college friend whose name was Miguel Hernandez.

“Like the defendant, Mr. Hernandez was twenty-three years old and a graduate of UC Berkeley. He had plans to become a graphic designer and art director after he finished his apprenticeship with a respected advertising agency that had offered him a job.

“But his plans were not to be.”

Yuki continued her opening statement to the court. “Come back with me in time to a mild evening last year in mid-June. Mr. Garza was in the driver’s seat of his lightly used,secondhand BMW sedan. Mr. Hernandez, a schoolmate and good friend, was in the passenger seat beside him, and a third, somewhat more recent friend sat in the back seat, smoking a cigarette. This friend, age twenty-two at that time, has told us that he was enjoying the motion of the car, the soft night air, and the conversation of his two friends in the front seat whose voices carried back to him.”

Yuki knew but could not say that shortly before the defendant started up his car that night he’d come under scrutiny by homicide investigators from all three divisions of the SFPD, who had, over the previous three years, investigated the remains of seven young women found in shallow graves. All seven had disappeared after partying in the same clubs Dario attended. Homicide investigators theorized that Dario used clubbing as an opportunity to pick up a woman he didn’t know and reduce her lifetime to the remaining hours of that night.

But a new variable entered the equation for Dario that night in June last year. Yuki had to get the presentation of the current case exactly right or have it thrown out because of her prejudicing the jury.

She put her hands into her jacket pockets and walked from one end of the jury box to the other. And then, having given the jurors time to wonder what Yuki had to tell them about the murder of his friend in the passenger seat of his car, she stood at the halfway point outside the jury box and resumed her opening remarks.

“Mr. Dario Garza, the defendant, is charged with the death of Miguel Hernandez. His brutal murder witnessed by the friend in the back seat. In pretrial proceedings, the courthas determined that due to ‘special circumstances,’ the name and face of that third man who was riding in the back seat of the defendant’s car will not be revealed. He will testify over closed-circuit television wearing a facial covering so that he is not identifiable. This is for his safety.

“When law enforcement met this third man, he was wearing a cap with a feline logo on the front of it. So we will refer to him as El Gato.”

CHAPTER20

YUKI COLLECTED HER thoughts, then continued her opening.

“Here is what El Gato told the district attorney. That night in the car, Dario was bragging to Miguel about what a good life he was having, specifying all the girls he could have and had had, that he had all the money he wanted or needed, and that he’d had more fun than was humanly possible due to his ‘social activities.’

“According to El Gato, Miguel turned to him in the back seat and said, ‘You know what he means by “social activities”? You ever seen a snuff film? A lot of people don’t think they’re real. But they are. I’m telling you. That’s what Dario here does for fun.’

“Again according to El Gato, Miguel said that he enjoyed hearing these stories, and during that drive through the city, Miguel told Dario that he had a connection in LA who was a producer interested in making a movie likeGet Shorty,starring a Chili Palmer–like character, possibly Dario himself.

“Instead of being flattered, El Gato said Dario was angry. He wasn’t pleased to hear that Miguel was sharing his business. El Gato said that Dario told Miguel, ‘What I was talking about, Miguel, that was privileged information.’ Then Miguel said, ‘Dario, you know you’d love a movie about you.’”

Yuki tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said to the jurors, “Ladies and gentlemen, Miguel was twenty-three years old with a good job and a better future. He’d heard many of Dario’s wild stories, but at heart Miguel thought Dario’s stories were all made up.

“But El Gato told us that he became alarmed when Miguel and Dario began talking about killing people. When Dario pulled his car over on a deserted side street near Harbor Road, he asked Miguel to come with him, to look under the hood and to listen for a little ping in the engine that was bugging him. Miguel was not suspicious, El Gato said. He seemed happy to help.”

Yuki said to the jurors, “Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, we’re in Dario’s BMW sedan. It’s dark on that night last June. Picture Miguel with his head under the hood of Dario’s car, listening for a ping in the engine. El Gato gets out of the car to get some fresh air, and to his shock, he sees Dario now has a pistol in his hand. He observes Dario Garza walk up behind Miguel Hernandez and shoot him through the back of the head.”

Dario jumped to his feet and yelled across the courtroom.

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