21st Birthday, James Patterson [best mystery novels of all time TXT] 📗

in the darkest part of himself, and Gardner hadn’t been able to help him out of the hole. He’d told Luke that he’d been right to testify. He’d said that his delivery had been very moving. “Tell me I’m wrong, but I thought my closer was almost as good as yours,” Gardner joked.

Luke couldn’t crack a smile.

Gardner placed a shopping bag on the table.

“This’s for you. Open it,” he said.

Luke did so with no enthusiasm and took out a new shirt and a silk tie in reds and yellows, which Gardner thought would warm up his client’s sallow complexion.

“Thanks. Put this on my tab, will you, Newt?”

“It’s a gift. And I have something else for you.”

Luke had asked him to find out where Misty was buried, and Newt had learned that she was in the Fogarty family plot in a cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gardner contacted a friend who lived in the suburbs and asked him to go and take a picture of Misty’s headstone.

Gardner took a photo from his briefcase and passed it to Luke, saying, “I hope this is what you want.”

Luke stared at the photo of Melissa’s headstone. It read “Beloved Daughter.”

“She’s home,” said Luke. “In the family plot. She loved her father. Thanks, Newt. This is good.”

“It’s yours,” Gardner said. “But don’t get morbid. I fully expect the jury to find in your favor.”

“It looks peaceful,” Luke said. “Like being in your own bed, forever.”

Gardner said, “May I remind you that you’re only in your forties.”

“Tara and Lorrie are in Kathleen’s plot in Colman?”

“That’s right. Will you please make an effort to look like the innocent man you are, a man who has been put through hell, for having had a spat with his wife.”

Luke nodded. “How long before the jury comes in?”

“One never knows, but it’s only been an hour.”

“Thanks again, Newt. You’ve been great. I need to lie down.”

After Luke had been escorted back to his cell, Gardner had a hallway meeting with the head guard, Sergeant Holmes.

Newt said, “Keep a watch on him, Larry.”

“Will do.”

“He’s despondent.”

“Gotcha.”

“Here’s my card,” he said. “Call anytime.”

Gardner believed in Lucas and that belief never wavered. He went to the elevator and pressed Down.

Chapter 108

DA Len Parisi called Yuki two hours after she and Nick Gaines had left the courtroom to tell them that the jury was back.

Yuki’s stomach churned and fluttered as she strode up the corridor from the DA’s suite to the courtroom where Gaines was already waiting at the counsel table.

Often a jury’s quick return signaled a guilty verdict. But it wasn’t always true. There was every chance that Lucas Burke’s bawling that his father had set him up had worked on a juror or two. Yuki was thinking about other killers who looked pitiable when testifying when she heard her name. She turned to see Lindsay.

“Hey.”

“Hey, you.”

They linked arms and Yuki said, “It’s standing room only in there, Linds, but please find a place. I want you there when the verdict is read.”

Lindsay said, “Of course. I came looking for you. Dinner tonight, okay?”

“Okay. Either way.”

Yuki watched as Lindsay squeezed in next to Cindy in the back row. The courtroom settled down.

Judge Passarelli banged his gavel until the room quieted.

He said to the jury, “Have you arrived at a verdict?”

The forewoman stood, said, “We have, Your Honor.” She handed a slip of paper to the bailiff, a bored-looking man who lumbered over to the forewoman, then back to the judge.

The judge took the slip, turned it around and read it without expression, then handed it back to the bailiff, who walked it back to the foreperson.

The judge said, “Madam Foreperson, will you please read the verdict?”

Nick pushed his tablet over to Yuki. He’d drawn a question mark with rays coming off it.

Yuki scanned the faces of the jurors.

How had they decided? She couldn’t read a one of them.

Chapter 109

Claire, Cindy, and I had picked up Yuki in the lobby of the Hall and bundled her into Cindy’s Hyundai sedan for a chauffeured ride to the Women’s Murder Club HQ.

Yuki sat in the front seat beside Cindy, turning to face me and Claire, lavishing us with her rapid-paced hardly stopping to breathe chatter that was both joyful and contagious.

I was elated for Yuki—hey, I was proud of the whole task force, especially Alvarez, still amazed we’d come back from the Las Vegas shoot-out without a scratch.

Yuki was saying that Red Dog had told her to relax while waiting for the verdict, but it had been impossible. “Every time I thought of floating on the calm sea, I pictured sharks swimming toward me and I just panicked. So, thanks so much, all of you guys, for, well, everything.”

At five o’clock we were comfortable in our cozy red banquette in Susie’s back room. Lorraine came over, her auburn hair in a pony, ballpoint pen tucked over her ear. She went straight to Yuki, and asked, “Did you win?”

Yuki nodded. “You know when I knew it?”

Four women asked, “When?” in unison.

Yuki said, “When the foreperson, that angel, read the verdict out loud. ‘We find the defendant, Lucas Burke, guilty on count one—’”

Cindy chimed in, “Gardner polled the jury, and it was unanimous. They’d all voted guilty, guilty, guilty.”

I couldn’t remember Lorraine having ever touched any of us, but now she swept Yuki up from her seat and squished her in a hug, then said, “A pitcher of Margaritas on me, Yuki. Coming right up.”

“Thank you, Lorraine. You know I need my tequila infusion.”

“Beer for meeee,” I shouted after her. “And chips.”

“And menus,” called Claire.

She looked rested, smiling and wearing pink, fully recovered from the surgery that had kept her out of work for months. Cindy had her laptop out on the table and had filed her story in the interlude between ordering and the arrival of food and drink.

Hours had passed since I’d shared a pizza with Joe and Julie at the airport. I was starving.

Margaritas, hot sauce, chips, and menus arrived along with a pitcher