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CHAPTER 88

YUKI SAT AT the counsel table inside the courtroom, a far cry from the courtrooms in the Hall of Justice.

The entire room was paneled with rough-hewn pine boards, floored with concrete that had been covered with gray linoleum, furnished with metal folding chairs, and lit with standing halogen lights. Now, once again, the room was populated with highly consequential people.

Judge Walden had called the court to order. The jurors, excepting number 5, who’d been replaced by alternate number 3, were in the box. The defendant, Dario Garza, sat at the counsel table between his attorney, Jon Credendino, and Donna Villanova, the lawyer’s second chair.

Yuki noticed that Dario’s right arm was in a cast and a sling. He also had a black eye and a large, angry bruise on his cheek, the result of being piled on by 750 pounds of law enforcement officers.

Judge Walden asked Yuki if she was ready to give her opening statement, and Yuki said that she was. When she rose to her feet, the jury turned their heads thirty degrees to face her. She had only brought a few things with her to the Judicial Building and among them was a jet-black suit, white silk blouse, and four-inch black high heels. Gaines had told her that she looked like a seasoned prosecutor who took no prisoners. Even so, Dario Garza grinned at her—or, rather, leered. He was sitting at the far end of the defense table, and Yuki didn’t look at him, but she knew he was still smirking as she began her opening argument.

“Your Honor and ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The defendant, Esteban Dario Garza, is a self-described partygoer. He regularly attended dance clubs and was often the center of attention. Singing, dancing, and frequenting dance clubs are not crimes—but murder is. And the murder committed by Mr. Garza was horrific and unforgettable, and we will prove that he deserves the maximum penalty the law allows.”

Yuki stepped around the end of the counsel table and, with her head slightly bowed, walked to a spot between the judge and the jury.

When she looked up, all the eyes in the courtroom were on her.

“The State’s primary witness,” she began, “will not appear in this courtroom in person because his life is in danger. That’s a fact. But he will appear before you live on a video monitor. He will put his hand on a Bible and swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but. And he will testify as to what happened the night Mr. Dario Garza murdered their friend Miguel Hernandez. And yes, he will be cross-examined by Mr. Garza’s defense attorney.”

Yuki said, “Here’s what happened on a pleasant summer night last June. Mr. Garza was driving his car through southern San Francisco with two passengers. The three of them were old college friends from UC Berkeley. One young man sat in the front seat, passenger side. That was Miguel Hernandez. The other passenger sat in the back seat, by himself.

“The back-seat passenger we will refer to as El Gato, ‘The Cat,’ since using his real name could make him the subject of a hit, given what the young man witnessed that evening. First, El Gato heard Dario Garza lure Miguel outside to look at something under the car’s hood. Then he witnessed Mr. Garza shoot Miguel Hernandez through the back of his head.

“El Gato saw a chance to run. And he took it.

“Mr. Garza couldn’t chase him. He had to dispose of his former friend Miguel’s bleeding body. El Gato hid across the street, watched the defendant’s car, and between its stops and starts, he managed to follow that car on foot.

“Mr. Garza had an idea. He drove to a construction site close by, which had an unlatched gate. El Gato watched Mr. Garza pull Miguel’s body from the car, lay him out on the ground, and decapitate his dead former friend with an electric saw. El Gato videoed some of what he was seeing from where he was hiding behind heavy equipment. He saw Dario Garza roll the body into a hole on the site. And finally, he watched as Garza left the construction site with Miguel Hernandez’s severed head in his car.

“According to other witnesses, Mr. Garza then took Miguel’s head and left it precisely in the middle of the top steps at the Hall of Justice.

“We have a few ideas as to why Mr. Garza did this. Perhaps he meant it to be seen as a trophy. Or as a threat. Maybe a challenge. Or possibly all of the above. And we have other witnesses to Mr. Garza’s crimes against his murdered friend. The shooting, the abuse of the corpse, the unceremonious burial, and the ta-da placement of the severed head—a sight that will live in many nightmares for years to come.

“Miguel was twenty-three and just starting out in life. But his life was snuffed out too soon, and with it, everything he might have been.

“Dario Garza denies it all.”