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“Junie Moon’s confession was false.
“The absence of evidence in this case is remarkable. If the name of the so-called victim was Joe Blow, there probably wouldn’t have been an indictment, let alone a trial. But Michael Campion is a political celebrity and Ms. Moon is at the bottom of the social totem pole.
“It’s showtime!
“But this isn’t Showbiz Tonight, ladies and gentlemen. This is a court of lawwww,” Davis trumpeted. “So we’re asking you to use your common sense as well as the facts in evidence. If you do that, you can only find Junie Moon not guilty of the charges against her, period.”
Chapter 88
IT WAS AFTER SEVEN when I got to Susie’s. The patrons at the bar had achieved a high degree of merriment. I didn’t recognize the plinky tune the steel band was playing, but it was all about sun and the sparkly Caribbean Sea.
Made me want to move to Jamaica and open a dive shop with Joe. Drink passion fruit mai tais and grill fish on the beach.
I reached our table in the back room as Lorraine was clearing away a plate of chicken bones. She took my order for a Corona and dropped off the menu. Claire was taking up one side of our booth, what she called “sitting for two,” while Cindy and Yuki sat across from her — Yuki pressed up against the wall as if she’d been smushed there like a bug.
It looked like she’d lost a fight.
I dragged up a chair, said, “What’d I miss?”
“Yuki gave a great closing argument,” Cindy said, and then Yuki broke in.
“But Davis obliterated it!”
“You are nuts. You got the final damned word, Yuki,” Cindy said. “You nailed it.”
I didn’t have to beg. As soon as we ordered dinner, Yuki launched into her impeccable L. Diana Davis impression, screaming, “Where’s the beef? Where’s the beef?”
When Yuki paused for breath, Cindy said, “Do your rebuttal, Yuki. Do it like you mean it.”
Yuki laughed a little hysterically, wiped tears from her eyes with a napkin, downed her margarita — a drink she could barely handle on a good day. And then she belched.
“I hate waiting for a verdict,” she said.
We all laughed, Cindy egging Yuki on until she said, “Okay.” And then she was into it, eyes glistening, hands gesturing, the whole Yuki deal.
“I said, ‘Was a crime committed? Well, ladies and gentlemen, there’s a reason the defendant is here. She was indicted by a grand jury and not because of her relative social standing to the deceased. The police didn’t throw a dart at a phone book.
“ ‘Junie Moon didn’t call the police and make a false confession.
“ ‘The police developed information that led them to the last person to see Michael Campion. That person was Junie Moon — and she admitted it.’ ”
“That’s gooood, sugar,” Claire murmured.
Yuki smiled, continued on. “ ‘We don’t have Michael Campion’s body, but in all the months since he saw Ms. Moon, he has never called home, never used his credit card, his cell phone, or sent an e-mail to his parents or friends to say he’s all right.
“ ‘Michael wouldn’t do that. That’s not the kind of boy he was. So where is Michael Campion? Junie Moon told us. He died. He was dismembered. And his body was dumped in the garbage. She did it.
“ ‘Period.’ ”
“See?” Cindy said, grinning. “She totally nailed it.”
Chapter 89
CLAIRE AND I were sitting up in her bed that night after our outing at Susie’s, having a two-girl pajama party. Edmund was on tour with the San Francisco Symphony, and Claire had said, “I really, really don’t want to go into labor here all by myself alone, girlfriend.”
I looked over at her, lying in the huge divot she’d made in her memory-foam mattress with her rotund 260 pounds.
“I can’t get any bigger,” she said. “It’s not possible. I wasn’t this big with two boys, so how can this little girl-child turn me into the blimp that ate the planet?”
