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JAMES GIFTOS’S ARM was still wrapped around Briana Hill’s shoulders as they left the courtroom together.
Yuki, walking not far behind them with Arthur, thought that Briana Hill looked pitiable, like her heart was breaking, and Yuki didn’t doubt that it was. When she decided to rape Marc Christopher, maybe on impulse, she couldn’t have imagined that it was going to lead to this—a trial where she would be exposed in every sense of the word, with a possibility of going to prison for as long as eight years.
Yuki shook her head as she walked with Art along the marble-lined hallway.
Arthur said, “What’s wrong?”
“I was feeling sorry for Briana. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Trust me. I won’t. And with all due respect, she doesn’t deserve it. Yuki, you’re giving voice to sexual crimes against men. Personally, I appreciate it.”
“Thanks, Art.”
Art said that he was going to head for the men’s room and would meet her in the lobby. Yuki pulled out her phone to call Parisi, when James Giftos was suddenly right in her face.
“Yuki.”
“James.”
“Your opening statement was a little wooden but not terrible.”
“Actually, the jury looked quite moved,” she said.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “I’ve watched you blow up several cases God knows you should have won. Alfred Brinkley. Mass murderer. Not guilty. Junie Moon. Killer. Not fucking guilty. Then, of course, more recently, another mass murderer, this one world class and acting as his own attorney. Hey, I was there. I saw him take your case apart like he was playing pickup sticks. He wasn’t even a lawyer. You know, most people would have gone into a different line of work after a disaster like that.”
Yuki snapped, “Don’t you get tired of yourself, James? Don’t you want to run home and take a shower? Because you really stink.”
She was ten yards from the elevator bank and on the move, having to weave through and around clumps of attorneys and court workers clogging the hallway, while trying to fend off James’s jujitsu attacks on her morale. Meanwhile, he tagged right along with her.
“I’ll be honest with you, Yuki,” Giftos said.
“I’m sure of that,” she said.
“You have a real weakness when it comes to running the sword through. You just roll over and show your own underbelly.”
Shit. How could he see through her like that?
“Say what you like. Think what you will,” she said, attempting to push past the aggressive jerk. He stuck with her all the way to the elevator.
“What more can I say? I think you’re a nice girl, but you’re a loser.”
Briana Hill came out of the ladies’ room into the corridor. She called out to Giftos and he called back, “I’m coming.” To Yuki he said, “You should really go back to that pro bono law firm. What is it called? The Defense League?”
Yuki stopped walking and Giftos stopped, too. He towered above her.
She stared up at him and said, “Sounds to me like my opening really freaked you out, James. You’re showing your own underbelly, you know. And I will run the sword through.”
“Sure you will. Be careful not to cut yourself.”
James Giftos was laughing as he turned
and walked back to his client.
CHAPTER 47
ARTHUR BARON QUESTIONED the prosecution’s next witness, Frank Pilotte, the SFPD’s IT specialist who testified that the video recording had not been altered.
James Giftos had no questions for Pilotte, and he also had no challenges for the prosecution’s next witness, a seasoned psychologist and author who had well-established credentials in the emotional effects of rape on the victim.
