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Brady and I turned our backs as we’d done before. We didn’t call Burke names, didn’t give him a card or offer another “incentive.” We walked twenty yards to the door to the corridor. It beeped, opened, and we were escorted out.
Brady and I didn’t speak until we were walking down the ramp toward the ferry slip. Brady looked at the schedule. “We’re in luck,” he said. “Next ferry in thirty-five minutes.”
“Perfect,” I said.
I couldn’t read Brady, but as for me, I regretted not getting Burke out of the Q and into a restaurant. If we’d done the impossible, we might have a lead to Cindy’s whereabouts.
So, I was depressed. Burke had played us and if he knew where Cindy was, he was never going to give it up. It had been a wasted trip, but as we walked out toward the ferry the rainy weather had cleared and the image of Burke being lifted up like a doll in chains felt a lot better than a kick in the butt.
I sent my mind back to Blackout. There was still plenty of day left. With about a hundred cops looking for Cindy, there might be news back at the Hall.
CHAPTER 71
AT NINE THURSDAY morning, Yuki had gotten the call that the jury had reached a verdict, and by that afternoon, Yuki and Nick Gaines were at the prosecution table across the aisle from Mo Switzer and Lewis Sullivan. Barbara sat in her wheelchair on the outside aisle. Judge Froman was at the bench and the room was quiet as the jury filed in and took their places.
Yuki held her clenched hands below the table out of sight, but her eyes were on the jurors. She studied their faces, looking for tells, anything that would give her a hint as to their decision. She particularly looked at the foreman, George Campbell.
Campbell was retired now, but he had been a high school science teacher for forty years. During voir dire, Campbell had told the attorneys that he always followed the facts. Had Campbell been satisfied with the prosecution case? As if he felt her eyes on him, Campbell turned his head to look at Yuki. Yuki didn’t look away, didn’t smile or frown, just met his gaze and for several moments they maintained their distant connection; her dark eyes fixed on his blue ones.
This stalemate was broken by Judge Froman’s voice sounding through the small courtroom.
“Will the defendant please stand.”
Lewis Sullivan did as requested and his attorney stood beside him.
The judge addressed the jury.
“Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”
Campbell stood. “We have, Your Honor.”
The bailiff crossed to the jury box, received the single page with the decision. Campbell continued to stand as the bailiff carried the verdict to the judge. Froman examined the single page with a small amount of hand printing, decisions that would impact Barbara Sullivan directly, as well as people all over the country who would take comfort or become enraged by the decision of these twelve men and women, good and true.
Froman passed the verdict back to the bailiff who returned it to the foreman.
Froman asked, “On count one, endangerment of the minor child Kenneth Sullivan, how do you find?”
“Guilty, Your Honor.”
“On count two, endangerment of minor child, Stephen Sullivan, how does the jury find?”
“Guilty, Your Honor.”
Judge Froman adjusted her glasses. “On count three, aggravated assault of Barbara Sullivan. How do you find?”
“We find the defendant guilty, Your Honor.”
Yuki clenched her fists, her fingernails making half-moon cuts in the palms of her hands as Judge Karen Froman asked, “And on the count of attempted murder of Barbara Sullivan, how does the jury find?”
If a circus had entered the courtroom with clowns and acrobats and trumpeting elephants, they wouldn’t have thrown Yuki’s concentration off the jury foreman.
Campbell, on the other hand, seemed confident and assured as he said, “We find the defendant, Lewis Sullivan, guilty as charged, Your Honor.”
That was it.
Everything that Yuki had been working toward had come home: guilty on all counts. Guilty.
Lewis Sullivan had a different reaction. Turning to face the gallery, screaming, “You bitch!” at Barbara, only a few lunges away from her husband.
