12th of Never

watched along with the jury as the time-and date-stamped recording started with Keith Herman getting into the undercover cop’s car.
    Oh, man
, Yuki thought.
No way Kinsela could discredit this
.
    The images were black-and-white, medium quality, shot from the window on the driver’s side. The angle was across Meserve’s lap, and it took in Keith Herman’s face and upper torso. Herman had been bearded when the film was shot, and he had worn a blue baseball cap.
    On video, Floyd Meserve told Keith Herman that his name was Chester, then he listened as Keith Herman said, “My wife is mentally ill—schizophrenic, you know? She’s sweet as pie, then she turns on a dime. She beats our little girl for no reason, and abuses her in other ways you don’t need to know, but my little girl has also turned mental. I mean psycho. I don’t want her to go through the hell of being a mental case for her whole life. Or being drugged to the gills, either. It’s a crying shame.”
    Meserve said, “You thought of getting a divorce? Filing for custody of the child?”
    “Many times, but my wife is foxy. She’ll take everything, including the kid, and leave me broken and ruined. No. This is the best way. I want it to be quick, you know? Shots to their heads. No fear, no pain. Make it look like a robbery. Take my wife’s ring. It’s worth a ton. It cost thirty grand. I don’t know what you can get for it, but it’s a good bonus, anyways.”
    Meserve, a.k.a. Chester, said that he needed pictures of the wife and child, ten thousand dollars as a down payment, and that the client had to furnish the gun.
    Keith Herman agreed to the terms and agreed to meet Chester in twenty-four hours—“same time and place, and I’ll bring the stuff.”
    The video brightened as Herman opened the door and got out of the car. When he was alone, Meserve spoke through his microphone to the cops in the surveillance van. “Did everything come in clear?”
    The screen went dark and the lights came up in the courtroom. Yuki stood beside her witness and said, “Lieutenant Meserve, did you meet with this man again to receive the down payment and photos?”
    “I was there, but he failed to show,” Meserve said. “Later that day, my snitch informed me that someone had ratted me out. The deal was blown and so was my cover.”
    “Did you have enough to charge the suspect?”
    “I didn’t have his full name, so I couldn’t do anything but sweat. Even if I’d known him, no money changed hands, which woulda made an indictment impossible.”
    “Did you believe that he intended to have his wife and child murdered?”
    “Without a doubt.”
    “That’s all I have, Your Honor,” Yuki said.
    John Kinsela’s expression was unreadable, but he revealed his agitation by jingling the coins in his pockets.
    He said, “Lieutenant Meserve, you didn’t know the defendant’s name. He didn’t give you any money or pictures of the targets, and he didn’t give you a gun?”
    “No.”
    “So he hadn’t committed any crime?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “And you don’t know if he was looking for a hit man or if he was trying on an idea he never intended to go through with, or even if the man in your vehicle was my client.”
    “Objection. What is counsel doing, Your Honor? He seems to be arguing his case, not questioning the witness.”
    “Sustained. Stop doing that, Mr. Kinsela, or you will be fined.”
    “I’m sorry, Your Honor. I don’t have any other questions. This witness has completely satisfied my curiosity.”
    “Ms. Castellano. Redirect?”
    Yuki stood and addressed the witness from her table.
    “Lieutenant Meserve, when did you learn the full name of the man who tried to hire you to kill his wife and daughter?”
    “On March first of last year, when Jennifer Herman’s dismembered body was discovered.”
    “The man who contacted you about two weeks earlier, on February twentieth, and ordered a hit on his wife and child: Is he sitting in this courtroom?”
    “Yes.”
    “Will you point him out?”
    Keith Herman showed no emotion as Meserve pointed a finger at him as if it were a loaded gun.
    “The defendant. That’s him. I’m positive.”
    “Thank you, Lieutenant. You may step down.”

Chapter 33
    AFTER THE UNDERCOVER cop stood down, Yuki introduced Lesley Rohan, a strikingly attractive and wealthy friend of Jennifer Herman’s, who told the court that Jennifer had been afraid of her husband.
    “Jennifer was sitting at my dining