Right is might.
Maureen couldn’t wait for the trial to start.
She was ready. And today was her day.
Chapter 18
YUKI WAS FILING a motion on the ground floor of the Civic Center Courthouse at 400 McAllister that Monday morning, when she remembered that Maureen O’Mara’s case against San Francisco Municipal was starting right about now.
This was something the lawyer in her wanted to see.
She glanced at her watch, bypassed the mob at the elevator bank, and took to the stairs. Slightly out of breath, she slipped into the wood-paneled courtroom at the end of the fourth-floor hallway.
Yuki saw that Judge Bevins was on the bench.
Bevins was in his seventies, wore his white hair in a ponytail, and was considered fair but quirky, impossible to second-guess.
As Yuki settled into a seat near the door, she noticed a dark-haired man across the aisle wearing khakis and a blazer over his pink button-down shirt and club tie. He was plucking at the wristband of his watch.
It took a second for the handsome face to click with a name; then, with a shock of recognition, Yuki realized that she knew him—Dennis Garza, the doctor who’d admitted her mother to the emergency room.
Of course. He’s a witness in this trial, Yuki thought.
Her attention was pulled away from Garza by a rustling and buzzing in the crowded courtroom as Maureen O’Mara stood and took the floor.
O’Mara was tall, a solid size twelve, Yuki guessed, dressed in a fitted gray Armani pantsuit and low-heeled black shoes. She had strong features and truly remarkable hair, a dark red mane that hung to her shoulders, swinging when O’Mara turned her head—as she did now.
The attractive attorney faced the court, said good morning to the jury, introduced herself, then began her opening statement by lifting a large and awkward cardboard-mounted photograph from a stack of photos on the table in front of her.
“Please, take a good, long look. This lovely young woman is Amanda Clemmons,” O’Mara said, holding up the picture of a freckled blonde who looked to be about thirty-five years old.
“Last May, Amanda Clemmons was in her driveway playing basketball with her three young boys,” O’Mara said. “Simon Clemmons, her husband, the boys’ father, had been killed in an automobile accident only six months before.
“Amanda wasn’t much of a ballplayer,” O’Mara continued, “but this young widow knew she had to be both a mother and a father to Adam, John, and Chris. And she was as up to the task as anyone could be.
“Imagine this plucky woman if you can. Picture her in your mind,” Maureen said, calling up the scene.
“She’s wearing white shorts and a blue-and-gold Warriors T-shirt, dribbling circles around her little kids in the driveway, getting ready to make a shot through the hoop hanging from the garage.
“John Clemmons told me that his mom was laughing and ragging them, just before she snagged her shoe on a crack in the asphalt and went down.
“Half an hour later, an ambulance came and took Amanda to the hospital, where she was X-rayed and diagnosed in emergency with a broken left leg.
“That injury shouldn’t have been more than a temporary setback for Amanda Clemmons,” O’Mara continued. “She was young; she was strong and resilient. She was a real warrior, that woman. A homegrown American hero. But she had been admitted to San Francisco Municipal Hospital.
“And that was the beginning of the end of her life. Please, take a good, long look at this picture of Amanda Clemmons. This is the one the family used at her funeral.”
Chapter 19
MAUREEN FELT HER ANGER rising exponentially as she told Amanda’s story. Although Maureen had never met Amanda Clemmons, the young mother was as real to Maureen as an honest-to-God friend, and since she worked so hard, she didn’t have that many friends.
Maureen felt that way about every one of her deceased clients, about every one of the victims, she reminded herself. She knew their backgrounds and their families, the names of children and spouses.
And she knew precisely how they had died at Municipal Hospital.
She handed the picture of Amanda Clemmons to her assistant, turned back to the jury, seeing in their eyes that she had their interest. They couldn’t wait for her to go on.
“The afternoon Amanda Clemmons broke her leg,” Maureen said, “she was taken to Municipal’s emergency room, where the bone was X-rayed and set. This was a simple procedure. Then she was moved to another room, where she was to spend the night.