Yuki called Inspector Phyllis Chase. The foreperson swore her in, and the forty-year-old police investigator, appearing motherly and calm, took the witness stand.
Yuki asked her to tell the jurors how she became involved in this case. Chase explained that the victim had called to report a sexual assault and then came to the police station to make a statement.
“He told me that he had been raped. He was very emotional, and he said that he was afraid there would be workplace ramifications if he reported this rape to the police. He showed me what looked like ligature marks, bruises that had faded to a light brown color, on his wrists and ankles. That would be consistent with bruising after two to three weeks. He told us that it took him a couple of weeks to get his mind around the fact that he had been raped.”
Chase went on.
“My partner and I investigated this charge. There were no eyewitnesses to this sexual assault, which is true in nearly all the rape cases I have handled in the last fifteen years. But in this case the victim had a spy cam clock radio on his night table, and soon after the beginning of this attack, he recorded the event.”
Yuki said, “Did you ask why he had this hidden camera?”
“He explained that he’d bought it years before when he had a roommate. He suspected the roommate of bringing women home and having sex in Mr. Christopher’s bed. The roommate denied it, and after Mr. Christopher caught him in the act, he didn’t use the camera function again until the night in question. Based on the recording, we made an arrest.”
After Chase’s testimony Yuki called Frank Pilotte, the police tech specialist. Pilotte had been with the SFPD for ten years, had a degree in electrical engineering, and was a specialist in computer science.
Pilotte testified that he had reviewed the digital recording, and while the lighting and sound were not the best—“think nanny cam”—he’d concluded that the recording had not been doctored.
After Pilotte left the room, Yuki called Paul Yates, copywriter at the Ad Shop. Yates took the stand. He fidgeted, sighed, and generally looked as though he wished he were anywhere but on the witness stand in front of a jury.
Yuki couldn’t afford to worry about Paul Yates’s nerves.
She said, “Mr. Yates, please tell us about your experience with Briana Hill.”
He mumbled, “I’d be more comfortable answering questions. I’m not much of an extemporaneous speaker.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Yates. We can do it that way. Did you date Ms. Hill during June of this year?”
“I went out with her once. We had dinner.”
“And what happened after that dinner?”
Yates spoke directly to Yuki, averting his eyes from the jury.
“We were in my apartment making out. It was getting heavy, and I got very nervous. I started to worry about how going out with her would be seen at the office. And I didn’t really know her well at all. I told her I had to stop.”
“What happened after that?”
“She took her gun out of her purse and told me to get undressed. I was terrified. At the same time she held out a couple of blue pills and told me to take them. I guessed that the pills were Viagra.”
At Yuki’s questioning, the reluctant Paul Yates described slapping the gun out of Hill’s hand and running downstairs to the basement, where he waited until he thought it safe to come out.
“Did you report this incident to the police?” Yuki asked her witness. Yates was sweating profusely and no longer meeting her gaze.
“No, I didn’t call the police or anyone. Briana called me later that night and told me that she had only been joking. That I was taking it all wrong.”
“Did you believe her?” Yuki asked.
“I only cared that it was over.”
“Thanks very much for your testimony, Mr. Yates,” Yuki said. “You can step down.”
“Can I leave the courthouse?”
Yuki said that he could and called Marc Christopher to the stand.
CHAPTER 16
THE GRAND JURY foreman asked Marc Christopher to place his hand on the Bible, and after he was sworn in, Yuki said, “Marc, I realize this is hard for you, but will you please tell the jurors what happened to you on the night in question.”
The young man rubbed his palms on his pant legs, then, grasping the arms of the chair, he began telling his story.
“I was crazy about Briana Hill. She was my boss at the ad agency,” Marc told the jurors. “I really liked her, and we had been going out for a couple of months when she did this horrible … when she raped me.”
Yuki asked, “You and Briana had been having sex during the two months you were dating?”
“Yes. Of course. I was very happy with our relationship. I didn’t think we were getting married, but we had a lot in common, and working together while dating was great, or at least I thought so. I felt like we were basically always on a date, and I liked getting to know her in different ways.
“But then,” Marc continued, “I got the feeling Briana was becoming uncomfortable with the attention we were getting at work. People calling us a couple. She started getting a little short with me when we were working together.
“I asked Briana out for dinner one night after work. I wanted to talk about it, but I was afraid she’d just say, ‘It’s over,’ so in the end I didn’t bring it up. We were both drinking in the restaurant bar. Panacea, it’s called. I said something like, ‘Let’s go to my place and sleep it off.’ She said, ‘Why not?’ We almost always went back to my apartment after a date. It’s only up the hill a couple of blocks from the restaurant.
“So,” Marc told the jury, “we went to my apartment. I stripped off my clothes in the living room, kept going to the bedroom, and threw myself facedown on the bed. I was falling asleep. I thought Briana had called my name, and then she said my name again, louder. So I turned over to see what she wanted.
“She had her handgun pointed at me. I laughed. I said something like, ‘My wallet is in my pants on the floor.’ She said, ‘Pay attention, Marc. Tie yourself to the bed with these.’
“She was standing at the foot of my bed. She had the gun in one hand and a bunch of my ties in the other. My ties. Good ones. I said, ‘Come on, Briana, that’s goofy. Come to bed.’
“She said, ‘I’m not joking, bitch. Do what I tell you, or I’m going to blow you away.’
“She pulled back the hammer. I suddenly believed her.”
Marc stopped speaking and lowered his eyes, and it looked to Yuki as if he might cry. Yuki asked him if he needed a minute, and he shook his head no.
But he didn’t speak.
The jurors were also in a kind of stunned silence. None coughed, shifted in their seat, or averted their eyes. Their attention was locked on Marc Christopher.
Yuki broke the silence. She said, “Marc, what did you do?”
“I tied my ankles to the footboard like she told me to do. When I was tying up one of my hands, she was checking the ties on my feet, and I hit the Record button on my clock radio camera. She didn’t know that I was doing that. I finished tying up that hand, and she tied up the other one. I did what she said to do.”
Yuki asked, “You’d had sex with Briana many times. Why, in this instance, did you think you were being assaulted?”
“Because this time she threatened to shoot me.”
Yuki thanked Marc and asked him to step down from the witness box and return to the corridor outside the courtroom.
Only fifteen minutes had passed since Yuki introduced her case to the jurors. She was ready to produce her evidence.
Yuki recalled Frank Pilotte, the police computer specialist.
Pilotte set up his laptop on the big wooden table.
“Frank,” Yuki said, “please run the recording.”
CHAPTER 17