Read Online RK02 - Guilt By Degrees by Marcia Clark - Free Book Online Page B

wall behind us.
    I paused to ask the deputy, “Did a public defender by the name of Walter Schoenfeld check in?”
    “What am I, your friggin’ hostess for the day?” she asked. She pushed our badges back out to us and buzzed us in. “You wanna know if he’s here, go look.”
    We moved through the metal detector and found Walter sitting among a throng of defense attorneys in the waiting area. Bailey and I walked over to him.
    “They tell you how long for an attorney room?” I asked.
    “Said about ten minutes,” Walter replied. He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes ago.”
    I sighed. Typical. With only five attorney rooms, the wait could easily take hours.
    “I’ll go goose him,” Bailey said, and walked off.
    No one gets better service in county jail than a cop. Within five minutes, the jail deputy called out for us to follow him. I deliberately avoided looking at the other attorneys who’d undoubtedly been waiting there for hours as we passed by. The room was silent as we all read our reports and got ready for the interview. Ten minutes later, Ronald Yamaguchi was being escorted down the glass-enclosed hall toward us in waist and leg chains. He clutched a notepad in his hands, which were cuffed in front of him, but his expression was surprisingly serene.
    “You guys going to tape this?” Walter asked.
    “Yeah,” Bailey said. She produced a small digital recorder from her jacket pocket and placed it on the table.
    The door opened, and Yamaguchi was guided into the room and seated next to Walter, across the table from Bailey and me. I did a double take at the sight of Yamaguchi. I hadn’t really noticed in court, but between the olive complexion, jet-black shoulder-length hair, and well-muscled physique, Ronald Yamaguchi managed to rock that ugly orange jumpsuit. I had to hand it to him—though not at the moment.
    Before his client could speak, Walter warned him that he was being recorded and pointed to the device.
    “Good,” Yamaguchi replied.
    An interesting reaction. I saw from Bailey’s raised eyebrow that she thought so too. She calmly read him his rights and he waived them, and we got down to business.
    “What were you doing in the area that day?” I asked.
    “I work in Little Tokyo,” he replied. “My bank’s on the street where it happened. I made a deposit and was on my way back to work when I saw the homeless guy.”
    I made a mental note to get into the specifics of where he worked and banked later.
    “What drew your attention to him?” I asked.
    “What he did,” Yamaguchi replied. “He, like, almost jumped at that lady, and then he grabbed her. I thought he might hurt her.”
    That wasn’t exactly what he’d said when he’d been interviewed at the scene—at least, according to the arrest report. Then again, it wasn’t completely different either. It was all a matter of emphasis, I supposed. Sometimes the truth can be elastic.
    “Was she carrying a purse?” I asked.
    Yamaguchi thought for a moment, then shook his head. “She might’ve been. I didn’t get a good enough look at her.”
    “Could you describe what the man did when he reached for her?” I asked.
    I was making sure to keep my questions open-ended so he wouldn’t be able to claim later that I’d “confused” or cornered him.
    Yamaguchi stared at the wall over my shoulder for a moment before responding. “I was on the sidewalk, just outside my bank. I caught a fast movement out of the corner of my eye. He kind of lunged and grabbed the lady at the same time,” Yamaguchi said, frowning as he pictured the scene. “And he seemed pissed off—”
    “Could you see his face?” I asked.
    “No. But that’s what it felt like to me, so I guess maybe it was the way he reached for her. He grabbed on to her elbow like this—”
    Yamaguchi tried to shoot his hand out to demonstrate, forgetting it was chained to his waist. The motion jerked the chain taut with a loud clank but stopped just a few inches from his