14th Deadly Sin: (Women’s Murder Club 14) Read Online Free PDF

band and had a firm handshake, and his diploma from Harvard Law was inconspicuously placed on the wall, almost hidden by the hat rack.
    He definitely looked the part of a liberal-leaning do-gooder. In fact, Yuki liked him immediately.
    The two exchanged “nice to meet yous,” and Mr. Jordan said, “Please. Call me Zac. Thanks for coming in. Have a seat.”
    “I haven’t taken an interview in a long time, Zac. But I am aware of the Defense League and what you do here. I have to say I’m intrigued.”
    “Intrigued by the opportunity to work long hours for low pay in a grubby office? Because I always find that to be a good recruiting tool.”
    Yuki laughed. “Actually, my current job provides some of the same benefits.”
    Jordan smiled, then said, “We’ve got a few perks I’ll tell you about some other time, but first, let’s talk about you. I’ve read your résumé, and I have a few questions.”
    “OK, shoot,” Yuki said.
    And then the laughs were over and the
real
interview began. Zac Jordan asked about her first job in corporate law and her reasons for going to the DA’s Office, and then he started drilling down on the cases she’d worked from the beginning of her time with the DA.
    Yuki had lost nearly all the cases she’d prosecuted in her first three years, and Zac Jordan seemed to know each case as well as if he’d been sitting in the courtroom. He questioned her on every soft opening statement, every missed opportunity, every time opposing counsel had trampled her with superior litigation experience.
    Well, yeah, she’d been outgunned in several cases, but there were usually contributing factors: faulty police work, a witness who changed her testimony, a defendant who committed suicide before Yuki made her closing argument. Depressing, deflating “not guilty” verdicts had made her even more determined to sharpen her game. Which she had done.
    Meanwhile, here she sat, having to defend her fairly pathetic win/loss ratio to a man she didn’t know, who might or might not offer her a job she didn’t necessarily want.
    When Zac Jordan dug into the infamous
Del Norte
ferry shooter’s trial, in which the defendant had killed four people and had been found legally insane, Yuki really had had enough.
    By definition, the shooter
was
crazy.
    But she
had
to try him for multiple homicides. That was her job.
    So she forced a smile and said to the hotshot across the desk from her, “Well, gee, Zac. I have always done my best, and I’ve been promoted several times. I really don’t understand why you asked to see me. Did you just bring me in so you could stick it to me?”
    “Not at all. I needed to hear your side of these cases because we’re
always
the underdogs. How would you feel about defending the poor, the hapless, and the hopeless?”
    “I don’t know,” Yuki said, abandoning her plan to get the job offer knowing that if she didn’t want it, she could turn it down.
    “See if this is of interest to you, Yuki,” Zac said, handing her a file. “I have a case that desperately needs to be tried. The victim was arrested outside a crack house where some dope slingers had been shot. He was running. He had a gun. The cops had probable cause to arrest him, but this kid was fifteen and had a low IQ and for some damned reason, his parents weren’t there. Although he maintained that he only found the gun, that it wasn’t his, the cops muscled him into waiving his rights, and then he was squeezed until he gave a confession.
    “While this poor schnook was awaiting trial, maybe a week after his arrest, he was murdered in jail. If he’d had a trial, he might have proven his innocence, and I do believe he was innocent. I believe he was victimized by the cops who interrogated him and that he should never have gone to jail at all.
    “I’m going to have to ask something of you, Yuki. Think about this overnight and see how you feel tomorrow morning. You’re my first choice for this job, but I’m talking