Free RK02 - Guilt By Degrees by Marcia Clark

waist. His face registered shock for a brief moment.
    “Did he actually manage to put his hand on her elbow?” I asked.
    “Yeah. That’s why I thought he might be trying to hurt her, so I knocked his arm down, like this.”
    Yamaguchi did his best to show us what he’d done. As he carefully lifted his hand and brought it down in a karate-chopping motion, I could see the muscles in his forearm bunch and move. That would’ve been one powerful hit.
    “Did you see any weapon on the homeless man?” I asked.
    “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “For some reason, I never even thought about it. Stupid, huh?” he said, his expression puzzled. “The guy coulda shivved me right there. Matter of fact, I heard afterward that he had a box cutter—”
    “But you didn’t see any box cutter at the time?” I said evenly.
    This was a critical point. If he admitted he hadn’t seen the box cutter, he’d be hard-pressed to later claim that the killing was done in self- defense . I half expected Walter to jump in here and keep Yamaguchi from answering, but he sat quietly.
    Yamaguchi said, “No, I didn’t. I just saw the guy grab that lady’s elbow, and I reacted. It wasn’t like I had a chance to give it a whole lot of thought, it was just a reflex, you know?”
    “You have any training in martial arts?” I asked.
    Walter stepped in. “I don’t see the relevance of that.” He turned to his client. “Ronald, I’m advising you not to answer that.”
    Yamaguchi looked at Walter, confused. “Why? I thought the whole point was to be up front about everything. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
    Walter paused for a beat, then nodded and sat back. He waved his hand. “Go ahead.”
    Ronald continued. “I’ve got a black belt in tae kwon do.”
    “I had a feeling,” I said. “Okay, so you knocked the guy’s arm down. What did he do? Did he turn on you?”
    I was giving him another chance to claim self- defense .
    “No.” He stopped and was silent for a moment. “I pretty much came at him out of the blue. He just stood there, like, in shock. But I don’t know what happened after that, because as soon as I saw his arm drop and I could see the lady was out of reach, I took off.”
    If Yamaguchi was telling the truth, it meant that regardless of who the killer was, the stabbing certainly hadn’t been done to defend anyone. This was a murder.

15
    I moved in to nail down the point.
    “What do you mean, ‘the lady was out of reach’?”
    “She took off running,” he replied. “I remember thinking there was no way he was gonna get to her again. She moved fast, and the sidewalk was packed, you know?” He shook his head. “I can promise you I wouldn’t have taken off if it’d looked like she was still in danger.”
    I heard the note of pride in his voice.
    “The tae kwon do came in handy,” I remarked.
    He dipped his head and gave me a modest smile. “All those classes. I always hoped I’d get the chance to help someone.”
    And this was his reward. A cell in the county jail. But Ronald had uttered the words without a trace of irony. Though it definitely hadn’t turned out well for him, he knew he had saved that dark-haired woman and he didn’t regret it.
    But that didn’t mean he wasn’t the stabber. I moved on.
    “Did you see where she went?”
    Again Yamaguchi stopped and thought. If he was pulling an act, I had to admit it was a good one.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s all kind of a blur, it happened so fast. All I know is that after I hit his arm, he stopped, she moved away, and it seemed like everyone was okay. So I took off.” Yamaguchi looked at me, his expression open, earnest.
    There was something so… off about this case. The pieces weren’t fitting into any logical pattern. Or at least not one I could see at this point. I rubbed my aching neck and shoulders, and moved on to the next subject .
    “So the victim was standing and unharmed when you left the area?” I