Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

Luccheses killed Mr. Shadid to intimidate prospective jurors into voting for conviction at the second trial?” The judge steepled his fingers. “I don’t know. Sounds a little farfetched to me,” he said.
    “Fits the Luccheses’ m.o.,” Martinez said. “Besides, we’re kinda running out of suspects. We’ve talked to Shadid’s family, friends, business associates, enemies.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Everybody’s got an alibi.”
    “What about Dolan?” the judge said.
    “Dolan was already dead,” Ebanks said.
    “No,” the judge said. “The Luccheses. If they were going to kill someone, I would have thought it’d be Dolan.”
    Police work was a lot like fishing. You stuck your best fly on your hook and waited for the hungry trout to come along and strike. The fish thinks he’s the predator, but he’s really the prey. Sometimes an even bigger fish comes along and snags your catch right off the hook before you can reel it in.
    “Funny you should say that,” Ebanks said. “Because we just got the word that Dolan’s death was no accident.”
    The judge looked surprised. Martinez looked confused.
    At the press scrum on the courthouse steps, Dolan had expressed his faith in the justice system, refused to answer any questions, and announced he was heading for his lake house to chill. He then drove off in his black SUV.
    When he didn’t show for a meeting the next day, his lawyer was annoyed. Later that afternoon, when he couldn’t reach Dolan by cell phone, the lawyer got worried. The next day, the lawyer called the cops. Dolan’s body was found in his bed. He had died of asphyxiation.
    “The furnace at the house didn’t malfunction,” Ebanks said. “Someone tampered with the heat exchanger and disabled the CO detectors. Dolan was murdered.”
    Now Martinez looked totally stunned. Ebanks shot him a look, and the rookie recovered his poker face.
    After a trout bites, you have to set your hook. You can’t allow any slack in your line, but you have to make sure not to pull too hard. Otherwise the fish can throw the hook.
    “Let’s talk some more about Tina’s brothers,” Ebanks said to the judge.
    He asked a few questions, then let Martinez take over. The rookie led the judge through his prepared queries on how the Lucchese boys had behaved during the trial. Ebanks paid little attention to the questions or the answers. He spent the time reminiscing about past trips to the lake. Romance novels and cookbooks — that was what Sonia liked to read. He wondered where her sun hat was now.
    After five minutes or so, Martinez closed his notebook.
    The judge said, “Do you have any other suspects?”
    Ebanks said, “We’ll be working hard on that.”
    “I don’t pretend to know your job …” The judge hesitated.
    “It’s okay,” Ebanks said. “What’s on your mind?”
    “Well,” the judge said. “Have you considered Mrs. Batista?”
    “The pitcher’s wife?” Martinez said. “Why would —”
    Ebanks broke in. “What’s your theory?”

    C RIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS know it isn’t enough to say their clients didn’t do it. The jury always wants an alternative suspect for the crime, and if one suspect is good, two are better. In addition to offering the Luccheses’ mob enemies, the Dolan defense team served up Nikki Batista, wife of Dolan’s best friend on the team.
    “The evidence will show Kenny and Nikki Batista were having an affair,” Dolan’s attorney announced in his opening. The “evidence” included several months of late-night phone calls and lunch meetings at out-of-the-way restaurants, but no hotel bills or photos of the tabloid variety. Claiming Dolan broke off the affair because he’d come to realize how much he loved his wife, the defense trotted out the “hell hath no fury/scorned woman” maxim and asserted that Mrs. Batista had no alibi for the time of the murder.
    The prosecutor called a tearful Nikki to the stand to deny the affair, and to explain that the clandestine meetings and phone calls between Dolan and Nikki were to organize a surprise birthday party for Tina Dolan. As for the night of Tina’s murder, Nikki said she’d driven up to the lake area to visit a friend, who turned out not be home. A PhotoCop shot dug up by the prosecution proved that she’d been doing fifteen over the limit while Tina was being killed.
    “I didn’t believe that birthday-party story,” the judge said. “I think Dolan was having an affair with Nikki