Lassiter 07 - Flesh and Bones by Levine, Paul (best fiction books to read TXT) 📗

state has proven guilt beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. A jury's job is not to presume evidence where there is none. It is not to assume evidence, to fill in evidence, to believe there must be evidence just because the prosecutor says so. We don't guess people into jail. We don't assume people into jail.

No, the jury's job is to look critically at the evidence and ask, 'Did the state prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt?'

I blathered on for a while about reasonable doubt. That's what you do when you don't have much of a defense. When I have favorable evidence, I use it. Hell, I hoist it up the flagpole and salute it. Lacking a defense, I tap-dance around the state's evidence and say it just isn't enough.

"Now, Mr. Socolow told you the evidence indicates that Mr. Baroso conspired with Mr. Hornback. The evidence implies that Mr. Baroso profited from Mr. Hornback's endeavors. The evidence suggests that Mr. Baroso knew what was going on. Well, there's a phrase for that kind of evidence, and you've all heard it. It's called circumstantial evidence ..."

The jurors nodded en masse. Good, they'd heard the phrase on Larry King.

"...And I'm going to tell you a story about circumstantial evidence. A mother bakes a blueberry pie and puts it on a shelf to cool. She tells her little boy not to touch that pie, but he climbs up on the shelf and digs in anyway. Now he hears his mom coming into the kitchen, so he grabs his pet cat and rubs the cat's face in the pie. The mother walks in and yells for the boy's father. The father takes the cat out to the barn, and then, boom! There's a shotgun blast. The boy is still there in the kitchen licking off his fingers, and he says, 'Poor Kitty. Just another victim of circumstantial evidence.' "

I paused just long enough to let the jurors chuckle. Then, becoming serious, I lowered my voice and said, "I'm pleading with you not to let Louis Baroso be another victim of circumstantial evidence."

This time, only two jurors nodded, and one of them might have been asleep. I wrapped it up with an appeal to the basic decency of the American people, then sat down. Blinky gave my arm a good squeeze and patted me on the back.

I looked into the gallery again at Jo Jo Baroso, who avoided my gaze.

"We were never close," Blinky said, watching me. "I was hot-wiring cars when Josie was still making mud pies. She always thought she was better than me."

Which didn't exactly put her in an exclusive club. "So what's she doing here?" I asked for the second time.

"She hates me," Blinky answered, as if that said everything.

Looking back now, I know that wasn't it at all.

#

"FOOL ME TWICE" and the entire Jake Lassiter series are available on Amazon Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.

Free Preview: Ballistic

A Nuclear Missile…

A Band of Terrorists…

And Only Two People Who Can Prevent Armageddon.

When a doomsday cult captures an U.S. Air Force missile base, it's up to a lowly sergeant and a female psychiatrist to prevent a nuclear holocaust. That's the setup of "BALLISTIC," the chilling new thriller from the Edgar-nominated author of the Jake Lassiter series.

"BALLISTIC is 'Die Hard' in a missile silo. Terrific!"

— Stephen J. Cannell

1

Are You Ready for the Apocalypse?

Times Square, New York City–September 1994

The young man who calls himself Zachariah blinks against the neon of a megawatt Manhattan night. Cocks his head and hears dueling symphonies in his brain. A thunderstorm of Wagner on the port side, a cannonade of Tchaikovsky to starboard. Schizophrenia in stereo.

Zachariah steps off the curb and pulls up the collar of his trench coat. Rain pelts him. Cleanses him, he thinks, as clueless tourists and scummy gutter rats surge by on both sides. Yokels and locals. Sinners all.

Hookers in halter tops, goosebumpy in the wet chill. Gangbangers in leather, pimp-rolling, toe-walking, trash-talking skull crackers. Corn-fed, name-tagged conventioneers, heehawing across the big city, checking out the bars, Singapore slinging watery drinks at nine bucks a throw.

Lifting his face to the rain, eyeglasses steaming, he splashes through a puddle. Stops at a kiosk filled with filthy magazines. The devil's own diaries. Creamy breasts and pouty lips. Who will save them?

Splashing through a puddle, wagging his finger at Bernie behind the counter, telling him, "All the animals come out at night."

Bernie looks at the young man through rheumy eyes. "You're telling me."

Zachariah sweeps his arm across a panorama of lustful sinners. "Some day a real rain will come and wash this scum off the street."

"How many times you seen Taxi Driver? 'Cause I gotta tell you, Zack, it's making you even weirder, if that's possible."

A radiant light amps Zachariah's mind, a divine glow inspired by the Truth and heavenly doses of mescaline. He reaches into his trench coat and hands Bernie a pamphlet. On the cover, a drawing of an ornate temple exploding, pillars shooting into the air like flaming spears. Zachariah levels his gaze. "Pilgrim, are you ready for the Apocalypse?"

"Hell yes." Bernie tosses the pamphlet aside. "But to tell the truth, I thought it already happened."

Outside the store, the neon flashes ADULT XXX. Inside, the pot-bellied clerk with the retro sideburns hacks up a wad of phlegm, cursing the weather and his own clogged sinuses. He empties an ashtray, counting the butts, and curses himself for his three-pack a night-shift habit. He switches channels on his seven-inch black-and-white, then looks up to see a clean-cut young man stroll into the shop, trench coat spotted with rain. Wiping raindrops from his wire-rim glasses with his tie, another accountant or salesman copping a cheap thrill.

The clerk glances at the bland, nothing face. Always check them out, watch for a thug with an attitude and a Saturday night special. Trench Coat tries to flip through "Salt and Pepper Studs," but it's stapled shut. Peeper