A Matter of Life and Death by Phillip Margolin (ereader with dictionary TXT) 📕

Robin leaned back and rubbed her eyes again. “I’m ready to pack it in. Shall we call it a day?”

“I won’t fight you.”

“Okay. Let’s call it quits.”

“What’s next?” Amanda asked.

“I’m going to request a bail hearing. You’re right. The state’s case is thin, and this way, we can force Vanessa to tell the court why she thinks she’s got enough to keep Luis in jail.”

That night, Robin fell asleep, exhausted, and soon found herself wandering through damp, dark, and narrow passages lined with the thick, slime-covered gray rock found in medieval prisons. She was desperate for a way out, and she knew that there was a door that would let her escape, but it was hidden somewhere in the maze of intersecting corridors, and she couldn’t see where it was.

Jeff was home from the hospital. Robin was tossing, turning, and moaning so loudly that she woke him, and he shook her shoulder. Robin’s eyes snapped open, and she sat up. Her heart was beating rapidly, and she was soaked with sweat.

“Sorry I woke you, but you were having one hell of a nightmare.”

Robin took a deep breath and fell back on the bed. “It was a doozy,” she said, and she told Jeff about her unsettling dream.

“Do you think you regret taking the Ortega case and you’re subconsciously searching for a way out?” Jeff asked.

“I don’t know, Dr. Freud, but I guess it could be a reaction to being sucked into another life-or-death prosecution when I should have gone on a long vacation.”

“That will teach you to have empathy and a sense of civic duty,” Jeff said.

Robin laughed.

“Can you get back to sleep?” Jeff asked.

“I think I’ll go in the living room. My heart is still pounding. Sorry I woke you.”

“Let me know if you figure out why you were wandering around a spooky castle. But do it in the morning. I’m going back to sleep.”

Robin closed the door to the bedroom and walked into the living room. She stood in front of a window and looked down at the street through a rain-streaked pane. A homeless man huddled under the protection afforded by a doorway. No one else was out. The pale glow from the interior of a store across the street illuminated the raindrops that bounced off the pavement. It was a peaceful scene, and Robin watched the city lights, waiting for her eyes to grow heavy.

While she stood in the window, she couldn’t help wondering if her nightmare was a reaction to something in the police reports. She’d had a nagging feeling that there was something wrong or out of place in one of them, but she had no idea what it was.

Her eyes closed for a moment, and she felt her body grow heavy. She walked back to her bed and slipped under the covers. This time when she fell asleep, she didn’t dream, but she remembered the dream in the morning and vowed to reread every report to try to see if her unease was justified.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

The bail hearing in Luis Ortega’s case had been assigned to Harold Wright because he was familiar with the Lattimore case and there would probably be some overlap. Luis came into court wearing a suit and looking like a young professional. He took a seat at the counsel table between Robin and Amanda, and Robin handed him a pen and a legal pad so he could take notes.

“If there’s anything you think I need to know, write it down and make sure to tell me during a break in the testimony. If it’s really important, tell Amanda, and she’ll interrupt if she agrees. You’re a smart guy, Luis. Use your brain and help us out.”

“Got it,” Luis said just as the bailiff called the court to order and Judge Wright came out of his chambers and took his seat on the dais.

“Mrs. Cole, Ms. Lockwood, and Ms. Jaffe, welcome back. I feel like I’m in a movie sequel.”

“We hope it has a similar ending,” Robin said, and even Vanessa smiled.

“Mrs. Cole, for Mr. Ortega to be held without bail in an aggravated murder case, the state must establish that the proof is evident or the presumption strong that Luis Ortega murdered Judge Anthony Carasco. You want to hold Mr. Ortega without bail, so the ball is in your court.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. I’m going to let homicide detective Roger Dillon tell you why we think the proof is evident or the presumption strong that Luis Ortega murdered Anthony Carasco. There’s a lot that you heard when you presided over the Lattimore case that is relevant to this hearing, but I’m going to have Detective Dillon go back to the beginning of the events that led up to Judge Carasco’s murder to give you a complete picture of our case against Mr. Ortega.”

“I’m listening,” Judge Wright said as soon as the detective was sworn and had taken a seat in the witness-box.

“This case really started many months ago in San Francisco during the American Bar Association convention,” Roger Dillon told Judge Wright. “That’s when Judge Carasco met a prostitute named Stacey Hayes. They spent the night together, and he became infatuated with her and asked her to move into apartment number 5 at the Grandview complex in Portland. Hayes agreed, and the judge began spending a lot of time there. So much time that his wife, Elizabeth Carasco, discovered the affair and started divorce proceedings.

“Our witnesses will testify that Judge Carasco had been bleeding his wife’s trust funds dry. Other witnesses will tell you that the judge was using some of these funds to finance illegal, no-holds-barred fights. Kevin Bash was promoting the fights, and Carasco got a share of the profits Bash made from gambling and the fee spectators paid to attend.

“When the judge learned that his wife was going to divorce him, he devised a plan to have his wife murdered. He went to Bash and asked him to