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

hire someone to kill his wife. Carasco offered to pay Bash with cash and by forfeiting his share of the profits from the next two fights.

“Part of the judge’s plan involved providing himself with a cast-iron alibi. A few years before the judge met Stacey Hayes, she had been arrested for prostitution in Portland. When she failed to appear for her trials, warrants were issued for her arrest. Carasco introduced Hayes to Deputy District Attorney Ian Hennessey and ordered her to seduce him. Once the young DA was hooked, Carasco ordered Hayes to tell Mr. Hennessey, on a specific date and time, that she would tell Mrs. Cole that he was paying her for sex if he didn’t erase her cases and warrants from the system. Mr. Hennessey didn’t want to fix the warrants and went to Judge Carasco for help.

“On the day Hayes threatened Hennessey, Judge Carasco had one of Hennessey’s cases transferred to his court for a four o’clock hearing, figuring that Hennessey would run to him because he had introduced Hennessey to Hayes. The judge invited Hennessey to dinner, and they were eating in Bocci’s, an Italian restaurant, at the same time a man named Sal Benedetto was beating Elizabeth Carasco to death in the Carasco home.

“As you know from the Lattimore case, Joseph Lattimore was tricked into believing that he had killed the defendant’s father, Carlos Ortega, in a no-holds-barred fight hosted by Bash. Benedetto phoned the judge at dinner to tell him that his wife was dead and phoned a man named Andre Rostov, who forced Mr. Lattimore to break into Carasco’s house just as the judge and Hennessey drove onto Carasco’s street. Mr. Lattimore was arrested for killing Mrs. Carasco and Carlos Ortega.

“The evidence will show that the authorities notified Carlos Ortega’s wife that Carlos was dead. Mr. Ortega’s mother told her son what had happened. Soon after, a video of the fight showing Mr. Lattimore fighting with Carlos was aired on the internet.

“The defendant came to Portland using the alias Brent Macklin. He claimed to be a writer working on a story about illegal, no-holds-barred fights. The evidence will show that he was really trying to find out who was behind the fight that ended in his father’s death so he could exact revenge.

“On the Thursday evening Judge Carasco was murdered, Mr. Bash held another illegal fight in the same location, where the defendant’s father was killed. We learned about the fight, and a raid was authorized. Judge Carasco was at the fight. We don’t know how the defendant found out about the fight or its location, but photographs taken from a drone used to assist the raiding party show the judge fleeing the scene around eleven on Thursday evening and the defendant following him.

“A security guard entered the Grandview complex to begin his rounds around midnight on Thursday. He saw a car driving slowly through the parking lot. When he drove over to confront the driver, the car sped away. The guard wrote down the license plate number, and the vehicle turned out to be a rental car registered to Brent Macklin, the defendant’s alias. The medical examiner will testify that the defendant was in the complex during the time span the medical examiner determined that Judge Carasco was murdered.

“We discovered that the defendant was staying at a hotel near the airport. When we questioned the defendant, he denied ever being at the Grandview apartments. Then he struck me and tried to escape.”

“That is our case, Your Honor,” Vanessa said. “We can establish a revenge motive and show that the defendant was at the Grandview apartments during the time period when the victim was killed.”

“Do you have any questions of the witness, Ms. Lockwood?” the judge asked.

“I do. Is Bert Solomon the security guard who told you he saw Mr. Ortega’s rental car driving through the Grandview lot?”

“Yes.”

“Did he know if the car had just come into the lot, was leaving the lot, or was simply driving around looking for something?”

“He just said he saw the car driving around the lot.”

“Didn’t Mr. Solomon tell you that he checked the door on apartment 5 after Mr. Ortega drove away and found the door closed?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t he also tell you that he looked at the door a day or so later, shortly before discovering the judge’s body, and found that it was not completely shut?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that indicate that someone entered, left, or did both after Mr. Ortega drove out of the Grandview complex?”

Dillon hesitated. “That could be one interpretation.”

“Isn’t it possible that Mr. Ortega drove into the Grandview complex looking for Judge Carasco and was spooked by Mr. Solomon before he figured out what apartment the judge was in?”

“That’s possible.”

“The medical examiner’s estimate of the time of death spans several hours, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it also possible that another person entered apartment 5 after Mr. Solomon completed his rounds, killed the judge, and left the door ajar?”

“Yes.”

“And this could have happened at any time between the time Mr. Ortega drove away, the time Mr. Solomon found the door to apartment 5 closed, and the time Mr. Solomon found the door to apartment 5 ajar, as long as it was within the time span when the murder occurred?”

“Yes, but Mr. Ortega might have returned.”

“You can’t prove that, can you?”

“No, it’s just a possibility.”

“Isn’t it really groundless speculation?”

“It’s a possibility,” Dillon insisted.

“Detective, isn’t it true that no trace evidence belonging to my client, such as fingerprints, DNA, hairs, and the like, was found inside the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“But prints belonging to a man named Andre Rostov were found in the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Rostov ran out the back of the barn and drove away at the same time Judge Carasco ran out, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And they both drove away in the same direction?”

“Yes.”

“I conducted a citizen’s arrest of Mr. Rostov at his house on the evening of the fight, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you conduct an experiment to see if Mr. Rostov could have driven from the barn to apartment 5, then to his house?”

“Yes.”

“You