Running from the Law - Softcover

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Lisa Scottoline is a #1 bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty-two novels. She also co-authors a bestselling non-fiction humor series with her daughter, Francesca Serritella. There are more than thirty million copies of Lisa's books in print in more than thirty-five countries. She lives in Pennsylvania with an array of disobedient but adorable pets.

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Whether it's poker or trial law, wisecracking Rita Morrone plays to win, especially when she takes on the defense of the Honorable Fiske Hamilton, a prominent federal judge accused of sexual harassment. And it's no coincidence that the judge is her live-in lover's father. Then the action turns deadly, and Rita finds herself at the center of a murder case. She probes deep into the murder, uncovering a secret life and suspects in shocking places. When the killer viciously ups the ante, Rita decides to end this lethal game. She lays it all on the line for the highest stakes ever—her life.

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Excerpt

Any good poker player will tell you the secret to a winning bluff is believingit yourself. I know this, so by the time I cross-examined the last witness, Ibelieved. I was in deep, albeit fraudulent, mourning. Now all I had to do wasconvince the jury.

    "Would you examine this document for me, sir?" I said, my voice hoarse withfake grief. I did the bereavement shuffle to the witness stand and handed anexhibit to Frankie Costello, a lump of a plant manager with a pencil-thinmustache.

    "You want I should read it?" Costello asked.

    No, I want you should make a paper airplane. "Yes, read it, please."

    Costello bent over the document, and I snuck a glance at the jury through myimaginary black veil. A few returned my gaze with mounting sympathy. The trialhad been postponed last week because of the death of counsel's mother, but thejury wasn't told which lawyer's mother had died. It was defense counsel's motherwho'd just passed on, not mine, but don't split hairs, okay? You hand me an ace,I'm gonna use it.

    "I'm done," Costello said, after the first page.

    "Please examine the attachments, sir."

    "Attachments?" he asked, cranky as a student on the vocational track.

    "Yes, sir." I leaned heavily on the burled edge of the witness stand andlooked down with a mournful sigh. I was wearing black all over: black suit,black pumps, black hair pulled back with a black grosgrain ribbon. My eyes wereraccoony, too, but from weeks of lost sleep over this trial, which had beenslipping through my manicured fingers until somebody choked on her last chickenbone.

    "Give me a minute," Costello said, tracing a graph with a stubby finger.

    "Take all the time you need, sir."

    He labored over the chart as the courtroom fell silent. The only sound wasthe death rattle of an ancient air conditioner that proved no match for aPhiladelphia summer. It strained to cool the large Victorian courtroom, one ofthe most ornate in City Hall. The courtroom was surrounded by rose marblewainscotting and its high ceiling was painted robin's-egg blue with gold crownmolding. A mahogany rail contained the jury, and I stole another glance at them.The old woman and the pregnant mother in the front row were with me all the way.But I couldn't read the grim-faced engineer who'd been peering at me allmorning. Was he sympathetic or suspicious?

    "I'm done," Costello said, and thrust the exhibit at me in a Speedy Gonzalesfit of pique. We don't need no steenking badges.

    "Thank you," I said, meaning it. It was a mistake not to keep the exhibit.You'll see why. "Mr. Costello, have you had an adequate opportunity to readJoint Exhibit 121?"

    "Yeh."

    "This isn't the first time you've seen these documents, is it, sir?" My voiceechoed in the empty courtroom. There were no spectators in the pews, not eventhe homeless. The Free Library was cooler, and this trial was boring even meuntil today.

    "Nah," Costello said. "I seen it before."

    "You prepared the memorandum yourself, didn't you?"

    "Yeh." Costello shifted in the direction of his lawyer, George W. VandivoortIV, the stiff-necked fellow at the defense table. Vandivoort wore a pin-stripedsuit, horn-rimmed glasses, and a bright-eyed expression. He manifested none ofthe grief of a man who had buried his own mother only days ago, which was finewith me. I had rehearsed enough grief for both of us.

    "Mr. Costello, did you send Exhibit 121 to Bob Brown, director of operationsat Northfolk Paper, with a copy to Mr. Saltzman?"

    Costello paused, at a loss without the memo in front of him. Who can rememberwhat they just read? Nobody. Who would ask for the memo back? Everybody exceptan Italian male. "I think so," he said slowly.

    "And you sent Mr. Rizzo a blind copy, isn't that correct, sir?"

    He tried to remember. "Yeh."

    "Just so I'm clear on this, a blind copy is when you send a memo or letter tosomeone, but the memo doesn't show that you did, isn't that right?" A point withno legal significance, but juries hate blind copies.

    "Yeh. It's standard procedure to Mr. Rizzo, Mr. Dell'Orefice, and Mr.Facelli."

    Even better, it sounded like the Mafia. I glanced at one of the black jurors,who was frowning deeply. He lived in Southeast Philly on the ragged fringe ofthe Italian neighborhood, and had undoubtedly taken his share of abuse. Hisfrown meant I had collected six jurors so far. But what about the engineer? Itried to look sadder.

    Suddenly an authoritative cough issued from the direction of the judge'spaneled dais. "Ms. Morrone, I don't appreciate what you're doing," snapped theHonorable Gordon H. Kroungold, a sharp Democrat who was elevated to the benchfrom an estates practice, where nobody would ever dream of exploiting someone'sdeath. At least not in open court. "I don't appreciate what you're doing atall."

    "I'm proceeding as quickly as I can, Your Honor," I said, looking innocentlyup at the dais. It towered above my head, having been built in a time when wethought judges belonged on pedestals.

    "That's not what I meant, Ms. Morrone." Judge Kroungold smoothed down atriangle of frizzy hair with an open hand. He wetted his hair down with waterevery morning, but after the second witness it would reattain its loft. "It'syour demeanor I'm having a problem with, counsel."

    Stay calm. Your mother's not even cold, poor baby. "I'm afraid I don'tunderstand, Your Honor."

    Judge Kroungold's dark eyes glowered. "Approach the bench, Ms. Morrone. You,too, Mr. Vandivoort."

    "Of course, Your Honor," Vandivoort said, jumping up and hustling over. Hismother's death had put such a spring into his step that he almost beat me to thedais. An inheritance, no doubt.

    "Ms. Morrone, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Judge Kroungoldasked, stretching down over his desk. "Is this some kind of stunt?"

    Gulp. "I beg your pardon?"

    "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."

    "Your Honor?"

    "Please." Judge Kroungold looked around for his court reporter and waved himover irritably. "Wesley, I want this on the record."

    The court reporter, an older black man with oddly grayish skin, picked up thestenography machine by its steel tripod and huddled with us at the front of thedais. A sidebar conversation is out of the jury's hearing, but not the appellatecourt's. The word disbarment flitted across my mind, but I shooed itaway.

    "Ms. Morrone," Judge Kroungold said, "please tell me, on the record, that I'mnot seeing what I think I'm seeing."

    "I don't understand what you mean, Your Honor. What is it you're seeing?"

    "No, Ms. Morrone. No, no, no. Nuh-uh. You tell me exactly what you're doing."Judge Kroungold leaned so far over that I...