Burners by Perez Henry & Konrath J.A

Author:Perez, Henry & Konrath, J.A. [Konrath, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

I hadn’t slept well the night before, and when I got my first look at Jack Daniels seated in the courtroom on the second day, I knew I wasn’t the only one.

I’d spent the evening resisting the urge to log on and start digging through every bit of material about the case I could find for fear that my records could be searched at a later date. I drank my shot of rum after I got off the phone with Jim, poured myself another, and eventually fell asleep on my couch. I was five minutes late to court, but no one seemed to notice or care.

The courtroom smelled a little less fresh than the day before. At least someone had managed to turn on the air conditioning, though nowhere near high enough.

Bob, the world’s most enthusiastic juror seated next to me in the jury box, was much more into the morning than I could ever hope to be.

“This is a little like being at a boxing match, isn’t it?” The guy was genuinely excited about being here. Something must’ve gone very wrong during his childhood.

“Sure, Bob, one with lots of talking, very little action, and no blood.”

Bob furrowed his brow, then turned away. I had a feeling he’d keep to himself the rest of the day, and maybe even for the rest of the trial, though that was probably too much to hope for.

Marcia, the woman I’d met in the waiting room who wound up being the last juror chosen, turned to face me.

“My friends are so curious about all of this.” She was wearing a beige business suit that blended too well with her light features, a flowery but subtle fragrance, and looked as though she’d been professionally made up for hours. “Though, of course, I didn’t discuss any of the particulars with them,” she added, clearly intent on amending her first remark and wanting to make certain we all heard her.

I had always assumed jurors sat in silence after they were brought into the courtroom, and judging from the scowl on the face of the tall, bald man to our right, that might’ve usually been the case. He’d been glaring at Marcia as she was talking. I found myself staring at his ears, or his left ear, to be exact, though I assumed there was a matching one on the other side to balance the weight. It was as though someone had attached a sandal to the side of the guy’s head, and the way the outer ridge curved around I could easily imagine a trio of Cooper Minis racing in there—at least until they got stuck in the hair.

Its hypnotic effect was finally broken when Lipscomb got up from behind the prosecutor’s table and called the next witness. His name was Joel Luzinsky, a former marine who owned a high end cigar store called Smoke Em’ If You Have Em’, that was located directly across the street from the crime scene.

Luzinsky looked like one of those men who were athletic and tightly built in their youth, but not anymore.

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