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  THE NOVELS OF STEVE MARTINI

  Critical Mass

  “DOUBLE CROSSES GALORE and an ingenious ending.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “GUT-WRENCHING.”

  —The Bellingham Herald (WA)

  “POWERFUL . . . So realistic it scares you.”

  —The Daily Sun (GA)

  “THUNDERBALL meets The Rock.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  The List

  “ABSOLUTELY IRRESISTIBLE . . . [A] wild and wooly tale.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “INTRIGUING ANTAGONISTS: the man of action versus the woman of thought. Their dueling turns The List into a fast, and often funny, offering.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “GREAT GOOD FUN . . . the final paragraph is worth the price of admission.”

  —The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

  “THE PLOT BARRELS RIGHT ALONG, Abby is a strong and sympathetic character, and the climax is nicely twisty. Along the way, Martini gets in some sharp asides on the nature of fame.”

  —Seattle Times

  “AN EXCITING, SURPRISING ENDING . . . Martini deftly conceals the killer until the last flaming finale.”

  —Booklist

  “SWIFT PACING AND MULTIPLE PLOT TWISTS.”

  —People

  The Judge

  “RIVETING . . . a suspenseful tale, right up to the satisfying climax . . . legal thrillers don’t get much better than this.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A COMMANDING VOICE . . . the author answers just about every question you’ve ever had about the games lawyers play.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “MARTINI, a former trial attorney, is fascinating on legal strategy.”

  —People

  Undue Influence

  “THE COURTROOM NOVEL OF THE YEAR . . . virtually nonstop courtroom pyrotechnics . . . a dazzling climax.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A COMPLEX, RIVETING TALE and nitty-gritty courtroom drama.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “THE ACTION BUILDS TO A ROUSING CLIMAX through a brilliant series of trial scenes with several surprises.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “FILLED WITH SURPRISES AND TWISTS . . . supremely readable.”

  —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  “FANS OF COURTROOM DRAMA will love Martini’s protagonist . . . and this complex tale of intrigue and murder.”

  —USA Today

  Compelling Evidence

  “SUPERB . . . truly on a level with Presumed Innocent.”

  —F. Lee Bailey

  “PACKS A WALLOP.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “BY FAR THE BEST of the genre that I’ve ever seen . . . Absolutely thrilling.”

  —Clifford Irving

  “ALL THAT COURTROOM DRAMA SHOULD BE . . . seamless, suspenseful.”

  —New York Daily News

  “ENGROSSING.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “ONE OF THE BEST COURTROOM DRAMAS this reviewer has seen in years.”

  —The Sacramento Bee

  Prime Witness

  “RIVETING, YOU-ARE-THERE IMMEDIACY . . . ingenious . . . nail-biting . . . fascinating . . . first-rate . . . Prime is indeed the word for this involving read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “THE TRIAL BEGINS and Martini rolls up his sleeves to do what he does best . . . packs a satisfying punch.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  The Simeon Chamber

  “CHILLING . . . PROVOCATIVE . . . STUNNING.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A FINE FOOT-TO-THE-FLOOR THRILLER.”

  —New York Daily News

  “INTRIGUING TWISTS AND TURNS.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel

  “THRILLING . . . a winner . . . Martini demonstrates a confident and deft control of literary suspense . . . excellent, top-quality adventure.”

  —The Sacramento Bee

  Titles by Steve Martini

  DOUBLE TAP

  THE ARRAIGNMENT

  THE JURY

  THE ATTORNEY

  CRITICAL MASS

  THE LIST

  THE JUDGE

  UNDUE INFLUENCE

  PRIME WITNESS

  COMPELLING EVIDENCE

  THE SIMEON CHAMBER

  THE ATTORNEY

  * * *

  STEVE MARTINI

  JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE ATTORNEY

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons edition / January 2000

  Jove international edition / July 2000

  Jove mass-market edition / January 2001

  Copyright © 2000 by SPM, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 9781101549599

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  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  For the return of Paul Madriani, fans and this writer owe a debt of gratitude to Phyllis Grann, president of Penguin Putnam, who has been steadfast in her determination to return the man to
the courtroom. For this I owe her both my thanks and acknowledgment.

  For color and geographic authenticity, much of it gleaned in the sparkling seaside city of San Diego, thanks are due to the staff of San Diego district attorney Paul J. Pfingst. In particular I thank Greg Thompson, chief deputy district attorney, and James D. Pippin, chief of the Superior Court Division of that office.

  In addition I thank San Diego superior court judge Frank A. Brown for his kindness in allowing me a glimpse behind the scenes of the criminal courts and the San Diego Hall of Justice, as well as for his endearing sense of humor and his fishing stories.

  For color and authenticity of location at the sailing mecca that is Shelter Island, and for their encouragement in using San Diego as a new setting for these stories, I owe thanks to Jack and Peggie Dargitz and to the entire staff of the Red Sails Inn.

  For her endless patience in putting up with me, and her insights into the female psyche, I thank my wife, Leah.

  To each of these, and to others whom I may have failed to mention, I owe a debt of gratitude for their help and insight that, I hope, have allowed me to craft a story of seeming truth. For any failings that the reader may find in this regard, I am solely responsible.

  To Leah

  ONE

  * * *

  I can trace it back with precision to one of those fitful weeks in August, when the thermometer hit triple digits for the tenth day in a row. Even the humidity was high; unusual for Capital City. The air conditioner in my car had died and at six-fifteen, traffic on the Interstate was stalled behind an overturned truck-and-trailer rig filled with tomatoes on their way to the Campbell’s plant. I would be late picking up Sarah from the sitter’s.

  Even with this as background, it was an impulsive move. Ten minutes after I got home, I called a realtor I knew and asked the fateful question: How much can I get for the house? Would you come by for an appraisal? The real estate market was heating up, like the weather, so in this respect my timing was good.

  Sarah was out of school, in that awkward gap between fifth grade and middle school, and not looking forward to the switch. Her best friends—twin sisters her same age—were in the southern part of the state. I’d met their mother during a legal seminar in which we were both speakers, almost three years ago now.

  Susan McKay and her daughters lived in San Diego. Susan and I had been seeing a lot of each other, between monthly trips to San Diego and meetings at the halfway point in Morro Bay. For some reason that adults will never comprehend, the kids seemed to bond at that very first meeting. In San Diego, the weather was cool and breezy. And it held the promise of family life, something Sarah and I had been missing for nearly four years.

  We had spent two weeks visiting in early July, part of that in Ensenada, south of the border. I had become infected with the scent of salt in the air, and the facets of the sun dancing on the surface of the sea at Coronado. In the late afternoon, Susan and I sat on the beach as the girls played in the water. The Pacific appeared as some boundless, undulating crucible of quicksilver.

  After fourteen short days, Sarah and I bade farewell and piled into my car. As I looked at my daughter, I could read her mind. Why are we going back to Capital City? What is there for us?

  It took her an hour in the car to verbalize these thoughts, and when she did, I was prepared with all the cold, adult logic a father can command.

  I have a job there. I have to get back.

  But you could get another job down here.

  It takes a long time for a lawyer to build a practice. It’s not that easy.

  You started once before. You could do it again. Besides we have money now. You said so yourself.

  On this point she had me. I had made a killing in a civil case eight months earlier, a wrongful death that went to the jury. We’d hit a verdict, Harry Hinds and I, like gold bars on the pay line of a slot machine. We’d plucked the insurance company for eight million dollars. It’s what happens when a defendant circles the wagons in a bad case. A widow with two children was now financially secure, and Harry and I had been left with a tidy nest egg in fees, even after taxes.

  Still, uprooting my practice was risky.

  I understand. You’re feeling lonely, I told Sarah.

  I am lonely, she said.

  With that I looked at my daughter sitting in the passenger seat next to me, staring doe-eyed, braces and long brown hair, waiting for an answer that made sense. I didn’t have one.

  When my wife, Nikki, died, she left a hole in our lives that I have never been able to fill. As we headed back toward Capital City, the nagging question remained: What is here for us?

  The corrosive politics and blistering summer heat of Capital City held few attractions and a great many painful memories. There had been the year of Nikki’s illness that even now I could not blot out. There were places in the house where, when I turned a corner, I still saw her face. Couples who had been friends no longer had anything in common with a widower approaching middle age. And now my daughter wanted to put it all behind us.

  On a Monday morning, the last week in August, I called Harry into my office. At one time, Harry Hinds had been one of the foremost criminal lawyers in town, trying mostly front-page felonies. Fifteen years ago he lost a death case, and his client lost his life in the state’s gas chamber. Harry was never the same. By the time I opened a practice in the same building where Harry had his offices, he was defending drunk drivers and commiserating with them on bar stools after hours.

  He came on board to lend a hand with the Talia Potter murder trial, and ever since has been a fixture. Harry’s speciality is the mountains of paper produced in any trial. With a mind like a steel trap, Harry refers to his document searches as “digging through the bullshit to find the flowers.” He is the only man I know who hates losing more than I do.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was leaving Capital City, so I put it out as just opening a branch office.

  He surprised me. His only question was where.

  When I told him, his eyes lit up. It seemed Harry was game for the move himself. A new practice in a fresh place, the mellow swells of the Pacific, a few boat drinks along the way, maybe snag another big judgment in a civil case and head for the pastures of semi-retirement. In that instant Harry saw himself sipping piña coladas and surveying the swells on their yachts from the veranda of the Del Coronado. Harry has a fanciful imagination.

  We found an associate to keep things together in the Capital City office. Harry and I weren’t ready to burn our bridges. We would take turns trekking back to the home office, keeping one foot in both worlds until we could make the jump south for good.

  In these months Susan played a pivotal role as surrogate mother for Sarah. I could leave my daughter with her for a week at a time. When I called Susan’s house on those weeklong trips it was difficult to get Sarah even to come to the phone. When she did, her voice was filled with laughter and the abruptness that tells you that your call is an interruption. For the first time in five years, since Nikki died, our daughter was a carefree child. Even when Susan’s house was burglarized in the late winter, I felt secure in her ability to protect and care for my daughter.

  Susan is seven years younger than I, a dark-haired beauty, and divorced. She has the fine features and innocent looks of a child, coupled with the mind of a warrior.

  For eight years, Susan has been the director of Children’s Protective Services in San Diego, an agency that investigates allegations of child abuse and makes recommendations to the DA regarding prosecutions and to the courts regarding child custody. To call Susan’s vocation a job is like calling the Christian Crusades a hobby. She pursues it with the zeal of a true believer. Children are her life. Her training is in early-childhood development where the mantra Save the kids has become a battle cry.

  We have been seeing each other for more than
two years, though even now in San Diego, we do not live together. I moved south to be with her, but—after some discussion—we decided not to move in together. At least not yet.

  When I moved south, some unstated law of independence dictated that we maintain separate households. It seems we spend increasing amounts of time in each other’s company; that is, when I am not on the road back to Capital City.

  That particular Gordian knot will be cut as soon as Harry and I have secured a sufficient client base in the South, which is why today I am renewing an old acquaintance.

  Jonah and Mary Hale sit across the desk from me. He has aged since I saw him last. Mary looks the same, different hairdo, but in the ten years she has not changed much. That was before Ben’s death and Talia’s murder trial. Oceans of water under that bridge.

  Jonah was one of my earliest cases in private practice, soon after I left the DA’s office where I’d cut my teeth. The firm had directed him down the hall to the new man in the cubicle at the end.

  At the time, Jonah was just a working stiff, a married man in his fifties with a daughter in her late teens. He was getting ready to retire—against his will. He worked for the railroad in Capital City, the locomotive works which was in its death throes. Jonah had a chronic bad back and knees, thanks to years of toil on hard concrete lifting machine parts. So when the railroad was looking to downsize, he was an immediate candidate to go. Even now he walks with a cane, though this one is much more ornate than the plain curved-handled wooden stick I had seen him with back then.

  “The legs don’t get any better with age,” he tells me as he shifts back into his chair to find the point of relative comfort.

  “But the smile is as good as ever,” I tell him.

  “Only because I’ve found an old friend. I only hope you can help me.”

  Jonah has the good looks of an aging Hemingway, with all the wrinkles in the right places. Even with his infirmities he has not put on weight. His tanned face is framed by a shock of white hair. His beard is close cropped, his eyes deep-set and gray. He is a rugged-looking man, well dressed, with a dark sweater-vest under a cashmere sport coat, and light-colored slacks. On his wrist is a gold watch the size of an oyster, a Rolex he could never have afforded in the old days.