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Summary

To the African-American community in San Antonio, Malachi Reese is a saint, a community leader, a man who feeds the hungry and houses the homeless. To San Antonio District Attorney Chris Sinclair, Reese is the Angel of Death: a vicious killer possessed by the need for power and willing to do whatever it takes to gain it. Determined to see justice done, Sinclair overcomes incredible odds to see Reese convicted of murder and sentenced to Death Row.But Malachi Reese has not been defeated. From Death Row, he threatens to destroy Sinclair, to take him to the very top and cast him back down. As a series of seemingly unrelated crimes begins, Sinclair feels the power of Reese descending upon him, and finds that enemies are allies and allies are enemies, and that truth and justice are much more shades of gray than an issue of Black and White.

Author Biography

Jay Brandon is the author of twelve critically acclaimed novels, including the Edgar Award-nominated Fade the Heat. As an attorney, Brandon has practiced at the highest criminal court in Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals. He continues to practice family and criminal law. Brandon lives in San Antonio with his wife and three children.

Angel of Death

Chapter 1

If the months of the year were put on parade in San Antonio, Texas, and a popular vote taken, April would undoubtedly emerge as the hands-down favorite. April brings both the sweetest weather and the biggest parties of the year. But this April felt more like June in the steadiness of its heat, and on this particular April morning an unusual tension augmented the heat. Strangers in the normally friendly city were less likely to greet one another on the street. Instead there were wary, sidelong glances, and strollers downtown walked to their cars a little faster.

At the center of this uneasiness stood the Bexar County Justice Center, the criminal courthouse on the edge of downtown. There the tension went undisguised. Protestors in front of the building carried signs. Occasionally one shouted angrily. The protestors were dwarfed by the imposing five-story stone building, but employees in the building felt their presence. Guards at the entrance of the Justice Center watched the protestors with hands resting on gun butts.

Inside the building the tension hung in the air like an odor. It emanated from a third-floor courtroom. The courtroom couldn't accommodate everyone who had wanted to watch the trial in progress. Some of the people who had been turned away milled in the hallway, waiting with the television cameramen and sometimesstanding on tiptoes to try to get a glimpse through the glass doors of the court.

Inside the courtroom, spectators sat packed shoulder to shoulder. The judge and the armed bailiffs had shushed the crowd more than once, and no one spoke, they strained to hear the witnesses and the lawyers. But the mere breathing of so many people created a low background noise in the courtroom.

At the front of the courtroom the District Attorney of Bexar County, Chris Sinclair, shook his head and said, "No more questions, your Honor." Seconds later the judge's gavel banged down, declaring a long lunch recess.

Chris spoke briefly to his assistant, then stood and turned toward the courtroom's exit. He reached the gate in the railing just as the defendant did. For a moment the two men looked at each other. An alert newspaper photographer brought up his camera and snapped a photo of the two that would soon become famous.

The picture was brilliant in its contrasts: Chris Sinclair the fresh, steady District Attorney who looked too young to have been a trial lawyer for almost fifteen years. He had been elected District Attorney only six months earlier. A newspaper columnist had dubbed the Christian Sinclair campaign "Blond Ambition," and had gone on to say, "His name looks as good on the ballot as his face does on billboards." Chris had come out of nowhere as far as the public was concerned when he had announced his candidacy, but he had surprised himself by being a good campaigner, thoughtful and confidence-inspiring. But first, as many lawyers in San Antonio would ruefully acknowledge, he was a damned good trial lawyer. He had proven that again in one trial since his election, but this current trial was very different. The prosecution of Malachi Reese was being argued throughout the city Events in the courtroom cast much larger shadows across the city. Major consequences waited to pounce on the outcome of the trial.

The defendant stood close to the District Attorney at the gatein the railing: older, African-American, looking confidently but curiously into his persecutor's eyes. And clearly many saw Malachi Reese as the persecuted, as a black man being unjustly attacked by a white establishment for which Christian Sinclair served as the perfect poster boy.

After that one frozen moment Malachi Reese smiled cordially and held the gate open. Chris went through it and made his way through the crowd. Reese followed more slowly, stopping to receive the encouragement of his supporters and to talk to the many reporters.

Malachi Reese had not come out of nowhere to be the center of attention at his own trial. For the average citizen of San Antonio Reese fulfilled the definition of local celebrity: he was well-known for being well-known. People recognized him as having been a part of the fabric of public life for some years, without being able to pin down why or since when. Though active in community groups and responsible for several successful political campaigns, Reese had never run for office himself. Mostly he moved in the background of committees and conferences, but when he did step forward he drew attention. When he served as a spokesman he exhibited the authority and confidence of a leader. People nodded along as he spoke. Even in confrontation, he retained his composure. In the battlefields of emotion, no one wielded logic more forcefully than Malachi Reese.

Reese had brought those same skills to his trial for capital murder. Nearing fifty years old, handsome and well-groomed, he looked distinguished in his dark gray suit. The suit's subtle pattern seemed to compliment his dark brown skin. Old photos showed Reese sporting an Afro of impressive depth, but those days were gone. His black hair was of a medium cut now, more curly than kinky, and going sagely gray around his ears. His small, trim beard made him look Christ-like. An invisible spotlight always seemed to be picking him out of the crowd.

Out in the hallway, Reese stopped to give a group interview to the cluster of reporters. Wearing an expression of sad bafflement,Reese looked like a strong man caught in a Kafkaesque puzzle: confronting lies so outrageous he could barely respond. Malachi Reese's face was his vocation. Even while listening his face communicated. His expression slid from concentration to concern to observation. One never doubted that Reese really heard the speaker. He had thoughtful answers to every question, until the questions ceased and his voice flowed on, a river of gold. People listening to that voice not only found it impossible to believe that Reese had committed a brutal double murder, they found it impossible even to hold the accusation in their minds. Ludicrous, they thought.

One reporter trailed Chris Sinclair down the hall to ask the question Chris had been asked repeatedly in the last few weeks. The reporter phrased it formally: "Do you really believe Malachi Reese murdered city employee Victor Fuentes as well as a witness at the scene? Do you really think you can convince a jury of that?"

Chris paused and looked back down the Justice Center hallway, half expecting the reporter to add, because no one else does. Chris, too, felt the tug of Reese's voice. But he turned to the reporter and said, "Yes and yes. Just wait until you hear this afternoon's testimony."

His voice sounded more certain than Chris felt. His case against Malachi Reese was so solid that he had had no choice but to prosecute; everyone on his staff agreed with that. Soon after Chris's election, as if waiting to pounce on the winner, very believable witnesses had brought him evidence that Reese's respectable public life was a facade. The false front covered a subterranean life of grim depth and reach. Chris had discovered that Reese had been more deeply involved in public life than anyone knew, but in a secret, ruthless way. He hadn't been a background figure at all. Reese had been the pivot on which large stage sets of corruption and fear turned.

But sitting close to Reese every day, watching that marvel of a face convey innocence and bafflement, even the District Attorney entertained doubts about his own case.

Chris Sinclair was losing the image war. And until he called his final and most crucial witness, the trial's outcome remained in heavy doubt as well.

During this recess the trial spectators had flowed out into the hall as well. It was easy to tell which were Malachi Reese's supporters. They were the ones who glared at the District Attorney. The people of all ethnic groups who came to trial every day to support Reese were serious people, many of them well-dressed, most softspoken. Chris had to work his way through the edge of a crowd of them as he proceeded down the hallway. A few made angry eye contact, but they didn't impede Chris's progress.

Outside the Justice Center were demonstrators of a different kind.

The security guard at the outside door said, "I think it would be better if you exit through the sheriff's office entrance and let us bring a car into the bay for you, sir."

Chris followed the guard's gaze to the sidewalks and small parking lot in front of the Justice Center. Twenty or thirty people milled around, watching the Justice Center. A few carried signs, which they shook energetically at the two TV-news vans parked on the asphalt. The two signs Chris could see said "Free Malachi" and "Racist Persecution."

Most of the protestors were black, but not all. They'd been standing in the parking lot now for days, and for two or three hours this morning, waiting. Most looked dispirited. As a group they gave off an air of menace, but when Chris looked at individual protestors he didn't sense danger. People who took the time to make signs weren't too threatening.

"It'll be okay," he said to the security guard, and walked out the doors. He walked briskly but not hurriedly--his habitual pace--toward the street. Sunshine lit his face and blond hair.

"There!" someone yelled, and two or three other voices lifted.Slowly the crowd converged on Chris, but he'd been right, they weren't physically threatening. Only one man breached the invisible barrier around the District Attorney. A tall black man with a scarred cheek stepped into Chris's path so they almost bumped. The man was around forty, and bore the marks of a hard life. His eyes burned.

"You hate us all so much?" he asked fiercely.

Chris stopped. He stared back. "I don't hate you. Or anyone else here. But I prosecute criminals, yes. Instead of standing out here working yourselves up, why don't you come in and watch the trial? Especially my last witness. Then make up your mind."

They held each other's eyes in a moment that threatened to last forever, until Chris finally said, "All right?" and walked on. No one stopped him.

The April sunlight felt aimed. After the confined mustiness of the courtroom, and the air-conditioned sterility of his car, the sun's rays seemed to seek Chris out. He closed his eyes and tilted his face upward. He was momentarily warmed, then heated as the sunlight clamped onto his dark, navy blue suit.

The judge in Malachi Reese's capital murder trial, Judge Phil Pressman, never one to miss a photo opportunity, had recessed the trial long enough to attend, and incidentally, allow the District Attorney to attend, a civic event of a peculiarly carnival-like righteousness: the razing of a crack house, part of the city's effort to rehabilitate crime-plagued neighborhoods. This residential east side block shrank from the attendant hoopla. The poor neighborhood should have been middle class. When the houses had been built in the fifties they had been pretty two- and three-bedroom wooden cottages, some of them more substantial brick. If the yards had been watered and a little paint applied the street could have been pleasant again. But the spirit of upkeep had been squashed. The discouraged atmosphere of the neighborhoodemanated from this hollowed-out shell of a house where men met to buy drugs, fire off occasional gunfire, or take a woman for a six-minute financial exchange. No one would argue that bulldozing the house might not be a worthy project, but the atmosphere put Chris off. The little yellow house needed paint worse than its neighbors did, but otherwise it was like any other house on the block. But this morning the house looked like a surprised jaywalking suspect suddenly surrounded by the SWAT team. The crowd on the front lawn of the house consisted of curious spectators, the mayor of San Antonio, the chief of police, other civic leaders, and news crews. Speeches had to precede the demolition. A good deed was only half done if credit for it went ungrasped.

When Chris had arrived in the mostly black neighborhood, a police officer had approached him quickly and said, "I don't know if you want to be here, sir."

Chris had his doubts too, but only because of the self-glorification of the occasion, not the neighborhood. The stares he received from the small crowd felt more curious than hostile. Rather than take part in the ceremonies the District Attorney stood apart, off to the side, on the cracked sidewalk with a view of an unscreened side window of the marked house. Spray-painted gang graffiti covered the wall, an important verb missing where the housepaint underneath had cracked and fallen away in a large patch. A bitter voice suddenly interrupted the D.A.'s thoughts. "I grew up in that house."

A black woman stood beside him, very young but with a fat-bellied toddler playing around her feet and a baby in her arms. Chris turned toward her apologetically, expecting to see her looking at the house with regretful nostalgia. But her face showed barely suppressed rage. Her eyes glistened. The house stood as a monument to something she wanted desperately to forget.

"Can I throw the first match?" she said.

Chris wanted to put his arm around her. He settled for a handon her shoulder. She didn't seem to feel it. She continued to stare at the house, her thin face a blend of extreme youth and ancient hurt.

Without glancing at the District Attorney she said, "You're the one trying to kill Mr. Reese, aren't you?"

Chris decided not to argue with her characterization of his job. "Yes."

The young woman shook her head. "Won't help," she said.

Chris found this an interesting response. He wanted to turn his back on the house-bashing ceremonies and listen to her. She seemed the voice of the city embodied. But the woman didn't much want to talk. She walked away, following the little boy as he explored a path that led around the side of the house. Seeing someone beckoning him to take the microphone on the front porch, Chris pretended not to see, and followed the little family. When they turned the corner they were out of sight of the festivities in front of the house.

Yellow police tape strung from sawhorses isolated the house, but the little boy casually walked right under the tape and then spurted ahead, around the back corner and out of sight. "Benjy!" the young mother shouted, shifting the baby awkwardly.

"I'll go," Chris said. He stepped over the tape as easily as Benjy had gone under it, and darted around the corner. He saw the little boy running toward the back stoop, a sagging slab of concrete that had come detached from the house. Chris put on speed, but the boy had almost reached the stoop. Chris called his name, which made the boy run faster and stumble, falling toward the concrete.

A figure in blue appeared from the other corner of the house and caught the boy. Benjy screamed and struggled. He reached for Chris, who suddenly became his friend when the boy was confronted by an even less familiar figure. Chris took him from the uniformed policeman.

The officer had disguised his extreme youth by pulling hisuniform hat down low on his brow. Appearing to recognize the District Attorney, he accounted for himself. "Just about to make a last check before the demolition, sir."

A voice called softly. Chris set Benjy down and watched him run to his mother. When Chris straightened up the young cop was still close in front of him. "Did you hear something, sir?"

They both stepped up onto the tiny porch, which gave the illusion of listing further with their weight. They stood at the rectangular hole from which the back door was missing. There was definitely a sound, but whether it came from inside the house or only carried through from the crowd in front was impossible to say. Chris started to step in, but the young cop stopped him.

"Can't go into a situation like this without backup." He sounded as if he were quoting. He looked the District Attorney over quickly, as if assessing him for the backup role, then said, "Could you just step down from the porch, sir, while I go get another officer?"

Chris complied. The young officer walked away, but stopped to usher the young woman and her children toward the front. She answered back and the officer accompanied her, walking slowly to keep Benjy in sight.

When they were gone Chris stepped back to the house's doorway. He heard the sound again, a human disturbance of the air. It could have been a moan.

Chris looked into the dim interior and couldn't see anything. If the police officer hadn't been there, Benjy could have gone in this doorway. Another child might have gone in, or a befuddled homeless man. Chris stepped through the doorway.

Inside the house felt like another dimension. The sunlight disappeared without a trace, and the tiny sound of boards shifting was louder than the crowd noise from outside. Even when his eyes adjusted to the gloom Chris felt divorced from the outer world. Many of the house's interior walls had been knocked down. Standing in the kitchen, he could see most of the thousandor so square feet of the house's interior. There were a couch and an armchair in what had been the living room, a kitchen table and two chairs stood closer at hand, but mostly the house was furnished with clutter, disintegrating cardboard boxes and stacks of newspaper. The electricity had been shut off long ago, stilling the hum of modern life. Chris could have been inside a cave instead of a onetime home.

The house was so dim inside Chris couldn't see what he was putting his foot on. It felt like linoleum, with a yielding undersurface that spoke of termites or fire. He stepped cautiously, calling "Hello?"

A dull boom broke the silence and the whole house shuddered. On the front porch the chief of police had just swung a sledgehammer, bashing a symbolic dent in the house's front wall. A bulldozer cleared its throat.

Chris decided to go back and wait for the police. But then he heard a moan and knew for certain he wasn't alone inside the house.

The sound had been of pain. No longer thinking of danger, Chris walked toward the dilapidated old couch in the living area. As he drew closer he saw a figure lying on the couch. In the gloom it looked like a statue carved out of wood. But then the man's hand lifted and he coughed.

With a shock Chris recognized the old man's face. He rushed to him and supported the head the man was trying to lift.

"Mr. Rodriguez," Chris said. "How did you--? My God, what--?"

He knew the old man from hours spent interviewing him. Chris had expected to be calling him as a witness an hour from now.

The old couch was missing most of its cushions. Springs poked out through its threadbare fabric. It exhaled dust at the slightest movement, so the old man would have had trouble breathing just from lying there. Chris got under him and held the old man up. He felt almost weightless. His cough turned into a mumble, butwhen he opened his mouth blood gushed onto his shirt. Mr. Rodriguez's hands had been strong. He had been a carpenter, an artisan. But when he tried to grab Chris his hands skittered on the D.A.'s shirt as if they'd been the hands of the toddler Chris had been holding a few minutes before. Chris stared. Mr. Rodriguez grew very still.

"Hold on," Chris said loudly. "There're people just outside. Hang on, Mr. Rodriguez, they'll have an ambulance here in five minutes."

But he didn't leave the old man. Mr. Rodriguez's lips were moving, and Chris bent close. "Tell me," he whispered.

Dust motes danced. Veins stood out on the backs of the old man's deep brown hands. His hair was thin and white. One eye was cloudy Chris fought for control of his emotions as he leaned his ear close to Mr. Rodriguez's lips. He held the tendoned hand tightly.

A minute later the front door crashed inward. When police entered they found the District Attorney in tears holding a body, the dead man's blood staining them both.

Chris Sinclair hadn't realized. He'd been told that Malachi Reese had no conscience or qualms--it was what Chris was trying to make the jury believe--but he hadn't believed it himself, not in the visceral way he should have. Now too late he understood: Malachi Reese would win this trial no matter what he had to do.

Chris moved in his own world of shock and disbelief. At the scene, while he still wore Adolfo Rodriguez's blood, a cop asked, "Shall we call the court, sir? I'm sure they'll grant a delay so--" then stopped as he realized neither his touch nor his voice was penetrating the District Attorney's consciousness.

An hour later Chris entered the courtroom wearing a fresh shirt. By then everyone had heard the story of what he had found inside the crack house. Onlookers gave him shocked and curiousstares, but the prosecutor didn't notice. He had eyes only for his defendant.

Malachi Reese sat at the defense table with his two lawyers. The judge's bench and the jury box were still empty, so the three figures stood out at the front of the courtroom. From the other table, Chris's assistant, Melissa Fleming, turned to look at him. But Chris saw only Malachi Reese. Reese should have felt the weight of that stare, but it wasn't until Chris passed through the gate in the railing, making the gate creak slightly, that Reese turned.

When Reese looked up he seemed startled. He spoke in a soft voice, but it carried to the many spectators already assembled in the courtroom. "What's wrong?" he said. "What's happened to you?"

His voice conveyed selfless concern. Chris heard a different undertone nonetheless. Nothing gave Reese away, but Chris stared at him as if he saw someone utterly different from the person everyone else in the courtroom watched.

"All rise," said the bailiff, and Judge Pressman hastily settled himself behind the bench. Pressman was a skillful enough politician to have gotten himself elected twice to this criminal district court bench. He needed to be a judge because as a lawyer he'd been useless in a courtroom. He had a long, narrow face, darting eyes, and an unfortunately sudden way of moving his arms and shoulders that tended to draw attention to him even on those rare occasions when he wasn't seeking it. As now, when he stared at the District Attorney with sincere helpfulness. "Mr. Sinclair, do you have a request before we reconvene?"

They were the first spoken words Chris had understood since he'd been delicately escorted out of the crack house. Coming to himself in the courtroom, he realized he didn't know how he'd gotten here, but his gaze moved from the judge back to the defendant and his face changed.

"No, thank you, your Honor," he said distinctly. "The State calls Lou Briones."

Judge Pressman looked sharply at the District Attorney, but then turned to his bailiff with a shrug. The bailiff opened a back door of the courtroom to admit the jurors, who filed quickly into their seats in the jury box. The jurors were not sequestered during this first phase of trial, they'd been allowed to go their separate ways during the long lunch recess. If two or three of them had heard a passing news report of the murder victim in the crack house, they would have no idea how that news related to this trial. But the jurors could sense that something had changed. The District Attorney appeared to have lost touch with the world. He didn't even notice his assistant who touched him lightly and asked a soft question as the D.A. took his seat beside her. He didn't even look at his own witness coming up the aisle of the courtroom.

But the District Attorney's distraction lent heightened anticipation to this witness. The jurors and spectators watched him intently, and there was more than one audible gasp. Everyone knew the name Lou Briones, but they wondered if they were mistaken. Briones was a former city councilman, but much better known as his own TV pitchman for his chain of appliance stores. He was a big, hearty man, with a good laugh and meaty hands that could make a refrigerator dance when he slapped a hand on one to demonstrate its solidness.

But this figure shuffling to his place at the witness stand was the shocking ghost of Lou Briones. Gaunt and pale, his hand trembled slightly as he took the oath. Lou Briones looked half departed from this world.

Chris's assistant Melissa quietly asked whether she should take the witness, but Chris shook his head and said in a clear voice, "Would you please identify yourself?"

The witness raised his head, which made the loose flesh of his neck quiver. He turned toward the jury, knowing they knew him. "My name is Lou Briones."

"Do you know the defendant, Mr. Briones?"

Briones looked at Reese across the narrow space of the frontof the courtroom. His gaze offered no greeting, hardly even recognition. His voice went flat. "Malachi, yes. I know him professionally, politically. Personally, too. I guess I know him as well as anybody."

"What about Victor Fuentes?" Chris asked.

"Yes. He was an assistant city manager."

The important word was "was." Victor Fuentes had been the primary victim of the capital murder for which Malachi Reese was being prosecuted.

"What was he like, Mr. Briones?"

"Victor?" Briones sounded surprised to be asked. His voice turned reminiscent. "He was young. That was the main thing about Victor, he had no history If you'd been off city council for two terms he didn't know you. He was twenty--what? five? six? Had a good degree from someplace, you know. He was ambitious, anybody could see that. It made you think he could be worked with. I think now, though, his ambition ran a different direction."

"Why was Victor Fuentes killed?" Chris asked.

"Because he'd discovered a little corner of Malachi Reese's business. Malachi--"

"Objection!" The slender defense lawyer in his crisp suit made an impressive arrow when he shot to his feet. Initially, for his defense, Malachi Reese had hired Leo Pedraza, who happened to be the District Attorney Chris Sinclair had replaced. But for trial they'd brought in a smooth young trial stud named Jackson Scott who in fact reminded some observers of Chris in his younger days. Leo Pedraza now sat second chair. "This testimony is obviously based on hearsay, your Honor," Scott said.

Judge Pressman turned inquiringly toward the District Attorney. The judge preferred if possible to be helped out rather than rule on an objection. "My next question will answer that," Chris said. Judge Pressman waved him gratefully on.

"May I have a ruling on my objection?" the young defense lawyer said. The formality hiding the contempt in his voice hadgrown thinner as the trial had progressed. His opinion of the judge was now an audible wedge in everything he said.

"After the next question," the judge said reasonably.

The lawyers sat. Chris asked, "Mr. Briones, how do you know that Victor Fuentes was murdered because he'd learned something about Malachi Reese's business?"

"Because it was my business too," Briones said.

Overruled, Judge Pressman mouthed silently at the defense lawyer, who sulked.

Briones continued. "We were on a team bidding for a city contract. I was part of the group, Malachi was--he was hired as a consultant to the team. It was a big contract, maybe fifty million dollars, to build an expansion to the waste treatment plant. We--"

"Why were you on the team, Mr. Briones? What expertise do you have in waste treatment?"

"I know which way shit runs, son." A few spectators laughed, but that wasn't Lou Briones' object. He was grim. He had hunkered his shoulders high and inward, as if gathering his strength. He wheezed between his sentences. His ears, big and pendulous, hung like burdens on his head. Briones was only sixty, but he looked older, because the flesh on his face sagged. Skin looked superfluous on him, like an old suit he'd pulled out of the back of the closet.

"Here's the way a contract bid works--"

"Objection, your Honor," Jackson Scott said dispiritedly. "Relevance?"

Lou Briones, the former city councilman, not used to being interrupted, turned toward the judge irritatedly. He was obviously about to say, Can't you shut this kid up?

"It goes to motive, your Honor," Chris helped out.

"Overruled, overruled. Let's get on with it."

"The way a contract bid works," Briones repeated, glaring at the defense lawyer, "is you put together the best team you can--"

"To get the job done?" Chris asked innocently.

"To get the contract," Briones said acidly. "Job'll get done,everybody knows that. Question is, who's gonna make the money off it? So we had a good team. Me, of course; then a good architecture firm, good contacts. Couple of construction companies that had made significant contributions."

Chris didn't want to play into the act anymore, but he had to ask the clarifying questions. "Political contributions?"

"Yeah, campaign contributions, to city council members. And we had Malachi, of course."

"What was the defendant supposed to bring to the team?" Chris asked, turning to look at him. Reese appeared bemused, as if listening to an elementary civics lesson that had nothing to do with him.

"Who knew exactly?" Briones answered, not coyly. "Sort of the back-room influence. He was owed more favors than anybody in this town. Certainly if you had Malachi on your team you were supposed to be guaranteed the east side councilman's vote. Probably west side, too. And just--grease the process."

"What did this have to do with Victor Fuentes?" Chris asked. He knew the questions, he had rehearsed this testimony. His voice continued, strong and properly inflected, while his mind still dwelt on what he'd seen inside the crack house. He turned wondering eyes on Malachi Reese. Reese never looked back, never even glanced in Chris's direction.

Briones said slowly, "The process has gotten--trickier--"

Less obviously corrupt, Chris translated silently.

"Used to be you had the team you had the contract, no problem. Nowadays it helps a lot if you can get the city staff recommendation too. That meant getting Victor Fuentes on your side. He was in charge of evaluating the bids. I talked to him, kind of--made sure he knew the facts of life. He was--he was almost rude to me." Briones gazed across the room, his voice still sounding shocked. "He not only made fun of our bid offer, he said he was looking into some other stuff, old business. He said he wanted to know where we got off bidding on constructionprojects anyway. He was looking particularly into a contract that had been awarded when I'd been on the council, that I'd voted for."

"Was Mr. Reese involved in that bid also?"

"Oh yes. And let's just say, we didn't want that one looked into."

Chris had no intention of inquiring into other crimes, not yet. He could feel the defense lawyer getting edgy beside him, ready to spring to his feet. "So what did you do?"

"I talked to Malachi. That's what he was there for. We talked over what we might do and finally Malachi said he'd have a word with Victor Fuentes."

Briones leaned heavily on the last phrase and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The air was pleasant in the courtroom, but sweat stains were growing under the armpits of Lou Briones' seersucker suit. His breathing was heavier.

"What did that mean to you?" Chris asked quietly.

"May we approach the bench?" Jackson Scott asked, already doing so, buttoning his black suit coat, stiff and straight as righteous indignation. Chris followed him. At the bench the defense lawyer said quietly but forcefully, "I believe this is going to call for testimony implying extraneous offenses. I strongly object to any such testimony, your Honor. It would render this trial completely unfair and reversible." He said the last word sharply, to get Judge Pressman's attention. He succeeded. The judge turned to the prosecutor with obvious concern. "Mr. Sinclair, you're not going to--"

"Your Honor, I will keep the testimony as discreet as possible, but I must establish a pattern to put this witness's testimony in context. Otherwise it will sound like idle speculation."

The judge vaguely understood the word "context" as having a legal meaning. He thought he'd heard it before. "All right," he said authoritatively. "I'll give you some leeway--" He knew he'd heard that word in a legal discussion. He had: it had been on a TV series. "--but not much," he added quickly, to placate theglowering defense lawyer. In that he was unsuccessful. Scott shifted the glare to Chris as they walked back to their places.

Briones had taken the opportunity to rest, staring at the floor. His chest moved as he breathed.

"What did that phrase mean to you, Mr. Briones?"

"It was what Malachi said. It was always the end of a discussion. It meant he'd take care of the problem."

"How?"

"However it took. Whatever had to be done, he'd do it. Whatever it took. I told him--well, I tried to say that we didn't need to do anything drastic, but Malachi looked at me like I was speaking Hungarian. When I read that Victor Fuentes was dead, I knew who had killed him. I remembered Malachi had planned a meeting with him, and I remembered what he'd said. There are some important people in this town, let me tell you, who went cold when Malachi Reese said he was going to have a word with somebody."

Dimly aware of a growing buzz around him, not trying to interpret it, Chris asked, "So other people, elected officials, knew about Mr. Reese's activities?"

"Some knew a little, the way I did, from personal experience. But nobody knew any details. They just knew that things happened. I couldn't believe you found an eyewitness to this one."

"Objection," the defense lawyer snapped. "Hearsay."

"Sustained," Judge Pressman said, and instructed the jury to disregard the witness's statement, knowing how ineffective that instruction would be.

During the interruption Chris looked past the defense lawyer at Malachi Reese. The defendant still wouldn't look at Chris. He stared at the witness Lou Briones, Reese shaking his head slowly, like an innocent man unwilling to sit quietly and listen to lies. But the D.A. was sure Reese knew Chris was watching him. Mention of the eyewitness put a gleam in Reese's eye, but only Chris could see it.

Chris asked a question that put the defense on the alert, becauseit sounded like cross-examination. "So you don't really know for a fact, Mr. Briones, that Mr. Reese did anything to Victor Fuentes? You're just guessing."

"I know," Briones said thickly. "You had to have known Malachi for a long time, the way I did, know how he got where he was. Malachi wasn't just Johnny-on-the-spot, he was ahead of everybody While everybody else was just talking, you'd discover that Malachi had already done what some powerful person wanted done--before he was even asked. He would make happen what they most secretly wanted to have happen. So afterward you feel both guilty and afraid, like it sprang out of your own head."

Chris watched Reese, this monster from the id. Reese continued to look sad and perplexed, but Chris thought he saw a flash of pride at hearing himself described.

"If people knew what he had done in some of these cases, Mr. Briones, why didn't they go to the police?"

"Because they weren't sure who'd be arrested. Say you went to the police and say 'I know who killed X.' 'How do you know?"' they say, and you say, 'Because he did it for me.' And the cops'd go, 'That's right, X was your political rival, wasn't he?' Or business competitor, or whatever. Something bad had happened to the one person you hated and feared the most, and you expected the cops to believe someone else did it, someone who had no motive for it at all?" Briones shook his head. "I don't know anybody who was willing to take that chance."

Emotionlessly, Chris asked, "Do you expect this jury to believe that Mr. Reese murdered so many people?"

"No. Not murder, not very often. But bad things would happen to problem people. A reporter digging too deep, some little official who needed to step aside but wouldn't take a hint, somebody like that. Maybe heroin would be found in the reporter's car. Maybe somebody would break into a house and not take anything. People got the message. There was a cop we really needed to have off the force, but nobody wanted him spouting accusations on his way out. Then one Monday morning hemailed in his resignation and nobody ever saw him again. Nobody knew exactly what happened, they just knew when Malachi said he'd have a word with somebody, the problem went away."

Briones stared across the courtroom at the defendant. He looked tired again. "And then, you know, he'd spend the weekend cleaning up a neighborhood and planting flowers. He brought people out into the sunshine who'd been afraid to leave their houses for years. He did some good things for this town, I don't deny that. But he's the most contradictory man I've ever known. Most people, you know exactly how they'll react before you even say anything to them. But Malachi--sometimes I thought he must be two people."

The defendant remained the master of his face. He looked just the way he should have: distraught, puzzled, painfully innocent, his mouth clenched. In his interviews he hadn't blamed anyone for his predicament. He'd let the writers speculate about his enemies. Reese had only appeared to be trying to figure out why people would have made up such a bizarre fantasy about him. Briones' testimony might not even be that damaging: the more outrageously sinister he painted Malachi Reese, the greater grew the possibility that this was part of a sinister conspiracy against Reese.

"I pass the witness," the District Attorney said, which appeared to take people in the courtroom by surprise. It seemed too soon. He had piqued their curiosity. They wanted to hear more of the shadowy world of Malachi Reese. Two or three jurors looked at Chris wondering if he had lost his energy or the thread of his questioning.

But Jackson Scott was ready. Sitting forward even straighter, he said, "Mr. Briones, you've described a pattern of criminal behavior through which you profited, did you not?"

"Yes. Sometimes."

"You and others, public officials, you benefitted in a variety of ways from this great morass of deception and evildoing?"

"Yes. Not on purpose, but--"

Scott would not be interrupted. "But how did Mr. Reeseprofit? You say yourself he had no motive. Isn't it fanciful to attribute these misdeeds to Malachi Reese?"

"He did it," Briones insisted.

Speaking as if to a backward child, the defense lawyer said, "To what end, Mr. Briones? People don't do things without a reason, do they? You profited, other people profited, you held onto your public positions. But how could Mr. Reese, who has never shown any political ambition, have benefitted from all this?"

"To what end?" Briones asked with faint mockery. "Power, of course. People owed Malachi, and they were afraid of him besides. He pulled the strings of the people who pulled the strings. That's power, sonny, not being mayor or county commissioner. If you don't understand wanting to control other people, I can't explain it to you." Now out of the game himself, Briones still sounded contemptuous of those who didn't feel that hunger to dominate. "People did what he wanted," he concluded with a cough.

Jackson Scott settled down, as if putting his back into a tug-of-war in which he was certain he could pull the old fool before him right out of the witness box. In an insincere, pleasant tone of voice he said, "You spoke of Mr. Reese's good deeds. Cleaning up neighborhoods and so forth. That was only the smallest part of what Mr. Reese has done, isn't it, Mr. Briones?"

Briones shrugged. "I said he's done some good things."

"But that was an understatement, wasn't it? He has cleaned up neighborhoods in the greater sense, hasn't he? Do you remember his organizing the gang summit that declared safe zones, that lowered the murder rate significantly two years ago?"

"Yes I do. And did you wonder how Malachi could arrange that when nobody else had been able to?"

"Perhaps because he's so widely admired in so many quarters," Scott suggested, and didn't wait for an answer. "He is also responsible for launching an investigation into just the kind of corrupt bidding practice you've described, wasn't he? Involving a school district contract he had no part of, where he didn't stand to profit in any way"

"That's true," Briones said. "And you know the benefit of blowing up a scandal like that? Don't look at the guy who got caught. He's dead, he's out of it. Look at the guy next to him, with the surprised look on his face. He sees what can happen to him the next time if he steps out of line."

Chris Sinclair paid minimal attention to the exchanges, trusting his witness to hold his own with the defense lawyer. Chris thought about what was going to happen next. He didn't know. The points he scored with Lou Briones' testimony were meaningless. Malachi Reese had already won this duel, outside the courtroom. He'd turned the court proceeding into a child's game.

Unperturbed, Jackson Scott said, "You have an answer for everything, don't you, Mr. Briones? You make every public good Malachi Reese has done into a private evil. But only you know, right? Only Lou Briones comes forward with the truth. But you are the one with the motive to lie, aren't you, Mr. Briones? You've been implicated, so you try to shift the blame as spectacularly as possible."

"I've admitted my part," Briones said wearily.

"But you're not being tried for your part, are you? In fact through your testimony you're escaping punishment. What sort of deal do you have with the District Attorney's Office?"

"None. I haven't made a deal."

Scott's voice sharpened. "Look around, Mr. Briones, and tell me if you think everyone you see is an idiot. The jurors, the judge. You expect us all to believe that, after a lifetime of covering up these crimes, you've come forward now just because you've had an attack of conscience?"

"No," Briones said, causing the defense lawyer to smirk triumphantly. "It's because I'm dying."

Even in Chris Sinclair's despair, he closed his eyes in a brief moment of victory. Thank you, Jackson, for asking the right question. Chris would have brought out Lou Briones' condition himself on redirect questioning, but it was more effective this way The defense lawyer sat slack-jawed.

"I've got cancer of the everything," Briones continued. "When I heard about Victor Fuentes, and about the woman who got killed, too, I couldn't forget it. It kept eating at me. Two months after I heard is when I was diagnosed. I think--"

Lou Briones thought he had willed his own death. He had kept the diagnosis to himself, as he had kept so much secret. But he had rediscovered the church, and his conscience. He had gone to the District Attorney almost six months after the murders to say he knew who had killed Victor Fuentes. The story Briones had told seemed fantastic, but Chris had managed to corroborate some of it. Then he'd had to rush the case to trial while he still had the former city councilman, whose cancer was very fast-acting.

Once Briones had named his disease, everyone in the courtroom could see it was true. The weight loss, the trembling, the letting go of this world. Even people who'd never seen Lou Briones before could see he was a man being scoured out from the inside.

The defense lawyer recovered quickly. Rising to his feet, he said solemnly, "Your Honor, as much sympathy as we all feel toward the witness, it is still true that his testimony--the portion that relates to the offense on trial here--is purely speculative. He was not a witness to anything. His testimony has been inadmissible, and very damaging to my client. I'll ask the court to instruct the jury to disregard it. And unless the District Attorney has proof that actually implicates Mr. Reese in the crime on trial, I'll also ask the court to direct a verdict of acquittal, which Mr. Reese richly deserves."

He was right. Even Judge Pressman could see that. Every eye in the courtroom turned toward Chris Sinclair. The one gaze Chris returned was Malachi Reese's. Reese looked like an innocent man puzzled at the District Attorney's reluctance to do the right thing. His expression was patient, waiting like everyone else for the State to call its next witness. But Reese knew better. Chris thought he saw, in the depths of the defendant's eyes, a tiny smile. Reese waited for the District Attorney to rise and acknowledge that he'd been beaten.

Suddenly Chris's perspective changed. There was a shiver through his perception and he felt strangely distant from his surroundings. He looked at the jurors and saw paper figures, rippling in the air currents. As Chris Sinclair's gaze moved he saw only these wafer-thin figures like targets in a pinball game. None of them had the least significance. The judge, the bailiff: no one was real.

Then he looked at Malachi Reese and found the exception. Reese was solid and grim and frightening.

In the next moment Chris returned to reality. He realized that for a moment he had been seeing through Reese's eyes. Life was a game to be won at any cost, and the people who got in the way were insignificant. Reese still watched him, but no longer with a trace of a smile. He stared edgily. Chris believed that Reese saw him as real. Suddenly Reese and Chris were the only two people in the world.

"Mr. Sinclair?" The judge raised his voice to get Chris's attention. Melissa had her hand on Chris's arm as well, whispering. "Do you have another witness?" the judge asked, obviously repeating himself.

Chris saw Reese's shoulders lift with a smooth breath. The defendant regained his confidence. Reese was one of two people in the courtroom who knew with complete certainty that the trial was over.

At least, the normal trial.

Suddenly animated, Chris turned to his assistant and whispered urgently. Melissa whispered back confused questions, but Chris made only one short answer and then rose to his feet. He stood there without a word. Melissa had no choice but to stand too. In a voice she tried to strengthen after she had already started her sentence, she said, "The State calls Chris Sinclair."

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Excerpts

Angel of Death

Chapter 1

Malachi Reese hadnotcome out of nowhere to be the center of attention at his own trial. For the average citizen of San Antonio Reese fulfilled the definition of local celebrity: he was well-known for being well-known. People recognized him as having been a part of the fabric of public life for some years, without being able to pin down why or since when. Though active in community groups and responsible for several successful political campaigns, Reese had never run for office himself. Mostly he moved in the background of committees and conferences, but when he did step forward he drew attention. When he served as a spokesman he exhibited the authority and confidence of a leader. People nodded along as he spoke. Even in confrontation, he retained his composure. In the battlefields of emotion, no one wielded logic more forcefully than Malachi Reese.

Out in the hallway, Reese stopped to give a group interview to the cluster of reporters. Wearing an expression of sad bafflement,Reese looked like a strong man caught in a Kafkaesque puzzle: confronting lies so outrageous he could barely respond. Malachi Reese's face was his vocation. Even while listening his face communicated. His expression slid from concentration to concern to observation. One never doubted that Reese reallyheardthe speaker. He had thoughtful answers to every question, until the questions ceased and his voice flowed on, a river of gold. People listening to that voice not only found it impossible to believe that Reese had committed a brutal double murder, they found it impossible even to hold the accusation in their minds.Ludicrous, they thought.

Chris paused and looked back down the Justice Center hallway, half expecting the reporter to add,because no one else does. Chris, too, felt the tug of Reese's voice. But he turned to the reporter and said, "Yes and yes. Just wait until you hear this afternoon's testimony."