State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller by R. Barri Flowers

different
style? When she could not smell him? Feel him? Taste him?
    She came to a picture that caused Maxine to
freeze. The thin, but well-defined facial structure and crooked
grin stared back at her, surrounded by short black hair. The eyes,
dark and foreboding, ogled her as if to say, You recognize me,
don’t you, bitch?
    O’Dell sensed that Maxine had found someone
she recognized. “Is that him ?”
    Her voice was barely audible when she said,
“Yes, I think so.”
    O’Dell wondered if this was the break they
were looking for. “Take a good look at him,” he urged, recognizing
the temptation to pick out someone who bore even the slightest
resemblance to her attacker. “We need to be sure.”
    Though all the men in the mug shots were
assholes of the lowest order as far as he was concerned, they
didn’t want to try and make a case against the wrong man. Not if it
meant the real bastard would still be free to kill and rape
again.
    Maxine forced herself to remember the attack
and all its horror. She saw his face, as if it were close enough to
touch. Just as he made her do.
    His eyes. His hair. His nose. His mouth. His
ethnicity. His terrifying presence.
    The more she thought about it, the more
Maxine was certain it was him in the mug shot.
    It had to be.
    “That’s the one,” she uttered, trembling.
    O’Dell lifted the book from her shaky hands.
He recognized the dickhead. He had been convicted of murder and was
released within the last month.
    “You did a good job,” O’Dell said, impressed,
all things considered. For some reason, he hadn’t been overly
confident she would be able to pick out someone. Perhaps it was too
soon. Or she had been too traumatized to clearly see the person who
had done this to her. “We’ll get him,” he told her confidently.
    They would go through this again, only with
the bastard in a lineup. That way, they would give the D.A.’s
office a bona fide suspect who wouldn’t be easily dismissed. And a
case that they wouldn’t be afraid to prosecute.
    He had seen it all too many times. Cases
thrown out or rejected because of witness uncertainty or
inconsistencies about the suspect. Which then translated into a
prosecutor’s lack of enthusiasm and reluctance, leading to
criminals walking rather than doing hard time.
    O’Dell was determined to not let that happen
in this case, for the wife’s sake and Judge Crawford’s memory. The
suspect, once in custody, would not be seeing the light of day
again any time soon. Not if he could help it.
    What judge in his or her right mind would
give this asshole bail? None, given the gravity of the offenses,
including the execution-style slaying of a sitting criminal court
judge.
    But first they had to get the one responsible
for it.
    Before he hurt someone else.
     

CHAPTER NINE
     
    “How’s your science class coming along?”
Beverly asked her son during the drive to school. Or in other
words, was he doing any better in the only class that seemed to
give him the most trouble besides math.
    “Okay,” he drawled unconvincingly, his Eagles
Landing baseball cap tilted onto his brow, seemingly obscuring his
vision.
    Beverly didn’t want to baby or embarrass him.
But she wanted to make sure his grades did not slip to the point of
failure. “If you need my help, just tell me,” she said gingerly.
“That’s what mothers are for.” And fathers, too, assuming they were
they still in the picture and responsible enough to care.
    “I don’t need your help,” Jaime insisted.
“I’m figuring it out myself.”
    Beverly hoped that was the case. “I’m glad to
hear that, Jaime, really.” She glanced in his direction. He turned
to look out the window.
    She didn’t press the issue for now, realizing
that he really was trying hard. The A on his math test demonstrated
that.
    Beverly recognized that her son had reached
an age where he was becoming more and more independent and at times
distant. It scared her in some ways that he would someday