“So, how’d it go?” said Theo.

“How did it look?” said Jack.

“Like the los quinces party from hell,” said Theo.

Sofia chuckled, recalling her own special fifteenth-birthday bash, which had been completely overdone in the grandest of Cuban traditions.

Jack wasn’t laughing. He was focused on the emergency vehicles at the end of the otherwise quiet residential street. Two yellow fire trucks were blocking traffic. A tangle of rock-hard fire hoses were strewn across the wet pavement. Firefighters stood at the ready around the taped-off perimeter, and a menacing plume of black smoke billowed upward from the south side of the street. A team of four was aiming a fully activated hose and dousing an automobile with a powerful stream of water. Jack nearly gasped. The emergency was directly in front of his house.

“Shit!” said Theo. “That’s your Mustang, Jack!”

Theo slammed on the brakes. The three of them jumped out of the sedan and ran to the edge of the street. Some onlookers had already gathered on the sidewalk. Jack pushed his way past them, but a police officer stopped him cold.

“That’s my car!” said Jack.

The cop shrugged. “You mean was your car. Nothing you can do for it now, pal. Just stay back.”

Jack couldn’t move. He’d bought that old car with his first few paychecks out of law school. It was the only thing he’d gotten in his divorce from Cindy. It was the one thing in his lonely life that could pull him out of the office and force him, literally, to take the scenic route.

And now it was a flaming hot shell of charred metal.

He glanced at Theo, and he’d never seen such sadness in his friend’s eyes. He was the only person on the planet who had loved that Mustang even more than Jack.

Jack stared in disbelief, saying nothing. Then he noticed something in the driveway alongside the car. He was watching from across the street, so he couldn’t make it out at first. But after cutting the glare with his sunglasses he could plainly see that someone had spray-painted a message in red letters on the asphalt, presumably before they’d torched the vehicle. It took Jack a moment to read the upside-down letters, and then finally it clicked.

CASTRO LOVER was all it said.

Theo looked at him and said, “Son of a gun, the fun has begun.”

The flames began to falter. The firefighters had the blaze under control, and they were just a few hundred gallons of water away from turning a spectacular bonfire into worthless remains.

“Yeah,” said Jack. “Sure looks that way.”

30

The United States of America calls Alejandro Pintado.”

With those ominous words from U.S. attorney Hector Torres, the case against Lindsey Hart was officially in high gear.

It had taken three days to select a jury. With over fifty percent of the county’s population foreign-born, everything about Miami was a mix, and juries were no different. Not even Sigmund Freud could have divined the psychological interplay of race, culture, language, and politics. As a defense lawyer, you didn’t try to be everything to everybody. You simply created enough reasonable doubt so that there was something for somebody to cling to, which was exactly the way Jack had played it during jury selection and his opening statement.

Now, it was show time.

“Mr. Pintado, please approach,” said the judge.

A sea of heads turned as the victim’s father made his way toward the witness box. The trial was in the central courtroom, which was filled to capacity. The Mediterranean-style surroundings were impressive, with stone arches, frescoed ceilings, and plenty of high-polished mahogany. Only the center courtroom had a public seating area large enough to accommodate the overwhelming media interest. Despite the murmuring crowd of spectators, Jack could hear his client sigh in the seat beside him. She’d seemed dazed since the bailiff called the case at nine A.M. sharp. Jack understood. Nothing was more unsettling than to hear the words “The United States of America versus” followed by your own name.

Jack gave her hand a little squeeze. It was ice cold.

“I do,” said Pintado, promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“Please be seated,” the judge said.

Pintado settled into the witness stand, which was situated opposite the jury. Judge Garcia was perched between the witness and the jury, a commanding figure in his own right, very judicial and even scholarly in his appearance and demeanor. Pintado was one of those rare witnesses who seemed to command even greater deference. Jack could see the respect and admiration in the eyes of several jurors.

“Good morning,” the prosecutor said as he approached the witness. “First, let me express my condolences to you and Mrs. Pintado for the loss of your son.”

“Thank you.” The jury followed his gaze toward his wife in the first row of public seating. She was an attractive woman, smartly dressed, but her face spoke of many sleepless nights of grieving.

Predictably enough, the testimony began with the witness’s impressive background-his childhood in Cuba, his harrowing raft trip to Miami, his first job as a dishwasher, and his rise to fame as owner of a successful chain of Cuban restaurants. The prosecutor then steered him toward more pertinent matters.

“Mr. Pintado, would you please tell us about your son?”

He seemed to sigh at the size of the question. Pintado did not come across as the kind of man who was easily shaken, but his voice quaked just a bit as he answered. “Oscar was the kind of son every parent wants. He was a good boy, a good student in school. At Columbus High he was president of his senior class and played quarterback on the football team. We wanted him to go to college, but we were all very proud of him when he joined the Marines.”

“Did he eventually go to college?”

“Yes. Right away, the Marine Corps recognized him as officer material. They steered him right, and he got his bachelor of science degree from the University of Miami. With honors, I might add. Then he went back in the corps on the junior officer track.”

“It sounds like you loved your son very much.”

“His mother and I both did. All our children, we love more than anything in the world.”

“How long was Oscar stationed at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba?”

“He made captain when he was transferred there. I’d say approximately four years ago.”

“And he lived with his wife and son on the base, correct?

“That’s correct.”

“Can you tell us, sir, what kind of a father Oscar was?”

“He was absolutely terrific. His son is ten years old now. He lives with his grandmother and me. Brian is always asking about his father.”

“Does he ask about his mother?”

Pintado speared his first glance in Lindsey’s direction, but he didn’t make direct eye contact. “Almost never.”

The dagger wasn’t even directed at him, yet Jack felt it. Lindsey leaned toward him and whispered, “That’s so not true. See how he lies?”

The prosecutor asked, “What kind of a husband was Oscar?”

“He was a good husband. I have to say that he loved his wife very much.”

“Based upon your own personal observations, would you say that she loved him?”

His lower lip protruded, the chin wrinkled. “No.”

“Why do you say that?”

“From the very beginning, I felt that Lindsey was more interested in the Pintado family money than in Oscar.”

Jack knew where this was headed, and he probably could have objected, but there was little to be gained by playing to the jury as an obstructionist lawyer who wouldn’t even let a grieving father talk about his son.

The prosecutor said, “Did anything specific happen in the recent past to shape your views that Lindsey was after the family money?”

“Oscar had a trust fund. The money kicked in three years ago, on his thirty-fifth birthday.”