Today on the blog I’m delighted to host an extract of Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh.
Synopsis
TWO SISTERS ON TRIAL FOR MURDER. THEY ACCUSE EACH OTHER.
WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?
‘911 what’s your emergency?’
‘My dad’s dead. My sister Sofia killed him. She’s still in the house. Please send help.’
‘My dad’s dead. My sister Alexandra killed him. She’s still in the house. Please send help.’
One of them is a liar and a killer.
But which one?
My Thoughts
JANUARY
EDDIE
For a trial lawyer, there are two words in the English language that
terrify us more than any other. These two words stared back at me
from my phone. They’d come through by text message seconds ago.
THEY’RE BACK.
The jury had been out for all of forty-eight minutes.
There’s a lot you can do in forty-eight minutes. You can have
lunch. You can change the oil in your car. You can probably even
watch an episode of a TV show.
But one thing you can’t do in forty-eight minutes is come to a
fair and balanced verdict in the most complex murder trial in the
history of New York City. That’s not possible. It was probably a
question from the jury, I thought. This isn’t the verdict.
It can’t be.
Across the street, on the corner of Lafayette, is the Corte Café.
From the outside it looks inviting. Inside, it’s coffee and breakfast
sandwiches on plastic tables and chairs. Usually three or more
lawyers cool their asses on those chairs. You can always tell the
ones who are waiting on a jury. They can’t eat. They can’t sit still.
They unnerve the place like a guy sitting there with a machete on
his lap. I used to go there when I was waiting on a verdict, but the
sight of another lawyer in jury limbo is enough to put anyone off
the coffee in the Corte Café. And the coffee is good.
So instead of chewing on the furniture, I grabbed a coffee to
go and headed out to walk the square. I don’t know how many
times I’ve walked Foley Square. My record is three days. That’s
how long a jury took to acquit one of my clients, and I damn near
burrowed a trench into the sidewalk with my heels. This time, I
had only just stepped out of the Corte Café, coffee in hand, when
I got the text.
I dumped the go cup, crossed the street, and made my way
around the corner to the Manhattan Criminal Court building. The
stars and stripes flew from a flagpole thirty feet above the entrance
doors. It was an old flag. High winds, rain and time had not been
kind. Its colors had faded, and the flag was torn almost in two.
Some sections of stars had unraveled and were lost in the winds.
Huge threads billowed outwards from the red and white stripes,
almost reaching to the paving below. There was money to replace
it. Times were hard, and only getting harder, but the flag was
usually kept pristine even if the roof was leaking. I thought they
should keep this old flag – the sun-bleached colors, rips and tears
somehow seemed appropriate in these times. I could only guess the
justices felt the same way. With children in cages at the border, the
stars and stripes had lost their luster for some. I’d never known my
country so divided.
A raven perched on the end of the flagpole. A large black bird
with a long beak and sharp claws. The first ravens to return to New
York City were spotted back in 2016. Normally found upstate ; no
one knew why they had come back. They made their nests in the
high corners of bridges and overpasses, sometimes even telephone
or electrical towers. They fed on garbage and the dead things that
curled up in the corners of alleyways all over the city.
As I passed beneath the raven it let out a sound – croaaaak –
croaaaak. I didn’t know if it was a greeting or a warning.
Whatever it was, it unsettled me.
Before I took this case I didn’t believe in evil. Up to that point
in my life I’d met and fought with men and women who did evil
things, but I put it down to purely human weaknesses – greed, lust,
rage, or desire. Some people were sick, too. In the head. You could
say they weren’t responsible for their terrible crimes.
As I was waved past security in the court building lobby, I
couldn’t stop these thoughts. They invaded my mind – poisoning
it. Each thought was another drop of blood in a cool glass of water.
It doesn’t take long before all you can see is red.
Most killers I’d come across I could make a stab at some kind
of explanation for their behavior. Something in their past or their
psychology that held the key to their reasoning and criminal
behavior. I was always able to rationalize it.
This time, there was no easy explanation. No key.
This one I couldn’t rationalize. Not really. There was something
dark at the heart of this case.
Something evil.
And I had felt its touch. It had hung over this case like the ravens
hanging over the city.
Watching.
Waiting.
Then swooping down to kill with a sharp claw and razor bill.
Dark and black, fast and deadly.
♥️
Fifty Fifty is out now in hardcover and my thanks go to Alex Layt and Orion Books for my proof copy
Hope you all have a lovely day!
Until next time!
@mrscookesbooks ♥️
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