Prime Witness

319 Pages·1994·1.11 MB·English

by  Steve Martini

THE NOVELS OF
STEVE MARTINI
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.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“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.”
—The 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
PRIME WITNESS
STEVE MARTINI

JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK
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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
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PRIME WITNESS

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
G. P. Putnam’s Sons hardcover edition / July 1993
Jove mass-market edition / February 1994
Copyright © 1993 by SPM, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-101-55026-7
ISBN: 978-1-101-55026-7

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To the mothers, Rita and Betty, for their interest, care
and love
Prologue
They are the birds of darkness and noiseless flight, fierce and savage. On the
dead fly the great horned owl can pick the eye from your head in the pitch black
of a moonless night. On more than one occasion they are known to have attacked
man.
It will take only three more nights to finish the job for which he’s been paid
nearly a year’s salary. Though the risks are high, it is the easiest money he’s ever
made.
As in the previous four nights he parks his car in the trees a half mile down
the road. He takes Harvey from his cage, loosens the leather traces and removes
the hood from the bird’s massive beaked head. He holds his arm straight, gloved
fist elevated a bit, and sweeps it forward, the signal for the bird to take to the air.
In a fluid motion a broad canopy of feathers opens overhead and the massive
bird lifts skyward. It is a vision of flight, an analogy of animation perfect in its
silence. He watches as Harvey disappears into the shadows of the trees and the
half-moon-lit sky above.
Named for the six-foot fictional rabbit in a vintage Jimmy Stewart movie,
Harvey is sheer stealth, six pounds of streaking death on the wing.
He listens, and after a few seconds, hears the telltale ruffle of folded wings,
the only sound of flight Harvey ever makes. It is the sign that the bird has
landed, ninety feet above, in the massive madrone on the makeshift perch. This
place, high in the trees, will give the bird a better angle of attack.
He locks the car and checks to ensure that it is far enough off the main road so
as not to be seen by some passing pain-in-the-ass motorist, or worse a county
sheriff on patrol. But it is nearly a mile to the county highway, and nobody ever
comes down the old abandoned gravel road, at least at night. He picked this
place from an old plat map of the property gotten from the county recorder’s
office. It was best not to ask the owner for too much help. The less he knew the
better, for both of them.
He makes his way through the brush, across the shallow creek, to the base of
the tree and begins his own ascent. This is made easier by the climbing gear
erected on his first night, rappelling ropes and a harness called a leg-strap saddle.
He sets the pin in the foot-cam that is fastened to his shoe and starts his climb.
Moving effortlessly through the branches of the blood-red madrone, ten feet
up, twenty, the rope coils on the ground beneath him like some interminable
serpent. For this he avoided the taller pines and stouter oaks, and picked the
madrone. It has smooth bark, and no sap to foul the ropes.