Free King Con by Stephen J. Cannell

business because he also had connections with Joseph Rina. If that’s not relevant, then I’m reading the wrong law books.”
    “You can’t inject unsubstantiated allegations into voir dire,” Gerry said. “It’s all innuendo, Vicky. This manran a florist shop. He has no criminal record. Period. … Can we move on, Your Honor?”
    “Victoria, I’m going to seat this juror as your second alternate and attach jeopardy. You have seventy-two hours to prepare your case-in-chief. Day after tomorrow, you will either begin opening arguments or I will have to dismiss. Sleep well, touch gloves, and may the best lawyer win,” Judge Goldstone grinned.
    Yuck yuck, yuck,
thought Victoria Hart as Murray Goldstone got up from his leather-backed chair and moved out of the ornate courtroom, black robes billowing. It was only ten A.M. The day was starting off disastrously, but before noon, it got much worse.
    The Trenton Haz-Mat team had been called in to probe the elevator shaft. They finally dredged up three sludge-covered bodies, which were rushed to the Coroner’s office.
    Victoria Hart got the call just before lunch and, fearing the worst, trudged across the mini-mall to the Coroner’s office, which was in the basement of the Police Lab. She walked down the concrete stairs, her footsteps unsteady, her hand on the metal banister. Her high heels echoed in a tiled corridor crammed with last night’s drug and traffic mistakes. It was a depressing parking lot full of metal gurneys and stalled karmas. She went past the reefer room where the bodies were frozen after the M.E. had opened them up and emptied them of their insides, turning them into cadaverous kayaks. She gagged as she passed the decomp room, where decomposing bodies lay under plastic sheets, waiting for autopsies. She found the Coroner’s Assistant, Herman Myer. Herman “the German” was six-five and weighed over three hundred pounds.
    “I’m here to make a preliminary I.D. on the three bodies you just pulled out of the shaft at Trenton Towers,” she said dully.
    “Took us a while to get ‘em cleaned up. They’re a little graphic. …”
    “I promise, Herman, I’ll try not to vomit on your nice, clean autopsy room,” she said morosely.
    He nodded and took her into a large forensic operating theater where all three bodies were on separate steel-tray autopsy tables. She reluctantly looked down. … Bobby Manning’s chest cavity had a hole in it the size of a cantaloupe. Pieces of his rib cage poked through, still glistening black from the oily goop that had filled the bottom of the shaft and hidden the bodies for three days.
    “That’s Bobby Manning,” she said sadly. “He liked Nestlé’s Crunch. I couldn’t find the fucking Nestlé’s Crunch at the mini-market. They were out.” Her voice was shaking.
    Herman reached out and put a hand on her arm. She pulled free and went to Tony Corollo. Tony’s body was almost unrecognizable. She knew it was him but she couldn’t make a positive, legal I.D. There wasn’t enough left. His face was gone. She put a hand up to her mouth and fought back a sob. “It’s … he’s the right size, but I can’t tell for sure. You’ll have to print him,” she said, taking her eyes off the gruesome, faceless mess.
    “Already did. Weil get all the prints back in an hour or two. You don’t have to do this, Victoria.”
    She nodded and moved to the table and saw her friend Carol Sesnick. She looked smaller here on the metal table than she had in life. It was as if the wonderful spirit that filled her had somehow made her bigger. She had been shot in the head and the left side of her face was missing. She had bloated badly … but it was her. Victoria reached out and touched the poodle curls, still wet and slimy from the oil. “I’m sorry, girlfriend,” she finally managed.
    *  *  *  *
    Her phone rang at ten o’clock the following night. The voice on the other end of the line was educated, Eastern, and