The Deep Blue Alibi

'Finish your homework?'

'Bor-ing.'

'C'mon, Bobby. You have to do your math homework.'

'I'll bet you don't know the only even prime number.'

'Don't mess with me. I'm tired of your teacher calling.'

'Two.' Bobby opened the grill lid. If the ciabatta burned, even a tiny scorch, he wouldn't eat the sandwich. 'What's the largest number divisible by all numbers less than its square root?'

'I see summer school in your future.'

'Twenty-four.'

'And where are your shoes?' The skinny kid wore a Shaquille O'Neal Miami Heat jersey that hung to his knees. Maybe he had shorts on underneath, maybe not. 'Remember the rule? No going barefoot in the kitchen.'

'Dumb rule. My feet don't have boogers.'

'Lots of rules are dumb, but you still have to follow them.'

'You don't.' Bobby used a spatula to take his grilled cheese out of the grill. 'What's the largest prime number?'

'A hundred bazillion. Are you listening to me? I'm worried about your schoolwork.' Steve thought he sounded like his own father, except Herbert never checked a report card in his life.

'It's over six million digits long, so it doesn't really have a name. But I can show you on the computer.'

'And all this time I thought you only looked at Paris Hilton's anatomy.'

'You know what we're studying in school? Algebra for dummies.'

'Do your homework first, then come up with a new theory of relativity.'

Bobby grabbed a Jupina pineapple soda from the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table. 'Can I help on Gramps' case?'

'Sure.' Steve grabbed a slice of cheese-cheddar with jalapenos, great with tequila. 'What do you think Reginald Jones meant when he said your grandfather decided to do something about all the crime?'

'Maybe Gramps was like Bruce Wayne. At night he became Batman.'

'More like Bacardi Man.'

'I know what you think. You think Gramps cheated.'

'It has occurred to me. That's why I need to read the old transcripts.'

'I already did, Uncle Steve.'

'When?'

'This week. Instead of going to school, I took the bus downtown to the courthouse.'

'Aw, jeez. You're a truant, too? We're gonna catch hell.'

'I read Mr. Luber's murder trials. Seventeen convictions, no losses. Nothing was amiss.'

' 'Nothing was amiss'? Who talks like that?'

'Rumpole of the Bailey. On PBS.'

'Okay, so Pinky Luber tried seventeen murder cases and won them all. That's how he made his bones.'

'He asked for the death penalty in eleven trials, and the jury recommended death every time.'

'Helluva batting average.'

'Gramps went along with the jury. Eleven death sentences. Six life sentences.'

'Maximum Herb. I need to look at the appeals.'

'No reversals. Not even one.'

Amazing. Bobby had all the numbers. If only he were as thorough with his homework. 'So whatever your grandfather was doing, the Third District and the Florida Supreme Court never figured it out.'

'You said that Mr. Luber was a good lawyer before he got all twisted. Maybe he just got hot.'

Steve poured two fingers of the Chinaco Blanco and grabbed another slice of cheese. A well-balanced dinner. Protein from the cheese. And tequila came from the agave plant, so that counts as a vegetable, right? 'Nobody wins seventeen straight capital cases. Twelve jurors in each one. That's. .'

'Two hundred and four.'

'Two hundred and four jurors you have to convince without one dissent. Can't be done.'

'Maybe if you figured in the losing streak, it all averages out.'

'What losing streak?'

Bobby took a bite of his sandwich, a string of melted cheese sticking to his lip. 'In Mr. Luber's last five trials before the winning streak started, he lost three and had one hung jury. He only got one conviction.'

'Holy shit.' The newspapers never talked about the losses. It was always, Luber's Super Bowl streak. Seventeen wins, no losses. So how'd he turn it around?

'Maybe we're looking at the wrong cases, kiddo. We need the ones Pinky lost. See what he did differently. See what that paper shuffler Reggie Jones did. And most of all, see what your grandfather did.'

Thirty-eight

COUNTING FACES

'Do you watch Leno or Letterman?' Richard Waddle asked.

That old one? Leno fans favor the prosecution, Letterman the defense.

The State Attorney needed to update his repertoire along with his wardrobe, Victoria thought, as they started day two of jury selection.

'I don't stay up that late,' said Angela Pacheco, temporarily ensconced in slot seven of the jury box. She was a married woman in her early forties who sold time-share condos from an office in Islamorada. 'I never miss Desperate Housewives, though.'

Victoria processed the information. Did Ms. Pacheco identify with Bree, the uptight Republican housewife, a sure prosecution juror, or Gabrielle, the cheating, conniving-and therefore defense-oriented- hausfrau?

But Waddle must not have watched the show, because he moved on. 'Does your car have any bumper stickers, Ms. Pacheco?'

Bumper stickers. Straight out of the prosecutor's cliche bag.

A prosecution juror boasts: 'My child is an honor student at Dolphin Elementary.' The defense juror: 'My kid can beat up your honor student.'

'Only one,' Mrs. Pacheco said.

'And what's it say, ma'am?'

' 'If It's Called Tourist Season, Why Can't We Shoot Them?' '

Ooh, good. A defense juror, even if she's only joking. In fact, anyone with a sense of humor is a likely candidate for the defense.

'This is a homicide trial,' Waddle said. 'The charge is second degree murder. If convicted, the defendant faces life in prison.'

'This is a homicide trial,' Pinky Luber said. 'The charge is first degree murder, and the state seeks the death penalty. So I have to ask all of you a very tough question. If we prove beyond every reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of a vicious premeditated murder, with malice aforethought, can you render a verdict that may result in his execution?'

The words in the transcripts were beginning to blur. Steve had been sequestered in a corner of the musty records room of the courthouse for two days. He'd skimmed thousands of pages of transcripts. The words had melted together like the cheese in Bobby's panini. Nothing in the cold, black type to indicate anything different in Luber's losing trials from the winning ones. Nothing remarkable in Herbert Solomon's rulings. The judge seemed evenhanded on objections, and his jury instructions were right out of the book. As for Reggie Jones, the transcripts seldom mentioned him at all, except when he responded to questions concerning an item of evidence.

Just like Bobby said, 'Nothing was amiss.'

There was one oddity in the records, but it didn't seem to have any relevance. One of the defendants was