Kiss of Evil Read Online Free

both the de rigeur Louis Vuitton leather briefcase and the vainglorious bearing of a young criminal defense attorney.
    “Counselor,” Paris replies curtly.
    Although Paris knows many of the defense attorneys in Cleveland fairly well, he had never heard of Jeremiah Cross, Esq., before the Sarah Lynn Weiss trial a year and a half or so earlier, nor had anyone else in the prosecutor’s office for that matter. Sarah Weiss was a former fashion model who stood accused of shooting a cop named Michael Ryan to death.
    Paris had been at the Hard Rock Café, within a block of the Renaissance Hotel, when the call of shots fired on the twelfth floor came in. Within minutes, the hotel was sealed, and within minutes of that Sarah Weiss had been found alone in the ladies’ room on the mezzanine level, a bloodied bag of money—just under ten thousand in small bills—at her feet, although technically in the next stall.
    Other things were detected, too. Michael Ryan’s brains, for instance. They were discovered on the brocade curtains in room 1206. The investigation also found a small pile of ashes in the bathroom sink, ashes that were thought to be, although never proven to be, the remnants of an official city document. There were also fibers from a burned twenty-dollar bill. The murder weapon, Mike Ryan’s Glock, had been found, wiped clean, beneath the hotel bed.
    The homicide was Paris’s case and he had pushed hard for first-degree murder, even for the death penalty, but he knew it would never fly, knew it was rooted more in emotion and anger than anything resembling clear thinking. The idea didn’t even make it out of the prosecutor’s office. No one could put Sarah Weiss in the room at the time of the shooting, or even on the twelfth floor.
    Sarah had scrubbed her hands and forearms with soap and hot water in the ladies’ room, so there was no trace evidence of gunpowder to be found, no blowback of blood or tissue from the force of the point-blank impact. Not enough to stand up to a savvy defense expert witness, that is.
    The defense painted Michael Ryan as a rogue cop, a man with no shortage of violent acquaintances who may have wanted him dead. Michael was not officially on duty at the time of his killing. Plus, he had been under investigation by Internal Affairs for alleged strong-arm extortion—none of which was ever proven.
    The jury deliberated for three days.
    Without testifying, without ever saying a single word, Sarah Lynn Weiss was acquitted.
    Paris hits the button for six; Jeremiah Cross, the lobby. The doors take their sweet time closing. Paris extracts the USA Today from under his arm and very deliberately opens it, halves it, and begins reading, hoping that the word counselor would be the breadth and depth of this conversation.
    No such luck.
    “I’m assuming you’ve heard the news, detective?” asks Cross.
    Paris looks up. “Trying to read the news.”
    “Oh, you won’t find it in there. Not the news I’m talking about. The news I’m talking about doesn’t make national headlines. In fact, it’s already ancient history as far as the real world is concerned.”
    Paris locks eyes with Cross, recalling the last time he had seen the man. It was just after the trial. It was also just after a snoutful of Jim Beam and soda at Wilbert’s Bar. The two men had to be separated. Paris replies: “Is this the part where I feign interest?”
    “Sarah Weiss is dead.”
    Although the information is not really shocking—the oldest, truest axiom regarding the swords by which we live and die applying here—Paris is taken slightly aback. “Is that a fact?”
    “Very much so.”
    Paris remains silent for a moment. “Funny thing, that karma business.”
    “It seems she got dressed to the nines one night, drove to a remote spot in Russell Township, doused the inside of the car with gasoline, chugged a fifth of whiskey, and lit a match.”
    Paris is more than a little stunned at the visual. In addition to being a