Syd looked around the table. “Some of you knew Investigator Santana—I’ve known him and been close friends with him, his wife, Mary, and their two children for four years. Tom’s funeral will be held tomorrow, ten A.M., in Los Angeles, at the Trinity Catholic Church in Northridge, just off Reseda Boulevard near the State University campus. We’ll let you know about the arrangements for Special Agents Garcia, Sanchez, and Foxworth.”

During Santana’s funeral, Dar realized that he had not been in a Catholic church since the funeral for David and Barbara.

Afterward, people milled in the sunlight outside the church for a while. There would be a private graveside ceremony, and Syd asked if she could talk to Dar afterward. Dar nodded, seeing his dark suit and glinting sunglasses reflected in her dark glasses. She had not cried during the funeral, nor when she’d hugged and spoken to Mary Santana and the two children.

“Name a place and time,” said Dar.

“Lawrence and Trudy want us at the Esposito accident site by four for a demonstration,” said Syd. “After that? Your condo?”

“I’ll be there.”

Lawrence’s cell phone rang as Dar and the adjuster drove back to San Diego in the newly repaired NSX. “Bingo,” said Lawrence.

“One of the photos?” said Dar.

“Yep. I showed them to the few guys who were working the construction site that Sunday—not Vargas, the foreman, he didn’t want to cooperate, but to the other guys—and two of them made a positive ID. They each saw this guy walking around with a hard hat. They hadn’t recognized him, but figured he must be some contract laborer for that weekend.”

“One of the Russians?” asked Dar.

“No. The New Jersey ex-mafia guy, Tony Constanza.”

“Will they testify in court?”

“Who knows?” said Lawrence. “I didn’t tell them that this was a murder case with ex-mafia hit men involved, I just showed them the pictures. If I knew what it was all about, I wouldn’t testify.”

District Attorney Restanzo was standing on the construction site with three of his underlings, and none of them seemed very happy about getting their wing tips muddy. Two uniformed police officers had cordoned off the area around the scissors lift and were standing guard, holding the curious construction workers at bay, while Lieutenant Hernandez stood with arms folded. Trudy had the video cam set on a sturdy tripod. Lawrence was standing under the raised scissors lift precisely where Jorgé Murphy Esposito had been standing when he was killed. As during the original accident, there was a quarter ton of lumber on the massive lift bed thirty-six feet up.

Hernandez was explaining. “There’s been controversy over whether this was an accident or should be added to the wrongful-death files already involved in this Alliance case. Mr. Stewart has the answer.” He gestured toward Lawrence, who nodded at Trudy. The red light on the camera came on.

Lawrence cleared his throat. “All right. We all know that autopsy evidence and circumstantial evidence surrounding the death of Attorney Esposito suggest that he could not have pulled the hydraulic screw loose on the pillar there and died as he did, in under two seconds, without the front of his torso being sprayed by hydraulic fluid. The coroner’s photographs show clearly that only the cuffs of Mr. Esposito’s trousers and the soles of his shoes were sprayed with the fluid. Several workers on the site here have identified photographs of a man they say was present on the Sunday Mr. Esposito died. That man is a certain Tony Constanza, a former mafia informer now in the employ of Attorney Dallas Trace.”

“I don’t like the term ‘mafia,’” said District Attorney Restanzo. “Mafia equates with Italian and Sicilian and is a slur on a specific ethnic group. Everyone knows that the so-called Syndicate has long since moved away from dominance by any single ethnic group. We prefer the term ‘organized crime.’”

“All right,” said Lawrence. “For the record, Mr. Tony Constanza used to be a member of that wing of the multiethnic, multiracial, equal-opportunity organized crime syndicate which, even today, is comprised primarily of Sicilian-and Italian-Americans and is commonly known as the mafia.

“All right,” continued Lawrence, looking at the district attorney, “if you’re going to prosecute this, you need proof that it was murder, not an accident. I’d like to show you that proof. I’m currently standing where Mr. Esposito was two seconds before this scissors lift lost all hydraulic pressure and collapsed on him, crushing him in the scissors’ mechanism. Would anyone like to join me here while we reenact the accident?”

For a minute no one moved. Then Dar stepped under the platform next to Lawrence. He had no idea what his friend was up to, but he trusted his professionalism. Dar’s black Bally shoes and the cuffs of his Armani suit trousers were getting splattered with mud, but that did not bother him. He knew how to spit-shine shoes.

“Mr. District Attorney, would you like to loosen and remove the hydraulic adjustment screw?” said Lawrence. The huge platform loomed thirty feet above his head…and above Dar’s.

“It’s muddy over there,” said Restanzo, who was obviously still pissed off at the mafia thing.

“I’ll do it,” said Lieutenant Hernandez. He squished through the mud to a spot just outside the shadow of the platform, next to the main hydraulic post.

Lawrence paused as Syd Olson crossed the lot in a quick walk. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, a bit out of breath.

“We were just going to show how this works,” said Lawrence. “Lieutenant, would you please unscrew and remove the hydraulic adjustment screw?”

Dar flicked a glance at Lawrence. The two men were standing casually enough, arms folded, the mass of platform weight a palpable presence above them, but Dar was mentally figuring if he would have time to grab Larry and throw both of them out from under the falling scissors lift in time. It was a simple equation with a simple answer. No.

Hernandez shrugged and began turning the massive screw counterclockwise. It moved, there was a gurgle of hydraulic fluid, and the platform shifted six inches downward.

“Oh, shit,” said Hernandez, jumping away.

“All the way out, please,” said Lawrence.

The homicide lieutenant approached the post as if it were a live rattlesnake. Ever so gingerly he put his arm around it and touched the screw. He turned it another half notch. The platform seemed to quiver in anticipation of its massive collapse.

“All the way out, please,” repeated Lawrence.

The screw stopped turning. Hernandez leaned on the massive lug nut, changed hands, tried harder. Then he tried both hands.

“The fucking thing…excuse me, Mr. Restanzo…the thing won’t budge.”

Lawrence walked over to the post and Dar followed, happy to be out of the death zone. Lawrence put his hand on the massive bolt and screw and waited for Trudy to zoom in.

“Mr. District Attorney, Chief Investigator Olson, Lieutenant Hernandez, gentlemen…this screw is in its regular setting, just as it was on the day that Attorney Jorgé Murphy Esposito died. There is no chance that Counselor Esposito removed the hydraulic screw by accident. As you’ve seen, the screw was designed to be adjusted slightly by hand, but beyond two turns, it requires at least a medium-sized wrench to be turned further. Basic engineering.”

Lawrence turned and looked at Syd and the district attorney. “Whoever killed Mr. Esposito—and we have witnesses who will place the former mafia hit man Tony Constanza here at the time of Esposito’s murder—must have held a gun on Mr. Esposito while removing this screw with a wrench.”

“We didn’t find any wrench at the accident scene,” said Hernandez.

“Exactly,” said Lawrence. He signaled for Trudy to shut off the video and he walked out of the shadow of the scissors lift with Dar following.