Killer Instincts v5 by Jack Badelaire Read Free Book Online

was some kind of small-time wannabe mobster."
    Jamie shook his head. "There's no 'wannabe' about it. The Paggiano family is one of Boston's last true Italian crime families, although it's hardly living up to the glory days of La Cosa Nostra. Still, the family has been connected to racketeering, prostitution, blackmail, even some smuggling over the years."
    "So why didn't they get scooped up with all the other crime families? Isn't the Mafia pretty much dead and gone?"
    "Not so much dead and gone as playing it very, very smart. Organized crime is still alive and well in America, and certainly in Boston, although it's probably more Irish and Russian than Italian these days. Still, the Paggianos have played cat and mouse with the feds and the locals for ages. Thing is, being smaller and more low-profile than a lot of the other families, they have seen all the tricks and traps law enforcement's put out for their cousins. So, they always manage to adapt in time to avoid the worst of it. A few members of the family or their hired help have gone behind bars over the years, but the family is still very much intact. Hell, they've got a seaside mansion up in Swampscott, something right out of the roaring 20's, with a groundskeeper's cottage, a wrought-iron gate, cliffs down to the ocean, the whole works."
    "So what happened?” I asked, “Why did they kill my family?"
    Jamie shrugged and shook his head. "To send a message, William. This day and age, we all think the idea of strong-arming our way out of the courtroom is a joke, but all the evidence pinning Pauly Paggiano to the murder of that girl was based on eyewitnesses who would have testified against him, saying they saw him leave the nightclub with the girl, enter the hotel lobby with her, and leaving the room supposedly after the murder. Without those witnesses, there was no case."
    "Well, what about forensic evidence? Prints, hair, semen samples?"
    "The killer wore a rubber, and they didn't find any prints in the hotel room. As for hair, fibers, that sort of thing? Well, easy enough for the defense to say they were picked up from Pauly by casual contact in the nightclub. He never denied meeting the girl and dancing with her, he even admits that he left the same time she did. He just won't admit to leaving with her, or any other contact with the victim after that point."
    "So what happens to the case now?"
    "After your family was killed, the stories of the eyewitnesses started to become muddled. Suddenly it was 'might have been' rather than 'was', the usual bullshit. The case is completely falling apart. One of Michael's co-workers told me over dinner last night that he doubts the case is even still strong enough to go to trial; the judge might just throw out the charges and let Pauly walk."
    "That's bullshit," I said.
    "Of course it's bullshit, but that's how it works. No eyewitnesses to tie him to the murder, you can't put him at the scene of the crime. And of course, he's got alibis for where he was the rest of the night. Court cases cost money, and they take a long time. DA office and the judge, they have to weigh that against the likelihood of a win.”
    "So that's that?” I asked, “He gets off on the charges now that everyone's seen what can happen if they testify?"
    Jamie nodded. "It's one thing for a witness's family to get threatening phone calls and see a car parked across the street, making them nervous. They get told to expect that, talked through the rough patches if they start to panic. But having your star prosecutor murdered in his own home, family beaten to death, house burned to the ground? That's not a message, or a threat, that's a fucking promise, William. That's telling those witnesses, 'you talk, we'll cut your goddamn heart out and make you eat it for lunch'. Better to play along and throw the fight, than to wake up one morning after you've done your civic duty to find you've been handcuffed to the bed while your house burns down around you."
    I found