If you have a moment, please review this book!
Now enjoy this sample chapter of my Amazon Top 100 Legal Thriller THE GUN TRIAL [First in Series LETHAL LAWYERS]. Biography follows the sample!
Prologue
Almost Nowhere
“American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash . . .”
-John Steinbeck
Bakersfield. The parched southern terminus of California’s great Central Valley. Its heart beating to the regrets and sorrows of country music. Music imported with the 1930s flood of Dust Bowl migrants from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. A place redolent of Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and recurrent civic corruption. A town, not unlike so many others across the United States of America, where the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is sacrosanct. A city historically populated by gun enthusiasts, with shooting contests for kids, 4-H youth gun programs, and gun associations awarding thousands of dollars in college scholarships.
To be fair, though, Bakersfield is also prominent on more than its share of the “top ten” lists for cities—the bad ones. Worst for women and kids. Most polluted. Highest alcohol consumption. Most liver-related deaths. Highest rate of officer-involved fatalities. Lowest health care satisfaction. Worst car theft rates. Lowest credit scores. Worst for small-business employees. Worst in the state for youth homicides. A city whose residents are amongst the country’s least educated and least literate.
In other words, a virtual paradise—for snakes, scorpions, and tumbleweeds.
But not for Mike Holt.
⌘
Chapter 1
The Sun, The Gun, And Other Things
“. . . from my cold dead hands.”
-Charlton Heston
Mike Holt parked his dusty blue Bronco at a strip mall on Ride Street in southwest Bakersfield. His preowned sixteenth-birthday wheels, Mike’s sidekick through high school, had stayed home unused his freshman year at Yale. Reunited this summer break, Mike sat alone clutching its steering wheel—windows up, AC spitting, engine sputtering. He stared over the black, sun-cracked dashboard at Sports Gear USA, its windows popping product.
“Come on. Get out.” Mike turned the engine off but ignored his own command.
With no AC, the afternoon June sun soon boiled the Bronco’s innards.
“Shit.” Mike wiped his forehead—dripping with sweat from the heat and his mind.
Forced out, Mike paced along a strip of shade by the windows, studying the double glass doors. The high-volume nationwide chain peddled it all: fitness equipment, bright clothes, athletic gear, and hunting supplies—including the best-priced guns and ammo in town.
“Fuck it.” He shoved his trembling fingers through his dark hair and rubbed the sweat on his worn jeans.
Mike reached for the doors as two teenage girls burst out, clanging the hanging bells. Their tanned skin was barely covered by cutoffs and tube tops. Mike held the door.
Ignoring his chivalry, they darted across the sun-baked asphalt to their shiny red Toyota Tacoma.
Mike stared at the tight, white half-moons peeking out beneath their frayed cutoffs.
In their hormonal wake, the taller blonde glanced back, locking on Mike’s leer—expected and enticed.
He turned away from the exposed summer flesh and his own unbridled thoughts.
* * *
In the store, Mike strolled the narrow aisles. The middle-aged manager, Arnie Davis, watched him handling pricey items and eyeing the gun cases, register, and surveillance camera.
“Excuse us, buddy.” A father interrupted Mike’s reach for a Cold Steel Bowie knife.
“Sure.” Mike baby-stepped back, forcing the father to squeeze by, dragging his excited prepubescent son clutching his a new skateboard.
A nearby young store clerk stopped restocking hoodies.
“Can I help you there? I’m Brandon.” The eager new hire pointed at the nametag pinned to his blue T-shirt with Sports Gear USA splashed chest-high in red.
“No.”
Brandon asked to help Mike several times and in several ways. Ignored and defeated, he retreated to restocking.
With that, the manager, who had profiled Mike as a shoplifter, took him on.
“Need something?” Arnie eyed Mike’s pockets and his lean waist tented by a wrinkled orange button-down.
They glared at each other—both silent.
Mike broke the standoff. He turned his pockets inside out. Then, he lifted his shirt, exposing nothing but his nineteen-year-old washboard abs—white from his Yale winter.
“What can we do for you?” Arnie was unapologetic and unconvinced.
“I want a shotgun.” Mike lowered his shirt.
“Over there in the corner. Moss and Joe will help you.”
“Whatever.” Mike stuffed his pockets back in and turned.
Arnie lifted his belt, but it slid back down under the weight of his beer belly—shrink-wrapped in his blue T-shirt.
* * *
In the corner, Moss Grimick and Joe Spangler, in faded tees with cracked Sports Gear logos, leaned on the long glass gun case flipping pamphlet pages. Behind them were locked racks of rifles and shotguns.
“Damn, look at the fat price of that hunt’n camp.” Moss scratched his bald crown shining above the shaggy brown hair vining his ears.
“Montana’s are the best.” Joe’s straggly graying ponytail skimmed the page.
“Hey, I’m going on break.” Arnie pantomimed a smoke. “Help that guy with a shotgun.”
The lean, weathered clerks sized up Mike as he approached. Then, the hard sell began.
Brandon sidled up near the cash register to listen and learn. Gun and ammo sales were where the fun was—and the real money.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Arnie came back across the parking lot with a Coke from the nearby liquor store. He passed Mike sitting in his Bronco—window cracked, revving his sputtering engine.
“Turn off the air ’til she’s warmed up.” Arnie blinked a chipped-tooth smile of nicotined teeth. “And wash her.”
In the searing Central Valley heat wave, the men locked eyes again.
Mike revved his engine in defiance. There was a wild unsettling ferocity in his deep blue eyes. This time, Arnie broke the staredown, retreating into the store.
Mike peeled out—white smoke spewing from the exhaust, and AC mingling with the molten air.
* * *
Arnie went back to the gun counter. “That kid’s gone.”
“We heard,” Joe said.
“Somethin’s off with him.” Arnie slurped his Coke. “Strange look in his eyes.”
“Ah, he’s got a big bitch up his butt.” Moss put a cigarette behind his ear for his break.
“What’d he buy?”
“Cheapest Mossberg 12-gauge and a box of shells.” Joe’s smirk creased his leathery face and flashed his yellow teeth. “The stupid idiot wanted to buy one.”
“One what?”
“Shell,” Joe said. “Dumb shit.”
“Ammo by the piece.” Moss sneered and returned to the pamphlet.
“That’s crazy. Hell, we get loonies, but first time for that.” Arnie turned and saw Brandon at the register. “What are you do’n there?”
“Noth’n.”
“Get back to stocking.” Arnie manned the register.
“Couldn’t unload a carrying case on him neither,” Joe said.
“Forget about him. Look.” Moss elbowed Joe. “That Montana camp’s next month. Let’s close that deal on those guns in your garage. We’ll go.”
“Shut up, you idiot. Not here.”
* * *
At home, Mike sat on his unmade bed in his room surrounded with Stockdale High School keepsakes: debate plaques and trophies, pictures of girls not dated, track team photos, his senior first-place all-state medal in the quarter mile, and a copy of his class valedictorian graduation speech, framed and hung by his mother.
Mike’s eyes tr
aveled to his open closet door. His Yale duffel bag, still stuffed with freshman laundry, was where he had thrown it two weeks before along with his Yale umbrella—needed too much this past year.
He loaded his new shotgun and went into his closet. He parted the hanging clothes and sat on the floor between them. His high school varsity letterman jacket swept his shoulder.
“Stay.” Mike shoved it back, resisting the pull of its memories.
As he sat, the smell of the closet repelled him—it smelled of him.
He grabbed the umbrella, slid the shotgun butt against the wall, and clamped it with his tennis shoes, cracked by Connecticut’s snow. He braced it between his knees, shoved the barrel into his mouth, and let loose a primeval scream that would have brought his parents running, had they been home.
Without hesitation, as planned, the rubber tip of his umbrella pushed the trigger—hard and fast.
A blood-red shower burst over his orange button-down.
⌘
About the Author

Dale E. Manolakas
After a lifetime of writing poetry, books, nonfiction, and legal documents, it was author Ray Bradbury's friendship and encouragement that finally inspired Dale E. Manolakas to pursue writing as a career. Dale E. Manolakas earned her B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles, and M.A., M.S., Ph.D. and J.D. degrees from the University of Southern California. She is a member of the California Bar, had the privilege of clerking for The Honorable Arthur L. Alarcón at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was a litigator in two major Los Angeles law firms, and a senior appellate attorney at the California Court of Appeals, as well as an Administrative Law Judge.
Death Sets Sail_A Mystery Page 38
