Suicide Squeeze

It's spring training, and investigator Clay Hart is spending his time as the hitting coach for the local Single-A Braves. He hasn't worked a case for over a year, and his Fiancée, Maggie, would like to keep it that way. But when he gets a call from Stella, a woman from his past, he reluctantly agrees to meet her about a potential case. Her husband, John Rutherford, has recently died. The police have ruled his death a suicide, but she's unconvinced. Rutherford worked as the Finance Director for the state of California, and he had been taking a lot of heat from the owner of a local oil company, Lionel Trilling, to vote for a lease renewal for Trilling's property on public land, even though Trilling had violated the terms of the lease. Rutherford kept telling him no, but Trilling wasn't taking no for an answer.

As Clay asks around about Trilling, he hears a lot of warnings to watch out for the young hothead. The more people Clay asks about Trilling, the more he hears about Trilling's penchant for corruption. As for Trilling, he doesn't seem to like the idea of Clay asking questions about Rutherford's death, and he makes it plain that Clay should drop the case. Clay does his best to reassure Maggie that he'll be able to keep the danger of the case at bay, but he learns the hard way that the more you uncover, the messier things get.