Rough Justice

Rough Justice

Lisa Scottoline

For the Truly Awesome Molly Friedrich, and for Peter and Kiki

Contents

1 It started with a slip of the tongue. At first,…

2 The Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia is a newly built…

3 Heart pounding, Marta pushed her way through the reporters clogging…

4 Christopher Graham was tall and brawny, with big-boned features and…

5 By four o'clock a foot of snow had accumulated on…

6 Marta steered her rental Taurus into the blizzard blowing down…

7 Judy Carrier stood outside the office building that housed Rosato…

8 Mary DiNunzio slumped in front of the computer in her…

9 The blizzard intensified as night fell outside the jury room…

10 Marta didn't reach Steere's Society Hill neighborhood until the Taurus's…

11 Bobby Bogosian squeezed the bitch's throat from behind and lifted…

12 Marta zapped the reporter into silence with the remote control…

13 "AARRGHHH!" Mary DiNunzio had finally lost it. "AAARGH!" She buried…

14 Judge Harry Calvin Rudolph brooded at his heavy, polished desk…

15 "I'm comin' into the conference room with you," Bogosian said…

16 After the associates left, Marta returned to her seat at…

17 Marta ran, breathless, for her life. She streaked for the…

18 Marta yanked the ratty curtain closed and flopped onto the…

19 Bennie Rosato stepped off the elevator into a nightmare. There…

20 Mayor Peter Montgomery Walker paced the length of his huge,…

21 Christopher Graham wedged his powerful frame into the tiny chair…

22 The blizzard blew, but Judy stood on the snowy stoop…

23 Jen Pressman fled the mayor's office and hustled down the…

24 Marta stood in the hotel room of one of her…

25 The white Grand Cherokee stopped in the middle of the…

26 It's a great truck, Christopher had told Marta. Don't judge…

27 Penny Jones was trying to aim his hunting rifle out…

28 Long Beach Island looked like a witch's index finger on…

29 Mayor Walker's staff called his private bathroom the Frank L. Rizzo…

30 Judy slumped in a chair in the hospital waiting room…

31 Marta dashed down the snowy dune behind Steere's house and…

32 Snow swirled around the steel skyscraper that served as a…

33 Bennie sat in front of her computer in the spare…

34 Judge Rudolph pondered the bad news propped up on his…

35 Standing on the windswept dune, Marta saw Bogosian's head snap…

36 Elliot Steere sat behind the thick bulletproof window in the…

37 Marta couldn't stop shaking. Her left hand trembled around the…

38 Judge Rudolph stood behind his desk in his chambers and…

39 Judy had only one lead to follow and it brought…

40 Marta shined her flashlight through the snowy cyclone fence at…

41 Jen Pressman had managed to escape the mayor and was…

42 Judy was trying to concentrate on Darning's white notebook, but…

43 Assistant District Attorney Tom Moran's life had become a living…

44 Marta sat in the truck with her flashlight, the nautical…

45 A large, chilly presence, Bennie Rosato stood just inside Judy's…

46 Marta dug through the sand like a terrier as soon…

47 Bennie barreled in her wet parka down the marble corridor…

48 Marta stood over the metal strongbox in amazement. She had…

49 Judge Harry Calvin Rudolph sat atop the mahogany dais and…

50 Bennie and Emil walked down the wide hallway, past the…

51 The jurors sat at the conference table in the hotel…

52 Marta stood on the sunny shoulder of Route 72 in…

53 Ralph Merry ducked into a stall in the men's room,…

54 Marta sat in Judy's apartment, sickened as the shaken associate…

55 The sequestration hotel had plied the jurors with a breakfast…

56 Marta only reluctantly skimmed the list of handwritten numbers in…

57 Christopher's stomach was killing him. Pain shot through his gut…

58 Ten phone calls later, Marta sat at the edge of…

59 Bennie sat sweltering in her parka, growing increasingly impatient as…

60 Judge Rudolph was presiding, though when he looked down from…

61 Marta and Judy churned down the street, racing toward the…

62 Bennie climbed the snowdrift to Carrier's stoop, brushed snow off…

63 "It's D day, troops," Ralph called to the other jurors.

64 Marta got her second wind as soon as she spied…

65 Marta stood near the front of the crowd, riveted at…

66 It took Emil Gorebian all day to interview lawyers, police…

67 In an anesthetized sleep, Christopher dreamed he was cantering a…

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Lisa Scottline

Acclaim and Praise

Copyright

About PerfectBound

Undefeatability lies with ourselves.

—Sun-Tzu

1

It started with a slip of the tongue. At first, Marta Richter thought she'd misunderstood him. She felt exhausted after the two-month murder trial and couldn't always hear her client through the thick bulletproof window. "You mean you struggled in his grasp," Marta corrected.

Elliot Steere didn't reply, but brushed ash from his chair on the defendant's side of the window. In his charcoal Brioni suit and a white shirt with a cutaway collar, Steere looked incongruous but not uncomfortable in the jailhouse setting. The businessman's cool was the stuff of tabloid legend. The tabs reported that on the night Steere had been arrested for murder, he'd demanded only one phone call. To his stockbroker. "That's what I said," Steere answered after a moment. "I struggled in his grasp."

"No, you said he struggled in your grasp. It was self-defense, not murder. You were struggling, not him."

A faint smile flickered across Steere's strong mouth. He had a finely boned nose, flat brown eyes, and suspiciously few crow's feet for a real estate developer. In magazine photos Steere looked attractive, but the fluorescent lights of the interview room hollowed his cheeks and dulled his sandy hair. "What's the point? The trial's over, the jury's out. It doesn't matter anymore who was struggling with who. Whom."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Marta asked. She didn't want him to play word games, she wanted him to praise her brilliant defense. It was the case of her career, and Steere's acquittal was in the bag. "Of course it matters."

"Why? What if it wasn't self-defense? What if I murdered him like the D.A. said? So what?"

Marta blinked, irritated. "But that's not the way it happened. He was trying to hijack your car. He attacked you with a knife. He threatened to kill you. You shot him in self-defense."

"In the back of the head?"

"There was a struggle. You had your gun and you fired." Without realizing it, Marta was repeating the words of her closing argument. The jury had adjourned to deliberate only minutes earlier. "You panicked, in fear of your life."

"You really bought that?" Steere crossed one long leg over the other and a triangle of tailored pant flopped over with a fine, pressed crease. " 'In fear of my life'? I stole that line from a cop show, the one where everybody smokes. You know the show?"

Marta's mouth went dry. She didn't watch TV even when she was on, another television lawyer with wide-set blue eyes and chin-length hair highlighted blond. A hardness around her eyes and a softness under her chin told the viewers she wasn't thirty anymore. Still Marta looked good on the tube and knew how to handle herself; explain the defense in a sound bite and bicker with the prosecutor. Wrap it up with wit. Smile for the beauty shot. "What is this, a joke? What's TV have to do with anything?"

"Everything. My story, my defense, was fiction. Rich white guy carjacked by poor black guy. White guy has registered Glock for protection. Black guy has X-Acto knife. Not a good match." Steere eased back into his chair. "The jury bought it because it was what they expected, what they see on TV."

Marta's lips parted in disbelief. The news struck like an assault, stunning and violent. Her mind reeled. Her face felt hot. She braced her manicured fingers against the cold aluminum ledge and fought for her bearings. "What are you saying?"

"I'm guilty as sin, dear." Steere's gaze was point-blank and his voice tinny as it passed through a thin metal grate under the bulletproof window. The cinder-block walls of the interview room, lacquered calcium white, seemed suddenly to be closing in on Marta.

"But he slashed your cheek with the knife," she said, uncomprehending.

"He was dead at the time. I held his hand, with the knife in it."

"They found fibers from your tux on his hands and clothes."

"There was a struggle. He put up a fight. Mostly begging, boohooing like a little girl."

Marta's stomach turned over. "Tell me the whole story. The truth."

"What's to tell? A bum came at me when I stopped at the red light. He was waving a knife, drunk, screaming I should give up the car. Like I would. A new SL600 convertible. Wet dream of a car." Steere shook his head in momentary admiration. "So I grabbed my gun, got out of the car, and shot him in the head. I called the cops from the cell phone."

Marta crossed her arms across her chest. You could call it a hug but that wasn't how she thought of it. She'd heard confessions like this from other clients, and though Steere didn't look like them, he sounded like them. They all had the urge to brag, to prove how smart they were and what they could get away with. Marta had known Steere was tough-minded; she hadn't guessed he was inhuman. "You're a murderer," she said.

"No, I'm a problem-solver. I saw some garbage and took it out. The man was a derelict, worthless. He didn't work, he didn't produce. He didn't own anything. Fuck, he didn't even live anywhere. This time he picked the wrong guy. End of story."

"Just like that?"

"Come on, Marta. The man was useless. He didn't even know how to handle the fucking knife." Steere chuckled. "You did it better during the demonstration, when you held it under your chin. Did you see the jury? The front row almost fainted."

Marta felt a twinge as she flashed on the jurors, their faces upturned like kindergartners. She'd hired the requisite raft of jury consultants but relied on her own instincts and experience to pick the panel, ending up with a solid reasonable-doubt jury. She'd stood in front of them every day of the trial, memorizing their features, their reactions, their quirks. Fifteen years as a top-tier criminal lawyer had taught Marta Richter one thing: the jurors were the only real people in any courtroom. Even the ones with book deals.

"They're suckers," Steere said. "Twelve suckers. The biggest loser was your friend the Marlboro Man. Better watch out, Marta. He had the look of love. He may be fixin' to get hisself a filly."

Marta winced. Steere meant Christopher Graham, a blacksmith from Old Bustleton in northeast Philadelphia. Marta had learned that Graham had recently separated from his wife, so she worked him the whole trial, locking eyes with him during her cross of the medical examiner and letting her fingertips stray to her silk collar when she felt his lonely gaze on her. Still, manipulation was one thing, and prevarication quite another. "Everything you told me was a lie."

"It worked, didn't it? You shot the shit out of their case. The bailiff thinks the jury will be back by noon tomorrow. That's only four, five hours of actual deliberation." Steere smiled and recrossed his legs. "I hear the reporters have a pool going. The smart money's on you, twenty to one. There's even action that they acquit me before there's three feet of snow on the ground."

Marta's mind reeled. The media, more lies. She'd told the reporters Steere was innocent and declined to speculate on how long the jury would be out. I just win, boys. I leave the details to you, she'd said with a laugh. She wasn't laughing now.

"It's almost three o'clock," Steere said, checking a watch with a band like liquid gold. "You've never had a jury out longer than two days, if memory serves."

Marta flipped back through her cases. She was undefeated in capital cases and she'd win this one, too. No tough questions of physical evidence to explain away, just a disagreement over the way it had gone down, with the Commonwealth claiming Steere had intended to kill the homeless man. It took balls to prosecute a case that thin, but it was an election year and the mayor wanted to crucify the wealthiest slumlord in Philadelphia. Marta understood all that, but she didn't understand the most important thing. "Why did you lie to me?"

"Since when are you so high and mighty? Did you ask if I was guilty?"

"I don't ask my clients that question."

"Then what's the difference if they lie to you?"

Marta had no immediate reply except to grit her teeth. "So you made up this cock-and-bull story."

"You never doubted it? One of the best criminal lawyers in the country and you can't smell shit?"

Not this time, because she had let her guard down. Because she'd been attracted to him, though she wouldn't admit it, even to herself. "Your story made absolute sense. We went over it and over it. You told it the same way every time."

"I lied from the door."

"Even to the cops? The statement you gave them. It was recorded. It was all consistent."

"I'm excellent at what I do."

"Lie?"

"Sell."

"You used me, you asshole."

"Come off it, dear." Steere's smile twisted into a sneer. "You got paid, didn't you? Almost two hundred grand this quarter, including your expenses. Hotel, phone, even dry cleaning. Every cent paid in full. Twenty-five grand left on the retainer."

"That's not the point."

Steere's laughter echoed off the cinderblock walls of the interview room. "Easy for you to say, you're not paying it. For that much money, using you should be included. Christ, for that much money, fucking you should be included."

"Fuck you!" Marta shot to her feet, seething. She felt the urge to pace, to move, to run, but the interview room was as cramped as a phone booth. She was trapped. By Steere, by herself. How could she have been so naive? She still couldn't bring herself to accept it. "So you killed Darnton, even though you'd be questioned? Charged?"

Steere shrugged. "It was a risk, but I run risks every day. I figured the D.A. would find a reason to charge me, but that's okay. Any ink is good ink. I knew I'd hire the best and get away with it, and I will. Because of you."

Because of you. The words burned into Marta's brain. Steere had written the story and she had sold it, better than she'd ever sold anything in her professional life. Pitched it to the jury in the day and the satellites at night. And she didn't do it for the money or the facetime, not this time.

She did it for Steere.

In the split second she realized it, Marta's fury became unreasoning. She could have sworn he wanted her, he'd given every signal. He'd lean too close at counsel table, look too long at her legs. Once he'd touched her knee, bending over to retrieve his fountain pen, and her response had been so immediate it surprised even her. The memory made her feel crazy, unhinged. Unleashed. "I'm going to Judge Rudolph with this," she said.

"You can't. I'm your client and this is a privileged conversation. Disclose it and you're disbarred, ruined." Steere laced his long fingers together and leaned forward on his side of the metal ledge. "Of course, I'd deny the conversation ever took place. You'd look like a fool."

Then I quit. I'm not your lawyer anymore. I'm withdrawing from the representation." Marta snatched her bag and briefcase from the tile floor.

"The judge won't let you withdraw while the jury's out. It's too late in the game. It's prejudicial to me, infringes my constitutional rights."

"Don't you lecture me," Marta shot back, though she knew he was right about her withdrawal. "I suborned perjury for you."

"Suborn perjury, my my. You can talk the talk, can't you? So can I. You didn't suborn perjury because I didn't testify in my own defense."

"It's a fraud on the court—"

"Enough." Steere cut Marta off with a wave. "Here's what happens next: the verdict comes in by noon and I go free. Then I hold a press conference where I tell the world that the mayor is a smacked ass, the jury system is a blessing, and you're the best whore money can buy."

Marta froze. Her fingers squeezed the handle of her briefcase. Rage constricted her breathing. She felt choked, with Steere's polished loafer on her throat.

"Then we'll go to the Swann Fountain for the victory celebration," Steere continued. "We can play footsies, just like old times. After that I'm booked to St. Bart's on a Learjet that'll take off from Atlantic City if Philly is snowed in. I love the beach, don't you? Hate the water, but love the beach. Want to come?"

Marta only glared in response. She wouldn't be used like this. Not by him. Not by anyone. She reached for the door of the interview room.

"Aw, don't go away mad, honey," Steere said.

"I have work to do."

"What work? You just proved me innocent."

"Right. Now I'm going to prove you guilty."

Steere chuckled behind tented fingers. "There's no evidence."

"There must be."

"The police couldn't find any."

"They didn't have the incentive I do."

"And you'll find this evidence before the jury comes back? By noon tomorrow?"

"They won't be out that long," Marta said. She yanked the door open to the sound of Steere's laughter, but as furious as she was, she knew it didn't matter who was laughing first. Only who was laughing last.

2

The Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia is a newly built courthouse and the holding cells adjoining the courtrooms resemble small, modern offices. Clear bulletproof plastic has supplanted atmospheric iron bars and the white-painted cinderblock walls are still clean and relatively unscuffed. Elliot Steere's cell contained a white Formica bench, a stainless steel toilet, and a half-sink. Steere was the only prisoner on the floor and because of transportation problems caused by the snowstorm, would be staying nights in his holding cell during jury deliberations. He crossed his legs as he read the Wall Street Journal and pointedly ignored the older guard standing in front of him like a penitent.

"I can't do it, Mr. Steere," the guard said, glancing over his shoulder. The other guard was out on break but he'd be back soon. Frank didn't want to get caught standing in Steere's cell. "I tried, but I can't."

Steere didn't look up from his newspaper. "Yes you can. Try again."

"I can't. The hallway's full of reporters. They got TV, cameras, everything. They're right outside the door, all the way to the elevators. In the lobby downstairs, too." The guard shook his head. "It's too chancy."

"You'll find a way."

"There is no way. Somebody will see me. Somebody will wonder, why's he goin' in and out? You know how reporters are. They're already sayin' you got special privileges."

Steere skimmed the front page. "Don't worry about the reporters. The snow's the big story, not me. It says right here, 'East Coast Hit by Major Snowstorm.' I'm not even above the fold today."

"I can't do it, I swear. I couldn't get it through the metal detector."

"You've done it before, Frank."

"Today is different. Today the jury's out. Everybody's walking around. Watching. Waiting. It's crazy out there." The guard shifted nervously from one new shoe to another. Orthopedic, they were, three hundred bucks a pair. Orthotics, the doc called them. Frank had never been able to afford them before; they weren't covered on his lousy HMO. "Believe me, it's nuts."

Steere turned the page.

"Please." The guard's lined forehead shone with sweat. "I got you the newspaper."

"I think I'm entitled to a newspaper."

"Sure you are. Don't get me wrong." The guard kept shifting his feet. Not that they hurt, he could stand forever in these babies. Walk all day, even at the mall with Madeline. Didn't have to wait in the car like a goddamn dog. "The newspaper was no problem, no problem at all, Mr. Steere. But this is a whole'nother thing. Maybe I could get you a Coke from the machine."

Steere flipped to the stock quotes and skimmed the columns. "Good news. Hampden Technologies is up two points."

"I could get ice, too. From the lounge. Take me five minutes, tops."

"Uh-oh. Potash is down another point." Steere cracked the wide paper to straighten out a crease. "Still holding your potash, Frank?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think that's wise?"

Frank Devine swallowed hard. He'd started investing small amounts on Steere's say-so when the trial started. Steere was right each time, and Frank made real money. Steere had picked up a tip on potash last month, and Frank socked all he had plus what he could get from his brother-in-law— seventeen grand— on the stock. Consolidating my holdings, he told his Madeline. Big shot, she'd said, scowling. Now his seventeen grand was worth thirty and when he cashed out he'd buy whatever he needed. Two hundred goddamn pair of shoes. Orthotics, whatever.

"Frank? I asked you if you think it's wise to hold potash."

"I guess it's… wise." The guard watched Steere scan the quotes, his eyes going up and down the rows, but he couldn't tell anything from Steere's expression. He never could. Steere was like a freak that way. "Do you think it's wise, Mr. Steere?"

"If you guess so."

"I'm still ahead of the game," the guard said. He wasn't stupid, goddamnit. He'd learned a lot about stocks since the Steere trial started. "It closed at thirty yesterday."

"What was it this morning? Did it dip?"

"No, sir." The guard had checked with his brother-in-law, who found out from the computer. Frank didn't know much about computers and felt too old to learn.

Steere kept reading.

"Well, uh, should I sell it, Mr. Steere?"

"I don't know. I guess you should." Steere's eyes stopped at mid-column. "Then again, I guess you shouldn't. What do you guess, Frank?"

"I usually guess what you guess," the guard said, trying to make a joke, though he felt sick inside. It was so quiet he could hear his stomach groan.

Steere turned the page.

Frank shifted his feet.

Steere skimmed the quotes.

"Mr. Steere," Frank said, "should I hold potash or sell it?"

Steere's attention never left the newspaper. "I don't know if I'd hold it. It failed to make a new high. Made an attempt, but failed."

"How bad is that?" Frank's dentures stuck to his lips. "I mean, is that bad? It sounds bad."

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On how you feel at strike two."

Frank laughed, but it came out like he was choking.

From behind the paper, Steere said, "The phone, slugger. Bring me the fucking phone."

* * *

"What are you wearing?" Steere said into the flip phone. He was kidding, but there was a stiffening between his legs just the same. He'd been in jail almost a year.

"I'm in a meeting," she said in her professional voice, loud enough for the people around her to hear. She was a star and she knew it. Steere imagined her in the meeting, every inch the career woman, at least on the outside.

"You still have that bra, the black one with the lace?"

"I can't talk now, really. The gang's all here. Movers and shakers, even a city editor. Right, Marc?" she called out. "Call me back when you have your schedule. Gotta go." In the background Steere heard hearty masculine laughter.

"Wait. I need you to do something. Get to the file and destroy it."

"What? Why?"

"Richter knows."

"That's interesting," she said, her tone even. Steere knew she wouldn't get rattled, whether an editor or a row of priests sat in front of her. She was the only woman he knew who kept her wits about her, and that was why Steere wanted her. Well, one of the reasons.

"Richter knows I killed him intentionally, nothing else. Drop everything. Get the file. Today."

"In a blizzard?" she asked lightly. "I'd rethink that. Maybe next week. You choose the restaurant. My secretary will make the reservations."

"Not next week. Now. I'm not taking any chances."

"But we may need that information."

"Don't fuck me. Do it." Steere punched the END button, edgy and still hard.

* * *

Next Steere punched in the number of a man he introduced as his driver, Bobby Bogosian. The title was left over from the days Bobby drove Steere around in a dented brown Eldorado with the cash that would launch an empire stuffed in his pocket. Steere would go from rowhouse to rowhouse in the city's poorest sections, offering the elderly $30,000— cash money, on the spot, no strings— for their homes. He could rent the houses for many times that and he made money if only 10 percent of the pensioners took the deal. Plenty more did.

Steere would tell them he was solving a problem for them as he sat in their cramped living rooms with the curtains drawn. Their couches were worn and saggy, with thick roped fringe at the bottom, and Steere sat on more springs than he could count. Still, he felt neither contempt nor affection for these couples, no matter how toothless, poorly dressed, or just plain stupid they were. They reminded him of his foster parents, and instead of running away from them, he played the role of their perfect son.

In house after house, Steere smiled and showed the face of a bright, earnest young man trying to make his way in the world. He leaned forward on his knees as he spoke, dressed in a department-store suit and tie, and honeyed his voice. They'd call him a "go-getter," a "self-starter." Steere would remind them of the kind of young man they thought didn't exist anymore and who really didn't, except in an imagination spun with nostalgia, as substantial as cotton candy.

As Steere spoke, the old couples would relax in their ratty armchairs and confide in him, their eyes glassy with fear. In these city neighborhoods, whites were afraid of blacks and blacks were afraid of whites. Blacks and whites were afraid of Hispanics, Jamaicans, and Vietnamese. Everybody was afraid of drugs and gangs, and whatever their fear, Steere played on it. Because he understood their problems, they believed he could solve them. On the spot, here's the cash, no strings. Bobby Bogosian would stand silently behind the couch until the homeowner took Steere's ballpoint in a bony hand and affixed a shaky signature to the dotted line.

"Yo." Bogosian answered the beep quick as a Doberman at heel. "What up?"

"Where are you?"

"Center City."

"My lawyer, Marta Richter, just left the courthouse. Keep an eye on her," Steere said, without further explanation. He never told Bogosian more than he needed to know and didn't want to know more about Bogosian than he had to. Steere didn't even know where Bogosian lived and heard only through the grapevine that Bobby's probation officer had taken off his ankle cuff.

"Got it," Bobby said.

"She's gonna be busy until the jury gets back. Make sure she doesn't do anything or go anywhere."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing major. I need her until the trial's over."

"What about after?"

"Then I don't need her anymore. Understood?"

"Sure."

Steere pressed the END button with satisfaction. He felt back in control. He had unleashed Bogosian, and the man would do the job. The best thing about Bogosian was that he didn't think. Steere pushed his button and the man took off like a missile sensing heat. Locking on target, exploding like a natural force.

Steere tucked the flip phone into his pocket, closed his eyes, and sat still on the hard bench. He'd learned the stillness as a kid when he got whacked for moving, and it stood him in good stead. Steere imagined himself as he always did, like a pole at the top of the world, the pivot for the globe whirling dizzy beneath. He remained motionless as the walls of his cell spun off and flew into the ether. Around him it grew dark, cool, soundless. He listened in the silence, waiting for the rhythm of his breathing. The beat of his heart, the bubbling of his blood. Then Steere slipped inside his own mind.

He considered the situation. He'd made a mistake with Marta, but had recovered and was back on plan. He'd just sent out protections and was hiding his distance, as Sun-Tzu would have put it. Be near but appear far, the Chinese general wrote. Sun-Tzu, an expert in military strategy, was one of the few men Steere admired, and when Steere read Sun-Tzu's book, he realized he was already doing the things Sun-Tzu had written. Steere had already bought the key properties in the city when he read in Sun-Tzu: Occupy first what they care about. And he had vanquished all his enemies except the mayor when he read: Both sides stalk each other over several years to contend for victory in a single day. That quote had stayed with him, and Steere had built his strategy for defeating the mayor around it.

Steere smiled inwardly. Sun-Tzu talked about the nature of victory, and Steere understood the nature of victory as if he had written the book himself. He understood that victory required more than aggression, more than conflict. Victory required violence. The clean, deadly violence of financial destruction and domination, like the detonation of a distant bomb with an explosion watched on videotape, and the intimate, hot violence of murder. Shooting a struggling man on a sticky night, while his heels kicked futilely against the asphalt. Killing him while you stood close enough to whisper in his ear, smell the stink on the back of his neck, and feel the heat from his skin. Making him take the bullet while he wept for his life.

Steere hadn't known if he could really do it or how he would feel after the fact. He had been surprised in both respects. Murder had come more easily than he expected, and after it was done he didn't feel thrilled or aroused. On the contrary, after killing the man Steere thought, That was a snap. And if he had been curious about the extent of his powers, Steere had learned they extended even further than he'd thought. He had murdered and would go free, so there was no limit to what he could do. No boundary imposed by self, man, or law. Steere had become invincible.

Sun-Tzu said, Undefeatability lies with ourselves; defeatability lies with the enemy. Steere knew instinctively that his new enemy, Marta Richter, could never achieve victory over him, even though she was free to move and he was confined to a prison cell. She knew how to win a courtroom battle, waged according to evidentiary rules and legal precedent, using words as weapons and lawyers as soldiers. It was no contest. Not even a fair fight. A box cutter against a Glock.

Because Elliot Steere knew how to win a war.

3

Heart pounding, Marta pushed her way through the reporters clogging the courthouse's hallway and lobby, only to find that outside the Criminal Justice Center they were as thick as the driving snow. They mobbed her as soon as she pushed her way through the courthouse's revolving door. "No comment," she shouted, blinking against the snowflakes and blinding TV lights.

Gonzo print reporters ran alongside Marta in the snow, grasping steno pads and hand-held dicta-phones, wearing baseball caps against the storm. "Marta, will they find him innocent?" "Marta, how long will they be out?" "Will Steere sell his properties to the city if he's convicted?"

"No comment!" Marta snapped, charging to the street.

"Aw, come on, Marta!" TV reporters in orange-face makeup hurried in front of her, scurrying under colorful golf umbrellas held by interns. Their cameramen and technicians aimed videocams and TV lights as they ran backward in front of her, a practiced art. "Marta, will the deliberations be suspended because of the storm?" "Ms. Richter, will Steere be found innocent?" "What's next for you, Marta?" "Got a book in the works?"

Marta didn't stop to kiss up or propagandize. Didn't even break stride. Let them print what they wanted; her spinning days were over and she didn't have any time to lose. She elbowed her way out of the throng, and they didn't follow because the assistant district attorney, Tom Moran, emerged from the courthouse.

"The gag order's still in place," Marta heard Moran say, and felt her gut twist. The D.A. had been right all along. Steere was a cold-blooded murderer. Now Marta had to prove it. But how? The bravado she'd shown in the interview room had vanished, scattered by frigid blasts of snow and reality. What was she going to do? Get back to the office. Get her bearings. Go!

Marta hurried to the corner to catch a cab, pushing the sleeve of her trench coat aside to check her watch. Three-fifteen. How much time did she have? Until noon tomorrow? She reached the corner of Market Street, where the traffic was heaviest, and tried to hail a cab. Snow flew in her eyes. The storm was worse than she'd thought.

Snow fell in thick wet flakes, blanketing everything in sight. Office buildings, subway canopies, and parked cars were already frosted white, their outlines indistinct. Icicles like pointy daggers jabbed from the power lines. The stoplight in front of City Hall was frozen red, confounding the already congested traffic. The sky was overcast. Soon it would be dark.

Marta wheeled around at a loud screeching behind her. A shopkeeper was pulling a corrugated security gate over a glass storefront. The other stores were already closed, their lights out. Commuters flooded the sidewalk to the subway stairs, leaving work early. Philadelphia was shutting down, freezing solid. What was she going to do? She had only one night and it was in the middle of a fucking blizzard.

Marta waved harder in the gray shadow of City Hall. Traffic accelerated as it turned the corner around the Victorian building and jockeyed for the fast lane to the parkways out of the city. Cars spewed clouds of steamy exhaust, and a minivan angling for the lead sprayed snow on Marta's pumps. She spotted a cab and waved at it, but it drove by, occupied. Marta was struck by a memory appearing from nowhere.

Hey! She's standing at a curb. Waving. Cars speed by. Wind blows her hair. It's cold by the road. Winter in Maine. Hey, mister. Please stop!

BEEP! blared a bus, almost upon her. Marta, startled, jumped back to the curb as its massive wheels churned by, dropping caked snow from its treads. BEEP!

"You okay, miss?" asked a voice Marta only half heard as she spotted another cab halfway up the street. The cab's roof light glowed yellow. It was empty!

Marta dodged passersby and dashed to the cab, her briefcase and bag under her arm. Snow wet her face and eyes but she blinked it away. The cab crawled toward her up the street, its headlights shining dimly through the snow. Marta waved like a fool. As the two converged she thought she saw a shadowy figure in the backseat. Damn. The windows were too dark for her to see inside. Marta reached the yellow cab and pounded on the back window.

"Hey, hey!" she shouted, battering the pane with her fist. "I need this cab!" An old man in the backseat recoiled from the window in astonishment, and Marta became vaguely aware that she was acting crazy, feeling crazy. Bollixed up by what she had to do and how little time she had to do it in. Marta tore open the back door of the cab. "I need a ride uptown! It's an emergency!"

"No!" the old man wailed. He sunk deep into the backseat, his eyes widening behind his glasses. The cab fishtailed to a stop.

"Yo, lady!" the driver shouted, twisting angrily around. On his dashboard was a deodorizer shaped like a king's crown. "What do you think you're doin'?"

"This is an emergency," Marta said. "I need a ride uptown."

"Get out of my cab! I already got a fare!"

"Let me share the ride. I'll pay you fifty dollars."

"Are you crazy?" bellowed the cabdriver.

"Make it a hundred! We got a deal?" Marta thrust a foot into the back of the cab, but the old man edged away in terror and the driver fended her off with a hairy hand.

"Stop that! Get out of my cab!"

"Two hundred! We'll ride together, you drop me off. Uptown for two hundred dollars!"

"GET OUT, LADY! You're a fuckin' PSYCHO!"

"No, wait!" Marta yelled, but the cab lurched ahead and the door banged shut, knocking her bag and briefcase to the snowy street. Marta fished them out of the snow and brushed them off. Fuck! She needed to get to the office somehow. Maybe she could call the cab service. Marta tore into her purse for her cell phone and punched its tiny ON button. Nothing. The battery had run out. Marta was about to hurl the phone across Market Street when she saw another cab coming her way. Was it empty?

She tucked her stuff under her arm and ran for it.

* * *

Across the street, a large man in a black leather duster was watching. He was hatless despite the freezing temperatures, leaning against the fake Greek facade of Hecht's department store. Marta didn't notice him. She wouldn't have recognized him even if she had, for Bobby Bogosian wasn't someone Elliot Steere would ever introduce to her.

4

Christopher Graham was tall and brawny, with big-boned features and a gray-flecked beard trimmed just short of the collar of his flannel shirt. He stood at the window of the large, modern jury room in the Criminal Justice Center, resting his callused hands deep in the pockets of his jeans and watching the snowstorm. The jurors in the Steere case had been told a storm was predicted, though they weren't allowed to watch the news because of the sequestration; no TV, newspapers, or radios for two months. The jurors complained about it all the time, except for Christopher. He didn't miss his VCR, he missed the horses whose shoes he reset and the money he'd make. The last thing he missed was his wife, Lainie.

"Okay, settle down, everybody. Settle down," Ralph Merry called out. He was a bluff, king-sized man who called himself an "ad exec," although the jurors sensed correctly that Ralph was never any type of "exec," but some sort of advertising salesman, his life fueled by scrambling and Scotch. Ralph waved the others into their order in accustomed chairs around the rectangular table. "First order of business," Ralph said, "is we elect a foreman."

Christopher tried to ignore Ralph in favor of the snow flying past the window. He'd known it was going to snow even without the TV news. He'd smelled it in the air this morning when they came from the hotel and he'd seen it in the grayness of the sky, or what was left of the sky once the skyscrapers got through with it. Out where Christopher belonged, the horses would've known it was about to snow, too. They didn't need weather radar and whatnot.

"Ain't you gonna be the foreman, Ralph?" asked Nick Tullio. Nick was the last juror empaneled, an aged Italian from South Philly. Nick had a wiggly neck wattle and a chest so spiny he looked more soup chicken than grown man. A tailor all his working life, Nick wore a suit and tie all the time, so he was curiously overdressed for every occasion. His thumb had gotten chewed up in a sewing machine accident, and Nick kept it tucked out of sight, which served only to draw attention to it. "You should be the foreman. Don't you want to?" Nick asked Ralph.

"Sure, but we gotta vote on it," Ralph said.

Nick looked sheepish. "Okay. Sorry. What do I know? I never did this before." He hated this whole thing. He wished the lawyers had never picked him in the first place. Nick couldn't believe it when they got through all the other people to choose him. Now it was time to decide if Mr. Steere was guilty. What should he do? How should he vote? Nick wished his wife, Antoinetta, was here.

"Not foreman. Foreperson. You have to say foreperson," corrected Megan Gerrity, a blue-eyed twenty-year-old with coarse red hair, shorn short. Megan was one of three jurors with any college experience. She had spent a year at Drexel University before she quit to design webpages. Her business had been growing until the Steere case, but jury duty could kill it. Megan lived on Internet time, and her clients needed their pages up and running yesterday. She couldn't afford to be sitting here. She hadn't been online in ages. She missed the sky, the sun, and the Microsoft clouds on the start-up of Windows 95.

"You don't want a man foreman?" Ralph asked.

"A woman," Megan corrected, unsmiling. She was so over Ralph. He always pulled this sexist crap, waging a sitcom gender battle with her. Megan suspected she wasn't the only juror to tire of it. The black jurors— three men and one woman— didn't like Ralph from the outset, Megan could tell. "I want to be the foreperson," she said.

"You?" Ralph shot back in mock disbelief. His large hand flew to the chest of his khaki shirt. It was Ralph's favorite shirt because it looked like the one General Schwarzkopf wore in Desert Storm. Ralph thought Norman Schwarzkopf was our greatest leader since Patton. Ralph had taped the general's press conferences from the Gulf War and had even stood in line to get a signed copy of his book. "Megan for foreman? No way. No women and no redheads. No redheaded Micks! Everybody agree?" Ralph smiled and so did the other jurors, except Kenny Manning.

Kenny's glare was as dark as his skin. He sat at the opposite end of the table, his muscular arms folded over his broad chest. Kenny hated Ralph's jokes. He was sick of him from jump street. Kenny couldn't wait until the fuckin' case was over so he didn't have to look at Ralph's puffy pig face anymore. "Let's get this thing over with," Kenny said. "I been here forever.'

"And the snow's comin' down hard," said Ray Johnson, Juror 7. Ray called himself "Lucky Seven" and sat at the end of the conference table next to Kenny Manning and Isaiah Fellers. The group of three black men routinely ate, sat, and rode the bus together, although the quiet Isaiah was something of a third wheel.

Isaiah glanced unhappily at the snowfall. Winter made him cranky, and he was living for the day when he would leave for his honeymoon in St. Thomas. Every conjugal visit, his fiancée would tell him the temperature there. She saw it on the Weather Channel. They would cuddle and talk about how they could spend all day together and drink piña coladas. Isaiah hoped they had a bar you could swim to from the pool and sit with your butt in the warm water.

Christopher was looking out the window, too, but he wasn't watching the snow anymore. He was picturing horses before a snowfall. They'd lift their heads from the hay in their stalls and swing them in a slow arc toward the window. Their dark, wet eyes would be unblinking, their gaze steady. They'd stamp their hooves, expectant, almost hopeful. Christopher knew just how they'd act because he'd grown up with horses and, like them, he'd grown accustomed to waiting. But he'd never allowed himself to hope, until now.

"I'm with Kenny," Lucky Seven said. "Let's get this over with so we don't get snowed in. Who says the man's guilty? Me and Kenny and who else?"

"Wait just a minute," Ralph said. He wielded his yellow pencil like a number two scepter. "We have to pick a foreman."

Nick Tullio watched the two of them and felt that burning in his stomach. The doctor said he didn't have an ulcer but Nick knew he did. He had to, he felt that burning whenever he got upset and he was getting all upset now. The moolies would want to send Mr. Steere to jail, but Nick wasn't so sure. He wasn't sure of anything. He wanted to drink his water but he didn't like to show his thumb, so he didn't. What would Antoinetta say?

"Fuck that," Kenny said. "We don't need a foreman. We can vote right now."

Ralph winced. He didn't like swearing around the women. He'd asked Kenny not to do it but that only made him do it more. Ralph knew there was no reasoning with them. His thin lips set in a hyphen of determination. "Kenny, we're gonna do this orderly. We all want to vote and go home but first we have to pick the foreman."

"Foreperson," Megan said, to cut the tension. She felt uncomfortable when it got racial, and it always got racial lately. A white man had killed a black man, and Kenny couldn't see it any other way. God, Megan wanted to go home, where it was just her and her Compaq, and they never fought. "How about foreplay?" she quipped, and the jurors laughed.

Even Kenny smiled. "I'm down. Now let's vote. Elliot Steere is guilty. That's one vote for guilty. Who else? Lucky?"

"Me too," said Lucky Seven, and he snatched the verdict sheet from the center of the table.

"Hey!" Ralph shouted. "You can't take that. The foreman has to fill that out, and I should be the foreman. I nominate myself."

Megan shook her head. If Ralph were the foreperson, he'd never shut up. It would take forever. "No, I had first dibs. I'd like to be the foreperson. All in favor, raise their hands."

"People, don't fight. If we're going to elect a foreperson, it should be a secret vote," said Mrs. Wahlbaum. Esther Wahlbaum was a retired English teacher at a city high school, and she knew how to keep order in a classroom. "That's the official way to do it. A secret ballot."

Martin Fogel, sitting next to her, rolled his eyes. "Thank you, resident expert in everything." Mr. Fogel was an old watchmaker who wore steel-topped bifocals and a thin white shirt. A stripe of thin gray hair covered his head like a seat belt. "The woman is amazing. You need a plumber, she's a plumber. You want dance lessons, she does the fox-trot."

Mrs. Wahlbaum pursed her lips. "Don't start up, Mr. Fogel. Everybody knows a secret vote is more official. Just like with the regular elections."

Gussella Williams shifted impatiently in her seat, her jersey dress stretched between her large thighs. Gussella was black, a heavyset bookkeeper still unhappy over missing Christmas vacation for this trial. She'd planned to go to South Carolina to see her new grandbaby, who was growing like a weed. "I'll be damned if I'll miss his first birthday, too," Gussella grumbled, and nobody asked what she meant because they knew already. "Let's just get to voting. Secret, public, makes no difference to me. Lord, let's just vote."

Heads were nodding around the table, even of the two jurors who never participated, Wanthida Chandrruagphen, a thin, graceful Thai whose name no one could pronounce, and Ryan Parker, a shy man who worked for a yarn manufacturer. The jurors could hardly wait to have the trial over with and go home. They thought the lawyers repeated themselves and the exhibits were too technical. The experts talked down to them and the witnesses droned on forever. By the last two weeks of trial, nobody was even taking notes and crankiness had turned to hostility.

Nick looked confused. "A secret vote? How we gonna have a secret vote? If we close our eyes, who's gonna count?"

Christopher closed his eyes at their chatter. He hadn't heard as much yapping in his life as he'd heard these past two months. Since Lainie had left, he barely talked to anyone at all. At the barns where he did his shoeing, his only contact was with the horses. He avoided the rich ladies who took dressage lessons in tan jodhpurs and velvet helmets; ignored the barn managers who would steady a skittish mare as he pounded a nail into her hoof. No woman had ever really interested him until recently. Christopher felt like he'd been waiting for her his whole life, waiting like a horse for the snowfall. He turned from the window. "I'd like to be the foreman," Christopher said, and because he spoke so rarely, each face looked up at him in surprise.

"I think that's a great idea!" Megan exclaimed, because it was a compromise that would head off trouble. Who could object to Christopher? He was serious, smart, and handsome, in a lumberjacky way.

"Good for you, Christopher," said Mrs. Wahlbaum, pleased that the young man was finally coming out of his shell. It proved what she always told her class about patience.

Kenny looked over his folded arms at Ralph, who nodded back, agreeing tacitly to at least a temporary truce. "Okay by me," Ralph said. "You be the foreman, Chris."

"Thank you. I appreciate your confidence in me." Christopher felt good. He had a job now, a purpose. He'd do everything in his power to persuade them to acquit, and fast. He'd take care of her, like he did his horses. Quietly, and without fanfare or thanks. He'd see to it.

For Marta.

* * *

"Okay, we're all agreed," Christopher said. "We'll take a vote to start things off. Everybody write down what they think the verdict should be. Don't put your name or anything. It's secret."

"Roger." Ralph nodded. He began ripping off sheets from the legal pad and sending them skidding around the table to each juror.

"Ain't we gonna talk about it first?" Nick asked, just to stall them. He didn't know how to vote. He looked around the table for help, but his wife wasn't on the jury. His stomach burned like hell. "Ain't we gonna discuss? Just for a little?"

Gussella shook her head firmly. "No, we're voting first, we already agreed. Why waste more time? Maybe we'll all agree on the verdict. Here's your paper." She reached across the table and handed him a sheet of paper. "Vote."

Nick took the paper obediently, and the other jurors grabbed sharpened pencils from a plastic tray on the table. Nobody skimmed the exhibits stacked in the middle of the table, tagged and labeled. Nobody gaped at the autopsy photos or puzzled over the DNA evidence. The jurors' heads were bent for only ten minutes and they handed their papers in as eagerly as kids on the last day of school. Christopher opened each sheet with care, smoothed it out on the walnut veneer table, and wrote the juror's vote on the blackboard behind him. There was complete silence as each chalk hash mark screeched on the board. It was as if Steere's fate were their own.

Christopher opened the last piece of folded-up legal paper and his face betrayed none of the happiness he felt inside. "Another vote for innocent," he announced, making the final hash mark. He stood away from the blackboard and read it aloud. "It's nine to two to find Steere innocent. Only one person abstained."

"Thank you, Jesus," Gussella said, beaming. She had a gold filling on one of her top teeth, and it was the first time she'd smiled broadly enough to let it show. "Carolina, here I come."

"How do you like that?" Ralph said, grinning, and his voice sounded like he liked it just fine.

"Who abstained?" Megan asked, annoyed. All they needed was a holdout. She was losing clients as she spoke. She scanned the faces around the table. So many old people with nothing to do. That was the problem. And the race thing. It was obvious who the two votes to convict had been, Kenny and Lucky Seven.

Mrs. Wahlbaum clucked in disapproval. "Now, Megan, we can't pick on whoever abstained. It's a secret ballot. Everybody has the right to follow his own beliefs and conscience. Even if it does keep us here longer."

Nick Tullio looked down at his thumb, embedded between the wool pleats of his handmade pants. He didn't know what he stained, but he guessed he was the only one who wrote I DON'T KNOW YET on his yellow paper. Nick was relieved Christopher had figured out a way to have a secret ballot.

"Abstaining is against the rules," Ralph complained. "The judge didn't say people could abstain."

"Rules?" Kenny jumped in. "Ain't no rules. The man don't know, the man don't know." His glare had gotten angrier since the votes were counted. Kenny figured he and Lucky Seven were the only two who voted guilty. Isaiah musta pussied out and wrote I DON'T KNOW YET. Kenny would have to talk to Isaiah when they were in the TV lounge tonight, alone. They had to stand together. "The man's allowed to take time. Make up his own mind. Goddamn don't have to rush this thing."

"That's true," Mrs. Wahlbaum said. "They still haven't sent in those exhibits about the fingerprints."

"What exhibits?" Ralph said, but Christopher shook his head. He didn't remember what exhibits they were talking about and it didn't much matter. It wouldn't be long before he delivered on his tacit promise to Marta. Christopher's chest swelled with satisfaction. And hope.

5

By four o'clock a foot of snow had accumulated on the sidewalks of Philadelphia and the brand-new law offices of Rosato & Associates were empty. The secretaries had gone home early and only two associates remained, waiting for the jury to come back in Commonwealth v. Elliott Steere. They'd been indentured to Marta Richter, who'd retained Rosato & Associates as her local counsel when Steere hired her.

"We blew it," said one of the young lawyers, Mary DiNunzio. She slumped over the conference table and buried her face in a hard pillow of correspondence. Her navy blue suit was wrinkled, her dirty-blond hair was genuinely dirty, and her compact body was worn to the bone. "We blew it and there's no going back. There's nothing we can do about it."

"The trial? No way. We won, easy." Judy Carrier was spinning in the swivel chair on the other side of the conference table. A native Californian, Judy was tall and strong, with a face shaped like a dinner plate and features that registered more honest than plain. A wedge of light hair flipped up like a paper parasol as she spun in her chair. "I bet they come back before dinner tomorrow, assuming the court doesn't close because of the snow."

"No. I mean our life, we blew our life. We had it made at Stalling and Webb, but no. We wanted to be on our own. Now we work for a psychopathic bitch. In an avalanche." Mary closed her eyes, dry with fatigue. She could feel her contacts fusing to her corneas. Tonight they'd peel off like Band-Aids.

"Hey, we gave it a try," Judy said, going round and round in her chair. The walls of the conference room were eggshell white and the room smelled like latex paint. The front wall was entirely of glass and faced the hallway. A sculling print by Thomas Eakins hung on the far wall and three more in the series leaned against the wall, yet to be mounted. The Rosato offices were unfinished, but Judy didn't mind. She liked working for a new law firm. It felt like a fresh start. "Nothing wrong with trying, Mare."

"I'm not blaming you," Mary said, though Judy knew that already. They'd been through fire together and not everything needed saying.

Judy's chair slowed to a stop facing the large window dotted with snowflakes. "Look at that!" she exclaimed, bounding to the window. The downtown office buildings, The Gallery, and the United States Courthouse looked like they'd been dumped with confectioner's sugar. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Mary blinked sleepily on the correspondence pillow. "They say it'll go to four feet. What a mess."

"It's so white!"

"Last year I couldn't get out of my house. They didn't plow the side streets."

"The flakes are so big. They look like Wheaties!"

"They'll close the courthouse and the jury will never come back. The trial will never end and I'll kill myself. They won't find my body for days and the ground will be too cold to bury me."

"It's exciting." Judy pressed her large hands against the surface of the window. It chilled her palms, and her breath made a cloud at the center of the glass. "The first good snow we've had this year. Isn't it a neat feeling?"

"I have no feelings. I'm too tired to have feelings."

"Lighten up, Mare."

"I can't, I'm a Catholic. Who works for Marta Richter."

"You mean Marta Erect." Judy huffed another cloud onto the pane and examined it. "Cool."

"If you draw a happy face in that, I'm pushing you out the window."

Judy turned and laughed, silver hoops dangling from her earlobes. A peasant dress swirled around strong legs and she was wearing gray wool tights that ended in Dansko clogs. Judy always dressed artsy and not even Marta Richter could bully her out of it. "It was a long, hard trial, and it's over. Erect will fly away as soon as the jury comes back. She'll phone in the post-trial motions. You don't have to take any more orders."

"No, she'll never leave. She'll never go. She's not from anywhere and she'll never go back."

Judy shook her head. "What are you talking about, Mare? She'll go back to her office in New York."

"She said L.A. Her main office is in L.A."

"The letterhead says New York. I think she's from New York."

"She's not from New York, she doesn't have an accent. You ever notice she doesn't have any accent at all? The secretaries think she went to diction school."

"I thought the dictions went to law school."

"Be serious." Mary lifted her weary head from the papers. "We don't know where she lives. She has houses in Boston, New York, and Florida, I think, but I don't know where she lives. She never talks about it."

"She doesn't live, she just works. So what?"

"So we don't know where she's from. Who her people are."

"Her people?"

"Her people," Mary repeated, without elaborating. Judy wouldn't understand, since she was one of those unfortunates not raised in the Italian neighborhood of South Philly. "We don't know her family, her religion, anything. She's Jay Gatsby, the girl version."

"Erect? You have her blown all out of proportion. You're giving her too much power. Erect is a workaholic and a control freak. She screams without cause and laps up publicity like a dog. In other words, she's a lawyer."

"No, think about it. She hasn't mentioned a single friend. She works alone. We have no idea when her birthday is. Mark my words, she's not of woman born. It says 666 on her scalp, between her black roots."

"You're out of control. You have trial fever."

"Remember, I warned ye. Ye be warned."

"You're nuts."

Mary considered this and rejected it. "And why aren't you tired? We worked this case together. Why am I always tired and you never are?"

"Because I exercise, doofus. I told you, come with me. I'll teach you to rock climb."

"Forget it." Mary dropped her head back on the correspondence pillow and wondered when her life started to suck. Their law firm flopped, things with Ned didn't work out, and just when Mary thought it couldn't get any worse, Marta Richter hired Rosato & Associates as local counsel.

"Then come skiing with me." Judy abandoned the window and plopped back into her chair, swiveling back and forth. "We can go cross-country."

"No. Forget it."

"You'll have the time of your life. We'll go to Valley Forge. It's beautiful in winter."

"George Washington didn't think so."

"Come on, after the verdict's in. We'll have a blast."

"Shut up. Stop being so cheery." Mary closed her eyes, and Judy checked her black runner's watch.

"It's almost dinnertime. I'm hungry. You hungry?"

"No." Mary opened her eyes a crack, but it was still a law firm and not a bad dream. "I'm never hungry and you always are. I'm always tired and you never are. That's just the way it is. There's nothing you can do about it. Nothing anyone can do about it."

"We can send out for something."

"It's a blizzard, Jude." Mary looked at her sideways and paused. "What do you think they're doing now?"

"Who? Erect and our favorite millionaire? Enjoying the sexual tension. Call me crazy, but two months of foreplay would be enough for me."

"I meant the jury."

"They're deliberating, of course. Trying to decide when the defendant will screw his lawyer. It's a role reversal."

"Judy, stop."

"They'd be at it already if Steere hadn't been in jail. It's the only open question in this case. When will they fuck, and how? Is there a way they can both be on top?"

"Judy, the case." Mary blushed. She could curse with any trial lawyer, but she was uncomfortable with Judy's sex talk. To Mary, saying "fucking" had nothing to do with fucking.

"Oh, the case. The case is a winner. It's a good jury and the D.A. didn't prove their case. Steere gets aquitted."

Mary allowed herself to believe it then, on faith. Judy had won every graduation prize at Stanford Law, had published legal articles, and had even been offered a clerkship at the Solicitor General's office. Mary suspected Judy was the reason they got hired at Rosato & Associates. Judy had raw intelligence and legal talent, but Mary had to work hard to get results, and did. "Maybe we'll get a bonus," Mary said.

"From Rosato? Bennie Rosato?"

"It could happen."

"She just started the firm a year ago. She's not about to throw money around, even at Girls '' Us." Judy meant that Rosato & Associates was the first all-woman law firm in Philadelphia; five women litigators worked for the new firm. The fact that they were all women had attracted publicity, but whether it attracted clients remained to be seen. Steere was the firm's first major case, which was undoubtedly why Bennie Rosato entered the conference room that minute.

"Hello, you two," Bennie said, knocking on the doorjamb. She was on her way out, with an overcoat on her arm and a packed canvas briefcase slung over one shoulder. Benedetta "Bennie" Rosato's reputation as a civil rights lawyer was larger than life, and at six feet tall she intimidated the shit out of Mary, whose head popped up from the correspondence.

"Uh, we were just… organizing the file," Mary stammered.

"Right," Judy said, with an easy smile. "We're not exhausted or anything. We work constantly, even when the jury's out." Her blue eyes met Bennie's with a grin, and Bennie smiled back in a way that was friendly if not warm.

"We gonna win, Carrier?"

"How could we lose, boss?"

"That's the spirit." Bennie smiled, satisfied. Loose sandy hair streamed to her shoulders, wavy and careless, and her un-made-up features were large and not unattractive. Bennie wore a pantsuit of black wool, selected without excessive attention to cut, fit, or style. Bennie Rosato looked every inch the sunny, no-nonsense jock who won the scholar-athlete award in high school, which was just what she was. An elite rower in college, she still sculled every day on the Schuylkill River, a narrow ribbon of blue that rippled through the city. "How'd the jury charge go in? Did you get what you wanted?"

"Yes. They looked like they even understood it."

"A first. How was Marta's closing? I wanted to hear it but I had a dep."

"She nailed it, except when she started quoting Sun-Tzu. Their eyes glazed over."

Bennie frowned. "Sun-Tzu, the philosopher? What did she quote him for?"

Judy rolled her eyes. "I have no idea. He's Steere's guru. If you spend any time with Elliot Steere, sooner or later he hauls out Sun-Tzu."

Sitting at the table, Mary marveled at Judy's ease with Bennie. From their start at the firm, Judy acted more like Bennie's partner than an associate. Mary guessed it was because Judy and Bennie were so much alike. Both lawyers, athletes, and monstrously tall, as if from some legal master race. It made Mary nervous. Her chest blotched under her blouse and she wondered if she was cut out for the law. She was too short, for starters.

"You okay, DiNunzio?" Bennie asked. "Don't let up now. You're almost at the finish line."

Mary nodded in a way she hoped was perky. "I'm fine. I'm okay. I'm great."

"She's exhausted," Judy translated.

"Hang in," Bennie said. "Listen, Marta just called from a pay phone. She's on the way back and wants to talk to you. Says it's important. You can stick around, right? You two live in town."

"Sure," Judy answered, and Mary sighed. The same thing used to happen when she was at Stalling & Webb. Mary's apartment was within walking distance, so she was expected to work no matter what the weather. It was so unfair. Mary made a mental note to burn down her building.

"Good. Thanks," Bennie said, and her eyes scanned the conference table. The Steere file was scattered across its surface and manila folders were jammed into the accordions crookedly. It had been all the associates could do to pack the file in the rental car, drive it here, and lug it upstairs. "Better clean this file up, guys. Get the exhibits in order. You know how picky Marta is."

"Tell me about it. Anal is just a first offer," Judy said, and as soon as Beanie closed the conference room door, the young lawyers began straightening up the conference room. In short order, the twenty-five red accordion files that represented the defense in Commonwealth v. Steere sat upright on the glossy walnut table, arranged from correspondence to pleadings, trial exhibits, and lawyers' notes. News clippings took up five accordions and over seventy foamcore exhibits rested against the wall under a mounted blueprint of an oar. The two associates finished just as Marta Richter flew into the conference room, when it became instantly apparent that she couldn't care less about the file.

* * *

Marta felt composed, glued together again. The endless, stuffy bus ride back to the office had given her a chance to think. She had a plan, but she would need DiNunzio and Carrier.

Marta slipped out of her wet coat as soon as she hit the conference room, sat the associates down, and told them what to do, without telling them the truth about Steere. They would run to Rosato if they knew they were gathering evidence against a client, and Rosato was an opponent Marta could do without. So Marta pitched it to DiNunzio and Carrier as one more impossible assignment after two months of impossible assignments. The associates looked stunned.

"You want this when?" Mary asked, vaguely aware that she was not the first employee in America to ask this question.

Marta checked her watch and felt an already familiar tightening in the pit of her stomach. "It's almost four-thirty. I need your answer by seven o'clock."

"Seven?" Mary moaned. Her head was spinning, her shoulders drooped. "Less than three hours?"

"Stop complaining. You don't have to draft a complete brief. There're no cases to research. Read the file and search the newspapers. Take notes on what you find."

"But the kind of search you're talking about could take days. A week. I have to write the motion in limine, about the prints on the car."

"The motion can wait. It's not that important. It's a loser anyway."

"But the rest of the exhibits have to go to the jury first thing tomorrow. This morning you told me—"

"Mary," Marta interrupted, "this discussion is taking longer than the fucking search. Just do it."

"Fine." Mary suppressed the BURN IN HELL YOU BITCH rising in her gorge and began scribbling on her pad as if some legal inspiration had suddenly visited her, like the Holy Ghost. Definitely not cut out for this profession, Mary wrote. Convent looking better and better.

Marta turned to Judy. "Your assignment will take longer, so get going. I'll meet with you after Mary. Figure on having an answer for me by eight o'clock. That should be time enough."

"Time isn't the problem." Judy shook her head. "This is a wild-goose chase. I'm not going to find anything. The assignment doesn't make sense."

"I'll explain this one more time." Marta held her tongue, but it was hard to check her urgency. A time clock ticked in her mind. She didn't have time to fuck around. "The Commonwealth has come up with after-discovered evidence, something that proves that Steere didn't kill in self-defense."

"How do you know this?" Judy asked.

"I can't tell you. It's confidential."

Judy was more taken aback than angry. "From us? We're all on the same side."

"Just do it, Carrier. I don't have time to fight with you."

Mary wrote on her pad, I could take Angie's old room in the cloister. It had that tasteful wooden crucifix. The view was over the cemetery, but I'm not fussy. Anything away from the ice machine will do.

"I don't want to fight either," Judy said. The higher pitch to her voice evinced confusion, not defensiveness. "I'm just trying to understand your thinking."

"You don't have to understand my thinking. You have to do your job."

"How can I do my job if I don't understand it?"

"Your job is to do what I say when I say it!" Marta shouted suddenly. Her face reddened and a vein in her neck threatened to pop. "I told you what to do and where to go. That's all you have to know. That's what you get paid for."

I look good in black, it's slimming. I don't even need a double bed. Or cable.

Judy fell into a startled silence. Erect out of control? Something was wrong. Marta seemed almost panicky, but Judy couldn't imagine why; the woman had just kicked butt in a huge murder trial. The newspapers and Court TV were touting her as the best criminal lawyer in the country. Judy would have expected Erect to be gloating right now. Usually they had to applaud if she farted.

"I want that answer, Judy." Marta stood up and snatched her coat from the chair. "And I want it before the D.A. files their motion tomorrow morning."

"We can deal with it then," Judy said, struggling with her bewilderment. "The judge will give us time to respond to anything they file. He can't make any kind of ruling without hearing from the defense." Judy's arms opened, palms up in appeal.

Mary thought Judy looked just like the Blessed Mother with her arms like that. To Mary, all associates looked like the Blessed Mother at one time or another. Like supplicants, pleading for mercy and finding none. She wrote, I'll take Judy with me to the convent. She'll have to give up ESPN and ESPN 2, though. Not to mention that vow-of-silence thing.

Marta tugged her trench coat angrily over her shoulders. "Don't you get it? I'm not about to let those clowns blindside me. I didn't get where I am by letting a D.A. get it over on me. If they have something on Elliot Steere, I want to know it and I want to know it as soon as they do."

"We don't have the resources they do! They have thirty lawyers on this case, plus the cops."

"You have no choice!" Marta shouted, full bore. "You have a job, now do it and shut up!"

Judy's face smarted as if she'd been slapped. She stood up and squared off against Marta on the other side of the table. "What if I refuse?"

"Then you're off the case and you leave Mary to do your assignment and hers. By eight o'clock."

Holy Mary Mother of God. Shoot me now.

6

Marta steered her rental Taurus into the blizzard blowing down Locust Street. Flurries flew at the windshield, the wipers beat frantically, and the defroster whirred loud as a blow dryer. Still, the windows stayed foggy. Traffic lurched to a standstill, stuck. Exhaust fumes formed noxious plumes all the way down the street. Marta glanced at the car clock. 5:35. Her fingers gripped the wheel and she honked her horn at the Subaru in front of her. "Move it, asshole!" she shouted, her voice reverberating inside the car. "Move!"

Marta honked again, but nothing happened. It drove her crazy that she could do something and nothing would happen. Marta had grown accustomed to a reaction from opposing counsel and judges, from clients and the press. She could always make something happen in court and even in love, as infrequently as that appeared. Marta had fashioned herself into a human catalyst, but here she was honking like a madwoman and the traffic was ignoring her. Nobody honked back or even gave her the finger. She beeped the horn, louder. Longer, for the reaction. But she got none.

Marta tried to relax in the driver's seat. She drummed her nails. She hummed tunelessly. She even tried rubbing the furrow from her forehead. That she understood her reaction annoyed her even more. She was reacting to years of stasis, of nothing happening no matter what she did, to two parents who sat and drank and wasted, whose lives trailed off like a sentence. And no matter how many times Marta had begged, yelled, or hid their bottles, nothing had changed. The Richters lived in the woods near Bath, Maine, and Marta's father worked at the air force base there. He lost his job when she was six because she couldn't keep his bottles hidden and he ended up drinking himself to death long after Marta had stopped playing hide-and-seek with his whiskey.

Marta's mother became the breadwinner then, tugging the ten-year-old to the roadside. Hey, mister! Sir! The cars would whiz by. Stop! Please! Hey! As soon as a car stopped and its passenger door cracked open, the scam would begin. Marta begged not to do it but it made no difference. Nothing changed, not until the blue station wagon. That ended it, at least for Marta.

By the time she turned thirteen, she was behind the wheel of their battered Valiant, driving into town for milk, cigarettes, and another fifth. The cops in their small town didn't stop her because they knew her mother and it was safer to let a child drive than a drunk, especially when the child was Marta Richter. Four foot eleven and on her own. Not that Marta blamed her parents or felt sorry for herself. On the contrary, it made her what she was today.

HONK! She hit the horn. Because she couldn't not.

She needed to get to Steere's town house in Society Hill. Marta was playing a hunch, betting she'd find something in his house that would lead to a clue, or something she could use for leverage. Besides, there was something Marta just had to know. Because now that she realized Steere wasn't interested in her, there was a key question that remained unanswered. Who was he interested in?

Marta stared at the foggy windshield and told herself her interest was only partly jealousy. If she could find out who Steere was sleeping with, she could get to him. Marta didn't know exactly how yet, but she'd been around long enough to know just how valuable that piece of information was. Especially since Steere was evidently keeping it a secret, even from her. Especially from her. His lawyer, whom he had betrayed.

HONK! Marta punched the car horn. She'd tear his fucking house apart if she had to. Break in and search every drawer. Read every address book, charge account slip, and travel record. Steere had said he was going to St. Bart's. How had he managed to arrange that? Where were the tickets? Who was the travel agent? Who was he going with?

Marta would find out. The answers would be in the house. Something would be in the house. It had to be.

HONNNKK! The traffic had stopped dead. It was maddening. Marta craned her head to see what was holding it up, but couldn't see anything over the line of traffic. She twisted around to see if she could reverse out, but there was another car behind her. She was blocked in. She thought of abandoning the Taurus, but that would only put her back at square one. 5:45. Marta had to get moving. The jury would be deliberating right now, even before dinner. Fuck!

HONNK! HHHOOONNKK!

* * *

Three cars ahead of Marta, Bobby Bogosian sat slouched in the driver's seat of his black Corvette. He checked the rearview to see if the bitch was still there. He couldn't see because she was so far back and snow kept falling on the back window, but he could hear her honking every five minutes.

Bobby laughed. It wasn't his fault he was blocking traffic. He'd been driving down Locust when the car died on him. Of all the luck. He'd called the Triple-A like a citizen, and they told him to wait, maybe he just needed a jump. So he waited and waited. He couldn't help it if he blocked the bitch's car. He was a motorist in distress.

HONK!

Bobby read a magazine while he waited, the new issue of Dog World. He read magazines like they were going out of style, but he never bought them at the newsstand, he only subscribed. It skeeved Bobby to think somebody touched his magazine before him. He liked the subscriptions that came in a plastic bag, but not many did. The new Dog World had come today in the mail, and Bobby had taken it with him. He loved dogs.

HONK! HONK!

Bobby thumbed to the puppy ads in the back. He'd buy himself a dog, a pedigreed dog, as soon as he could move out of his shithole apartment and get his own house. He wanted a place in Delaware County that he could make into a kennel. He could become whatever you called it when you had a dog kennel. A breeder.

Bobby knew all about dogs. He knew the names of all the breeds, even hard ones like vizsla, and he could draw a pretty good picture of a rottweiler. Bobby went to the dog show every year when he wasn't in the joint and he would spend all day there, drinking strawberry smoothies, eating soft pretzels, and petting the pooches. It was a good show because you could hang with the breeders. They always had big spreads of food in the aisles of cages, and they were like a group.

HONK!

Bobby knew he would make a good dog breeder. It would be hard to sell the puppies, but he'd have to be professional, not get too attached. He turned the page. There was a picture of a little brown and white dog sitting on a plaid dog bed. It looked like the dog from Frasier. Bobby was pretty sure the Frasier dog was a Jack Russell terrier and bet the dog in the photo was one, too. To test himself, he covered the caption with his thumb. "A Jack Russell terrier," he said aloud, to lock in his guess.

HONK! HONK!

Bobby lifted up his thumb and squinted at the caption. He was nearsighted, but he didn't care if he went blind as a bat, he wasn't wearing glasses. Bobby held the magazine closer and the little letters came into focus. Jack Russell terrier!

HONK!

7

Judy Carrier stood outside the office building that housed Rosato & Associates on Locust Street, shaking her head in disgust. Erect was such a pill. She knew Judy would never leave Mary in the lurch. What kind of rock climber would leave a friend dangling by a rope? Judy sighed. Score another one for the forces of evil. It probably took that level of ruthlessness to be successful, but Judy wasn't willing to pay the price.

She pulled her ski cap down to her eyebrows against the blowing snow. The sky was an opaque gray that poured snowflakes. The weather report said the snow was falling at ten inches an hour. Judy loved it. Winter was one of the things she liked best about the East, especially a snowstorm this huge. It was Nature after assertiveness training. Reminding everybody that the natural hierarchy was greater than partners, associates, and secretaries.

But Judy had to get somewhere, and fast. She scanned the street. A caterpillar of traffic inched past her. How would she get there? Her car was parked on the street near her apartment and undoubtedly a snowcap by now. It would take too long to dig it out, much less drive it anywhere. Judy didn't have time to wait for a bus and a cab was an impossibility. Erect had taken the rental car, and it was too far to walk. The city was emptying out; soon the cars would be gone. Only the snow would be left, piling up on the street. Light, dry, flaky.

Perfect.

* * *

Judy planted her right pole until she hit asphalt, then skied forward on her left leg, gliding into powder so deep it buried her ski. She torqued her trunk easily and skied forward with her right leg, slipping into the natural swinging rhythm of cross-country skiing. Side to side, skating forward, in a yellow Patagonia parka and snow pants. It was less than an hour later and Judy was on her way, skiing through the inner city. It was fun. Just like Valley Forge, except for the crack vials.

She exhaled in deep lungfuls that puffed in front of her like a toy locomotive. Judy was sweating in no time despite the wind chill and blizzard conditions. It was growing dark and snow muffled the last of the workaday noises. Judy heard only her own panting, the sssshhing of her skis, and the cruel whip of the wind as her skis flew under the snow. She skied southwest, taking as many side streets as possible. Only a few cars braved the streets, their headlights piercing the flurries. Traffic got scarcer the farther out Judy skied and soon she was the only sign of life on the snow-covered street.

Judy enjoyed the growing sensation of solitude; it was the way she felt climbing, where it was only her and the rock. She dug her poles in and kept pushing. By the time she reached Grays Ferry, she felt completely relaxed. Her heart pumped happily and her muscles were warm and limber. It wasn't so wacky, skiing to get somewhere. At least no wackier than this assignment.

Going back to the scene of the crime, almost a year later. It made absolutely no sense. If the Commonwealth had found evidence incriminating Steere, it hadn't come from the murder scene. All the conditions had changed. The carjacking happened in late spring, not winter, and at midnight, not in the daytime. The assignment was absurd. Still, Judy popped out of her skis, left them and her poles by the curb, and walked, suddenly light-footed, to the spot under the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge where the carjacking had occurred.

Grays Ferry, the city's old slaughterhouse district, was a neighborhood marred by abandoned homes, deserted warehouses, and racial strife. The Twenty-fifth Street Bridge, which used to carry an elevated railroad through the neighborhood to points west, now cut a rotting swath to nowhere. The massive concrete pillars that buttressed it had eroded, their rusted reinforcement rods protruding like exposed ribs, and the underside of the bridge had crumbled off in chunks. Icicles spiked from wide, jagged cracks rent in its bed, where its joints had expanded and finally split open. The bridge platform made a long roof over Twenty-fifth Street, but it was low. A grimy sign on a pillar read WARNING— MINIMUM CLEARANCE 13 FEET, 2 INCHES.

Dopey assignment. Judy stood in the street directly under the bridge, where the double center line disappeared under a dusting of snow. Two lanes under the bridge ran in opposite directions, and there was almost no traffic because of the blizzard. The bridge sheltered Judy from the snow, but a bracing wind snapped between the pillars and she felt her eyes tear in the frigid air. The carjacking of their client had taken place in the right lane, westbound. Judy's wet gaze fell on the spot.

The first time she'd visited the crime scene, blood had stained the gritty asphalt in a lethal pool. Judy had never seen a crime scene before and had stared at the blood for a long time, trying to appear professional, which was code for emotionless. The police had taped a cliched outline of the body in the street and had set tiny cards, folded and numbered, next to a bloodstain and a bullet casing, like grisly place cards. Now the bloodstain was covered by snow, as any leftover evidence would be. Boy, was this dopey. Creepy and dopey.

Judy's muscles tightened in the cold and she walked stiffly under the bridge to the cross street where the killing occurred. She couldn't imagine what evidence the D.A. could have on Steere. He might have overreacted, but who could question someone in that position? Judy mentally reconstructed the crime. Steere had been driving home after a fund-raising dinner at the University Museum. The businessman had no date, even though he was Philly's most eligible bachelor. He'd been heading to his town house in Society Hill, but he'd drunk a little too much and took a wrong turn from Penn. It could have happened to anybody; Judy had gotten lost in the University Avenue area herself when she first moved to Philadelphia from Palo Alto.

Judy blinked against the snowflakes that strayed under the bridge. To her left was a round concrete pillar, one of the line bordering both sides of the street. The pillars were thick, about four feet in diameter, easily wide enough for a man to hide behind. That was what had happened to Steere. It was past midnight, and he had stopped at the cross street under the bridge for the traffic light to turn red. Steere had been driving with the car radio cranked up. Judy liked that. It was the only thing she liked about Elliot Steere.

There'd been no other traffic that night and no one on the street. It had been warm and muggy, a preview of a typical Philadelphia summer, so Steere had put the top down on his convertible, a pearl-white Mercedes two-seater. The car was new at the time of the carjacking, and when Judy had inspected it in the police impound lot, its pristine enamel was sullied by a spray of dried blood. Judy had to examine the splatter pattern, standing behind Erect and her blood expert. The expert found the pattern consistent with Steere's account. Erect would have fired him if he hadn't.

Judy imagined Steere at the stoplight in the dead of night, sleepy and slightly buzzed behind the wheel of an expensive convertible. Suddenly, a large man jumps from behind a pillar. Steere thinks about hitting the gas, but the man yanks open the convertible door, sticks a knife at Steere's neck, and demands the Mercedes. Steere gets out of the car in fear, intending to surrender. He takes his gun with him just in case. But the carjacker slashes Steere's cheek, and Steere sees his own blood arc into the air, feels its warm rain on his face. He fights for his life. The gun fires while the two men struggle. The carjacker crumples to his knees and becomes the taped outline.

Judy shuddered as she stared at the white snow sprinkled on the street like so much baby powder and imagined the rich, red blood that was spilled. She even knew its composition: tests showed the carjacker's blood was Type O, and Steere's was AB. It had been Judy's job on the Steere case to maintain the trial exhibits, but nothing in them was helping her now. She squatted and brushed snow away from the spot with her hand, but found herself distracted by the snow's fine texture. Judy had been painting since she broke up with Kurt, who had left some of his art supplies behind. She was enjoying it and thought it made her more observant than she used to be.

Judy straightened and brushed off her knee. Everywhere was whiteness, the only splotch of color the traffic light at the cross street as it blinked from yellow to red, as it did the night Steere was attacked. Judy watched the traffic lights under the bridge changing and twinkling, their rich hues set in vivid relief against the snow. The red light glowed the brightest, tinging the icicles on its metal hood a crimson hue. The green registered cartoony, like green Dots candy. The yellow burned a hot circle like the sun; a dense chrome yellow, a Van Gogh color. Judy thought of haystacks and sunflowers and the rich gold of the artist's straw hat in a self-portrait. Judy could never get the yellows right in her own work.

Funny. Yellow, red, then green. Judy hadn't noticed it before and she wouldn't have noticed it at all but for the contrast between the snow and the colors. Under the bridge, where Steere had been attacked, the traffic lights were mounted sideways. Horizontally. They were bolted to metal frames under the buttressed ceiling of the bridge, maybe because of the low clearance. Thick covered wires snaked to the metal panel where the traffic lights sat in a row. Red was the leftmost circle, the yellow was in the middle, and the green light was at the right.

Odd. Judy couldn't recall seeing a traffic light set up this way elsewhere in the city, or at least it was uncommon. Nor did she remember it from her initial visit, when she'd been focused on the blood and the horror of the crime. Judy blinked at the traffic light, which blinked back. Colors shining bright against the white backdrop. The whiteness was just a blank sheet to her, without color of its own. Try as she might, Judy couldn't appreciate white as a color, only absence of color, and she couldn't imagine a world without color.

Then she remembered Steere's medical records, a joint exhibit of a hospital report. Steere had been taken to the hospital after the carjacking and an ER surgeon had stitched the slash under his eye. Another doctor had given him an eye test and noted that his vision was blurry. But Judy was thinking of the note in the medical records, Dichromatism. Color blindness. She had asked Steere about it later, and he'd said he was color blind and couldn't distinguish between red and green. Judy had wondered how he drove a car, but figured he knew which light was on top. Everybody knew that. Red on the top.

Wait a minute. Judy watched the traffic light under the bridge blink from red to green, sideways. How did Steere know the traffic light had turned red if the panel was mounted horizontally? There was no reason or logic to red being on the left. It could just as easily have been the other way around. There was no way to know, if you were color blind. Even if Steere did know it, he hadn't mentioned it in any of his interviews and he had been questioned in depth about the details.

Judy's heartbeat quickened. If Steere couldn't tell whether the traffic light was red, why did he stop, especially in this rough neighborhood? If you weren't sure a light was red or green and there was no traffic, wouldn't you go anyway? Was there something fishy about Steere's story? Had he meant to kill the man? Was this what the D.A. had learned?

Judy turned and hurried back to her skis. She wanted to talk to Mary about it before Erect got back. She pressed her boots into her ski bindings, slipped her hands into her pole straps, and took off for the office. It was almost dark and the snow showed no signs of letting up.

Judy skiied through the snowstorm, her eyes drawn to every light on the route back. Flurries swirled around traffic lights in whorls of red and eddies of green. Flakes swooped in fanciful halos around the white streetlights, standing out like impastoed brushstrokes against the night sky. The scene reminded Judy of The Starry Night, then of Van Gogh himself, and she found herself wondering how someone who appeared completely normal could, in reality, be utterly, truly, insane.

8

Mary DiNunzio slumped in front of the computer in her office and stared guiltily out the window at the falling snow. It was dark, and her best friend was out in a blizzard in the worst part of town because of her. The radio on Mary's desk reported that the temperature had dipped to five degrees, which felt like minus thirty with the wind chill. She snapped off the radio and pressed Judy to the back of her mind, but still couldn't concentrate.

Where was Marta? How much time was left? She glanced at her clock, a fake Waterford her parents had given her. 6:05. Shit. She had to keep working to have an answer on time. Marta had assigned Mary to read all the statements Steere made to the police and the press to see if there were any inconsistencies in his story. It was a stupid assignment, and Mary was having predictably lousy luck so far. She'd already read through the file, but it was completely consistent. Discouraged, Mary took a gulp of coffee from a mug that read FEMINAZI. At Rosato & Associates, even the dishware was political.

1955 of 2014 articles, said the computer.

Mary's brain buzzed with the caffeine. She used to drink a lot of coffee at Stalling, but at Rosato, coffee was a cult thing, with Bennie as Our Lady of the Natural Filters. Bennie's latest crusade was that the coffee wasn't hot enough, so she was actually perking the stuff on the electric stove in old-fashioned tin pots, like Mary's parents did. Mary sipped the scorching brew, winced in pain, and hit the ENTER key.

ELLIOT STEERE CHARGED WITH MURDER, read the headline, reduced to computer-byte size rather than tabloid screamer. Mary skimmed the first paragraph. The Philly newspapers, online at their own snazzy web site, had bitched about Elliot Steere since his rise in real estate development. Mary scrolled backward in time.

TRIUMPH BUILDING A LOSS, said a subhead, and the reporter detailed how Steere had bought the 100,000-square-foot building in 1975, a year after it was designated historic, with the stated intention of restoring it for condos. But the renovations never happened and Steere fell behind on the maintenance. Every year, Licenses & Inspections fired off a packet of citations for code violations, like a volley of blanks. Steere defended with lawsuits that tied the property up in litigation. In the meantime, the historic building crumbled. The story was repeated throughout the blocks of the city.

Mary sipped scalding coffee as she read. The article contained a litany of complaints against Steere. The preservationists and Chamber of Commerce vilified him. Nobody was more vocal than the mayor of Philadelphia, Peter Montgomery Walker.

"Elliot Steere is bringing down this city to his level," said Mayor Pete Walker in an exclusive interview with this reporter. "Frankly, by that I mean the gutter."

According to the mayor's chief of staff, Jennifer Pressman, Mr. Steere presently owns 150 parcels in Center City, 82 of which have current fire and building code violations. In addition to his Center City properties, Mr. Steere is reputed to own hundreds of rowhomes in the city's outlying neighborhoods, with deeds recorded through a complex series of holding companies. Ms. Pressman said that the Mayor's Office is currently spearheading a review of these holdings.

Mary's conscience nagged at her. She was born and raised in Philly and was a huge fan of the mayor's. He'd managed to turn the city around and had plans to go further. The newspapers called it the "Philadelphia Renaissance," and it included a huge advertising budget to attract tourists, an Avenue of the Arts project that would build museums, a concert hall, theaters, and an entertainment complex on the Delaware River. The jewel in the crown was to be the newly developed historic district:

The city has launched a campaign to enliven the mile-square historic district, including a $20 million Visitors Center called Independence National Historical Park, to be built adjacent to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, as well as the nearby Colonialera neighborhoods of Old City and Society Hill. Plans include the building of a Constitution Center on the mall adjacent to the United States Courthouse, unifying the area, according to Ms. Pressman.

All of these plans depended on the appearance of downtown Philly, which was unfortunately influenced to a large degree by Elliot Steere, who refused to repair his vast number of buildings. Why? Steere would waste his properties until the city paid his price to reclaim and restore them. He knew how critical his holdings were to the mayor's plans and he wouldn't sell until the price peaked.

Mary felt a second wave of guilt. Her hometown was trying to make a comeback and Steere was blackmailing it. Almost single-handedly obstructing the city's turnaround and, as a result, torpedoing the mayor's reelection. Mary bit her lip. She'd hoped she'd be working for the good guys when she joined Rosato. Hellfire licked at her pumps.

But Mary had to get to Steere's quotes if she was going to have an answer for Marta. She scrolled backward, going deeper into the online archives. She was praying Steere had said something to the media in the early stages of the investigation. God knows, he gave tons of interviews. She sighed and returned to the zillionth article.

"I am absolutely innocent of any and all crimes charged," Steere told reporters. "It's a sad day when a man can't defend his own life without being harassed for it. This is a political prosecution. You know it and I know it."

"Mr. Steere has no further comment," interrupted his attorney, nationally known criminal defense lawyer Marta Richter. "That's all for now, everybody."

Members of the National Rifle Association protested Mr. Steere's arraignment by picketing in front of the Criminal Justice Center. Their spokesman Jim Alonso said, "We represent every decent American's right to defend his life and property."

A photo under the story showed Marta standing in front of twenty-odd microphones with a determined group of NRA types arranged decoratively in white T-shirts behind her. Each T-shirt had a red bull's-eye on the front and read PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON. Marta had orchestrated the demonstration but she couldn't convince the NRA guys to lose the T-shirts. Mary sipped her coffee, finally cooling. When would she work for the good guys? Or at least Democrats.

Mary hit a key for the next article, read more quotes by Steere, then kept at it, article after article. She checked the clock. 6:15. Mary kept scrolling and reading, her heart sinking. She wasn't finding anything and it was getting later. Her head began to thud, a caffeine hangover. Still she kept reading, skimming each article until the boldfaced Steere.

6:31. Almost 7:00, and Mary still had no answer. She paused, rethinking the problem. Maybe she was using the wrong search. She'd been researching articles that contained the name Steere and was getting a civics lesson. Maybe she needed to approach it from a different direction. She tried to formulate a new search request, her eyes scanning her office for inspiration.

The office was small, tidy, and efficient. An antique quilt hung on the wall next to framed diplomas from Penn undergrad and law school and some honors certificates. There were two simple chairs opposite a pine farm table she used as a desk; her law books stood upright as altar boys on wall-mounted wooden shelves. Mary had decorated her office to inspire confidence in her clients while not offending corporate sensibilities. It was designed to make no statement but "HIRE ME PLEASE, YOU COULD DO A LOT WORSE." Which was precisely what Mary thought of her legal abilities.

Mary's gaze fell on her desk, atypically cluttered with papers from the Steere case, which had taken over her office the way it had taken over her life. She hated the case. A carjacking ending in death. Knives. Guns. Awful. Mary remembered the police photos with nausea and it hurt to look at the autopsy photos. Mary had seen too much death; her husband, and later. The Steere case wasn't helping to leave those memories behind. The next person who said "healing process" to her was getting a fat lip.

She stared at the Steere file and flashed on the photo of the dead homeless man, crumpled on the street in the fetal position. His eyes were open in death, his mouth an agonized black hole in a dense beard. Wild cords of his hair were soaked with blood. He wore baggy pants and no shirt. He'd had no ID or last known address, no friends or relations. The police had learned his name from the neighbors who lived near the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge.

His name was Heb Darnton. Mary had done the factual investigation on him and had interviewed the neighbors. They'd told her Darnton lived under the bridge, drunk most of the time. He used to shout at the passing cars but nobody thought he'd do any harm. The black community rose up at Steere's killing him. They demanded that Steere be charged with murder and demonstrated at the Criminal Justice Center, an inner-city counterpoint to the white suburban NRA members. Police with riot gear and German shepherds had to be called to keep order; for the cops and the press, the victim's identity became a detail as man morphed into symbol. Heb Darnton was forgotten in the fracas, but Mary never forgot a victim and never would. Because once upon a time the victim had been someone she loved.

The victim. Maybe that was it. Mary deleted the old search, typed in DARNTON, and hit GO.

Your search has found 2238 articles, reported the computer.

Ugh, no. She read the first couple, skimming for information about Darnton. The homeless man was mentioned only as Steere's victim. She read the next five articles. Nothing. She narrowed the search and put in Heb Darnton.

Your search has found 1981 articles, it said.

Mary skimmed the first few. They were the same as in the earlier search, but included Darnton's first name. Her brain was too tired to think and she drained her mug. She'd run out of gas. Christ. What kind of a name was Heb anyway? A nickname? She took a flyer, typed in HEB, and waited while the hard disk ground away. Then she caught the typo in the search request.

EB.

Damn it! Mary never could type. She'd tried to teach herself on that Mavis Beacon program, with no luck. She bought the software because she liked the pretty, entrepreneurial Mavis on the box cover and wanted to support her efforts. But Mary couldn't find the time to cyberpractice and then she found out Mavis wasn't even a real businesswoman, just a model. It was disillusioning.

Your search has found 23 articles.

Mary was about to delete the search request when her gaze slipped to the first article, about a farmer in Lancaster County outside of Philly, an Amish man named Eb Stoltzfus. Eb and his friends were reportedly having problems with corn borers. Real helpful. Mary thought a minute. Eb. Ebenezer. She clicked to the next article. Sure enough.

" 'Ebenezer Squeezer' was my favorite song," said Jillian Cohen, a second grader at Gladwyne Elementary School. "I liked it the best in the whole recital."

Mary jolted to alertness. Eb, not Heb? Ebenezer Darnton. Maybe that was the real name of the homeless man. The only way anyone knew his name was that he had told it to the neighbors. Maybe the neighbors were hearing Heb but he was saying Eb. The cops had followed their procedures for identifying him, but Mary had been more thorough herself in her neighborhood survey. She searched EBENEZER DARNTON and pressed GO!

Your search has found no articles.

Shit. It was 6:50. Maybe Marta would be late. Maybe Marta would die. Think, girl. If the search is too narrow, broaden the time. Mary hit a key to search all archives from 1950 to present.

Your search has found no articles.

What to do? Last try. She typed in EBENEZER and punched GO!

Your search has found 3 articles.

Yes! Mary punched up the first article. It was the police blotter from February 7, 1965. Her heart leapt with hope until she read:

A brown 1964 Oldsmobile was reported to be stolen from a parking lot on Joshua Road in Plymouth Meeting. Ebenezer Sherry of the Plymouth Meeting Police reported that this was the twelfth automobile stolen from township residents this year and feared that auto theft was on the rise, even in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

News flash. Crime spreads to suburbs. Mary sighed and hit a key for the second article. Maybe this was a bonehead idea after all.

Ebenezer Yoachim, 68, died today at Sinai Gardens Convalescent Home. Mr. Yoachim owned the Yoyo Dry Cleaners on Cottman Avenue and until his illness was a baritone in the barbershop quartet called the Troubadours. Mr. Yoachim is survived by his wife, Rachel Newman Yoachim, and his son, Samuel.

Mary felt let down. An obit. Couldn't be Darnton. One story left. She hit the key without enthusiasm. It was from April 12, 1965, and appeared in the business section.

Ebenezer Darning, of Greene Street in Center City, was promoted to teller at the main branch of Girard Bank.

Mary blinked, surprised at the similarity of the names. Darning/Darnton. She sat up straighter and scrolled down the page. Underneath the blurb was a thumbnail photo of a young man with a confident smile and a smooth chin. EBENEZER DARNING, said the caption. The man in the news photo was black, like Darnton. It was surprising. A black man promoted in that era? That was around the time of the Civil Rights Act. Racial discrimination was rampant then. Darning must have had brains and guts.

Mary leaned closer to the computer screen to see the bank teller's face. She couldn't tell what he looked like from the tiny photo, so she moved the computer mouse and clicked the cyber-magnifying glass over the man's face. The photo blossomed into pixelated squares but was still too small. The man's eyes looked closed, as if the shutter had been snapped at just the wrong moment. Mary clicked the mouse button again.

My God. She stared at the enlarged photo on the screen. The sight pressed her back into her desk chair. It was a photo of a young Eb Darning, but she could have been looking at an autopsy photo of Heb Darnton, his eyes sealed in death. Without the beard, there was a clear resemblance around the eyes, a protruding of the brow and a largish nose. It looked like the same man, over thirty years younger. Was Eb Darning the same man as Heb Darnton?

To be sure Mary needed to compare the computer image to the photos of autopsy photos in the file. Had she discovered something significant? Was this related to the evidence the D.A. had uncovered? Could everybody in the world type better than she did? Mary leapt from her desk chair and ran down the hall to the glass conference room.

9

The blizzard intensified as night fell outside the jury room in the Criminal Justice Center, but Ralph Merry was pleased. The jurors were going the right way, which was finding Steere innocent. Ralph believed 100 percent in the Fourth Amendment and argued that Steere was justified in defending himself when he got carjacked. Plus it would made a more upbeat ending for Ralph's book.

The jurors weren't allowed to sign any deals yet, but Ralph's wife, Hilda, had gotten calls from two literary agents in New York, who said several publishing houses were interested in the inside story of the Steere case. That's what publishing companies called themselves— houses— and Ralph thought they could call themselves whatever they wanted if they came through with six figures. Still, he wasn't going to make any deals with any houses until he made sure they would put his picture on the cover like they did with General Schwarzkopf's book. Ralph's book deal was this close, except that Kenny Manning was putting up quite a fight to convict.

"The man's guilty!" Kenny was saying. He had lifted himself from his seat and leaned halfway over the table on his strong arms, almost in Christopher Graham's startled face. "The brother walks up to the car, all the man had to do was drive away. That's it. He didn't have to do him!"

"Damn right," added Lucky Seven.

Christopher regained his composure and squared his broad shoulders as he stood behind his chair. He hadn't had much contact with black people, but he wasn't about to be intimidated by anything weighing less than a ton. "You can't look at it that way, Kenny. You have to put yourself in Steere's shoes."

"Fuck that, man. Steere had a SL600. Twelve cylinders! Car like that'll climb trees."

"Thas' right." Lucky Seven nodded, though Kenny ignored him.

"If I had a car like that and some crazy old dude come up to me, I'd take off and leave him spinnin'."

"If I had a car like that," Lucky Seven added, "I wouldn't be here."

Megan would have laughed if she weren't so anxious. She'd voted to acquit Steere, but didn't want to say so with this going on. The fighting was getting worse. She really wanted this trial over with. Her e-mail had already been deleted by AOL. Megan wondered if that guy she met in the chat room had written back. He even had his own webpage. Megan liked that in a man.

Christopher remained focused on Kenny. "But Steere was scared. He panicked."

"Ain't no call to panic!" Kenny shouted. "Dude was just drunk, is all. He wasn't gonna hurt nobody! He was jus' an old man talkin' out his mouth!"

Megan flinched at the decibel level, and Nick grew even more nervous. He couldn't believe this was happening. The voting, the hollering. He never decided anything without Antoinetta. His stomach was killing him.

"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Wahlbaum, who stood up at the middle of the table, a matronly fulcrum between Christopher and Kenny. Her form was stocky in a knit dress that flattened her generous bosom, and she raised her arms as if to separate the men. "Gentlemen, please. There are two sides to every story. We have to discuss this like civilized people, sitting down at the table, not shouting across it. You're calmer if you're sitting, you just are. It's your body language. I think it's a shame that that homeless man was killed, but I can't blame—"

"I wasn't talkin' to you, teacher," Kenny said, his smooth head snapping toward Mrs. Wahlbaum. "Backoff."

"Just one minute, Kenny," Ralph said.

"I'm fine, Ralph." Mrs. Wahlbaum silenced him with a wrinkled hand. She knew the way to deal with bullies was to stand them down. "Why don't you both sit down, Christopher? Kenny? Just sit right down, both of you." She waved her arms at them, so hard she could feel the fat wiggle underneath. Hadassah arms, her sister-in-law called them, but that Yetta could go straight to hell.

Nick was getting more worried by the minute. He ate some Tums but his stomach was still on fire. He didn't like being here without his wife. Forty-two years he'd been married, and Antoinetta had made all the decisions. Paid the bills, cooked the meals, raised the girls. Nick wished he had something to relax him. He wished he had some milk. Milk was supposed to be good for ulcers. Or maybe some nice, cold anisette in a little glass.

Christopher folded his large frame into the hard chair, but Kenny didn't budge. "What?" Kenny said, with an incredulous laugh in Mrs. Wahlbaum's direction. "Teacher, you gonna tell Kenny Manning what to do, you got a lesson to learn."

"Kenny, I have forty years on you. You'd better show me some respect."

"Respect?" Kenny said, menacing her with a smile. "Show you respect?"

"The expert again," muttered Mr. Fogel. "The expert in sitting. She knows all about sitting. Ask her anything." He leaned over to Wanthida. "It's Iraq and Iran in here, and she thinks if they sit down, they'll make nice. Like it's automatic."

"I'm ignoring you, Mr. Fogel," Mrs. Wahlbaum snapped. Troublemakers hated being ignored. "Now, Kenny, you sit down. Sit, sit, sit!"

"Lady, you out your fuckin' mind?" Kenny spat out, his smile vanishing. "Who you think you are, be orderin' me?"

Ralph figured if he didn't step in Mrs. Wahlbaum would be dead. "Kenny," he said, "tell us why you think Steere is guilty. You can stand or sit, whatever you like. Make the case, like the lawyers. We'll listen. This is supposed to be a legal-type discussion."

"Hey, Ralph Mouth, back off my man," Lucky Seven said, and laughed nervously.

Isaiah Fellers sat off to the side, silent. He had voted not guilty the first time even though Kenny would be pissed off. The way Isaiah saw it, Steere was just protecting himself and his property. Didn't matter who was black and who was white. Steere had a right as a man.

"It wasn't an order, Kenny, it was a request," Mrs. Wahlbaum soothed. "Please. We have to reason together, all of us. Discuss it. Sitting down." Her knees were shaking slightly and she figured it was a good time to sit down. "See?"

Kenny stood alone, still braced on his arms at the other end of the table. Damned if he would sit down just because some Jew teacher told him to. She was dissing him but his arms were getting tired. The room fell quiet, waiting. Watching.

Nick wished he could cover his eyes. When the fighting stopped they'd have to vote again and he'd have to decide all alone. On his last visit with Antoinetta, she told him he should vote to convict. She said Mr. Steere was a crook and the Trolios had sold him their house for a song. But if Nick voted guilty he'd have to go up against all the other white people. He didn't know how to vote. When the paper came to him, could he write I STILL DON'T KNOW?

In the meantime Kenny had made a decision and was pointing at Mrs. Wahlbaum. "Don't be tellin' me what to do, teacher. You understand what I'm sayin'?" His bicep knotted and nobody, including Nick, missed the small tattoo on his arm. It was a Chinese symbol that Nick couldn't read, which only scared him more.

"She understands," Ralph said, quickly.

Mr. Fogel shrugged his skinny shoulders. "Of course she understands. She understands everything. I bet she can predict the future."

"Fine, Kenny," Mrs. Wahlbaum said, knowing Kenny had to save face. "I understand."

"Just so you understand," Kenny said, a warning in his voice.

"I do. I understand."

"Good." Kenny slid into his chair almost as an afterthought. Lucky Seven didn't meet his eye.

Megan Gerrity glanced at her Swatch watch. Babies' heads tumbled around the circle. The watch was barely readable, but it was so cute. "It's almost seven o'clock. How late can we deliberate tonight? Does anybody know? Maybe we can fit in a final vote."

Kenny folded his arms like a musclebound child, but Christopher nodded, pleased. "We can deliberate as late as we want," he said. "We're supposed to call the judge and let the bailiff know when we want dinner."

They all wanted to vote again, except for Nick, who thought he was going to catch on fire. He sipped his water but it didn't put out the burning in his stomach. There was like a fireball racing up his throat. Nick couldn't keep it down. He blurted out, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"What?" Christopher said, and around the table, eleven mouths dropped open.

10

Marta didn't reach Steere's Society Hill neighborhood until the Taurus's clock ticked to 7:01, but she was lucky to get there at all. The traffic jam on Locust had lasted forever, and she'd finally escaped it by driving up on the pavement for half a block and slipping down a side street. A frigid night had fallen and the snow blew harder. The windshield wipers pumped and the defroster had finally succeeded.

Marta looked for a parking space on the street near Steere's house. The cars parked at the curb were expensive lumps of snow. Society Hill was the most fashionable residential district in the city but apparently tough to park in. Marta drove around the block looking for a space. Her eyes kept straying to the clock's glowing digits. 7:04, 7:05, 7:06.

Fuck. It was getting late. She didn't have time to screw around with the goddamn car. The space didn't have to be legal, it just had to be open. There. Marta plowed through the snow and pulled up in front of the bus stop. She twisted off the ignition and climbed out of the car.

A cold blast hit her like a shock. Wind tore through her suit and raincoat. Snow chilled her shins and soaked her best pumps. Marta would have worn boots but she hadn't owned any since she was a kid. She spent her adult life going from airport limo to hotel, from cab to courthouse. She hurried down the street in a rut from a car tire.

The street was narrow, lined with costly colonial brick rowhouses, their restored shutters piled high with picturesque snow. Each house bore a historic cast-iron fire sign, but Marta cared little for history. Her own history would have damned her. One therapist had called her "self-realized" and she'd fired him for it.

Hey, mister! It's snowing hard again. Please, mister, stop! A blue station wagon stops. It looks big as a house. The front door opens wide and the man at the wheel wears black glasses and a tie. Marta doesn't want to get in, even though it's warm in the station wagon. She has a bad feeling about the driver. Something in his smile. Her mother is too drunk to notice. Praise the Lord, her mother says, and it begins again.

Marta pushed those memories away. Why were they surfacing now? Was it the snow? Didn't matter, she had no time for it. When she reached the corner, she squeezed between the parked cars, dumping snow on her legs, and climbed onto the sidewalk. The streets were deserted but lights were ablaze in the rowhouses along the street. Everybody was inside, hunkered down and riding out the storm.

Marta hurried down the sidewalk, passing first-floor windows. Warm yellow lights glowed through the slats of the wooden shutters. One living room had a fire in the fireplace and its flames flickered on the high ceiling. Marta imagined the families, snug and self-satisfied in their homes; prosperous families, with cabinets full of food. Books lining every room and stacked on every coffee table. Mozart playing softly on the CD player. It was sheer fantasy, and it wasn't hers. Not anymore.

Marta shivered and churned ahead. She ducked to avoid the stinging snow and hide her face. Reporters could be waiting at the house, or the cops. She didn't want to be seen or recognized. Front Street, where Steere lived, was just around the corner. Steere's street overlooked the expressway and the Delaware River, and as soon as Marta turned onto Front, she caught a snootful of damp, snowy wind.

She clutched her collar closed and got a bead on Steere's house, sitting squarely in the middle of the street among other million-dollar houses. Marta slowed her step. She didn't see anyone in front of the house. A car traveled down the road slowly, and Marta sunk behind her wool collar and turned her face away. When the car had passed and the snowy street was silent again, she headed to Steere's town house.

It was a restored colonial of faded brick with bubbly mullioned windows; four stories tall and the grandest on the block, too pretentious for Marta's taste. Marta adored houses and owned four if you included one condo; Steere's reminded her of her house in Beacon Hill, which was always cold, dark, and medievally drafty. Steere's town house was illuminated by a working gaslight next to its paneled front door, which sat off the street behind a six-foot brick wall. A skinny pile of snow lined the top of the wall, and in the middle was a locked gate of iron bars.

Marta hurried down Front Street to the house, wondering if the live-in maid was home. How else would she get in? The first- and second-floor lights were on, so Marta was hopeful. She reached the front gate, but it was too tall to scale even if she were desperate enough to try. Marta pressed the buzzer mounted next to an intercom in the brick wall. No response. She pressed the buzzer again, harder.

There was a crackling through the intercom, then the maid's voice. "Who is there?" she said, distinctly enough to be at Marta's ear.

"This is Ms. Richter, Mr. Steere's lawyer. I have to come in. Open the gate." There was a pause, then a metallic click at the gate's latch. The gate didn't budge, the mechanism evidently sluggish in the cold. "Try again," Marta said and gave the gate a solid push. It opened far enough for her to slip through and she climbed the few steps to the front door, which opened slightly.

The maid stood at the threshold, wrapping a cardigan tightly over her uniform and squinting against the snow. Cold light from the entrance hall silhouetted her thin, short frame. Marta had met her once but had forgotten her name. "Missa Richter," the maid said. She was an older woman, and Marta vaguely remembered she was Polish or something.

Marta reached the top step and stamped her feet to defrost her shins. "And you're—"

"I go home now. My daughter, she need me. Snow day tomorrow from school," she chattered as she led Marta into the marble-tiled hall and closed and locked the front door. "I take your coat?"

"No, I'll keep it. I need you to help me. I have to find something for Mr. Steere. He asked me to bring it to him."

"Okay, okay, whatever you say," the maid said. Her face was lined with age and wear and her head of fuzzy gray pincurls bobbed. She seemed nervous, but Marta had grown accustomed to making people nervous and used it to good effect.

"Mr. Steere needs some special papers for his case. He said his girlfriend might have them. Do you know her phone number?"

"Girlfrien'?" The maid frowned.

"Yes. I know about his girlfriend. Do you have her number?"

"I don't, I have to go now. My daughter, she pick me up." The maid drew her sweater closer around her bony shoulders.

"What is his girlfriend's name? I have to reach her."

The maid shook her head, jittery. She glanced behind her and edged into a marble hallway. "I go now." She turned and hurried away, and Marta went down the hallway after her.

"Wait! Stop!" Marta hustled past a small elevator and a powder room. "Don't you want to help Mr. Steere? He'll be angry if you don't."

Marta found herself at the hall's end in a cavernous, book-lined library with cherrywood bookshelves extending to the ceiling. Rolling wooden ladders leaned against the shelves and leather wing chairs sat in front of a cold hearth. The library was empty. The maid had vanished. Across the room, double mahogany doors opened onto a spacious formal dining room with white marble floors. A set of modern, high-backed chairs sat around a long glass table dominated by a spiky crystal centerpiece, like a snowflake sculpted of glass. A frosted crystal chandelier cast shards of light around the room.

Where was the maid? Marta was spooked. She sensed the attack the split second before a pair of powerful hands seized her by the throat, choking the air out of her and lifting her bodily off the ground.

11

Bobby Bogosian squeezed the bitch's throat from behind and lifted her up by the neck. He held her there while she thrashed and grunted, running in the air like a fucking Road Runner cartoon. It wasn't like Bobby enjoyed the sight, because he didn't. He knew guys who got off on this shit all right, but to him it was a job. He was a professional. So when he thought the lawyer was gonna suffocate he threw her across the floor and she crashed into the dining room table.

"No!" she screamed, and Bobby thought it was funny how people always said "no." Like that would do anything. Like he could be persuaded. Just say no. He went after her.

Bobby covered the room in three bounds and shoved the bitch forward onto the table. Her head hit the glass thing in the middle and sent it crashing to the marble floor in a million pieces. Fuck! Now Bobby was mad. Professionals didn't make a mess. The fucking thing probably cost a thousand bucks. Fucking bitch.

She was howling and trying to kick and wiggle away, so he grabbed her hair and turned her around. He yanked her by the front of her blouse and slammed her head back onto the table. One shot, then another. Her eyes rolled around but she wasn't out yet. Stubborn bitch. Fine. He'd play it that way. Play it as it lays.

"What the fuck's the matter with you?" Bobby shouted in her face. "You broke that, you bitch!"

Marta tried to scream but couldn't. She gasped for air. Her throat closed. Her head exploded in pain. Tears of fright sprang to her eyes.

"What do you think you're doin'? Breakin' things! Trespassin'! You're a fucking bitch, you know that! You're a fuckin' cunt!"

Marta tried to catch her breath. Who was this man? What was going on? He was tearing the hair right out of her head.

"What the fuck do you think you're doin'?" Bobby slammed her head against the table again and shoved himself between her legs. He'd pin her to the table with his dick. Let the bitch feel it. See how she liked that.

Marta felt her legs wrenched open. Her skirt at her waist. No. Not that. She thrashed in his grip. Tried to push him away. Kick him, kill him. He banged her head harder against the table. Marta cried out in agony and terror. She fought with her hands. Clawed the air with her nails.

"You want to get in my good graces?" Bobby was screaming.

Marta was groggy from the blows. Her scalp was on fire. Warmth gushed from the back of her head. Blood. Hers. Her fear grew so intense it became remote. It was happening to someone else. She watched the violence as if from above and struggled to get her bearings. Think. Save herself. The man had been waiting in Steere's house. The man must know Steere. The maid had set her up.

"You want to get in my good graces? Answer me!" Bobby raged, spitting.

Above Marta the man's face was red with fury and hate. Her mind reeled. The man worked for Steere. Steere had sent him to stop her. Then he couldn't kill her and he couldn't rape her. She'd have to go on TV when the jury came back. Marta told herself she had the upper hand even though she was getting the shit beat out of her. Power was a state of mind.

"You want to get in my good graces? Answer me, you cunt!"

"You have graces?" Marta managed to say.

Bobby couldn't believe this whore! When it came time to do her, he might start enjoying his work. He pulled her head forward by her hair and rammed it back against the glass table again and again until she finally went out. It took two more shots than he thought it would.

* * *

Marta gasped as she bent over the sink in her hotel bathroom. Even the slightest movement sent pain arcing though her body. She must have bruised her ribs, and her back was killing her. Her head throbbed and her hands shook as she splashed warm water on her face and let it course down her cheeks. Marta was alive, but she was a prisoner. The thug was sitting in the living room of her hotel suite. He wasn't leaving until the jury came back.

Marta splashed more water on her face and tried to collect her thoughts. She'd regained consciousness in the man's Corvette, and he'd taken her to her hotel and walked her up to her room, pressing a Magnum between her battered ribs. How would she get free of him?

Marta twisted off the faucet and patted her face dry. Wincing, she reached around the back of her head, where a dozen goose eggs had hatched, and fingered the lumps to see if the bleeding had stopped. She came away with blood on her fingertips, her scalp swollen and tender. All her bruises were in back, hidden; a very professional goon. She opened the medicine cabinet stiffly and gulped three more Advil. Then she caught sight of herself in the bathroom's large, spotless mirror.

Marta's hair was disheveled, her makeup worn off. Her clothes were wrinkled and her gaze vacant. She hadn't eaten or drunk anything since lunch and her skin had a pinched, unhealthy pallor. Marta knew that face. She looked exactly like her mother after a binge. It was the last person in the world she wanted to be.

Praise God you picked us up! Our car broke down back a ways. Me and the child here. Her mother pushes Marta into the front seat next to the driver of the blue station wagon. Gets in after her. Marta is thinking, No, that's not how we do it. You go in first, not me. But her mother is too drunk to remember. She closes them inside. Marta stares at the tall, silver stem of the door lock to make it stay up. The driver's knee bumps against hers as they drive off in the station wagon.

Marta shook off the echoes. She had to get going. She checked her watch. 8:30. Time was running out. What could she do? How could she shake him? Would there be more beatings? Something told her no. Steere wanted her paralyzed, not pulverized.

Marta unlocked the bathroom door and opened it quietly. She peeked through the crack and looked past her bedroom into the living room. She tensed at the sight of the thug even at a distance; her body remembered his blows even as her mind willed them to vanish. He was sitting on the plush sofa, his black cowboy boots crossed on the polished coffee table. He must have been six foot three, with a heavy brow, curly dark hair, and coarse features. He scratched his chest through a beige silk shirt as he read a magazine. He could have been somebody's lug of a husband but for the leather shoulder holster and Magnum.

Marta turned out the light and left the bathroom. The thug didn't look up from his magazine, and she eased onto her bed in front of the TV. A special news report was on. The mayor was holding a press conference, and she only half watched as a woman reporter shouted a question at him. Marta recognized the reporter from the Steere trial, a prom-pretty brunette named Alix Locke. Alix had dogged Marta for an exclusive interview, but Marta never gave exclusives, it was like making someone else the star. She feigned interest in the press conference while she tried to come up with her next move.

"Mr. Mayor," Alix said into a tall microphone in the aisle, "it's a yes-or-no question. Is there room in the budget to plow the side streets after this blizzard?"

If Mayor Walker was annoyed, it didn't show. He stood lanky, fit, and relaxed as a talk-show host. In the rep tie and rolled-up shirtsleeves he wore most of the time, the mayor was neither a handsome man nor an ugly one, with bright blue eyes, thick dark hair, and an electable smile. More persona than person, the image Mayor Walker projected was of a hardworking overgrown kid, just crazy enough to try and reverse the fortunes of a major American city. "Yes," the mayor answered, "there's ample room in the budget to plow the side streets, Alix. Didn't you read my budget? It's almost as good as Tom Clancy."

The reporters laughed and wrote it down. The press loved Mayor Walker, who, as far as Marta could tell, was a whiz at public relations. He kept his sentences short and grinned for every photo. He ate cannoli from an Italian bakery and fresh peaches from a Korean fruit stand; he was the first to check out a book from a new branch of the Free Library and the last to pet the anaconda at the Philadelphia Zoo. Most important, the mayor knew the secret to dealing with reporters: make their job easy, so they can go drink.

But Alix Locke wasn't smiling. "With all due respect, those residents who are snowed in may not find that funny when November rolls around."

The mayor's smile faded. "The residents of this city know it's not an issue of money. The issue is whether we can get the plows down the narrow streets. As you know, there are countless streets in this historic city which are barely one lane wide. It doesn't leave much room for a plow. With those streets, all we can do is our best."

"What exactly does that mean, Mr. Mayor?"

"It means that conventional snowplows won't fit down the street. They're too wide. We have to use the narrow plows and we're arranging now to buy them."

The reporters nodded and scribbled. Alix Locke pursed her lips and fumbled for a follow-up question. Marta leaned sideways and checked on the thug. He was still reading his magazine. Dog World? The man beat her to a pulp but he was kind to animals? Somebody explain this.

On TV, Alix Locke was doing her best Brenda Starr. "Mr. Mayor, you knew this problem would arise because it did last year. So the city had a year to order those snowplows. Why weren't they ordered and delivered by this storm?"

Marta stared at the TV images without seeing them. How would she get out of here? Then she had an idea.

12

Marta zapped the reporter into silence with the remote control and walked with discomfort to the living room. The thug looked up from his magazine, squinting slightly, and Marta stood at a distance, the nervousness in her smile genuine. She leaned on a large, paneled entertainment center near the telephone for support. "I have to call the office," she said. "You said no phone calls. What's a girl to do?"

"No calls."

"It's about the Steere case. It's important, and if I don't check in my associates will start to wonder. I said I'd be back at seven o'clock. I'm pretty punctual, and they know that."

"Tough shit."

"If I don't show up, they'll think something happened in the blizzard. Maybe they'll call 911."

The thug peered over the glossy magazine and his flat brown eyes registered skepticism. "So?"

"So they know this is my hotel. They may come here looking for me, maybe send someone. You want to explain who you are? Why I'm here?"

"Shut the fuck up already." The goon set down the magazine. "What's the phone number?" Marta told him the number and watched as he plunked them into a Trimline phone on the end table, looking remarkably like a gorilla at a miniature piano. "Get on the extension and talk," he said, gesturing. "Keep it short. I'll be listening. Anything funny and it's over."

"Got it." In fact, Marta had counted on it. She picked up the receiver from the telephone on the entertainment center. "Hello?"

"Mary DiNunzio," the associate said when she picked up.

"Are you finished that motion in limine?"Marta asked, staccato.

"Uh, no. I mean, it's started, but it's not finished. I was doing the computer search. I found out that—"

"I didn't mean you should stop work on the motion!" Marta checked the thug's expression, and he seemed to be listening. In front of him on the coffee table lay the discarded dog magazine. It bore a battered subscription label, and Marta squinted discreetly to read the name. BOGOSIAN. "What happened to the motion? We have to file it tomorrow!"

"We do? We are?" Mary stammered. "Well, uh, I have the research, but I didn't write—"

"The research? Am I supposed to hand your research to the judge? Get started on it right now. I want it done by the time I get there." From the other end of the line came the sound of an associate sucking wind. Good. All according to plan. Marta hung up the phone, crossed her arms, and frowned at Bogosian. "Houston, we have a problem," she said.

"Huh?" He let his receiver clatter onto the hook.

Marta decided against explaining popular culture to a primate, especially one with felonies on the brain. "I have to go in. You heard her. She fucked up. I have to write that brief."

"I don't give a fuck."

"It's an important brief," Marta lied. "It has to be filed. I have to get to the office."

"You're not goin' nowhere."

"If I don't file a response, Steere's fingerprints will go to the jury. That evidence shows the placement of his fingerprints. It could put him in jail forever, maybe get him the death penalty. You want to tell him that or shall I?"

"You playin' games with me?" Bogosian's eyes flickered with malice, sending an undeniable tremor down Marta's spine.

"No. I'm just trying to do what your boss pays me to do."

"I don't have a boss, I'm self-employed."

"Fine. Steere, then. Whatever. This is no game."

"Oh yeah? Should I call Steere and find out if you're bluffin'?"

Marta laughed. "Steere's in a holding cell. You can't call him."

Bogosian smirked as he lifted the receiver, his pinky finger extended absurdly. "Oh yeah? Why do you think they call it a cell phone?"

* * *

Elliot Steere was dozing in his cell when the flip phone in his breast pocket began to vibrate. His eyes flew open in alarm and he snapped his head to the corner of the cell, deftly slipping the phone from his pocket. "Don't call me," he whispered into the phone.

"Sorry, but I'm at the hotel babysittin' your lawyer. She wants to go to the office. Says she has to work on some motion. What do you want me to do?"

Steere glanced over his shoulder, where a black guard sat reading a paperback at his desk near the door. He was one of the night crew and never said two words to Steere. Steere's guard, Frank Devine, was on the day shift, and Steere hadn't gotten to any of the other guards. It was risky to deal with too many, and Steere hadn't anticipated the snowstorm, so he didn't know he'd need somebody at night. Another mistake. How annoying. "What motion?"

"Something about fingerprints. It's 'in somethin'.' Sounded like a foreign language."

Steere realized Bobby meant the motion in limine. The defendant's response had to be filed, they'd talked about it. But why did Marta want to work on it now? Why wouldn't she let it pass and fuck him up? It wasn't that important, was it? Steere paused, wary. "A motion, you're sure?"

"Sounds like the real deal. She talked to the other lawyer, a girl. On the telephone."

Steere thought a minute. What was Marta up to? He wanted to find out. "Let her go, Bobby, but go with her. Don't let her out of your sight. Do it." He hit the END button and returned the phone to his pocket just as the guard peeked in, his attention drawn by the movement in the cell. His scowling face loomed close to the bulletproof window.

"You say something?" the guard asked, rapping the window with a thick knuckle.

"Just talking to myself," Steere said. The guard turned his back, and Steere closed his eyes and rested his head against the unforgiving cinderblock. The wall was hard and scratchy, but in time Steere didn't feel it; he was weightless. The fluorescent lights were harsh and bright, but soon Steere didn't see them; it was pitch black. Steere sat very still, relaxed. Slipped back inside.

What could Marta be up to? It didn't matter. Even if she wasn't going to the office to prepare his motion, she wouldn't get away with anything. Bogosian would have her in control. She was way out of her depth with him; the man was a killer. Steere felt confident he'd made the right decision to let her go. Sun-Tzu would have said, Make the enemy take a chance; Elliot Steere would have said, Give Marta the rope to hang herself.

Steere considered the jury. He wondered if they were still deliberating and was satisfied that everything was in order there, too. He had specified that they not take long to acquit, and Steere's juror would obey him. After all, he had paid a substantial sum for a verdict of innocence. Justice didn't come cheap. Freedom can't be bought without foresight. It was a matter of taking the ceiling off your thinking, a vision thing, and all great leaders had it. As Sun-Tzu had said:

The victor first achieves victory, then conducts battle.

13

"AARRGHHH!" Mary DiNunzio had finally lost it. "AAARGH!" She buried her fingers in her hair and considered ripping it all out. She would perish from the endless work, and when they found her body, dirty-blond strands would be scattered around her like hay in a manger. The coroner wouldn't be able to explain the phenomenon, but any associate could. "WHY CANT PARTNERS EVER MAKE UP THEIR MINDS?" Mary shouted.

"Maybe she was kidding," Judy said, mystified. She sat in one of the chairs facing Mary's desk, bundled in a drippy yellow parka. Judy was still too cold to take it off, and snow from her boots melted onto the rug. The tip of her nose had thawed but she had a bad case of hat head.

"Kidding? Kidding?! Have you ever known Marta Richter to kid about anything?"

"It is odd," Judy said. She was thinking, something was fishy. Something didn't square. She couldn't put her finger on it. The blizzard was blowing outside and snow blasted past the window of Mary's office. The temperature had dipped, and the police had warned everybody off the street. Why would Marta come out on a night like this to check a motion she knew wasn't written? Especially after she had put it on the back burner. "It really is odd."

"Odd? You think it's odd?" Mary began to laugh, a little crazily. "First she tells me to write the motion. Then she tells me to stop writing the motion. Then she screams at me for not writing the motion. You think that's odd?"

Judy nodded.

"Odd is not a word I'd use. Odd is a cakewalk compared to this. Odd is chump change."

"Well, it is—"

"SCHIZOPHRENIC! Schizophrenic is the word I'd use! Schizophrenic is what comes immediately to mind."

"Mary—"

"She's splitting, I'm telling you."

"Mare—"

"We got a bona fide multiple here, billing time."

"Wait. Relax. Chill. You sure Marta just said to do the motion?"

"I have ears, don't I? I heard her! Right on the phone, that's what she said!" Mary couldn't stop shouting even though she was giving herself a headache. "Look at my neck. Look at these blotches!" She opened her blouse at the neckline so Judy could see. "My head is going to explode! Warning, warning! Step away from the associate! Step away from the associate!"

"Maybe it's menopause," Judy said thoughtfully.

"I'm too young for menopause!"

"Not you, doof." Judy rolled her eyes. "Erect. Maybe Erect is going through the change."

"Not possible. Erect has no estrogen. Nobody with estrogen could do this to another human being." Mary deflated into her chair. Her head fell into her hands and she raked her hair back again and again. "Oh, God, why am I a lawyer? Why couldn't I have been a cowboy?"

Judy watched her with a twinge of regret. She'd gotten Mary into this mess. Made her leave Stalling & Webb to start their own firm, which never got off the ground. Still, something very odd was going on, and Mary wasn't getting it. "Listen, Mare. Marta Richter is a world-class trial lawyer. She's not stupid. And she may be compulsive, but she's not crazy. There must be a reason for what she's doing."

"No, there isn't. She's still a partner and they're all alike. I don't care if she's a woman and I'm supposed to like her. She should burn in hell. I should find another job."

"Think about it. Maybe Marta is seeing something we can't. Something we don't. It's like Van Gogh, seeing the colors we don't."

Mary kept shaking her head. "I have other skills, don't I? What color is my parachute?"

"Yellow."

Mary blinked, pained. "Yellow?"

"The yellows of Van Gogh. He can see them, but we can't." Judy shifted forward in her parka. "This is the same thing. Marta can see something we can't. We have to figure out what she's seeing, what she's doing. She's like Napoleon."

"Napoleon?" Mary was getting dizzy. Sometimes she thought Judy was just too smart for them to be friends. She needed a dumber friend. "I thought we were talking about Van Gogh."

"You know that story about Napoleon? That famous battle he was in?"

"No idea."

"You know it."

"No, I don't."

"I know you know it, Mare."

"I don't know it!" Mary wondered if Judy, Marta, everyone around her was going crackers. Maybe it was the snowstorm. Cabin fever, early onset. "Judy, what are you talking about?"

"Napoleon was in a battle, I forget which, and there was so much smoke and dust he couldn't see what was going on." Judy unzipped her parka. "Nobody could see what was going on because of the smoke. The sides who were fighting couldn't even see each other to shoot."

"Okay." Crackers. Losing it. Too much coffee. Not enough coffee.

"Napoleon told his lieutenants where to move his men anyway, in response to what he knew the other side would be doing. No one understood what he was doing, but he could direct the battle without seeing anything. All his soldiers thought he was nuts. But when the dust settled, who do you think won?"

"The lawyers?"

Judy laughed. "That's not funny."

"Yes, it is. You laughed."

"You're missing the point."

"No, you are. I have a motion to write and Napoleon will be here any minute."

"Is that all you're worried about?"

"No, but we'll talk about it on the way." Mary stood up and headed for the conference room, with Judy dripping behind.

* * *

Fueled by a pot of blistering Hawaiian Kona, Judy and Mary started to draft the motion, but they kept getting distracted talking about whether Heb Darnton was Eb Darning and Steere's color blindness. The more Judy thought about it, the fishier it got, and her suspicions solidified into theory. "Is it really possible that Steere intended to kill Darning?" Judy asked.

"Why? What's his motive?" Mary couldn't ignore the draft of the motion on her laptop and wondered how much time they had before Marta got back. "Where do you think Marta called from?"

"I don't know, you talked to her."

"I think she was at the hotel." Mary hit a key on the laptop and read the beginning of the last paragraph: Traul courts aroudn the country have long held such evidence inadmisssable. Goddamn Mavis Beacon. Betty Crocker wannabe. Mary rolled the trackball to the icon for Spellcheck. "So how long until Marta gets here and starts screaming?"

"A half hour if she takes a cab."

"Think that's enough time to finish the brief?"

"No."

"Okay, so what's his motive?" It was intriguing, but it wasn't work. Mary hit the SAVE key on the computer, to save her job. Maybe that's why they called it SAVE.

"I'm not exactly sure about motive, but think what we know about Steere. He's an egotist. Arrogant. Ruthless. A heartless asshole."

"Don't mince words now. And plenty of people are assholes. They don't commit murder because of it. It's not enough for motive." Mary noticed her laptop screen turn blank and her brief drift into power-saving sleep.

"Yes it is, in a way. It's a power thing. When some poor black guy tries to carjack Steere, he knows he can kill him and get away with it."

"That's quite a stretch, isn't it?" Mary reached into the center of the table and picked up the printout of Darnton/Darning's photo from the computer archives.

"It's consistent with Steere's personality."

"True, but it's not enough. If Steere killed intentionally, it has something to do with Darnton, if he is Darnton. Because he's Darnton, not because he's homeless." Mary scrutinized the photo for the umpteenth time and mentally compared it with the gruesome autopsy photos. "I bet Heb Darnton is the same man as Eb Darning. He'd be the right age, about fifty-one, fifty-two. Does it look like the same man to you, only older?" She slid the photo across the table to Judy, who caught it midway.

"He didn't age well, did he?" Judy asked, studying the photo. "You got a theory? Go with it."

"Let's say Darnton— Darning— is the man in the photo," Mary said tentatively. "He used to be a guy with a job, but now he's homeless. It happens every day. We know he was alcoholic, the neighbors told us that. Let's say he started drinking after he left the bank teller job and went downhill from there. Lost his job, his girl. Grew a beard."

Judy set down the photo, thinking aloud. "So you think this has to do with Darning?"

"Maybe. Maybe it wasn't a chance meeting between Darning and Steere. Maybe they knew each other."

"That's even dopier than what I said." Judy screwed up her large features, and Mary raised her hand like the Pope.

"Hear me out. Put together what we learned. Let's say Steere didn't know the traffic light was red. If he didn't, his actions don't make any sense, right?"

"Right. Unless he was really blitzed, which he wasn't, according to his blood tests."

"Besides, Steere's a big guy. He can absorb a lot of booze." Mary sipped coffee from her mug, more for courage than caffeine. "Steere's stopping under the bridge doesn't make sense unless you assume he wanted to meet Darning. They could have arranged to meet under the bridge. Assume Steere was stopping regardless of the light, to kill Darning. Then he made up the whole carjacking story."

"The carjacking was a lie?"

Mary shook her head. "Not a lie, a setup. Work with me. Remember, it's not a chance meeting." Although Mary was only thinking aloud, she felt her pulse quicken. "Steere was driving a new Mercedes. Two weeks old, right?"

"Let me double-check." Judy rose and went to the third accordion file. She flipped through the manila folders until she found the right one, yanked it out, and opened it up. "Here we go. The bill of sale for Steere's new car. It was three weeks old. $120,000! Wow!"

"What did he trade in? Bet it didn't look like the Snotmobile." By that Mary meant her ancient BMW 2002, the only chartreuse car ever sold.

"Look at all this stuff." Judy was agog. " 'Air-bags, leather-covered steering wheel and gear lever, speaker blanking plates integrated on the left and right side of the dashboard—' "

"Jude, what did he trade in?"

"I wonder what a blanking plate is. How could I graduate from law school and not know what a blanking plate is?"

"Judy! The trade-in."

Judy flipped to a series of long white documents and screwed up her face in triplicate. "Oh, here. Jeez. He traded in a Mercedes sedan. An S500. V-8. It says 'Five-Sitzer, four Turen.' "

"How old was the trade-in?" Mary craned her neck to read the document. "How many miles on it?"

"Half a year old. It had fifteen hundred miles on it." Judy looked up and the two associates locked eyes.

"It's not as if Steere needed a new car, is it?" Mary felt an ominous churning in the pit of her stomach and it wasn't the coffee. Suddenly the brief didn't matter and neither did her job. "What if Steere planned this whole thing? What if he bought the car to make the carjacking more plausible? What if Steere arranged to meet Darnton— Darning— to kill him? That's murder. Premeditated murder."

Judy cocked her head, skeptical now that Mary's expression was turning so grave. "You mean Steere used the new Mercedes as bait?"

"No. I mean Steere intended to kill Darning for some reason and bought the car in advance of that— to make the carjacking more plausible."

"Wait, wait, slow up. You're serious about this?"

Mary nodded. "It fits, doesn't it? It's consistent with what we found. Maybe Steere is a murderer." It made Mary sick to say it. "And we defended him. We probably got him off."

"Mary, wait." Judy shook her head. "Just because Steere bought a new car doesn't mean he's a murderer. Rich people do stuff like that all the time. An impulse purchase."

"A convertible? A white Mercedes that cost as much as a house?"

"So he's a show-off, and it was almost summer."

"Judy, he bought the most conspicuous car in history and drove it through the worst neighborhood in history. In the middle of the night. Isn't that suspicious? I mean, if you wanted people to believe you'd been carjacked, you'd go out and buy a car that was flashy enough to steal. Steere was making it look like random street crime when it was really murder."

Judy flopped back in her swivel chair with a sigh. Her lower lip puckered with concern. She was sorry she'd started all this, with the color blindness. She worried Mary was seeing murder mysteries because of her past. "But how could the D.A. prove this?"

"I don't know, they're a good office. Maybe they found some sort of after-discovered evidence. Your tax dollars."

Judy's eyes narrowed. "You still have a motive problem, Mare. Why would Steere want to kill Darning?"

"I don't know." Mary paused, then brightened. "Maybe there's a motive and we just don't know it yet. We don't have enough information. If we find the connection between the two men, we find the motive."

"What connection? There is no connection. One is at the bottom of the food chain and the other is at the top."

Mary blinked as the answer struck her. "What is the connection between a rich man and a bank employee? Get a clue. It rhymes with money."

Judy considered it. Maybe it wasn't completely nuts, or paranoid. "Wait a minute." She got up and searched the Steere file again, checking each accordion. "What bank did Darning work in?"

"PSFS. The Philadelphia Savings Fund Society. They're out of business now, but they still have the neon sign on top of their old building. You know the sign."

"PSFS? Sign? No."

"It's on the building, on the east side of town. It's huge, you can't miss it. It's a historic landmark now. You know it."

"Didn't we just have this conversation?"

"Forget it." Mary's headache returned. It was too late to be working. What a job. Mary remembered the plastic PSFS passbook she had as a child, in trademark tartan. It had an inky little S that stood for Student Account. Where was that frigging passbook now? Maybe she was rich and didn't know it. Then she could quit.

"Here it is." Judy had flipped to the back of a thick document and handed it to Mary. "Steere's most recent tax return. It shows all his bank accounts, even under his corporate names. None of them are at PSFS." Judy flipped through the other returns in the folder. "Even as long ago as five years, nothing says PSFS."

Mary read down the list on the tax form. Her heart stopped midway. "Steere has two accounts at Mellon Bank, for $100,000 combined. Now why would he leave that much money in an account that earns almost nothing?"

"What's the difference? Mellon Bank isn't the one Darning worked in."

"Yes, it is. Mellon bought PSFS about five years ago."

Judy blinked. "For real?"

"Mellon came out of Pittsburgh in the eighties and started buying up all the Philly banks, including Girard, which was a real Philadelphia thing. My mother won't bank at Mellon because they had the nerve to buy Girard."

"Odd."

"My mother?"

"No. I love your mother. I like your mother better than you do."

But Mary was thinking. "Maybe Darning rose up in the ranks at the bank, and there was some finagling with Steere's accounts or something. Bribes. Embezzlement."

"You're guessing."

"Can you blame me?" Mary asked, but that was all she said or needed to. She didn't want to talk about the past, she didn't even want to think about it. And she certainly didn't want to relive it.

Suddenly there was a commotion outside the conference room. The lawyers heard Marta talking to someone and sprang into action like Pavlov's associates. "Yikes!" Judy yelped, snatching the papers and photos from the table and stuffing them in the nearest accordion. "How'd Erect get here so fast?"

Mary punched a key to wake the laptop. "She took the broom."

14

Judge Harry Calvin Rudolph brooded at his heavy, polished desk in his modern chambers at the Criminal Justice Center, fingering the handwritten note that threatened to put the kibosh on his judicial career. The promotion of a lifetime was in striking distance, and Judge Rudolph wasn't about to let it slip away, not at his age. His hands had only recently begun to sprout liver spots and the strands of hair sneaking from under his French cuffs were just silvering to gray. Judge Rudolph was in his prime as a jurist. A scholar, a leader. He could make history.

Before he presided over the Steere case, Judge Rudolph had spent fifteen years on the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia County. He'd wanted to be a judge so much in the beginning, he'd left private practice when it was beginning to prosper. Money wasn't everything, and young Harry was drawn to the scholarship, trappings, and prestige inherent in a judge's station. A robe, a gavel, a dais. He imagined what his Bucknell classmates would think. The frats who ignored him at rush week. Now Harry Rudolph was not only in the frat, he was the frat.

Judge Rudolph twisted the piece of yellow legal paper in his hands, remembering his idealism in the beginning. Leave it to others to fight for money; let his colleagues battle for the ephemeral power of partnership. Judge Rudolph's power was real, lasting, reinforced by judicial might. In his tenure on the bench he caused fortunes to change hands, ordered criminals to jail, and even locked up a couple of reporters. Judge Rudolph administered justice. When you had that, who needed money?

Fifteen years later, Judge Rudolph did. Fifteen years later, money was all he needed. The income of his peers had skyrocketed past his, even though he was making a hundred grand a year. He'd heard that Blumenfeld was taking home $450,000 at Dechert Price & Rhodes and Simonsburger was raking it in at Morgan, Lewis. Hell, everybody was raking it in at Morgan, Lewis. Judge Rudolph couldn't stand to look at their faces at reunions, law review banquets, or those rare occasions when his classmates appeared before him in court. He knew they were having the last laugh on the way home. In the Jag.

Judge Rudolph set the note down. If he held it in his hands any longer he'd tear it in two. He stared at it in contempt, there on his soft green blotter in the middle of his glistening desk. Just last week, Dave DeCaro came to court defending a CEO at Witmark. DeCaro was tanned from a vacation on Grand Cayman. A winter vacation to the Caymans, for God's sake, with all six kids and his wife. Judge Rudolph couldn't have done that in a pig's eye and he was ten times the lawyer DeCaro was.

The judge laced his fingers in front of him, studying the note. Christ Almighty. Not now. There was an opening coming up on the state Supreme Court, and Judge Rudolph was a shoo-in for the nomination. Justice Harry C. Rudolph. Chief Justice H. C. Rudolph. Superchief. He wasn't about to let this note ruin everything. Not his last chance.

The Steere case had gone so well and the judge had done everything right so far. No cameras in the courtroom; a gag order as soon as the lawyers started yapping. Only fifty spectators at a time; all press conferences after business hours. Two side-bars a day; arguments limited to five minutes a side. He'd even seen to it that the Steere jury could deliberate through the snowstorm and bound Steere over at the courthouse. They didn't call him "Rocket Docket" Rudolph for nothing, and that was exactly the kind of thing that got the attention of the big boys. Keep the cases moving and don't fuck up the felonies. Steere was the case that would make him a Supreme Court justice. If this note didn't queer it.

Judge Rudolph fumbled beside his blotter for his reading glasses. Maybe he had misread it, in anger. Then again, maybe not:

YOUR HONOR, ONE OF THE JURORS HAS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY AND WANTS TO TALK TO YOU.

SINCERELY,

CHRISTOPHER GRAHAM YOUR FOREPERSON

The judge snapped off his glasses and barked, "Send him in!"

* * *

"You were a tailor, Mr. Tullio?" Judge Rudolph glared over his glasses at the juror, who couldn't have been more than five feet tall. He wore a brown suit with a hand-stitched lapel, worn thin.

"Yes, Your Honor. Until I retired. Your Honor. Sir."

"You live in South Philadelphia, near Second Street. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir. Your Honor. Near the museum."

"But the art museum's on the parkway."

"The Mummers' museum, I mean." Nick nodded with jittery vigor. "Got the Mummers costumes and all. In glass."

Judge Rudolph cleared his throat. "Mr. Tullio, I understand you have a medical emergency. Do you?"

"Yes. No. Your Honor. Not an emergency. I'm not bleedin' or nothin'."

"I can see that."

"I just heaved, is all."

Judge Rudolph sighed deeply. "Is that your medical problem, Mr. Tullio? You—"

"Heaved." Nick slipped in the red cushion in the chair across from the judge's big desk. The seat was too wide and slippery for his heinie. He had to hold on to the armrests just to stay up. Nick kept looking around but not so it was obvious. It was just him against the judge and the clerk and the lady with the machine. Nick had never been in such an important place as a judge's chambers, with the papers and books and paintings. Thank God he was wearing his good suit. It paid for a man to be well dressed.

"Mr. Tullio? Your medical problem is that you… vomited?"

"It's my ulcer."

"You have an ulcer?" asked Judge Rudolph, correcting the man, who'd pronounced it "elcer."

"Yes, an elcer," Nick said anyway. "In my stomach. I want to go home."

Judge Rudolph would be damned if he'd lose a juror now. He'd sent the alternates home already, and it would take hours to get one back in the snow. The judge skimmed his voir dire notes, then the juror's questionnaire in front of him. "You didn't mention an ulcer in voir dire, Mr. Tullio. You didn't say anything about an ulcer."

Nick slipped sideways in his chair. "I wasn't sure I had one then. I mean, my doc said I don't have one, but I know I do. It's acting up from my nerves. It's burning."

"Your doctor examined you and he said you don't have an ulcer, is that right?"

"Well, yeah. But my stomach has a hole in it, I can tell. And I heaved, which is like, proof. Your Honor. Sir."

"Do you need to see a doctor now?" the judge asked, as his stenographer tapped away. He was asking only for the record. A doctor wouldn't work on a night like this, doctors made too much money. Only judges had to work on a night like this. Trial judges.

"No, I don't need no doctor. I ate six Turns. Tropical flavor."

"Fine. You don't need a doctor."

"But my stomach hurts. From my nerves."

"You have an upset stomach, is that what your problem is?"

"Yeah."

Judge Rudolph leaned back in his chair and snapped off his glasses. He examined their tiny hinges while he thought about his record. He had handled this issue. Kept it from the press and anyone outside his chambers. Blocked the lawyers out of the action with the promise of a next-day transcript. Downgraded an ulcer to an upset tummy. Time to get the tailor back to the jury room. "Perhaps if you had something to drink, you'd feel better."

Nick's throat caught with hope. "You got anisette?"

"For an upset stomach?" Judge Rudolph pursed his lips. All my trials, Lord. No pun intended.

"It relaxes me. My stomach."

"Forget it," the judge said flatly. "You're in deliberations. You can have any nonalcoholic beverage you want. Soda or hot tea, a beverage like that."

"Maybe a nice glass of milk?"

Judge Rudolph waved at his law clerk. "Joey, go get Mr. Tullio some milk."

"Milk?" repeated the clerk. "We don't have any milk." He was a short kid who didn't look Italian to Nick, even though his name was Joey.

The judge frowned. "What do you mean, we don't have any milk?"

"There's no milk in chambers, Your Honor."

"Not even in the fridge?"

"No, Your Honor."

"You put milk in my tea, don't you?"

"No. I put cream."

"Christ, Joey. Get the cream then."

Nick raised his hand weakly. "Uh, I can't drink cream. It's too heavy."

"This is light cream," the clerk countered.

"It has to be milk," Nick said, but the judge and the clerk stared at him together. Nick wondered if they could sue him. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. So what if he heaved? He wouldn't die. Nick felt himself slipping deeper into the big chair. He felt like he was drowning, like the only thing keeping him above water was the armrests. "Listen, I don't need no milk. You can forget I said anything about milk, Your Honor. Joey, forget it."

"Not at all, Mr. Tullio," said Judge Rudolph. He was protecting a record, not a stomach lining. "If you need milk, we'll get you milk."

"That's okay. That's all right." Nick shook his head nervously. "I don't even like milk. I hate milk. Never liked it from when I was a little kid. I only drink it 'cause Antoinetta says to. If I never saw no more milk, I'd die happy. You can't die from heaving, can you? It was like, dry heaving."

Judge Rudolph slapped his glasses back on. "Mr. Tullio, if we had milk, would you drink it?"

Nick blinked. He wasn't sure if you could lie to a judge and if you did, would you go to jail. Maybe it was like being under oath when you came into a judge's room. Maybe it was like you swore on a Bible. Nick was sorry he said anything about his stomach. He shoulda just voted innocent like the other white people. He wished Antoinetta was here.

"Get Mr. Tullio his milk, Joey," ordered Judge Rudolph.

The clerk blanched. "Your Honor, I don't know how I'd get milk in a snowstorm. I'm sure all the stores are—"

"I don't care which tit you have to squeeze, Joey. Just get him the goddamn milk."

"Yes, sir," the clerk said and took off.

Judge Rudolph's gaze stayed pinned to the tailor. This conversation should have been over ten minutes ago. The juror should be deliberating, not sitting in chambers complaining about his tummy. For God's sake. Judge Rudolph hated the trial level. He belonged in the appellate tier, where the talk was about the law, not elcers.

"I hope Joey's okay out there," Nick said, just to make conversation because the judge looked so mad at him.

"I'm sure he's fine."

"Prolly."

"Probably," the judge corrected him.

"Okay. Good. He prolly is," Nick said, just to agree, but Judge Rudolph only looked madder.

"I'm not worried about my clerk, Mr. Tullio, I'm worried about you," Judge Rudolph said, though he didn't mean a word of it. He was worried about how that "tit" would play in the newspapers if it came out. Would women's groups oppose his nomination? "Remember, Carol," he said to the stenographer, "this transcript is sealed until I say further."

Carol nodded, understanding. She'd worked for Judge Rudolph since her divorce. If he went up to the Court, he'd take care of her. She'd skip a couple grade levels and the benefits were out of this world. "Yes, Your Honor."

"Thank you." The judge turned to the tailor and tried to look sympathetic. "Mr. Tullio if you have no other problems and you're not in need of medical care, you can return to the jury and resume your deliberations."

"Uh, what? You mean, uh, go back?"

"Yes, of course. I'll send the milk in as soon as it arrives. The jury has a job to do right now, a very important job. Dinner tonight is scheduled for seven-thirty, under extended hours. You can get some substantive deliberation in before then, I'm sure."

"I don't know. My nerves. The stress."

Judge Rudolph leaned farther over his desk, almost in the tailor's face. He'd be damned if he'd let this pipsqueak screw him over. "You're not telling me you're too sick to deliberate, are you?"

"Well, no. I mean, yeah. Yes. In a way. Your Honor."

"But you don't need a doctor."

"No, Your Honor."

"All you need is milk."

"Yes, Your Honor. Sir."

"So why can't you go back and discuss the case?"

Carol cleared her throat noisily, warning the judge off. Judge Rudolph knew he was treading on dangerous ground, especially since he hadn't called the lawyers in. How close was he to reversible error? Where was that goddamn law clerk? Damn!

"I can't go back because my nerves…" Panic seized Nick and strangled the life from his sentence. He felt too scared to talk and too scared not to. He couldn't go back to the jury and he couldn't stay here with the judge. It was like he was caught in the middle and something was squeezing him in a fist. "I just wish Antoinetta was here," Nick croaked, near tears.

Judge Rudolph scrutinized the tailor, scanning his working-class features and searching his wet and rheumy eyes. Suddenly, the judge felt as if he could see into the man's shopworn little soul. He understood what was happening, comprehended it with a crystalline clarity he hadn't experienced since his law review comment. "I know just what you need, Mr. Tullio," the judge said.

"You do?" Nick asked.

"Yes." Judge Rudolph breathed in deeply and his chest inflated. When he ascended to the bench of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he would do great things for the citizens of the Commonwealth. But right now he wanted them out of his chambers.

15

"I'm comin' into the conference room with you," Bogosian said as he faced Marta in the hallway at Rosato & Associates.

"No." As threatened as she felt inside, Marta had to stand her ground.

"I gotta hear what you're sayin'."

"You can't." Marta watched him eye the two young associates through the glass wall of the conference room. They were cleaning up the file, and Marta didn't want Bogosian anywhere near them. She felt bad enough leading him to them. She wouldn't jeopardize them further. "You can't come in. It's a privileged conversation."

"Big fuckin' deal," Bogosian said, though he had only the vaguest idea what she meant. So many fuckin' words. He hated lawyers. He never had an honest one in his life, and they couldn't keep him out of jail.

"How am I going to explain who you are?"

"I don't give a fuck. You're not leaving my sight."

Marta pointed a short distance down the hallway. "Look, there's another conference room directly across from the one I'll be working in. It has glass walls like the one I'll be in. You can see everything I'm doing. I won't make any phone calls, and if one comes in, you can listen in on your phone."

"You think I'm stupid? You could tell the other two lawyers."

"And put them in danger? Never."

"Fuck that. I'm comin' in with you," Bogosian said, and stepped so close Marta almost freaked. The last time he had been this close he'd beaten her unconscious. She suppressed the fear rising in her throat and walked neatly around him to the elevator bank, punching the DOWN button with authority.

"Then I'm not working on the motion," Marta said, struggling to keep her voice strong. "Take me back to the hotel right now. You can call Steere and tell him his fingerprints are coming into evidence."

"Fuck you."

"Fine. I'll call him as soon as we get back."

"You're bluffin'."

"Am I?" Marta turned and forced a smile. The beauty shot. "Want to find out?"

Bogosian thought a minute. What a bitch. Steere would go ballistic if Bobby called him on the cell phone again. And Steere did say he wanted the motion done. Bogosian figured it would be okay if he could watch her. Besides, what could she do? She was just a broad.

* * *

"What have you got for me, ladies?" Marta barked at the associates. She closed the conference room door behind her and pulled out the seat at the head of the table. She was trying to hide her anxiety, but she wasn't fooling Judy, who appraised her with a critical eye. Her blouse was wrinkled, a first for Erect, and her eyes drooped as if she were in pain. Something odd was definitely going on. Judy would have asked Marta if she were okay, but Erect didn't invite that sort of inquiry. And Mary had an agenda.

"Marta, I have something to tell you," Mary said. She stood up nervously, her neck blotchy under her blouse. Mary had decided to show some balls for a change. Be a FEMINAZI. "Something important."

"Make it fast."

"I didn't finish the motion in limine. You can tell Bennie if you want to. You can fire me if you want to. The motion's not done."

"I don't care about the motion," Marta shot back. "Did you figure out what the D.A. has on Steere?"

Mary's eyes widened in surprise, and Judy found herself thinking: schizophrenic, even for Napoleon.

* * *

Marta rose to her feet as the associates told her about Steere's color blindness and the traffic light. Her instinct told her they were onto something. Steere had lied to her again, even when he supposedly confessed. Why hadn't she seen it? Steere had admitted he was a liar, yet Marta had swallowed his shit about killing a homeless man. What, did she need a fucking sign? She'd nail him to the wall.

"The only problem is motive," Mary said. "Maybe you know something that can fill in the blank."

Marta's thoughts raced ahead. First she'd have to shake Bogosian, who was waiting in the conference room across the hall. She could see him through the glass, a slick leather mountain, sitting at an identical conference table. He was reading his dog magazine and glancing over at them from time to time. Marta had told the associates he was her driver, but hadn't introduced him.

"This is the picture from Darnton's autopsy." Mary handed an 8 × 10 photo across the table to Marta. "We both think his real name is Eb Darning."

Marta picked up the photo. A corpse on a slab. A face in a morgue. She flashed on the Magnum that had bored into her ribs and realized something she should have realized before. If Marta uncovered the truth about this murder, it would cost her her life. Steere would send Bogosian after her and he wouldn't stop pounding until she was the corpse on the slab. The face in the autopsy picture. Marta had to put Steere behind bars for the rest of his life or she'd be dead. Her head thundered. Her wounds throbbed. Blood pulsed in her ears. The conference room seemed suddenly distant. The photo slipped from her fingers.

"Marta, are you okay? Marta?" It was Mary. Her expression was anxious, but Marta couldn't hear her clearly. It sounded like she was underwater.

Marta felt suddenly warm. Perspiration appeared under her blouse and on her palms. The conference room whirled around her. Papers and briefs and files circled like a tornado. She'd had spells like this as a kid, after the station wagon. She couldn't give in to it now or it would bring Bogosian down on them all. Marta forced a smile that even to her felt like a horrid grimace.

"Marta?" Judy asked, rising to her feet. Marta looked so pale Judy thought it was a heart attack.

"I'm fine," Marta said quickly. "Fine. Don't worry about it." She wiped back her hair with a shaking hand. The room came back into focus and the associates' voices came up. Whatever the spell was, it was ebbing away. She could see Bogosian out of the corner of her eye, his head cocked. He was standing up beside his chair, watching her. She gave him a dismissive wave and held the back of a chair for support.

"Are you having chest pain?" Judy was asking.

"Take a deep breath," Mary said.

"I'm fine." Marta braced herself against a chair as the merry-go-round of a room slowed to a complete stop. Across the hall, Bogosian eased back into his seat with the magazine. Marta breathed freer and she looked at DiNunzio and Carrier hovering around her. She realized they were concerned about her, which was confusing. She had toyed with the notion of slipping them a message about Bogosian, but now she knew she couldn't do that. It had to end here, at least for them. She'd work them like dogs, but she wouldn't get them killed. "Listen, you two, go home. Go home now."

Judy and Mary exchanged looks. "What are you talking about?" Judy asked.

"Go home. Now. That's an order. This case is over. Steere doesn't matter, forget about Steere. Go home."

"I don't understand," Carrier said. "What about the D.A.?"

"Forget about the D.A. We'll deal with him later."

"But Mary could be right. If we knew more about Darning—"

"Forget Darning. Go home."

Judy plucked Steere's tax returns from the table. "You didn't get to see these. They show a connection with the bank—"

Marta grabbed the packet and tossed it back on the table. "Forget the bank. Forget Steere. Go home, Carrier. Both of you, go home."

Judy stood stock-still. "Marta, are you on some kind of medication?"

"Do you need us to get you a… professional?" Mary asked.

Marta looked from one to the other and burst into laughter. They were like puppies, these two: dogged in their determination and loyal without reason. They reminded Marta of herself when she was young, protecting two drunks who didn't deserve it from bill collectors and school principals. Instead of making her feel closer to them, the insight distanced her further. "I said, go home."

"You can tell us," Judy said softly. "There's a lot of stress, and it's okay if you are. The pressure. The media. It would get to anybody."

"I'm not having a breakdown," Marta said firmly. "Go home. You've done very good work, and I… appreciate it. Thank you."

Thank you? From Erect? With that, Judy realized that Marta wanted them out of the picture for some reason. She was clearly upset about something, maybe even sick. She seemed to be protecting them, but that would be totally out of character. What was going on? Who was that "driver," anyway? The guy looked like The Hulk. Judy glanced at Mary, who she knew was thinking the same thing.

But Mary wasn't. Mary was thinking there'd been a miracle. That there really was a God and he'd spoken to Marta Richter. Taken her aside, thrown one white-robed arm around her padded shoulders, and had a Dutch-uncle talk with her in the sky. Warned her that if she didn't stop torturing associates, she'd end up a wealthy but crispy critter. That she'd be cast down to that level of lawyer hell where she'd have to listen to Alan Dershowitz whine for eternity. But even though the boss had apparently converted to a human being, Mary still wanted to stay with the Steere case. She hadn't come this far to get a killer off scot-free. Not with her history. "Maybe we should go home," Mary said lightly. She picked her jacket off the back of the chair. "I'm exhausted. Aren't you?"

"What?" Judy said, wheeling around to stare at her friend. "Aren't you interested in following up?"

"Nope." Mary slipped into her blazer. "Why would I be?"

Judy finally came up to speed. "Maybe you're right. We can deal with the D.A. when they file, right?"

Marta relaxed inwardly. "Walk her out, Carrier. That's an order." She liked the idea of the associates leaving together and she'd make sure Bogosian wouldn't bother them. She opened the conference room door. "Go!"

"Yes, sir," Judy said, and saluted.

"It's about time you learned to do that," Marta said, smiling. Across the hall, Bogosian looked up from his magazine and returned to it when Marta nodded. "You know, you both have to learn to take orders better."

Judy grinned, gap-toothed. "Don't bet on it." Erect. "Can we borrow the car to get home?"

Marta paused. The car was still at Steere's town house. She glanced anxiously across the hall at Bogosian, who sat near the doorway. "I left the rental at the hotel. The driver brought me over."

"We can walk home," Mary said as she strolled out the conference room door. "It's a good thing we live right in town."

Judy followed Mary into the hall. "See you, Marta. Call us if you hear from the jury."

"Don't worry," Marta said. She stood in the door and watched them walk down the hall to their offices, feeling a tug in her chest which stopped mercifully short of full-blown maternal feelings. It persisted until she noticed Carrier's ski boots making wet footprints on the new carpet.

* * *

The associates waited for the elevator when Judy spotted Erect watching them through the glass wall of the conference room. Judy waved at her, and Erect waved back. "Say good-bye to Erect, Mare," Judy said to Mary. "We have to show her we're leaving."

Mary waved. "Good-bye, schizo."

"She's not a schizo. Something's up." Judy faced the elevator and shook her head. "Something happened to Marta."

"A visitation. Angels and saints. Harps and trumpets."

Judy was trying to put the pieces together. "She looked scared."

"Fear of God. He took long enough. I hate it when he's late."

They both heard the rattle of the elevator as it zoomed up the shaft. Judy zipped up her parka and gathered her poles and cross-country skis. "Well, here we go. We have work to do."

"Agreed."

"And great snow to do it in."

"I know what you're thinking—"

"White. Fresh. Virgin."

"—and you can just forget it." Mary was swaddled in a heavy coat and Totes boots. She yanked her knit cap on. "No way, Fay Wray."

"Yes, way. Oh, yes." Judy lined up her skis and snapped a bungee cord around them. "You will be mine."

"It's not happening, girlfriend."

"No time like the present."

Mary shook her head. "No. I'm smarter than I look."

"No you're not. And it is happening. Here and now. Coming to a snowdrift near you."

"I'm not doing the ski thing."

"Yes, you are."

Mary pursed her lips. "I don't have skis."

"I have an extra pair at home. There's no other way."

"We can walk."

"That'll take three hours."

"You want me to ski to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge?" Mary said, raising her voice.

Judy shot her a warning glance and her blue eyes slid meaningfully toward The Hulk sitting in the conference room. He was a distance away but he was sitting right near the open door, flipping through a magazine. Judy couldn't tell if he was within earshot and she didn't want to take a chance. She was even beginning to feel funny about leaving Marta alone with him. She resolved to call the office and check on her when they got home. "You follow?"

Mary glanced over her shoulder at the man, critically now. He didn't look like a cabdriver and he had no uniform like a limo driver. Who was he, anyway? Mary felt dumb for not wondering about him before. "Maybe I'm not smarter than I look."

"Told you," Judy said as the elevator went ding!

* * *

Down the hall, Bogosian lifted his thumb off the caption under a bearded collie. Right again! He watched the lawyers get into the elevator and the doors close slowly behind them. So they were going to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge, huh? Bitches. He'd have to follow up on that, too.

16

After the associates left, Marta returned to her seat at the conference table and pretended to work, scribbling nonsense on a legal pad. She considered leaving a note of some kind, but that wouldn't help her right now. She felt Bogosian's gaze on her. What if he decided he wanted to sit in the room while she worked? She had to hurry.

Marta reached for Steere's tax returns. She was intrigued by the Mellon Bank connection and flipped through to the back of the tax return packet, prepared by an expensive accounting firm. Marta felt a twinge as she opened the slick plastic cover. Predators like Elliot Steere couldn't exist without professionals to keep him rich and free. Professionals like her. She hadn't realized it until she became the prey.

On the third page of the packet was a listing of Steere's mortgage deductions. He owned a couple of investment properties in his name and apparently had three residences under mortgage; homes in Society Hill, Vail, and Long Beach Island, New Jersey. It was the New Jersey house that caught Marta's eye. An address in a town called Barnegat Light.

The beach house. Marta remembered what Steere had said in the interview room at the courthouse: that he was going to St. Bart's on a jet leaving from Atlantic City, if the Philly airport closed. She looked out the windows of the conference room. Snow flurries swirled around the building, blown in all directions by confused currents. No small plane would fly in this storm. Steere had lied again. Marta clenched her teeth.

Then she thought a minute, pushing her emotions aside. Why did Steere say that? Why say anything at all? He'd been thinking about the beach. Maybe he'd been thinking about his beach house. He used to say he missed going there, when he was in jail over the summer, and Marta had the impression he considered it more a home than his city town house. Maybe it was his hideaway with his girlfriend. Maybe there'd be a clue there. Something, anything. Marta felt desperate. Her life was on the line.

The telephone rang on the sleek credenza behind her, and Marta jumped. Who was calling? The court? Had the jury come back already? No! She leapt from the chair and grabbed for the phone. Across the hall, Bogosian did the same thing, picking up the phone in his conference room. The lighted button would have told him which line to use. "Yes?" Marta answered, anxious.

"Ms. Richter?" said a young man's voice. "This is Judge Rudolph's law clerk."

"Are they back?"

"No. Judge Rudolph asked me to inform the parties that he's granting the jury a conjugal visit. It was requested by one of the jurors. A transcript regarding the request will be available tomorrow to the parties."

"A conjugal visit, tonight?" Marta asked, relieved. She'd gain some time before the verdict. "It wasn't scheduled."

"It is now."

"Have they stopped deliberating for the night?"

"Yes, they'll resume at eight in the morning. Because of the snow, Judge Rudolph has ordered the deliberations be moved to the sequestration hotel."

"Thanks," Marta said, and hung up. Thinking.

Across the hall, Bogosian hung up, too. Watching.

Marta swiveled around and immediately got back to fake work. She kept her head down and wrote. She had to get rid of Bogosian, fast. By the time she'd filled a page with legal buzzwords, she had a plan. There was only one way to do it. Her heart beat faster. She checked her watch. 8:40. There was no time to lose. She'd have to execute it right under Bogosian's nose. Marta steeled herself. It was her only chance.

Now.

She got up, walked casually to one of the Steere files, and pulled out a manila folder at random. It flopped open, and as Marta paced with it she pretended to read. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bogosian reading and occasionally looking up, apparently satisfied she was hard at work. Each time Marta paced, she walked closer and closer to the telephone on the credenza, watching Bogosian and waiting for the right moment. She wouldn't get a second chance. He could shoot her through the glass if he wanted. In the next instant, Bogosian lowered his head and squinted at the magazine. It was Marta's moment and she seized it.

She plucked the telephone receiver off the hook and set it on the credenza beside the phone, then turned on her heel without breaking stride. If Marta could dial three digits— 514— she'd have building security on the line. She couldn't risk calling 911 because the cops would want to take her in. There'd be questions asked and time wasted. Just three digits.

Bogosian was reading in his conference room. His back was to the phone so he couldn't see the button lit on the open line. Marta paced away from the phone and back again. She kept her face down to the file. She paced to the phone, quickly punched a 5 on the keypad, spun on her heel, and walked away from the phone.

Across the hall, Bogosian had set down his magazine. He stood up and shook his jeans down over his cowboy boots.

Marta paced back to the phone and hit 1.

Bogosian stretched his muscles and yawned. His leather duster popped open to reveal the Magnum.

Marta paced away and struggled to stay calm. Only one more digit to go.

Bogosian left his conference room and was crossing the hall.

Marta's heart leapt into her throat. She walked toward the phone and hit the 4. The call should connect to the security office. Come on. Pick up.

Marta heard a jiggling at the glass door. Bogosian was trying the knob, but it was locked. Marta pretended she didn't hear him and was engrossed in her reading. Fear returned and her heart fluttered. Her head throbbed. The words melted before her eyes. Connect, goddamnit!

"Hey!" Bogosian shouted. He pounded on the door. In a split second he'd draw the gun, but a split second was all Marta needed. She heard the faint click of the phone call connecting and a guard answering, "Security."

Bingo! In one deft movement, Marta blocked Bogosian's view of the phone with her body and hung up the receiver. "Coming!" she said, appearing to notice him for the first time. She hurried to the door and opened it with a sweaty palm.

"What the fuck are you doin'?" Bogosian shouted, bursting through the door. He shoved Marta out of the way, and she staggered back against the table, clutching a swivel chair to break her fall. Pain knifed through her ribs.

"I'm working on the motion," Marta said. She willed herself to stay calm. The call had connected. Security would come up and check it out. There was at least one guard on duty, he'd been there when she signed them in. How long would he take to get here?

Bogosian pushed past her and scanned the room in suspicion. His bulk seemed to fill the space. His movements were swift and powerful. He smelled of cold leather and adrenaline. "You done that motion?"

"Not yet. Half an hour, that's all."

"You got five minutes, then we go back."

Marta had to stall him. "It'll take longer than that."

"Too fuckin' bad." Bogosian had taken enough of her shit and he had nothin' to do. He'd guessed all the dog breeds and he couldn't test himself again. Besides, he wanted this bitch back on the reservation. He had the feeling she was jerking him off. Her, and the other two. What the fuck were they doing, goin' to the bridge? Bogosian motioned to the folder. "What are you doin' with that?"

"Reading it. For the brief."

"Yeah, right." He yanked the folder out of the bitch's hand and looked at the top page. It was typed and there were case names underlined. Bogosian remembered the legal papers from his own case. Bullshit. More lawyer bullshit. All they did was make paper. He threw the folder on the table and it skidded into the papers, messing them up. He wanted to mess them all up. Turn the whole table upside down. But then he couldn't find out what she'd been up to. "You haven't been following my directions here."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

"No, I was just researching." Marta watched with anxiety as Bogosian lumbered around the circular conference table, squinting slightly at the documents and photos. She realized he was nearsighted. He touched the papers scattered around the table's perimeter, moving deliberately as the minute hand of a clock. Where was security? Would they come? Bogosian flipped through the legal pad Marta had written on, and she was glad she hadn't left any notes.

"This what you were writin'?"

"Yes. You want to read it?"

"No, I don't want to read it," Bogosian said, mimicking her.

Marta's throat was a hard, dry knot. Where the fuck was security? They'd check even a false alarm, wouldn't they? If she got out of this alive she'd have them all fired. She lingered near the open doorway as Bogosian inched around the table. He was in the perfect position on the other side. Every muscle in her body wanted to run, but she told herself to wait for help. She remembered with a shiver how fast Bogosian covered ground.

"Why's the computer all black?" Bogosian asked, frowning over the laptop. "I don't like the looks of this."

"If you hit a key, it comes on again." Marta pulled out a chair near the laptop and grabbed her purse from it as if she were making room for him. No telling if she'd need it later. "Here, sit down," she said. "If you don't trust me, stay here while I work."

"Fuck you."

Suddenly Marta heard a noise behind her. The rattle of the elevators. The ding of the bell as the doors opened. Two security guards came off the elevator, laughing. One was the young man who had signed her in. This was it.

"HELP!" Marta screamed as she bolted from the conference room. "HE HAS A GUN!" She dashed past the shocked faces of the guards toward the exit stairway. Her heart raced. Her head pounded. Her ribs hurt so much it brought tears to her eyes. She flew down the hall and behind her heard the crack of gunfire. One, two, three shots. An anguished moan. Oh God. Marta hoped it wasn't the guards.

"HELP!" she screamed again as she pushed open the door to the stairway. She pitched down a set of concrete stairs, then another. Her pumps clattered on the steel edge of the steps. She panted from exertion and terror. No sound came from the top of the stair. There was no pursuit. Could Bogosian be dead? An alarm went off in the building and clamored in the concrete stairwell. Thank God. More guards would come. "HELP!"

Marta kept running. She hurtled down the stairs, leaping, nearly falling from landing to landing. A painted 10 on the wall told her there were ten floors to street level. She got dizzy as the tight stair twisted around. The alarm bell clanged in her ears. Her screams joined the cacophony. Six floors to the bottom. Go! Faster and faster, pitching forward. Flying down the stairs despite the pain and fear. Four floors left.

Bogosian wasn't chasing her. Maybe the guards killed him. Maybe she was free. Marta reached the bottom floor and threw herself against the exit door. It banged open into the lobby just as the elevator doors opened across the white marble floor.

It was a horrible sight. The elevator was an abattoir. Blood dripped from a huge splotch down its white walls. The two guards lay dead, crumpled in seeping heaps on the elevator floor. One had his face blown completely away. Between their bodies stood Bogosian.

Taking aim at Marta.

17

Marta ran, breathless, for her life. She streaked for the building's entrance, skidding on the slick marble floor, and burst through the glass double doors. She hit the street. Frigid air blasted her face and chest.

"HELP! PLEASE, SOMEBODY!" she screamed, though the snow-covered street was deserted. There were no cops around and no help. The security alarm was muffled outside the building. The guards were dead. The poor men. Bogosian was a killer.

"HELP!" Marta tore down the sidewalk in the deep snow, her purse flying from her shoulder. Icy flakes stung her face and lashed through her wool suit. She stumbled and her hand went elbow high into a snowdrift.

CRRACKK! Marta heard a gunshot behind her, echoing in the silence.

Oh God. Bogosian was going to shoot her down. Terror jolted her senses alive. She heard herself cry out as she half stumbled, half sprinted through the freezing snow. She dashed past darkened stores and swerved around the corner so he couldn't get a clear shot. Her legs were soaked and her feet numb, but she kept running. She couldn't hide because she'd leave footprints in the snow. Tears streamed down her face. "HELP!" she screamed futilely.

CRRAACCKK! Another gunshot.

Marta ducked, panic-stricken. Bogosian was going to kill her. His aim was off, but not for long. One of those bullets would find its target. Her spine. Her heart. Her head. She was going to die. She spotted the lights of Chestnut Street and raced across the street to them. There'd be people there.

"HELP!" Her leg muscles were tiring. Her chest felt like it would explode. She could feel blood running warm down the back of her neck; her wounds must have reopened. She didn't know how much longer she could run. Bogosian was strong. He would catch her and kill her like a dog. She couldn't let him.