Rough Justice

Marta sped up, almost hysterical with relief. She would be safe. Alive. She had to get the driver's attention. She scissored her arms frantically, but the truck didn't stop. The cab was too high and dark to see in.

"HELP!" she screamed, but the plow still didn't stop. She couldn't hear herself over the roar of its engine. She had to get in front of the truck. Get the driver to see her.

Marta ran faster to catch up with the snowplow. Clouds of hot exhaust burned her eyes. Soot flew into her mouth. The truck's gigantic wheels powered through the snow, spraying splinters of ice. She had to stop the plow. She didn't have enough energy to keep running forever. She kept waving and it took almost all her wind. She ran as hard as she could, then harder. A few more steps and she'd be there.

One, two, three. Yes! Marta caught up with the plow and ran parallel to it. She waved her arms, frantic this time, but the plow still didn't stop. Fuck! Marta glanced wild-eyed over her shoulder.

Bogosian was running after her, closing in. A deadly figure charging into the storm. His gun was drawn.

Oh, God. Marta was out of choices. Only one way to go. She hoped it wasn't suicide. She darted in front of the massive snowplow. The driver honked loudly but he didn't stop rolling. What? Was he crazy? He'd run her over.

Marta bolted ahead to the middle of the street and ran down the street between the truck's headlights, waving, screaming. The driver honked again and kept coming. Why didn't he stop? Maybe he thought she was a nut or a drunk. The plow was moving so fast Marta didn't risk turning around or slowing down. A mountain of packed snow rolled at her heels, threatening to engulf her.

She burst forward in fear. Her breath came in ragged bursts that tore at her ribs. Her head felt light. Her legs buckled as she ran. Her pumps skidded with each stride. She raced into the snow and dark, momentum hurling her forward.

Marta checked behind her. A giant wall of snow chased her up the street, so close she could feel its chill. But she couldn't see anything behind the snow-plow. If she couldn't see Bogosian, he couldn't see her. Marta had lost him.

She couldn't run another step. She jumped out of the snowplow's path, threw herself into a snowdrift at the curb, and dolphined under the surface of the cold powder.

* * *

"Fuck!" Bogosian shouted from the sidewalk. He watched the snowplow roll down the street toward the center of the city. The bitch was nowhere in sight, even if he could see that far. He couldn't go after her. There'd be people there for sure, emergency crews, and he had blood all over his shirt from the guards. Bobby wasn't about to risk his ass.

"Fuck!" he yelled into the storm. He spun around on his heels. He broke a sweat even though it was zero fuckin' degrees. Bogosian felt like he was all closed in, like he was back in the joint. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe. The fuckin' noise from the radios. The fuckin' niggers with the do-rags. The stink.

"Fuck!" he shouted louder, but it only made him madder. He was all tensed up. He felt like a big giant coil ready to come unsprung. Like a cork that needed to pop. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kill. He wanted to come. Blood filled up his muscles, his dick. He heard himself yelling again and rammed his fist into the thick concrete wall of a bank.

Once, then again. He didn't even feel the pain. He hit it again and again until the skin on his knuckles split open and blood gushed out. Then he felt everything. Pain exploded in his hand. Heat came out of his own blood. Skin crawled all over his body.

Bogosian could take pain. He could take any pain. He drew his hand back and stared at his bloody fist like it belonged to somebody else. He remembered how his sister would cut herself. A straightedge razor that made little baby slices on her thighs and arms. All in a row, like lines of coke. Dumb bitch. They were all dumb bitches. The one up the street and the other two. The young ones from the law office, going to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. Bobby knew what that meant. Grays Ferry, where Steere had popped that nigger.

He slumped against the building, suddenly exhausted. The snowplow and the other trucks were gone. The street was quiet. Bobby hid his face against the building. The concrete scratched his forehead. Snowflakes collected on his shoulders and fell in his collar. He didn't want to tell Steere he fucked up. He never fucked up before. He had to make it right, then he'd call.

Bobby stood up and tried to button his jacket to cover the blood, but his beat-up hand wasn't working. He was a stupid fuck to mess it up like that. He'd have to score a new shirt. Now where the fuck was he gonna get that? Motherfuck! Everything was fucked up! It was all that bitch's fault. She'd pay for it.

Bobby had to get it going again. He'd find her and the other ones, too. He might have to call Gyro, but that was okay. Gyro could help out, he was a meat-eater. Gyro would cut big time into his profit margin, but Bobby had to get the job done. That's what it meant to be a professional. Bobby closed his jacket and lurched into the snow.

18

Marta yanked the ratty curtain closed and flopped onto the plastic seat of the photo booth. Woolworth's was the only open store on Chestnut Street and it smelled simultaneously of disinfectant and dirt. Her pulse thudded, her chest heaved. Each breath was agonizing, and Marta inhaled to slow her breathing and ease the pain. She slumped in the booth like a boxer in his corner.

There was no noise outside the booth, and Marta suspected she was the only person in the store except for the salesclerks in their red smocks, two of whom she'd run into as she was coming in. The store would be closing in ten minutes, they told her, wide-eyed at her bedraggled appearance. She'd explained by saying she'd gotten caught in the storm. In a way, she had.

Marta's breathing returned to normal and the rib pain subsided slightly. She sat up and rested her back against the wall of the booth. PHOTO ILLUSIONS, read the sign in front of her. Underneath the sign was a TV monitor, and across the screen flickered a sampling of the photos offered with hokey cutouts: YOU with the President! YOU on a dollar bill! YOU wanted by the FBI!

Marta's gaze fell on a mirror framed with a fake wood. YOU with ELVIS THE SNOWPLOW! She looked away, purposefully avoiding her reflection. She didn't need a mirror to know what she looked like. Her hair stuck to her face in soaked strands and her skin was mottled with exertion, every wrinkle boldface with anxiety. Her suit was wet and hung in rags, but at least she was alive. She had escaped Bogosian. It was a miracle. Then she thought about the security guards, who hadn't been so lucky. They had families, unlike Marta. Who would have missed her if she'd been killed?

It caught her up short. The answer was clear. Nobody. Marta had no family left and wasn't seeing anyone who mattered. She loved no one; she supported no one. Not a soul depended on her except maybe her office personnel, who would find other jobs in a blink. They weren't exactly well paid. And they certainly wouldn't miss her. Once she'd overheard her secretary wishing her dead.

Marta squirmed on the hard seat. She bucked up as she always did, by calling on her inner resume. After all, she was one of the country's premier criminal defense attorneys. Past chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the ABA, member of Trial Lawyers of America, guest lecturer and legal commentator. In other words, a highly retained pain in the ass. A bitch with a tax bracket that just wouldn't quit. Suddenly it didn't seem like much to have accomplished.

Marta used to think she had come so far. Escaped the Maine woods, gotten herself to law school and beyond. Put a country between herself and a woman who for years took her into car after strange car with the same dangerous lie. Can you lend me twenty dollars, sir, to take the train? Our car quit on us, and we were on our way to the hospital to see the child's father. The next train station is right down the road.

Marta knows the men don't believe the lie even as they give her mother the money and drop them at the train station, where mother and daughter wait five minutes and go right back out to the highway. Marta knows that the men give the money because of her; she's the prop, the token. An exhibit, even then. The only time there's trouble is the blue station wagon and after that, it stops. After that her mother goes out alone to the highway. And after a time, is gone longer.

Marta shook it off. It was past. It was over. Why did it keep coming back up? Why now? Her thoughts were mixed up, her world out of kilter. She wiped the bangs off her damp brow. She should be in the present, happy to be among the living. How many dead had there been, and why? Would she be the next one? No time to feel sorry for herself. She had to keep moving. Bogosian could still be after her. She still had the jury to beat and Woolworth's would be closing any minute. Marta stood up, brushed snow from her wet suit, and peeked out of the photo booth's curtain.

No Bogosian and no customers. The store was well lit and empty. Steel bins overflowed with cosmetics, hairbrushes, and rubber boots. Potato chips, spiral notebooks, and discounted videos stocked the shelves. Hot dogs rolled on a greasy rotisserie next to racks of women's shoes and winter coats. Marta hoisted her sopping purse to her shoulder and stepped cautiously out of the booth. She had some power shopping to do.

There was one good thing about selling your soul.

You got money for it.

* * *

The two associates skied south on Broad Street. Judy Carrier was in the lead and Mary DiNunzio followed in her tracks, two skinny ruts that refilled quickly with new-fallen snow. The blizzard had shifted into high gear and there was no traffic even though Broad usually served as the city's major traffic artery.

Mary could barely move in Judy's blue down parka and puffy bib overalls. Freezing snow blew into her mouth and stung her cheeks. She pulled Judy's scarf up to her nose, which was wet and drippy. So attractive. "I can't ski, I'm Italian," Mary shouted, shaky on the skis. Her toes were pinned to wood and her arms were stretched out at her sides. She felt like the Pillsbury Doughboy, crucified. In a freezer.

"What does being Italian have to do with it?" Judy called over her shoulder as she skied forward smoothly.

"Italians aren't made to do certain things." Mary pushed her skis forward in an imitation of Judy's lunging slip-slide, but the most she could manage was a penguin's waddle.

"What things?" Judy shouted, and the wind carried her words backward.

"Things nobody should do in the first place. Climb mountains. Ride horses. Everything you do."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Not everybody can do everything, Jude."

"The exact opposite is true. Everybody can do everything!"

Mary gave up. Empowerment wasn't for everybody. Not Catholics, anyway. Mary struggled to slide her left ski forward, but there was an icy patch on the track and she fell over. "Yiiiiii!"

"Use your poles!" Judy twisted around in time to see her friend flop sideways in slow motion. Mary had fallen three times in as many blocks. At this rate it would take them a week to get to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. It was hard going, harder than it had been when Judy was out before. The snow had gotten so deep it swallowed her thighs at points. If it weren't such a light, dry powder, it would have been like skiing in pea soup. "You okay?"

"Fine. Great. Never better!" Mary was struggling to get up, but couldn't get her bearings. She was a bright cobalt lump, like one of the new blue M&M's, in the middle of the wide white boulevard. Snow drifted in mounds where the wind had whisked it and glistened in the streetlights like vanilla frosting on a birthday cake. Presiding over Broad Street was the lighted yellow clock tower on City Hall, a birthday candle burning gold. It read 9:30.

"Climb back up using your poles," Judy called out. "One-potato, two-potato."

Mary got a death grip on her ski pole and hoisted herself upright, only tentatively vertical. She brushed off her ski pants and shoved her gloves into the loops on her poles. She felt cold and cranky. Snow flew in her teeth like gnats. She was miserable every minute and it was still better than being a lawyer.

"Westward ho!" Judy faced forward, planted the tips of her poles until they hit asphalt, and pushed off, covering several feet in the next few minutes. Mary bridged the gap between them halfway up the block, as they approached Washington Avenue and the bright neon lights of the University of the Arts.

"You think Marta's okay?" Mary called out.

"Hope so!" Judy had telephoned the office but there'd been no answer, so she'd left a message at the hotel. Maybe Marta had been in the bathroom or not answering the phone. Maybe the jury had come back with a question and Marta had been called to court. Or maybe something had happened with The Hulk. Judy worried that whatever Marta was involved in might be dangerous, but Judy wanted to get to the bottom of it, too. She hadn't represented a criminal defendant before and she hoped she hadn't started with one who was guilty. Judy had to know, for herself, whether Steere was a murderer. She speared the snow with her poles and pushed ahead into the storm.

* * *

"Hey," said a voice Penny Jones recognized right off as Bobby Bogosian. Penny was so excited he popped forward in his recliner with a thump that felt like whiplash. Penny used to hang with Bogosian before Bogosian moved on to the big time. He was happy Bogosian was calling him after so many years, but he knew enough not to act it.

"Bobby," Penny said, like they just hung up yesterday. He pinched out his joint and dropped it in the ashtray. An old TV flickered in the background, showing scene after scene of the blizzard. Penny had the volume on mute.

"Still boostin' cars?" Bobby asked.

"Yeh, sure. You know me." Penny picked up nine cars a day and specialized in Jeeps. The money was okay except this winter. Hard to pop a Jeep under three feet of snow. On TV, the weatherman was sticking a yardstick in the shit and grinning like a moron. Friggin' snow. Every day, Penny was losing money. "I got a new business, too."

"Yeah, right."

"A new business, for real."

"You had a new business last time we talked. Those fuckin' machines, with the crane picks out the stuffed animals for a quarter."

"That's over. This is a new new business. An expansion, like."

Bogosian, at the other end of the line, shook his head. Couldn't believe he had had to call a little turd like Penny. Bobby couldn't raise Gyro, and Eddie was snowed in in the friggin' suburbs. He ended up with Penny only because he lived in the city and would have the right wheels. If he could see over the console. Fuckin' midget.

"Bobby, you there?"

"I'm here."

"You need somethin', Bobby?"

"From you? Only if you got a four-wheel drive. Like a Jeep."

"Hey, no problem." Penny looked past the clutter in his cramped apartment to a piece of plywood with keys hanging on it, like a valet parking board. Actually, it was a valet parking board. Penny brought it home from work, telling his manager it got stolen. Well, it did. Penny needed the board to keep track of the cars he was rebuilding in his new business. He'd boost the car, strip it, and sell the skeleton. Then he'd buy the skeleton back at auction, rebuild the car, and sell it with the title. Having good title jacked up the sale price. Made it nice and legal. "I got a coupla Jeeps. A real nice one'll be ready tomorrow. My inventory's a little low because of the snow—"

"I need a Jeep now. In stock."

Penny's bloodshot eyes scanned the keys on the board. "I got a nice new Grand Cherokee, just rebuilt. Title and all. I'd give you a great price, Bobby. Next to nothin'."

Bogosian snorted. "I don't want to buy a fuckin' car, you dick. You need it for the job."

"A job?" Penny couldn't believe his ears. "You got a job for me? What kinda—"

"Will you shut the fuck up?"

Penny told himself to shut the fuck up. Reminded himself if he don't have a good thing to say, don't say nothing. "Yeh," Penny said, and hoped it sounded like nothing.

"It's in Grays Ferry. The Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. You know where that is, jizzbag?"

"Yeh," Penny said. Fuckin' A! If he could do some jobs for Bogosian, he could make himself some real dough. Bogosian was the man! Bogosian was the bomb! Bogosian was money! Penny couldn't help jumping out of his chair and wiggling his ass like a little faggot. "When I gotta go?" he asked as his skinny butt swayed.

"Now," Bogosian said. "Right now."

"You got it." Penny boogied over to the bedroom for his gun. "I'm all ears, Bobby."

19

Bennie Rosato stepped off the elevator into a nightmare. There had been killings again, at a law firm she owned. Security guards were dead, one Bennie had known well, an older man named Pete Santis. Pete lived alone like Bennie and they used to trade dog stories. Both owned the only two golden retrievers in the world who were allowed to jump on people. "Allowed, hell," Pete used to say. "We're talkin' encouraged."

Bennie couldn't believe Pete was dead, but it was his body she'd just seen loaded into the medical examiner's van in a black zipper bag. It was his blood she'd seen in the elevator cab downstairs. Pete died defending what Bennie owned, maybe protecting her people. She felt heartsick, stunned. The elevator doors slid closed, stranding Bennie in the middle of the hallway, where the news got even worse.

Nobody appeared to care. The hallway at Rosato & Associates was empty except for a single uniformed cop who stood at the entrance to one of the glass conference rooms. No yellow tape had been strung up. No forensic photographers snapped photos of the crime scene. No police techs hustled through the halls vacuuming fibers or sampling dirt from the rug. Bennie had made a career prosecuting police misconduct cases and knew police procedure almost as second nature. None of it was being followed here.

Bennie had learned about the guards' murders from TV. No one from the department had called her and no detective came by for a statement. As soon as she heard, she'd thrown a Gore-Tex jacket over her jeans and workshirt and run the short distance to the office, only to find it quiet as a law library.

Two men had been murdered, two associates had vanished, Marta Richter was gone— and nobody was investigating. Bennie resisted leaping to the conclusion that it was payback. What was going on? She walked over to the uniformed cop, who had bright reddish hair and a coarse rust-colored mustache, and introduced herself.

"I know who you are," the cop said. He wore his cap low on his forehead, his arms were linked behind his back, and he stared pointedly past Bennie, like a Beefeater in blue.

"A fan, huh?"

"Not hardly."

Bennie stopped short of giving the cop the finger. "Should I take it personally that nobody's investigating these murders? Two security guards down, my God. I would think Homicide would be all over this. Half the guards in the city are former cops."

"Don't have nothin' to do with you, Ms. Rosato," the uniform said. "It's snowin' out there, if you haven't noticed. Most of us couldn't report in. The ones that got in can't get around the city. It's a blizzard. We're doing the best we can."

"What about the detectives? The day shift would have stayed in, wouldn't they?"

"Only one is left at Two Squad. It'll be his case. Every homicide tonight will be his case. He'll be here as soon as he can make it in the snow."

"Who is it? Which detective?"

"Don't know. That's confidential anyway. As you know."

"Why isn't he here? The Roundhouse is only half an hour away, even in the blizzard."

The cop looked at Bennie for the first time, with a slack expression that barely masked his hostility. "The detective isn't at headquarters. He's stuck on a double in West Philly. He'll get here when he gets here."

"So nobody can get to the scene? Not even a crime tech? A photographer? The department gonna just sit on its hands?"

"No," the cop said, "we already have an APB out on the shooter. I called it in, okay? That good enough for you?"

"You got the shooter?" Bennie asked, heartened. "So soon? How? You have an eyewitness?"

"I can't say. It's against regulations."

"That fast, it would have to be fingerprints." She looked around. The scene was clean, untouched. "But nobody dusted for prints yet. How'd you do it?"

"It's a confidential investigation. You know the rules."

"I hate the rules." Bennie was mystified. She opted for thinking aloud; it either worked or drove cops crazy. A win-win situation. "Let's see now, you can't have him on film, there's no video cameras in the building. And blood wouldn't come back so quick, or DNA. There's no crime tech here to sample it anyway."

"It's confidential, Ms. Rosato." The uniform shook his head. His paunch protruded slightly over his thick belt and he wore a black nylon jacket over his blue shirt, with a sobering black ribbon over his chrome badge. His nameplate said TORREGROSSA, Bennie noticed.

"You Italian, too?" she asked, and the cop burst into laughter.

"You think I'm that easy?"

"Can't blame me for trying, can you? This is my law firm. My people. I'll suck up if I have to. Wouldn't you? Where's your loyalty, paesan?"

The cop shook his head. "You sound like my mother."

"I sound like everybody's mother. You know why? Because I care. Now who's the shooter and how'd you find him?"

"Forget it."

"Fine, table the shooter for the time being. I don't care about the shooter, I care about the lawyers. You got any leads on the lawyers? DiNunzio and Carrier? Richter? They all signed in at the desk." Bennie tugged a slip of paper from her parka and skimmed her notes. "DiNunzio and Carrier signed in at three thirty-five and signed out at eight forty-five. Marta Richter and guest, whoever that was, signed in at eight thirty-five and never signed out. You know that, right? You checked the log downstairs."

The cop nodded. "I saw the log downstairs. I know all that. Why do you know all that?"

"Those women matter to me, the security guards matter to me. The only difference is the women may still be alive. They have to be. I'm not trying to interfere with your investigation. I want you to do all you can. I want to do all I can, too. For once we're on the same side. Help me, would you?"

The cop's eyes flickered, and Bennie detected the slightest official softening. "You want my take on the way it went down?"

"Please."

"This is talkin' out of school, but the only blood around is in the elevator where the guards got shot. There's no signs of struggle in the office, so the lawyer who signed in later, Richter, wasn't taken by force. The office equipment looks fine. Everything is in place. I did a walk-through. You double-check and tell me if I'm wrong."

"Sure." Bennie felt relieved. "And the other two lawyers, the ones who signed out, are where?"

"No idea."

"Where could they be? I called their apartments, their homes. I can't find them." Bennie had even called DiNunzio's parents, who had already heard from TV that their daughter was missing. She had tried to calm Mary's mother, but her Italian wasn't up to it.

"I called Missing Persons, I put out an APB, but we got no personnel tonight. The storm is a bitch. We're doing everything we can to find them. You gotta cooperate with us. This is the worst possible night to investigate a homicide."

"Who is the shooter? How did you find him?"

"Ms. Rosato—"

"Please. Maybe I can help. Maybe I know something. It's a blizzard, a crisis. We have to work together, don't we? Cooperate. That's what you're telling me."

The cop sighed. "You didn't hear it from me, right?"

"No."

"His name is Bobby Bogosian. We know him. All we have to do is pick him up."

"Bogosian, I don't know that name. How did you find him?"

The cop cracked a smile, in spite of himself. "He left his magazine. I found it in the other conference room."

"How'd you know it was his, without prints?"

"It has a subscription label. Name and address right on it."

Bennie would have laughed if it hadn't been Pete Santis that got killed. "Smooth," she said.

"They get dumber every year, you ask me."

Bennie looked past his shoulder to the glass conference room. "You mind if I look around in there? I can help."

"No way are you going in there. That's a crime scene. You'll contaminate it."

"I won't touch anything. If I see something, I'll mention it to you. Maybe give you a leg up."

"No."

"I won't—"

"No!" he said, and his sharpness told Bennie she had crossed the line again. It wasn't intentional, this habit of hers, treading on authority's toes. She'd stop crossing the line if somebody would just tell her where it was.

"Fine, fine, fine. You win, Torregrossa. I'll just stand here in front of the door and look in. I can look, can't I? I have a First Amendment right to look."

"Look all you want. Knock yourself out."

"Thank you," Bennie said, like she needed the cop's permission to look in her own conference room. It was the best part of being the boss; she didn't need anybody's permission but her own. She walked to the threshold of the conference room and scrutinized it. Her Eakins print dangled askew on the wall, as if it had been knocked over when someone ran or walked by. A swivel chair had been upended and its feet stuck in the air like a crab on its back. The Steere file and exhibits were lying on the conference table. Photos sat on top of the heap, as if they had been examined recently. Bennie leaned closer to see them.

"Not another inch," the cop said.

"Gotcha." Bennie squinted to see the photos. They were grisly autopsy photos of the man Elliot Steere had killed, then a newspaper-type photo. It was Steere's victim. Next to the photos was a legal pad that read, Heb Darnton/Eb Darning. Hmmm. Bennie made a mental note of it, then tried to identify the handwriting. Detached capital letters, good-girl curlicues. Catholic school writing. DiNunzio's notes. Bennie gestured to the notes. "Looks like DiNunzio was researching something about the man Steere killed. Could that be tied in?"

"I'll point it out to the detective when he gets here."

"You want to call and see if he's on his way?"

"No."

"Maybe I should call."

A set of cold cop eyes slipped sideways. "Let the detectives handle this investigation. They know what they're doing."

Bennie didn't point out that she'd had some personal experience to the contrary. She'd lost one law firm because of police incompetence and she wasn't about to lose another. Her gut twisted at the memory. Bennie had been the prime suspect in a murder she hadn't committed, but innuendo had proved as damaging as indictment. There were phone calls from anxious clients, police leaks, and bad press, and Bennie had found herself watching the slow-motion crash of her first law firm.

But this time it had to be different. This time Bennie would protect her firm and prevent anyone else from getting killed. Marta Richter was her biggest client. The two were hardly friends, but Bennie didn't take any of her clients lightly. It was a fiduciary relationship, one of trust as well as finances. Bennie had told Marta as much in their initial meeting, making it clear that Rosato & Associates would partner with her, not just serve as a local mail drop. The two litigators had talked trial strategy, business development, and the possibility of future pairings. Bennie had even lent Marta her two best lawyers.

Bennie's thoughts turned to DiNunzio and Carrier. She had hand-picked the two lawyers and trained them. How were they involved with the guards' killings? Where were they, for God's sake, and what did it have to do with the Steere case, if anything? Could they be in jeopardy themselves?

Bennie's firm was under attack. There was blood on her walls. Her reputation, her name. If anybody was going to get to her firm it would have to be through her. This time she had to fight back. Adrenaline pumped in her bloodstream. She couldn't wait for the thaw to begin an investigation. She would begin now. Herself. Nobody knew police procedure better. Nobody had as much at stake. Bennie looked again at DiNunzio's notes. Heb Darnton/Eb Darning.

It was a starting point.

20

Mayor Peter Montgomery Walker paced the length of his huge, cherry-paneled office, in front of a remarkably bare mahogany desk. It was his show desk. The desk he used was in his private office behind the secret paneled door. It was where he kept his confidential papers, basketball hoop, and soda fountain. "We gotta get ahead of this, people! Steere's lawyers are missing and two men are dead!" he fumed. "We got a murder case and a blizzard here! We're not handling either of them!"

Large windows flanking the desk reflected the mayor's rolled-up white shirtsleeves and flying rep tie. He had the stamina to rant for twenty minutes; he jogged three miles a day by the Schuylkill River. His aides thought he ran to keep fit, but he ran because he liked the sun on his face and he loved the river drives. The mayor thought no city in the country had a nicer entrance than Philly's. It was prettier than Chicago's, even. "I will not lose this election because of the goddamn weather!" he shouted as he paced. "Or because of Elliot Steere!"

The deputy mayors shriveled in their club chairs against the wall. An aged secretary edged toward the mahogany door out of the office. Only the mayor's chief of staff, Jennifer Pressman, looked relaxed, leaning against a cherrywood credenza that held softball trophies and photos of the mayor's family and friends. One of the photos showed Jen with the mayor when he was the district attorney and she was his assistant. A tall, thin beauty with long dark hair and a slim-fitting matte gray suit, Jen watched the mayor from behind glasses with lenses round as quarters. She knew how to handle him from way back; let him bitch.

"Where's the crime lab reports? Where's the coroner's report? I want answers, sports fans! Why do I have to beg? Don't I look familiar?"

Jen didn't reply or even react. She had ridden the mayor's coattails to this job and as chief of staff had the managing director reporting to her, as well as the heads of all major departments. She had hired most of the top administrative employees, managed the high-profile literacy campaign, and continued the blood and organ donor drive she'd started at the D.A.'s office. Jen checked her watch. Almost midnight. Her cool hid the tension she felt inside. She had to go, but getting out of the office soon was out of the question. Stress, coffee, and no dinner. Ingredients for a migraine.

"And who're the detectives on the Steere case? Where the hell is Michael?" The mayor raked back his hair with an angry swipe and reflexively checked his hand to see if any had fallen out. His wife thought his bald spot was getting bigger, but his mistress disagreed. "Jen, do we know where Michael is?"

"The chief of police is at an FOP dinner with the inspector," Jen answered.

"Wonderful. Where's Sam?"

"He's at the Doral at a meeting. All the managing directors of major cities are there. He's the keynote speaker."

"The Doral? He went?He knew the Steere case was going to the jury!"

"He had a command appearance." Someday Jen would tell the mayor that his aides made themselves scarce in a crisis because of hissy fits like this one. The phone jangled in the scheduling office. The fax machine beeped in the secretary's area. Jen was beginning to see little pinpoints of light in the distance. Oh, no. It was her early-warning sign.

"Where's Tom Moran? He should know what's going on with Steere! Do the murders affect the court case? Can Steere move for a mistrial?"

"Moran's trying to get here, but the plows haven't gotten to East Falls yet." Jen pushed up her glasses, as if that would stop the lights in her mind. The mayor didn't know about her migraines, none of them did. It wasn't the kind of information you publicized if you wanted to get ahead in politics. "He's in touch with City Hall Communications. We can get him on the phone if you want."

"I don't want him on the phone, I want him here! Goddamn it, why does he have to live in East Falls?From now on, everybody rents apartments in town! Get the same goddamn apartment if you have to!" The mayor stormed back and forth. "What's Moran doing at home anyway?"

"They had the new babies, remember?" Jen tried to ignore the telephones and faxes. A light began to flicker behind her left eyeball, frantic as a candle in a hurricane. "They're twins, and you're the godfather," Jen added, and one of the junior aides, Jack O'Rourke, started to giggle. Idiot, Jen thought. She didn't mind that he was stupid, only that he didn't know how stupid he was. The flickering behind her eye intensified.

"I can't be the godfather, I'm the mayor! I'm up for reelection in November and I'm further behind in the polls than last election! The writing's on the wall, people! Can you read silently while I read aloud?" The mayor charged across the red patterned Oriental. He only wanted to fix the city he loved and he couldn't catch a break. He hadn't gotten the Philadelphia Renaissance off the ground because of Steere. He wanted that prick in jail forever. It was the only way to shake loose those properties and win the election.

"I have a thought, sir," O'Rourke chirped up. "What if Steere's lawyers killed the security guards? What if they killed the guards and ran away with the suspect? Like a conspiracy."

"What?"The mayor bit his tongue not to tear the kid a new asshole. The kid never said anything worth hearing, but he was Frank O'Rourke's son and the mayor wasn't above a little patronage if it got the job done. He was trying to keep this city afloat, and assholes like Elliot Steere were boring holes in the boat. Suddenly he whirled around on his wingtips and folded his arms with his back to his staff.

The aides exchanged glances behind the mayor's back. They tried not to laugh out loud as the mayor went into The Cone of Silence. It was their nickname for Mayor Walker's little quirk, and Jen usually found it funny. Not tonight. There was too much to do and the pinpoints in her head were spreading into large blotches of white light, like holes burning in a paper lantern. She needed to get her Imitrex injector from her desk. Her office was just across the hall. It would take her three minutes.

The mayor finally turned around, looking calmer. Redness ebbed from his face, and he stood still. "We should talk to the press, Jen," he said, his voice almost back to normal. "Take the high road on Steere. Two men are dead. Say we're doing everything we can. We'll make sure the Steere case goes forward and justice is served. Write that up for me. Got it?"

"Yes," she said, but she didn't know how she could possibly whip up a speech. The nausea was starting, and after that would come the pain. Unbelievable, immobilizing pain. She'd have to lie down in a dark room. She'd be totally and completely fucked.

"The headline is the new snowplows, Jen. Announce the snowplows right up front. Say that we were responsive. All the streets will be plowed, no matter how narrow. Is the press outside?"

"In the hall," Jen managed to say.

"Is Alix Locke still out there? I want her in on this. She's the one who made the stink about the goddamn plows."

Jen nodded, but even that hurt her head. "She's been out there since the murder story broke. She wouldn't go away. She's bitching that we're not releasing the police report."

"Why? She knows we don't release until the investigation's over. What is it with Locke? Why is she always in my face? I thought she was a Democrat."

"She's a reporter. Doing her job. Being a bitch." Jen's brain flooded with light. She was sick to her stomach. The pain was starting.

The mayor's secretary reappeared at the door. "Mr. Mayor," she said, her lined face alarmed. "Alix Locke is insisting on speaking with you. She won't take no for an answer, sir."

"Tell her to wait until the press conference like everybody else!" the mayor boomed, and his voice reverberated like a rifle shot through Jennifer's brain. Then the phone started ringing again.

"When it snows it pours," O'Rourke said, but none of the staff laughed. Least of all Jennifer, who bolted for her office and her Imitrex injector.

"I'll announce the conference," she said.

21

Christopher Graham wedged his powerful frame into the tiny chair in his hotel room and set his green bottle of Rolling Rock on his leg. Christopher hated conjugal visits. Like Mr. Fogel had said while they were playing cards on the last visit: "Neither of us has anybody to conjugate." Tonight Mr. Fogel wasn't up for cards, so Christopher sat alone and took another swig of Rolling Rock. The jurors were allowed one alcoholic beverage a night.

"This one's for you," Christopher said, hoisting the bottle in the silent hotel room. His gaze wandered listlessly over snow flying outside the window, the double bed with the polyester comforter, and the TV on its swivel stand. The hotel would pipe in a cable movie for free during the conjugal visits— tonight's was Jurassic Park— but Christopher kept the TV turned off. Beside him on the steel cart sat the remains of his dinner: fried chicken and Spanish rice, with ice cream for dessert. Christopher had come to hate fried chicken on this jury. Not as much as he hated chairs that were too small, though, and not half as much as he hated conjugal visits.

Christopher took another sip of beer. He found the whole notion of a conjugal visit distasteful, like the jurors were animals. Like the wives were mares in season, being brought to a stallion, coaxed into trailers for the trip to be covered. And the male jurors acted like animals all day the day of a conjugal visit. They didn't pay attention in court, shifting in their chairs and checking their watches. They reminded Christopher of stallions restless at the first hint of spring; throwing their heads back, prancing around the pasture. Even geldings got frisky come April and wouldn't stand still for shoeing.

Christopher rested the beer bottle on his thigh, making a wet ring on his heavyweight jeans. The TV came on in the next room, and a woman's laughter floated through the thin walls. Oh, man. Here we go again. It was Isaiah Fellers and his fiancée. Every conjugal visit for two months, Christopher would hear them talking and giggling, then the TV would blast and the headboard bang against the wall. The ruckus would rattle the flower picture over his bed, and Christopher would retreat to the bathroom to hide from the noise.

"Don't move!" a man in the dinosaur movie said through the wall. Then came the moaning of Isaiah's fiancée.

Christopher took another swig of beer and closed his eyes to the sounds. He thought love was better than that. He liked horses and their ways, but he wasn't an animal. Lainie never understood that. She used to whisper things in bed she thought would arouse him, but he wanted her to be above that. She was his wife. Then six months ago, Lainie had found another man and left the house. Didn't take anything, not even the curling iron she used on her bangs every day. He knew she'd come back someday, at least for the curling iron. She was real picky about her bangs.

"REEEAAAHHH!" somebody bellowed on the other side of the wall, and Christopher wasn't sure if it was the dinosaur or the woman until it ended in "BBAAABBBEEE." Christopher shook his head in wonder. No woman had ever made a sound like that with him. Either he hadn't been with enough women, or none had loved him that much.

Christopher thought of Mrs. Wahlbaum. She always smelled nice on visit day and seemed more alert. He'd met her husband, Abe, a tall, thin man with gray hair. Mrs. Wahlbaum held her husband's hand when she introduced him to Christopher; she was happy just to stand next to him. Christopher wondered if a woman would ever feel that way about him.

"RRRREEEHHHHHOOOO!" somebody shouted, and Christopher gave up trying to screen it out. He got up with his Rolling Rock, went into the bathroom, and flicked on the fan to mask the noise. The fan whirred to life, and Christopher sat on the tub's edge in the dark. He closed his eyes and soon Marta's face floated up to him out of the darkness. She was standing at his side, and Christopher imagined himself introducing her to someone, like Mrs. Wahlbaum did her husband. Marta's face would light up when she looked at him. Even her blue eyes would smile. It was plain to see that she adored him.

"RRRIING!" came a sound, barely audible over the whirring of the fan. Must be the movie. Christopher shook it off. "RRRIIIINNNG!" it sounded again, and he realized it was the telephone. Who could be calling? He left the bathroom and hurried to the phone. "Yup," Christopher said into the pink receiver.

"This is the sheriff downstairs. Your wife is here to see you."

Christopher was struck dumb Lainie? Why had she come? She'd never come before. Only one of two things Lainie could have wanted from him, since he didn't have the curling iron. Either she wanted to get back together or she wanted to get a divorce.

"Should I send her up?"

"No. I mean, sure. Thanks."

Christopher hung up the phone and caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser. He didn't look surprised at all, he was good at not showing his feelings. Lainie used to complain about it, but there was nothing he could do. It was just the way Christopher was. It was his nature.

Christopher finger-combed his thick, dark hair with his fingers and checked his beard for crumbs. He smoothed down his flannel shirt and tucked it into his jeans. He didn't look half bad. He'd noticed one of the jurors, Megan, looking at him from time to time. He patted his stomach, still trim. Take it or leave it, Lainie. There was a knock at the door and he hustled to open it.

"Special delivery for Mr. Graham," said the uniformed sheriff. He grinned as he stepped aside.

"Hi, honey," said the woman standing there, who looked a lot like Lainie. She had hair like Lainie and clothes like Lainie, but she wasn't Lainie. "It's been a while, Christopher," the woman said softly.

Christopher looked at her eyes. They were clear blue and smiled up at him from the doorway. He'd know those eyes anywhere. "It sure has," he replied without hesitation.

"And away we go," said the sheriff, who did a Jackie Gleason out the door and left Christopher alone.

With Marta.

22

The blizzard blew, but Judy stood on the snowy stoop and knocked on the door of a rundown brick rowhouse catty-corner to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. Judy knew somebody was home because she could hear voices inside, and light shone through a ripped paper shade. She craned her neck to peek though the tear and almost fell off the stoop. She knocked again. No answer.

Standing on the sidewalk, Mary spotted a moving shadow on the paper shade. "Somebody's in there," she said, from a snowdrift on the sidewalk.

"Hello?" Judy knocked again. "Hello?"

The associates waited but nothing happened. Snow fell in gusts. The neighborhood was dark and quiet. Three houses so far, and no one was answering. The wind whistled down the street, buffeting Mary's face and sending frosty tendrils twirling toward her. Her cheeks were frozen and her nose leaked like a preschooler's. Her fingers were so numb she couldn't keep the poles and skis together.

Judy pounded on the door again. "Hello? Please come to the door. It'll just take a minute." Still no answer. She turned away and tramped down the steps. "What do you think, Mare?"

"I think we keep at it."

"Why won't they answer?"

"Because it's a snowstorm? Because it's late? Because you're a lawyer? I don't know for sure."

"Am I scary-looking?"

Mary appraised her. A yellow knit ski hat, fringe of wet blond bangs, canary parka, and snowpants. "No, you look like a banana."

"Maybe I need a new rap. Begging isn't working. You got any ideas?"

"How about 'Prize Patrol!' "

"You're no help." Judy turned and lumbered through the snow to the next house. Mary followed, hoisting the slippery skis and poles up. A ski slid down into the snow, and Mary bent over to retrieve it. It was maddening trying to keep the skis in order. They were the wire hangers of sports equipment.

Judy climbed the stoop of the next house, 412. The two front windows had a brown curtain in them. She knocked on the front door, and a kid's face popped up under the hem of the curtain. A small, black boy with a smooth head. Judy waved at him, and he waved back.

Mary watched from the sidewalk as Judy waved at the boy again and he waved back again. It was cute, but it wasn't progress. "Jude, you know sign language for 'open the door'?"

"Can you open the door a minute?" Judy called out, knocking, but the curtain dropped and the boy vanished.

Damn, Mary thought, and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her borrowed parka. Suddenly the door opened a crack and a woman stood there in jeans and a sweatshirt, with her hand shielding her face against the blowing snow. The little boy hugged her knee and buried his face in her thigh.

"Excuse me," Judy said, "I hate to bother you. Did you know Heb Darnton or Eb Darning, the homeless man who was killed here last spring, under the bridge?"

"No, I didn't know him," said the woman irritably, from behind her hand.

"Well, maybe you can help me anyway. My name is Judy Carrier and I'm trying to find out about Heb. Did anybody around here know him? This is where he hung out. This corner, this street."

Mary remained eye level with the boy, who smiled at her shyly. She waved at him, and he waved back, his palm half hidden behind his mother's leg. "Momma, I want to go out and play," he said in a robust voice, but his mother found his shoulder with her hand and patted him.

"I don't know the man," the mother answered.

"Do you know anybody who did?" Judy asked.

The woman shook her head. "Listen, it's cold. I got to go now, I'm losin' heat with the door open."

"Momma?" shouted the boy, but the front door shut quickly and was locked, then bolted.

Judy sighed and trudged back down the stairs. "Well, it wasn't a total waste of time."

"Yes it was," Mary said. She picked up the skis from the snow, where they had fallen like pickup sticks.

"No, it wasn't. That little boy liked you. You made a friend."

"Kids hate me, and I don't need a friend. I need to know who Eb Darning is."

"You can always use a friend, Mare."

"Oh, please. Help with the goddamn skis, would you, California?"

Judy helped gather the skis, and the two women went from house to house in the blizzard, down the streets they thought the homeless man had frequented, checking the neighborhood around the crumbling bridge. Only a handful of people answered their doors, and none of them said they knew Heb Darnton or Eb Darning. The lawyers circled the block and ended up, discouraged, in the middle of the street they had started on. The storm had worsened and Judy's feet had grown cold even in the insulated ski boots. Her ankles were soaked because there'd been only one pair of gaiters and she'd lent them to Mary. "Even I have to admit this is not going well," Judy said.

"We can't just give up."

"We won't, but maybe there's another lead we can follow."

"I don't know any, do you?"

Judy thought a minute. "Maybe we could go to Green Street, where Darning used to live. Try to find some people who knew him before he became homeless. Green Street is right in town, in Fairmount, on the other side of the Free Library."

Mary's mouth dropped open and snow blew inside. "That's on the other side of town. You want me to ski back across town, past your apartment, all the way to Green Street?"

"We can stop at my apartment. Get some hot chocolate."

"Who are you channeling? My face is about to fall off. My contacts are frozen. The only part of me that's dry are my ankles and that's because of those plastic things you gave me."

"The gaiters."

"Whatever. We can't do it, Judy. We'll be Popsicles. Twin pops. The kind that are supposed to break down the middle and never do."

"What?"

"Forget it." Mary squinted against the snow. "It wasn't a bad idea, though. Why didn't you say something before?"

"I didn't think of it."

Mary's heart sank. She scanned the rowhouses facing the storm like a stone wall. Some of the neighbors had talked to her in the spring, but that was then. Now they were a lot less friendly, maybe because the whole city thought Steere was about to walk. Still, she couldn't bring herself to let it go. Her role in letting a murderer go free weighed too heavily, and she didn't need more guilt.

Mary's gaze moved down the street, where some kids played in the pool of brightness cast by the streetlight. One kid flapped his arms to make a snow angel and two others wrestled in the snow, dark figures tumbling over one another like fairies in the night. They'd made a hill by packing the snow on one of the stoops and were sledding down the makeshift mountain on a piece of cardboard. One of the kids, the smallest, wasn't playing. He was standing off to the side, facing them. Facing Mary. It was dark, but his tiny shadow fit the little boy from the house.

"Judy, it's the kid!" Mary said, her heart leaping up. She dropped the skis with a clatter and hurried down the street, her legs churning in the deep snow. She slowed as she reached the boy, then stopped and waved. He waved back. He couldn't have been four years old. "My name is Mary" she told him. "What's your name?"

He didn't answer. He held his arms stiff at his sides in a hand-me-down parka and black gloves. His knit Eagles cap was stretched out of shape and floppy at its peak.

"Do you have a name?"

Still no answer.

Mary tried to think of what to say next. She was never good with kids, but her husband had been. He'd taught school and wanted a passel. She tried to think of what Mike would have done, but it had been so long since she'd heard his voice in her head. Judy caught up with her, lugging their skis and poles.

"What she got?" the boy asked loudly, pointing to the skis. He had a big voice for such a little kid.

"They're skis," Mary answered.

"Skis?" he said, testing the word.

"Right, skis. You can play with them in the snow." Mary saw interest sparkle in his large, round eyes and wanted to get through to him. But she needed help from somebody who was better with kids. "Judy, skis are fun, right? A lot of fun. They're like toys."

"No, they're not." Judy frowned under her hat. "They're serious equipment. They're not toys."

Mary wanted to throttle her. "Don't be so technical." She grabbed a maroon ski from Judy's hand and held it in front of the boy. "See? You want to touch it?"

Startled, the boy edged away.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Judy said. She wrenched the ski from Mary's hand. "Skis are cool. Watch this." The boy's dark eyes followed her as she turned the ski over, set it down on the snow, and gave it a push. It glided to the boy like a model sailboat in a fountain, and he looked down at it and grinned. "Cool, huh?" Judy said, and looked back over her shoulder. "Why am I doing this, Mare?"

"Because I think our friend likes to play outside," Mary said, her gaze on the boy. "I bet he plays outside all the time and I bet he makes lots of friends."

Judy smiled, catching on. "I bet you're right, Mare." She eased slowly onto her haunches, eye level with the boy, and Mary stood behind her, watching his reaction. They were concentrating so intently on the child that they didn't notice the white Grand Cherokee coming slowly around the corner and rumbling toward them in the snow. The driver of the Cherokee was Penny Jones and he was heading straight for the women, his hunting rifle under the front seat.

23

Jen Pressman fled the mayor's office and hustled down the marble corridor in City Hall. This migraine was going to be a whopper. She needed that Imitrex. A flock of TV and print reporters dogged her, headed by Alix Locke.

"Jen!" Alix yelled in her ear. "Jen Pressman! What will the mayor say tonight at the conference? Come on, Jen, tell me."

"You'll see in an hour," Jen said, wishing Alix would stop shouting. She was supersensitive to all the sounds in the corridor. The clacking of her own heels. The snapping of camera shutters, the whir of the motor drives. Jen wanted to cover her ears.

"Where's a copy of the mayor's speech?" "Do you have a copy of the speech?" "Will he get the plows?" "Did the deal go through with the Canadians?" "Can you confirm or deny?"

"Press conference in one hour, in the conference room down the hall," Jen said, elbowing her way ahead. No one would have guessed spots were popping and jumping behind her eyes.

"What's the deal on the security guard murders?" "Any suspects?" "Any leads on Richter or the others?" "What do the police have to say?"

Jen didn't bother answering. She had lost the ability to distinguish whose questions they were. It was all a cacophony. She felt seasick but couldn't let it show. She waved them all off, pushing through the gauntlet until she finally reached the mahogany door across the hall. CHIEF OF STAFF, said the pullout plaque. Jen yanked the heavy door open, and a white-hot light blasted her eyes. Seared through the shutter of her pupils. Cut like a laser right through to her brain. "Ah!" she cried out, putting up a protective hand.

"Turn off that light!" shouted her secretary. "I told you! No TV cameras in here. Turn it off!"

"Turn that fucking thing off!" Jen screamed. The TV light sputtered to darkness, but she was reeling, seeing exploding lights everywhere. She pressed into the wedge of reporters to get past the reception area to her office.

"Are we getting the new plows, Jen?" Alix Locke shouted, among others. "Is it true we paid a fortune for them?" "When will they get to the streets in the Northeast?" "Why don't they plow the streets off Vare Avenue, Jen?"

Jen barreled ahead, leaving the reporters behind. She heard her secretary shouting for them to leave, but she couldn't bear any more shouting. Not one more minute of it or she would scream and her cover would be blown.

Jen flew down the short corridor to her office, ran inside, and shut and locked the door. Her large office was unrecognizable. The furniture had melted into shapeless forms. She couldn't focus on her diplomas. Her poster for the City Hall blood drive was a crimson blur and a banner for the organ donor drive read GIVE A LIVER, SAVE A LIFE GIVEALIVERSAVEALIFE.

Jen ran to her cluttered desk against the window. It faced north over the ornate Masonic temple and ordinarily she loved the view. Tonight she couldn't see it. She tore open the right-hand drawer and felt for her purse. It wasn't there, where she always put it. Oh, no. The injector was inside it. Where was her purse? Jen rifled through pencils, pens, and paper clips for the brown Coach bag. It wasn't there. Had she put it here? Where was it last?

Jen ripped through her personal bills. Nothing but paper. She threw them up in the air, frantic. She had put it here, hadn't she? Had she locked the drawer? There'd been thefts even in her office. Jen tried to think through the pain clenching like a fist behind her eyes. Of course she hadn't locked the drawer. It was unlocked when she came in.

Nausea bubbled in her stomach. She almost burst into tears. The snow and all, and the murders. She'd forgotten to lock the drawer. Now she didn't have the Imitrex. Fucking what was she going to do? She had only minutes before she'd collapse completely. Jen flung open the second drawer and ransacked it for her purse, then searched the third. Memos and other papers flew everywhere, floating to the carpet. Please don't be lost. Please be here. But it wasn't.

Jen leaned on the desk for support. Think. Yes! She had a spare injector in the ladies' room. She ran for the office door and flung it open, trying not to cry. Trying not to scream, not to puke. She took the hallway corner full speed and dashed flat out to the ladies' room. She wrenched the door open, slammed it behind her, and ripped open the mirrored medicine cabinet. Her vision was almost gone; she had to find the injector by feel. It was hidden in an empty Tampax cylinder and marked JEN ONLY OR DIE. Her whole world was dissolving. Dematerializing. Breaking up into a jagged kaleidoscope of light and pain.

Jen fumbled with shaking hands through the skinny glass shelves, knocking everything out. She heard the thunder of a toothbrush as it crashed to the basin. The din of a plastic cup as it smashed to the floor and rolled around the porcelain tile. Where was the goddamn syringe?

There! Jen grabbed the Tampax with the syringe and fell onto the toilet seat. She bit off the cap, spit it out, and jammed the needle through her panty hose and into the muscle of her thigh. In three minutes she would be human again. She closed her eyes and tears slipped from beneath her eyelids. Relief was on the way, except there were the sounds of a scuffle outside the bathroom door and then someone started pounding on the door.

"Jen, it's Alix! Alix Locke. I need a copy of that speech!"

24

Marta stood in the hotel room of one of her jurors, about to engage in conduct that would constitute jury tampering and obstruction of justice, as well as violate several key ethical and disciplinary rules. She didn't want to think about what would happen if she were discovered. Humiliation, loss of license and livelihood. As much as she needed to be here, Marta felt slightly stunned that she actually was. She scared herself at times.

Christopher was even more stunned than Marta. He couldn't say anything, and she wasn't saying anything, so they stared at each other for a minute. It was unreal. She was Marta Richter, everything he ever wanted in a woman, and she was dressed up like the woman he'd married, Lainie. Christopher couldn't deny his feelings. He wanted Marta, and here she was. She'd come to him, dressed as his wife, on a conjugal visit. He didn't know if it was luck or Providence.

"Do you mind if I sit down?" Marta asked, finding her voice.

"Yes. No. Sure. Suit yourself," Christopher said. He gestured awkwardly toward the bed, then caught himself. What was the matter with him? Just because he thought about an affair with her didn't mean it was going to happen. Christopher was supposed to be a gentleman. He pushed his room service cart out of the way and patted the chair. "Uh, here. Here, in this chair. I mean. Would be better."

"Thanks." Marta took off her knit hat and perched on the edge of the chair. She had to get to the point and fast. Maybe it was the beard that hid most of his features, but Christopher was so impassive Marta wasn't sure he knew she wasn't Lainie. "Do you know who I am, Christopher?"

"Marta."

"Right." He'd called her by her first name, and Marta wasn't entirely surprised. "I bet you think this is a little strange. Not to mention illegal."

Christopher laughed, and it came out like a gulp. Of what? Fear? Hope? Love? His own laughter was a sound he didn't hear often, and it sounded odd. It made him aware that the ruckus from next door had finally stopped. They'd even turned off the TV. "Well, yes," he said, his voice low, out of caution. "I was, well, wondering."

"It's a surprise, I know."

"Huh? Sure. Well, yeah. You look good," he blurted out, and as soon as the words left his mouth he winced. He was a grown man with his own business and he was acting like a teenager. It was all because Marta was so beautiful, and dressed in casual clothes, she looked more friendly. Softer. Christopher could actually see them together. Married. Maybe because she was wearing clothes like his wife's. "I mean, you look a lot like Lainie. You did a real good job. How did you know what Lainie looks like?"

"I have her picture in the file. It's from the newspaper. The photo of the two of you, above your engagement announcement."

"How did you get ahold of that?" Christopher asked in surprise. "It was only in our local paper."

"One of the jury consultants got it from the computer. If it's published, it's on the computer. Local or not."

Christopher wasn't sure he liked them spying on him like that, but he couldn't be mad at Marta. She looked so good, different. Her hair was all changed. The stiff blond cut was gone, replaced by a looser brown hairdo. Lainie used to call her haircut a "shag," but it didn't look shaggy on Marta. "What did you do to your hair? Did you cut it? Dye it?"

"Not exactly. I didn't have much time." Marta reached up and yanked the wig off her head. The shock of it brought another surprised laugh from Christopher.

"Oh, man," he said, sinking onto the dresser in front of the bed. "Man, oh, man."

"I got the whole outfit at Woolworth's." Marta scratched her scalp, relieved to have the itchy wig off even though it had kept her head warm. "I remembered what your wife wore in the photo and the way she kept her hair."

Jesus. The resemblance was eerie. Christopher had so many questions. Why was Marta here? Was it because she had feelings for him, like he did for her? "Uh, how did you get past the guards downstairs?"

"I told them I was Elaine, Lainie. I remembered we looked alike. The sheriffs didn't recognize me. In fact, one of them told me he'd seen my picture. I mean, Lainie's picture."

Christopher nodded. He'd shown the guards his wedding picture once, but he didn't tell them Lainie had run off. Not even Mr. Fogel knew why Lainie didn't visit, because Christopher didn't like to talk about it. One day he'd take the damn picture out of his wallet and throw it away.

"You're wondering why I'm here," Marta said, suddenly uncomfortable in his gaze. He was looking down at her from his perch on the dresser, his strong legs spread slightly. Christopher's body language was as subtle as an express train, though his expression was still unreadable. "I have a problem," she began, and told him the whole story.

Christopher listened intently, resting on the edge of the dresser. His face betrayed no emotion even when she told him about the killings of the security guards, but inside he was horrified. He had never heard anything like it, and the more Marta talked, the more worried he became. She was in danger. "How can I help?" Christopher asked when she was finished.

"Get the jury to convict. I'll work on finding out why Steere killed Darnton, but I need you to work it from the inside. The jury has to find Steere guilty of murder."

"Guilty?" Christopher asked, astounded. "They're about to find him innocent. They're going to acquit."

"They can't."

"We voted twice. It's nine to two, with one juror abstaining. We think it's self-defense, just like you said. It's going your way."

"Not anymore." Marta had never been so unhappy she was kicking ass. "Who's voting to convict? Kenny Manning and one of the other black men, right?"

"Not all the black people are voting to convict. Kenny Manning is, I think, but not Gussella Williams." Christopher heard himself lecturing, but he figured he was entitled. The jury deliberations had made him think a lot about race. Skin color didn't make a difference to Gussella, but it made a difference to Kenny. Just like it made a difference to Ralph Merry. Christopher didn't understand people sometimes. Horses didn't group together by color, and people were supposed to be smarter than horses.

"Okay, fine. Whatever," Marta said. She had picked an almost all-white jury, figuring they'd favor a white businessman against a black homeless man, and she'd been right. Race wasn't everything, but Marta had to be realistic. Now she was working against herself. Against time. "What about Mrs. Wahlbaum, the schoolteacher? She wants to acquit, right? Will she stay with it?"

Christopher nodded. He didn't think anything could move Mrs. Wahlbaum when she'd made up her mind, not even Mr. Wahlbaum.

"And the young girl, the computer programmer? Megan Gerrity? Will she hang tough?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"She'll acquit." Marta shook her head. Fucking liberals. Any other time she would have kissed their asses, now they could cost her her life. "You have to hold out. Tell them you're voting to convict and stand your ground."

"I can't do that." Christopher crossed his arms in his flannel shirt. "Today I voted to acquit. I almost convinced them. They want to go home. They're tired of living in a hotel."

"Tell them you changed your mind," Marta said. "You thought about it. You've been wondering why Steere didn't testify and tell his side of the story."

"Judge Rudolph said that wasn't supposed to matter."

"Say it matters to you, you can't help it. Juries always wonder why the defendant didn't take the stand. If Steere was defending himself when he shot that man, why didn't he just come forward and explain what happened? Elliot Steere is not a shy man, he's a killer. Announce your vote and stick to your guns."

"Wouldn't that make it a hung jury?"

"You have to convince them all. I don't want it hung. I don't want a mistrial. Either one of those, Steere is free and I'm dead. It has to be a conviction, nothing less will do. And take your time. I need all the time you can give me."

Christopher tried to think of what he'd say tomorrow. He pictured the other jurors sitting around the table, looking at him like a crazy man when he told them he'd changed his mind. He'd been so adamant today. Christopher liked to think he was a man of his word, but Marta was in real trouble. Two men had already been killed.

Marta rubbed her forehead with anxiety, and it throbbed in response. "Who's the foreman? Ralph Merry?"

"No. I am."

"Wonderful!" Marta took heart. What a break. Maybe her plan would work. Maybe Christopher could make this happen. "Then you can persuade them. Jurors look up to the foreman. They look for a leader. That's why they picked you in the first place."

"No."

"You're being modest."

"No, really," he said, but Christopher would die before he'd explain what happened. It was hard enough to talk with Marta here in his room, right across from him. In his bedroom. Christopher felt as if she knew how often he thought about her. So many nights he had pictured her here, and now she was. He had to know. "Why did you come to me, Marta?"

"I needed to get to the jury."

"But why me? Why did you pick me? You didn't know I was the foreman. You were surprised."

"I came to you because you were most likely to help."

"Why did you think that?"

Marta paused, then let it rip. "Because I think you're attracted to me."

The hotel room seemed suddenly very still to Christopher. The silence sounded loud. He didn't know what to say. He could keep his feelings inside, but he'd let so many feelings go in his life, seizing none of them. This feeling, it seemed, should not pass. This feeling had the strength of a runaway horse. It was time to take it in hand. Grab hold and hang on. Cowboy it. "Do you have feelings for me, Marta?" Christopher asked, and his heart felt like it was stuck on his Adam's apple. "Tell me, yes or no. Because I do have feelings for you."

This was not a conversation Marta wanted to have right now. Every instinct told her to lead him on, lie to him, even take him to bed if it got her what she wanted. Marta couldn't imagine telling the truth with the stakes this high. Then she looked at Christopher's rugged, open face and couldn't imagine not. He was a decent, kind man, and she was asking him to do something that could get him thrown in prison. He deserved a straight answer. "No. None at all," she answered. "I don't even know you."

"I see," Christopher said quickly.

Marta swallowed hard, sensing his hurt. Funny how she hurt a little, too. For him. But she had to go forward. "Will you help me anyway?"

25

The white Grand Cherokee stopped in the middle of the street and parked with the engine running. Its white enamel paint camouflaged it in the blowing snow, blurring its boxy outline in the storm. Exhaust snaked in a ghostly cloud from its tailpipe and trailed off in a gust of wind. Its windshield wipers flapped slowly in the snow.

At the end of the block, Judy was kneeling down, pushing the flat end of the cross-country ski to make it go back and forth. The snow came up to the very edge of the little boy's coat. "Now it's your turn," she said to him. "Slide it back to me."

Without a word, the boy bent over and sent the ski back to Judy. Then she slid it back to him, and he repeated the game with a growing smile. "Did you know my friend Heb?" Judy asked, sailing the ski to him.

The boy nodded and kept his eyes glued to the maroon ski. Mary felt her heartbeat quicken, but she stayed behind Judy and kept her mouth shut. The ski reached the boy, and he caught it in his hand-me-down black glove.

"Heb got hurt, didn't he?" Judy asked.

"He got shot." The boy's eyes moved with the ski. Back and forth. "He dead."

"Did you see him get shot?"

"No. I didn't see, I heard. Bang, bang, bang, BANG!" the boy shouted, summoning all the strength in his small body. He shoved the ski hard.

Judy stopped the ski like a shortstop and glanced up at the boy, then at his rowhouse. It faced the bridge, catty-corner to the spot where Darning was killed. She eyeballed the distance from the house to the bridge. About fifty yards. The child could have seen something. "You sure you didn't see him get shot, now?"

"I was sleepin'. The BANG woke me UP. I heard it out the window."

Judy gathered from the shout that he felt strongly about it. "Was Heb your friend, too?"

"Yes." The boy nodded. "He give me street money."

"He gave you money?"

"He was rich."

Mary blinked. "What?"

Judy asked, "He was?" She sent the ski across the snow.

"Dennell!" shouted one of the older kids, who was standing in the middle of the street. They had stopped playing and were going inside, abandoning the cardboard sled and snow angels. "Dennell!"

Suddenly, the boy turned around and ran off, kicking up a tiny wake of snow in his path.

"Wait!" Judy called after him, but he didn't turn back. The lawyers watched the boy run to the older kid and climb the stoop into his house. Their front door slammed closed, echoing in the street, which fell abruptly silent. The wind had picked up and was tossing the flurries this way and that. Down the street sat the Grand Cherokee, parked with its engine rumbling. Lost in the snowy backdrop, its windshield wipers moved back and forth.

Judy straightened up and brushed caked snow from her knees. "Did you hear that? How can a homeless man be rich? Panhandling?"

"Not in this neighborhood, and this was the only place he lived. He slept under the bridge."

"Welfare would barely support him, much less leave him money to pass out to a kid. Maybe Darning saved the money from his job with the bank."

"Saved it, from the sixties?" Mary asked. "A bank teller's salary? Why do you always look for the best in people? What kind of lawyer are you?"

Judy smiled and shook snow from the ski bindings and poles. "Okay, maybe he stole it from the bank when he worked there. Embezzlement, skimming the accounts. Taking bribes to shift the money around."

"Now you're talkin'. But what would that have to do with Elliot Steere?"

"Maybe Darning stole it from Steere's account a long time ago, and when Steere found out he killed him." Judy bent over and laid the skis on the snow in pairs, but Mary didn't seem to be taking the hint. Down the street, the white Grand Cherokee waited, undetected. Silent.

"Why wouldn't Steere report it to the cops?" Mary asked.

"Maybe he wanted to handle things on his own. Maybe he went to talk to Darning about it and things got out of hand."

"No. It doesn't sound right. The kid said Darning was rich."

"You can't take a little kid's word on what rich is, Mare. Five dollars is rich to a kid that young." Judy pressed her boot into her ski clip, leaning on Mary's shoulder for balance. "Let's go, girlfriend. Time to roll."

"The kid said street money. Do you know the phrase street money?"

"What phrase? He didn't mean it as a phrase. The kid lives on the same street as Darning, literally. Street money. Get it?" Judy popped the other ski on and slipped her hands into the pole straps. "Come on. Put your skis on."

"I think the kid was repeating something he heard. Something Darning said. There is a term street money."

"There is? What's it mean?"

Mary smiled. "You're so totally, like, Californian. It's what you pay for votes. You give somebody street money so they can buy votes in their district."

"Fascinating."

"Welcome to Philadelphia."

"Thank you very much." The wind was gusting hard, and Judy's ankles were wet and chilled. "Put your skis on, Mare. We'll discuss it at my apartment."

Mary tried to find her ski clip with her boot, but the ski kept slipping away. "You know, a lot of those articles I got from my computer search were about Steere and Mayor Walker. How much they hate each other."

"Yeah, so?" Judy knelt down and steadied Mary's ski until her boot finally clicked in.

"So maybe it's a political thing. The election is coming up. Maybe street money was paid or will be. Maybe there's some political angle to this."

"Next ski," Judy said, squinting against the spray of ice particles blowing into her face from the ground. "Let's go, Mare." With her eyes half closed, Judy couldn't see the smoked glass window of the Grand Cherokee sliding down to the halfway point, even if she had been looking.

"Are you listening, Jude? It could be political."

"Put your fucking boot in the fucking clip."

"Jeez Louise. Touchy, aren't we? I'm trying to solve a murder here. It's not easy." Mary nosed her other boot down, finally found the clip with her toe, and locked it in.

"Hallelujah." Judy straightened up, telemarked to turn around, and skied a few feet down the sidewalk to take the lead. "Follow me," she called back.

"Maybe Darning gets the money from somewhere," Mary called after her, hobbling through the snow. It was so damn cold. The air was too frigid to breathe. "Someone gave him street money."

Across the street, the Grand Cherokee's window edged down past the halfway point. Its tinted glass was mottled with powdery snow. It was too dark to see the driver. The engine idled and exhaust wafted from its tailpipe. The windshield wipers beat harder.

"Let's get into the street, where it's easier," Judy yelled to Mary. She looked for an opening between the cars parked at the curb. Covered with snow, the cars looked like an Almond Joy bar. Judy spotted a space and headed for it, skiing into the street. "Come on, Mare. Try and keep up."

"Show-off," Mary muttered.

Judy took off into the middle of the street and skied away from the ruts made by passing cars. The snow was knee-deep in some spots. It had been hours since Judy heard a weather report.

Mary made her way into the street with difficulty. She heard a loud hydraulic cranking and saw a snowplow in the distance, with a yellow caution light flashing on its cab. Maybe they were plowing the streets on the way to Judy's apartment. It would help. Mary couldn't believe anybody went cross-country skiing for fun. It was brutal, endless work. For that she could go to the office.

"Mare!" Judy called to her. "You okay?"

Mary tried to answer, but her words were swallowed by the cold wind and the noise from the snow-plow. She struggled against the storm and tried to keep up. It was a lost cause. Snowflakes flew into her eyes. Her hands were wet in her gloves. The blizzard didn't seem to be letting up. Mary fell behind Judy a few feet, then half a block.

Behind Mary, the tinted window of the white Cherokee slid all the way down. A hand in a leather glove appeared from inside the car and brushed snow from the door frame. A second later, the barrel of a hunting rifle nosed out and pointed down the street.

26

It's a great truck, Christopher had told Marta. Don't judge it by the way it looks. The tires are new this year. Bridgestones.

Marta identified Christopher's ancient truck instantly because it was the most disgusting wreck in the hotel garage: a faded blue pickup with a dented white cover over its long bed. Its back fender and body were marred by dings, its doors rusted with cancerous edges, and it cowered in a far corner of the underground garage like a leper. The only bright spot on the truck was its cherry-red bumper sticker: FARRIERS SHOE IT BETTER.

The bumper sticker was Lainie's idea, Christopher had said, though Marta could have guessed as much.

She lingered near the garage wall and glanced nervously around for Bogosian. Had she lost him for good? She didn't think he'd followed her to the hotel because she'd kept checking behind her. Still, she couldn't be sure. Maybe he was lying in wait like he'd been at Steere's town house. He knew there was a conjugal visit scheduled, maybe he'd anticipated she'd try to reach the jury. Or maybe Steere had. Still, she had to go.

Marta hurried to the truck, slipped the key in the lock, and climbed inside when the door creaked open. She tossed her purse onto the beat-up passenger seat. The truck was cold and smelled oddly of singed hair. The front seat was littered with empty coffee cups, waxed paper from Dunkin' Donuts, and cellophane bags of withered carrots. A flashlight rolled on the floor and a large green rubber ball was wedged at the end of the seat. HORSEBALL, it said. Huh?

Marta inserted the key, pumped the gas, and twisted on the ignition. The engine made the tiniest click, but didn't turn over. Christopher had warned her this would happen.

Be patient, he'd said, the car hasn't been driven in two months. And don't flood the engine.

Marta checked her watch. 10:15. She had to get going. She turned the ignition key again, but no luck.

Give her a minute or two. Talk to her. She likes when you talk to her.

Fuck that. Talk to a truck? Christopher had way too much time on his hands. Marta forced herself to wait and scanned the garage again for Bogosian. The damn windshield was too dirty to see through and she wiped it with a cold fist. A few cars were parked on this level. Bogosian could be behind any one of them, waiting to grab her. She remembered the vise of his hands around her throat, choking the breath from her. Panicky, Marta twisted the ignition key again. The engine didn't respond.

Stay calm. Give her time.

But Marta didn't have time. She had to get this truck moving. She had to get away. She looked around. Bogosian could be anywhere. Marta forced herself to wait and tried to imagine what had happened since he'd killed the security guards. The cops had to be swarming all over Rosato & Associates. They'd see Marta's signature on the log. They'd be looking for her. The press would follow.

She just needs to warm up. Wait, then give it another try.

Marta tried the ignition again, but the engine only coughed. Fuck! Marta had to hit the road. There was no other way. If it would have gotten her anywhere, she would have surfaced and told everything she knew about the guards' murder, but she couldn't prove Bogosian was linked to Steere. She couldn't even prove Bogosian existed. Rocket Docket Rudolph was pushing the Steere case through on greased skids; Marta doubted even a murder in the office would slow him down. Steere would never permit a continuance anyway, and Marta couldn't run the risk.

Keep trying. Don't give up.

Words to live by. She twisted the key and the engine finally turned over, rheumatic but alive. Marta slammed the truck into reverse and it stalled while she was backing out. Twice. She finally got it rolling and steered it out of the garage, paying the parking bill with cash.

The truck nosed into the blizzard, which threatened to overwhelm its worn windshield wipers. She was heading north to Steere's house in New Jersey, following up on her hunch that the beach house was special to Steere and that she'd find some clue there. Some piece of evidence. Something incriminating. She was going to Long Beach Island, wherever that was. Marta needed a map.

She flipped open a messy glove compartment and searched for the maps. They fell onto the seat beside her and she rifled through them as she navigated the storm. There were wrinkled maps of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Then Bucks County, Chester County, Delaware County. Finally, New Jersey.

Marta almost drove into a telephone pole trying to open the New Jersey map and smooth it out. It was too dark to read the map. With fingertips on the wheel, she felt on the floor for a flashlight and shined it on the map. It was impossible to read in the jittery pool of light, but Marta got the general idea— over the river and through the woods. At least a three-hour trip in the snow. She had no time to spare.

She checked the rearview mirror again. There was no rear window defroster, and the scratchy plastic window was completely dark. No headlights shone through, so Marta felt reasonably sure she wasn't being followed. The roads had been plowed, but were barely passable. At least the gas tank was full. Marta accelerated and the truck hiccuped three times, then responded.

The temperature was as frigid as Maine in winter and Marta shivered in the chilly truck. She hit the button for the heat and blue smoke leaked from the vents. Marta shook her head at the sight; she'd owned a Corvair Monza that used to do that, too. Things came full circle if you lived long enough and Marta wanted to live long enough. She switched the smoke off and zipped up her coat instead. Marta had gotten the outfit at Woolworth's: a cap, a pair of long johns, a fake down coat in brown plaid, and matching plaid snowpants. She was toasty even though she looked like furniture.

Marta found the radio and turned it on. Nothing. She spun the dial. Silence. So the radio didn't work, either. Fuck. Marta wanted to find out what was happening with the cops. She checked the rearview again. No one was following her. Still she felt vulnerable. She needed protection.

Look in the tool chest, Christopher had said. There's tools you can use as weapons.

Marta glanced behind her. Where was the tool chest? It was a pigsty back there; racks of horseshoes straddled a workbench and clanged together as the truck plowed through the snow. A small forge was tucked in the back with tanks of propane sitting next to it. A leather apron lay crumpled in a heap over a blackened anvil. Then Marta saw it. In front of the anvil were two tool chests, and the larger one was full of old chisels, hammers, and files.

Look in the big tool chest. Take the pritchel.

What's a pritchel?

It looks like a big spike, ten inches long. You can use it as a knife, for protection.

Marta smiled to herself. Two months ago, she didn't know what a farrier was. Now she was tampering with one. She stretched behind the seat and yanked the chest closer, then rummaged through the tools and found a small hammer with a pointed tip.

If it has a pointy head, it's a nail set. Don't take the nail set. It's too light.

Okay, fine. No nail set. It wasn't anything Marta had learned in law school. She shoved her hand to the bottom of the toolbox. The tools clinked as they tumbled together and she came up with a knife that had a long, oddly curved blade, like a miniature scythe.

A hoof knife looks like that thing that the Grim Reaper carries. Forget about the hoof knife. You'll stab yourself. Find the forge hammer, too. That'll help.

Marta tossed back the hoof knife. Never take a hoof knife when a forge hammer will do. She thrust her hand back into the tool chest. There were several hammers, but one was especially large and heavy with rounded ends and a bowed wooden handle. The forge hammer! One down, one to go. Marta put it in her lap, but couldn't find the pritchel and gave up before she crashed the truck.

The traffic was sparse as Marta headed out of the city and reached a blue bridge that spanned the Delaware River. It was being plowed, and she drove behind a Port Authority snowplow like she belonged there. Marta didn't need a radio to tell her it was illegal for a civilian to be driving in these conditions, but once she'd tampered with a jury, the rest was downhill. She zoomed over the bridge a safe distance behind the snowplow and churned through the toll bridge into New Jersey.

She motored by a sign for Cherry Hill, then a series of strip joints; a seamy place called The Admiral Lounge, which she'd bet had never been patronized by an admiral, and the Liquor Ranch. Yee-hah. The truck rattled along, giving Marta time to consider her next move. She was hoping she'd find something in the beach house, but what if she didn't? She'd have wasted half the night. How much time did she have before Bogosian found her, or the cops did? The jury would reconvene first thing in the morning.

Marta kept an eye on the rearview mirror. Still no one behind her, but there were a few cars ahead. She drove for over an hour on Route 70 to 72 east and went round and round a rotary at Olga's Diner, which had a crowd despite the storm. Marta was relieved to see that the blizzard was lessening and the accumulation less in Jersey than it had been in Philly. The bare windshield wipers had a fighting chance. Marta sped up and passed a sign that said MEDFORD, then fields covered with only a thin blanket of snow.

Suddenly a green minivan appeared out of nowhere, and cut her off. Marta shouted in alarm. A loud thud rocked the truck. It skidded out of control and spun crazily around. Marta squeezed the steering wheel and wrenched the wheel against the skid, struggling to stay upright. Her purse was thrown against the door. The truck pinwheeled and stopped in a snowdrift like a bumper car. Marta's head snapped backward, then forward. The engine stalled. The truck fell still. The accident was over as abruptly as it had begun.

Marta felt dazed, dizzy. Her ribs ached again and soreness returned to her head. She unclenched the wheel and regained focus in time to see the minivan reversing in front of her. She caught a flash of the minivan's driver, a woman. The woman steered the minivan away and raced down the highway. Affixed to the back window was a sticker: WORKING PRESS. Fuck! It was a hit-and-run. The driver didn't even stop. A reporter, it figured.

Marta sat still and waited for the pain to subside. When it didn't, she suppressed it and assessed the damage to the truck. The minivan had hit her on the driver's side, but the windshield was still intact. The hood looked okay, even if the front was crunchier than before. Marta hoped that the engine still worked. She had no time to spare. Her watch said 12:35. She brushed the hair from her eyes and twisted on the ignition.

"Start, goddamn you," she ordered, and it did. Like a charm. On a dime. It was improved, if anything. About time she got a break. She threw the truck into reverse, spun the wheels futilely, then rocked the fucking thing back and forth until she'd worked her way out of the snowdrift and was heading the right way, down the same road the minivan had taken. Its red taillights glowed in the distance as Marta rattled behind. She passed strip malls and fast-food joints, and stopped for traffic lights at regular intervals. The minivan didn't stop for a single red light.

"You after the big story, you jerk?" Marta called after the minivan, though it hurt her jaw to shout. "It's snowing, is that the story? It's white? It's cold? It falls out of the sky?"

Another traffic light turned red, but the mini-van tore past it. If Marta had time, she'd stop the van and take the reporter's name. She flashed on the face behind the wheel. A face framed by dark hair, with conventionally pretty features. Large eyes, upturned nose. Who did she think she was? Then Marta realized she knew the woman.

It was Alix Locke, the reporter who'd covered the Steere trial. Alix had been all over Marta and reported about her every day in the newspaper. Alix was the one giving the mayor a hard time at his press conference. Why would Alix be rushing to the Jersey shore? She covered only the major news stories, like Elliot Steere and City Hall. Was there news that important at a beach resort? In winter?

Marta turned the knob on the car radio again, but it was still dead. Maybe there was major flooding or a boardwalk washed away in the storm. But that wasn't Alix's type of story. She didn't do weather or features, only hard news. What was going on?

Marta ignored the traffic light and kept the mini-van in sight. A rotary was coming up fast. The mini-van chose the first exit without slowing down, even though snow covered the sign. Marta had to check the map but it was dark. She didn't want to lose the mini-van, but she didn't want to take the wrong turn. She fumbled for the flashlight as the truck approached the rotary and groped a cylinder rolling back and forth in the seat. She held it up. A stick of Old Spice deodorant. She threw it down. The rotary was coming up.

Marta went fishing again and came up with the flashlight. By then, the minivan had disappeared into the snow flurries. Marta couldn't read the sign even up close and was forced to come to a full stop to see the damn map. She rested the map on her lap and aimed the flashlight's beam on the coastline to Long Beach Island. Surrounding it were the Pine Barrens, acres of them. The road Alix had taken led to Long Beach Island.

Marta flicked off the flashlight, hit the gas, and followed down the highway. There was no one on the dark snowy road until Marta spotted Alix way ahead. Marta thought as quickly as whiplash allowed. Why was Alix going to Long Beach Island? Why had she been so certain of where she was going, even with the sign obscured? Alix had evidently been to Long Beach Island many times before.

Marta accelerated, hoping to catch the minivan. What did she know about Alix? That she was young, sexy, and pretty. That she was single, because she'd mentioned that to Marta once, trying to find some common ground to get the exclusive. No doubt about it, Alix was an aggressive reporter. A star.

Marta tested her theory. Alix Locke and Elliot Steere; the two were a perfect match. Good-looking, driven, and successful. And Alix appeared to be heading for Long Beach Island, where Steere owned a beach house. It couldn't be just a coincidence, could it? Was Alix Locke Elliot Steere's lover?

Marta hit the gas. It was certainly consistent. Alix had featured Steere's defense in her articles and had even been criticized for favoring the defense. Marta had assumed the good press was because of her, but maybe it was because of Steere. He was the main beneficiary.

It was a trial lawyer's hunch, but Marta sensed her theory was right. Alix was a thorn in the mayor's side, and the mayor was Steere's nemesis. Marta remembered the press conference on TV, at which Alix had badgered the mayor. Maybe that was to further Steere's goals. And Alix and Steere would have to keep their affair a secret for fear of compromising Alix's job and jeopardizing her reporting on Steere.

Marta sputtered past sugar-frosted maple, pine, and scrub oak trees. She felt certain she was heading in the right direction. Alix was going to lead her to Steere's beach house and maybe to the clues she was looking for. At the very least, Marta could confront Alix. Demand the truth. Demand justice.

Marta's spirit surged. She felt energized. Justice! She hadn't known that was what she was searching for, but since the murder of the guards, something had changed. If it had been jealousy in the beginning, it was different now. Now she wanted the truth about the murder Steere had committed and she had defended. Now she wanted to bring Steere to justice. Working his mistress over would be icing on the cake. Marta could still have fun, couldn't she?

The truck barreled ahead. Beside the highway, white birch trees dipped their heads, their branches laden with wet snow. Marta used to love birch trees. She grew up among them in the woods. Slender and warmly white, their bark etched with lines as inky and precise as a fountain pen's. Marta tried to remember the last time she'd been in the woods or, for that matter, anyplace that didn't have valet parking. Her life had changed so much and she'd left so much behind, the good with the bad. It took the birches to remind her of what was good.

The truck plowed forward under a starless black dome of sky. In time, there seemed to be more sky than before. Marta knew why: she used to enjoy studying nature until she realized it wasn't billable. The trees were getting shorter, the scrub pines punier by the mile. It meant the amount of sand in the soil must be increasing. She was getting closer to the beach.

Marta kept her eye on Alix's minivan and trailed her through the Pine Barrens, then past hospitals, gas stations, and marinas, and finally over a concrete causeway to Long Beach Island. Unless Marta missed her guess, Alix Locke would lead her to the front door of Elliot Steere's beach house. The only thing Marta didn't know was:

Why?

27

Penny Jones was trying to aim his hunting rifle out the white Grand Cherokee, but his hand was shaking too much. The dope he'd smoked had worn off and he wasn't totally into this job. Shit, he'd hunted since he was a kid. Deer, pheasant, all kinds of shit, but not a person. Penny never killed nobody before. This time he had to. He had to prove himself to get back with Bogosian. It was once in a lifetime.

Penny rested his rifle in the crook of his arm, steadied his elbow on the door, and squinted down the sight. There was a shitload of snow and his eyes kept watering on account of the cold. He told himself not to think. Just cap her and not think. The snow was coming down but Penny thought he could get a clean shot. He'd only get one shot with the noise this motherfucker would make.

Penny blinked his eyes clear. There were two lawyers in the street, skiing. The lawyer in the front was tall and the one in the back was short. The big lawyer was already out of range because Penny had dicked around. He targeted the short one in the back, closer to him. She couldn't ski anyway. Survival of the fittest, right? If Penny took one out, it would keep the other busy. Two birds with one bullet, right?

Penny waited for his shot. He told himself it was no big deal to whack this broad. Fuck, she was a lawyer. They should give him a medal. Penny got a bead on the blue coat at the end of the barrel. He aimed through the snowflurries at the middle of her coat, directly at her heart.

Fuck. Wait. He wasn't ready. He needed the Jeep in a better position to make a fast getaway. Plus it was too fuckin' quiet. He set the rifle on his lap, pulled nearer the side street, then braked, leaving the car in drive. He took aim with the .30-.30 stuck in the crook of his arm, feeling the weight. Bearing down. Watching the target through the snow. The short lawyer was still in range, skiing into the light of a streetlight. Good. The blue coat reminded him of a bull's-eye. A nice, easy target.

Penny pulled the trigger partway back. His hand was still shaking. Pussy. He should just shoot. Nothing to be jittery about. No reason to stall. It wasn't like he'd get caught or nothin'. He'd have plenty of time to get away. Penny's eyes darted around to make sure, his finger cold on the trigger. There was nobody on the street. It would take the cops forever to get here. It was fish in a barrel. Except for how quiet it was.

Then Penny heard it. A racket from a couple streets over, like a snowplow creaking. The noise would cover the gunshot. The snowplow driver would think he'd popped a chain or hit a manhole cover. Everything was going Penny's way. There was no one around. He would be a hero. An asshole buddy of Bobby Bogosian's, rich as shit. All Penny had to do was pull the trigger. He was an excellent hunter.

And it was lawyer season.

* * *

Judy planted the tips of her poles in the snow and turned around. Mary had fallen again. That was twice she'd fallen so far and they hadn't even gotten off Twenty-fifth Street. Poor thing.

"Mare!" Judy called out, but she knew Mary wouldn't be able to hear her. She was too far away and the snowplow was noisy.

"Mary!" she called again anyway. Judy didn't want to ski all the way back to her if she didn't have to. They'd never get home if she had to backtrack, and her ankles were wet. Judy squinted down the dark street into the driving snow. Mary was taking a long time to get up. Time for the cavalry.

"Up and at 'em, Atom Ant!" Judy turned her skis around, telemarking, and started to ski back. What was she doing, lying there in the snow? Clowning around. Typical DiNunzio.

"Come on, lazy. Get up!" Judy shouted as she skied. The snow hadn't let up, and the wind was a killer, lashing Judy's cheeks. The wind chill must be a record. Mary shouldn't be lying in the snow like that. She'd only soak her snowpants and feel clammy the whole trip back. A rookie's mistake.

"Mary, get up!" Judy yelled, but her friend didn't move. Snowflakes collected where Mary's legs lay on the ground, scissored in her skis. Her poles were still looped around her wrists. She wasn't making any effort to get up, and the snow from the ground had to be blowing right into her face. What the hell?

Judy skied harder. Her throat tightened. Instinct told her what her brain wanted to deny. Something was wrong. Judy skied so fast she almost tripped forward, then threw down her poles, popped her ski bindings, and ran the last few feet to Mary. She fell to her knees beside her. "Mary? Are you okay?"

"Yes." Mary's eyes were open but unfocused. She seemed dazed. She lay on her side in the snow. Her poles were still strapped to her hands. "Sure."

"Why are you lying here?"

"I'm skiing." Mary's eyelids fluttered. She breathed heavily. "Here I come. I'll catch up."

"What?" It made no sense. Judy bent over her friend, who appeared not to react to her closeness. She touched Mary's cheek. It felt clammy, and cold.

"I'm thirsty. Got milk?" Mary giggled, and Judy bent closer and caught sight of her friend's back. A circle of crimson oozed in the middle of her parka. Blood dripped onto the snow. It was the reddest red Judy had ever seen against the whitest white. She tore the hat from her head without knowing why.

"HELP!" she screamed. Judy looked wildly around. "HELP, SOMEBODY, PLEASE!" she screamed again at the top of her lungs.

* * *

Sirens screamed as two paramedics exploded from the back of a fire rescue truck and set upon Mary. Red emergency lights bathed the falling snow in crimson. Snow like drops of blood showered Judy, who stood shivering with cold and fear. She held fast to Mary's skis, just for something to hold.

The rescue driver leapt from the front seat, raced to the back of the chunky red truck, and yanked a stretcher out. Its wheels bounced off the patterned steel of the vehicle's floor and vanished in the deep snow.

"She was shot in the back," Judy called to the paramedics, her eyes blurry with tears. Mary had lost consciousness waiting for the ambulance and looked lifeless even though she was still breathing. Her eyes were closed and her face was pale in the lurid red light. Her head rocked to the side as the paramedics checked the wound on her back and covered her with a thin green blanket. They lifted her onto the gurney on a hurried three-count.

Judy couldn't bear to see it. She couldn't bear not to. She dropped the skis and hustled after the paramedics as they hoisted the front of the stretcher into the truck. One of the paramedics scrambled in beside the stretcher and the other paramedic rolled it in from behind. The driver dashed back to his seat and tore open the door. They were leaving. "I'm coming," Judy shouted.

"No riders," the paramedic barked. He wasn't wearing a jacket and his short-sleeved uniform showed a knot of biceps as he tried to close the truck's thick door. "This is a snatch and grab. We got rules."

"She's my best friend!"

"I don't make the rules."

"I have to go with her!" Before the paramedic could stop her, Judy jammed her arm inside the doors and climbed into the truck. "I'm not moving," she said, and crouched against the inside wall of the truck. "Sorry."

"Have it your way," the paramedic snapped, "only because I can't leave you in the friggin' snow," He slammed the doors closed and twisted the lock. "Rock and roll!" he yelled over his shoulder, and the rescue truck lurched off with its siren screeching.

Inside the lighted truck, the paramedics set to work instantly, a feverish team. The muscular one cut the sleeve of Mary's parka and sweater, felt with knowing fingertips for a vein, and stuck an IV into the crook of her elbow. "Possible gunshot wound to the left lung," he shouted to the driver over Mary's still, bundled form. "Grade Two shock. She's losing one thousand to two thousand cc's. She'll need two, maybe three units when we get to the dance."

The other paramedic checked Mary's vital signs. "Respiratory rate, thirty. Blood pressure, ninety over fifty. Heart rate, one-thirty."

The driver palmed a crackling radio and repeated everything into it. Judy couldn't make out the crackled response. She couldn't tear her eyes from Mary as the paramedics moved around her. The skin on her face looked rubbery. Whiter than snow. Bloodless.

Judy's teeth began to chatter and she folded her arms against her chest. She huddled in the corner of the speeding truck. It was heated inside, but Judy had never felt so cold in her life.

28

Long Beach Island looked like a witch's index finger on Marta's map and sheltered a stretch of New Jersey coastline from the Atlantic Ocean. The map's scale showed that the island was about twenty miles long and only half a mile wide at some points. Smaller and skinnier than Marta expected.

She followed the green minivan down a wide, snowy street that seemed to run the length of the island, north to south. The street was empty, though the storm had been lighter here, too. A blackish-gray sky shed only a dusting of snow. Marta guessed the island was deserted because of the winter, not the storm.

Marta's truck rattled down the street, trembling in the strong gusts from the Atlantic on the right and the bay on the left. The street must have been the main drag in summertime because it was lined with darkened stores advertising boogie boards, bathing suits, and suntan oils. Marta drove past shell shops, Laundromats, and restaurants. The signs were evidence of more food than any human could consume: BURGERS FRIES RIBS SHAKES PIZZA and the no-frills, BREAKFAST. A placard on a toy store simply said BUY IT, and Marta gave it points for honesty if not specificity. She kept the minivan in sight and drove through a town actually named Surf City.

The minivan and truck traveled up the island, due north. Steere's beach house was in Barnegat Light, and Marta checked the map with her flashlight. The town was at the northernmost tip of the island, where the minivan was heading so fast.

Marta accelerated to keep up. The traffic lights had been turned off. She passed easily through a commercial district and into an area that looked residential. Scrub pines reappeared by the roadside, their needles lined with snow. Evergreens lined the road like Christmas trees on display. Junky beach shops were replaced by houses of different shapes and sizes; saltboxes with weathered siding sat next to spacious modern homes on stilts, with multiple decks and large glass windows. Wooden signs in a snowy divider told Marta the towns she was passing through: NORTH BEACH, HARVEY CEDARS, LOVE-LADIES.

Marta traveled behind the minivan for ten minutes, then twenty. The truck was freezing without a working heater and she wiggled her fingers in her gloves to keep her blood circulating. The windshield wipers had finally met a snow they could handle and pumped madly in pride. Marta stretched her neck, aching from the accident, and felt her goose eggs, sore from Bogosian. She was as beat up as the pickup but somehow her senses felt alive. Urgent.

Marta watched the homes pass on either side of the street, illuminated only by the truck's headlights. They cast little light, and Marta figured she'd crunched a headlight in the accident. The houses loomed large in the darkness and almost all were empty. They were about four and five deep to the beach and fewer than that to the bay. The farther out Marta drove, the larger and emptier the houses.

In ten blocks the houses became mansions and more modern. There were showplaces with whimsical paint jobs, their pinks and yellows bright even in the dark. Stark white contemporary homes sat far from the road, directly on the beachfront. The construction looked new and the homes custom-built. One white one reminded Marta of her glass beach house on Cape Cod, except the lots were bigger here and dotted with snowy vegetation. She sensed she was getting closer. If Steere had a house on the island, it would be in the most exclusive location.

Marta followed the minivan another five blocks, where it turned right onto a cross street and headed toward the ocean. Marta followed it to the street and stopped at the corner. She shined the flashlight up at the street sign. Steere's street; it was the address she remembered from his tax form. Marta had been right. She switched off her headlights so Alix wouldn't see the truck and turned right.

Marta coasted down the street, looking for the minivan. She was almost at the end of the street when red taillights flared on the right, near a snowy curb. Then they went dark. Marta waited in the pickup, slumping low in the beaded seat. A figure got out of the van, black raincoat flapping and dark hair blowing in the light snow. Her face was clearly visible in the light from the open van door. It was Alix Locke for sure.

Marta sank lower in her seat. In the distance stood Steere's house, which was unexpectedly different from the modern houses on the way. The back of the mansion faced the street, but Marta could see it was old and graceful, with Victorian buttresses and cantilevered towers. Three stories tall and covered with dark gray shakes, it sat farther from the main road than any of the other houses. Marta guessed it had been built on a bulge in the island. Pine trees, beach grass, and snow-covered dunes surrounded the mansion, partially concealing it. Marta could understand why Steere loved the house— and why he might use it to hide something important.

She watched Alix climb a dune and head toward the house. When Alix was out of sight, Marta parked the truck a distance from the minivan and cut the ignition. What was Alix up to? Marta grabbed her forge hammer and flashlight and was about to get out of the truck when she remembered the pritchel. She might need more protection than the hammer.

Marta flicked on the flashlight and turned around to root through Christopher's tool chest for the pritchel. After some digging, she pulled out a long pointed spike with a tip as sharp as a dagger. The pritchel, just as Christopher had described it. A crude tool of heavy black iron. "Do you have this in navy?" she said to no salesperson in particular, then pocketed both tools, tugged on her gloves, and climbed out of the pickup.

Marta caught a faceful of snow whipping hard off the ocean and ducked her head. She was unprepared for the wind's force and the depth of the darkness around her. It was pitch black and the stormy sky permitted only the faintest moonglow. She cast the flashlight's beam to the glittery surface of the snow and walked toward the minivan, boot-deep in powder. Marta reached the minivan and shone the flashlight inside to make sure it was empty. It was, so she followed Alix's footsteps to the dune, the snow groaning underfoot.

Marta came to the dune and clambered up it. Her ribs ached with each step, and snow and ice bit her cheeks. The wind blew stronger the higher she went. The sea air smelled of brine and storm. Marta climbed to the pearly crest of the dune and when she reached it ducked to brace herself against the wind buffeting her face and drumming in her ears. She stuck the flashlight in her pocket and peeked over the dune.

Dunes coated with snow rolled in sensuous, milky mounds to Steere's Victorian mansion and to the gray-black sky, horizonless in the storm. Between the dunes dipped a valley of alabaster, crossed by the windswept shadow of a woman. Alix, her hair flying sideways, hurrying to the dark mansion.

Marta crouched on the summit of the dune and her bruised ribs screamed in protest. She waited and forced the pain from her mind. She couldn't risk going yet. She'd be exposed on the open dunes, and if Alix saw her, it would be over. Marta hunkered down in the snow like a soldier in a foxhole. Not that she knew anything about foxholes, but she had a vivid imagination. You had to, in criminal defense.

She watched Alix climb the next dune. As soon as Alix disappeared over the far side, Marta stood up and sprinted down the dune, half tumbling and half sliding. She reached the bottom of the white bowl between the dunes and ran ahead to the next, climbing up, up, up the side, running as fast as she could in Alix's footsteps, spraying snow behind her. When Marta scuttled to the crest, she threw herself down on the elbows until her chest stopped hurting.

Steere's mansion in the dunes stood stately and graceful, especially close up. It had stature, style, and class; qualities Steere could only buy. A vast expanse of incandescent snow encircled it like a warm cloak, and beyond the mansion churned the black Atlantic. Snow sprinkled from the sky like superfine sugar from a spoon and dissolved on contact with the dark, angry ocean. A light snapped on at the back entrance to the mansion, drawing Marta's attention. There was a security light mounted at the house's back entrance and one over a three-car garage. The lights must have been motion-sensitive and they illuminated the entire back of the house.

Marta watched as Alix fumbled with a key chain and let herself in the back door. The back door slammed closed with a sound lost in the roar of wind and surf. Marta stood up and ran toward the beach house, the wind drumming in her ears.

29

Mayor Walker's staff called his private bathroom the Frank L. Rizzo Memorial Can, but not in public. The bathroom had been built with donations from friends of the former mayor, who evidently wanted their hero to dump in style. The walls were covered in white marble veined with gold and the toilet was elevated on a matching pedestal. The counter surrounding the sink was marble, too, and all the fixtures were gold-plated. The total effect was Rome under Nero, a good analogy for Philly under Rizzo.

Mayor Walker hated the bathroom, but detonating the Rizzo head would cost him every vote in South Philly. He closed his eyes to the white marble and washed his face with cold water, trying to stay alert even though it was well past midnight. "Talk to me, Jen," he said between splashes. "What's the latest?"

"Steere's lawyer, DiNunzio, is in the hospital." Jen stood in the doorway and rested on the marble jamb for support. She'd barely taken her Imitrex in time and her head hurt worse than a hangover. Jen had so much to do, but all she wanted was to lie down.

"DiNunzio gonna live?"

"Doubtful. I drafted an obit and put it in the podium with your speech. It's Insert A. If she's dead by showtime, put it in."

The mayor paused. Jen could be so cold. "It's too bad. Local boy?"

"Local girl."

"Oh, right. Where was she from?"

"South Philly. Went to Penn Law, yadda yadda yadda, friend to all, yadda yadda yadda, sorely missed. It's in the bio, on the podium. DiNunzio was the one with that stalking thing a while ago."

"She was? I won't mention it." The mayor let cold water run down his cheeks. "Did you double-space the speech?"

"Of course."

"You used the font I like, the big one?"

"Humanist."

"Thank you."

"No, Humanist is the font."

The mayor colored. "Good. Now what else?"

"Richter is still missing, and they haven't picked up the suspect in the security guards' murder. The other lawyer is fine."

"Judy Carrier, right?"

"Right."

The mayor grinned. When you're hot, you're hot. "So Carrier can proceed with the Steere case."

"Yes."

"Excellent." He rinsed his face and slurped water from cupped hands. He didn't know why everybody hated Philadelphia tap water. They called it Schuylkill Punch, but it tasted great to the mayor. "Carrier a Philadelphian, too?"

"Not native."

"Then she doesn't count, not with these voters." He straightened up, snapped off the gold faucets, and snatched a fluffy white hand towel from the marble rack. He felt better already. If Steere still had a lawyer, his chances of a mistrial were low, considering that the case had already been submitted to the jury. Maybe he'd be convicted after all.

The mayor toweled off, deep in thought. Steere's lenders must be getting nervous. When would they call his notes? If Steere's properties went at auction, the city could buy them back at bargain prices. Or maybe the banks would sell them to reasonable businessmen; thieves he could deal with, not a prick like Elliot Steere. "Steere's a prick, you know that?" the mayor said.

"I know." Jen nodded. She'd listened to variations on this theme for years. The mayor was obsessed with Elliot Steere. He'd insisted the D.A. charge Steere with murder and ask the death penalty. The mayor always let his emotions get the best of him. That was why Jen was hedging her bets.

"Take the Simmons Building, for example. A hundred-fifty-year-old building, one of the most beautiful in this city. Historic building, all sorts of history. Important history, Philadelphia history, you know? Nice white arches, like the old Lit Brothers. Steere buys the building for two mil, watches it fall apart, then sells it to Temple for ten mil."

"Sounds like a good deal to me," Jen said, but she knew the mayor wouldn't agree. Not that she cared. She had to get out.

"Maybe so. Maybe it was a good deal. But you know what? The man didn't love the building," the mayor said, wagging a wet finger. "The man did not love the building. If you're gonna own a building like that, you gotta love it. It's not like toilet paper. That's a prick for you. You understand? Only a prick would do that."

"Yes."

The mayor wondered if Jen were really listening. "Can you put that in a speech?"

"That Elliot Steere is a prick? I don't think so."

The mayor shook his head. That wasn't what he meant and she knew it. Sometimes he didn't like Jen very much at all. She did good things for the city, though. The literacy program, the blood drive, the organ donor thing. All on her own initiative, back when they were at the D.A.'s office.

"Are we done yet?" Jen asked. "The press is out there waiting."

The mayor rubbed his face red. "Where's our friend Alix Locke?"

"Gone, thank God."

"She has a hard-on for me, Jen. She won't quit until I'm a civilian again. She's trying to screw up my chances for reelection, single-handed. What did I ever do to her?" The mayor dropped his towel on the edge of the marble sink, and Jen picked it up and hung it on the marble towel rack.

"Don't start with this, okay?" Jen ran her manicured nails through her dark hair. She was drained. She had to go. It was getting later and later. "The reporters are waiting. There's more of them since the DiNunzio shooting. Let's feed the animals and go home."

"Any national press, or just local?" The mayor leaned close to the mirror and fingered the stubble on his chin, trying to decide whether he had to shave.

"Local so far. CNN is on the way, but they're having trouble in the snow. You should shave."

"Again? I shaved twice today. My face is killing me. I get those little red bumps." The mayor shuddered, but Jen plucked a disposable razor off the shelf and handed it to him.

"Shave. We have company. Come on. We have to go. They're waiting."

"If CNN shows up, I'll shave. How's that for a deal?"

Jen sighed. "Listen, we have to go. I have to go."

The mayor was appraising his reflection. He saw a strong, vibrant man, full of energy and passion. A figure of commitment, intelligence, and integrity in the prime of his political life. Courtney called him a total stud, but his wife didn't use words like that. Maybe because she was a different generation. "Jen, I have to ask you something."

"What?"

The mayor tilted his head down slightly. "Am I going bald?"

30

Judy slumped in a chair in the hospital waiting room and stared at the stale blood on her palms. She felt sick to her stomach. She couldn't get all the blood off when she'd washed. It had dried to black and caked in the lines and creases of her palms, limning each wrinkle with a line as fine as a sable brush's. Her lifeline was painted with the blood of her best friend.

Judy stuck her hands between her legs so she wouldn't look at them anymore. It didn't help. Mary's blood stained her snowpants, from where she had cradled her in the snow. Judy looked around the room for distraction. A TV was on, mounted high in a corner of the empty waiting room, which was reserved for surgeries. The volume was turned off on the TV, but Judy could see it was a never-ending update on the blizzard. The snow fell on the TV screen just as it fell outside. A reporter interviewed a bureaucrat in a tie and a ski hat. Then the screen showed a picture of huge dump trucks salting the highway.

Judy couldn't focus on the screen. Her thoughts kept returning to Mary. Lying on the ground, bleeding. She was in surgery now. They were doing everything they could, a doctor had told her, as had one of the nurses, an older woman. Everybody was doing everything they could, Judy kept telling herself over and over, like a mantra. She would repeat it to Mary's parents and her twin when they came. But the DiNunzios were old, and Judy worried they couldn't take a shock like this.

Judy tried to settle down. She'd have to have it together if she was going to see the DiNunzios. She eased back into the chair and crossed her legs, avoiding the stain on her pants. She laced her fingers together, then folded her arms. She would have called her parents but they were traveling again. Judy looked around the room. Her gaze had nowhere to rest.

Judy caught sight of the TV and sat bolt upright in disbelief. The screen said SPECIAL REPORT above a photo of Marta, superimposed against the offices of Rosato & Associates. There was a photo of blood smeared on the elevator at the office, then two quick photos of the security guards in the building. What? What was happening? Judy couldn't believe what she was seeing.

A TV anchorwoman came back on. Her lip-sticked mouth was moving but no words came out. The TV was on mute. Judy leapt from her chair and hurried to the TV. She was tall enough to reach it but she couldn't find the buttons. Where was the volume control? She yanked a chair under the TV and clambered up on it.

Up close, the anchorwoman's face was flat and large, the colors the ersatz hues of television. Her eyes were the blue of sapphires, her lips a supersaturated pink. She kept talking silently, opening and closing her mouth. Judy looked everywhere on the TV console. Where was the volume?

Film of Marta came on, talking in front of the Criminal Justice Center. Behind her was its modern stained glass. It must be file footage from the Steere trial. Judy was panic-stricken. Had something happened to Marta? Was she shot, too, like Mary? What about the security guards? Judy searched frantically for the TV buttons. No controls. She groped the console. Cool, seamless plastic. Fuck! Where was it?

"Where's the volume?" Judy shouted, though she knew the floor was empty. There hadn't even been a receptionist at the desk when she came up to the floor. "HEY!" she shouted. No one came running but she didn't want to leave the TV. Maybe it was remote-controlled. Judy twisted on the chair and scanned the room for the remote. The coffee tables, the end tables, and the seats were bare.

On the TV screen, Mayor Walker was giving some sort of press conference. His face looked grave behind the microphones and a podium with the city seal. To his left stood his chief of staff, looking equally somber. At the top of the screen it said LIVE. What were they saying? Did it have to do with Marta? With Mary?

Judy spotted a small plastic panel under the screen and hit it to see if it would pop open. It didn't. She hit it again but the panel still wouldn't open. She hit it harder, pounding with her fist until the lid came up. Tiny dials protruded from a recessed compartment, and Judy twisted them back and forth with bloodstained fingers. The fake colors on the TV switched from flesh tones to hot orange, from royal blue to black. Judy still couldn't hear the TV. Where was the fucking volume?

On the screen, the police inspector was being interviewed, standing in front of the Roundhouse in the snow. What was going on? A commercial came on. The news report was over. No! Was someone shooting them all? Who was behind this? Steere? Judy couldn't let him. She'd fight back. She needed to hear. She hit the TV panel until the lid broke off, then pounded it harder, cracking it into sharp plastic shards, straight through the fucking panel. Smashing it, destroying it, obliterating it. Killing all the phony colors with the force of her might and her will and her pain. Raging until her hand was covered with blood and finally it was her own.

* * *

Judy sat in her chair with her hand packed and bandaged with gauze. She'd taken three stitches and refused a sedative. She'd scrubbed her snowpants and washed her face and hands. A nurse had brought her an antibacterial soap and it had taken off most of the blood on her good hand. She felt drained, her emotions spent. She watched the scene around her with an odd detachment.

Bennie Rosato had arrived, in jeans and a sweater, her large face un-madeup and drawn. She made sure Judy was okay, then sat trying to comfort Mary's mother, an elderly, birdlike woman with teased hair. The mother sobbed as she sat with Mary's father, a short, bald man whose laborer's body had gone soft. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was comforting his wife.

With them sat Mary's sister, Angie. Angie was Mary's identical twin. Her hair, though shorter, was the same dirty blond, and her eyes were as brown and large as Mary's. Her mouth was a perfect match, full and broad. Judy liked looking at Angie. It was as if Mary were in the waiting room, whole and healthy again.

Angie was speaking in low tones to her parents and to Bennie. The four of them sat huddled close together, a nervous, weepy circle. Judy couldn't hear from where she was sitting, but she watched Angie's lips move like the anchorwoman's on TV. The DiNunzios were on mute, in two dimensions. Everything around Judy seemed distant. She wanted to keep it that way. Let Bennie comfort Mary's parents, she would know what to say. Judy had to figure out what to do.

31

Marta dashed down the snowy dune behind Steere's house and ran toward the left side of the house. The security lights blasted her with light as soon as she reached their invisible ambit. She picked up the pace, sprinting beside her leaping shadow, spraying snow with each bound past the house's back entrance. As tempted as she was to follow Alix into the mansion, it was too risky. Lights were going on inside, and Marta needed to see what was happening.

She made it to the shadow of the side wall and turned the corner. The security lights blinked off. It was dark again. Marta leaned against the house, breathing hard. Her ribs speared her insides. She hadn't exercised this much all last year. Wind and snow gusted off the ocean and whipped through Marta's hair. Her eyes stung with snow and salt and she clung to the rough shakes of the wall, blinking. Snow buried her gloved fingers and stuck to the wooden shakes in splotches. Snowdrifts reached to her knees.

She had to keep moving. Marta inhaled deeply, steeling herself for the familiar rib pain, and ran through the snowdrifts alongside the house, sliding a hand along the wall so she wouldn't fall. The windows were high and light poured over Marta's head from the house. She hurried along the wall, reached the front of the mansion, and peeked around the corner. The facade of the house was even grander than the back and its frontispiece was an immense wraparound porch. A bank of arched windows dominated the front wall and light shone through them, illuminating a living room.

Bookshelves filled the room, showcasing fussy leather volumes of red and brown. Victorian couches and antique chairs surrounded a carved mahogany coffee table. There wasn't a TV in sight; it wasn't Steere's taste, maybe it was a decorator's or Alix's. On the other side of the fireplace was a darkened dining room and a kitchen presumably beyond; Marta had shopped for enough old houses to know. Alix was nowhere in sight, at least from a parallax view. Marta would have to move center to get a better look. Small dunes nestled in front of the house, and Marta spotted one that sat about thirty feet from her. Wind off the ocean roared at the dune and blew snow from its crest in a frosty fan.

Marta scrambled for the dune and was in front of the porch when she was jerked back suddenly. Her coat was caught on a wooden fence. She pulled but it wouldn't come free. Marta was in plain view of the living room, standing in a square of light. She tugged her coat and looked at the window, then froze.

Inside the house, entering the living room from another entrance, was Bogosian. Marta almost screamed. Bogosian was right across the porch on the other side of the glass. He could see her if he looked out to sea. His head was swiveling left and right. He was looking for something. Someone.

Marta panicked. She yanked her coat with all her might, but it was still caught on the post. She was totally exposed, struggling with the fucking fence. If Bogosian spotted her she'd be dead. She tore at the coat and was about to slip it off when the fence shuddered violently and the coat came free. Marta fell backward into a chilly snowdrift and lay still as a dead snow angel, her thoughts feverish.

Where had Bogosian come from? Had he driven here? Where was his car, the garage? Marta hadn't bothered to look for tracks in the snow, she'd been too distracted by Alix. She hadn't seen Bogosian following Alix, so he must have been here already. Waiting. Maybe he'd figured Marta would try to search Steere's beach house. Or maybe he'd arranged to meet Alix here.

Marta was too frightened to answer the questions. Snow froze her neck and fell behind her ears. She lay perfectly still so she wouldn't draw Bogosian's attention. Still, she had to find out where he was. She gathered her courage and peered over her boots at the house. The living room was empty. Where was Bogosian? Was he coming after her? She could make a run for the truck.

She started to go, then stopped. Bogosian stood on the stairway to the second floor. Marta shivered with fear and cold. She flashed on the bloodied security guards. She had to get a grip. What was Bogosian doing? She had to see.

Marta flopped over, chin in the snow, and crawled the few feet to the small dune. She crouched behind it, wind pummeling her back. Her hair lashed her cheeks and she shoved it away with a snowy glove. The surf crashed on the beach, a deafening white noise. Bogosian was motionless in the middle of the staircase. He seemed to be squinting up the stairs.

Marta looked up to the second floor of the mansion. A light blinked on in a far window, where a bedroom would be. It was too high for Marta to see inside. On the stair, Bogosian cocked his head like a pit bull, his large hand resting on the banister. Whatever was going on, it didn't look like Bogosian and Alix had arranged to meet here. An ominous feeling rumbled in Marta's gut.

The light in the second-floor bedroom snapped off. A split second later, a light appeared in the window next to it. Alix must have been going from one room to the next. Marta craned her neck but still couldn't see anything. What was going on? She had to move back if she wanted to see upstairs.

Marta edged from the dune toward the ocean, low as a snow crab. She backed against another dune and ducked behind it. From her new perspective, she could see Alix's head and shoulders in a room on the second floor. Alix appeared to be searching for something in an exercise room, with a Stairmaster and a Lifecycle. Marta watched as Alix opened a cabinet in the room and rifled its contents. White towels and Evian bottles fell to the floor. What was Alix looking for?

On the stairs, Bogosian took a step up, running his gloved hand on the banister.

Marta looked up again. The exercise room went dark. In the next minute a light went on in the middle of the second floor, where a set of French doors opened onto a wooden deck. The French doors gave Marta a full view and she could see Alix was in a home office. She was tearing open file drawers and ransacking them. Papers sailed to the carpet. Alix kept searching. What was she looking for?

A sudden movement on the stairs caught Marta's eye. Bogosian eased his Magnum from his shoulder holster.

My God. Marta looked up at Alix. She was still searching the files, on her knees in front of the file cabinet.

Bogosian started up the stairs with his gun drawn. Did he know Alix was up there? Did he mean to kill her? Why? Marta didn't know what to do. Panic constricted her chest.

Alix was tearing at a cardboard box with her nails. She kept clawing at it, then grabbed a scissors from a desk and slit it with the scissor blade.

Bogosian reached the top of the stairs. Marta felt her heart thundering though her thick coat. What could she do? She had to do something. She couldn't let Bogosian kill Alix. No one was around. It was the middle of a blizzard. Marta couldn't make it inside the house in time if she tried. She rose to her feet, unsteady in the fierce wind.

Alix was kneeling in front of the cardboard box, reading its contents. Bogosian appeared in the office doorway and aimed his gun point-blank at her forehead. A wave crashed loud as a thunderclap, and Marta heard herself screaming even over its roar.

32

Snow swirled around the steel skyscraper that served as a platinum setting for the city's largest and most expensive law firm, Cable & Bess. Light sparkled from its emerald-cut windows like a diamond choker strung around the building's neck. A sterling-haired attorney sat in a corner diamond talking on the telephone. A trim sixty-two, John LeFort remained composed and professional, even though it was past midnight and on the phone was the fifth unhappy banker he'd spoken with. All of them were lenders of LeFort's client Elliot Steere.

"I assure you, the Steere debts are under control," LeFort was saying. He ran a forefinger over one of his dark eyebrows, which sheltered his light eyes and fine features like a sturdy roof. A Harvard graduate, LeFort was the consummate banking lawyer, so he didn't judge his clients. Some became rich, some failed, and all tried again.

"The debts are not under control, to my mind," the banker responded. This time the banker was Morris Barrie at First Federal. LeFort had dealt with Mo Barrie many times over the years and knew him well. The men spoke the same language, so this conversation, which could otherwise be ugly or profane, would be quite civilized.

"We'll need another waiver, Mo," LeFort said evenly. He always used the term "we" when referring to his clients, to encourage their creditors to think of them as a team. A team they couldn't quit.

"I'm not so sure, John," said Mo, who at this point was showing worrisome signs not only of quitting the team, but of selling the franchise.

"Another month on the principal payments would do it."

"We've rolled over the one-month waiver six times. How long can we keep waiving? Steere owes both past and current principal payments on his outstanding loans."

"It's a temporary situation," LeFort soothed. His gaze wandered over his desk, which was stacked with squared-off correspondence and legal pads. A Waterford pen and pencil set and black-and-white photographs were the only personal touches; LeFort much preferred black-and-white portraits to color. "We're meeting the interest payments. We'll resume principal payments as soon as the acquittal is in, any day now. The bank retains the properties as collateral. The debt is secured."

"I'm at a loss to see how. I reviewed the leases, and those properties can't generate the cash to resume principal payments, with the interest and taxes. The purpose of the investment was the resale of the properties. Steere's legal position makes that untenable, perhaps impossible."

"Our legal position is sound."

"Sound, you say? His defense lawyers are dropping like flies. One vanished and one shot. It's been on every broadcast. My wife thinks they jumped ship, for God's sake!"

LeFort laughed, not so loudly as to be impolite. Bunny was a hysteric, everybody knew it. "Remember that the jury is deliberating. They have the case. I sat in the courtroom, I saw the closing, and I can tell you that in my judgment they will acquit by the end of business tomorrow."

"So you say, but Steere's refinancing brings the debt above conservative appraisals— above anybody's appraisal— of the liquidation value of the property. On paper, these nine buildings are valued at ninety-three million. They're probably not worth sixty million, and our exposure is growing."

"We're almost out of the woods, Mo."

"John, the committee is concerned. Deeply concerned. Every hour the jury takes to reach its decision decreases the salability of the properties. If the jury is hung, this could go on for another year. Then we can't wait for the best offer. We'll have to liquidate."

"You won't have to liquidate."

"I don't mind telling you, I'm out on a limb at this point. Personally, I mean." Mo sighed, and there was the musical chink-clink of ice cubes against crystal. LeFort knew what that meant. Glenfiddich, the elixir of downside analysis.

"I wouldn't worry overmuch, Mo."

"How can I not? I've lent you more than the properties are worth in a fire sale. No, more than they're worth, period. The committee will have my head for this one." Another clink, then the sound of a discreet sip. "John, if Steere has any hidden resources, hidden assets, he should bring them into play. Anything in Switzerland, the Isle of Man, the Caymans. God, man, now is the time. Concealing them is no longer—"

"There's no concealment," LeFort assured him. There was nothing to hide. Steere's net worth was by any measure negative, he was so extraordinarily leveraged, but no one with whom Steere did business could admit as much. In other words, if Steere weren't so in debt, he'd be broke. LeFort no longer found it ironic that massive debt was as potent as massive wealth.

"I know we're not the only lender," the banker said. "Not the only note. We certainly don't want to be the last one to call."

LeFort flinched when he heard the C word. Some thought cancer was the ugliest C-word, but banking lawyers knew better. "Calling the notes is a lose-lose proposition; you know that, Mo. You don't want to send us all into bankruptcy court for the next three years. The bank would have to settle for an embarrassing fraction. Stay the course and you'll come out in clover."

"John, my back is to the wall this time." There was another clink, then ice rattling hollowly. The bottom of the tumbler. LeFort guessed Mo would pour another, and he did. So what John had been hearing around the club was true.

"Don't forget," LeFort added, "you have Steere's personal guarantee on the refinancing."

A laugh, and a gulp. "What's the personal guarantee of a convicted felon worth?"

LeFort stiffened. This conversation was growing tiresome, and he'd already had four others like it. It was time for hardball. "Are you calling the notes, Mo?"

"I didn't say that."

"Good. Then we'll need thirty more days."

"I can't do that, John."

"If you can't, then call the notes."

"I can't do that either," the banker said, frustration clear in his voice. "If Steere's intention is to sell the properties to the city, I would urge him to entertain reduced offers now. We had two calls today from the mayor's office. They want those properties, John. They said fifty million was the starting point."

"We're not ready to sell yet. We expect the price to rise as the election gets closer."

"More money from the city, John? It's blood from a stone."

"Not from the city. We understand a group may be getting together to buy the buildings. Leonard Corbin and his group."

"We can't wait for that. The committee won't stand for it. One of those properties should be under an agreement of sale by the end of the week."

LeFort squared his padded shoulders. "The properties will sell for a fair price when we see fit."

A heavy sigh, then silence. "This is killing me, John."

"We've done business together for years. The bank stands to profit handsomely from these loans. It has in the past, it will in the future."

"But this news with the lawyers, it's shocking."

"Eye on the ball, Mo. The jury doesn't know about that. Let's keep our wits, shall we?"

"Okay, John. Eye on the ball." The banker heaved a final, liquored sigh and hung up.

* * *

Elliot Steere sat in his cell with his eyes lightly closed, resting his head against the cinderblock wall. The pockmarked guard had told him about the dead security guards and about the associate, DiNunzio. The battle had been joined. His forces were prevailing, but there had been a problem. Steere had to assess the latest situation, then take action. He had many options. Room to move. He only looked like a man in prison.

Steere rested his hands beside him, relaxed his body, and let his thoughts run free. The first thing he did was consider his forces: a woman and a man. The woman had been instructed to destroy the file. She would do it because Steere had ordered her to and because it incriminated her. Steere assumed she was retrieving the file and destroying it, unless he heard to the contrary. So far he hadn't, so all was well.

Steere considered the man, Bogosian. He had been instructed to stay with Marta, but something had evidently gone wrong. But Bogosian would still have her in his control. He wouldn't let her go. He would stay with it until he finished the job or finished Marta.

Steere's face remained a mask. His eyes moved under his closed lids. There was no alternative now but for Marta to die. She had outlived her usefulness. The case was already at the jury. If she vanished and turned up dead later, Bogosian could make it look like a suicide or robbery-murder. Bogosian would get the details right. He had done it before.

Steere breathed deeply, into a greater state of meditation. Bogosian had evidently gotten to DiNumzio at the railroad bridge. It was unexpected, but he had done it to salvage the operation. It was a smart tactic and it had shown initiative. Steere would reward Bogosian for it. It was as Sun-Tzu had said: Never overindulge subordinates, because they will be like spoiled children; view them as infants and be able to lead them into battle. Steere was feeling that way about Bobby now. Almost fatherly. Then it passed.

What action could Steere take now to achieve victory? He had to be flexible, stay relaxed. His enemies were in disarray. Scattered, wounded. Steere had the superior position and he had to stay fluid to capitalize on the circumstances. Be like water in battle; water conforms to the terrain in determining its movement, and forces conform to the enemy to determine victory.

Steere's thoughts became clear as spring water and flowed like a stream. The damage he had done to his lawyers could provoke a mistrial. That was the last thing he wanted. He had ensured the jury's verdict and he knew his juror would be successful. A mistrial would cost Steere his juror, keep him in jail, and disquiet his lenders. No. He wanted his case moving ahead, his verdict inevitable as the tides. Steere must be found not guilty, and soon. Nothing less would do.

Steere considered his business position. His lenders would need the verdict, too, as soon as possible. They'd be threatening to call the notes. He had instructed LeFort to play hardball and he knew they'd toe the line. The banks didn't want to call on him. They loathed confrontation and conflict, even conflict as contained as litigation. Steere smiled inside. The bankers knew nothing of war, either. Once everybody had the bomb, nobody had the balls to use it.

Steere breathed deeply. Be like water in battle. Consider if one of the lenders called a note. An electrical fire in one of the buildings would raise the capital. Steere would assign the bank the right to collect the insurance, and it would allow him time on the other notes. In no event would Steere permit the mayor to get the properties. Steere had a strategy to ensure the mayor's defeat, and the properties were integral to it. Both sides stalk each other over several years to contend for victory in a single day.

Suddenly there was a knock at the window of his cell, jarring Steere from his meditation. It was the guard, leaning near the thick plastic window. "Mr. Steere," he said, "your lawyer is here to see you."

33

Bennie sat in front of her computer in the spare bedroom she only euphemistically called a home office. Books and papers stuck out of the bookshelves over her computer monitor. Old coffee cups and dirty spoons threatened to engulf the ergonomic keyboard. A reddish golden retriever named Bear rested at Bennie's feet among wet Sorel boots, old faxes, and dog hair tumbleweeds. To Bennie, you could clean or you could enjoy life, and these things were mutually exclusive. Wasn't it Justice Brandeis who said sunshine was the best disinfectant? Bennie took it as a housekeeping philosophy.

She clicked the computer mouse and stared at the enlarged picture of the black man on the screen. Eb Darning, a bank employee; clean-shaven and well-groomed. Bennie clicked again and displayed a photo of Heb Darnton she'd clipped from the online newspaper. It must have been a file photo. Heb had a thick beard, wild hair, and a deranged expression.

Bennie tilted the photos so they were side by side on the screen. Eb Daming/Heb Darnton. She had plugged in both names in every website about Philadelphia she could find, including the local newspapers' sites. Bennie sat back in her chair and compared the two photos. It could have been before and after pictures of the same man.

Bennie was shocked. What had the associates stumbled onto? What was going on in her law firm? Was this what had gotten Mary shot? And how was Marta involved? There were too many questions, all of them threatening the existence of Rosato & Associates. Bennie couldn't lose everything she had worked for, not again, and not without a fight.

She stared at the man's picture. Eb Darning. He had the answers. The online article said he had lived on Green Street in the sixties. Bennie knew Green Street well, it was in the city's Fairmount section. Bennie had a client on Spring Garden Street, a barber who cut everybody's hair in the neighborhood. He would know Darning or he would know somebody who did.

Bennie reached for the phone.

* * *

BEAN'S PROCESS read white letters painted in a crumbling arc on the tiny storefront. The barbershop hadn't changed since the fifties. It was wedged flat as a jelly sandwich between a rib joint and a restored apartment building. Its fluorescent lights shone bright through the snowstorm.

Bean lived above the shop, but he met Bennie in it, standing next to her as she sat in one of the old-fashioned chairs, of white porcelain with cracked red leather cushions and headrests. Bean was most at home in his shop, which Bennie understood perfectly. "Sorry to get you out of bed," she said.

"Don't think nothin' about it." Bean waved her off with a dark hand that was surprisingly small for someone of his girth. At sixty-seven, Washington "Bean" Baker was still large, with chubby cheeks and brown, wide-set eyes, but the most remarkable aspect of his appearance was the unusual shape of his bald head. His forehead bulged where his hairline used to be, his chin protruded, and his skin color was brown tinged with red. Growing up his mother had decided her baby's head looked just like a kidney bean, so she called him Bean. "I'd come down for you anytime, lady," he said.

"Even though I lost your case?"

"I tol' you nothin' would come of it. Nobody gonna stand up agains' the cops. They shake you down and get away with it."

"Now they wouldn't."

"Why?" he asked, with a slow smile. Bean did everything slowly. He thought carefully before he spoke and moved only with deliberation. It was a comforting trait in a man with a straight razor at the carotid. "You learn a few tricks since you were young?"

"Just a few. So have the juries. Today those cops would have been convicted."

"Should I be waitin' on a refund?"

"Hey, I took you on contingency, remember? I didn't stick you."

Bean smiled. "I know. I jus' said it to get you riled up."

"I feel bad enough already," Bennie grumbled. "I shoulda had 'em. They lied on the stand."

"They sure did." His voice was soft, his tone matter-of-fact. "They're cops."

"I owe you one."

"Forget it. I jus' like to see you get worked up."

Bennie edged forward on the barber chair. "Do you know anyone named Eb Darning, Bean?"

"Eb?" Bean rubbed his bald head with his fingertips, kneading his red-brown scalp like soft clay. "Eb? Long time ago. Eb. I remember Eb."

"What do you remember about him?"

"Only one thing to know about Eb. He drank too much. Had a problem with the bottle. Went to the state store every day. I used to see him. Eb was there soon as they opened. He'd be waitin' on the sidewalk. Tol' me he only bought one bottle a day. If he got more than one, he'd try to drink 'em both down."

"Any drugs?"

"Just the bottle."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Ten years, maybe twelve."

"Take a look at this." Bennie pulled the computer photo of the clean-shaven Eb Darning from her coat pocket and handed to Bean. "Is this him?"

"Sure. That's Eb."

"Now I want to show you another photo." She passed Bean the photo with the beard. "Take a look at it and tell me if you think it's Eb, too."

"This him?" he asked after a minute.

"You tell me."

Bean walked with the photo to the cushioned benches against the shop wall and eased his bulk into one of them. The benches had been scavenged from various restaurant booths and were stuck together in mismatched banks of red, blue, and brown. They made a vinyl rainbow against the white porcelain tile on the wall. A black pay phone with a rotary dial was mounted next to the tile, and yellowed political posters were taped to the back wall, with faded pictures of black ward leaders. Bennie let her eyes linger on their bright, ambitious faces because Bean would be looking at the photo for the foreseeable future. "Well?" she said when she couldn't wait any longer.

Bean looked up, blinking. "Doesn't look like the Eb I knew, but it could be him. The eyes, it could be him. He didn't have no beard when I knew him. That I know for sure. He came in for a shave, time to time."

"If the beard were gone, would that be Eb?"

"Could be. Could be." Bean handed back the photos. "Got old fast, he did. I wouldn'ta recognized him if you hadn'ta said somethin'."

Bennie took it as a tentative yes and slipped the photos back in her pocket. "What kind of man was Eb, do you remember?"

"A drunk."

"I mean his personality."

"To me, he was a drunk. Thas' all. All drunks the same." Bean shrugged a heavy set of shoulders. He wore a loose-fitting blue barber smock with baggy pants even though the shop was closed. Bean always said he slept in his smock, but Bennie hadn't believed him until now. "Eb was quiet in the chair, when he was sober. Rest of the time he jabbered."

"Did he talk about work?"

"Work. Yeah."

"He worked at the bank, right? PSFS."

"Bank?"

"Yes. PSFS."

Bean's focus fell on a clean linoleum floor with black-and-white tiles. "That was only for a while. A year maybe. I know 'cause Eb started wearin' a tie. Then he quit and he stopped wearin' the tie. Wore that tie for about, say, a year."

"Why did he quit, do you know?"

"The bottle. Eb never kept work for too long. Always lookin' for the angles, you know? I offered him a job once, sweepin'. Eb said no thanks." Bean frowned so deeply his forehead wrinkled like an old bulldog. "Said, 'I don't do that work.' I didn't like that, I sure didn't."

Bennie smiled. "Who wouldn't work for you, Bean? I'd work for you in a minute."

"You? You a slob. I seen your office."

"We're talking about Eb now, not me, so tell me about Eb. Everything you know."

Bean settled deeper into the cushioned bench. "Eb. Eb. Let me see. Eb was the type of man, he didn't want no real job. Wanted the easy money. Lookin' for the angles. All the time, lookin'. You know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"Eb liked the jobs at City Hall."

"City Hall?"

"Thas' what I remember."

"What did he do there?"

"Jobs."

"Who did he work for? What department?"

Bean smiled, this time without warmth. "Woman, what kind of jobs you think a man like that does for City Hall?"

"I don't know."

"Don't be silly."

"Educate me. What jobs?"

"L and I, for a while."

"Licenses and Inspections?"

"What department don't matter, call it what you like. Building permits, the fleet. Parking Authority, what have you. Eb worked for City Hall. Eb did what he had to do. He got paid in cash money."

"Did he have any friends?"

"Not that I know."

"Wife? Girlfriend?"

"No wife. Maybe a girl, for a while."

"Anyone special?"

"No. Coupla girls."

"Damn."

"Wait." Bean held up a hand. "You're rushin' me now. I said 'no' too fast. There mighta been a kid."

"A child?" Bennie hadn't read anything in the newspapers about a child. No one had come forward.

"Little girl." Bean nodded. "I saw it, in a picture in his wallet. A school picture of a girl. Real cute."

"What was her name?"

"Don't know. Never talked about her. I axed when I saw the picture and Eb just shook his head. Didn't say nothin', just shook his head. He had a long look on his face, a bad look. I figured somethin' bad happened to that little girl. Like she passed and Eb didn't want to speak about it."

Bennie paused, trusting Bean's instincts. "Eb had no one else except the daughter?"

"No."

"No friends from work?"

"No. Sat in the chair, didn't say much 'cept to answer. Sometimes he got a shave, like I said. When he was goin' for errands. For the city."

"What errands?"

Bean cocked his head and frowned. "Now how do I know what errands?"

"Maybe he said. Give me a break here. I'm trying to figure this out. What did he say about the errands? Can you remember?"

Bean closed his eyes as he thought. His eyelids fluttered, slightly greasy.

"Didn't you ask him, 'Why you need a shave today, Eb?' 'Why are you all dressed up today, Eb?' "

"Hush now and let me think. You an impatient, impatient woman."

Bennie clammed up.

"Eb used to say somethin' 'bout 'inspection,' " Bean said slowly, and opened his eyes.

"Building inspections?"

"Maybe that was it."

Bennie was thinking of Steere's city properties. They would have to be inspected every year. Steere's violations were notorious. Somebody had to be looking the other way. Somebody who was working the angles and got paid in cash. "That was when?"

"You're takin' me back now."

"Twenty, thirty years?"

"Maybe. I don't remember."

"When was the last time you saw Eb?"

"Don't know. I los' track of him. Heard he los' his place, moved away. Drinkin' all the time. Don't know where he is now. Ain't seen him."

Bennie paused, debating whether to tell Bean what had become of Darning. She couldn't tell him that Eb was the homeless man Steere killed. The information was privileged, and Rosato & Associates was in unethically deep shit as it was. But she couldn't just leave him in the dark. "Bean, I'm sorry, but I think Eb may have been murdered."

"Thas' too bad," he said, but Bean's expression didn't change. It was strange to Bennie because the man had a huge heart.

"You don't seem that upset."

"I ain't upset. I ain't surprised neither."

"Why?"

"It happens."

"Murder?"

Bean nodded, and Bennie did feel silly. "The killer won't get away with it."

Bean just smiled.

"He won't. Not if I can help it," she said, then caught herself. What was she saying? Steere was her client, a Rosato client. Bennie's firm was being paid to get him off. Wait a minute. Was that what had happened? Was that why Mary had been shot? Why Marta disappeared? Were they working to get to the bottom of Darning's murder, with a mind to hanging Steere? Their own client?

Bennie couldn't let that happen. Not to her firm, not to her practice. It could ruin them all. If Steere was a killer, it wasn't the job of his own lawyers to bring him to justice. That would be a betrayal, a violation of the ethical duty that made the most sense to her. Loyalty.

Bennie had to put a stop to it. She stood up, grabbed her coat, and slipped it on. "I gotta go, Bean. Thanks a lot for the information."

"It's still snowin' out there. Why don't you set until it slows up?"

"No thanks."

"I could trim that mop on your head."

"Gotta run," Bennie said as she hit the cold air.

34

Judge Rudolph pondered the bad news propped up on his elbow next to his snoring wife, reluctant to leave the warmth of his king-size four-poster. The judge had been fast asleep when he got a call from his law clerk telling him that two of Steere's lawyers were missing or shot and security guards had been murdered. Christ, if it wasn't one thing it was another. Judge Rudolph knew he had a terrible night ahead and it would begin as soon as his bare toes hit the cold hardwood floor. He had some concern for the lawyers, but he had to keep his focus clear. What about his elevation to the Court?

"How long, Lord?" Judge Rudolph muttered to himself as he swung his skinny legs out from under the white baffle comforter. His feet chilled on contact with the hardwood floor that Enid refused to cover with anything as plebeian as a rug. He scurried to the bathroom in his boxer shorts and stood shivering on the rag bath mat. It was too cold in this damn house. Enid kept the thermostat at 68 degrees, and his toes were blue half the time. The judge hugged himself to get warm and wiggled his feet on the bath mat. He wasn't moving off that rug. The tile floor would be ice.

The judge inched the bath mat over to the toilet with his toes. He'd have to get to chambers and deal with this mess. The snowstorm howled outside the bathroom window. He'd call the sheriff to drive him in. Not even a blizzard would stop him. It would take more than an act of God to keep Harry Calvin Rudolph from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

The judge lifted the seat up. It would take a minute since that go-round with his prostate. But he was okay, he was fine, he still had a long career ahead. Breathe in, breathe out. Reeeee-lax, like the doctor said. Say it slow, "Reeeee-lax." Then it came, with his thoughts.

One lawyer was left: the big blond, Carrier. Legally, the case could go forward as long as one lawyer was alive, assuming the defendant didn't object. But if Steere filed for a mistrial or a continuance, that would make for a different result. Judge Rudolph didn't know the law on this point exactly because there was no law on it. How often did the lawyers get knocked off while a jury was out? The judge had told his law clerk to get his ass into chambers and come up with the right answer. Joey, who couldn't even buy milk.

Judge Rudolph jumped off the bath mat and scampered back across the chilly parquet to his dressing room, where he landed with both feet on the Oriental rug. His feet were so cold. He slipped into his socks first and was halfway into his suit pants when the telephone rang.

"Damn!" He hurried into the den to get the phone, holding his pants up with one hand. The last thing the judge needed was Enid awake and bitching. She hated the Steere case. She'd missed their winter vacation to Sanibel because of it, and when Enid didn't get to play golf she became unbearable. Judge Rudolph scooted down the hall into his den just as the phone rang again. He snatched it from the hook and his suit pants dropped to his ankles when he realized who the caller was. "Mayor Walker," the judge said, surprised.

"Cold enough for you, Harry?" the mayor asked. His voice sounded casual, as if he called the judge in the middle of the night all the time.

"Sure as hell is." Judge Rudolph wasn't having any of it. The mayor was a Democrat and the judge a Republican, so the mayor would never back him for the Court. Pennsylvania was one of the few states that still voted for its judiciary, like prize heifers in a county fair, and for that the judge thanked his lucky stars. Except for the Democratic enclave that was Philadelphia, most of the state was conservative and Republican. "Quite a storm."

"Blizzard of the century."

"At least of the reelection."

Both men laughed unpleasantly. Judge Rudolph, standing in a wool pool of suit pants, knew Mayor Walker had pushed Steere's prosecution. The mayor would like nothing better than a mistrial, which would keep Steere in jail and release his properties. The judge would like nothing better than a verdict, which would ensure him a new robe.

"I'll get to the point," the mayor said. "I gather you've heard the news. Someone is killing Elliot Steere's lawyers."

"I wouldn't go that far." The judge hoisted his pants up by their waistband. He'd be damned if he'd discuss the Steere case with the mayor. How would it play out later?

"I would. Murder, kidnapping. A tragedy, and a catastrophe for the case."

"It's a tragedy for the guards' families, but it shouldn't affect this case." The judge was choosing his words carefully. It was risky to even entertain the call. Judge Rudolph knew only one way to protect himself. He pressed a button beside his phone and the audiotape hidden in his desk drawer clicked noiselessly into operation. "I have no intention of discussing the merits of the Steere case with you," the judge said as distinctly as possible.

"I'm not calling to discuss the merits," the mayor said, equally distinctly. Peter Walker didn't get to be mayor by being completely obtuse. His own tape recorder had been rolling from the outset. "I called to touch base with you on the procedure with the blizzard. Iron out the logistics. I've declared a snow emergency, but I can get the jurors escorted to their homes. When do you anticipate you'll be dismissing the jury?"

"There will be no dismissal. The jurors will remain in sequestration and continue their deliberations."

"What? I can't imagine it would be lawful to go forward in these circumstances. One of the associates on the defense team, Mary DiNunzio, is in intensive care and not likely to pull through."

"The defendant has a lawyer, a bright young woman," the judge said. Maybe this was his chance to redeem himself for that "tit" comment. "She's very competent to handle the trial, as are many of the women who come before me. She works in an all-woman law firm, you know, Rosato and Associates. I have a great respect for that firm. I have no doubt they'll do everything in their power to protect the defendant's right to counsel and due process."

On the other end of the line, the mayor rolled his eyes. Who was up for election here, the judge or him? Oh. Both. "Lead counsel is missing, too. Marta Richter. How can you proceed without her?"

"Ms. Richter isn't missing. My law clerk spoke with her this evening and she was fine."

"She may have been kidnapped!"

"That's speculation. Ms. Richter's whereabouts when court is not in session are not my concern. I have no facts which lead me to believe—"

"You don't have all the facts, Harry."

The judge paused. The mayor could have useful information. "Have the police found evidence of kidnapping?"

The mayor paused. The judge could have useful information. "Has the defendant filed for a mistrial?"

Both men went mute while their tape recorders whirred away. A Philadelphia standoff.

Judge Rudolph cleared his throat after a minute. "I'm extremely uncomfortable with this conversation."

"I don't see why. I'm not asking you anything confidential. Whether a motion for a mistrial has been filed is a matter of public record. The roads are unsafe in this blizzard, and if you're continuing the deliberations, you'll need extra police personnel to transport the jurors to the Criminal Justice Center. Advance notice of that will help the city accommodate your needs during this state of emergency."

"The case is going forward," the judge said firmly. Judicially. "If the defendant wants a mistrial he may file a motion through Ms. Carrier or on his own. He may even telephone me if he wishes. My law clerk knows where to reach me at all times. That's where you got this number, isn't it?" The judge shook his head. He'd ream Joey out when he got to chambers. Strike two for that boy. "Also, I've ordered the jurors to continue their deliberations at their hotel, so I won't need to transport them to the Criminal Justice Center. I expect this will be our last conversation on this matter." The judge hung up the phone and buckled his suit pants with satisfaction.

His toes wiggled happily, suddenly warm.

* * *

Across town at City Hall, the mayor threw his telephone at the paneled wall. It fell to the red Oriental carpet in a tangled heap.

Jen watched it tumble with a grim look on her face. "Told you you should have let me call," she said.

35

Standing on the windswept dune, Marta saw Bogosian's head snap toward her at the sound of her scream. He must have heard her. He'd come after her.

She took off, running flat out down the snowy beach. It was pitch black. Marta couldn't see a thing. Snow blew everywhere and became ocean. Ocean churned everywhere and became sky. Wind pummeled her face and buffeted her ears. Run. Run away. Into the darkness and noise and cold. Run away. Fast as she could. Fast as she had from the station wagon, her mother calling after her. Run away.

Marta tore down the beach. Her cap flew off. She glanced back and caught sight of the lighted house. Alix was pounding at the French doors. Bogosian must have locked her in. He was coming. Oh God. In a minute he'd be on the beach. He'd shoot at her like before. Only now there'd be no monster snowplow to rescue her. Run away.

Marta veered toward the water's edge where the snow was thin. Wind caught her full in the face and chest. She streaked down the beach, splashing in the surf. The waves crashed, the spray frigid at her shoulder. Icy water drenched her coat. Marta couldn't see where the beach ended and the water began, so she kept running in a straight line away from Steere's beach house.

Her breath came in panicked bursts. Her legs ached from running in heavy boots. Her shoulders felt weak under the soggy coat. Marta couldn't keep up the pace much longer. She spotted a white modern house in the distance. A place to hide.

She angled away from the water and bolted through the snow for the house. The wind blew off the ocean, propelling her forward. As Marta got closer to the house she scanned it for hiding places. It was too dark to see and she just kept going. Her heart felt like it was about to explode.

Crack! Crack! Gunshots.

Marta felt a jolt of terror. Bogosian. The Magnum. Where was he? Marta couldn't tell where the shots came from. The storm and the sea swallowed the sound. How close was he?

She was almost at the white house. It was tall, built on stilts. Where could she hide? There was a wraparound deck, but it was too exposed. She ran under the deck, looking wildly around. It was dark under the house. No snow to show her tracks. A wooden door banged in the wind toward the back. An outdoor shower.

Crack! Another gunshot. Louder. Closer. No time to lose.

Marta ran to the shower stall and slipped inside. It was dark. She saw nothing. Her fingers fumbled to lock the bolt and she bumped into an inside shelf. She felt for the shelf with jittery fingertips and clambered onto it. What to do? Pray Bogosian didn't find her? No. She needed a weapon. Then she remembered.

Christopher's tools. She yanked the forge hammer out of her pocket. A hammer against a gun? She shook with terror. Her panting was too loud. Her ribs seared with pain. Her pulse wouldn't quit. She raised the heavy hammer and peeked over the top of the stall in the dark.

There. Bogosian. A large shadow against the snow, white shirt flapping, lurching down the beach. His gun was drawn. His head was down. He was looking for footprints in the snow. He turned toward the house.

God, no. Marta's stomach torqued. He was walking toward the house. Following her tracks. She could see the glint of his gun as he got closer.

Marta ducked and tried to silence her panting. She found a skinny crack between the boards of the stall and pressed her eye to it. She could see Bogosian, but he couldn't see her. She told herself she had the advantage and willed herself to believe it. She would surprise him.

Bogosian lumbered toward the house. He stopped, crouching to touch the snow. Tracing the footprints. He straightened up and followed them directly to the house.

Marta bit her lip so she wouldn't scream.

Bogosian kept coming. His gun was drawn, ready to fire. He was ten feet from the house, then five. Going straight up to the porch. Stopping right where Marta had, in front of the wraparound deck.

Marta didn't move, she didn't breathe. Then she remembered the pritchel. She reached into her pocket and grabbed the spike. What could she do with it? Marta forced herself to think despite her fear. In the movies, they threw things to create a distraction and run. That wouldn't work. Bogosian would shoot Marta down as she ran.

Bogosian cocked his head, reminding Marta again of an attack dog. This time it gave her an idea.

She scratched the pritchel against the wood and gave a soft whimper like a puppy. A little lost dog trapped in the shower stall. The thug was a dog lover, wasn't he? He'd practically memorized that magazine.

Bogosian swiveled toward the sound. He aimed his gun at the stall.

Marta's heart leapt into her throat. She scratched harder and whimpered more fearfully. It wasn't hard to fake.

Bogosian took a step under the house, then another. He was so tall, she could reach him if she could draw him near enough. He had the advantage at a distance. Guns will do that.

Marta scratched even harder. She whimpered as low as she could, as if she were wounded. Starving. Near death. Three more steps was all she needed to reach him.

Bogosian took one more step, then the second. Then the third. Striking distance.

Please, God, help me. Marta raised the forge hammer and brought it down on Bogosian's head with brute force, driving the iron ball through his crown. His skull cracked like a pavement. Blood gushed from the wound, hot and wet, splattering Marta's face. She screamed in horror.

Bogosian's eyes went round as the moon and they stared at her.

He was dead as he stood.

36

Elliot Steere sat behind the thick bulletproof window in the interview room and watched with masked amusement as Judy Carrier tried to interrogate him. She was a young woman, and her bowl haircut and oversized features made her look like an oversized rag doll. Carrier had been questioning him for almost fifteen minutes and had managed to keep her temper even as she got nowhere. Steere could see from her expression that she was growing angry and desperate. A potentially troublesome combination, even in toys.

"I want to know what the fuck is going on," Carrier was saying. She stood behind the chair on her side of the window and gripped the backrest. Steere noticed her right hand was bandaged but didn't mention it.

"I am on trial for murder and awaiting a verdict."

"You didn't tell us the truth."

"I didn't tell you anything. You're a junior associate on my defense. I deal with Marta."

"Where is Marta?"

"I don't know."

"Who shot Mary?"

"I don't know."

"What does street money have to do with Eb Darning? What do you have to do with Eb Darning?"

"What's street money?"

Judy's anger bubbled to the surface. "You don't know what happened to Mary, you don't know what happened to Marta. You don't know the 'driver' who took Marta to the office and you can't explain how you knew the traffic light was red. For a man who's supposed to have all the answers, you don't know jack shit."

Steere brushed smooth a wrinkle in his pants. "If this is what you interrupted me for, I'll go back to my cell."

"Someone's trying to kill your lawyers. Why do I get the feeling it's you?"

"Absurd."

"You know what I think? I think you're a murderer. I think you murdered Eb Darning and I think you hired somebody to kill my best friend."

"You're not talking like my lawyer, Ms. Carrier." Steere stood up and shook down his pant legs. "I'm going back to my cell. Do not call for me until the jury has returned."

"You expect me to go forward as your trial counsel?"

"Expect it? I insist on it."

"I knew you would." Judy folded her arms and her blue eyes narrowed. "The last thing you want is a mistrial or a continuance, am I right?"

"Correct. The jury has the case. My name must be cleared."

"And if I don't want to clear it? If I withdraw from the case?"

"I'll oppose. My constitutional—"

"I figured as much. That's why I wrote this." Judy pulled a packet of papers from her inside pocket and pressed them through the slot in the bulletproof window. "It's handwritten. Not the prettiest motion in the world, but it'll do the trick."

Steere glanced at the papers without touching them. "What is this?"

"A motion for a mistrial. Considering what's happened to my co-counsel, I have reason to believe my life is in danger. It's an emergency motion."

Steere tried to suppress his smile. "Since when are your fears legal grounds for a mistrial?"

"Since now. I'm not too worried about precedent on this one. There's no law on what happens when someone uses the defense team for target practice. I'm not one for precedent anyway. When you're right, you'll win. Case law or no."

"Very interesting, but you can't file a motion without my approval. And I'm not giving my approval to any such motion."

"Too bad. I already filed it."

Steere paused momentarily. "You didn't."

"Yepper. I left it under the door of the clerk of the court's office downstairs, timed and dated." Judy checked her watch. "The motion is filed as of five minutes ago. I'll serve the D.A. and the judge as soon as I leave here. It'll be of record in the morning."

Steere appraised her anew as they stood tall on either side of the divider.

"Your only choice is to fire me. Either way, I'm no longer your lawyer and I get my mistrial." Judy grinned, and Steere noticed the gaps between her teeth.

How unattractive, he thought.

37

Marta couldn't stop shaking. Her left hand trembled around the pritchel and she forced the tool into her pocket. She crouched on the wooden bench in the shower stall and waited for her tremors to subside. She had killed a man, self-defense or not. The legal excuse didn't alter the moral question. The quivering in her muscles taught her that lesson, and she knew it was one she would never forget.

Marta was a killer now. The thought nauseated her. Frightened her. She thought back through the clients she had defended. Murderers, some of them rich. Most too high profile to do it again or not crazy enough. But they did it once, as Marta had. Did you get one free murder if you were a Richter client? Did she? Marta trembled on the bench, waiting to feel like herself again. Hoping the quaking would pass, and the questions.

She wiped her eyes on a clean part of her coat sleeve and rose stiffly. Her knees wobbled and she groped for the shower wall. She found the front door, felt for the bolt, and drew it back with fingers that were slick with warm blood. The door swung open. The sight was grotesque. Bizarre.

Bogosian was still standing, dead on his feet.

Marta gasped. She didn't know people could die standing up. Maybe there wasn't enough wind under the house to knock him over, or his feet were too big. It made her sick to think about it. Then she felt a momentary tingle of fear. He was dead, wasn't he?

Marta forced herself to step closer to check. Bogosian's dull brown eyes were rigid, fixed. His coarse features were frozen in agony. Blood streamed from his head in rivulets. Marta looked away, sickened. She'd seen enough autopsy photos to know Bogosian was dead. She wasn't about to feel his pulse.

She hurried by the corpse. The Magnum must have fallen in the snow, but she didn't see it. She didn't need it anyway. She didn't even want to touch it. She hustled under the deck to the beach, then turned into the wind.

Marta made a beeline for Steere's house, the only light on the beach. Wind filled her hair and briny snow pelted her face. This time the mist from the ocean felt cool and cleansing. She scooped a handful of snow and rinsed her cheeks and hands. It was freezing, but it heightened her senses. Her relief. She was alive. Safe.

She began to run to the house. Alix was locked in the office, and there was a lot Marta wanted to know. What had Alix been searching for? Did it have to do with why Steere killed Darning? Her stride lengthened as her plan took shape. She would get Alix to give a statement in return for immunity, then turn it over to the D.A. It would put Steere away forever. He might even get the death penalty.

And what about Marta? Steere would retaliate and send somebody else after her, but she would have hired security by then. She had the resources to protect herself. Money would do that. Insulate her behind anonymous walls. Pay for plane tickets to her different houses. Send her to deserted islands in the Caribbean. Get her lost. Marta didn't care if she didn't practice law again. She couldn't turn back now anyway.

She inhaled a lungful of cold, salty air, and it sped her like a spinnaker toward the house. Time to close this case. She would bring Steere to justice. The lights of the mansion house got closer, jittering with each hasty step, and soon Marta could see the French doors to Steere's office. Something was flapping there, fluttering.

She squinted against the driving snow. Sheer curtains flew from the doors in the wind, sucked from the room like an incubus. The French doors were slamming back against the house in the wind. Steere's office was empty.

Alix was gone.

* * *

Once inside Steere's office, Marta tried to shut the French doors against the storm. The wood around the doorknob had been broken and was too splintered to close completely. Why hadn't Alix unlocked the door from the inside? It must have been locked with a key, one she couldn't find in her haste. Alix had apparently escaped off the second-floor deck, taking her answers with her. And Marta's hopes of learning the truth about Darning's murder.

Marta spun around in frustration and surveyed the ransacked office. Walnut file drawers hung open and folders spilled onto the floor. Messy papers blanketed the glass top of the desk. A cushy leather desk chair had rolled to the wall. The computer on the desk had been disconnected and its fifteen-inch monitor lay smashed beside the French doors, gray wires dangling from its back. Alix must have used the monitor to break the doors. It was the heaviest thing in the office. But what had Alix been looking for? She undoubtedly didn't find it. She would have run from Bogosian without continuing her search.

Marta's gaze fell on the cardboard box that Alix had tried so frantically to open. She knelt before it and yanked on the box top. Trifold brochures were stacked inside, describing a resort development deal. Was that what Alix wanted? Unlikely. Marta closed the top, leaving a watery red print of her own palm. This wouldn't do. She'd leave blood everywhere. It gave her the creeps.

Marta got up and found a bathroom in the hall that connected to the master bedroom. She flicked on the light with her arm. The glistening white counter was well stocked with cosmetics. Lipsticks plugged the holes in a plastic organizer; eye pencils rolled around a Lucite tumbler. It must be Alix's bathroom. A magnified makeup mirror extended over the sink, and Marta caught sight of her reflection.

She almost screamed. Her magnified face was red with watery blood. Her hair hung in thick ropes around monstrous blue eyes. Marta couldn't go around looking like this, especially if she went back to the city. She'd have to shower. On the bathroom sink was a white tube of facial cleanser. Clarin's Doux Nettoyant Moussant, it said. Alix's self-important face wash. Marta grabbed it and took it into the shower.

* * *

After a warm shower, Marta padded into the bedroom to find something to wear. Just as she'd suspected, a walk-in closet next to Steere's was stuffed with women's clothes. Marta scanned the perfumed clothes, and picked out a tan cashmere sweater and camel pants. What the well-dressed mistress will wear. She slipped into the clothes, then searched the closet for good measure. She went through the silk blouses on padded hangers and looked behind the dresses. No clues of any sort. She moved on to the night tables and storage bins under the bed. Nothing. Marta thought a minute. Alix had been searching office papers.

Marta hurried back to Steere's home office and the drawers Alix had ransacked, hoping she'd find what Alix hadn't. Hair dripping wet, she yanked open a drawer and read through the labels of the accordions in it. A divider read BUSINESS PROPERTIES and contained manila folders for five different areas of Philadelphia. One folder read CENTER CITY, and Marta pulled it out and opened it up.

Steere's major buildings and the loan documents for each. He had more property than she thought and it was highly leveraged. There were lenders in and out of state and the notes were spread among a number of different banks. No single bank would know how much Steere owed, and from the looks of it, his debt was huge. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Marta closed the manila folder and reached for the next.

BUSINESS PROPERTIES— NORTHEAST. More properties, more loans. Even a criminal lawyer could see that Steere's business operations were precarious, the properties heavily leveraged. Each lease was held in a corporate name and Marta counted at least twenty different names. None of them appeared to have partnerships, since no partners had signed on any of the notes. Steere was the key man in every transaction. Marta closed the file folder and replaced it. It was intriguing, but it wasn't what Alix had been looking for. What had she wanted, and why now?

Marta paused. Why now? That could be the answer. It could be that the missing papers would implicate Steere in Eb Darning's murder. Otherwise, why the frantic activity at this point? Assume Steere had sent Alix to get these papers after Marta had told him she'd find evidence against him. He did have a portable phone. Maybe Steere called Alix and told her to find the file and hide it elsewhere. Or shred it, keep it secret. If Steere wanted it secret, Marta wanted it all the more.

Marta stood at the file cabinet, thinking. Then she remembered that the police had searched Steere's city town house when he was first arrested. The D.A. tried to get a warrant to search Steere's beach house, but Marta had successfully opposed it for lack of probable cause. But Steere wouldn't have taken any chances. If there were any evidence here relating to the crime, he would have had it hidden, or disguised it. It could be something that looked innocent but wasn't. Like Steere himself.

Marta's gaze circled the home office. Across the room was a small credenza with two drawers left open. She hurried to it, opened the top drawer, and thumbed through it. Personal records. One manila folder read ANTIQUES and was filled with furniture receipts. English Interiors— One mahogany lowboy, $1550.00, read the one on top. Marta slipped it back.

She pulled the next file, labeled BOAT. Boat? Marta didn't know Steere had a boat. She flipped to the bill of sale. FOUR WINNS 258 Vista Cruiser, twenty-five feet long. It had cost $47,425 and had been bought almost four years ago. Also in the folder were insurance documents and docking bills from LBI Marina. Piratical was the boat's name. Perfect for Steere, but not helpful.

Fuck. What time was it? Marta checked her watch. 1:45 A.M. She tensed. The jury would resume deliberations in seven hours. Could Christopher turn them around? Where could those papers be? Maybe hidden elsewhere in the house. Somewhere she wouldn't expect. Marta abandoned the credenza in a hurry, then checked the other rooms for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing.

Marta hurried downstairs and searched the first floor. She rummaged through bookshelves and kitchen cabinets. Highboys and lowboys. Nothing. She didn't even know what she was looking for. It was an impossible task. She plopped on the living room rug. Her fatigue was catching up with her. She didn't know what else to do. On the living room wall hung a large framed blueprint of the mansion. BUILT IN 1888, TODD HUNTER, ARCHITECT, read the architectural block lettering.

Marta blinked, distracted. She loved houses, even plans for houses. The blueprint was a deep marine color, and the architect had drawn in white. She could see the ruled lines describing the living room and dining room, then the dotted swinging lines for the double door between them. This was an old, old house. No wonder it wasn't up on stilts like the others she'd driven by. Marta knew from her beach house on Cape Cod that the newer houses would have bedrooms downstairs and living areas on the upper floor, to take advantage of the ocean view.

Marta frowned, the house hunter in her disapproving. It was a problem with Steere's house, for all its grace and elegance. No water view. She looked at the bank of windows that faced the beach. They were large, but dunes obscured the ocean view. Snowy mounds lay around the house like loose pearls.

Marta thought a minute. Why would Steere, who could afford any house on Long Beach Island, choose one that had no ocean view? Then she remembered something. What had Steere said? In the interview room at the courthouse? I love the beach, but I hate the water. The memory jerked Marta awake. Steere hated the ocean. He hated it so much he'd bought a house with no view of the water. So why did he own a boat?

Marta scrambled to her feet and sprinted back upstairs.

38

Judge Rudolph stood behind his desk in his chambers and frowned at the handwritten motion for a mistrial, which had been hand-delivered to his chambers. His law clerk sat across the desk, red-faced. Joey had been stupid enough to accept service of the motion papers. Strike three. Judge Rudolph wouldn't take him to the high court, if he ever got there, now. "You should have refused it!" the judge snapped, throwing the papers onto his desk in anger.

"I'm sorry, Your Honor."

"You should have told her to file it during business hours."

"I know, Your Honor."

"It doesn't have a clerk's time stamp. There's nothing official about it. You could have told her you didn't have permission to take it."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"You could have asked for her ID, for God's sake. How did you even know who she was? Why do you let strangers into my chambers like that?"

"She wasn't a stranger. It was Judy Carrier. I know her from court, Your Honor."

"Don't backtalk me! I have my personal things in here! This is my chambers, not yours!"

"Yes, Your Honor. I know." Joey sat on the chair opposite the judge's desk. His head hung over the legal pad and photocopied cases in his lap.

"The woman shows up to serve papers and you hold out your hand?"

"Carrier said she filed it, Judge."

"At one o'clock in the morning?" The judge was shouting now. "How could she file it, you idiot?"

"She said it was an emergency."

"It's her emergency, not my emergency. You know how many papers we get here that some lawyer calls emergency papers? How many, Joey? A million? Everything's an emergency to a lawyer!"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Who runs this case anyway, the lawyers or me? It's not an emergency unless I say it's an emergency! Until then it's just more paper. Another lawyer with another pleading. Paper. Garbage. Trash. How many times do I have to tell you?" Judge Rudolph snatched off his tortoiseshell glasses and rubbed his eyes irritably. "My God. I hate this."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Will you shut up? Will you just shut up?"

Joey nodded. He thought about saying "yes," but decided against it. It was a confusing question.

"Did you research the legal issue at least?"

"Yes. There's no case directly on point, but I found a good law review article and researched analogous cases on the Manson trial, and—"

"Don't write me a book, Joey. This Carrier broad filed a motion for a mistrial. I want to deny it. Will I get reversed?"

"Not if the defendant opposes the motion, which he does in his letter."

Judge Rudolph stared at Joey in disbelief. "What did you say? The defendant wrote a letter, opposing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Steere himself?"

"Yes, sir."

"Christ! Why didn't you say so, you moron?"

"You were yelling—"

"Give me that letter! Christ! What's the matter with you?"

The judge snatched the paper from Joey's outstretched hand and slapped his reading glasses back on. The letter was handwritten and the judge read its contents aloud, his voice full of wonder. " 'My lawyer filed a motion for mistrial in this matter without my knowledge or authorization. I oppose this motion for a mistrial… hereby ask the Court to consider it withdrawn… I expressly do not wish a mistrial… I wish to proceed as my own counsel… Signed, Elliot Steere.' " The judge pulled his chair out and eased into it in amazement. What luck! It was almost too good to be true. "How did we get this?"

"One of the sheriffs brought it up from the lockup."

"So it's really from Steere."

"Yes, Your Honor."

Judge Rudolph shook his head, his eyes glued to the letter. He'd never had a case like this one. Had never read a case like this one. It had a life of its own.

Joey cleared his throat. "I found cases saying that a defendant has the right to proceed pro se in a criminal case, even if he fires his lawyer in the middle."

"Of course he does." Judge Rudolph skimmed the letter over and over, incredulous as a lottery winner. "It's the defendant's right to counsel. It's a personal right. He can exercise it or waive it."

"Yes. True. I knew that. I found cases saying the rights in a criminal trial are personal to the defendant, analogous to those cases where the defendant wants the state to execute and the courts won't let the lawyers intervene."

"That's not on point."

"Well, in the Manson case—"

"Shut up, Joey."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"You're embarrassing yourself." Judge Rudolph looked up from the letter. "Has this letter been served on the D.A.?"

"I don't know. Ms. Carrier told me she served the motion on the D.A., but I don't know about the letter from Steere."

Judge Rudolph paused. He wasn't in the clear yet. "Get me the D.A. Think you can handle that?"

39

Judy had only one lead to follow and it brought her back to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. She had grabbed a lone cab at the courthouse and the ride took only a half hour through plowed streets. There was no traffic because nobody but Judy was crazy enough to brave the blizzard.

Grays Ferry was deserted and Judy felt uneasy as soon as the cab turned onto Twenty-fifth Street. The scene chilled her. Mary had been shot here only hours ago, yet no sawhorses or yellow tape marked the spot. Bennie had told her at the hospital that the cops were shorthanded, but what would become of whatever evidence was at the crime scene? Judy found herself staring at the spot where Mary had been shot. Fresh snow buried Mary's blood, concealing what had happened. Even Judy's skis were lost in the snow or long gone.

"Miss? The fare?" said the cabdriver.

"Sorry." Judy fumbled in her zipper pocket for a bill and handed it to him. "Keep it, okay?" She stepped out into the cold and walked up the street to the house.

Judy climbed the familiar, snowy stoop next to the brown living room curtains and knocked hard with her good hand. She didn't expect an instant answer, it was the middle of the night. Judy knocked until a light went on inside the house and kept knocking until she heard voices near the front door. Then she started shouting. There would be time for apologies later. Now she had to get in and get answers.

* * *

Judy sat across from the mother in her living room, telling her the whole story. The room was cramped and its furnishings old, but clean and simple. A worn couch, an old TV, and a radio-cassette player on a table with some cassette tapes beside it. Children's books and X-Men comics were stacked on metal tray tables that served as end tables. The thin-paneled walls were covered with children's photographs, all boys. Their front teeth vanished in one picture and reappeared in the next, playing photographic peeka-boo. The focus of the living room was a large portrait that hung over the couch, a posed photograph of the mother and her three sons, with the small Dennell in her lap.

The mother was tired, awakened from sleep, but listened without comment, her neat head tilted at a dubious angle. Her features were large and not entirely pretty, but her round eyes showed intelligence. She had on a thin white robe and her short hair was cut natural. The only time she touched it was when Judy explained how Mary had been shot. "Why aren't you goin' to the police about this?" the woman asked warily. "Why you comin' to me?"

"I will, but all I have now is suspicion. They can't do anything about it tonight anyway. Besides, if your son knows something, wouldn't you rather have me talk to him than the police?"

"At this hour of the night? No."

"I'm sorry about that. I can't help it."

The woman wrapped her robe closer around her slim body. "My baby Dennell don't know this homeless man you're talkin' about. Dennell never said nothin' about somebody named Eb. Or Heb."

"I think Dennell did know him. He told us he did. Dennell plays outside a lot, doesn't he? He must have talked to Eb while you were at work."

"Dennell don't know him. He don't know people hangin' on the street. He don't talk to those people."

"How do you know that? You work at the store during the day."

The mother pursed her lips. "Look, I do what I can. I work, I don't take no handouts. Rasheed, he watches the baby when I'm away, or the neighbor lady. What do you know about it anyway? You don't know nothin' about it."

Judy reddened. "I'm just telling you what Dennell told me and Mary."

"Like I tol' you, Rasheed watches Dennell good. I told him not to let the baby talk to no strangers."

"Heb wouldn't be a stranger. Some of the neighbors knew him."

"I didn't. Not me."

"Dennell said Heb was rich."