The Second Chair

12

Excuse me, are you a Mr. Hardy?"

It was all he could do to remain polite with the sweet young waitress. It was Date Night and he was out with his wife, having the world's best chicken at the Zuni Cafe. Everyone in his world orbit knew that Wednesday night with Frannie was the one time he was absolutely not to be disturbed. To further that end, he had taken to leaving his cellphone and pager at home. He put down his fork mid-bite, used his napkin, nodded and forced a polite smile. "I have that distinction," he said.

"You have a telephone call."

Frannie, thinking the same thought as Hardy- that it must be one of the kids and if they were interrupting Date Night it was a true emergency- was halfway out of her chair when the waitress added, "An Amy Wu."

Glitsky, in his uniform and on his way to the ring of police cars in the lot, stopped in his tracks, changed directions and walked over to a subdued group who stood in a knot under the pool of light from the pole lamp by the pay booth. He nodded all around, said to Hardy and Frannie, "What are you two doing here?"

Hardy motioned to the circle that was now crawling with police. "They asked us not to leave until they'd talked to us. We're waiting." He half-turned. "You remember my associate, Amy Wu." Hardy paused, came out with it. "She discovered the body."

Wu came forward, still a bit unsteady, and gave Glitsky her hand. "Good to see you again, sir."

Glitsky held onto her hand, squinted down into her face. "Have you been drinking?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "A few down at Lou the Greek's. Barry and I. But we're fine now."

The other man came forward, introduced himself- Barry Hess- said he was who'd called 911. Glitsky took that in, stepped toward the crowd by the body, stopped again. "Anybody get statements from you two yet?" he asked both Hess and Wu. As the people who'd discovered the body, both could probably look forward to a long night in a small interrogation room.

"No, sir," Hess replied.

"I'll try to get somebody over here soon," Glitsky said. Then he closed in on Frannie. "I can see your husband, who lives for parties like this one, but why are you here?"

She forced a weak smile. "It started out as Date Night."

"Right. Of course. Great timing," Glitsky said. "You okay?"

Frannie nodded. "But maybe we'd be more comfortable in a car with the heat on."

Glitsky tossed his head toward Hardy's car. "Go on ahead. I'll send somebody over."

After Wu's short interview at the scene with Sergeant Belou- she had promised to come and give a better, more coherent statement at the Hall tomorrow- she didn't want to be with Barry anymore. It was obvious to Frannie that, badly shaken by the murder, and still very drunk, she didn't want to go home alone, either, so she asked Wu to come and stay with them at their house tonight. Then Dismas could take her down here tomorrow, where she could do any more business that needed to be done at the Hall, pick up her car.

Wu passed out on the drive home. They had to wake her up to let her off at the house with Frannie while Hardy drove around the neighborhood- a constant ritual- and tried to find a parking place. By the time he got back to the house, she was asleep again on the fold-out bed in the family room behind the kitchen.

Hardy couldn't sleep. Sometime well after midnight, he swung quietly out of bed, pulled on a pair of drawstring gray sweatpants and went downstairs.

A bulb over the stove threw out about fifteen watts in the otherwise dark room, and Hardy opened the refrigerator and stared into it. What he craved was some alcohol, get his brain to stop its endless looping. Today there'd been the long nap in the afternoon, no wine with lunch, an interrupted dinner. The drunken condition of Amy Wu, passed out on the fold-a-bed, and Frannie's lack of interest in a nightcap, had somehow constrained him from a drink when they'd gotten home.

Nightcap. A harmless little old nightcap.

Maybe he'd have it now- a couple of fingers of gin and peppermint schnapps over crushed ice. It would help him sleep, finally. And God knew he had to get some sleep if he was going to be any good at work tomorrow. Sleep had to be the first priority. If he had one short one now, the only effect would be sleep. He'd wake up refreshed, strong for whatever challenges the day might bring.

And with Boscacci's murder, there would be lots of them.

But something kept him from opening the freezer, from reaching for the crushed ice.

They kept a three-legged stool in the kitchen because Frannie needed it to reach the higher shelves, and suddenly, the refrigerator still open, Hardy found himself sitting on it, leaning over, elbows on his knees.

In the dimness- stove light, refrigerator light- he turned his hands over, looked at his palms. There was no shake. Closing his eyes, he dropped his head, sighed audibly.

"Sir? Are you all right?" Wu was a spectral shape in the doorway. Barefoot, wrapped in the comforter they'd provided, she came into the light.

He looked up, raised his hand in greeting. "I'm trying to make the critical midnight snack decision. Could you eat something?"

"Do you have some aspirin first?"

"Sure." Hardy reached into the top drawer right next to the refrigerator, where he'd taken to storing the bottle so he could get it with his coffee, so he wouldn't have to walk the extra steps to the bathroom. "How many you need?"

"What's the legal limit?" she asked.

"I'm impressed, sir. I didn't know you could cook."

"I can't, really. If it's not in that one black pan, I'm hopeless. But that pan, I know all its secrets. I treasure it, for what that's worth. No soap, just salt and a wipe. Nothing ever sticks. It's magic."

Hardy had grabbed one of his daughter's bathrobes and Wu had put it on to come and eat. Now they sat kitty-corner to each other at the dining room table, splitting a very runny four-egg omelette of fried salami, artichoke hearts, cheddar cheese. Sourdough bread. They both had cups of hot Ovaltine.

Hardy had closed the connecting door to the kitchen so his family wouldn't wake up, but still he whispered. "And you can drop the 'sir' if you want. I realize that my august personage is intimidating, but somewhere beneath the awesome authority figure beats what Mr. Buffett calls a schoolboy heart."

"Warren Buffett talks about a schoolboy heart?"

Hardy shook his head. "No. But Jimmy does."

Wu couldn't quite get to a smile. "I've got a searing headache and you've got a schoolboy heart. Want to trade?"

"No, thanks. But they can remain our little secrets." Hardy tore a piece of the bread and sopped up some melted cheese. "Anyway, that pan. My mother got it from her mother and gave it to me when I went away to college."

"I bet she missed it."

"Not for long." Hardy pushed some egg around. "My folks both died my freshman year of college. Plane crash."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

"Well, it was a long time ago. I'm over it by now."

Wu squeezed her eyes shut, fighting her hangover, then put down her fork. "You are? Really?"

"Pretty much. Sometimes I have to concentrate to remember them at all. Even what they looked like. And their voices, forget it. That's what I wish the most I had some memory for, their voices. But I can't hear them."

"Do you mind if I ask you how long that took? Before you felt, I don't know, normal again?"

"It was a while." He met her eyes. "Certainly more than four months."

Wu blinked a couple of times. "I keep wishing I'd done something more, somehow. Something my dad would have approved of."

"He didn't approve of your being a lawyer?"

"I don't know. More, I think, he didn't approve of how I lived. You know?"

"No. I don't."

"I mean, being almost thirty, not married, no kids. Oh God, I hurt." She pressed her hands up against her temples. "And the great irony is that one of the reasons I stayed in school and became a lawyer was to make him happy. Even if he didn't like me, I could always be a good student, and I thought that pleased him, so I kept at it. But it really didn't matter."

"Why do you think he didn't like you?"

"I don't know. Maybe I was too much like my mom. She left him- left us both, really- when I was thirteen. Another guy she divorced a year later. Then a few after that." She fell silent, pushed again at her temples, drew a pained breath.

"Eat some eggs," Hardy said. "Nothing's worse than cold eggs. Is your mom still around?"

Wu took a bite, shook her head. "No. She got emphysema. She died about ten years ago, but really she hadn't been in the picture for so long, her dying wasn't so hard for me, even though that sounds bad. But my dad…" She swallowed, took another bite, drank some chocolate. "Oh, man," she said.

Hardy waited while she ate and gathered some strength.

"Anyway, my dad. He regretted that he didn't marry a pure Chinese. Instead, he marries Mom, you know, a black woman, and his family just hates her, and then I come along and look like her, at least color-wise…" She stopped. "And it wasn't like he didn't try to be nice to me, but you can tell if your parent doesn't like you, you really can. Nothing you do is right. And I guess I lost patience with trying all the time and getting nothing back in return and so then I got mad at him, and then…" She swiped a finger under one eye. "And then he dies before you can fix it up." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to dump on you."

"It's all right. I knew something was bothering you. I thought it might be something like this. You lose your dad, it's not trivial. Then with the extra baggage. Have you thought about maybe taking some time off, letting some of this settle out?"

"From work? God, no. Work's the thing that's keeping me sane."

"Because it keeps you so busy you don't have to deal with the other personal stuff?"

She started to say something, then pushed back from the table, pulled the robe close around her. She dropped her head, shook it slowly side to side, side to side.

They remained at the dining room table, the dishes pushed to one side. Second cups of Ovaltine, now forgotten, had grown tepid in front of them.

Hardy didn't want to add to Wu's pain right now by criticizing her performance in the Bartlett case, but she introduced the topic herself, laying it all out in a torrent of words. She had loved the idea of finessing Brandt, of snookering Boscacci. These arrogant men would see that she was good, could hold her own in a fair fight. Take that, Dad! It should have all worked out.

"Still, you really should have nailed down Andrew's plea before you even tried to make any kind of deal with Allan."

"I realize that now. I just got caught up in the rush of it. If I could do it. I couldn't believe that once Andrew saw the evidence, he wouldn't realize he had to lose."

"Except if it wasn't about the evidence, to him."

"But it's always about the evidence!"

"No. Not always. O.J. wasn't about the evidence. Patty Hearst. Mark Dooher- you remember Wes's famous case? Ask him if it was about the evidence. No. It was about the passion and commitment of the defense. The vision thing."

"But you don't need that if you already have an out. And Andrew had an out."

"You call that an out? An eight-year top?"

Her arms crossed, she sat back, defiant. "The other alternatives were too risky. I still believe it's madness to let him go to trial."

"Not if he didn't do it."

Wu closed her eyes, pushed on the lids with her fingers. "Please, sir. Not you, too. It's not whether he did anything. That's Law I-A. It's whether they can prove it. And they probably can, because he probably did."

Hardy jumped on that. "Aha. You said 'probably.' At last. Doubt enters."

Wu shook her head. "Not really. Not reasonable doubt, anyway. Not enough doubt to gamble his life away."

"Which brings us back full circle. All right," Hardy said. "Let's even go on the assumption that he's guilty. What else do you know about him? I mean, personally."

"With all respect, who cares? It's not who he is, it's what he did."

"No. Sometimes it's who he is. Who the jury sees. If you can make them believe he's somebody who literally wouldn't hurt a fly, they'll never believe he killed a human being. Or if you gave him a compelling enough reason…"

"It's jealousy, sir. Diz. I mean, he probably thought it was a good enough reason at the time, but no jury in the world, not even in San Francisco, is going to buy it enough to let him off. You don't get to kill people you're jealous of."

"All right. How about his home life?"

"He's a spoiled rich kid. Not a good sell."

"But abandoned by his father long ago, right? And pissed about it. Haven't I heard about him needing anger management therapy? Maybe he did it, but it was literally out of his power to control. You yourself got abandoned by your mother. You can certainly sell a jury on the rage." Hardy saw his cup of chocolate, lifted it and took a drink, made a face. "Look at Dan White. He sneaks into city hall and shoots the mayor and a supervisor dead one fine afternoon, and a jury of his peers basically lets him walk because he ate too many Twinkies that morning."

"He didn't walk."

"No. But he got less than the eight years Andrew didn't want to give away. My point is, now you're in it. You've got an opportunity with the seven-oh-seven to get a preview of what the witnesses will say at the trial…"

She stopped him. "How do I do that? That hearing's not about evidence. It's…"

"Wu. Listen to me. It's about whatever you can make it about. You're entitled to call witnesses about the boy's amenability to the juvenile system. The judge isn't going to stop you from calling just about anybody you want. He doesn't want to make a mistake and give you that issue on appeal. So you call Andrew's best friend. You call the guy who identified him in the lineup. You call his school principal, his counselor, his parents, his sister. You call his shrink. You're just trying to find out what happened. Not just that night, but to Andrew. You don't know what happened that night. Andrew doesn't know what happened. He wasn't there for the murder! How could he know? Hell, he called nine one one. Why would he do that?" Hardy sat back himself, crossed his own arms, dared a smile. "At the risk of sounding like David Freeman, you can actually have fun with this."

He came forward, intent now. "But you've got to commit, Wu. Whether or not he actually did it, your job is to get him off, any legal way you can. If he'd have copped the plea, okay then, you got him a deal he could live with. But he didn't. He couldn't live with it. Have you asked yourself why that might have been?"

"He's got to think he can get off."

"And why, looking at all the evidence arrayed against him, would he think that? Is he stupid? Does he think a jury won't convict him somehow?"

"No. I don't think he's stupid."

"Well? Could it be that he believes the system will work because he's innocent? I mean, is that even a possibility?"

"If it is, then he's a very unlucky guy."

"Okay. And if he's unlucky, what does that mean?"

She frowned, shrugged. "I give up, what?"

"It means someone else killed these victims."

She rolled her eyes. "The famous other dude. But-"

"Don't say it. It doesn't have to be a real person. It just has to be a believable story that a jury can take as an alternative. Let's say the teacher, what's his name?"

"Mooney."

"Okay, Mooney had another girlfriend before Andrew's, Laura is it?"

"Yes, Laura."

"Right. So this other girlfriend might have been jealous, too. As jealous as Andrew was. And maybe she also told a friend of hers. And, lo and behold, her father also owns a gun, and she had no alibi that night." Wu started to reply, but Hardy held up a hand. "I'm not saying there's any of this. But there's something out there somewhere, I guarantee it. There's always something." He paused, looked directly into her face. "At any rate, Wu, that's what I'm going to be looking for."

It took her a minute for the message to sink in, but then Wu sat up straight. "You? What do you mean, you?"

"Me. Your boss. I'm going to sit second chair with you on this."

"But…"

"No. No 'but,' I'm afraid."

Her mouth hung open for an instant. She swallowed hard, looked down then up. "If you don't think I can do the job, sir, then you might as well fire me."

"No. Although honestly, we considered it. You realize that nearly every decision you've made with this client from the beginning has been dead wrong, don't you? That you've compromised the firm's reputation to a significant degree?"

Unable to deny it, she could only nod.

He let her live with the harsh reality for a minute, then softened it somewhat. "But everyone makes mistakes, Amy. Everyone. And we don't want the firm to lose you. Beyond that, on a personal note, I've got to bear my own share of the blame for where this has all gotten to. I didn't do my job."

"And what was that?"

"Supervising you. Advising against your deal right from the first minute I heard about it. Letting you go ahead afterwards. You want more? I've got 'em, believe me. But now we've got an opportunity to right those wrongs, both of us." He leaned in toward her. "Listen, by turning down the plea, Andrew basically bet us that he didn't do it. Whether or not we believe him, the firm signed on to keep the DA from proving he did. I still like to think that we can get this kid off."

"You and me, together?"

"Yes."

"Get him off completely?"

"Maybe even that. It happens sometimes. You prepare the seven-oh-seven hearing on the kind of person Andrew is, whether he was temporarily insane or had a lousy childhood or organic brain damage from braces that didn't fit right. Or if he's got uncontrollable rage that should put him in a program instead of jail. Me, I try to find a good alternative story. Time the trial comes around, we've already seen the DA's case at the hearing, so we choose the best option and run with it."

"So he goes to trial after all? I was hoping there was some chance with the seven-oh-seven that I could at least keep him down as a juvenile."

"Not likely," Hardy said. "Murder one with specials goes to adult court every time."

"Well, then, why wouldn't every murder go adult?"

"Murder one does. Some homicides don't, but they've got to be really close to an accident, or a retarded kid, or an abused kid who kills his dad, something like those. A righteous one-eighty-seven"- the code section for first degree murder-"the kid goes up, I don't care if he's fourteen years old."

"So why are they having this hearing in the first place, if the outcome is foreordained?"

Hardy broke a sad smile. "Because you made them, Wu. It might not have been your original plan, but you made them."

13

Before they'd even come close to removing the body, the city's power elite had descended upon the All-Day Lot- besides Glitsky, his boss and his underling, Police Chief Frank Batiste and Homicide Lieutenant Marcel Lanier appeared within fifteen minutes of each other. Of course Clarence Jackman needed to be on hand- the victim, after all, had been his chief deputy. Even a tuxedo-clad Mayor Washington himself, called from whatever party he'd been attending, showed up in his limo.

Everyone agreed that this was no ordinary homicide- the tendrils of Boscacci's career extended near and far in half a dozen directions. Over the course of his life, he'd either personally or administratively been involved with the prosecution of a wide range of wrongdoers- gang members, white-collar criminals and drug dealers; scam artists, rapists and murderers. But he'd also been extremely active in the city's hyperactive and often acrimonious labor negotiations. Politically, he had been slated to run Jackman's next campaign, and his abrasive, no-nonsense style had not enamored him to any of the DA's six or eight challengers.

By the time all these heavyweights were ready to go home, they'd unanimously agreed to assign an event number to the investigation. The police department, like all city departments, had a budget and was expected to stay within it. But when something extraordinary happened- an earthquake or a papal visit, say, the mayor would agree that the event would get a number, and extraordinary expenses would come from the General Fund. Practically, this provided nearly limitless funds to allow the work to proceed. Inspectors wouldn't have to worry about their overtime; the crime lab could run any sophisticated tests it needed beyond the routine; the whole apparatus- for a welcome change- working in unison toward a common goal. Abe Glitsky, not only as deputy chief of inspectors, but as a former head of homicide, was the logical choice to take point.

Now, before the building had come alive, before any other staff had come in, Glitsky sat in his office, door closed, with Jeff Elliot, the influential writer of the "CityTalk" column for the Chronicle. Elliot and Glitsky were both members of Jackman's informal kitchen cabinet, and had a lengthy and decent history between them. Not exactly close personal friends, they nevertheless got along about as well as a cop and a reporter could.

Maybe part of that was because, in spite of Glitsky's hatred of the reporter's basic prying function, he couldn't help but admire Elliot's essential bravery in the face of his ongoing struggle with multiple sclerosis. The bearded columnist lived and worked without reference to his wheelchair, his crutches, his specially designed car so he could get around. There was no hint of victimhood about Elliot, who had more claim to it than most. He was a true mensch, and Glitsky respected him.

"At least," Elliot was saying, "we don't have to talk about LeShawn Brodie, which was the original plan for today's interview, as you may recall."

Behind his desk, Glitsky sipped at his tea. "I'd be curious to hear your take on that, though, just as a matter of interest."

"What's to take? Your call was the only thing that made any sense. And in fact, until the clowns who picked him up let him escape…" He let the statement hang. "What were you supposed to do, storm the bus?"

"Apparently. But what I don't understand is all the vehemence, the rush to lay blame. Not that I feel anything personally, of course. I'm a cop, and therefore have no feelings."

"Of course," Elliot said. "That goes without saying. Why would you need them? But you know as well as anybody how these frenzies develop. It's lucky for you that you're not an elected official. Brodie could have done you in."

"In spite of the fact that it was the right decision? No, don't answer that. It wasn't really a question. But off the record, it makes me think I've about Peter Principled out. I'm not cut out for spin. I must have the wrong genes or something."

"I don't know. Some of us Neanderthals in the media find it quaintly refreshing. You say something, you mean what you say; most of the time it even makes sense. The public can either deal with it or not." Elliot shifted in his wheelchair. "You don't watch out, you might become a cultural hero."

Glitsky ran a finger over the scar in his lips. "Unlikely," he said, "but give me an event number and a murder to investigate, I may not be totally useless."

"Which brings us back to Allan."

A brusque nod. "It does. Although I have to tell you, this is too soon for me to have anything you could use. We're nowhere. We sent a couple of inspectors out last night to canvass the neighborhood. Nobody heard or saw anything. I was actually hoping you might have something for me."

Elliot considered for a moment, then shook his head. "He wasn't everybody's favorite guy, but I never caught a whiff of anything particular that would make somebody want to kill him. I hope to get a chance to talk to Clarence, who's got to be devastated by this."

"He is. But we talked last night, and he's as mystified as anybody. Allan was a rock. Came in early, stayed late, great administrator, loyal as a dog."

"He fire anybody lately?" Elliot asked.

"A couple. We're checking them." The purging of the deadwood from the earlier DA's administration had been an ongoing, albeit low-key program for the past three years. To the affected parties, though, Glitsky would bet the termination was probably not as low-key as it seemed to others. "But to tell you the truth, Jeff, we're going to find out about everything in Allan's life. This is something I know how to do, as opposed to going to meetings and eating lunch with businesspeople. And for a change we've got the manpower and budget to do it right. If this killing wasn't completely random, and I can't believe that it was, we'll find who did it." He looked up, slightly startled. "Did I just say something quotable?"

Because the All-Day parking lot was cordoned off with police tape and he couldn't park there, Jason Brandt had to find a place nearly six blocks south of the Hall of Justice and walk up. He was standing in the hallway outside of Clarence Jackman's office at eight-thirty when Treya Glitsky got to the door.

"Can I help you?" she asked, introducing herself unnecessarily. All the assistant DAs, even those who worked mostly off-site, knew who she was.

Brandt pulled his hands from his pockets and introduced himself as well. He feigned an easy smile, but it was clear that he was wound up. "I was hoping to get a minute with Mr. Jackman."

She made a face of regret. "I don't remember an appointment…"

"It's about Allan."

Treya drew a heavy breath. "Well, then." She put her key into the door. "That poor man," she said. "It seems so… so completely unbelievable." She shook her head, clearing the thought, then came back to him. "I don't know when or even if Mr. Jackman will be in this morning. I know he was at the crime scene until well after midnight, then went to Allan's home after that. So it might be a while, if at all. You're welcome to wait, if you'd like."

Brandt thanked her and took the chair next to Jackman's door. Treya opened the blinds, turned on her computer, checked her voice mail, then the wall clock. The telephone rang and she picked it up. "District attorney's office." She lowered her voice. "Hi. No, not yet. I'll call you as soon as he does. No, really." A pause, the hint of a smile. "Me, too. Bye."

When she hung up, Brandt asked. "Was that your husband?"

"So much for subtle."

"I read that he was in charge of the investigation."

"I read that, too. He was gone before I was completely awake this morning. I can't imagine who would have done this. Can you?" She sat up. "Is that what you wanted to see Clarence about?"

Brandt shook his head. "No." He hesitated. "It's a little weird to talk about Allan's work and not his death, but with him gone now… I don't know, it seemed important to tell Mr. Jackman what was going on in this case so it didn't fall through the cracks. It doesn't have anything to do with Allan's murder."

"What's the case?"

Slightly embarrassed now, Brandt started to shrug it away, then spoke anyway. "Just up at the YGC…" He went on to tell the story- Andrew Bartlett, the juvenile proceedings, the scotched plea bargain deal. Amy.

Treya nearly jumped at the name. "Wait a minute. Amy Wu?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And this plea deal, it was between her and Allan?"

"Right. She was coming down here to explain it to him, how the kid- Andrew, her client- had screwed her, or screwed them both. Anyway, Allan probably would have gone ballistic." Having noticed something in her expression, he stopped. "What?"

"Nothing. I'm sure it's nothing." Then, after another pause, she said, "Did you know that Amy was the one who found his body?"

"Pardon?"

She nodded. "Really. Abe- my husband- mentioned it last night when he got home, only because we both know her a little. They were all down there at the scene."

Brandt's eyes went inward while he processed the information. "Was she hurt, too?" he asked with real concern. "Is she all right now?"

"Who?"

"Amy." From Treya's expression, she wasn't following him. "I mean, was she around when Allan got shot? Is she okay?"

"I think she's fine. I'm sure she is."

For a moment, Brandt felt light-headed with relief. The feeling surprised him, and it must have showed.

"Is Amy a friend of yours?" Treya asked.

"No," he answered, perhaps too quickly. "Just a colleague. We're in this case together, on opposite sides. Anyway, I knew she was planning to talk to Allan yesterday. When you said she found him, I thought she might have been with him when it happened."

"No," Treya said. "She was with another guy at the Greek's and they found him when they went to get their cars."

"Who was the other guy?"

"I don't know. I think just some guy. Abe's going to talk to both of them. He'll find out."

Hardy came out of the elevator into the lobby at his office. In the reception area, Phyllis, with a pinched and pained expression, her hands clasped nervously in front of her, stood up and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I told him he couldn't just walk in, but he said you wouldn't mind. If you didn't like it, he said, you could call the police."

"Who are we talking about, Phyllis?"

"Lieutenant Glitsky."

Hardy showed a bit of teeth, the ghost of a grin. "He's a deputy chief now, Phyllis. He thinks the rules don't apply to him anymore."

In the office, the deputy chief was on the couch, elbows on his knees. As soon as Hardy closed the door behind him, Glitsky started in. "Why didn't you tell me last night that Amy Wu had had a major fight with Allan Boscacci yesterday afternoon? About three hours before he died? At the Hall of Justice, which if your memory fails you is about two hundred yards from where he got shot? Did you imagine that this would not be relevant to his murder investigation? Or were you afraid that we would have sweated her on videotape last night, which we absolutely would and should have done?"

"It's good to see you, too," Hardy said. "How's your morning been?"

"Long. Already."

"You want some tea?"

"I want some answers."

"Not mutually exclusive. I'm having some coffee."

"Of course you are. Where's Wu now?"

From the counter, fiddling with his ingredients, Hardy turned. "I just this minute dropped her at the Hall. I turned her in directly to Lanier so he could get the murder collar and make you look bad, not that you seem to need much help on that score lately. Who put the bee in your bonnet about her?"

"Jason Brandt told Treya about the fight. Evidently a pretty good one."

"I don't know him. Brandt."

"Ask Wu; she does."

"Oh wait," Hardy said. "DA up at Youth Guidance? The Bartlett case?"

"Now the Boscacci case."

"Not." He turned, pushed the button for the espresso machine, came back around. "Look, Abe. I'm sorry I forgot to mention it last night, but if you recall, there were other things going on at the time. You saw Amy out at the lot. She could barely walk she was so drunk. Ten minutes after you let us go, she passed out on the way home in our car."

He grabbed his cup, walked over to Glitsky and sat kitty-corner to him. "You know how she got drunk? After her fight with Allan, she went over to Lou's and started pounding vodka, which she continued to do without pause until she left to go home with Barry or Larry or Jerry or whatever the hell his name was about five minutes before they discovered Allan. Lou's got six, eight, ten guys who were all trying to get into her pants for four hours in a row and will severally and individually swear that she didn't sneak out and shoot Allan. I, too, personally promise you that she didn't either."

"You still should have told me about this last night. Who we interview, and how, is not your call, Diz."

Hardy sipped his coffee. "I thought I already had apologized for that, but if not, I hereby solemnly do so again."

"I'm still going to want to talk to her. Soon. On tape."

"And she, no doubt, will be thrilled to cooperate in any way she can. Did Mr. Brandt actually accuse her of murder? Did he give you any kind of motive?"

"No. He didn't even know what he was telling Treya. But when I heard about the fight, I asked around at the Hall. People heard Allan yelling at her way out in the hallway. This was a couple of hours before he got hit."

"All too true, I'm sure. But I guarantee a complete waste of your time. Wu did not kill Allan, Abe. Is that really the best you've got?"

Glitsky sat back, crossed a leg. "We don't have anything yet. Nothing from the scene except the slug, too deformed for comparison, at least using the computer. Not that we have anything to compare it with. No casing. One witness says maybe a car peeled out of the lot just before it got dark, but he couldn't even swear to the color."

"How about Allan's family?"

"How about them? The wife is sedated right now. Clarence broke the news to her and she dissolved on him. Two kids, eight and ten. Lost. Destroyed. Nothing there."

A pause. "What was he working on?"

"One active case, that's it. A murder." At Hardy's questioning look, Glitsky explained. "He's been mostly assigning cases since he moved up to chief assistant."

"Okay, what's the murder?"

"You remember, the old guy- Matosian- who poisoned his wife and himself in a suicide pact, but miraculously survived? But the point is there's no witnesses around that case who'd want him dead. Otherwise, Allan's played a role in putting away a thousand people over the years. Although you know they never blame the prosecutor. He's just doing his job."

"Almost never."

A weary nod. "I know. We're going to look anyway. We're looking at everything."

"Then you'll probably find it."

"Let's hope," Glitsky said. "Even though it's undoubtedly a complete waste of time for everybody, would you please tell Ms. Wu we want to see her at the Hall, as in now? Could that be arranged?"

"Probably. I really did drop her off down there an hour ago to get her car. She was planning to go home and get some sleep, but she might be in your outer office even as we speak, hoping to chat with your august personage-hood. Though you might want to ask around at Lou the Greek's first. She was evidently the main event there last night. People will remember her."

"I'm sure they will." He took a beat. Then: "Do you think it could have been political?"

Hardy's mouth went tight. "I don't know, Abe. It's a reach. The campaign hasn't even begun yet. And if you want to take somebody out, you take out the candidate, not his eventual campaign manager, wouldn't you think?" He put his cup down, looked into Glitsky's face. "But no physical evidence, huh?"

"One deformed slug."

"Do you ever wish you'd let yourself swear once in a while?"

Glitsky stood up, brushed some imaginary lint from his uniform. "All the time, Diz," he said. "All the darned time."

The pale, polished wood of the door to Hardy's old office upstairs displayed a patchwork of bumper stickers. "Imagine Whirled Peas," "Kill Your Television," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness," "Wouldn't It Be Great If Schools Had Everything They Needed and the Government Had to Hold a Bake Sale to Build a Bomb?" "Support the Right to Arm Bears," "Jesus Is Coming and Boy, Is He Pissed." Perhaps twenty more in the same vein, all of them to go with Wes Farrell's collection of T-shirts.

For not the first time, as he stared at this monument to the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression, Hardy wondered if they'd been smart to bring Wes Farrell aboard as one of the firm's founding partners. As a business move, it had seemed defensible enough at the time. Farrell had come up the hard way in the legal profession, taking one bleeding heart case after another, forgiving nonpayments even while he was going broke himself.

But, almost in spite of himself, he'd built a practice with solid referrals, a few retained accounts, lots of estate and trust work. Plus, he practiced good lawyering. He helped his clients, cared about them, found his own motivation in their interests. In many ways, leaving his superficial lack of professionalism aside, he was the perfect attorney. He dressed well in court, deferred to judges, respected the clerical staff. And there was no question that now he more than carried his own weight in the firm.

But if Phyllis thought Hardy was slightly out of the lawyer mode, Farrell was well into the lunatic range, although due to his good manners, Phyllis had not yet caught on. And, fortunately for Wes and perhaps the rest of the firm, Phyllis's entire range of migration at work consisted of the receptionist's station and the strip of floor between that and the women's room. She ate and took breaks in her chair in the lobby, surrounded by her phones and the waist-high, polished mahogany, circular cubby Freeman had built for her back in 1985, when he'd originally bought and renovated the building.

So far as Hardy knew, Phyllis had never walked up the fourteen steps to his old office, now Farrell's domain. He was sure that if she had, they'd have known it because she'd have screamed in dismay before dying of chagrin and mortification on the spot.

Hardy heard Farrell talking within, a telephone call. He tapped once and opened the door. He'd worked in this space for most of a decade and the move from it had been if not traumatic, then at least portentous. A Rubicon of sorts. He'd jettisoned his old desk, his metal filing cabinets, the Sears furniture. He'd come up once after all the stuff had been taken out and stood in the empty room, turning a page in his life.

Now, with Farrell's furnishings, the place belonged heart and soul to the new guy, and reflected some sense of who he was. The first change- the desk- was so fundamental that Hardy had never even considered it. To him, a desk obviously went in the middle of the room, facing the door. It was the podium from which you conducted business. You could use it to create a sense of distance or formality. Most simply, it held your work stuff.

Farrell didn't think so. He had placed his in one of the room's corners, underneath one of the Sutter Street windows. There was a chair behind it, but Farrell almost never sat in it. At the moment, the chair along with the surface of the desk was cluttered with paper- red folders, three-ring binders, yellow legal pads, mail opened and unopened, a month's worth of newspapers- everything overflowing onto everything else.

The corner desk placement left a relatively vast open space that Farrell had essentially made into an informal living room. When Hardy came in, Farrell was stretched out- tie and shoes off- on the longer couch portion of his green, matching sectional set. In one corner, an overgrown rubber tree draped itself over an arm of his wing chair. A brass and bamboo magazine table held a small television in the other corner. On the wall, where Hardy's dartboard had presided, Farrell had mounted a smallish hoop for his Nerf balls. Over by the bar/counter, there was still lots of room behind the couch for up to four people to play at the foosball table. On the other wall, by the desk, Farrell tended to use butcher paper on which he would draw flowcharts to track his various cases.

Farrell held up a finger, indicating he'd be a minute. Hardy crossed over behind the couch, picked up two Nerf basketballs from the floor, and took a shot, then another. He retrieved the balls, did it again. After a few rounds, Farrell said good-bye to whoever it was and sat up. "What's up?" he asked. "Though you've got to be quick. I've got a client coming up here in ten minutes."

"So you cleaned up for him?"

Farrell checked all around, looking for a problem, couldn't find one. "The guy's been in jail ten of the last twelve years and I'm afraid that in spite of my best efforts, he's going back soon. This will be the nicest room he's seen. I like my clients to feel comfortable. So how can I help you?"

Hardy tossed him the ball he was holding. "I can't find my darts. I wonder if you might have carried them out inadvertently."

Farrell shot, patted his pockets. "I don't think so." He went over and grabbed his jacket, made a show of a search. "Nope, not here either. When did you miss them?"

"Just now. A few minutes ago. I was going to meditate, as I like to do…"

"You check your desk?"

"Everywhere. I can't understand it. I don't know where they'd go."

Farrell looked at his watch. "I'm sure they'll turn up. What were you meditating on?"

Hardy rested a haunch on the back of the sectional. "Allan Boscacci, mostly. Amy a little bit. I've hooked up with her on this juvenile case she's been handling, and not a minute too soon, either."

"How's she connected to Boscacci?" Farrell had sat down and was tying his shoes. "Hell of a thing, though, wasn't it? I think I'm in the minority- I usually am- but I kind of liked the guy. Straight shooter, no bullshit."

Hardy nodded soberly. "I know. I felt the same way."

"Anybody have a clue who did it? Or why? Or anything?"

"Not yet. Abe was by here this morning. We exchanged a few bon mots." Hardy hesitated. "He seemed to entertain the thought that it might have been Amy."

Farrell stopped with his shoes, snapped his head up. "Get out."

"That's what I told him. You know the deal that went south? Allan yelled at her and people heard. But, fortunately or not, Amy was at Lou the Greek's getting picked up and pasted about the time Allan must have walked by outside."

"So she's clear now, right?"

"I don't think she ever wasn't. But Abe will get her statement on tape anyway because that's what he does." He was still holding one of the Nerf balls and dropped it onto the couch. "But still, on Amy, Clarence also called. He was his usual low-key and polite self, but said that given the history of this Bartlett affair to date with Amy and Allan and all that, he was sure I'd understand why he was pushing for the seven-oh-seven to get Bartlett back into adult court as soon as possible. He couldn't let people- even my good, well-meaning associates- get away with manipulating his office. Think of the precedent."

"Think of it," Farrell said. "How soon?"

"What's today? Thursday?" Hardy asked. "Next Tuesday. Five days."

"Five days?"

"That's what I said."

"He can't do that. He'll hand us an appeal."

"I said that, too, but I just now checked and there's no rule says he can't. So he can. On the appeal, he says there can't be one since he could have filed on the kid directly as an adult to begin with. He's taking the position that we can't base an appeal on some inadequacy in a hearing we should never have had to begin with."

"But nobody can prepare for any kind of hearing in five days. It's just not doable."

"That was more or less his point, Wes. Clarence wants the boy back upstairs where he belongs, and he wants him there now, to remove the taint, as he so delicately phrased it. After that, we can waive time for the Px"- the preliminary hearing-"and take as long as we want preparing for trial. But Andrew's out of juvenile next week if Clarence has anything to say about it. And then he's looking at life without."

"You don't want to let him get there."

"No," Hardy said. "I've got that part figured out. The rest of it's a little murky."

Farrell got to his feet, tucked in his shirt, buttoned up and grabbed his tie. "So. Are we still throwing that campaign kickoff party for our good friend Clarence?"

Hardy wasn't laughing. "Nothing's easy," he said.

"Stop the presses. You're onto something."

Phyllis buzzed, telling him his client was here, on his way up. "Sorry, but you've got to go," Farrell said. "This guy- my client?- he really hates lawyers."

14

Wu awoke at Hardy's house to another hangover of staggering proportions. Stabbing pain wracked every cell and joint in her body. Pinpoints of flashing light hovered in the periphery of her vision. How many drinks had she had at Lou's? She thought she'd counted six, but it might have been seven or eight, even nine. More than one guy was buying, hoping to get lucky, and Lou was famous for his heavy pour.

Nine drinks? Eighteen to twenty ounces of vodka. She weighed about a hundred and thirty pounds. She was lucky to be alive.

After Hardy had driven her to the All-Day and she'd picked up her car, he had recommended that she take yet another sick day, go home and sleep. And that's what she'd done. After a six-hour rest, at around three o'clock, she called work and left the message that she'd be back in the office tomorrow.

Then, in jeans and a turtleneck sweater, she walked from her apartment down to the Marina green. The sun sparkled off the Bay, and though the breeze was light, it carried a chill. She crawled over some enormous breakwater boulders and sat invisible down in among the stones, facing the water and hugging herself for warmth. There, she cried herself out.

When she came back to her apartment, she found that Hardy had left a message. Glitsky really for truly did want a statement from her right away. The 707 hearing would be in five days, next Tuesday.

Five days.

She played the message again, thinking she couldn't have heard it right. But it sounded the same the second time. She sat in her chair and stared blankly out her window. Five days was impossible. She couldn't possibly prepare.

But apparently, that's all the time she had. The DA and perhaps the judge were sending a very clear message to her, venting the system's righteous pique. It wasn't going to be a matter of choice anymore, of what she'd prefer, of what she could work out with Brandt or Jackman. With the clock now ticking, she had to meet with the Norths, get together with Hardy, above all find out more about who Andrew really was. If she had only five days, she had to start now on some real defense that would be worthy of the name. Her hangover wasn't forgotten- her head still throbbed with a dull and persistent pain- but she couldn't allow herself the luxury of suffering. She had to go to work. Lifting the phone, she punched in the Norths' number.

Glitsky's demand for her statement, to the extent that it had registered as important at all, was nowhere among her priorities.

Linda North greeted her phone call warmly enough. After all, Wu had partially convinced them that she'd played a significant role in keeping Andrew in the juvenile system for the time being. At least he wasn't going to adult court yet and he still wasn't looking at life in prison. Wu's strategy had been harrowing and tense, but ultimately successful. They still had confidence in her.

But Linda had been just leaving the house to get her hair done when she picked up Wu's call. She told her that this wasn't really a good time. It was her regular weekly hair appointment, and if she missed it, Michael would simply give away the time forever to someone else and she'd have to rearrange her entire schedule. It was a pain, but that was how he was. All these artiste hairdressers were the same. She was sure Wu understood.

In any event, Hal couldn't come home right now anyway. He'd already missed a lot of work because of this whole problem with Andrew. And when he wasn't in the office, Linda told her, there were always problems. But if it was important and time-sensitive, Wu should just call Hal at work and meet with him there. He'd fill Linda in when they got together later.

Wu, trying to be flexible, had suggested that she meet them both at their home when Hal's work was done and she'd finished with her hair. But no. It wasn't a good night for that, either. Hal had some black-tie stag food-and-wine event. Linda was planning to see Andrew later on at the YGC, but if Wu needed to talk to one of them right away, she should really just go to Hal's office and talk with him there. That would work out. There wasn't any real crisis with Andrew or anything, was there? If not, Hal was better at details anyway. He would be the one to talk to. He and Linda had great communication and he'd keep her informed of anything Amy thought was important.

The headquarters of North Cinemas was located on Battery Street near the Embarcadero. The three-story building itself was large- it took up most of the block- with a long and low, modern look, brick and glass. Wu parked on-site under the building, in a reserved spot next to Hal's to which the attendant had directed her.

Still in her jeans and sweater- the Norths might not have been anxious to meet with her, but she'd left her own home in a hurry- she took the elevator to the top floor, then turned right and walked a long hallway covered with a soothing green industrial carpet. The walls were adorned on both sides with framed movie posters, dozens of them. Having checked in and been told by the polite, spike-haired young blond woman at the desk that Mr. North was expecting her and would be able to meet with her shortly, she waited in the cool and spacious reception area, flipping through the pages of Entertainment Weekly. Through the floor-to-ceiling tinted window, she looked across the bay to Treasure Island, then to Berkeley beyond. In the clear afternoon light, under the breeze-swept sky, both looked close enough to touch.

When she finished a cursory perusal of the magazine, she looked at her watch and frowned. Giving it one more minute, she ran out of patience, got up and walked to the reception desk again. "I'm sorry. Is Mr. North being held up?"

The young woman looked up. "I'm sure he's busy. He said he'd be right out."

"Yes, but I wonder if you would mind checking again. It's been fifteen minutes."

The woman lowered her voice, spoke conspiratorially. "Fifteen minutes is nothing."

Wu forced a tolerant smile. "I'm afraid it is to me. Would you mind trying him again please? Amy Wu."

She popped her gum and shrugged. "Sure. I remember." Pushing a few buttons on the console in front of her, she spoke into her headset. "Hal? Ms. Wu's still waiting." A pause. "Okay. Sure, I'll tell her." She ended the connection, looked at Wu. "He says two more minutes." But she held up her hand, opened and closed it twice slowly- the message clear. It was going to be closer to ten.

It was eight.

Projecting energy and command, Hal appeared from out of nowhere and suddenly was standing in front of where Wu sat. "Amy, sorry to have kept you. All kinds of madness going on back there. As usual. We're supposed to open the new Disney tonight and somehow somebody over in Walnut Creek lost six reels. Tell me where the hell you mislay six reels, I'd like to know. I gotta think somebody's stealin' them." She stood and they shook hands. "Anyway, I'm here now. What's the problem? I thought we were coasting on the legal stuff for a while until we got this next hearing scheduled. Is everything okay with Andrew?"

Wu was somewhat gratified to hear that both parents at least asked about Andrew's welfare. "Yes, sir. I think he's fine. I'm planning to go on up and see him after I leave here."

"Good. He told Linda he thinks you're upset with him, about what he did. He'll be glad to see you."

"So Linda already visited him today? She said she was going tonight, too."

"Did she? I don't know. What's today, Thursday? Thursday is normally her bridge group in the morning, I think, but maybe she went up. You'd have to ask her. Anyway. So what's up you need to see us all the sudden? You want to stay out here, by the way? Go in to my office? Whatever."

"Here is fine. I just wanted to tell you that they have scheduled the next hearing." She paused. "And it's for next Tuesday."

The slab face went into a shock riff. "Next Tuesday?" He counted silently to himself. "Five days. That's like it might as well be tomorrow, isn't it? I thought the courts liked to move slow on this stuff."

"Most of the time they do. In this case, the DA's mad Andrew didn't admit when he thought he was going to. He's expressing his displeasure."

"That's bullshit. Fuck him."

"Yes, sir."

Hal's scowl deepened, his voice suddenly harsh. "And I thought the plea change was part of your strategy all along. Now here we are sandbagged again. What's that about?"

Wu, expecting something like this, had prepared her reply. "It's about Allan Boscacci getting shot, sir. The whole thing would have rolled off his back I'm sure, but now we've got Clarence Jackman himself with his shorts in a twist. He's just asserting his authority. Anyway, I'm going to appeal the date, but my boss says it's not likely to change."

"Your boss?"

She nodded. "Dismas Hardy, you might have heard of him. He's good. And this is really very good news. If the hearing goes ahead on this accelerated time frame, he's going to come aboard to help out."

"And I pay extra for that?"

"No. The firm covers his time and expenses. We didn't make this problem with the DA, but we don't think it's right to ask you to pay for it, either. I'll be putting in a lot of hours, though. Just to let you know. We may be looking at another retainer payment, especially if Andrew goes up to adult."

"Which we're going to fight."

"Tooth and nail. Yes, sir. But on the assumption that the seven-oh-seven is going ahead as scheduled on Tuesday, I wanted to bring you and Linda up to speed on how it's structured so we can be prepared how to proceed."

"Jesus," Hal said. "It never ends." He threw a glance over his shoulder- all the work awaiting him behind one of those doors- then came back to Wu. "Maybe we want to sit down." They did. "All right," he said. "Shoot."

Over the next twenty minutes or so, Wu gave him the short course.

For all of its apparent complexity, a 707 proceeding concerned itself with only one question: is the minor "amenable to treatment" as a juvenile? From the perspective of the courts and the justice system, this determination was critical. Despite the insistence by some that one of the goals of adult incarceration should be rehabilitation of the inmate for an ultimate return to society, in practice, adult jail and prison time was essentially punishment. By contrast, the juvenile system's ethic took on a far more hopeful and optimistic cast. Though incarceration was part of the process, the goal was primarily to rehabilitate, not punish, the minor.

If you were in the juvenile system, the bureaucracy contemplated your eventual redemption. You still had a chance to turn out all right, to be a good citizen and a productive member of society, your youthful sins forgiven. So the system provided not just the stick of incarceration, but the carrots of education, psychological and career counseling, job training and a host of other social welfare programs. Because of these programs and treatments, each minor in the juvenile system would typically interact with an assortment of counselors, educators and social workers, and not just his warden and guards.

But this vast, bureaucratic apparatus of hope was not to be wasted on those it could not help, who were not "amenable to treatment." These were juveniles who, by virtue of their callousness, cruelty, history and crimes, must in justice be viewed as adults. Society would rightfully treat them as incorrigible and not squander its limited resources in a doomed and hopeless bid to try and rehabilitate them. And further, these lost causes wouldn't be permitted to contaminate the salvageable kids by their sophisticated and fixed criminality.

But first, the courts needed an objective formula to identify those who might be helped, and those who must be abandoned.

To that end, for violent crimes, five criteria for amenability had evolved. If in the court's judgment the minor failed the test for any one of these criteria, then that person would be found not amenable to treatment in the juvenile system and handed up to Superior Court to be tried as an adult. These criteria were (1) degree of the minor's criminal sophistication, (2) the likelihood of the minor's rehabilitation prior to the expiration of the juvenile court's jurisdiction (i.e., the minor's twenty-fifth birthday), (3) the minor's previous delinquent history, (4) the success of previous attempts by the juvenile system to rehabilitate the minor and (5) the circumstances and gravity of the offense for which the minor has been charged.

"Okay," North said. "So what's all that mean?"

"It means we're going to have to talk- you and me and Linda- about which if any of these criteria apply to Andrew. I mean, we've got a pretty good idea about number five, the gravity of the offense. It's murder, so it's serious. But we fight that one when we get to it. Meanwhile, I've got to know about all the others, so that if any of them seem to apply to him, we work up a defense, or at least an explanation for the court."

North was frowning deeply, sitting all the way back in the couch, his hands in his lap, his legs straight out and crossed at the ankles. "Haven't we already done that? Remember that second day at the house, I think it was. When you wanted to know all about the blowups, and we talked about his shrink and all that?"

"Sure. I remember. But this is getting down much more to the nuts and bolts. Individual events. Reasons he shouldn't really be considered an adult."

"Character issues?"

"Right."

He turned his head to face her. "But didn't you say the other day that we didn't want to bring up character? Once we did that, then the prosecution could introduce their own stuff and jump all over us?"

"You were listening." Wu didn't seem very happy about it.

"Damn straight. I'm a good listener. So now you're saying we need character?"

"Maybe it's a bit of a risk. Certainly it's a different situation. But the bottom line is we need to defeat all the criteria. Every one of them, or Andrew goes up."

North sighed heavily, cast his gaze out to the view. "I'll talk to Linda. Maybe between us we can come up with something. You got those things, the criteria, written down?"

"Yes. Right here."

"Okay. Leave them with me, and if we can come up with something concrete you don't already know, we'll get back to you. How's that?"

Wu arrived before her client did in the cold and tiny room- the scratched table, the ancient chairs, the antiseptic old-school smell. Suddenly, she noticed the bars of sunlight high on the opposite wall, and she realized that she'd been awake only for a little over three hours total today, and the daylight was already nearly gone.

And wouldn't her father have been proud of her for that? For wasting the day? Or the past weeks? She rested her head in her hands as a fresh wave of nausea and revulsion rolled and broke over her. An unconscious moan escaped.

"Are you all right?"

She hadn't heard the key, hadn't been aware that the door had opened. Now Bailiff Cottrell- the young one with the old eyes- stood in the entrance, holding a restraining hand up for Andrew, waiting for a sign that the interview was still on. It wasn't immediately forthcoming, so he asked, "Are we good here, ma'am?" Eventually she nodded, and the bailiff lowered his hand, let her client come in, closed the door.

Andrew warily kept his eyes on her as he pulled his chair over, sat on the front inch of the seat. "Are you mad at me?" he asked.

Wu's mouth was dry, her face clammy. She closed her eyes for an instant, ran her hand over her forehead. "No. I'm not mad at you, Andrew."

"I thought you would be because I didn't do what you wanted me to." He had his hands clasped together between his knees. "But I couldn't say I did it."

"I know," she said. "I wouldn't worry about it now. It's done. The thing we have to do now is prevail at this hearing, get you mandated in the juvenile system so you stay here."

"But I thought that was already over with." Confusion played itself all over his features. "I mean, that's what everybody is so mad about, right?"

"Not really. They're mad that now they have to go through the hassle of trying to move you back up to adult court."

"So you're saying your deal, even though I didn't agree to it, got me another chance anyway?"

"Yeah."

Suddenly, the look of confusion cleared. Her client tentatively smiled. "Well, then, if your job is my defense, how could it have been wrong? Maybe the guy you made the deal with wasn't as careful as he needed to be, either. You ever think of that? Maybe it wasn't all your fault?"

Wu wouldn't think ill of the dead, especially not today. But Andrew's rationale released some small bit of the tension she felt. "Well," she said, "at least some of it was my fault. But that's very nice of you to say, and I could use a little nice." For the first time with Andrew, she felt something like a connection.

But there was still the business, the five criteria for amenability to the juvenile system. After she had painstakingly gone through the list for him, she sat back with her arms crossed over her chest. "We need to talk about each of these individually, Andrew," she said. "If the court finds you not amenable on any one of them, you go up."

"Any one?"

"That's the rule. And I'm afraid we've got less than a week to prepare."

"But these criteria." Andrew scratched at the tabletop. "Most of them don't apply to me at all. I don't even know what they mean by criminal sophistication, or if I can be rehabilitated. Rehabilitated from what?"

"Your violent criminal past."

He looked a question at her. "I don't have one."

"I know. But I don't think sophistication is the problem. Neither is rehab."

"But gravity is."

Everyone seemed to understand that one immediately. "Yes."

He gestured around the small room. "If it helps me get out of here… but I was saying, even on gravity, if I didn't do it…" He raised his eyes, hopeful.

But she didn't want to raise those hopes. She came forward and reached across the table, a hand over his forearm. "This hearing isn't about whether you did it, Andrew. I need you to understand that. It's only about whether you go up as an adult or not. They're going to pretty much assume the gravity criteria."

"And they only need the one?"

"I'm afraid so."

"So I'm going to lose?"

"We may lose, yes. For now. But we'll get a real chance in adult court."

"We ought to just go straight there, then. If this hearing is just a formality."

"No," she said. "We've got to try. Anything that keeps you down here even for on extra minute is what we want to do." In his eyes, she saw real worry- perhaps he was starting to realize where his refusal to admit had left him. Left them both. "So we've got to talk about some real issues, Andrew. My partner, Mr. Hardy? He's got a few ideas about gravity. We're not just going to give that to them. But the other criteria, we don't want any surprises with those either."

"I don't know what they'd be."

"No. I don't either, but that's why they call them surprises."

He started with some marginal enthusiasm as they discussed possible witnesses for the various criteria- the psychologist he'd seen for anger management, his school counselor, one of the probation officers up here. But before they'd gone too far, the enormity of what he was facing seemed to drag him down.

His focus wavered, then abandoned him entirely, and Wu- not at peak performance levels herself- found it difficult to humor him. From her perspective, his primary emotion was sorrow for himself. He stopped every few sentences, stared straight ahead or down at the table. He fought back tears a couple of times.

"Why should we bother doing this?" he'd say. "We're never going to win."

Or: "I'm such a loser. This isn't going to make any difference."

Or: "It'd be better for everybody if I just killed myself, wouldn't it?"

That last one stopped Wu. "Why would you want to do that, Andrew? What good would that do?"

"It'd end all this stupidity. If they're going to put me away anyway."

Wu scratched at the table, summoning her patience. "That's what we're trying to avoid."

"It won't work, though, will it?"

"Not if we don't try."

But even to her, the words sounded condescending, the kind of adult pablum he'd been forced to eat a hundred times. "Or even if we do," he said.

She tried to keep him on track, but it was a long, uphill slog until they finally summoned him for dinner. After he left, she felt she had no reserve of strength and remained sitting, elbows on the table, on her papers and notes. She rested her head on her palms, the heels of them pressing into her eyes.

She heard a knock. "Excuse me? Ms. Wu?" Bailiff Cottrell, come to close up the room, stared down at her from the doorway. She must have nearly let herself doze off. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Fine. I'm fine."

"You don't look well. Can I get you something? Some water?"

Moving slowly, she leaned back in her chair. "How about a head transplant? And maybe a new body to go with it."

"You couldn't get a better face," he said, "and you definitely don't need a new body."

At the moment, she felt about as attractive as a garbage truck, and she almost laughed at the compliment. But he was, she thought, just trying to be nice. "Thank you," she said. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting while I just sat here. It's been a long day." She started gathering the papers and folders she'd spread out over the table.

"Ms. Wu, let me help you," he said.

"No, thanks. I've got it. And you can call me Amy."

"Ray, if you didn't remember," he said, then stood waiting at the door while she finished up, throwing everything into her heavy lawyer's briefcase, snapping it closed. When she stood, then leaned over to pick the briefcase up, he said, "That thing must weigh a ton. At least let me take that."

Exhausted, her head still pounding from her hangover, she finally nodded. "That would be nice."

He stepped into the room, picked up the briefcase, gave her some support with a hand under her elbow. "You're sure you're okay to walk?"

In fact, she had some question about that, but she took a step and then another and in a minute they were outside in the hall and then at the main entrance to the cabins. Cottrell accompanied her outside to the razor-wire gate and opened it for her. They stopped there and he put down her briefcase. Turning to say good-bye, she looked up at him. Their eyes met for an instant, and she thought she caught a glimpse of that earlier wariness she had noticed in the courtroom. Again, his eyes seemed old and somehow empty, but- it was as though he had a switch he could throw- suddenly a bit of life came into them. "Your client seems pretty down," he said.

She blew out heavily. "I don't blame him," she said. "He's screwing himself."

"How's that?"

"I dealt him an eight-year top and he turned it down. Now he's looking at LWOP."

"They're moving him to adult?"

"Not yet, but it's probable. I'm trying to get him to help me, but he doesn't seem to know the word 'cooperate.' "

"Maybe he's just scared."

"I'm sure he is. And he should be. Oh, God!" She brought a hand up to her head, squeezed at her temples. With her other hand, she grabbed the side of the gate for support. Cottrell stepped up, grabbed both of her shoulders. "You look like you're going to faint. Maybe you want to sit down."

She nodded and leaned into him. He put his arm around her and walked her back toward the cabins.

From the lobby of the admin building, down the hill Jason Brandt saw the bailiff carrying her briefcase, walking with her to the gate, where they stopped and spent a minute talking. He didn't want her to see him, at least not until she was alone, and so he remained where he was, pretty much out of sight.

Wu hadn't left his thoughts since the night they'd spent together, and now Brandt was unable to take his eyes off her. He had wanted to get to know her since the first time he'd seen her, back right after his law school days. But one or the other of them had always had other relationships going or big cases and she'd more or less slipped from his consciousness until she showed up in his courtroom last week, when finally- he'd thought- there had been no impediment.

Then he really believed that running into her at the Balboa had been a sign. There had been real chemistry between them that night, something uncommon and, he believed, maybe even a little magical. As a general rule, he didn't do one-night stands. The encounter, like it or not, had seemed as though it meant something. Maybe something important.

Then, this morning, thinking for a moment that because she had been near Boscacci when he'd been shot that she, too, might have been physically hurt, made him realize that he'd been way too harsh with her the other morning. Okay, she'd made a mistake by not telling him right away that Bartlett's case wasn't really settled, but maybe it had been innocent after all, something he'd never really given her a chance to assert. Maybe they'd just started talking at the Balboa and in all the personal stuff they'd shared, including the sex, the professional business between them had receded into the background. It certainly had for him.

So he didn't want this antagonism between them to go on any longer. He wanted to apologize for his overreaction, at least see what she had to say to that. And just now, when he'd first seen her coming out of the cabins, he thought he'd take the opportunity to talk to her. One way or another, he thought that the Bartlett matter was going to be over in a few weeks at the most, at least as far as Wu and he were concerned. If Bartlett went to adult court, they wouldn't be adversaries in the same courtroom anymore. Maybe they could pick up where they'd left off. If he could get her to talk to him.

Although if she had gone off on him as ballistic as he had with her, he wasn't sure if he would talk to her.

But then suddenly, as Brandt was watching them, he saw the bailiff put his hands on her shoulders. Then she leaned into him, her face against his chest, and he put his arm around her, keeping it there until they had both disappeared back into the cabins.

His stomach went hollow. He turned to take the long way out the front door of the admin building, where there was less chance that they would inadvertently run into each other.

Cottrell stayed with Wu until she told him she felt better, and then he told her to take care of herself and went inside, back to work. Still, Wu didn't move for a few minutes. She sat on the bench just outside the entrance door to the cabins, trying to summon enough strength to get up and walk to her car. When the cellphone in her briefcase rang, she considered not answering, but then realized that it might be, in fact probably was, the Norths. After all that had transpired so far, she felt that however exhausted she might be, at least she owed them accessibility. She got it on the third ring.

It wasn't the Norths. It was her boss. "Amy? So you're up and about. Where are you?"

"Up at the YGC. I just talked to Andrew."

"Good for you. How's he doing?"

"He's depressed. We talked about starting a club. Not really. That was a joke."

"Well, this isn't. Did you get the message I left at your house about talking to Glitsky?" It came back to her in a flash. "Oh, shit."

"Right," Hardy said. "He's still at his office and he called me at home just now, which I really try to discourage. He was wondering how he could get in contact with you, like immediately. Since I had more or less promised him that you'd see him today, he wondered what was going on. You want his direct number?"

"I guess I'd better."

"Good guess."

By now it was nearly 7:00 P.M. There was no one at any of the desks in Glitsky's reception area at the Hall of Justice, so Wu walked back through the conference room and down the small hallway to the deputy chief's door, which stood ajar.

Some natural light from outside made it through the drawn blinds, but with the electric lights off, the room seemed dim. Glitsky sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He was canted slightly forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his head down. He might have been napping. Wu was surprised that he didn't seem to have heard her approach, and she stood a moment in the doorway, waiting for him to turn and acknowledge her. When that didn't happen, she tapped lightly on the door.

He didn't exactly jump, but he'd clearly been somewhere else. Now, back in the present, he stood and came toward Wu, checking his watch as he did so. "You made good time from the YGC," he said. "I appreciate it."

"No traffic for a change," she said. "I'm sorry about the mixup around this interview, sir, me not coming down here. It's all my fault, not Mr. Hardy's. He called my home and told me you wanted to see me, but I have a client who's in big trouble and I went to see him first. I didn't realize that this was so urgent, even though Mr. Hardy said it was."

Glitsky seemed to find a little humor in her explanation. "Next time I talk to him, I'll tell him you tried to cover for him. But I know the truth. He forgot to tell you, didn't he?"

"No, really. He-"

But Glitsky held up a hand and stopped her. "Kidding, just kidding." He didn't seem to take much joy in it, though. Awkwardly, he shrugged, half turned. "Well, you're here now," he said, pointing. "Why don't you take that chair and we'll get going."

Wu sat while he got his tape recorder out of his desk, tested it, set it down and recited the standard introduction, identifying himself, his badge, the case and event number, his subject, where they were. Three or four years before, in her first year out of law school and before Treya and Abe had gotten married, Wu had played a small role helping Hardy and Treya learn the identity of the person who'd killed Glitsky's grown daughter. They hadn't all exactly socialized- last night at Boscacci's death scene was the first time Glitsky had seen her since- but there was a definite sense of familiarity and even goodwill still between them. Nevertheless, Glitsky was a procedure freak, and this was a formal interview pursuant to the death of an important person. He wasn't going to phone it in.

"Ms. Wu," he began, "where and when was the last time you saw Allan Boscacci alive?"

"Yesterday afternoon, here at the Hall of Justice. In his office."

Pre-supplied with Hardy's version of events and Jason Brandt's information conveyed through Treya, he walked her through the history and intricacies of the Bartlett matter. Then: "Mr. Brandt mentioned that there might be some bad blood between you and Allan because of this blown deal."

"Not really bad blood. I don't know why he said that. It wasn't personal."

"But the meeting was rancorous?"

"A little, yes."

"Were voices raised?"

"His. Yes, sir. I had been wrong and didn't do much except sit and take it."

"Did he threaten you?"

"Physically? No. Professionally, he made it clear we wouldn't be doing many more plea deals together."

"And how did you feel about that?"

"It wasn't much of a surprise, after what had happened. I just let him vent, and couldn't really blame him."

"You had no reaction?"

"No. Of course I was upset. But more at myself than at Allan."

"All right. And after that, after this heated interview with Mr. Boscacci, what did you do?"

She gave him the details, as much as she remembered them, of the rest of her afternoon and early evening at Lou the Greek's.

"And you were there continuously? You never left the premises?"

"No, sir. Not until about eight, eight-fifteen, something like that."

"Accompanied by Mr. Barry Hess, is that right?"

"I think so. I mean, I think that was his name. Whatever it is, he was with me when I walked out of Lou's and went to the All-Day."

"So what is your relationship with Mr. Hess?"

"We don't have one. He picked me up at Lou's and I may have let him kiss me once or twice on the way to the parking lot. I really don't remember too clearly."

"Okay. To get to the place he was killed from the Hall, Mr. Boscacci very probably walked by Lou's. Did you by any chance notice him walking by?"

"No."

"Do you recall hearing a gunshot?"

"No."

"All right. After you discovered the body, what did you do?"

"We called nine one one on Barry's cellphone, and got the police."

"And then what? Did you call anyone else?"

"I called Mr. Hardy at his home, but he wasn't there. His kids told me where he was, and I reached him at a restaurant."

"And why did you call him?"

"Because he's my boss and I thought he'd want to know about Allan right away."

"Is he also acting as your personal attorney in this matter?"

"My personal attorney?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. In what matter?"

"Mr. Boscacci's death."

"No. Why would I need…" She stopped.

"He pretty effectively protected you from having to do this interview with me or someone else last night. Did you discuss that between you?"

"No. I was drunk. That's why I didn't talk last night. You were there. I talked to you, remember? We said today would be fine."

"Right. Did you talk to Mr. Hardy about your statement today?"

"Just that I ought to get down here and give it."

"Nothing about its substance?"

"No."

"So last night, you didn't call Mr. Hardy to come down to the crime scene to act as your attorney?"

"No. No, of course not. I didn't need an attorney."

"All right, Ms. Wu. Thanks for your cooperation."

The bailiff wanted Linda to meet Andrew in the general visitors' room, which was much larger than the other room they'd used the last couple of times, but far less private. She told the bailiff that she'd really prefer the smaller room, as she wanted to have a sensitive conversation with her son. But there was nothing the bailiff could do. The smaller attorneys' visiting room was currently in use. There were a lot of kids here, and all of them had lawyers and parents.

So she waited, and waited- there were only twelve stations- until she got to the front of the line in the gymnasium, and then until a chair cleared. Sitting between two other women, one Hispanic and one African-American, she was hyper-aware of being the only Caucasian visitor.

Eyes down, Andrew entered in his protective shuffling teen gait, exaggerated shoulder movement, his feet kind of sliding along. She wondered why teenage guys considered it so cool to be sullen and silent, then tried to remember when Andrew had begun to adopt that walk. She thought it was about the time he'd stopped talking to her- to anyone in the family, really- three or four years ago.

But what could she do? It wasn't as though parents could control their children or exert any discipline. Not in today's world when everyone grew up so fast, when between television, the movies and the internet all kids were plugged into the same culture, the same clothes, the same slang, even the same walk. Linda believed that there was no way that she could have any impact against such a relentless and ubiquitous force. If you tried to teach them manners, discipline them, influence their behavior at all, they just shut you out. It didn't even make sense to try; they'd just resent you for it. The thing to do was be their friend when they let you and otherwise leave them alone. The best you could hope for is that they'd eventually grow out of it, and somehow turn out okay. But that sure wasn't anything over which she had any control.

The partition prevented her from giving him a hug. She missed the contact. It might embarrass him, but thank God he still let her hug him sometimes. Not that it wasn't somehow grudging, not that he hugged her back with any enthusiasm. But he was still her baby, and she didn't know any other way to reach him.

Andrew pulled out his chair and sat down across from her. They didn't have him in handcuffs. They could reach across the counter and hold hands if they wanted, although she knew that Andrew probably wouldn't go there.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

Silence.

"Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Sure." A pause. "Thanks for coming down."

"Hal and Alicia say hi."

"I'm sure."

"Don't you want to tell them hi back?"

His eyes were flat. "Sure."

For a minute, she feared that neither of them would find anything else to say.

She forced herself to keep trying. "How are you holding up?"

"Okay."

"Really?"

A shrug.

Another silence.

"You look a little tired. Are they feeding you all right?"

"Yeah." He drew a heavy breath, finally said something. "My lawyer was by earlier."

"I know. She called us, too."

"What'd she tell you?"

Linda tried to sound upbeat, but the news didn't lend itself much to that. "That she was bringing on another lawyer from her firm to help with your case. Supposedly he's really good."

"What else is she going to say? That he's shit?"

"Well." She wished he wouldn't use that kind of language, but she wasn't going to say anything he might take as a reprimand. Not with everything else he was going through. "She also told Hal about these criteria to keep you here."

"Yeah," he said. "The Ritz."

Linda sighed. "Do you like her?"

"Who?"

"Amy. I mean, Hal and I feel she's doing a really good job, and now she's brought on this senior partner to help. But if you didn't feel good about her…"

"I don't really care. She's all right. It doesn't really matter."

"Of course it does, Andrew. Don't lose hope now."

"Okay."

"Really," she said. "Don't."

He shook his head. "Okay, sure, good idea, Mom. Except that it's starting to look I'm never going to get out of custody."

"Don't say that." She reached out over the counter. "Here, hold my hand," she said.

"That's not going to help anything."

"Please," she said. "Humor me, okay?"

He sighed again and put his hand in hers. "So there's this hearing on Tuesday to see if I stay here. Did she tell you it doesn't look too good?"

"Not really so much that. She said it was kind of like a dress rehearsal for the trial, where we get to see what they've got. Which is really an advantage."

"I bet."

"It is."

He shrugged again. "Either way, Mom, I didn't do this and still they got me in here. If they can do that, I don't think they're ever going to let me get out."

Linda didn't want to argue with him. "Well," she said, "let's just wait for Tuesday and hope for the best."

"Mom, the best, even if we win on Tuesday, is eight years."

"No. If they have the trial down here, then the worst is eight years."

"Great," he said, "maybe we should throw a party."

"Andrew."

"All right, all right."

"Let's just see, okay. Keep your chin up." She gave him a quick buck-up smile, squeezed his hand.

"Sure."

A longish silence settled. Finally, she said, "I want to ask you something."

"Okay."

"And I want to know how you really feel."

"All right."

She took in a lungful of air. "Well, you know the Newport Open…" This was a tennis tournament in Southern California that they'd attended for the past several years. "It starts tomorrow and-"

He pulled his hand out of hers. "Go."

"You're sure?" She searched his face for any sign of wavering, and saw none. "You won't mind?"

"Why would I mind?"

"It's just we won't be able to visit you."

"That's all right. I'm going to be working with Amy most of the days anyway. It doesn't matter."

"You keep saying that."

"That's 'cause it's true. It doesn't matter."

"We'd stay here if it made any difference to you at all, you know. At all, even the tiniest little bit. No question."

"I know that."

"But we've had these tickets for months. They're really expensive, you know, but we'd give them up gladly. We would."

"You don't need to."

"And even if we do go, we'll be back by Monday, in plenty of time for the hearing. We'd be there for you for that."

"Mom, I said go. I mean it. It's no big deal."

"You're sure? I mean completely positive?"

"Completely," he said. "A hundred percent. Go. Have a good time."

It wasn't yet completely dark out, but Wu had drawn the blinds in her apartment and turned out the lights. She was completely wrung out and badly shaken by the thought that Glitsky might actually entertain the thought that she could have killed Allan. When she had at last gotten home after the interview, she'd swallowed more aspirin, brushed her teeth twice, then taken a shower.

Her head still throbbed, but she let herself believe that it was marginally better. By the time she woke up in the morning, she might be halfway to human again. Collapsing into bed, she had just pulled the covers up over her head, turned onto her side and closed her eyes when the doorbell sounded. This time she was going to ignore it. She'd already had the day from hell and all she wanted it to do was end, which it would when she slept. Whoever it was would go away.

Another ring.

Leave me alone! She pulled the covers tighter around her.

The knock, when it came, was authoritative. Three sharp raps. "Amy! Come on, open up." Brandt.

She threw her blankets off and padded over the hardwood to the door, spoke through it. "What do you want, Jason? I'm trying to sleep. I don't feel good."

"I want to talk to you."

"Talk to me in the morning."

"Two minutes, that's all."

"You can apologize through the door."

"It's not just that."

"No? Well, it should be." She hesitated another moment, then sighed. "All right, let me get some clothes on." Hitting the light switch by the door, she grabbed her jeans, stepped into them, then tucked in the yellow spaghetti strap cotton blouse she'd gone to bed in.

She considered taking thirty extra seconds and putting on a bra- she didn't want to send any kind of sexual signal- but if it was going to be two minutes, she might as well hear it and then get back in bed. Besides, she wore no makeup, her hair was still damp, her eyes must be ravaged. She was a train wreck.

She opened the door.

In a gray business suit, white shirt, rep tie, Brandt stood awkwardly. Hands in his pockets. He cleared his throat. "Can I come in?"

Stepping back without a word, she let him pass, closed the door behind them.

He crossed over to her all-purpose table, pulled a chair around and sat in it, looking around, getting his bearings, really seeing the room for the first time. The other night they hadn't paused for the grand tour before dragging each other into bed. Afterward she didn't think he'd even turned on the lights, just pulled his clothes on and let himself out.

Arms crossed, waiting, she leaned against the counter by the sink.

"I was down in the street for a while and saw your shadow moving up here, then the lights went out. I thought if I was going to get you, it had to be now."

"Okay, you got me." Then his phrase caught her. "You were down in the street for a while? Doing what?"

"Just standing there." He shrugged again. "Deciding whether to come up and try to talk to you."

Something in his tone stopped what would have been another harsh reply. She cocked her head. "All right. Talk."

"First," he began, "I wanted to apologize."

"Okay."

"But beyond that, I guess I'm having trouble figuring you out." He took a breath, pushed on. "I don't understand what's happening exactly, first the other night with us, then the next morning at my office-"

She cut him off. "Then you accuse me of murder. Talk about not understanding what's happening."

"Amy, I swear to God. I never accused you of anything like murder. I didn't accuse you of anything at all."

"That's funny. I just got back from the Hall of Justice, where Abe Glitsky said you told him there was bad blood between me and Allan. He seemed to think I was some kind of a suspect."

"That couldn't have been me."

"You're saying you didn't talk to him?"

"No. I talked to him. But just telling him about what's happened with Bartlett-"

"And me and Allan."

"Okay. But never even implying… I mean, come on. If Glitsky came to that on his own… If you want, I'll call him tomorrow. I never meant anything like that. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean…" He looked up at her. "I'm sorry," he said again.

Her tone softened. She was too exhausted for another round. "All right, apology accepted, okay? Now if you don't mind, I'm exhausted and your two minutes are up."

But he didn't move. "I didn't just want to apologize." He scratched at the table, took a quick breath. "I wanted to ask you about you and me."

"You and me?" She pulled a chair around and sat on it. "First you accuse me of screwing you for advantage in a case, then you go to Glitsky and somehow give him the idea I might have killed Allan. I don't see any 'you and me' in this picture." She paused, let out a breath. "Look, I don't expect anything from you, Jason. That night was that night. I'm not telling anybody about it, so our jobs are both safe. So now you can go. In fact, you really should go now."

"That's not it," he said.

"No? Then tell me what it is." Sighing again, she shook her head. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I thought it was a game to you, too."

"No. Okay, maybe it started that way at first." He walked over to one of the windows, turned back to her. "For a minute, I thought we had something going. I mean personally." He tapped his chest. "In here." He waited, eyes on her. "I guess not."

She didn't contradict him. Did he really think she was going to fall for this line now? If he would have said something that night, maybe. Because he was right. There had been a real moment between them. They'd both realized it. Beyond the physical stuff, something that had felt to her like a deeper connection. Then in the morning, he'd been gone.

Fool me once, okay. But twice? She didn't think so.

A tense silence gathered, until she finally broke it. "I think you'd better get out of here right now. I mean it."

15

Hardy didn't want to go out after dinner at home, but with the 707 hearing looming, he felt he had no choice. Since Frannie had suggested he put his heart into his work again, she couldn't very well object. They both knew the strains that Hardy's work ethic had placed on their marriage in the past, and both saw the irony in her position. If Hardy was going to care, he was going to put in the hours. That was who he was. That was the trade-off. So when he told her he had to go out and have a talk with Mike Mooney's neighbor, she kissed him with a tolerant humor. "Husbands," she said. "Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em."

He had conceived of a strategic idea that he thought stood a long shot, but still possible, chance to play at the 707 hearing if all the stars lined up just right. He'd already told Wu that she could confidently call any witnesses she wanted. Jackman's insouciant attitude notwithstanding, Judge Johnson would be concerned about the risk of having the case reversed on appeal. He wouldn't hurt the defense any more than he already had done. And it would be greatly to Wu's advantage if she knew how some of the witnesses were going to testify at trial.

But it had occurred to Hardy that he might be able to take it a step further, and convince Johnson that justice demanded he allow witnesses to the crime itself. This would be decidedly unusual, since in this type of hearing, the prosecution only had to make a prima facie case that the crime had been committed, and there wasn't any doubt that somebody had killed Mooney and Laura. But Clarence Jackman had never practiced as a criminal lawyer in his pre-DA career, and even after three years in office, he was sometimes embarrassingly inexperienced in the nuts and bolts of how things really worked. And Hardy's hope was that Brandt, young and relatively green himself, by pushing the supercharged rush to the 707 after Boscacci's murder, had goaded Jackman to a tactical blunder.

Judge Johnson would be nervous that the defense had only been given five days to prepare for the hearing. No doubt feeling angry and abused himself, he would be inclined to grant the DA's wish to get Andrew moved downtown- he'd want to slap Wu as badly as either Brandt or Jackman did- but Hardy and Wu would file motions by Monday making sure the judge knew that the defense considered this unseemly hurry an appealable issue. After that, if Johnson let the hearing proceed as planned, he'd be extra sensitive to the threat of appeal, and might let the defense get away with calling witnesses related to the case in chief as a function of the fifth amenability criterion- the gravity of the offense.

If Hardy and Wu could make that happen, then Andrew would get himself not just an administrative hearing, but a de facto juvenile trial. If he lost at the 707, then worst case Hardy and Wu would get two chances to hear the prosecution's case. And to beat it. And even if Andrew then lost again in adult court, Hardy might still be able to appeal, saying that they'd been forced to go to the 707 before they could adequately prepare.

Hardy knew this wasn't just a long shot, it was a full-court bomb at the buzzer. But occasionally, he knew, they went in.

So as he turned into Beaumont Avenue, in the first block off Geary Boulevard, he felt some small grounds for enthusiasm. Twenty feet of free, legal curb space yawned open on his right, and he pulled over and parked. He'd driven out with the top down on his convertible- there was no fog and the last days' winds had finally abated- and now he sat, headlights off, letting a sense of the crime scene seep into him. He forced himself to wait, to observe, to listen. There was no hurry. If his coming out here was going to do any good at all, he had to slow down and take time.

It was a short block. Eleven relatively small two-story housing units squatted between the major thoroughfare of Geary and the next street south, which was Anza. The address he sought was the fourth building down from Anza, and, at least from the outside, by far the smallest residence on the block. Set back a little from the street, it was also the only building with a lawn in front and a driveway with a separate garage on the side. Lights shone from the upstairs windows while the bottom unit- Mooney's old place- was dark.

Finally, he put up the hood on his car, grabbed his legal pad from the seat next to him, got out of the car and went to lean against one of the streetlights on his side of the street. With six of these, all miraculously functioning, the area was surprisingly well lit. This wasn't the most unusual thing in the world, Hardy thought, but it almost never happened on his own block, which was in a similar suburban, high-density neighborhood.

He made a note to check and see if Public Works had come out to install new lights since Mooney's murder. Sometimes a station captain or one of the beat cops, called to a crime scene in one of these nice neighborhoods, would take the opportunity to check the city's housekeeping and let somebody know. If the street had been significantly darker two months ago, it might make a difference to eyewitness testimony.

Standing there on the curb, Hardy became aware of a subtle rhythm. He timed it out of curiosity- he didn't think it was really worth writing down. About every forty seconds, the street noise from Geary, less than two hundred feet away, increased dramatically as eastbound traffic, released from its last red light, sped past on the way to the next one. The sound wasn't anywhere near deafening, but once Hardy became aware of it, he waited through a few cycles, trying to determine how loud it could get.

Loud enough to cover gunshots? He didn't think so. Certainly not for the closer neighbors. And it would be quieter as it got later.

The gunshots were a question and he jotted it down.

Andrew's walk was critical to his story and Hardy wanted to see if it made sense, so he checked the time and started moving south a few blocks to Turk, where he then turned east along the periphery of Lone Mountain College. This time of night, the road was quiet enough and might be conducive to memorizing lines. Certainly, this was a better route for that purpose than anything along Geary would have been. There was also quite a bit of street parking- it was where Andrew said he had parked on the night of the murders.

Rather than go all the way to another busy street, Masonic, Andrew said he had turned south again, crossed the campus of the University of San Francisco by the baseball diamond, then come out through a little cul-de-sac. Andrew hadn't known the name of this street when he'd traced his route for the detectives, but Hardy was glad to see that it fit his description- a paved walkway allowed foot access to the campus at the end of the street.

When he turned back west at Fulton, Hardy found the uphill going a little slower. There was also a significant increase in traffic- it might have been more difficult for Andrew to concentrate or memorize his lines on this part of the walk, but maybe not. There simply was no way to tell.

He passed St. Ignatius Church at the top of the hill, continued down a couple of blocks to Stanyan, then turned right and made it back to his car. He checked his watch. He hadn't been particularly pushing himself, and he'd made the circuit in eighteen minutes- rather far from the half hour it had supposedly taken Andrew. Although Andrew might have stopped once, twice, several times, to set a line or perhaps just to think, he'd never specifically mentioned stopping. Hardy didn't feel comfortable with the twelve-minute difference. He made another note.

Crossing the street, he stood under the streetlight and looked up at the Salarcos' unit. From reading the police reports, Hardy knew that the involvement of this critical witness had been reluctant at first. Salarco was a mow-blow-and-go gardener with an INS problem- no green card. Ironically, the Salarcos were only involved in the case because Andrew himself had told the detectives about them. Sergeant Taylor had asked him if he had any idea who might have called nine one one before he had- that person had had a thick Mexican accent.

Andrew had volunteered that he bet it was the people upstairs- they had definitely been home that night. Their baby had been crying incessantly, and it had been distracting to the max. Andrew had told Sergeant Taylor that it was one of the reasons he couldn't just go into one of Mooney's back bedrooms to work on memorizing his lines. He'd had to get out where it was quiet enough to concentrate.

So Taylor had asked Salarco if he'd seen or heard anything, or had called nine one one. At first the neighbor had said no. He and his wife had a sick baby. That's all they were concerned with. But Taylor had a hunch and asked about Salarco's immigration status, then explained that he was not with the INS, that Salarco's testimony might be crucial to a murder investigation and might in fact mitigate in his favor with la migra. Hardy knew this was probably a cynical lie on Taylor's part, but it did accomplish its goal- Salarco talked.

At the sidewalk in front of the house, Hardy took a deep breath, hoping he could make the man talk again.

The door to the Salarcos' upstairs unit was around the driveway side in the back. A small flatbed truck took up most of the space between this building and its neighbor. There was no light over the door, and Hardy heard nothing when he pushed the doorbell, but after few seconds, he heard footfalls within, coming downstairs. Then, "Sí? Qué es?"

"Señora Salarco?"

"Sí. Policia?"

"No. Habla inglés?" Hardy dug for some words that he hoped were close enough. "Soy abogado de Señor Bartlett."

"Momento."

The footsteps retreated. Hardy had time to turn around and examine the truck and the building. Wooden fence posts lined both sides of the empty flatbed. He saw no tools. The windows in the cab were up. The house was old, ramshackle, very small- less than half the size of the other buildings on the block. Hardy had wondered how an illegal handyman could afford the rent to even a doghouse in this neighborhood, and the answer was that it wasn't much bigger than a doghouse, and from the outside at least, not much nicer.

Another set of footsteps on the stairs. This time the male voice, though heavily accented, spoke English. "Yes."

"Mr. Salarco?" he said through the door. "My name is Dismas Hardy. I'm the lawyer for Andrew Bartlett. About the murder case?" No response. "If you've got a few minutes, I'd like to talk to you if I may."

Salarco didn't ponder for long. Perhaps, Hardy thought, he considered anyone involved with the case a potential official who could turn him in. If so, Hardy was happy to let him keep believing that.

With bright red skin and an unlined face, he struck Hardy as much younger than his stated age of twenty-eight. A little above medium height, in his T-shirt and jeans, Salarco could have been a weight lifter, with his massive arms and well-developed shoulders, tiny waist. But the face- Hardy came back to it- it was the face of a boy. "Tardes, señor… what is it, please, your name again?"

"Hardy. Dismas Hardy."

"Deezmus. I don't know that name."

Hardy kept it genial. "Nobody does. I wouldn't worry about it."

They ascended a narrow stairway that ended in another door that opened into Salarco's living room. It was little more than a cubicle, but nicely furnished in Salvation Army. A beaded bottle of Modelo Negro rested on the coffee table, along with a paperback book-Cien Años de Soledad. So the gardener was a reader, perhaps with intellect. It was good, Hardy thought, to find out early.

The television was tuned to a Spanish station. Salarco turned it off, indicating that Hardy sit on the upholstered couch. "Cerveza?" he asked, and Hardy nodded. When he came back with the beer, Salarco took the opposite end of the couch. "So what do you want to know?" he asked.

Hardy put his beer down on the table, took a relaxed position. "I'd really just like to walk through the events of the night of the murder, when you called the police. I've got a copy of your statements here, and I just wondered if you'd mind telling me again what you did that night, in your own words. Would that be all right with you?"

"Sí. Sure."

"Before we begin, though, I want to ask you if you've talked to any lawyers with the DA's office about your statements, or your identification of Andrew Bartlett."

He thought about it for a second, then shook his head. "Not any lawyers. I have talked to the police three, maybe four times. But no lawyers."

This made sense to Hardy. In the normal course of events this case wouldn't come to trial for the best part of a year. Whoever pulled Andrew Bartlett for the adult trial wouldn't even have had a chance to review his own discovery yet. With all the dealing and then the hurry to move Andrew up out of juvenile court, Hardy doubted whether Brandt had, either, since he didn't have to know all the facts about the crime- he wasn't trying the case.

So Hardy had a clear field. But before he started to run, it was important that Salarco understand his position. He had already gotten it out, and now he handed him his business card, as required by statute. "I want you to know that I represent Andrew Bartlett, the boy you identified as the killer of Mr. Mooney and the girl, Laura Wright. I'm his lawyer. I want to hear what you have to say because I'm going to have to try to find out what happened."

The seriousness of the little speech hit a mark. Salarco drew his arm off the couch and onto his lap. His brow clouded a bit. "I will just tell the truth," he said, "as I have."

"That's all I can ask. Thank you." He took a hand-held tape recorder from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. "Do you have any objection if I record what you say?"

It wasn't clear whether Salarco knew he had the option to refuse. He nodded, then waited. "How do you want me to start?"

"Just what happened that night."

Another nod. "The main thing is Carla, our baby, she was sick. High high fever. She is crying crying, but finally, maybe about nine o'clock, we finally get her to start to sleep." He uncrossed his legs, reached for his beer and drank. "But then downstairs, you know, just down there, right below, we hear this… this fight."

"A physical fight?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see, but I heard loud yelling- a man, two men, and a woman. Loud! Really loud! And of course then it wakes up Carla. She started crying again and… You have babies?"

"Two," Hardy said. "Older now."

"Well, you know, then… when they cry. At least me, it makes me… I don't know the word. Impaciente. Crazy to have it stop."

"Impatient," Hardy said. And thought, To say the least.

"Sí. Impatient. So then Carla starts again and I am impatient with the noise from below. So I stomp on the floor like this"- he brought his heel down-"boom, boom, and it's quiet for another few minutes, then the yelling starts again, and Carla is crying."

"And what happened then?" Hardy asked.

"Then, when it started again, I went downstairs to ask them to stop."

"Just a minute, please." Hardy sat up straight. This was not in anything he'd read. "You're saying you went downstairs at a little after nine o'clock and talked to the people down there?"

"Sí."

"And who was there?"

"The girl, Señor Mike, and the boy."

"Andrew? The boy you identified in the lineup?"

"Sí."

Hardy took a breath. This wasn't good. If Salarco had seen Andrew at the house, close up, there was much less chance that he'd been mistaken at the lineup, or would recant at the trial. He sipped some beer to get his concern under control, and the question came out almost casually. "And what then? Did they tell you they'd stop fighting?"

A questioning look crossed Salarco's face.

"What is it?" Hardy asked.

But it passsed. "Nothing," Salarco said. "I don't know. But yes, they said they'd stop."

"And then it was quiet?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"No se. When the baby is crying, time just goes, you know. But again, we just got her to sleep again and Anna and I, we come out here, to this room, and turn on the TV, real quiet, but then there is this… this scream, the girl, and then a… a bump. You could feel it up here, like something dropped. The house shook. Then right after, a crash, the sound of a crash, glass breaking. And a few seconds later, suddenly boom again, the house shakes another time, somebody slamming the front door under us."

Salarco on his feet now, acting it out. "Anna goes to this window, here, and I am behind her, and there is the boy running away. He stops under the light there, and turns, and Anna starts to put the window up to… to yell at him I think, but then Carla starts again with crying. Madre de dios!" Salarco, living it again, turned to Hardy and put both hands to his head. "Is it never going to end?"

"And then?"

"Then I… remember, I am… I have no sleep and my baby has been crying for ten hours straight. I run downstairs. I go to yell at them all, but when I hit the front door, I hit it with a fist and it… it opens." His hands hung at his side. "And I see them."

"Mooney and the girl?"

"Sí. On the floor, with so much blood. I walk in. The girl is shot, I think, in the chest, and is by the back wall. There is a big stand-up lamp knocked on the floor, broken, all smashed, next to her, but there is still light above and from in the cocina. And Señor Mike is on his back with a hole in his face. I will never forget."

"No," Hardy said. "I'm sorry."

Salarco crossed back to the couch, sat now on the edge of it. He seemed to remember his beer and picked it up, drained it, looked across to Hardy. "Otros?"

Hardy hadn't put much of a dent in his first beer, and didn't want another, but he wanted to keep Salarco talking. "Gracias. Sí."

When he came back with the two cold ones, he put them on the coffee table and began without any prompting. "So the phone is there, and I go to it and push nine one one, and tell what I see, where I am. And while I am talking, I notice the gun on the little table in front of the couch." He leaned forward, knocked wood. "Just the same as this one."

"And then what did you do?"

"Then I see how bad this looks, me in this room with the gun. I think the boy, maybe he's going to come back. If he sees I am there, he can say it was me."

"What was you?"

"Who killed these people."

"Why would you have done that?"

Salarco turned his palms up. "The noise. I already come down one time to stop it. Maybe next time, I bring the gun and make sure. Then the woman on the phone, she tries more to get my name, and the other thing comes to me, la migra. I know I have to go. I cannot be there when the authorities come. So I come back up here and watch out the window until the boy comes back, and the authorities."

"You mean Andrew again?"

"Sí."

"You saw him under the streetlight there out the window?"

"Sí."

"The same boy? You're sure."

Salarco put down his beer bottle, turned and faced Hardy directly. "I'm sorry, señor, but it was him. The same hair, the same clothes…"

"And what were they, the clothes?"

"Like all of them wear. I don't know how you say… loose?"

"Baggy?"

Salarco nodded. "Sí. The pants, baggy. And then the…" He made a gesture of pulling something over his head. "Like Eminem in the movie."

"You mean he had a hood? A sweatshirt with a hood?"

"Sí. That was it."

"And even with the hood, you saw his face? And it was the same face?"

After the shortest pause, Salarco nodded. "Sí. Of course. It was the same boy, I say."

Hardy believed him. In fact, it had to be Andrew returning from his walk, or from wherever he had gone. Perhaps having run away and then realizing he'd left the gun, which could be traced back to him. Looking up, Hardy caught a glimpse of Salarco's wife hovering in the doorway back to the kitchen. He might have to talk to her one day as well, but for tonight, he took a last pull from his beer, then stood up. "I want to thank you for your time. You've been very helpful."

"I am sorry about the boy, señor. Truly I am."

"Thank you," Hardy said. "I am, too."

16

It was well past nine o'clock by the time Glitsky sat down to dinner at the small table in his kitchen.

Treya had gotten good at meals that took fifteen minutes to prepare, and she waited until she heard his tread on the steps up to their duplex before she threw the halibut on to broil in the oven. When she turned it the one time, she would smear it with jalapeño jelly, which would melt, forming a fantastic glaze. The asparagus sat in a shallow covered pan with a quarter inch of boiling water. She'd finish that with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sea salt. A small, still warm, dense loaf of homemade bread-machine bread- roasted-garlic with Asiago cheese- would round out the meal, after which they'd split a plate of frozen grapes for dessert.

Glitsky had fed Rachel in her high chair and for the past few minutes had been doing magic tricks, making a quarter disappear. Now Treya put the adult plates down. "Arranged yet," he said. She'd garnished with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary. A crystal vase sat between the place mats on the small wooden table, and in it bloomed one perfect daffodil.

Glitsky put a finger on his daughter's nose, turned to his food and picked up his fork. "Do I thank you enough for doing all this?"

Treya kissed the top of his head. "Every day." She touched her baby's cheek. "You gave me her, didn't you?" She came around the table and took her seat. "Now shush and eat your fish. It's brain food."

"I'd better, then. I'm going to need it." He chewed, swallowed. "This Boscacci thing."

"At least it's not LeShawn Brodie. I checked, and you'd dropped right off the news tonight, just like it never happened."

"Fresh kill," Glitsky said. "Anyhow, you'll be glad to hear Amy Wu's almost certainly out of it."

"She was never really in, though, was she?"

"No, not really, although she could have timed her last meeting with Allan a little better. The real story, though, is that because of her, I got to give Diz a little grief."

Treya smiled. "Always a plus."

"And even more so because I swung by his office to give him his earful of righteous cop, and while I was there, I found a way to repay him for his little caper with my peanut drawer."

"I thought you weren't sure who that was."

"I wasn't, then I realized it had to be Diz. No one else is that immature."

"I can think of one other person," she said.

The corners of Glitsky's mouth rose a fraction of an inch. "Thank you," he said. "Plus, anybody at the Hall, it's too risky if I catch them. They're flayed, then fired. Diz, I get him red-handed and he says, 'Ha ha, you got me, so what?' It was him."

"Okay. So what'd you do to him?"

"First, you have to promise not to tell under penalty of death."

"That goes without saying."

"Diz or Frannie. You'll be tempted."

"I'll resist, I promise. What?"

A spark of mischief flashed in his eyes. "I stole his darts. You want to hear the best part?"

"That wasn't it? What could be better?"

"Next time I'm there, I'm going to put them back. Then steal them again. My hope is that eventually he'll go insane."

"And that would be so that you two could play together as equals?" Treya put her fork down and looked across the table, her own eyes alight. She turned to Rachel. "Do you know how lucky you are that you can't understand any of this?" she asked.

An hour later, the baby was in bed and the two of them sat in their living room with their after dinner tea. "But that poor man…" Treya was talking about Boscacci. "Do you have anything at all?"

"Well, if you count that we're fairly certain it wasn't Amy, we've got that."

"Well, yes. But we knew that this morning before you even talked to her."

"True. But now we know with more certainty," he said. "And not because she works with Diz. Because she couldn't have done it."

"So who could have?"

Glitsky pulled at the scar at his lower lip. "My best guess now is someone he fired in the last three years. Maybe one of them took it personally."

"So how many people did he let go? Allan?"

"Seventeen."

Treya whistled softly. "That's a lot."

Glitsky sat back into the couch. He reached down near his belt and probed, perhaps unconsciously, at his side. "Well, fortunately," he went on, "I've got a lot of resources for a change. I've got two inspectors from General Work for the canvassing and alibi checking, then Belou and Russell from homicide, and they'll basically be full time to find and interview the folks Allan fired. Then Marcel asked to be part of it, too, back on the street if he had to. And, of course, my own magnificent self."

"What are you going to be doing?"

Glitsky drew a sharp breath. "Well, mostly, given the lack of any forensic evidence, I'm going to be developing theories. But I'm not complaining. At least it's a homicide. Something I know how to do."

Treya put her cup down, reached over, put her hand on Glitsky's shoulder. "Is your side hurting you again? Maybe you should see a doctor."

"No."

"No to what?"

"Both."

"You won't see a doctor?"

Glitsky grunted. "I've seen enough doctors. You start in with doctors, it never ends. They looked when this started and couldn't find anything. I'm not about to let them cut on me again just to look."

"But it's still hurting you, whatever it is."

"I know what it is." He softened his tone. "I'm uptight. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and till it does or I decide it's not going to, I've got to tough it out."

"So what's going to make you decide that? Do you have any idea?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe doing something I'm good at."

"What does that mean? You're doing a great job as deputy chief. Everybody says so."

"Nobody was saying so yesterday with LeShawn."

Treya waved that off. "Those were just the media vultures, Abe. You know that. You can't take them seriously. I'm talking about people like Clarence, and Frank Batiste. The mayor. Kathy West. I hear nothing but good things and where I work, that's saying something."

A shrug. "I make my numbers. I show up on time. My brass shines. But inside I'm not like these people."

"What people?"

"Frank, Clarence, the mayor- all the people who have these meetings." He pushed at his side again. "They're politicians. Plus I've got this little secret and can't help thinking that someday somebody's going to find me out."

Treya spoke with some care. "Maybe you want to talk to somebody?"

"What do you mean, a shrink?" He barked out a black laugh. "So then word goes out that the man is cracking up? And everybody starts to check out my office furniture? Half the folks would think I really am crazy and the other half would figure it's a scam to get disability. I'd kiss my credibility good-bye forever."

"It wouldn't have to be a psychiatrist. Maybe a psychologist. Or a career counselor."

"And what's this person going to do, talk me out of the pain?" He took her hand. "Besides, I talk to you."

Treya wasn't going to be conned. "And I can't help. I haven't helped. I'm just saying maybe someone else could get somewhere."

"Not if I couldn't tell them about it. And I can't. You know I can't."

"That's what you keep saying. But there is such a thing as doctor/ patient privilege, you know. That's a real thing. They couldn't tell."

"Right, in theory. But in real life, they tell all the time. A rumor gets started, and you know cops, they ask questions. And then where are we?"

"At least you're not in pain."

"Wonderful. Except that now I'm ruined, even in jail. How does that sound? There's no statute on murder."

"It wasn't murder. It was self-defense. You keep saying it was murder, and it wasn't."

"All right, but it killed a cop. And I was a party to covering it up. Whatever happens, if that comes out, even if I never go to jail, it's the end of my career." He exhaled with some force. "I've got to live with it, that's all. It's not that bad."

But as he said it, he tightened his lips, the scar through them going white with the pressure. Treya, her own face tight with concern, laid a palm on his thigh and he covered it with his own hand, squeezing hard. When the spasm had passed, he released his grip. "Not that bad," he repeated.

He came into the bedroom and Treya put down her book. "Who was that?"

"Marcel."

She checked the bedside clock. 10:42. "This time of night?"

"I told him he could call anytime."

She smiled at him. "Of course you did." She patted the bed next to her. "Here, sit down. What did Marcel find?"

"Well, again, it's more what they didn't find. Nobody heard anything."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Marcel sent out our team to knock on every door within two blocks of the All-Day Lot. Have another go at them, catch the people who weren't home earlier. They got forty-four hits, which is the jackpot. Nobody heard a shot, not even the shoe repair folks still at work just around the corner, like fifty feet away."

"Maybe they just didn't want to say."

"Maybe. Some percentage wouldn't give away their trash to save humanity. But you've got to hope that with forty-four people, maybe a couple are good citizens. But these folks were there, admitted they were there, talked to our people. Nobody heard anything."

Treya sat up. "Is that so unusual?"

Glitsky shrugged. "You know what a nine-millimeter sounds like? Close up, a cherry bomb. A block away, you hear it and you stop a second and go, 'What was that?' "

"And nobody heard anything? Maybe he was inside a car and rolled the window down?"

"Maybe that," Glitsky said. "Or maybe he had a suppressor."

"A what?"

"A silencer. Suppressor."

"And what does that mean? Other than the shot doesn't make much noise?"

"It means he's probably a pro. In which case he's probably in another state by now. But if he was a pro, that also means somebody hired him. It's another place to look, that's all."

Hardy owned a one-quarter interest in one of San Francisco's oldest bars, the Little Shamrock, at the corner of Ninth and Lincoln, just across the street from Golden Gate Park. The majority partner was Frannie's brother, Moses McGuire, another emotional casualty of the shoot-out. By jogging just slightly from the direct route to his home from Juan Salarco's, Hardy could pass right by the place, check up on his brother-in-law, maybe have a short nightcap.

It had gotten late. After saying good night to Salarco, Hardy had gone out to his car and, with the interview still fresh in his mind, listened to the tape of it twice through again. With the sometimes lengthy time-outs he took for making notes, both as the witness talked and as ideas occurred after each listening, he worked for most of an hour that felt to him like five minutes.

The Shamrock's bar ran along one wall halfway back to where the room widened out slightly. At the front door, it was wall-to-wall people, five or six deep. His first glance told Hardy he had no chance to claim a stool anywhere near the bar itself, and even if he was successful at that, the crowd would keep Moses too busy to talk. Nights like this, Hardy would sometimes take off his jacket, grab a bar towel and help out behind the rail. He'd been a bartender once, and a good one.

But tonight he wasn't in the mood. It was too crowded, too loud, too hot. The jukebox was cranked up with some old Marshall Tucker music. Maybe he ought to go home.

He was just turning to leave when Wes Farrell and his live-in girlfriend, Sam Duncan, pushed their way in. Sam was a petite, feisty, pretty dark-haired woman, forty-ish, who ran one of the city's rape crisis counseling centers not far away on Haight Street.

"You're not leaving?" Farrell said. "Not when we're just getting here."

"It had crossed my mind. It's going to take an hour to get a drink."

"We've got that knocked," Sam said. "We know the owner. Come on."

Sam took Hardy's hand and led the way, jostling them through the crowd. Once they'd cleared the bottleneck up front, there was adequate room to stand and even move as long as nobody wanted to polka. Hardy noticed that Farrell was his out-of-the-office casual self, wearing one of his trademark T-shirts, which read "Be More or Less Specific." At Hardy's shoulder, Sam was saying that since he was buying, she'd have a Chivas rocks and Wes would have a pint of Bass Ale. Hardy could have whatever he wanted.

"Thanks," he told her. He ducked under the bar, gave McGuire a half-salute and called down that he was getting his own drinks, Moses shouldn't worry about him.

When Hardy got back with the drinks, Farrell nudged Sam and said, "Tell him."

"Tell me what?" Hardy said.

Sam sampled her Scotch, nodded appreciatively. "I don't know how it came up," she began.

"At dinner," Farrell said. "I started telling you about this situation with Amy."

"That's it." She came back to Hardy. "Well, the point is he mentioned this boy Andrew Bartlett and I said I knew a little about it. I'd been following it in the papers. I was interested because back when I was young and foolish, I used to hang out sometimes with Linda." At Hardy's uncomprehending glance, she added, "His mother."

"What do you mean, hang out?"

A shrug. "Just that. Go to bars, meet guys. This was before I met my true love here, of course. But if you wanted to pretty much guarantee you'd get lucky of a given night, you wanted to hang with Linda if you could. She could materialize men out of a vacuum. You're thinking 'so what?' Aren't you?"

In fact, that's what Hardy was thinking. Sam could make almost any story listenable. But the wild child Linda Bartlett was now the married Linda North, and other than the fact that San Francisco continued to be a small and self-referential little world, there wasn't anything particularly fascinating about the fact that she'd hung out and picked up men with Sam Duncan when both of them had been younger. But Hardy said, "Go on."

"Well, since it's the law and by definition must be endlessly enthralling, I say to my darling here, 'I'm not surprised the little kid didn't turn out right. His dad ran off and his mother didn't give him the time of day.' "

"So Andrew was around when you and Linda were hanging out?"

"He was around in the sense that he was alive. He must have been three or so about this time. But Linda would dump him with anyone at the drop of a hat. I even kept him with me for a couple of weekends when she went away with somebody. He was the cutest little guy, if you like three-year-olds, which, you know, are not generally my favorite. But even given that, this was a woman who shouldn't ever have become a mother. The boy was nothing but inconvenient to her. She was going to have her fun and all he did was get in the way."

Sam drank more of her Scotch. "Actually, that's one of the reasons I stopped hanging out with her. It just became obvious, the kind of person she was. I like to think I'm as shallow as anybody- it's why Wes loves me, after all- but she just wasn't going to be involved with her own son, and that was that. After a while it got so I couldn't stand to see it."

Farrell jumped in. "The reason this might be important to you, Diz-"

"Hey!" Sam hit him on the arm. "It's my story, all right? I understood your point at dinner. I'm getting to it."

"I'm listening," Hardy said.

"Thank you. The point," she shot a glare at Farrell, "being that the boy really has had a difficult life, especially in his early years. So in spite of the pampered rich boy he might seem to be, he was essentially an abandoned kid, raised, if you want to call it that, by an emotionally removed if not outright abusive mother."

"She abused him, you think?"

"I don't know if she actively abused him, like beat him or anything like that, but I guarantee you he's deeply scarred. And, finally, the point is…"

"Ahh," Farrell said, "the point."

"… is that in many jurisdictions, but especially in San Francisco, the wise defense attorney, such as my esteemed roommate here, will take every opportunity to present his criminal client as the victim of something, childhood abuse being perhaps the all-time favorite."

"It is a good one," Hardy said.

"And Andrew is legitimately in that club."

"If you can get it into the record," Farrell said. "It may not get him off, but it sure as hell couldn't hurt in sentencing."

"No," Hardy said. "I don't imagine it could."

17

We've got a problem."

At his desk, Hardy motioned Wu in. She'd taken some care dressing and making up this morning. She often did, so this wasn't unusual in itself. But the two-piece pin-striped dark blue business suit she wore was such a far cry from the way she'd looked in his daughter's bathrobe, nursing the mother of all hangovers, that Hardy blinked at the transformation. He'd been listening again to the tape he'd made at Juan Salarco's- something about it bothering him- and now he removed his headphones, gave Wu his attention. "Hit me," he said.

"He's a writer."

"Who is? Andrew?"

She nodded. "On his computer. They delivered more discovery here yesterday while I was out. This disk," she held it up, "is not good. You want to see?"

"It would make my day." He took the disk from her and slipped it into his computer.

" 'Perfect Killer Dot One,' " she said.

"Love the name."

Hardy's fingers moved over the keyboard. Wu came around behind him as the document appeared on the screen. Quiet and intent, together they read Andrew's short story about a young man filled with jealous rage who kills his girlfriend and his English teacher. For over ten minutes, the only sound in the room was the tick of the computer's cursor as Hardy scrolled through the document.

When they got to the end, Hardy found his heart pounding. He had also broken a sweat. He pushed his chair back from the computer, stood and went over to open one of his windows, get some air. After a minute, he turned to Wu. "I'd better go meet the client."

"Can I ask you a question?" Wu asked. They were driving out to the YGC in Hardy's car, the top down. "Do I come across as some kind of monster?"

"Not at all." Hardy didn't know exactly what to say. He looked over at her. The light changed and he pulled out. "Why do you ask? Did somebody say that?"

"More or less. That I didn't feel anything. That there wasn't anybody real inside of me."

"Who said that? Somebody in the firm?"

"No. A colleague."

"Well, whoever it was can ask me. The other night, talking about your dad, that was real enough."

"But I was drunk then, with my guard down."

"I've done research on that exact topic. It still counts."

"I don't know." She turned in her seat. "But I'm thinking if that's all people can see in me, then maybe that's all my dad saw, too."

Hardy kept it low-key. "Or maybe it wasn't you at all. Maybe your dad just wasn't able to show what he felt."

"No, he really didn't approve of me. Or like me very much."

"Or maybe the idea of showing you terrified him, so he was extra-tough so you wouldn't ever find out and take advantage and hurt him." Trying to lighten it up, he added, "And if that's the case, you better watch out. It's genetic, that kind of thing." Hardy flashed a quick look at her.

Abruptly, Wu had turned straight ahead in her seat, her eyes on the road.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Her lips tight, her jaw set, she nodded. But said nothing.

Throughout all of his schooling at the best institutions in San Francisco, Andrew had been inculcated into the sensitive, educated modern child's nutritional paradigm of healthy eating. Sutro had both a juice and a salad bar, and that's where, for a mere $4.45, he bought his lunch every day. Over the years, like most of his classmates who'd been forced to witness the brutal slaughtering of some food animal on videotape in school, he had come to believe that humans shouldn't eat meat. A few days of real hunger after his arrest, though, had conquered his qualms. Besides that, the YGC vegetarian alternative meal was total slop.

Wu didn't think it was the food, though, that accounted for his pallor and lethargy today. He'd shaved, showered, and combed his hair, but in the jail outfit- blue denims, gray sweatshirt- he showed no sign that yesterday afternoon's depression had lifted at all. If anything, it seemed worse.

He greeted Hardy with a bored and sullen silence. He only shook, no grip, after a pause long enough for Hardy nearly to withdraw his own offered hand. Wu started to explain that Hardy was here because he had more experience with murder cases and…

"You said that yesterday. So we're going to adult trial?"

"Maybe not," Wu said. "We're hoping that this hearing…"

But he cut her off again. "No you're not. Yesterday you said that was hopeless. They get one of the criteria, it's over, right?"

Andrew had stuffed himself into the old school desk. Wu sat at the table. Hardy was standing in the corner, leaning against one of the walls, arms crossed. He spoke matter-of-factly. "You can always go back and admit the petition. I'll bet you I could talk Johnson into accepting that if you wanted to change your mind. You want to do that?"

Andrew kept his eyes on the table in front of him. "That's eight years automatic."

"That's right," Hardy said.

He looked up. "I didn't do this."

"Well, then," Hardy said, "you don't want to do those eight years, do you?"

He didn't answer.

"Which, like it or not," Hardy said, "leaves us with an adult trial, unless we can win this hearing next Tuesday."

He pointed to Wu. "She says we can't do that."

"We've got some problems," Hardy admitted, "but we've also got some strategies. To make them work, though, we're going to need your help. If you think it's even worth it to try."

Andrew shrugged.

Hardy came forward, his voice hardening up, pressing him a little. "You do? You don't? I'm not reading your signals very clearly. You want to try using some words?"

It was clear that Andrew hadn't had too many people talk to him so harshly. "All right," he said finally. "What do you want me to do?"

"Let's start by you telling me about the gun," Hardy said.

"What about it?"

"I'm curious why you brought it to your rehearsal that night."

Andrew didn't have to think about it. "It was just in my backpack. I'd been carrying it around for a few weeks."

"But you took it out that night. At Mr. Mooney's. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah."

"So how did that happen?"

He shrugged. "It was a prop, that's all. We were doing Virginia Woolf, you know. That was the play. And Mike- Mooney- he thought it might add to the tension if we had a gun on stage. It's not really in the script, but he just wanted to see how it would feel."

"So he asked you to bring a gun to rehearsal?"

"No. I had it with me anyway, so I brought it up. It was my idea. I thought it might be cool."

Hardy thought this would be a good time to shake things up. He forced an amused little chuckle, walked up to the table, looked down at Wu. "The boy's good, Amy," he said. "This is some brilliant delivery. I can see where he got the lead in the play."

"What are you talking about?" Andrew asked.

Hardy kept his tone easy. "I'm talking about acting, Andrew. What else?"

"I'm not acting. This is what happened." A pause. "Really."

Hardy nodded, chuckled again, talked to Amy. "Damn," Hardy said. "Impressive. I mean it. I'd be pretty well swayed if I were on a jury."

"Me, too," Wu said. "We put him on the stand, he flies."

Hardy looked down at him. "It's always a big decision whether or not to put a defendant on the stand himself. But we get a world-class performer like yourself, it's a real bonus."

"Why are you saying this? I'm not performing. I'm telling you the truth."

Again, Hardy spoke directly to Wu. "And the award goes to…"

"I'm telling the truth, goddamn it! What are you saying?"

Hardy didn't rise to the challenge. Retreating to his neutral corner, he leaned against the wall again, crossed his arms. "You tell him, Amy."

She took the cue. "Andrew," she said. "Andrew, look at me."

He dragged his pained expression back down to the table.

"Why Mr. Hardy is skeptical is that in 'Perfect Killer,' you tell that same story as the-"

Andrew jumped as if he'd been stung. "How do you know about that? I never…" He shot a look to the corner, where Hardy was the picture of nonchalance. Nothing there. He came back to Wu. "I never even printed that out."

"No," Wu said. "I don't suppose you would have. But it was still on the disk."

Hardy spoke up. "It's pretty standard procedure now, Andrew. The police get a search warrant and dump your computer files, read your e-mail. That's the one thing I'd criticize about your story. The writing was good. It reminded me a little of Holden Caulfield, but you hadn't done your research on the latest tech stuff. Didn't you know they'd served a warrant at your house? Didn't it occur to you that they'd look for everything they could find?"

Andrew slumped at his desk. His arms hung straight down, his head bowed. They let him live with his new reality for a minute or more, a very long time under those circumstances. Finally, he sighed and raised his head. "Look," he said, "I'm not acting. I'm telling you guys the truth. What I made up was that story. I had my guy, my character-"

"Trevor," Wu said.

"Right, Trevor. I had Trevor-"

Hardy cut in. "Andrew," he said. "That's the most incriminating document I've ever read and I've been in this game a long time. No judge in the world is going to let you off if he gets a look at that, which he will. How many other stories like that are in your computer?"

"None just like that."

"Thank God," Wu said. "What in the world were you thinking, Andrew?"

Unbowed, he snapped back. "I was thinking about writing a story. You know, fiction?"

"We know all about fiction," Hardy said. He hadn't moved from his spot in the corner by the door. "But this just… Well, it isn't fiction. I flat don't believe it."

"You can believe what you want. Haven't you ever read Crime and Punishment? Or John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure?"

"I've read them both," Wu said. "What about them?"

"Well, I had just read Debt to Pleasure earlier in the year, when I was starting to have some problems with Laura." His eyes went back and forth between his attorneys. "When we first started rehearsing with Mike, she… well, like Julie in the story, she was just all impressed with him, that she'd gotten the part, all that. It got to me. We actually broke up about it."

"That wasn't in the story," Hardy said. "The breakup."

"No," Andrew said. "That's because I made up the story. Have I already mentioned that? I thought I had."

Hardy's mouth grinned, but his eyes didn't. "I don't know who convinced you that sarcasm was a powerful debating tool, Andrew. But whoever it was didn't do you a service. I understand that you made up your story. It's not that tough a concept to grasp. But you have to admit that there's a lot of it that seems pretty closely based on your own experience. Now, do you want to tell us about that, or not?"

Andrew tried stewing for a moment. He turned to Wu, who might show some sympathy, for support, but she stonewalled him. At last, he spoke. "When I wrote it, I was jealous of Mike with Laura. I was going for a weird-guy feel like Lanchester did."

"You got that," Wu said. She turned to Hardy. "The Debt to Pleasure again."

Hardy deadpanned. "I've got to read it."

"In the end," Andrew said, "that's why I didn't send out the story anyplace. It was too derivative. I mean, a really really bright guy who's basically insane. It's been done a million times now. Plus, I don't think the ending worked really well. I wanted Trevor to find a really unique way to commit these murders, but in the end, I fell back on the gun."

Hardy had to fight a disorienting sense of surrealism. Here's a client up for murder and what he wants to discuss are plot points in a story that might hang him. "Have you published before?" he asked.

"No. But I've sent out a bunch. I did get a nice note back from McSweeney's on one of them, not a straight rejection."

"I'm happy for you." Hardy finally moved up to the table, pulled around a chair and sat in it. "Listen, Andrew, whether or not you made this up, we've got to work on some kind of spin for this story. You've got to see that it casts you in the worst possible light."

"It wasn't that bad," Andrew said.

"No, it's peachy," Hardy said. "But I'm not talking about its literary quality. I'm talking about the events and motive around these two murders that have actually taken place and that you're charged with committing and that you pretty much exactly mirrored in the story you wrote two months earlier. Two murders- your teacher and your girlfriend. Your dad's gun. Even down to your alibi."

"Don't forget my favorite moment," Amy said. She'd printed the thing out at the office, and now had found the page, and read aloud. "Talking about the gun now. Here's your narrator. But what if I get rid of it after? Then, even if they can recover the slugs, they won't be able to compare the ballistics marks. I double-check and make sure the gun isn't made in Israel, where they shoot their guns before they sell them. Then the ballistic readouts are computerized and matched with the weapon's buyer, so even if the gun itself is unavailable, they can identify its owner."

"That's true," Andrew objected. "That's what they do. I found it in my research."

"Good for you," Hardy said. "But not the point. Here, Amy, let me."

She handed the pages across to him. He flipped to the end. "How about this part, Andrew? How do you think a jury would feel about you if the prosecutor got this admitted, which he will, and reads it out loud? I come back and find the bodies. I call nine one one. They're going to think there's no way I'd come back and do that if I'd done the shooting.

"Will the cops suspect me? Yeah. But I've gotten rid of the gun and the gloves. The night I do it, I pack a change of clothes just like the ones I was wearing in a plastic bag in my trunk. Shoes, too. I adios the whole package before I come back and discover the carnage.

"The cops look, but I'm clean. And Mike and Laura are gone."

"No! That's wrong." Andrew came halfway out of his chair. "I didn't write Mike and Laura. I wrote Julie and Miles. The characters."

"Oh, that's right, you did. I guess it seemed like you meant Mike and Laura, so that's what I read. Honest mistake." Hardy turned the pages facedown, looked across the room at his client. "Listen, Andrew. Not only is this pretty much exactly what happened, it shows premeditation and planning. It's also sophisticated stuff. You may remember that as another one of the criteria we're supposed to avoid- criminal sophistication."

Andrew slumped back into his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. Given the magnitude of disaster he was looking at, his expression was almost serene. "Look," he said. "You start with my character in the story, remember, not me. You put him in a situation that you know something about. That's what they tell you, to write what you know."

"That's what you say in the story, too. So all right, you picked jealousy."

"I hadn't ever felt anything like it before. It was just… overpowering. Laura would get to going on about Mike, and after a while I just couldn't listen to it anymore. I suppose I started acting like a jerk…"

Wu jumped on it. "How?"

"Every way I could, really. Coming on to other girls around her. Cutting her down in front of other people. Dissing Mike…"

"But nothing physical?" she asked.

"No."

"Nothing?" Hardy repeated. This was the kind of fact about which you wanted no ambiguity. "You never hit her? Nobody ever saw you hit her?"

"I never hit her," he said. "I would never hit her. I loved her."

"Okay." Hardy thrummed his fingers on the table. "Let's go back to the story. Do you have any idea how we deal with it, or get around it?"

Andrew sighed. "It's fiction. I don't know what else I can say. The character isn't me. Julie isn't Laura, Miles isn't Mike. There's tons of stuff in the story that didn't really happen."

"Name me something important," Hardy said. "Something that will make any difference to a judge or jury."

"Well, the main thing, in the story, Trevor had had a lot of sex with other girls. That wasn't me."

"You're a virgin?" Hardy asked. "That didn't read like a virgin wrote it."

"I was then," Andrew said, a hint of pride in the admission. "I imagined what a guy like Trevor would have felt and done."

"All right." Hardy wasn't giving him much. "But it's a stretch to call that the main thing, Andrew. Maybe you could tell us something about the crime that's different in the story from real life."

The boy looked to Wu for help, but she, too, was waiting for what he'd say. "Okay," he said finally. "Okay. In the story, I have Trevor almost decide not to use his father's gun, right? He understands that if he does that, the cops have got to see that he's tied to the crime. So if I understood that clearly enough to write about it four or five months ago, would it make sense that I'd just go ahead and use Hal's gun?"

Hardy shrugged. "Maybe you figured out some way you could make it work?"

"But I didn't. It wouldn't have worked. So I wouldn't have done it. Not in real life."

Wu came forward. "But Hal's gun was there, Andrew."

"But that was- I mean, look, I got the idea from writing the story- we have the gun there on stage…"

Hardy butted in. "We've already done this. Let's go to something a little more personal. Your best friend- Lanny is it?- Lanny has testified that you thought Mooney and Laura were intimate. That's why you brought the gun to school in the first place, and…"

"That's another one!" Andrew's expression was alight with triumph. "My character Trevor never would have showed the gun to anybody at school. I wouldn't have shown it to Lanny if I'd been planning to use it. I mean, think about it, would that make any sense? Would a guy smart enough to write the Trevor character be dumb enough to show the gun around?"

"Smart guys do dumb things all the time," Hardy said. "The question is did you believe that Laura and Mooney were having sex?"

Deflated, Andrew sat back. "I thought maybe. That's why I wrote the story. But then we got back together…"

"You and Laura?" Hardy asked. Between the fiction and the reality, he almost felt he needed a scorecard. "I guess I missed the breakup. What was the timing on that?"

"Before Christmas. A couple of weeks after we got on the play."

"And why did you break up again?"

"She broke up with me. Over me being so jealous."

"But then after Christmas, you got back together?"

"Right."

"How did that happen?"

Again, the lick of pride. "She convinced me there was no reason for me to be jealous."

"In other words," Wu put in, "you started having sex."

Andrew nodded.

"But in the story," Hardy wasn't letting this go, "Julie having sex with Trevor didn't make any difference. In fact, it only fueled his jealousy."

"Right. But that's not what happened with us." Suddenly, he brightened. "In fact, ask Lanny about that. He'll tell you."

"What?" Wu asked. "About you having sex with Laura?"

"No." The question rankled him. "I didn't tell him about that." He read doubt in both their faces. "That's the truth! I didn't brag about it. Laura and I… that was private. It was nothing like in the story at all. That was another reason I didn't think I could send the thing out- those descriptions, they would have hurt Laura's feelings. That's not how we were. That's how Trevor was. Don't you guys see that?"

Hardy prompted him. "We were on Lanny."

"I never said a thing to Lanny. I've never told anybody about me and Laura, in fact, until right now. Nobody even knows we'd gone that far. It was only between us."

"Okay." Hardy, unimpressed with Andrew's vision of his own virtue, pressed the inquisition. "So what do we ask Lanny about?"

"Whether I was jealous anymore after we got back together. I didn't have to tell him why, about the sex, I mean. But I did tell him that all the jealousy was over."

"But you still kept the gun in your backpack? And while we're at it, you want to tell me how a spent shell casing, I'm assuming from your father's gun, got into your car?"

"I think that must have just been bad luck. When I first took the gun, I wanted to see what it felt like to shoot it, so I drove out to the beach one night and fired it a few times."

"From inside the car?"

"Just outside. One casing must have kicked out and gone back in through the window."

"It must have," Hardy said. "But it still leaves you with the gun in your backpack for at least several weeks after you say you had no intention of using it, except of course," Hardy paused, "for your motivation."

"I should have put it back. I see that now. Oh, and another thing I just remembered…"

"You just remembered?" Hardy said. "Don't start remembering things now, Andrew."

"No, about the story, another thing I would have done, definitely, that Trevor did when he went for his walk. He made it a point to talk to the clerk in that store. Remember that?"

"Vividly," Hardy said. "What of it?"

"On my walk, on my real walk that night, I didn't do that. I didn't stop in some store and establish where I was. And I would have, don't you see? Trevor thought of it, so I would have."

"Terrific," Hardy said. "There's progress. The problem we're on, though, is still that you didn't put the gun back in your father's drawer. And Mr. Salarco happened to see it at Mooney's." He paced three steps to the wall, turned around. "Andrew, I promise you I'm a lot gentler than anybody else you're going to talk to in the courtroom. I want to get your answers down here so we can have an opportunity, perhaps, to… give them a more positive slant if and when you get up in front of the judge. Are you with me?"

"What's my other option?"

Hardy snapped his reply. "I've already told you that. Your other option is pleading guilty as Amy suggested at the beginning if- and this is a big if- they'll still do the deal. You want that? No? All right, so here's my last question. Did Laura in fact wind up staying at Mooney's once in a while after you left? To your knowledge, did he ever drive her home?"

"Yeah."

"Just like in your story?"

"Well, except they didn't…" He hesitated.

"Have sex? Are you sure about that?" When he didn't answer immediately, Hardy pounced. "Yes! The answer's yes, Andrew. You're sure about that. If you ever get on the stand, there is no doubt at all. Do you understand?"

Cowed, the client nodded. "If I'm not sure, the jury will think I've still got a motive."

His mouth a tight line, Hardy nodded. "Good, Andrew. That's correct. And you know for sure they didn't have sex because you and Laura talked about that, the way you talked about everything, isn't that right?"

"Yes, sir. That's right."

"And because you talked about everything, you knew everything important about her and her life, isn't that true?"

Andrew sat back in his chair, suddenly wary. "Pretty much everything, yeah," he said. "Everything important."

"Andrew." Wu couldn't wait any longer. "What Mr. Hardy's getting at is that Laura was pregnant. Did you know that?"

"That's what they told me, after the autopsy."

"But before that? Didn't you know she was carrying your baby?"

Hardy asked him, "You know that DNA sample they took when they booked you? They called with the results before we came up here today. It was yours."

"It had to be," Andrew said. "I know that."

"But you didn't know it while she was alive?" Wu asked. "That she was pregnant? She didn't tell you?"

"No. She didn't."

Andrew's face went slack and told the whole story. He'd just told his attorneys that he and Laura shared everything- their most intimate secrets- but he'd had no clue she'd been pregnant. Hardy, certain that he'd never had a client who was less inherently credible, cast a quick glance at Wu.

Andrew must have seen it. "It's really bad, isn't it?"

Hardy rubbed a hand back and forth across his forehead. "This might be a good time to take a break," he said.

18

Hardy left for a lunch meeting, and Wu stayed with Andrew, preparing her witness list, revisiting his alibi, playing devil's advocate for what she guessed would be Brandt's attack at the 707 hearing. It continued to be dispiriting work. Getting information and/or cooperation from Andrew was like pulling teeth without an anesthetic. It was early afternoon by the time they finished.

Ray Cottrell was coming up the hill to the cabins when Wu walked out into the sunshine. He got to the gate a few steps before she did, and held it open for her.

When she thanked him, he took it as an opening. "So how'd it go today?" he asked.

She made a face, shrugged. "All right, I guess."

"Curb your enthusiasm."

"You really want to know, he's pretty depressed."

"He's looking at life in the joint. You'd be depressed, too."

"I guess so." She paused. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You were in court when Andrew wouldn't plead. When he said he didn't do it? Well, that's what's got him looking at life without."

"Okay. What's the question?"

She considered her phrasing. "You pretty much know how things work up here. You've seen a lot of these kids. I'm thinking Andrew's got a lock on an eight-year top; he's got to take it. He doesn't understand that whatever the actual truth is, it looks like he did it. Almost any jury is going to find him guilty. I don't understand why he can't see he can still get out of this. Johnson might still take a plea. Andrew doesn't have to be looking at life."

"He probably thinks it matters that he's innocent. If he is."

She shook her head, frustrated. "That's so not the point."

"He probably thinks it is."

"Well, that's my question. Why can't he see it isn't? What matters is playing it to your best advantage. There's a system here, a way that it works, and it's not going to work to let him out. So he should take the best deal they offer, right? Is it only because I'm a lawyer that I see that so clearly?"

Cottrell stared off somewhere behind her. "Maybe."

"Okay. But look," she said, "even if he's in fact innocent, he could take the plea and his dad could buy a team of private investigators who might find something that could get him out."

" 'Might' and 'could.' Not exactly a lock. Eight years, a kid his age, it's the rest of his life. You ask how he feels, he just wants to get back out. He doesn't care how it works."

She set her jaw. "Here's how it works, Ray. There's one rule. Maybe you could help Andrew with it if you two talk."

"What's that?"

"You listen to your lawyer. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you're better off."

"But there's that one," Cottrell said. "If you think the one chance where you're not better off happens to be you, it's hard to take."

"You still play the odds. You deal with it."

For a second, he seemed almost angry with her view of it. But then he shrugged. "Or not," he said. "Anyway, it looks like you're feeling better today."

The reference took her a minute. "Oh. Than yesterday?" She broke a smile. "I always feel better than I did yesterday. That was the low point of my life."

"That's good news then."

"The low point of my life? How's that?"

"It's behind you. Everything's better from now on."

"That's a nice way to look at it." She paused, then added, "Though I may never drink again."

"Darn," he clucked with disappointment. "I was going to ask if I could buy you a drink sometime."

The comment stopped her cold. Glancing quickly up into the pockmarked face, she cocked her head, sighed as though she meant it. "I'm flattered, Ray," she said, "I really am. But I've got a policy about seeing people with whom I have a professional relationship. I've found it's just not a good idea."

"Sure," he said, "No sweat. It's cool."

"I'm sorry. I really am. It's nothing personal at all."

"No," he said. "Why would it be?" He pointed at the cabins. "Well, I've got to get in to work. See you around."

If she thought cabs were few and far between downtown, they were an endangered species up here on the hill. Now she waited at the corner of Market, berating herself for more stupidity, being friendly to the bailiff. But again, her actions had been misinterpreted. This was becoming a goddamn trend. She was tired of it.

No cab.

She checked her watch. Quarter to two. She'd been standing here for nearly fifteen minutes. She should have called and ordered one. Now she reached down into her briefcase, pulled out her cellphone, flipped it open. Suddenly a purple PT Cruiser pulled up to the curb. She stepped back as the window came down. Brandt was leaning over. "I couldn't help but notice you standing here when I left the building five minutes ago. Are you waiting for somebody? Where are you going?"

"Downtown."

"Me, too. You want a lift?" He pushed open the passenger door. "Professional courtesy," he said.

She started to hesitate, then realized she was being foolish. She could take a ride downtown with him.

Ray Cottrell was outside on guard duty, watching an inmate basketball game. The court was on the far side of the cabins, at the highest point of the grounds. The fence, topped with more razor wire, ran along a ridge that fell off in about a hundred-foot cliff to Market Street, just below.

He turned around for a minute and happened to see something familiar in the woman standing on the corner down there. Squinting in the bright sun, he moved to the closest spot on the court for a better look. It was her, all right.

Uptight lawyers. He should have known.

"I don't see people with whom I have a professional relationship."

But still, he watched her. Even at this distance, she was a lot easier to look at than anything else he was likely to see today. All dressed up today, but yesterday with the jeans and sweater, he'd seen what she packed under that business suit.

Man.

The basketball slammed into the fence a foot in front of him, rattling the chain link, maybe one of the players noticing he didn't have his eye on them, taking the opportunity to shake him up a little. He shot a glance at the court, everybody getting a kick out of making him jump.

He ignored them, looked back down for another glimpse of Wu. Still there.

Then suddenly, he saw Jason Brandt's car- no mistaking it, that yup-pie piece of shit- pull up from around the corner, come to a stop in front of her. Cottrell watching as she steps back, talks into the passenger-ride window. The door opens, she gets in.

She doesn't see people with whom she has a professional relationship, does she?

Cunt, he thought.

For the first several blocks, neither of them spoke. Finally, Brandt said, "So where's your car?"

"Back at the office. I drove up this morning with Mr. Hardy, but he had a meeting. I told him I'd get a cab."

"We don't see too many cabs up here."

"I noticed."

They went another block in silence.

Brandt finally broke it. "So what did your boss want?"

"To meet Andrew. He's coming on second chair."

Brandt threw a look across the seat. "You okay with that?"

"We didn't vote on it." She forced a small laugh. "I haven't exactly impressed him at every turn, you must admit."

He didn't comment.

After a minute, she said, "Anyway, I've been distracted."

Again, he looked over. She was looking straight ahead, her big briefcase lying flat on her lap, her hand clasped and resting on it. "You might as well know that my dad died a few months ago. I guess I haven't been myself."

"I'm sorry," he said. "You should have told me when…" The words stopped.

"Yeah. Well, it's not the kind of thing you talk about when you're getting picked up. Especially if you think it's why you're letting yourself get picked up."

He let that thought hang in the air between them for a minute. "You could have told me," he repeated.

"Maybe," she said. "But I didn't want to find out."

"Find out what?"

"If you'd want to deal with baggage."

"Yeah, I try to avoid that at all costs."

"Me, too."

"As you said, we're the same." After a moment, he reached out his hand across the seat. "Friends?" he said. "Tentatively."

She gave it a second, then nodded. "Okay," she said. "I guess so."

They shook on it.

19

During the previous administration, the preferred firing method for the DA's office had been a pink slip on your chair while you were out at lunch, or even making a quick court appearance. Just so long as there was no direct confrontation or discussion. You've had your job for sixteen years and you've got three kids, two just starting college, and you go down to department 22 for fifteen minutes and come back and surprise! You're an "at will" employee and now you're fired. Thanks for the memories. The terminated tended to take this so badly that for a period of time the DA actually had an armed investigator posted outside the office in case somebody wanted to lodge a violent, personal protest.

Boscacci's more straightforward management style in this regard was making it easier for Glitsky and Lanier. He had held exit interviews for every assistant district attorney he laid off under Jackman, and he'd filed the records of those interviews, as well as other personal data, alphabetically in his secretary's credenza. This narrowed the list of truly disgruntled ex-assistant district attorneys down from seventeen to three, and Glitsky had assigned those three to the homicide inspectors Belou and Russell.

The other fourteen would be interviewed and otherwise checked out by the General Work officers, although hopes were not high that these interrogations would lead to a break in the case. The last of the Boscacci layoffs had been nearly a year ago. In a back booth under the windows at Lou the Greek's, Glitsky was telling Marcel Lanier that he didn't consider it likely that at this remove in time, someone would suddenly get mad enough to kill Allan for it. "… but I think we've got to look there anyway. Eliminate the obvious, then move down the list."

Lanier chewed at today's special- pot-stickers cooked up in some kind of yogurt sauce with garlic and paprika over rice. "I'm not sure that these guys are even the most obvious anymore," Lanier said. "Although yesterday they seemed like a good place to start. If nobody heard the shot, it probably was silenced. And if it was silenced, it was a pro."

Glitsky sipped iced tea. "The lab says the Boscacci bullet has scuff marks that could be from a silencer. Not certain, but possible. And if it was a pro, I agree, we lose. But since that's out of our control…"

For years, Lanier had been a homicide inspector under Glitsky's supervision, and now they fell into an old and familiar routine. "It wasn't a robbery," Lanier said. "So it's someone he knew. So it's about motive."

"Right. And we eliminate the family?"

"Yeah."

"I agree. And no caseload to speak of. Just one murder, and that one kind of self-enclosed. He mostly assigned cases. That's the job."

"True. But he might've been riding herd on some actives. He was also pulling guys to trial who'd been waiting around in the system for a while. He was ramrod for that program."

Lanier had a small notebook out and jotted. "That's real," he said.

Glitsky nodded. "Maybe we want to look at who's coming up the pipeline. Somebody with mob connections- Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, regular Mafia. I'm not up on the latest. Do any one of them use suppressors more than the others?"

"Any of them would. Simple business."

"All right. Speaking of business, what about the union stuff?"

Lanier forked some special, nodded. "I don't see someone with the union getting so bent out of shape about the negotiations that he takes Allan out. He's just watching Clarence's back. He probably leaned toward giving the union a lot they wanted anyway."

"Agreed. Not worth pursuing without some kind of tip."

"Okay, who's that leave? With motive, I mean."

"Our professional? He's getting paid. That's motive." Glitsky shook his head. "But we're counting him out as hopeless. Somebody else."

"The rest of the known universe?"

Tempted to smile and ruin his reputation, Glitsky sipped tea. He looked up as Lou himself stopped by the table. "Abe, you don't like the special?"

Glitsky had taken one bite and realized he wasn't that hungry. "It's great, Lou, but I didn't realize it had yogurt in it. I'm allergic."

"Hey. Whyn't you say so? I'll have Chui whip you up something else. She's got a whole tray of pot-stickers still hot back there on the steam table. She could throw some soy over 'em, vinegar, hot flakes. You'd swear you were in Chinatown."

"Thanks, Lou, but me and Marcel are out the door in a minute. We've got a meeting. In fact, we were getting the check just now."

"All right. I'll run and ring it up." He pointed to the untouched dish. "But I don't like this. It happens again, you've got to let me know right away. And I'll tell Chui. She uses yogurt all the time, gives her stuff that Greek taste everybody loves, but she'd cook up something special for you, Abe. I mean it."

He went off to get the bill and Glitsky said, "The awful thing is, I think she would. So where were we? The known universe? How do you feel about checking out everybody he's put away? As a prosecutor, I mean."

"In like what, twenty-five years? When's the last time you've heard anybody did that?"

"Not recently. But it's a few less than the whole universe. And we've got the General Work people to look. They start with anybody's who's gotten out of the joint recently."

"You mean somebody that Boscacci sent away?"

"Right."

Lanier shook his head. "It's not what they usually do, Abe."

"I realize that." Glitsky thought a second. "Okay, we put that on hold for a few days and instead check the gun shows."

"For what?"

"For somebody selling silencers." Glitsky cut off Lanier's reply. "You never know. We might get lucky. At least we're doing something. Maybe I'll go do one of the shows myself."

"You think somebody's going to talk to you at one of those places?"

"Well, it's either that or we start slogging through twenty-five years of old records and find every case Allan ever won. And they'll talk to me at the gun shows. I won't wear my uniform."

"Yeah," Lanier replied, "that'll fool 'em."

Glitsky's Friday afternoon had originally been scheduled to be taken up with addressing the Pakistan Association of San Francisco at the Bay Area Band Shell Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. When he got back to his office from lunch, he debated with himself for the better part of five minutes before placing a call to Frank Batiste.

He told the Chief that there had been a possible development in the Boscacci matter and he personally wanted to look into it. Perhaps, he suggested, one of the department's senior press officers could stand in for him at the Pakistani gig and deliver some poignant remarks, which were certainly to be better received than his own in any event. On his way out the door to his office, Deputy Chief of Administration Bryce Jake Longoria called out and stopped him. Although he ran around as much as any deputy chief, Longoria was again behind his desk, again at his computer.

"I'm out the door, Bryce. What can I do for you?"

"Don't let me slow you down. I was just wondering if you'd had any luck with your jury question."

"My jury question?"

"The last time we talked? Somebody who'd been on a jury somewhere a hundred years ago?"

Glitsky closed his eyes, trying to bring it back. He shook his head, about to give up when the name came. "Elizabeth Cary," he said.

"Maybe. I don't know if you ever told me."

"That was it. Shot at her doorstep last week."

"Still nothing, though?"

"Not with her. Last time we talked, I recall, was about five minutes before LeShawn Brodie broke, and since then Boscacci. Those two washed Mrs. Cary clean out of my brainpan and she hasn't had much opportunity to come back. But why? You got an idea?"

"No." Longoria shook his head, lifted and dropped his shoulders. "It just seemed vaguely like real police work, so it got my attention."

A chuckle tickled at Glitsky's throat. "You, too, huh?"

Longoria waved a hand at his surroundings. "The desk," he said. "You know."

"I hear you."

"So where are you off to?"

Glitsky took a step into the room. "Between us, Bryce, I'm cutting school. Checking out a gun show."

"What for?"

"See if I can pick up a line on somebody selling suppressors illegally. Nobody heard the shot that killed Boscacci."

Longoria held up a finger and turned to his computer, tapped a few keys. "Look at this first," he said. "I may save you a trip."

Glitsky, not particularly wanting to save himself a trip, crossed to the desk and leaned over it. "What am I looking at?"

"I just ran a search for 'gun suppressor.' You know how many hits I got?" He scrolled down to the bottom of the screen. "Five thousand eight hundred twenty-eight. And you're going to a gun show?"

"Got to be quicker than checking all of those."

"Plus, you're not stuck in the office."

"There is that." Glitsky was stuck on the screen. "When did suppressors get legal?"

"Oh, they're not," Longoria replied with a breezy air. "All these listings, they clearly state that sale of suppressors is only permitted for government agencies and police departments."

"Police departments? We don't use 'em."

"Yeah, we do. TAC has a couple. The tactical unit. You don't know that?"

"I haven't done much business with TAC."

"Yeah, well, they're on the roof of a building with hostages downstairs, they want to zap bad guys they meet on the way down without waking up the whole block. That's legal, at least under federal law. But these websites. Check 'em out."

Longoria scrolled through several screens. "Here. These journals on how to make your very own sweet little suppressor from common items in your home shop. 'For information purposes only,' of course, or 'academic study.' I'm sure no one has ever bought one of these books and actually made a silencer."

"No," Glitsky said. "That would be wrong." But he'd already decided that he was going to do some old-fashioned footwork, outmoded though it was. He told Longoria good-bye, then at the door turned around. "You think of anything I can do about Elizabeth Cary, I'd love to hear."

"I'll keep it in mind."

On any given weekend, gun shows are common in Northern California. Glitsky had checked the internet, then made a couple of calls, and discovered that this weekend would feature Gun & Doll shows in several communities- Santa Rosa, San Jose, Fremont, Sacramento and the San Francisco Cow Palace, which was actually in Brisbane, in San Mateo County. The more he thought about the idea- given that they weren't going to waste time looking for a professional hit person- the more he liked it. The suppressor angle might actually give him a lead. And at least, as he'd told Longoria, he was away from his desk and the endless meetings on one of the first truly lovely days of the year.

In his hiking boots, Dockers and a camouflage blouse, he was far more comfortable than he would have been in uniform. Beyond that, he didn't think he much resembled a cop- the camo actually worked to his advantage that way. On his way down to the Cow Palace, he finalized arrangements for his event number detail to hit their snitches and cover all the shows over the weekend, then report back to him on Monday. If everybody struck out, Glitsky might have them begin culling the internet suppliers for their mailing lists and customers. Even if he could get the not-automatic cooperation of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, it would be an enormous and tedious job, pretty much comparable to assembling the list of Boscacci's convictions over the past twenty-odd years. Still, it was early afternoon and he was on the road. An added bonus was that he still had the services of his driver. Paganucci pulled the black Taurus up to the Cow Palace parking lot and Glitsky gave him two hours off.

The right half of the huge, hangarlike structure boasted well over three hundred booths, with ordnance of nearly every conceivable type, as well as all the ancillary clothing, equipment, ammunition and literature. From the smallest imaginable single-shot pistols to shotguns to assault and sniper rifles, to every type of hand-held six-shooter and semiautomatic gun, the sense Glitsky had of the place was that if it fired bullets, you could buy it here. And, of course, the weapons displays weren't limited to firearms- dealers were showcasing a spectacularly wide assortment of personal-use and paramilitary gear, including crossbows, slingshots, hunting and/or combat knives, leather accessories.

The NRA had a booth at each end of every aisle. Business seemed to be brisk. Glitsky couldn't help but make the observation that in spite of an apparently continuous assault from the antigun lobby, the Second Amendment seemed to be holding its own, even in the liberal mecca that was San Francisco.

He was glad to see it.

As a cop, although concerned with the idea of loaded guns getting into the hands of children and/or burglars, he was comfortable enough with the idea of home protection and private weapon ownership; somewhat less thrilled with the assault rifle booths, the really vicious-looking knives, the weapons whose only function was essentially military, their only potential targets human beings.

But no suppressors.

Silencers were illegal in California, but then again, so was marijuana. Glitsky didn't believe that the former were nearly as commonly available as the latter, but the street snitch he'd called on his cellphone, a two-time loser named Walter Phleger, had set him straight. At the Cow Palace, you had to ask for Mort. You had to have a hundred-dollar bill, then about another grand in cash.

In the first hour, he wandered, stopped, handled many weapons up and down the aisles. He stopped and chatted with salespeople at five booths, smaller manufacturers. Getting comfortable. He hadn't done any street work in a very long time.

After the shoot-out last year, Moses McGuire had disposed of all the guns they had used in the firefight, including both of Glitsky's Colt.357 revolvers. In the interim, he hadn't really missed them- he wore his Glock.40 automatic with his uniform every day- but now he had a hunch and on impulse he stopped in front of the Colt booth. There were two other customers, but the man behind the counter stepped to Glitsky as soon as he approached.

"How are you doin', sir?" Jerry, by his name tag, was in his mid-thirties. He was buffed under his shirt and tie, and wore a clipped red mustache and jarhead haircut. "Are you interested in buying a gun today?"

Glitsky slowly looked to one side, all the way around to the other. Guns for sale everywhere he looked. He came back to Jerry and nodded. "It appears so, doesn't it?"

"Are you familiar with Colts?"

"Moderately. I used to own a couple. Somebody took them." Technically, this was not a lie. "I thought I'd see if one of these spoke to me." He pointed down under the counter. "This Python looks like the brother to the ones I lost. Three fifty seven."

"Yes, sir." The man was lifting it out, placing it on the counter.

"May I?" Glitsky asked, reaching for it.

He hefted it in one hand, passed it to the other, flipped open the cylinder, removed it entirely, then held the gun up to his eye and squinted down the barrel.

"What line of work are you in?"

Glitsky checked the sight, replaced the cylinder, handed the weapon back to Jerry. "Security." His smile did not reach his eyes, and lowering his voice, he cut to the chase. "I've always loved that gun, but I'm looking for something that can accommodate a suppressor, and I'm afraid that leaves revolvers out of it."

"Yes, it does." Jerry turned, rummaged in a drawer at the desk behind him, and a few seconds later placed a professionally designed, full-color brochure on the counter. "If you're going to go with a suppressor, Colt recommends its M1911 handgun, which takes your forty-five-caliber ACP cartridge. The M1911, of course, is semiautomatic and takes the S0S-45 suppressor once its been threaded for-"

Glitsky interrupted. "The guns that got taken from me, they were these three fifty seven revolvers, and I had suppressors to go with them. They also got taken."

"Well, yes, sir. But-"

"It sounded like you were telling me if I didn't shoot a semi, you couldn't help me."

"No. Not at all. Although we can't authorize any sales of suppressors out of the show today. We can't even carry them, as I'm sure you realize. But if you're interested…"

"Maybe you haven't been listening to me, Jerry. I'm interested in this gun, right here, right now, and I happen to have the thousand dollars to buy it. I don't like to use a semiautomatic. They jam, you notice that? Now, are you telling me you can't help me locate a silencer in this brochure of yours here for this exact weapon that I'm interested in putting down some money for? 'Cause if that's the case, I think maybe I can find another dealer nearby who might be willing to."

He put the revolver down on the top of the glass counter. "On the other hand, you put me in line with a top-quality suppressor for this gun, I give you my credit card, come back later on after the ridiculous ten-day cooling off period has expired, and you've got at least one sale, maybe a few more after I talk to some of my friends. Are you hearing me?" He leaned in and lowered his voice. "Someone told me if I had any trouble I should ask for Mort."

It was, indeed, the magic word. Jerry glanced at his other customers- nobody paying any real attention. "Give me a couple of minutes," he said.

It was more like twenty, during which Glitsky wandered some more, checking back at the Colt booth at five-minute intervals. The fourth time, Jerry was talking to a heavy, short, bald man and motioned Glitsky over. "This is, uh…"

"Abe." Glitsky extended the hand that held the C-note.

"Mort." The man's grip was weak and sweaty, but he palmed the bill like a master, glanced down at it quickly, apparently was satisfied. "Let's go," he said.

They walked out back toward the main entrance, Mort a couple of steps ahead of Glitsky, never looking back. Glitsky got stamped for readmission. Outside, they turned right and walked in the bright sun through the parking lot. Hard up against the chain-link fence, a white van with a dash full of dolls in the window squatted in the meager shade of a lone eucalyptus. Mort knocked once, then twice, on the back door, then turned and, without a word or a nod at Glitsky, headed back across the lot.

When the door finally opened in a fog of cigarette smoke, Glitsky stepped forward. If he'd thought that Mort was overweight, the man who sat on the swivel seat in the rear of the van put things into perspective. He must have gone close to three hundred, although the untucked Hawaiian shirt may have added twenty pounds or so. He was still smoking, and every breath wheezed out of him like a bellows. He squinted through the smoke and out into the sun and said, "It's nine hundred dollars. Cash."

Glitsky fanned away some of the smoke. There was no ventilation in the van itself. "That's what I heard. I'm looking at a Colt three five seven revolver." He took out his wallet and started counting out the bills, laying them out on the filthy shag rug.

The huge man wheezed again, put out his cigarette, then swiveled and grabbed one of the thick black leather briefcases that lined a shelf behind the front seats. Pulling it onto his lap, he opened it, studied a moment, then took out one of the long, heavy metallic objects. "This isn't just a flash suppressor," he said, handing it over. "This will eliminate noise in excess of seventy-five dB. I can thread it and mount it here whenever you pick up your weapon, a hundred dollars, or you can take it with you and mount it up yourself. I recommend you let me do it here. I've got all the equipment as you can see. You fuck it up, it might kill you."

The left side of the back of the van was a low metal work counter, with a vise and array of tools neatly mounted against the side wall. He grabbed a metal box off the counter, wiped his brow and, wheezing with the effort, reached down to pick up Glitsky's bills. After counting them again, he placed them in the metal box. When the box was back on the counter, he pulled a small spiral notebook from his pants pocket. "You got a number? Cell's best. I change the setup, I like to keep my customers in the loop."

Glitsky's hands had gone damp with nerves. So far, everything that his snitch had told him about this operation had turned out as advertised, but if this fat man had a partner sitting in any one of the hundreds of nearby cars, covering him, this is where it would get ugly. He put the suppressor down on the rug and reached behind as though for his wallet or a belt-worn cellphone. Instead, he pulled his Glock from where he'd tucked in at the small of his back.

At first, the fat man's face registered a mild surprise, as though Glitsky had brought along the weapon for which he wanted the silencer. Then, realizing how and where the gun was pointed, he lowered his hands into his lap, then raised them slightly. "You can take your money back," he said. "And whatever else is in there. I'm absolutely cool with this. You can take the truck, too. I don't care."

"Keep your hands where I can see them and crawl on out here."

He backed up as the man slowly got himself off the mounted swivel chair and pathetically, on all fours, made his way across the gross shag. His dark hair hung in greasy shanks down around his face.

"All the way out," Glitsky said. "Then over to the fence, hands on it over your head. Okay, now slowly lift your shirt- I want to see your belt- and turn around. All the way. Pants. Up at the ankles."

"I'm not armed."

"That's what they all say. I'm happier making sure."

Glitsky had him step back from the fence and, still facing it, lean against his hands, his legs spread wide. After patting him down, Glitsky told him he could straighten up and turn around. "What do you want?" the man asked.

The gun never left the man's midsection. "Let me see some ID please."

The man's driver's license identified him as James Martin Ewing, of Redwood Shores, about fifteen miles south of where they were. Glitsky stuck the wallet into his back pocket. "What do you want?" he said again.

"I've been trying to make up my mind about that," Glitsky said. "I decided it's pretty much your lucky day. I'm San Francisco police."

This brought an outraged rise. "Bullshit! All by yourself?"

Glitsky was calm. "All I want from you right now is that little book of your clients' phone numbers. That and my money back, of course. You think we can handle that peaceably?"

Ewing's eyes were slits as he tried to figure out the angle. "What else?"

"How many silencers have you sold here in the past few months, would you guess?"

"I don't know."

"James." Glitsky steadied the gun on the man's kneecap, his voice calm and thrumming with menace. "Don't push this. You make most of these suppressors yourself, I take it?"

"Yeah. I got a metal shop at home."

"There. See? You're cooperating already. So I ask you again while you're still in the mood. How many of these have you sold in, say, the last month?"

"Say ten."

"Ten a month. Is that about your average?"

"Close. Look, man, if you really are a cop, you're screwing up big time."

"I appreciate your concern," Glitsky said. "Now let me see the notebook. Just toss it on the ground near my feet." Glitsky picked it up, opened it. It was a small book, two by three inches, with about ten lines on a page. It was about a third filled with phone numbers. Ewing had been in business awhile. Glitsky put the book in his shirt pocket. "Okay, James, here's what I want you to do. Let me have the keys to your van. Okay, now I want you to start walking across this lot here toward that exit way over there, the farthest one down. Go ahead now; the exercise will do you good."

"You're going to shoot me in the back."

"I doubt it, but either way, you start walking and don't look back. Go."

"You've still got my wallet."

"That's right, I do. I'll leave it in the car."

Ewing scanned the lot, possibly looking for some help, but it was a slow and peaceful Friday afternoon, not much going on. Finally he started to walk. When he'd gone maybe a hundred yards, Glitsky closed the back doors, climbed into the driver's seat, opened the windows and started the motor. Checking the rearview mirrow- Ewing was still walking away- he turned and lifted the metal box from the counter, extracting his money. He picked up the bills that remained, estimated the amount as close to two thousand more, closed the box with the money still inside, and put it back where it had been.

Putting the van in gear, he drove to where two empty Brisbane police cars were pulled up by the entrance. He stopped in front of them, blocking them intentionally, and got out, leaving the motor running and Ewing's wallet on the front seat. Then he walked out the exit gate and hopped into the backseat of his waiting ride- Paganucci's timing was perfect- and told him to step on it, lights and sirens if he had to. He had a date with his wife and didn't want to be late.

"… most fun I've ever had as a cop."

Treya put a soft hand to his face. "It's good to hear you talking about fun again."

"You think talking about it is good? Try having it. I was beginning to think it had all left the planet."

"Says the man who just recently stole his best friend's darts for fun."

"That was revenge, not fun. My sacred honor was at stake."

"Ah."

They had eaten borscht and sandwiches in a booth at a no-name deli on Clement, and now were pushing Rachel along in her stroller, taking advantage of the soft dusk light and the unseasonable warmth. "What I really love is that I'll have reverse listings on everybody in Mr. Ewing's book by Monday at the latest. These are real people we can work on, every single one of them in violation of the suppressor law, and I'll have the troops to go after them."

"And you really think one of them may have shot Allan?"

"No, it's not likely. But at least it's somewhere to look. Maybe one of the names will intersect with another part of the investigation."

"And meanwhile you're hip deep in a murder and all's right with the world."

Glitsky didn't answer, but he knew Treya was right. He put an arm around her, drew her in next to him. "I don't love feeling like I'm dancing on Allan's grave, but looking for his killer is how I ought to be spending my time. Not going to meetings." A thought struck him and he stopped. "How about this? I've been trying to figure out how to get the ATF to help us out here. They've got to have access to mailing lists from the net, people who have ordered silencers or the handbooks to make them. They won't be inclined to share, but once I get the names from Ewing's list, I've got something to trade, right?"

"This is what you need to be doing, Abe. Working cases. Really. You know that?"

He walked a few more steps, then stopped, turned and kissed her. "You think?" he said.

20

Laura Wright's parents wouldn't see Hardy. They didn't buy his opening gambit that he and they were working toward the same goal- to find Laura's killer. They did not even want to talk to anybody who had anything to do with defending the murderer of their daughter. Lanny Ropke's parents were wary, too, but ultimately allowed the interview. June wanted Mark to be home for any discussion Hardy might have with their son, so they scheduled it for 6:30.

Hardy rang the doorbell exactly at the stroke.

Now the four of them sat around a Pottery Barn wrought-iron table in a screened patio off the kitchen door of the Ropkes' Victorian. Irving Street, out here on Twenty-sixth Avenue, supported the occasional large home on a big lot, and the Ropkes' was one of them. A tall and well-trimmed laurel hedge hemmed the backyard on all sides, and long shadows fell across the deep lawn in the back. They'd also had room to erect a playground set by the back hedge- swing, slide, sandbox- and half a basketball court. To Hardy's left, there was another redwood porch off what he assumed was a bedroom, and on it was a large, covered hot tub. Hardy had been introduced to the rest of the family- two cute and well-mannered young adolescent girls named Kim and Susan- but they'd disappeared by the time Mark suggested the patio for the interview. June poured heavily lemoned iced tea from a beaded pitcher.

They were a handsome family, with a strong resemblance along gender lines. June's button nose and athletic figure were reflected in her two daughters, and Mark and Lanny- both lanky and big-boned, with prominent Adam's apples, milky blue eyes and ruddy cheeks- might have been brothers. Hardy had a copy of Lanny's transcipt and he got it out of his briefcase and came right to the point.

"The situation is this. Lanny, when you talked to the police, you told them about Andrew bringing his father's gun to school, and then talking about maybe using it on Laura and Mr. Mooney. I'm not going to try to get you to say anything that's not true, but I do want to ask you a few questions that might clarify some things for the defense. I'm assuming you're okay with helping us out if we're trying to help Andrew."

"Sure. He was my best friend. I mean he still is."

June said, "He wants to go visit him in jail, but after they arrested Andrew, the police said it might not be good to let the two of them talk, since he was going to be a prosecution witness."

"I wouldn't change what I said, Mom. I'm not going to lie."

"No. Of course you're not, Lanny. No one's suggesting that," June said.

"We thought it seemed like a reasonable suggestion," Mark added. "That's all."

Hardy smiled tolerantly at the parents. He was starting to see why they both wanted to be here while he talked to Lanny. "Well, my opinion," he said, "is it really wouldn't do any harm to either of them, but that's of course your decision." He shifted to the boy. "So, Lanny, what we're facing immediately, this next Tuesday, is a hearing to see if Andrew gets tried as an adult or not. And I'd like to call you as a witness to talk about the kind of guy Andrew is."

"I'd do that."

"Good. Let's talk about the gun. When you first saw it, what was your reaction?"

Lanny considered for a moment. "I don't know what you mean, exactly. It freaked me out. I mean, a gun at school is not a good idea."

June spoke up. "We don't understand why he didn't tell… well, at least somebody about it right away."

"I didn't want to get Andrew in trouble." His eyes implored Hardy to ignore his mother. "We've gone through this a hundred times. I didn't think he was going to use it."

"Why not?"

"It's just not who he is. When I talked to the police, they just wanted to hear about how Andrew had the gun and talked about using it. Which he did, I'm not denying that. But that was like way back in December, definitely before Christmas, while they were still broken up. By the time of the killings, it wasn't an issue at all anymore."

"But he still had the gun?"

Lanny shot a quick look at both of his parents, came back to Hardy. "I mean, you've got to know Andrew. He's a little… dramatic sometimes. He liked to play with, I don't know…," he searched for the right word, "… ideas? After he'd gotten away with it for a while, he got to thinking it was cool, I guess, that everybody thought he was this nerdy good student and he carried a gun around. He didn't have to use it. It just made him feel like he was putting something over on everybody. I think, if you want to know the truth, Mooney might have had something to do with that."

Mark cleared his throat. "Now, wait a minute, Lanny. I thought we agreed that it wasn't Mr. Mooney's fault that somebody shot him."

June concurred. "He didn't bring it on himself."

Lanny let out a breath of frustration, talked to Hardy. "But Andrew's idea of keeping the gun for when they rehearsed, Mooney thought that was neat. He wanted it out there. I think, otherwise, Andrew would have put it back. He was starting to be afraid he'd get caught."

Hardy sat back. "So there was no blowup in the last day or two?"

"No. Not that I knew."

"And Laura and Andrew were solid. Together."

"More than ever, I think." He flashed to his parents. "I guess everybody knows she was pregnant by now."

"Andrew says he didn't know it while she was alive."

"That's true," Lanny said. "He would have told me."

Mark came forward, his eyes alight with a possibility. "Hey, what about this? Maybe Laura told him she was pregnant that night and Andrew thought it was Mooney's…"

Lanny turned on him, raised his voice. "He wouldn't have thought it was Mooney's, Dad. She wasn't sleeping around. She was with Andrew and he knew it."

"Maybe it was Mr. Mooney's baby, though," June said. "Maybe they did have a relationship, Mr. Mooney and Laura, back when Andrew was first worried about it…"

Hardy put a stop to the argument. "Even if they did," he said, "the baby was Andrew's. They took his DNA when they booked him. He was the father."

"And Mooney didn't do it with Laura, Mom, for God's sake. He just didn't!"

"How do you know that?" June asked. "I don't see how you can be so sure."

"If I may," Hardy interjected. "Mrs. Ropke, do you have some reason to think he did?"

Silence descended. June Ropke's eyes had gone wide with surprise, and an embarrassed giggle escaped. "Well, no, of course not. I mean…" Her eyes went to her husband, then Lanny, finally to Hardy. "Except, well, the rumors, you know. That he'd slept with students before."

Hardy brought a hand up to his mouth. Andrew's short story had introduced this basic topic, but this was the first corroboration of it he'd heard in the real world. Earlier in the day, he'd talked to the principal at Sutro, and Mr. Wagner had scoffed at the idea. Mr. Mooney was a charismatic and relatively young teacher, and girls undoubtedly got crushes on him, but he had never to Wagner's knowledge had a breath of scandal surface. From Hardy's perspective, though, if rumors about Mooney were even circulating, then regardless of their substance this would add credibility to the prosecution's theory of Andrew's motive.

"I haven't ever heard anything like that," Mark said. "And if there was even a shred of truth to it, Sutro would have kicked him out. I'm sure of that."

"That's why I've never believed them, either," June said. Although Hardy was not sure this was the truth.

He turned to the young man. "What about you, Lanny? Were there rumors? Did students think Mr. Mooney slept around?"

"I'd never heard that," Lanny said. But, of course, Hardy reasoned, Lanny had come to understand the damage he'd done to Andrew. Now he wanted to protect his best friend if he could, and that's what he'd have to say.

Hardy knew that if he were going to introduce any plausible alternative theory of the murders for either a jury or a judge to consider, he had to get more of a handle on the lives and circumstances of the two victims. If he could somehow establish that someone else had a strong motive to kill either or both of them, Hardy might be able to create some doubt about Andrew. At this stage, he'd take almost anything. But Laura's parents had already shut him out.

That left Mike Mooney. He'd thought that Lanny Ropke might give him some insight into the teacher beyond what he'd already gleaned from Andrew and his damned short story, but if anything, Lanny had only strengthened Andrew's apparent motive- this was doubly damning because clearly that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Any thought of spending time this weekend with Frannie or the kids had to be banished to the exigencies of the case, and they'd opted to get in one last ski weekend before the slopes closed. Now, full dark on this warm Friday night- Hardy pulled up to an address on Poplar Avenue in Burlingame, fifteen miles or so south of the city. He found he could park in an empty driveway- what a concept!- and then walked on stones placed in the lawn to a craftsman-style bungalow's porch, where a light burned and where he pressed the bell, which echoed within.

The door opened. "Mr. Hardy?" A practiced, formal smile. "Please, come in." He offered a hand. "I'm Ned Mooney."

Mooney's father lived on the property of the Baptist church which he served as minister, although he wasn't wearing a clerical collar tonight at home, but a black V-neck pullover and black slacks. Hardy followed him into a dim, well-furnished semi-sunken living room with a baby grand piano in one corner and a lifetime of books and magazines on the dark wood built-in bookshelves. He took the deep red leather chair- one of a pair of them- that Mooney indicated. The reverend took the other one, sat back, smiled his professional smile again, threw one leg over the other and clasped his hands on his lap.

There were deep bags under his eyes, a sallowness to the skin which wasn't just the poor lighting. A few strands of gray hair covered his scalp. Reverend Mooney looked to be at least seventy years old. Though his handshake had been firm and his walk to this room steady, Hardy sensed a deep fatigue, as though he were drawing upon his last reserves of strength. "You said you're defending the boy accused of shooting Michael," he began in a very quiet voice, "so I'm not sure what I'll be able to do to help you."

"I'm not, either, Reverend, though it might help you to know that what I'm most interested in is no different from the police. I want to identify your son's killer. I don't believe that's my client."

"You don't? Why not? From what I understand, the case against him is very strong."

"Actually, there are any number of problems with it, not the least of which is that there's no physical evidence tying him to the murder weapon, no evidence that he fired a gun at all that night. And they have to prove he did. Andrew doesn't have to prove he didn't."

Mooney rubbed his weary eyes. "And they don't have that?"

"No, sir."

"What about all the yelling? Didn't the man upstairs say they'd been fighting all night?"

Hardy leaned in closer. "I talked about this with Andrew just this morning. Do you know what play they were practicing?"

"Yes. I think it was Who's Afraid of…" He stopped. "Where the characters are yelling at each other for half the play, aren't they?"

"Yes, sir." He paused. "They weren't fighting. They were rehearsing."

Mooney eased himself all the way back into his chair, slumped low. Eyes closed, he templed his hands over his mouth and blew into them. Finally, he opened his eyes again. "It doesn't really matter," he said. "It won't bring him back."

"No. But the wrong man shouldn't be punished. Would your son have wanted that? Would you?"

He sat low in the chair, nearly horizontal. "I've spent all of my life in the service of God, Mr. Hardy. I don't understand how He could have done this to me. After He took Margaret, Michael was all I had left." The man's sincerity was heartrending. "He was my pride and joy." He pointed with an unsteady hand. "You see that piano over there? You should have heard Michael on it, playing like an angel and singing along, ever since he was child. He just had an immense and God-given talent. He was such a wonderful boy. Then those tapes. Do you see them? That whole second shelf? Those are the acting jobs, the television, even parts in some movies. I tell myself that someone born with that much, God only lets us keep them a short while before He wants them back. I tell myself…"

Hardy understood what he was saying. He'd lost an infant son over thirty years before- also named Michael, he suddenly realized, but he wasn't going to let himself get sidetracked down that path now. He was here for his client.

"Reverend Mooney." His voice barely intruded on the room's stillness. "Aside from his performing, what was his life like? I'm trying to get a sense of if there might have been someone who would have a reason to want to hurt him."

The old man shook his head. "He didn't have any enemies. Everybody loved him."

"Do you know if he'd had a run-in with one of his students? Maybe gave somebody a poor grade?"

"You really didn't know him, did you? He was the softest grader in the school. I'd ask him sometimes if he shouldn't be harder on the kids, if he wasn't doing them some kind of disservice, being so easy. He wasn't preparing them for real life. But he always said I didn't understand the importance of grades nowadays. You get one 'B,' half your college options disappear. He wasn't going to do that."

"So you saw him a lot, still?"

"Once a week, at least. He'd come for Sunday service and stay for lunch. Every week. We were very, very close."

"So you'd know about his social life. Did he talk about that? I know he lived alone…"

Mooney dragged himself back to upright, eager to talk about Michael in spite of himself. "He'd pretty much given up on dating. He was married twice, you know, and neither one worked out. I think this was the biggest disappointment in his life, especially after the wonderful life we all had while he was growing up. Me and Margaret, our marriage, was his model I'm sure. When he didn't succeed in either of his, I think… This sounds a little strange, but I think it broke him in some way. Anyway, after the second marriage ended, he just kind of gave up on the idea of having his own family. Said if it was meant to happen, God would take care of it."

"How long ago were these marriages?"

"Both when he was in his twenties. Both lasted a couple of years. And two fine women, too. Terri and Catherine. It seems they all just wanted different things. And of course, the artist's life is never easy. He wasn't making much money…" He sighed. "I think those failures, and the constant worrying about money, that's a big part of what made him turn to teaching, which finally made him happy. I know he loved his work- the kids, the plays, all of it. It was his life now, maybe not the one he'd chosen when he was young, but the one God had chosen for him. It was good."

Hardy took a last look around the dim, ordered, cultured room. If there was anything in Mike Mooney's life that had played a role in his death, Hardy was certain that Mooney's father knew nothing about it.

Driving up the freeway with the top down, listening to the news to check for traffic problems and determine whether he should take the 101 or the 280 back home, Hardy suddenly leaned forward and turned up the volume.

"Police in San Francisco tonight are looking into two separate shootings that occurred within fifteen minutes of each other earlier tonight in the Twin Peaks District. Both victims were shot in their homes, apparently at close range, and both died at the scenes. Police are unaware of any immediate connection between the victims, a middle-aged man and an elderly woman, but have not ruled out the possibility that both shootings may have been the work of one gunman. Neither shooting appears to have been gang-related. Police are advising residents in the area to be especially cautious opening their doors to strangers. So far, no witnesses have come forth with even a tentative description of the suspect in either shooting."

Hardy pushed the button on his dash and flipped over into CD mode. In a minute, he was listening to Nickel Creek again, the haunting and beautiful "Lighthouse's Tale." He was tired of hearing about murders in the city, although vaguely aware that it seemed to be turning into an unusually bloody month. As it was, he had his work cut out for him with Andrew, and for the moment he was out of ideas.

Wu didn't go home.

She'd missed eight hours of billing the day before, and after Brandt dropped her off, she went to her office, and closed the door behind her. By six, she'd drafted the sixteen-page memo of points and authorities that Farrell had requested on the "notice rule," a question of whether or not the statute of limitations had run on a client's malpractice claims against his wife's doctor, who in spite of several physical examinations had failed to properly diagnose her breast cancer until it had been too late. Wu got into it- it was a fairly sensitive analysis of when the statute began to run, at the time of the original non-diagnosis, or when the damage had been "noticed." Plus, Farrell had given her twenty billable hours, and for a change, she thought, she could be efficient.

Sometime afterward, they delivered her order of takeout Chinese and she ate her carton of lo mein at her desk while she studied the files of two conflicts cases she'd picked up- one computer identity theft and one meth sales, complicated by a concealed weapons charge- that were coming up for prelim. In neither of these cases did she entertain the slightest doubt that her clients had done what they'd been accused of.

Nor did either of them deny it. She hadn't even asked them yet- it would be unnecessary and even a little rude before the prelim to press them too hard about what had happened. Better they should hear the evidence and then decide what their respective stories would be. Her meth guy was looking at a third strike if he was convicted, and life in prison, so he had nothing to lose. The computer geek didn't think the rules actually applied to him. He was tedious and whiny and kept complaining about how his court appearances were inconvenient, and why hadn't Wu gotten the charges dismissed yet? He was a long way from being ready to face the music.

Now it was ten o'clock and she was alone in the office. Yesterday's hangover had become a dim memory and she pushed herself back from her desk, thinking that it was Friday night, she'd worked more than a full day, expiated her demons. Now it was time to party, to forget, to score and prove again how desirable she was, how charming, fun, worthy of love.

Her eyes fell upon the picture of her father, framed on her desk. She wondered if he was seeing her now, watching from wherever he might be. Sitting back down, she pulled the picture near. To her knowledge, her father had never gone out and "partied" in his life. He did his job, he took care of his responsibilities, raised his difficult daughter all by himself.

She stared at his likeness. Well, if he wasn't going to like her anyway, she'd show him. She wouldn't need him anymore, either. That was the greatest punishment she could inflict on him. She could be completely independent, financially secure on her own, emotionally untouchable. Alone.

Alone.

"Come on, Dad. Talk to me," she said aloud.

It wasn't her father's voice, but Jason Brandt's that she heard. For a minute, I thought we had something going. I mean personally. She saw him tapping his chest. In here.

She sat back and gathered herself, her eyes closed. When she opened them, her gaze fell upon the cardbox box containing the files in the Bartlett case. She reached down and pulled it over to her. Hard on the heels of the two cases she'd just been reviewing, she was suddenly struck by the qualitative difference between both of them and this one. Between all of her previous clients, in fact, and Andrew.

She'd been completely blind to it at the beginning, assuming that her client was guilty, as all of her previous clients had always been. But now as she turned the pages in the files- the police reports, autopsies, photos of the crime scene, transcripts of interviews with Andrew and every witness in the case- she tried to take everything fresh, but this time with the prejudice that he might actually be innocent.

Certainly Andrew himself hadn't deviated from his original story; even when he'd been presented with new evidence that seemed to damn him, he always had an explanation that fit the facts. Andrew was an intelligent young man-"Perfect Killer" illustrated that clearly enough. His stubborn insistence on his own version of events, when he had no illusions about how bad it made him look, had a certain perverse authority. She found the quote from his short story:

Would a smart guy like me admit to these damning lapses if I had done it? No, I'd lie about them, too. I'd make up a more consistent story. Think about it. Doesn't that make more sense?

And, in fact, she had to admit that it did.

She pulled her yellow legal pad over in front of her and on the top of the first page wrote "First Criterion: The Minor's Degree of Criminal Sophistication." Lifting the rest of the pages of "Perfect Killer" out of its folder, she chewed on the end of her pen, trying to recall every instance where Andrew's story, which, she reminded herself, was fiction, which he'd made up, pointed more to his innocence than his guilt.

Tomorrow- Saturday- she'd be in here writing the motion to Judge Johnson on the impropriety of the rushed timing on the 707 hearing, giving notice they would be cutting him no slack. They had not yet truly begun, and were already laying the groundwork for an appeal. Maybe even a writ- get the Appellate Court involved before the 707 even took place.

She'd already made appointments to talk to, recruit and perhaps even get time to prepare some reasonable number of the seven witnesses she and Hardy had preliminarily identified to testify on the various criteria. She had to nail down addresses, phone numbers, schedules.

She desperately wanted to talk to Jason Brandt again- her hand had gone to the phone half a dozen times while she'd been working. Each time she'd drawn it back. But she felt she had to apologize. She had to let him know how she really felt about all of her mistakes, the seemingly endless series of them. She wanted to tell him that she was beginning to get some understanding of what had been driving her. The ghosts that had haunted her. Her hand went to the phone again. If he answered, they'd just talk. It wouldn't be about Andrew.

She pushed the numbers, heard the ringing, got his machine. Of course. It was Friday night. Of course he was out. She hung up before the message ended, sighed and opened another folder.

It was going to be a long weekend.

21

On Saturday morning, alone in the house, Hardy showered, dressed in jeans and a blue workshirt and went downstairs to the kitchen. He poured himself a mug of coffee and took the first essential sip. Lifting his eight-pound black cast-iron pan from where it hung from the hole in its handle on a marlin hook, he put it over a high gas flame on the stove. They were out of eggs- he'd used them all up with Amy the other night- and this slowed him down for a second, but he hadn't eaten dinner last night at all and was famished. So he cut a half inch of butter, threw it in the pan, let it start to melt.

With an English muffin going in the toaster, he opened the refrigerator, found some luncheon ham and cut it up with a can of new potatoes, half an onion and a red pepper. After it had browned up a little, he added a tablespoonful of flour and a bouillon cube, and stirred it all together into a dark paste, into which he then poured a coffee mug full of water and stirred again. After it had thickened up, he tasted it, added Worcestershire and Tabasco, stirred again, and turned down the heat while he went to get the paper.

Poured over the muffin halves, he figured his breakfast was at least as good as most of the specials at Lou the Greek's. Maybe he'd even type up the recipe, drop it by there. Chui would serve it over rice instead of English muffins, and probably use soy sauce instead of Worcestershire for the gravy, but it would be cheap to make and, at least for Hardy this morning, it was satisfying enough. He could call it "Hearty Bowl," a pun. Abe would love it.

The two homicides last night made the front page. The coincidences they'd mentioned on the radio had blossomed into a tentative theory- it had been the same shooter. They'd recovered 9mm slugs from both scenes and police were running ballistics to see if they came from the same weapon. But in both cases, there appeared to have been no sign of forced entry. The woman, Edith Montrose, was seventy-two years old, and lived alone on Belvedere Street, while the man, Philip, the fifty-five-year-old owner of Wong's Fine Produce, lived in a duplex on Twin Peaks Boulevard with his wife, Mae Li. The article noted that the two murder scenes were less than four blocks apart. There were other similarities as well: both victims were shot at very close range, in the chest. Nothing was apparently stolen from either domicile.

Hardy finished the article, then came back to the front page and found a follow-up story on Allan Boscacci. So far, Glitsky and his special task force didn't appear to have accomplished much.

He washed his dishes and poured another cup of coffee. It wasn't much after 7:00 A.M., still too early to call anybody on a Saturday. And who was he going to call upon anyway? He was beginning to think he should have gone up to Northstar with the rest of the family after all. Certainly, he hadn't helped Andrew's case by either of his visits last night. It wasn't really too late. He could hop in his car now, and if he flew, he could still ski a run or two before lunchtime.

Instead, he came back to the table and finished reading the rest of the newspaper. He'd think of something to do here. There were still several people he hadn't talked to, notably Hal and Linda North and their daughter, Alicia. He told himself he should just show up at the Wrights', Laura's parents, and try again to get them to talk to him. He thought his best bet, though, might be Juan Salarco. He was a nice enough guy, and something about their talk the other night had seemed somehow unresolved, although Hardy hadn't been able to put a finger on what it had been. Maybe if he went back there, went over the whole night one more time, talked to the wife…

Glitsky got the call back from Hardy at 9:15.

"Where have you been? I've been calling you for an hour."

"You only left one message."

"That's because if you hear that one," Glitsky said, "you won't need the others. Which apparently you did, since here you are, calling me back."

"True enough. I was taking a walk, clearing my brain. It didn't seem to do much good. What can I do for you?"

"You can listen to my adventure yesterday. Treya's getting a little tired of it after the fourth time, I can tell, but I think you'll appreciate it."

"All right. Hit me," Hardy said, and listened to Abe's version of his single-handed Cow Palace bust, leaving the van, loaded with illegal suppressors and paraphernalia, not to mention Ewing's driver's license and address, with the engine running, and blocking the unmanned Brisbane police cars into their places.

When the story ended, with Glitsky ducking into his car and making a clean getaway, he waited a minute for Hardy to say something. When he didn't, Glitsky did. "I said, is that cool or what?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah? That's your complete response to one of the great moments in my career?"

"Right," Hardy said. Then, with a small show of interest: "Sorry, Abe. I missed the end of it. What were you saying?"

As soon as he hung up, Hardy grabbed his telephone book and looked up Juan Salarco's number, which was listed. The phone rang four times, then he heard a message in Spanish.

"Juan," he said at the beep. "Soy Dismas Hardy, abogado de Andrew Bartlett. Importante, por favor." And he left his number in both English and Spanish.

He'd stopped listening to Glitsky about halfway through the saga, when it occurred to him that maybe his friend had inadvertently supplied him with what had been nagging him about Salarco's testimony all along. It was a small enough point, perhaps, but it could prove important.

He'd already listened to the Salarco tape several times all the way through, but to be sure now he got his briefcase, put it on the dining table and took out his notes and the tape. With some chagrin, he realized he'd even written a comment about street noise, and whether the gunshot could have been heard over it. But he'd never followed up. Now he put in the tape and started running the interview through another time. This time, knowing what he was listening for, it was even less ambiguous.

Salarco's voice. "… and turn on the TV, real quiet, but then there is this… this scream, the girl, and then a… a bump. You could feel it up here, like something dropped. The house shook. Then right after, a crash, the sound of a crash, glass breaking. And a few seconds later, suddenly boom again, the house shakes another time, somebody slamming the front door under us."

Stoked up now, Hardy ran it back, played it yet again.

A bump. "You could feel it up here, like something dropped."

A crash. "… the sound of a crash, glass breaking."

Boom again. "… somebody slamming the front door under us."

A bump, a crash, a boom. But no gunshot.

Paper-thin walls, where even the sounds of Andrew's and Laura's rehearsals could wake the baby upstairs, and yet Salarco did not hear, or did not comment upon, the explosive percussion of two 9mm automatic rounds fired probably within eight feet of him? Could it have been possible not to hear them?

The telephone rang, and Hardy leapt to it, perhaps Salarco getting back to him already, pulling a break on this case at last.

"Dad." Something wrong with the voice. Something wrong altogether.

"Vin. What's the matter?"

"Um, it's not bad. I mean, everybody's alive…"

"Jesus Christ, Vin, what?"

"It's Mom. She didn't want you to worry, but…

"Vin. What about her? What's happened?"

"She had an accident. Somebody hit her."

"In the car?"

"No, on the slope. Skiing."

"Is she okay? Where is she now? Can I talk to her?"

"She says she'll be okay, you know? You're not supposed to worry. But you can't talk to her. They had her on a backboard to the ambulance and now they've got her in the emergency room and the Beck's waiting outside in case… Anyway, she said I ought to call you."

"Where are you?"

"The hospital in Truckee. By the emergency room."

"I'm on my way up. I'm on my cellphone the whole way."

"Okay. And, Dad?"

"Yeah, bud?"

"Hurry, huh?"

Frannie was going to be okay. As Vinnie had said, nobody was going to die. But okay was a relative thing.

They let him take her home on Sunday, but as soon as she got there, Hardy was to make sure she got in bed and stayed there until her local doctor told her she could get up. She'd definitely sustained a concussion. It was very much out of character for Frannie, who didn't like to acknowledge physical pain, but she didn't argue with him at all. She'd be wearing a neck brace and sporting an arm sling for at least six weeks. After that they'd do some more tests and have a clearer picture of what, if any, further damage had been done to her spine and/or neck. She'd also cracked two ribs on her left side and sustained a Ping-Pong-ball fracture of the left shoulder socket in the course of dislocating it.

By the time he had fed her some soup and settled her into bed, it was full dusk, but the Beck still hadn't made it home. She'd been driving his hot little sports car, following close, but they'd lost sight of her in the traffic just outside Sacramento, and now they'd been home for almost an hour and still no sign of her.

For dinner, Hardy and Vincent cooked up two cans of corned beef hash- the black pan again, but without any romance- and quartered a head of iceberg lettuce with a mayo and ketchup thousand island poured over it. They amused themselves, and kept the unspoken fear about the Beck at bay by inventing tortures for the person who'd run into Frannie on the slopes, who of course didn't even slow down and had never been caught.

Finally, they heard the front door. Hardy put down his fork and prepared himself not to speak harshly. He'd almost been unable to swallow for the second half of his meal, as the minutes had passed. His beautiful, smart, clever seventeen-year-old was never late, and if anything had happened to her, too…

She stood at the end of the dining room. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I got a flat tire in Sacramento, and you had both cellphones with you, and I wasn't anywhere near a gas station. And then I couldn't figure out where they put the spare…"

"It's under the rug in the trunk," Vincent said.

"Thanks, dear brother, I know that now. And I even know how to change a flat tire. But, Dad, look, I pulled over and some guy stopped and… I mean, an older guy, and he helped me, but then he asked for my number, and I got… Anyway, I didn't think… I thought if he followed me…"

"Wait, wait, wait." Hardy held up a hand. "Did he follow you?"

"No. I don't think so. But I was afraid when I was parking…"

He stopped her again. "Are you okay now? Is the car okay? Good. Are you hungry? Sit down, I'll make you something." He stood up, put his arms around her, kissed the side of her face, the top of her hair. He kept his arms around her, tight around her back. "I love you. Everything's all right. Your mother's upstairs sleeping. Thanks for driving my car down. I'm sorry about the flat tire. They happen."

They separated and she looked up at him. Getting her bravery together. "But, Dad," she said, suddenly breaking a smile, "what a great car!"

Finally, finally, the kids both relatively calmed and catching up on their weekend's homework, he got to the Sunday paper. While they'd been gone, things had developed rapidly in the double homicides, and by this morning, "Executioner Stalks City Streets" was the banner headline. Ballistics had confirmed that both victims in the Friday night shootings had in fact been shot by the same weapon. Because of the nature of the attacks- the execution-style, point-blank shot to the heart- Marcel Lanier of homicide had told some reporters that he was afraid that what we had here was some type of executioner, and judging by the headline, the idiotic name looked like it was going to stick.

Hardy never even looked at his answering machine until the kids were asleep. He hadn't had a drop to drink since at least Thursday night, and was somewhat surprised to see that he hadn't missed it a bit. Still, now he thought he could use a beer. He opened a Sierra Nevada and, turning off the overhead, finally noticed the blinking light on the far end of the kitchen counter.

Salarco, getting back to him.

It was 11:15 on a Sunday night. The gardener undoubtedly got up at or near daybreak. Hardy wouldn't be doing himself or Salarco any favors by calling back this late.

For a minute, he cursed himself for all he'd absolutely had to do this weekend that he'd left unaccomplished. His client's hearing was now only two days away, and he'd made no progress of any kind. It had been through no fault of his own, true, but he knew that other lawyers might have found a way to proceed on the case even through two such difficult days. They might have called in partners or associates, hired private investigators, even pled hardship to the judge. He might have thought to do something, but all he'd been able to think of was the suffering of his wife, the worries of his children, the needs of his family.

"So sue me," he said aloud. Put down his unfinished beer. Went up to get some rest.

22

Hardy got the phone before it finished its first ring. Next to him, Frannie moaned but did not wake up. It seemed to be sometime in the middle of the night, pitch out the window.

"Hello." His sleep-edged voice cracked. He cleared his throat and said it again. "Hello."

The voice was urgent, yet controlled, the words hastily strung together. "Sorry to wake you up, sir. It's Amy. I just got a call from the YGC. Andrew's tried to kill himself."

"Give me a second." He was up, moving to the bathroom, where he closed the door behind him and turned on the light, blinking in the glare. "What do you mean, tried? Is he alive? What happened?"

"All I know is they called me about ten minutes ago. They said he tried to hang himself in his cell, but the guard heard something and got to him in time to cut him down. Or maybe the shirt he used ripped, it wasn't clear. It doesn't matter."

"So where is he now?"

"They were bringing him to SFGH." San Francisco General Hospital. "I'm on my way down now."

"I'll meet you there."

Dressed now in the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday, and Saturday before that, down in the kitchen, he stopped to write a note to Rebecca and Vincent, telling them where he was going. They'd been getting themselves ready for school, making their own breakfasts, their bag lunches, for some time now. Beyond that, Hardy didn't know the Monday morning routine, but he was confident they could work it out themselves. He reminded them to check on their mother upstairs, make sure she got some food and liquid and her pain medication. He'd be back home, hopefully, by mid-morning if he could. Again, he'd be on his cellphone. Call with any questions or problems.

He grabbed his briefcase, glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. 4:30.

Outside, he paused in thin fog at the sidewalk just outside his gate, realizing that he didn't know where Rebecca had parked his car last night. Well, fortunately they had two of them. Now if he could only remember where he'd parked the 4Runner. After a minute's reflection, it came to him and he turned up toward Clement. Half-jogging now, he covered the two blocks down to Thirty-second, then turned right- the car was about midway down the block, under a burned-out streetlight.

The front seat was dew-drenched and cold. Inside the car, in fact, it seemed exceptionally cold, but the reason for it didn't really register until he turned to look over his shoulder as he put it in reverse so he could pull out. The backseat window on the passenger side wasn't there anymore. Neither, he suddenly realized, were the skis they'd left the night before.

Now in a flash, his actions last night came back to him. Double parked in the street right out front of his house, he and Vincent had helped get Frannie inside. Then he'd gone on the daily search for a parking place, finding this spot a couple of blocks away- not too bad, considering. In his rush to get back to his wife, he'd locked up, of course, but hadn't unpacked this car, thinking to return soon with his son. But then the Beck hadn't shown up, and…

Knowing what he'd find, he got back out of the car and walked around to where the broken glass covered the sidewalk, crunching under his feet. He opened the door and peered over the backseat into the storage area in the back and verified that they'd not only taken the skis, but the poles and boots and luggage bag they used for the rest of their stuff- gloves, goggles, extra clothes, everything. The deck was bare, cleaned out.

Sick at the world, he got back in behind the wheel, started the engine, put on his lights and pulled out into the still-dark street.

Wu wore a dark blue jogging suit and tennis shoes, a black and orange Giants warm-up jacket, no makeup. Her hair was back in a ponytail. Hardy thought she could have passed for about Andrew's age. "… because it's my fault, that's why," she was saying.

"How could it be your fault?" Hardy had had enough of hospitals over the weekend with Frannie to never want to see one again, and yet here he was now, outside the emergency room at SFGH, aptly nicknamed the San Francisco Gun & Rifle Club by the law community. He and Wu sat on red molded-plastic chairs and he was drinking vending machine coffee from a paper cup.

"I spent almost all day yesterday with him, going over the criteria, ways we might be able to beat them. It wasn't too heartening. By the time I left, he was pretty down."

"Did you tell him about our plan to call witnesses on the crime itself?"

She nodded. "Sure, but by that time we're on number five. He figured we couldn't win on any of the first four, either, not after his short story got out. So he was going up, that was his opinion. We couldn't do anything to stop that." She hung her head wearily, came back up to Hardy. "I keep thinking if only I wouldn't have gone in to talk to him, it wouldn't have come to this. But what was I supposed to do? Who else except Andrew could have…?"

A young Asian woman in bloodstained blue scrubs and a stethoscope was approaching them. Wu stopped talking and they both stood up.

"The officer who brought him in told me you were with the hanging victim," she said. "He's going to have trouble talking for a while, and he'll be in some discomfort, but fortunately whatever he used- evidently his shirt- couldn't hold him and the fall didn't break his neck. He's going to live. The officers want to take him back to the YGC, but I told him we're going to hold him here for observation for at least a day."

"Thank you," Hardy said. "Under the circumstances, I'd make it a close watch."

"We will," the doctor said. "Do you know where his parents are, by the way? Does he have parents?"

"They're in Palm Springs, I believe. At a tennis tournament," Wu said. Then, including Hardy: "But I'm concerned about his sister. The YGC called his home first and there was no answer at all. They called me next."

"So no parents," the doctor said. "And people wonder where kids go wrong." The young woman's face was set in frustration.

"Can we talk to him?" Hardy asked.

She shook her head no. "He can't really talk. Also, I've got him sedated for now. He'll be out for a couple of hours. And he really won't be able to talk normally for at least a few days." A pause, then a gentler tone. "Do you know why he might have tried to do this?"

"He's got a hearing coming up soon," Wu said. "He thinks he's looking at years in prison."

The doctor nodded. "What did he do?"

"The charge is murder," Wu said. "But there are questions."

This was the first time Hardy had heard Wu say something like that, and he shot a glance at her.

Wu nodded back.

Hardy and Wu were walking across the parking lot. Out in front of them, the sun still hadn't cleared the hills across the bay, and wisps of fog still hung in the air, but the chill had already gone out of it. Overhead the sky was a clear blue and there was no wind.

"What did you mean in there? There are questions- which hasn't exactly been your mantra since you got on this case. I was wondering if something had happened."

"Nothing specific. I just decided that I needed to adjust my attitude if I wanted to keep on defending him. His position hasn't budged- he's innocent." She shrugged. "So I guess I decided to try on believing him, see what it felt like. At least it's got me thinking that it might be possible after all. Otherwise, why would he persist in all these insane contradictions? Until I read his short story, I thought he just might not be too bright, but we know it isn't that."

"No. We know it isn't that."

"Right. So now I'm kind of leaning the opposite way, thinking he's just too smart to have made up so much dumb stuff. He wouldn't have shot them and left the gun on the table, for example. Period. He just wouldn't have done it. Anyway, once I decided maybe he wasn't lying about everything, it gave me some hope."

"That's funny." Hardy told her that some similar thoughts had been surfacing for him since he'd started to consider the fact that the upstairs neighbor, the state's prime witness, hadn't said he'd heard any gunshots. But as soon as he'd said it aloud to Wu, he immediately backpedaled.

"It's nowhere near certain," he said. "I've got to talk to him again. Salarco. About the gun. What it looked like. If it had any kind of silencer on it, he would have had to notice. But if not, then I've got to find out if the cops found any kind of muffling agent at Mooney's. Maybe the shooter shot through a pillow or something."

They'd both stopped walking. Wu faced him. "There's no indication of that from the crime scene pictures. I didn't see anything in discovery."

"I know. I double-checked them myself. And Salarco probably would have mentioned something like a silencer if he'd seen one. It's a big old protruding tube stuck on the end of the barrel, you know. It's not something you'd miss."

"So what are you saying? If all of this gets borne out?"

"Well, the simplest interpretation, which is always the best, is that if Andrew's gun didn't have a silencer on it, and he didn't use anything to kill the sound, then that gun- the purported murder weapon- never got fired that night." Hardy's eyes were bright with the possibility. "It's not quite exactly the other dude that I must say there's no sign of, but Andrew's gun is a big part of the picture. If I can get Johnson to listen, or get Salarco to testify that he got a good gander at the gun and it looked normal…"

"… then… wait a minute."

"What?"

"Well, being devil's advocate, Andrew could have used a silencer, killed Mooney and Laura, then taken the silencer off and ditched it before he came back to call nine one one."

"Then got rid of the gun? A second trip? I don't see that happening. I can't see Andrew doing that."

"I don't either. But Jason Brandt will see it, and the argument's then refuted and we're back where we started."

"No. Not exactly," Hardy said, "at least I'm not."

"What would be the difference?" Wu asked.

"You mean if everything is just as I described it to you now? Salarco didn't just miss the two shots? No muffling agent in the house, no silencer on the gun?"

"Yeah. What then?"

Hardy's eyes were out of focus while the idea worked itself into something like resolution in his mind. The matter settled, he came back to her. "Then I'm pretty sure I don't have to pretend to myself anymore. If Salarco didn't hear the gun, then Andrew didn't shoot it. And you know what that means? What I've got to believe?"

"What's that?"

"He's innocent. Somebody else killed them."