W HEN THE HIGH-PITCHED WARNING BEEP SIGNALED THAT A main door of the house had been opened, Elise swiftly left her bedroom. She’d reached the top of the stairs when she heard the chirps indicating that the code was being entered. Cato was home.

He appeared in the foyer below her. She called his name. He looked up and saw her poised there at the top of the staircase. “Hello, Elise. You’re still awake. Why am I not surprised?” Rather than coming upstairs, he proceeded down the foyer, disappearing from her sight.

Her meeting with Savich had left her shaken. Meetings with Savich always did.

When she’d returned home, the house was empty. Mrs. Berry was off on Saturday evenings, so Elise hadn’t expected to find her there. But it surprised her that Cato wasn’t. As evening turned to night, she called his cell phone several times but got only his voice mail. He hadn’t responded to her messages.

It was uncharacteristic of him not to keep in touch. It was also a bad omen. She passed the entire evening and into the wee hours in a state of high anxiety, wondering what Duncan Hatcher had told her husband.

She quickly descended the staircase. “Cato?”

“In here.”

She followed the direction of his voice into the kitchen. As she entered, he turned to face her with a butcher knife in his hand. She looked from the gleaming blade to him. “What are you doing?”

“Making a sandwich.” He moved aside, allowing her to see the ham on the countertop, along with fixings for a sandwich. “Would you like one?”

“No, thank you. Wouldn’t you rather have breakfast? I could make—”

“This will do.” He turned back to carving slices off the ham.

“I’ve been calling your cell phone all night. Where have you been?”

“Didn’t you get the message?”

“No.”

“I asked the receptionist at the club to call and tell you that I’d been invited into a high-stakes poker game and that it would be late before I got home.”

He reached around her for the telephone, depressing the button that put it on speaker. The static dial tone indicated that no messages were waiting to be retrieved. “Hmm. That’s odd. She’s usually reliable.”

Elise doubted he’d ever made the request to the receptionist. If he’d wanted to assuage her concern, why hadn’t he just called her himself?

He built his sandwich and halved it with the butcher knife. “What time did you get home, Elise?”

“Around five, I think. After leaving you at the club, I got a call from the dress shop, telling me that my alterations were ready. I went to pick them up, did some shopping.”

That much was the truth. But before going to the boutique where she often shopped, she’d driven to the edge of town to the White Tie and Tails Club to meet Robert Savich.

He put the sandwich on a plate and carried it to the table in the breakfast nook. “Buy anything?”

“A pants suit and a cocktail dress.”

He licked a dollop of mayonnaise off his finger. “You can model them for me later.”

“I think you’ll approve.” She sat down across from him, studying his expression, trying to make eye contact, which he was avoiding. “You’ve never stayed out all night before. Not once since we’ve been married.”

He chewed a bite, blotted his mouth. “Not since we’ve been married have I had a day like yesterday.”

He took another bite, chewed, blotted his mouth again. And he still wouldn’t look at her. She was in an agony of suspense.

“My conversation with Duncan Hatcher was most upsetting.”

Her throat closed.

“Even Kurt the massage Nazi couldn’t work out the tension in my shoulders and back.” He took another bite.

“What did he say to upset you? What did you talk about?”

“Our relationship. Yours and mine, not mine and his,” he added, flashing a humorless smile.

“Our relationship is none of his business.”

Then he did look at her directly. “Maybe he thinks it is.”

“Why would he?”

“You tell me.”

“I’m sorry, Cato. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Twice now I’ve come upon you two with your heads together, lost in conversation. The night of the awards dinner. And again today at the club. I didn’t like it either time.”

“The night of the awards dinner, he was a stranger asking me for change. Today, when I left the powder room, he was in the hallway, looking for you.”

His dark eyes searched hers. “I wasn’t that hard to find today. And he could have asked a dozen other people for change that night. He’s deliberately putting himself in your path. You must sense why, Elise. You can’t be that naive.”

“You think Hatcher is interested in me romantically?”

He scoffed. “No romance about it. He’d love to sleep with you only to make a fool of me.”

Cato had stayed away all night out of pique and jealousy. She felt her lungs expanding with relief.

“That would be the ultimate payback for my putting him in jail, wouldn’t it?” he said. “To seduce my wife?”

Although Duncan Hatcher had said as much to her the night of the awards dinner, she smiled and shook her head. “You’re wrong, Cato. He has no interest in me outside his investigation.”

“What man could be immune to you?”

She smiled at the flattery.

“But what about you, Elise?”

“What about me?”

“What do you think of the detective?”

“You have to ask?” She placed her hand on his forearm where it rested on the table and squeezed it lightly. “Cato, since the night of the shooting, Detective Hatcher has done nothing but bully me. I dread the sight of him.”

His features relaxed. “I’m glad to hear that.” Pushing aside his plate, he reached across the table and stroked her cheek. “Let’s get in the pool.”

“Now? You just ate, and it’s nearly dawn. Aren’t you too tired to swim?”

“I’m wide awake. Apparently, so are you. And I didn’t say I wanted to swim.”

He took her hand and they walked outside together. She reached for the switch that turned on the pool light and the fountain in its center. He said, “No, leave them off.”

He stripped to the skin. It was evident that he wasn’t at all tired. He came to her, untied the belt of her robe, and pushed it off her, along with her slip-type nightgown. He ran his hands over her, possessively and with more aggressiveness than usual.

She responded as expected, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking of Duncan Hatcher. He hadn’t betrayed her to Cato. Did that mean he believed her? Even a little?

Cato took her hand and pulled her down the steps into the pool. He clasped her around the waist and waded in until she could no longer touch bottom. As her body floated against his, she noticed that here in the center of the pool, the water was deep and dark. Like secrets.

 

“Duncan?”

He grunted a semblance of a response.

“That’s yours.”

“Hmm?” He lifted his head from the pillow and opened one eye.

“Your cell phone is ringing.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He rubbed sleep from his eyes with one hand and reached for his phone with the other. He flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Guess who they hauled in last night and is still in a holding cell?”

“What time is it?” he grumbled, trying to pull the numbers of his alarm clock into focus.

“Gordon Ballew.”

“Who?” How was it that DeeDee didn’t sound groggy even on a Sunday morning?

“Gordie,” she exclaimed. “Gordie Ballew. One of Savich’s boys.”

“Got it.” With a groan, he rolled onto his back and sat up. The woman who’d been sleeping beside him was already up and across the room, gathering her clothing and pulling it on. “What did he do?”

“Who cares?” DeeDee said. “So long as we can get him in a bargaining mood. Meet you there.”

She hung up before he could say anything more. He returned his cell phone to the nightstand and swung his feet to the floor. “Sorry, but I’ve got to run. Work.”

“It’s all right,” she said as her head popped through the neck of her top. “I’ve got to go anyway.”

He’d met her in one of the hot spots in Market Square last night. She was petite, pretty, and brunette. That was the sum total of what he knew about her. She’d told him some stuff, but the music had been loud, the drinks strong, and he hadn’t really been listening anyway because he hadn’t been that interested in anything she had to say.

He remembered none of their conversation, not even her name. He didn’t specifically recall inviting her back to his place, but he must have. As for the act itself, the only thing he remembered was that he’d made sure to use a condom. Immediately after rolling off her, he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

It wasn’t like him to bring home a stranger, but he’d thought that having sex, even mindless, meaningless sex, would keep him from thinking about Elise Laird.

Silly him.

His distraction must have made itself felt, and that was unfair to any woman. Feeling rotten about it, he said, “Look, you don’t have to race out of here just because I do. Stay. Sleep. Make yourself at home. If this doesn’t take too long, we could go out for breakfast later.”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, then, leave your number.” He tried to inject his voice with a bit of enthusiasm, but was pretty sure he didn’t achieve it. “I’d like to see you again.”

“No, you wouldn’t, but that’s cool.” She moved to the door, where she turned back and smiled. “You were a good fuck. Savich said you probably would be.”

 

Gordon Ballew was one of those individuals who’d been doomed before he took his first breath. His mother hadn’t been sure who his father was and didn’t consider that it mattered much since she didn’t keep the baby anyway.

Not even a barren couple desperate for an adopted child wanted one with a cleft palate, so from the delivery room Gordie had become a dependent of the state, shuttled from one foster home to another until he was old enough to exit the system and try and fare on his own.

His entire life had been an endless round of ridicule and abuse because of his deformed mouth, defective speech, and diminutive size. Today, at age thirty-three, he might weigh 120 pounds, sopping wet.

Duncan would have felt sorry for Gordie Ballew, except for the fact that he had never tried to improve his lot, had never attempted to reverse the downward spiral that his life had been since he wormed his way out of the birth canal.

Once he bade his last set of foster parents good-bye, he’d been in and out of penal institutions so many times that Duncan figured Gordie considered a cell block home.

He watched him thoughtfully on the video monitor in the room adjacent to the interrogation room, where a member of the counter-narcotics team had been hammering away at him for several hours, without success.

“Has the DEA been notified?”

Another narcotics officer shook his head and gave a sour harrumph. “They’ve been such bastards, blaming us ’cause Freddy Morris got popped, I figure we don’t owe them this.”

“Did we cause Freddy Morris to get popped?” Duncan asked.

“Hell no,” the officer answered with soft but angry emphasis.

“Savich got him past you. All of you.”

The officer grunted agreement without accepting blame. “I don’t see how he coulda done that.”

“He couldn’t,” Duncan said. “Not without help.”

The narc looked at him sharply. “From inside? Are you saying somebody on our team ratted us out?”

It was a touchy subject, one that had been broached before to a barrage of protests from both teams. It was something constantly in the back of Duncan’s mind, but he dropped it for now.

“Where’s Ballew’s lawyer?”

“Waived one,” the narc told him. “Said he was ready to sign a confession, go straight to jail, do not pass Go.”

DeeDee had been practically dancing in place with impatience. “Are we going to get a crack at him, or what?”

“Be our guest,” the narc said.

As they moved toward the interrogation room, DeeDee asked Duncan, “Were you good cop or bad cop last time we questioned Gordie?”

“Bad. Let’s stick with that.”

“Okay.”

The narc opened the door to the small, dreary room and told the interrogating officer that he had a phone call. “Besides, homicide has a hard-on for our boy here.”

“Homicide?” Gordie squeaked.

The narcotics officer stepped aside to make room for Duncan and DeeDee. “He’s all yours. Y’all have fun.” He strolled out and let the door swing closed behind him.

“Hi, Gordie.” DeeDee took a seat across the small table from him. “How are you?”

“How’s it look?” he mumbled.

Ignoring the attitude behind his reply, she introduced herself by name. “Remember us? My partner there is Duncan Hatcher.”

“I know you.” Gordie cast a wary glance toward Duncan where he was leaning up against the wall, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed.

“Didn’t the narcs get you anything to drink? What would you like?” She moved as though to get up.

“Sit down, DeeDee,” Duncan said. “He doesn’t need anything to drink.”

DeeDee frowned at him with feigned asperity and dropped back into the chair. “You picked the wrong time to get busted, Gordie. Duncan’s pissed. He had plans for this morning, but now he’s here with you.”

“Don’t let me keep you, Detective.”

The con’s cheeky courage was short-lived. He shriveled under Duncan’s hard glare. “Let’s stop screwing around,” he said to DeeDee, “book him for murder two, and I can be on my way.”

“The guy died?” Gordie squealed. “He wasn’t bleeding that much. Swear to God it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt him that bad. He said something about my lip. I was high. It happened before I realized. Oh Jesus. Murder two? I’ll confess to assault, but…Oh Jesus.”

“Relax, Gordie.” Duncan’s somber tone and the sinister way in which he pushed himself away from the wall and sauntered toward the table didn’t inspire relaxation.

Gordie Ballew began to cry, his knobby shoulders bobbing up and down.

“Duncan, he needs a Kleenex,” DeeDee said kindly.

“No, he doesn’t.” Duncan sat down on the corner of the table.

Gordie wiped his running nose on his sleeve and looked up at him with patent fear. “He died? I barely swiped him with that broken bottle.”

“The guy you assaulted last night was treated and released.”

Gordie sniffed loudly. He gaped up at Duncan, then looked at DeeDee, who nodded encouragingly. “Then how come y’all’re talking murder two?”

“Another case, Gordie. Freddy Morris.”

His face, flushed with anxiety moments before, turned pale. He licked snot off his misshapen upper lip. His eyes began to dart between them, wild with fear. “You’re crazy, Hatcher. I didn’t have nothing to do with Freddy Morris. Me? You kidding?”

“No. I’m not kidding. You want to change your mind about that lawyer?”

Gordie was too upset for that to register. “I…I never shot nobody. I’m scared of guns. They make me nervous.”

“That’s why we’re not charging you with first degree. We don’t believe you made poor Freddy lie down in that marsh, cut out his tongue, and then popped him in the back of the head with a forty-five.” He pretended to fire a pistol and made a loud noise with his mouth.

Gordie flinched. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“You can hold it.”

“Duncan,” DeeDee said.

“I said, he can hold it.”

She looked at Gordie with sympathy and raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

“Look, Gordie,” Duncan said, “we know, those narcs outside know, the Feds know, we all know you gave Freddy Morris over to Savich.”

“Are you nuts? Savich? He scares me worse than guns. If Freddy had been smarter, he would have been scared of him, too, and kept his trap shut.”

Duncan looked over at DeeDee with a complacent grin, as though expecting her to congratulate him for scoring a point. Too late, Gordie realized that he’d given himself away. Immediately he tried to rectify it. “At least that was the word on the street. I heard that Freddy Morris, uh, you know, was in conversation with y’all. I didn’t have personal knowledge of it.”

“I think you did, Gordie,” Duncan countered smoothly.

“No,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “Not me. Un-unh.”

He squirmed in his chair. He wiped his damp palms on the thighs of his grimy blue jeans. He blinked hard as though clearing his vision.

Duncan let him stew for a moment, then said, “Tell me about Savich.”

“He’s a tough customer. So I hear. I only know him by reputation.”

“You work for him. You cook and sell meth for him.”

“I peddle some dope now and then, yeah. I don’t know where it comes from.”

“It comes from Savich.”

“Naw, naw, he’s a mechanic, ain’t he? Makes machines or something?”

“You think I’m queer, Gordie?” Duncan asked angrily.

“Huh? No!”

“Is that what you think?”

“No, I—”

“Then stop jerking me around. You’re not clever enough to outsmart me. You’re one of Savich’s most reliable mules. We’ve got schoolkids who testified at your last trial, Gordie, remember? They said under oath that they go to you for a sure score.”

“I admitted to dealing every now and then. Didn’t I?” He turned to DeeDee, frantically seeking her backing. “Didn’t you hear me just admit that?”

“You’re far too humble, Gordie,” Duncan said. “Savich depends on you to make addicts, future customers, out of children. You’ve introduced them to meth. You’ve got them raiding their folks’ medicine cabinets for boxes of Sudafed. You’re an asset to Savich’s operation.”

The little man swallowed hard. “Far as I know, his operation is that machine shop.”

“Are you afraid that if you talk about him to us, you’ll wind up like Freddy Morris did?”

“What I heard? I heard…I heard Freddy bought it over some woman. A guy, I don’t know who, did Freddy on account of he was banging his old lady. That’s the story I got.”

Duncan spoke softly, but with menace. “You’re jerking me around again.”

“I ain’t gonna say nothing about Savich,” the convict cried out, his voice tearing. He tapped the tabletop with a dirty, chipped fingernail. “You’ll never get me to say anything, neither. Not now, not ever.”

He appealed to DeeDee, whining, “Where’s the confession? Those first cops that arrested me? They said it would take a while to draw up the paperwork. Left me waiting here, and in come those narcs, harassing me. Now y’all. Just let me sign a confession saying I went at that guy last night with a broken beer bottle. Lock me up. I’m ready to take my punishment.”

“We could make a deal—” DeeDee began.

“No deal,” he said with a stubborn shake of his head.

“We could make this assault with a deadly weapon charge disappear like that.” Duncan snapped his fingers an inch away from Gordie’s flat nose. “Or we could lay several others on you. We might even ratchet this charge up to attempted murder. You’d do more time.”

“Fine. You do that, Hatcher,” he said, calling Duncan’s bluff. “I’d rather go to jail than…Nothing,” he finished in a mumble.

“Than wind up like Freddy Morris?” DeeDee asked.

But even her seeming gentleness didn’t make a dent. She and Duncan continued with him for another half hour. He would not incriminate Savich. “Not even for spittin’ on the sidewalk,” he avowed.

They left him alone, not showing their weariness until they were out of the room. DeeDee slumped against the wall. “I’ve never had to try so hard to be nice. I wanted to wring it out of the little jerk.”

“You were convincing. Even I thought you were turning soft.” Duncan was teasing, and she knew it, but neither was in the mood for levity.

“Y’all did the best you could,” said one of the narcotics officers gazing morosely at the video monitor, where Gordie could be seen gnawing at a bleeding cuticle. “Can’t say as I blame him. Freddy Morris had his tongue cut out. Savich got to Chet Rollins in prison. Somebody crammed a bar of soap down his gullet. He died slow. And that Andre…what was his last name?”

“Bonnet,” Duncan supplied.

“No sooner had the DEA struck a deal with him to testify against Savich than his house blows up, his mother, his girlfriend, and her two kids in there with him.”

“Savich got a hung jury and that screwup ADA ruined us for a retrial,” Duncan said. “He got away with killing five people. The baby was three months old.”

“We thought we had Morris locked down tight,” the narc said, taking out his frustration on his chewing gum. “That Savich is one smart sumbitch.”

“He’s not that smart,” Duncan growled. “We’ll get him.”

“Doesn’t look like we’re going to get him with Gordie Ballew’s help,” the second narc said.

“Even if he made a deal with us, Gordie isn’t a good candidate.” They all looked to Duncan to elaborate on his statement. “First off, he’s scared shitless of Savich. He’d give himself away before you could set up the sting. Secondly, he’s resigned to spending most of his life behind bars.

“In fact, I think he wants to. Why would he risk dying violently by ratting out Savich, when he can be guaranteed three squares a day and a home where everybody else is just as bad off as he is? For someone as pathetic as Gordie, that’s about the best deal available.”

They all muttered agreement of sorts. Duncan and DeeDee left the others to wrap up getting Gordon Ballew’s confession to the assault charge.

 

“Who do we know I could get to sweep my house for electronic bugs?”

By tacit agreement, Duncan and DeeDee had regrouped in his office. She was opening a can of Diet Coke when he asked his surprise question, nearly causing her to spill the drink.

“You think your house is bugged?”

He told her about his overnight guest.

She listened, her mouth slack with disbelief. “Duncan, you stupid—”

“I know, I know.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I was an idiot. I confess. But it happened. Now I’ve got to do some damage control.”

“She could have killed you.”

“Savich is saving that particular honor for himself. This was just another taunt, his way of letting me know how vulnerable I am.”

“Was she worth it?”

“I don’t even remember,” he admitted. “I didn’t know anything until you called and woke me up. When she dropped that bombshell, I bounded out of bed and chased her downstairs. She struck off down the sidewalk at a run. I would’ve gone after her, but realized I was bare-assed, unarmed, and that possibly that was the plan. Savich could be waiting out there in the bushes, ready to pop me the minute I appeared. So I went back in, got my weapon, and searched the house, thinking he might be inside. He wasn’t, of course. Far as I can tell, nothing was disturbed.”

“Except her side of the bed.”

“You couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Did she take anything?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t notice anything missing. But while I was asleep she might have planted some kind of surveillance equipment in my house. I want it checked as soon as possible.”

Within half an hour, they’d run down a surveillance expert who sometimes did contract work for the department. He promised to do the sweep later that morning. Duncan gave him the location of his hidden key as well as the code of his alarm system, which he’d changed before leaving the house.

As he concluded the call, DeeDee stacked her hands atop the mass of steel wool that passed for hair, and sighed with resignation. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Send me to my room?”

“Did you at least use a condom?”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s something. And you’re being conscientious about setting your house alarm. That’s good. But from now on, get references before you take a woman to bed, okay? If Savich is—”

“Cato Laird lied to us.”

She dropped her hands from her head. “I thought we were discussing Savich.”

“Now we’re discussing the Lairds.”

“You learned something yesterday after sending me away from the country club, didn’t you? You fibbed when you told me nothing came out of your locker room chat with the judge. Waste of time, you said.”

He’d called her on his cell phone from the taxi he’d taken from the club to his town house. “Yeah, I fibbed.”

“How come?”

“Because I wanted to take an evening off.”

“Look how that turned out,” she said drolly.

“I knew if I even hinted that I’d learned something potentially important, neither of us would have had a night off, and in my estimation, both of us needed one.”

“I could kill you,” she snarled. “But not before you tell me what you found out.”

“He lied to us about Meyer Napoli.”

He recounted everything Judge Laird had told him about hiring the private investigator to follow Elise. “He’s so crazy in love, he doesn’t care that their marriage has cost him the respect of friends and associates. Possibly even his next reelection. They share a passionate sexual appetite for each other. Even though she had an affair, he loved her too much to confront her with it. It’s over. History. The marriage remains intact. Everyone’s happy.”

“She doesn’t know that he hired Napoli?”

“He says she doesn’t.”

“So the lady was telling the truth when she claimed she’d never heard of him.”

“I guess.”

“And the judge is convinced the affair is over?”

“Oh, it’s over, all right.”

DeeDee looked at him quizzically.

“Mrs. Laird’s lover was Coleman Greer.”

W HEN THE HIGH-PITCHED WARNING BEEP SIGNALED THAT A main door of the house had been opened, Elise swiftly left her bedroom. She’d reached the top of the stairs when she heard the chirps indicating that the code was being entered. Cato was home.

He appeared in the foyer below her. She called his name. He looked up and saw her poised there at the top of the staircase. “Hello, Elise. You’re still awake. Why am I not surprised?” Rather than coming upstairs, he proceeded down the foyer, disappearing from her sight.

Her meeting with Savich had left her shaken. Meetings with Savich always did.

When she’d returned home, the house was empty. Mrs. Berry was off on Saturday evenings, so Elise hadn’t expected to find her there. But it surprised her that Cato wasn’t. As evening turned to night, she called his cell phone several times but got only his voice mail. He hadn’t responded to her messages.

It was uncharacteristic of him not to keep in touch. It was also a bad omen. She passed the entire evening and into the wee hours in a state of high anxiety, wondering what Duncan Hatcher had told her husband.

She quickly descended the staircase. “Cato?”

“In here.”

She followed the direction of his voice into the kitchen. As she entered, he turned to face her with a butcher knife in his hand. She looked from the gleaming blade to him. “What are you doing?”

“Making a sandwich.” He moved aside, allowing her to see the ham on the countertop, along with fixings for a sandwich. “Would you like one?”

“No, thank you. Wouldn’t you rather have breakfast? I could make—”

“This will do.” He turned back to carving slices off the ham.

“I’ve been calling your cell phone all night. Where have you been?”

“Didn’t you get the message?”

“No.”

“I asked the receptionist at the club to call and tell you that I’d been invited into a high-stakes poker game and that it would be late before I got home.”

He reached around her for the telephone, depressing the button that put it on speaker. The static dial tone indicated that no messages were waiting to be retrieved. “Hmm. That’s odd. She’s usually reliable.”

Elise doubted he’d ever made the request to the receptionist. If he’d wanted to assuage her concern, why hadn’t he just called her himself?

He built his sandwich and halved it with the butcher knife. “What time did you get home, Elise?”

“Around five, I think. After leaving you at the club, I got a call from the dress shop, telling me that my alterations were ready. I went to pick them up, did some shopping.”

That much was the truth. But before going to the boutique where she often shopped, she’d driven to the edge of town to the White Tie and Tails Club to meet Robert Savich.

He put the sandwich on a plate and carried it to the table in the breakfast nook. “Buy anything?”

“A pants suit and a cocktail dress.”

He licked a dollop of mayonnaise off his finger. “You can model them for me later.”

“I think you’ll approve.” She sat down across from him, studying his expression, trying to make eye contact, which he was avoiding. “You’ve never stayed out all night before. Not once since we’ve been married.”

He chewed a bite, blotted his mouth. “Not since we’ve been married have I had a day like yesterday.”

He took another bite, chewed, blotted his mouth again. And he still wouldn’t look at her. She was in an agony of suspense.

“My conversation with Duncan Hatcher was most upsetting.”

Her throat closed.

“Even Kurt the massage Nazi couldn’t work out the tension in my shoulders and back.” He took another bite.

“What did he say to upset you? What did you talk about?”

“Our relationship. Yours and mine, not mine and his,” he added, flashing a humorless smile.

“Our relationship is none of his business.”

Then he did look at her directly. “Maybe he thinks it is.”

“Why would he?”

“You tell me.”

“I’m sorry, Cato. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Twice now I’ve come upon you two with your heads together, lost in conversation. The night of the awards dinner. And again today at the club. I didn’t like it either time.”

“The night of the awards dinner, he was a stranger asking me for change. Today, when I left the powder room, he was in the hallway, looking for you.”

His dark eyes searched hers. “I wasn’t that hard to find today. And he could have asked a dozen other people for change that night. He’s deliberately putting himself in your path. You must sense why, Elise. You can’t be that naive.”

“You think Hatcher is interested in me romantically?”

He scoffed. “No romance about it. He’d love to sleep with you only to make a fool of me.”

Cato had stayed away all night out of pique and jealousy. She felt her lungs expanding with relief.

“That would be the ultimate payback for my putting him in jail, wouldn’t it?” he said. “To seduce my wife?”

Although Duncan Hatcher had said as much to her the night of the awards dinner, she smiled and shook her head. “You’re wrong, Cato. He has no interest in me outside his investigation.”

“What man could be immune to you?”

She smiled at the flattery.

“But what about you, Elise?”

“What about me?”

“What do you think of the detective?”

“You have to ask?” She placed her hand on his forearm where it rested on the table and squeezed it lightly. “Cato, since the night of the shooting, Detective Hatcher has done nothing but bully me. I dread the sight of him.”

His features relaxed. “I’m glad to hear that.” Pushing aside his plate, he reached across the table and stroked her cheek. “Let’s get in the pool.”

“Now? You just ate, and it’s nearly dawn. Aren’t you too tired to swim?”

“I’m wide awake. Apparently, so are you. And I didn’t say I wanted to swim.”

He took her hand and they walked outside together. She reached for the switch that turned on the pool light and the fountain in its center. He said, “No, leave them off.”

He stripped to the skin. It was evident that he wasn’t at all tired. He came to her, untied the belt of her robe, and pushed it off her, along with her slip-type nightgown. He ran his hands over her, possessively and with more aggressiveness than usual.

She responded as expected, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking of Duncan Hatcher. He hadn’t betrayed her to Cato. Did that mean he believed her? Even a little?

Cato took her hand and pulled her down the steps into the pool. He clasped her around the waist and waded in until she could no longer touch bottom. As her body floated against his, she noticed that here in the center of the pool, the water was deep and dark. Like secrets.

 

“Duncan?”

He grunted a semblance of a response.

“That’s yours.”

“Hmm?” He lifted his head from the pillow and opened one eye.

“Your cell phone is ringing.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He rubbed sleep from his eyes with one hand and reached for his phone with the other. He flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Guess who they hauled in last night and is still in a holding cell?”

“What time is it?” he grumbled, trying to pull the numbers of his alarm clock into focus.

“Gordon Ballew.”

“Who?” How was it that DeeDee didn’t sound groggy even on a Sunday morning?

“Gordie,” she exclaimed. “Gordie Ballew. One of Savich’s boys.”

“Got it.” With a groan, he rolled onto his back and sat up. The woman who’d been sleeping beside him was already up and across the room, gathering her clothing and pulling it on. “What did he do?”

“Who cares?” DeeDee said. “So long as we can get him in a bargaining mood. Meet you there.”

She hung up before he could say anything more. He returned his cell phone to the nightstand and swung his feet to the floor. “Sorry, but I’ve got to run. Work.”

“It’s all right,” she said as her head popped through the neck of her top. “I’ve got to go anyway.”

He’d met her in one of the hot spots in Market Square last night. She was petite, pretty, and brunette. That was the sum total of what he knew about her. She’d told him some stuff, but the music had been loud, the drinks strong, and he hadn’t really been listening anyway because he hadn’t been that interested in anything she had to say.

He remembered none of their conversation, not even her name. He didn’t specifically recall inviting her back to his place, but he must have. As for the act itself, the only thing he remembered was that he’d made sure to use a condom. Immediately after rolling off her, he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

It wasn’t like him to bring home a stranger, but he’d thought that having sex, even mindless, meaningless sex, would keep him from thinking about Elise Laird.

Silly him.

His distraction must have made itself felt, and that was unfair to any woman. Feeling rotten about it, he said, “Look, you don’t have to race out of here just because I do. Stay. Sleep. Make yourself at home. If this doesn’t take too long, we could go out for breakfast later.”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, then, leave your number.” He tried to inject his voice with a bit of enthusiasm, but was pretty sure he didn’t achieve it. “I’d like to see you again.”

“No, you wouldn’t, but that’s cool.” She moved to the door, where she turned back and smiled. “You were a good fuck. Savich said you probably would be.”

 

Gordon Ballew was one of those individuals who’d been doomed before he took his first breath. His mother hadn’t been sure who his father was and didn’t consider that it mattered much since she didn’t keep the baby anyway.

Not even a barren couple desperate for an adopted child wanted one with a cleft palate, so from the delivery room Gordie had become a dependent of the state, shuttled from one foster home to another until he was old enough to exit the system and try and fare on his own.

His entire life had been an endless round of ridicule and abuse because of his deformed mouth, defective speech, and diminutive size. Today, at age thirty-three, he might weigh 120 pounds, sopping wet.

Duncan would have felt sorry for Gordie Ballew, except for the fact that he had never tried to improve his lot, had never attempted to reverse the downward spiral that his life had been since he wormed his way out of the birth canal.

Once he bade his last set of foster parents good-bye, he’d been in and out of penal institutions so many times that Duncan figured Gordie considered a cell block home.

He watched him thoughtfully on the video monitor in the room adjacent to the interrogation room, where a member of the counter-narcotics team had been hammering away at him for several hours, without success.

“Has the DEA been notified?”

Another narcotics officer shook his head and gave a sour harrumph. “They’ve been such bastards, blaming us ’cause Freddy Morris got popped, I figure we don’t owe them this.”

“Did we cause Freddy Morris to get popped?” Duncan asked.

“Hell no,” the officer answered with soft but angry emphasis.

“Savich got him past you. All of you.”

The officer grunted agreement without accepting blame. “I don’t see how he coulda done that.”

“He couldn’t,” Duncan said. “Not without help.”

The narc looked at him sharply. “From inside? Are you saying somebody on our team ratted us out?”

It was a touchy subject, one that had been broached before to a barrage of protests from both teams. It was something constantly in the back of Duncan’s mind, but he dropped it for now.

“Where’s Ballew’s lawyer?”

“Waived one,” the narc told him. “Said he was ready to sign a confession, go straight to jail, do not pass Go.”

DeeDee had been practically dancing in place with impatience. “Are we going to get a crack at him, or what?”

“Be our guest,” the narc said.

As they moved toward the interrogation room, DeeDee asked Duncan, “Were you good cop or bad cop last time we questioned Gordie?”

“Bad. Let’s stick with that.”

“Okay.”

The narc opened the door to the small, dreary room and told the interrogating officer that he had a phone call. “Besides, homicide has a hard-on for our boy here.”

“Homicide?” Gordie squeaked.

The narcotics officer stepped aside to make room for Duncan and DeeDee. “He’s all yours. Y’all have fun.” He strolled out and let the door swing closed behind him.

“Hi, Gordie.” DeeDee took a seat across the small table from him. “How are you?”

“How’s it look?” he mumbled.

Ignoring the attitude behind his reply, she introduced herself by name. “Remember us? My partner there is Duncan Hatcher.”

“I know you.” Gordie cast a wary glance toward Duncan where he was leaning up against the wall, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed.

“Didn’t the narcs get you anything to drink? What would you like?” She moved as though to get up.

“Sit down, DeeDee,” Duncan said. “He doesn’t need anything to drink.”

DeeDee frowned at him with feigned asperity and dropped back into the chair. “You picked the wrong time to get busted, Gordie. Duncan’s pissed. He had plans for this morning, but now he’s here with you.”

“Don’t let me keep you, Detective.”

The con’s cheeky courage was short-lived. He shriveled under Duncan’s hard glare. “Let’s stop screwing around,” he said to DeeDee, “book him for murder two, and I can be on my way.”

“The guy died?” Gordie squealed. “He wasn’t bleeding that much. Swear to God it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt him that bad. He said something about my lip. I was high. It happened before I realized. Oh Jesus. Murder two? I’ll confess to assault, but…Oh Jesus.”

“Relax, Gordie.” Duncan’s somber tone and the sinister way in which he pushed himself away from the wall and sauntered toward the table didn’t inspire relaxation.

Gordie Ballew began to cry, his knobby shoulders bobbing up and down.

“Duncan, he needs a Kleenex,” DeeDee said kindly.

“No, he doesn’t.” Duncan sat down on the corner of the table.

Gordie wiped his running nose on his sleeve and looked up at him with patent fear. “He died? I barely swiped him with that broken bottle.”

“The guy you assaulted last night was treated and released.”

Gordie sniffed loudly. He gaped up at Duncan, then looked at DeeDee, who nodded encouragingly. “Then how come y’all’re talking murder two?”

“Another case, Gordie. Freddy Morris.”

His face, flushed with anxiety moments before, turned pale. He licked snot off his misshapen upper lip. His eyes began to dart between them, wild with fear. “You’re crazy, Hatcher. I didn’t have nothing to do with Freddy Morris. Me? You kidding?”

“No. I’m not kidding. You want to change your mind about that lawyer?”

Gordie was too upset for that to register. “I…I never shot nobody. I’m scared of guns. They make me nervous.”

“That’s why we’re not charging you with first degree. We don’t believe you made poor Freddy lie down in that marsh, cut out his tongue, and then popped him in the back of the head with a forty-five.” He pretended to fire a pistol and made a loud noise with his mouth.

Gordie flinched. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“You can hold it.”

“Duncan,” DeeDee said.

“I said, he can hold it.”

She looked at Gordie with sympathy and raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

“Look, Gordie,” Duncan said, “we know, those narcs outside know, the Feds know, we all know you gave Freddy Morris over to Savich.”

“Are you nuts? Savich? He scares me worse than guns. If Freddy had been smarter, he would have been scared of him, too, and kept his trap shut.”

Duncan looked over at DeeDee with a complacent grin, as though expecting her to congratulate him for scoring a point. Too late, Gordie realized that he’d given himself away. Immediately he tried to rectify it. “At least that was the word on the street. I heard that Freddy Morris, uh, you know, was in conversation with y’all. I didn’t have personal knowledge of it.”

“I think you did, Gordie,” Duncan countered smoothly.

“No,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “Not me. Un-unh.”

He squirmed in his chair. He wiped his damp palms on the thighs of his grimy blue jeans. He blinked hard as though clearing his vision.

Duncan let him stew for a moment, then said, “Tell me about Savich.”

“He’s a tough customer. So I hear. I only know him by reputation.”

“You work for him. You cook and sell meth for him.”

“I peddle some dope now and then, yeah. I don’t know where it comes from.”

“It comes from Savich.”

“Naw, naw, he’s a mechanic, ain’t he? Makes machines or something?”

“You think I’m queer, Gordie?” Duncan asked angrily.

“Huh? No!”

“Is that what you think?”

“No, I—”

“Then stop jerking me around. You’re not clever enough to outsmart me. You’re one of Savich’s most reliable mules. We’ve got schoolkids who testified at your last trial, Gordie, remember? They said under oath that they go to you for a sure score.”

“I admitted to dealing every now and then. Didn’t I?” He turned to DeeDee, frantically seeking her backing. “Didn’t you hear me just admit that?”

“You’re far too humble, Gordie,” Duncan said. “Savich depends on you to make addicts, future customers, out of children. You’ve introduced them to meth. You’ve got them raiding their folks’ medicine cabinets for boxes of Sudafed. You’re an asset to Savich’s operation.”

The little man swallowed hard. “Far as I know, his operation is that machine shop.”

“Are you afraid that if you talk about him to us, you’ll wind up like Freddy Morris did?”

“What I heard? I heard…I heard Freddy bought it over some woman. A guy, I don’t know who, did Freddy on account of he was banging his old lady. That’s the story I got.”

Duncan spoke softly, but with menace. “You’re jerking me around again.”

“I ain’t gonna say nothing about Savich,” the convict cried out, his voice tearing. He tapped the tabletop with a dirty, chipped fingernail. “You’ll never get me to say anything, neither. Not now, not ever.”

He appealed to DeeDee, whining, “Where’s the confession? Those first cops that arrested me? They said it would take a while to draw up the paperwork. Left me waiting here, and in come those narcs, harassing me. Now y’all. Just let me sign a confession saying I went at that guy last night with a broken beer bottle. Lock me up. I’m ready to take my punishment.”

“We could make a deal—” DeeDee began.

“No deal,” he said with a stubborn shake of his head.

“We could make this assault with a deadly weapon charge disappear like that.” Duncan snapped his fingers an inch away from Gordie’s flat nose. “Or we could lay several others on you. We might even ratchet this charge up to attempted murder. You’d do more time.”

“Fine. You do that, Hatcher,” he said, calling Duncan’s bluff. “I’d rather go to jail than…Nothing,” he finished in a mumble.

“Than wind up like Freddy Morris?” DeeDee asked.

But even her seeming gentleness didn’t make a dent. She and Duncan continued with him for another half hour. He would not incriminate Savich. “Not even for spittin’ on the sidewalk,” he avowed.

They left him alone, not showing their weariness until they were out of the room. DeeDee slumped against the wall. “I’ve never had to try so hard to be nice. I wanted to wring it out of the little jerk.”

“You were convincing. Even I thought you were turning soft.” Duncan was teasing, and she knew it, but neither was in the mood for levity.

“Y’all did the best you could,” said one of the narcotics officers gazing morosely at the video monitor, where Gordie could be seen gnawing at a bleeding cuticle. “Can’t say as I blame him. Freddy Morris had his tongue cut out. Savich got to Chet Rollins in prison. Somebody crammed a bar of soap down his gullet. He died slow. And that Andre…what was his last name?”

“Bonnet,” Duncan supplied.

“No sooner had the DEA struck a deal with him to testify against Savich than his house blows up, his mother, his girlfriend, and her two kids in there with him.”

“Savich got a hung jury and that screwup ADA ruined us for a retrial,” Duncan said. “He got away with killing five people. The baby was three months old.”

“We thought we had Morris locked down tight,” the narc said, taking out his frustration on his chewing gum. “That Savich is one smart sumbitch.”

“He’s not that smart,” Duncan growled. “We’ll get him.”

“Doesn’t look like we’re going to get him with Gordie Ballew’s help,” the second narc said.

“Even if he made a deal with us, Gordie isn’t a good candidate.” They all looked to Duncan to elaborate on his statement. “First off, he’s scared shitless of Savich. He’d give himself away before you could set up the sting. Secondly, he’s resigned to spending most of his life behind bars.

“In fact, I think he wants to. Why would he risk dying violently by ratting out Savich, when he can be guaranteed three squares a day and a home where everybody else is just as bad off as he is? For someone as pathetic as Gordie, that’s about the best deal available.”

They all muttered agreement of sorts. Duncan and DeeDee left the others to wrap up getting Gordon Ballew’s confession to the assault charge.

 

“Who do we know I could get to sweep my house for electronic bugs?”

By tacit agreement, Duncan and DeeDee had regrouped in his office. She was opening a can of Diet Coke when he asked his surprise question, nearly causing her to spill the drink.

“You think your house is bugged?”

He told her about his overnight guest.

She listened, her mouth slack with disbelief. “Duncan, you stupid—”

“I know, I know.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I was an idiot. I confess. But it happened. Now I’ve got to do some damage control.”

“She could have killed you.”

“Savich is saving that particular honor for himself. This was just another taunt, his way of letting me know how vulnerable I am.”

“Was she worth it?”

“I don’t even remember,” he admitted. “I didn’t know anything until you called and woke me up. When she dropped that bombshell, I bounded out of bed and chased her downstairs. She struck off down the sidewalk at a run. I would’ve gone after her, but realized I was bare-assed, unarmed, and that possibly that was the plan. Savich could be waiting out there in the bushes, ready to pop me the minute I appeared. So I went back in, got my weapon, and searched the house, thinking he might be inside. He wasn’t, of course. Far as I can tell, nothing was disturbed.”

“Except her side of the bed.”

“You couldn’t resist, could you?”

“Did she take anything?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t notice anything missing. But while I was asleep she might have planted some kind of surveillance equipment in my house. I want it checked as soon as possible.”

Within half an hour, they’d run down a surveillance expert who sometimes did contract work for the department. He promised to do the sweep later that morning. Duncan gave him the location of his hidden key as well as the code of his alarm system, which he’d changed before leaving the house.

As he concluded the call, DeeDee stacked her hands atop the mass of steel wool that passed for hair, and sighed with resignation. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Send me to my room?”

“Did you at least use a condom?”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s something. And you’re being conscientious about setting your house alarm. That’s good. But from now on, get references before you take a woman to bed, okay? If Savich is—”

“Cato Laird lied to us.”

She dropped her hands from her head. “I thought we were discussing Savich.”

“Now we’re discussing the Lairds.”

“You learned something yesterday after sending me away from the country club, didn’t you? You fibbed when you told me nothing came out of your locker room chat with the judge. Waste of time, you said.”

He’d called her on his cell phone from the taxi he’d taken from the club to his town house. “Yeah, I fibbed.”

“How come?”

“Because I wanted to take an evening off.”

“Look how that turned out,” she said drolly.

“I knew if I even hinted that I’d learned something potentially important, neither of us would have had a night off, and in my estimation, both of us needed one.”

“I could kill you,” she snarled. “But not before you tell me what you found out.”

“He lied to us about Meyer Napoli.”

He recounted everything Judge Laird had told him about hiring the private investigator to follow Elise. “He’s so crazy in love, he doesn’t care that their marriage has cost him the respect of friends and associates. Possibly even his next reelection. They share a passionate sexual appetite for each other. Even though she had an affair, he loved her too much to confront her with it. It’s over. History. The marriage remains intact. Everyone’s happy.”

“She doesn’t know that he hired Napoli?”

“He says she doesn’t.”

“So the lady was telling the truth when she claimed she’d never heard of him.”

“I guess.”

“And the judge is convinced the affair is over?”

“Oh, it’s over, all right.”

DeeDee looked at him quizzically.

“Mrs. Laird’s lover was Coleman Greer.”

“H IS SECOND TEE TIME WAS AT ELEVEN TEN,” DEEDEE SAID AS she tossed several Goldfish into her mouth.

She and Duncan were in the bar of the Silver Tide Country Club. It was crowded on this Saturday afternoon. Ralph Lauren’s summer line was well represented. Duncan felt conspicuous in his sport jacket, but his shoulder holster and nine-millimeter would have made him even more so.

Among the drinkers were local political figures, private-practice physicians, real estate developers who made a killing off snowbirds who migrated by the thousands to the South’s golf course communities each winter, and Stan Adams, the defense attorney who represented a coterie of career criminals, the most notable being Robert Savich. Adams did a double take when DeeDee and Duncan strolled in, then studiously pretended they didn’t exist.

Which was just as well, Duncan thought. In his present mood, he wouldn’t trust his temper if the lawyer had goaded him about his famous client. Although Savich had kept a low profile since the mistrial, not for a moment did Duncan think he was on hiatus from his criminal activity. He was just smart enough to exercise extreme caution till things cooled down.

Duncan also figured that he was plotting the best time and most effective way to strike at him. He knew Savich would. He’d practically promised it that day in the courtroom. It was only a matter of time before he did. Unfortunately, as a law officer, Duncan couldn’t go after Savich without provocation. He had to sit and wait and wonder. That probably tickled Savich no end.

After seeing their badges, the Silver Tide’s bartender had served him and DeeDee their drinks gratis. The bar had a nice ambience—dark wood, potted jungle plants, brass lamps, peppy but unobtrusive music. The lemonade Duncan had ordered was hand squeezed. The air conditioner was sufficient to keep the heat and humidity on the other side of the oversized, tinted windows. The view of the emerald golf course was spectacular. It wasn’t a bad place in which to spend a sweltering afternoon.

Duncan would rather be anywhere else.

DeeDee dusted Goldfish crumbs off her fingers, remarking, “That must be Mrs. Laird’s replacement.”

She nodded toward the attractive young woman who was delivering a tray of drinks to a foursome of middle-aged men. They stopped discussing their golf game long enough to ogle and flirt.

“She and the judge have been married nearly three years,” Duncan said. “Isn’t that what you told me? The club’s probably gone through a dozen or so waitresses since Mrs. Laird worked here.”

DeeDee turned toward the doorway as another group of men wandered in. Cato Laird wasn’t among them. “He played two rounds back to back, starting before seven this morning. If you can believe anybody would voluntarily do that.”

“You’d have to hold a gun to my head.”

“You don’t like golf?”

“Too slow. Too passive. Not enough action.”

“Playing piano isn’t exactly an action sport.”

“I don’t play piano.”

“Right.” She consulted her wristwatch. “The guy at the desk said he should be finishing soon.”

At least Elise hadn’t been lying about her husband’s tee time. She’d said he had an early one.

She’d said a lot of things.

The last thing she’d said was that her husband was going to kill her, and that when he did he would get away with it, and that it would be Duncan’s fault because he hadn’t believed her.

Then she had squirmed out of his grasp, and with a slam of the front door she was outta there. Her squirming had left him with a doomed erection and respiration more labored than it had been during his five-mile run through the syrupy dawn air. He’d been so angry and frustrated—at her for roping him into her little drama, at himself for allowing her to—he’d actually banged his fist against his front door.

It still hurt. He flexed and contracted his fingers now in an attempt to ease the throbbing ache.

After that burst of temper, he’d gulped a two-liter bottle of water while standing in a cold shower, which had reduced his sweating and deflated his hopeful but disappointed dick. Then he’d called DeeDee as promised.

She had arrived at his town house at the appointed time, bringing with her a selection of breakfast muffins and two cups of carry-out coffee, because, as she said, “Yours sucks.”

She had a plan mapped out for the day. Grouchily, he had reminded her that he was the senior member of the team, the mentor. “You’re the men tee.”

“You want to pull rank, fine. What do you think we should do?”

“I think we should confront the judge with what we learned last night. I’m anxious to see his reaction.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“That’s why I agreed to let you be my partner. You’re smart.” Rummaging in the carry-out sack, he frowned. “Didn’t you get any blueberry?”

He kept up the familiar, squabbling repartee on purpose, because all the while they were in the town house, he’d been afraid that DeeDee would sense that Elise had been there. The moment he’d admitted his partner through the front door, he’d expected her to stop in her tracks and say, “Has Elise Laird been here?” Because to him, the essence of her was that powerful and pervasive. He could feel it, smell it, taste it.

Halfway through his second muffin, he suggested that DeeDee call the Silver Tide Country Club.

“How come?”

“It’s Saturday. I have a hunch the judge is playing golf.”

DeeDee’s call to the club confirmed what Elise had told him. DeeDee was informed that the judge was playing his second round. Their plan was to be waiting for him when he finished, catch him relaxed and unaware, spring on him what they’d learned last night, and gauge his reaction.

They’d been waiting now for more than half an hour. Duncan was about to order another lemonade for lack of anything better to do when the bartender approached them. “The front desk just called, said to tell y’all Judge Laird is having lunch on the terrace.”

He pointed them through a pair of French doors at one end of the bar that opened onto a loggia. At least that’s what the bartender called the open-air walkway enshrouded by leafy wisteria vine. “It’ll lead you straight to the dining terrace.”

“I hope it’s shaded,” Duncan muttered.

The tables set up on the terrace were indeed shaded by white umbrellas as large as parachutes, trimmed in braided cotton fringe. Each table had a pot of vibrant pink geraniums in its center. The judge was seated at one, a cloth napkin folded over his linen trousers, a glass of what looked like scotch at his place setting.

He stood up as they approached. They’d been notified that he was on the terrace, but he’d also been notified that the detectives had been waiting on him in the bar. He wasn’t surprised to see them, but he didn’t appear to be particularly perturbed either.

Of course, he had an audience. Duncan was aware of curious glances cast at them by other diners as the judge shook hands with him and DeeDee in turn and offered them seats at the table.

“I’m about to have lunch. I hope you’ll join me.”

“No, thank you,” DeeDee said. “We had a late breakfast.”

“A drink at least.” He signaled a waiter, who hastened over. DeeDee ordered a Diet Coke. Duncan switched to iced tea.

“How was your game? Games?” DeeDee amended herself, giving the judge her best smile. The women around her were in sun-dresses and halter tops, showing off well-tended tans and pedicured toenails. If she was self-conscious of her dark, tailored suit and sensible walking shoes, she gave no outward sign of it. Duncan admired her for that.

The judge modestly admitted to an eighty on the first round, an eighty-four on the second. While she was commending him, he noticed Duncan whisking a bead of sweat off his forehead.

“I realize it’s warm out here, Detective Hatcher.” He smiled apologetically. “I defer to my wife, who sometimes gets cold in air-conditioning. She prefers the terrace to the sixty-degree thermostat inside.”

Duncan was about to point out the obvious—that his wife wasn’t there—when he experienced a sinking sensation in his gut that coincided with the judge’s brightening smile. “There she is now.”

He stood up, tossed his napkin onto the table, and went to meet Elise as she followed a hostess toward the table. Cato Laird embraced her. She removed her sunglasses to return his hug, and over her husband’s shoulder she spotted Duncan, standing beside his chair at the table, not even realizing that he’d stood up.

Her eyes widened fractionally, but they shifted away from him so quickly that he thought he might have imagined it. As soon as the judge released her, she replaced her dark glasses.

She was dressed in dazzling white, as though to color-coordinate herself with the umbrellas. It was a simple, sleeveless blouse and a loose skirt. The outfit was tasteful. Correct. Unrevealing.

So why did his mind immediately venture to what was underneath?

He felt like he’d just sustained a kick in the balls. For the second time that morning, the unexpected appearance of Elise Laird had left him feeling untethered, which was an alien emotion for him.

Up till now, his involvements with women were dependent on his mood, his level of interest, and time available. The women’s interest was usually guaranteed. He never took undue advantage of his appeal, and had even managed to remain friendly with most of his former girlfriends. On the rare occasion that his interest wasn’t reciprocated, he took it in stride and didn’t look back. No woman had ever broken his heart.

He’d proposed marriage only once: to a childhood friend with whom he remained very close. The catalyst had been the celebration of his thirty-fifth birthday. He pointed out to his friend that they weren’t getting any younger, that both of them had remained single for a reason, and that maybe the reason was that they should be married to each other. He took her “Are you nuts?” as a no, and came to realize what she already knew. They loved each other dearly, but they weren’t in love.

He’d had more women than some men. Much fewer than others. But never a principal in an investigation. And never a married woman. Elise Laird was both. Which made this uncommonly strong attraction to her not only unfortunate but absolutely forbidden.

Tell that to his tingling sensors.

The judge escorted her to the table and held her chair. He sat down and replaced his napkin in his lap, then secured his wife’s hand, holding it clasped between both of his. “I called Elise and asked if she would like to join me for lunch. I thought it would be good for her to get out.” He smiled at her affectionately.

“Obviously I thought so, too. Thank you for the invitation.” She returned his smile, then looked across the pot of geraniums at DeeDee. “Hello, Detective Bowen.”

“We hate to bust in on your lunch date, Mrs. Laird. But I suppose it’s just as well you’re here, too. We were about to tell the judge about the latest development.”

Elise turned quickly to Duncan. “What development?”

“Something that came up last night.” As he said the words, he realized he was assuring her that he hadn’t told DeeDee about her visit to his town house. Her evident relief didn’t make him feel any better about it.

The waiter arrived with his and DeeDee’s drinks, along with a lemonade for Elise. It was like the one he’d had at the bar, except that hers was served with a strawberry as big as an apple impaled on a clear plastic skewer.

The judge ordered another scotch. The waiter asked if they’d like to see menus, but the judge said he would let him know when they were ready. DeeDee requested a straw, and the waiter apologized profusely for not bringing one. These distractions allowed Duncan and Elise time to exchange a long look. At least she was looking toward him. He couldn’t see her eyes through the dark shades.

Trickles of sweat were rolling down his torso, and it wasn’t only because of the heat. The tension at the table was palpable. Even though they were all going through the motions of being relaxed in one another’s company, pretending that this was a casual gathering without agenda, they all knew better.

No one said anything until DeeDee’s straw had been delivered. She thanked the waiter with a nod, peeled away the wrapper, and stuck the straw in her glass. “Judge Laird, are you familiar with Meyer Napoli?”

He laughed. “Of course. He’s been in my courtroom too many times to count.”

“As a defendant?” DeeDee asked.

“Only as a witness,” the judge replied unflappably.

“For which side?”

“Depending on the case, he’s testified both for the prosecution and the defense.”

“Who is he?”

“Sorry, darling.” The judge turned to Elise. “Meyer Napoli is a private investigator.”

“Had you never heard of him, Mrs. Laird?”

Elise removed her sunglasses and gave DeeDee a level look. “If I had, I wouldn’t have asked.”

A crease had formed between the judge’s eyebrows. “You mentioned a development.”

The judge addressed the statement to Duncan, so he responded. “Meyer Napoli has gone missing. It became official this morning. It’s been over twenty-four hours since anyone has seen or heard from him. His secretary, who seems to be the person closest to him, is convinced that he’s met with foul play.”

The judge was hanging on every word. When Duncan stopped with that, he raised his shoulders in a slight shrug. “I hate to hear that. I hope the secretary is wrong, but how does this relate to us? What possible bearing could a private investigator’s disappearance have to do with what happened in our home night before last?”

Duncan locked gazes with Elise. “We found Gary Ray Trotter’s name among papers on Napoli’s desk.”

Her lips parted slightly, but Duncan didn’t expect her to say anything and she didn’t. In fact, no one spoke for a noticeable length of time.

Finally DeeDee cleared her throat. “The detective investigating Napoli’s disappearance noticed Trotter’s name on a memo. Actually a personalized Post-it. ‘From the desk of Meyer Napoli.’ The detective thought it coincidental, Trotter being recently…deceased. He knew that Detective Hatcher and I would find that interesting, and he was right. We talked to Napoli’s secretary last night.”

“And?” the judge asked.

“And nothing,” DeeDee replied. “Trotter had never made an appointment with the secretary to see Napoli. She doesn’t remember anybody by that name coming to the office, but, of course, that doesn’t mean that Trotter and Napoli didn’t meet somewhere else. Obviously they did. Or had contact of some kind, because the secretary confirmed that the handwriting on the Post-it was Napoli’s.” She looked back and forth between the judge and Elise.

The judge chuckled. “You’ve thrown out a lot of assumptions, Detective. Any one of which could be fact. Or none of them. Perhaps Napoli heard through the grapevine that Trotter had died during the commission of a crime. His name rang a bell and Napoli jotted it down to remind himself of it later. Who knows where their paths crossed? Maybe Trotter owed him money.” He gave her a gentle, somewhat patronizing smile. “Aren’t those as plausible as your assumptions?”

Duncan wouldn’t have been surprised if DeeDee had launched herself across the table and knocked him on his condescending ass. He wouldn’t have blamed her, either.

Instead she gave the judge an abashed grin. “Detective Hatcher chides me constantly for jumping to conclusions. It’s one of my character flaws. However, this time he agrees with me.”

The judge looked toward Duncan for elaboration. Duncan nodded him back toward DeeDee, indicating that she still had the floor.

She said, “Meyer Napoli has questionable ethics, but he’s reputed to have a mind like a steel trap. He wouldn’t need to jot himself a reminder note. He wrote down Gary Ray Trotter’s name for a reason.”

Elise had been following this exchange silently, but with undivided attention. “Are you implying that…” Then she shook her head in confusion and asked, “What are you implying?”

“I think I can answer that, darling,” the judge said. “They’re implying that there’s a connection between Napoli and Trotter, and by association, between Napoli and us. Is that it, Detective Bowen?”

In view of his testiness, she responded with remarkable calm. “We’re not implying anything, Judge Laird. But it struck us as coincidental that less than twenty-four hours after he was fatally shot in your home, Trotter’s name would show up on the desk of a private investigator who, also coincidentally, has been reported missing. It’s strange, to say the least.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t explain the strangeness of it.”

DeeDee continued with her typical doggedness. “Please try, Judge Laird. If there was a connection, no matter how long ago or how remote, it might explain how Trotter chose your house to break into. It seems far-fetched that he chose it at random. That’s a quirky element of this case we just can’t reconcile. Why did he choose you to burglarize?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Trotter is in no position to tell us, so I doubt we’ll ever know,” he said. “He could have heard of us through Napoli, I suppose, if they had a history, even in passing. Beyond that, I can’t venture a guess.”

“You’ve never had direct contact with Napoli?”

“Not outside my courtroom. My wife had never even heard of him until a few minutes ago.”

“Is that right, Mrs. Laird?”

“That’s right. I’d never heard of Napoli. Nor Trotter.”

DeeDee sucked the last of her Coke through the straw. “Then I guess we’ve wasted your time. Thanks for the Coke.” She reached for her handbag, and the judge took that as a signal that the interview was over.

“They make an excellent shrimp salad,” he said. “I’d be pleased to treat you.”

DeeDee thanked him for the offer but declined. The judge stood up and shook hands with each of them. DeeDee smiled down at Elise and told her good-bye.

Duncan was about to walk past Elise’s chair, when he hesitated, then extended his hand to her, almost as a dare to himself. First of all, it’s not easy to shake hands with a woman who’s given you a hard-on, and knows it. And second, he was thinking about what had happened the last time they shook hands. “Good-bye, Mrs. Laird.”

She hesitated, then took his hand. Or did she clutch it? “Good-bye.”

It was more difficult to pull his eyes away from hers than it was to withdraw his hand. He followed DeeDee inside the clubhouse and through the dining room. They waited to speak until they reached the lobby and she had given the parking valet her claim check. “What do you think?”

Before Duncan could answer, Stan Adams strolled up to them. “Well, Detective Sergeant Hatcher, I see that you and Judge Laird have kissed and made up since Savich’s trial.” He grinned at Duncan, then greeted DeeDee.

“Is this what you do in your spare time?” she asked. “You hang out in the country club until Savich commits another murder?”

The lawyer laughed, but became serious when he turned back to Duncan. “Are you investigating the fatal shooting at the judge’s house the other night? What was the guy’s name, Trotter?”

Duncan wasn’t surprised that Adams knew of the incident. As DeeDee’s society friend had said, the story had created a buzz. It also had been reported in the newspaper. Subtly. The judge, who usually basked in the glow of media attention, must have called in a favor with the managing editor.

The story had been buried on page ten and details were practically nonexistent. According to the brief story, Trotter was an intruder who had made an attempt on Mrs. Laird’s life, then later died. He could have died of a heart attack or cholera for all the reading public knew.

Stan Adams said, “I thought it was self-defense. How come y’all are on it?”

“Like you, we’re always trying to drum up business.” Duncan’s grin was as affable as the attorney’s, but equally insincere.

Adams knew he would get no more information from them. “Well, if it turns out that Mrs. Laird needs a good defense lawyer, I hope you’ll recommend me.”

He walked away and had reached the double entrance doors, when DeeDee called out to him. “Oh, Mr. Adams, I just remembered. Your dentist called. It’s time you had them bleached again.” She tapped her front teeth.

The attorney fired a finger pistol at her and said, “Good one, Detective. Good one.”

Then he was gone. DeeDee muttered under her breath, “Asshole. Every time I think of that mistrial…” She made a snarling sound and clenched her fist.

Duncan was looking at her, but not really seeing her. His mind wasn’t on Savich or his oily attorney. It was on the judge. His cream-colored linen trousers, his cool and courteous manner.

“A drink at least…. They make an excellent shrimp salad.”

He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Here’s the car,” DeeDee said and started for the door. Realizing he wasn’t following, she turned back. “Duncan?”

But his mind was still on the judge. Tucking his wife’s hand into the crook of his elbow. Possessively.

“Tell me what possible motive Cato Laird could have for wanting to kill you.”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Making a split-second decision, Duncan told DeeDee to go on ahead. “I’m going to stick around here for a while.”

E LISE WAS WATCHING A MOVIE ON DVD. IT WAS THE FILM version of a Jane Austen novel. She’d seen it at least a dozen times and could practically quote the dialogue. The costumes and sets were lavish. The cinematography was gorgeous. The tribulations suffered by the heroine were superficial and easily solved. The outcome was happy.

Unlike real life. Which is why she liked the story so well.

“I was right,” Cato announced as he entered the den, where there was a wide-screen TV and her sizable library of DVDs.

She reached for the remote and muted the audio. “About what?”

He sat down beside her on the sofa. “Gary Ray Trotter was never in my courtroom. As soon as the detectives left, I called my office and ordered that the records be searched. Thoroughly. I never presided over the trial of a Gary Ray Trotter.”

“Would you know if he was ever called as a witness in another trial?”

“Determining that would take more man-hours than I’m willing to invest. Besides, I’m almost certain that what I told the detectives is correct. I’d never seen the man before. You said you didn’t recognize him either.”

“I said it because it’s true.”

After a beat, he said, “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, Elise.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so short.”

“You have reason to be.” He kissed her gently. When they pulled apart, she asked if he would like a drink. “I’d love one, thank you.”

She went to the small wet bar, picked up a heavy crystal decanter of scotch, and tilted the spout against a highball glass.

“Do you know Robert Savich?”

Elise nearly dropped the decanter. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Savich. Ever hear of him?”

She redirected her attention to pouring scotch. “Hmm, the name sounds vaguely familiar.”

“It should. He’s in the news now and again. He’s a drug kingpin. Among other things.”

Keeping her expression impassive, she plunked two cubes of ice into his drink, carried it with her back to the sofa, and passed it to him. “I hope it’s to your liking.”

He took a sip, pronounced it perfect, and kept his eyes trained on her over the top of the glass. “Savich is the reason Hatcher is being so rough on you.”

She picked up a throw pillow and hugged it against her chest. “What does one have to do with the other?”

“Remember I told you that I’d found Hatcher in contempt of court and put him in jail?”

“You said he was upset over a mistrial.”

“Savich’s.”

“Oh.”

“Detective Hatcher is still holding a grudge against me,” Cato said. “You’re catching the brunt of it.”

She threaded the fringe on the pillow through her fingers. “He’s only doing his job.”

“I grant that he has to ask difficult questions in any investigation, but he’s had you on the defensive from the get-go. His partner, too.”

“Detective Bowen doesn’t like me at all.”

“Jealousy,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “She’s pea green with it, and one can clearly see why. But she’s insignificant.”

“That’s not the impression I get,” Elise murmured, remembering the suspicion with which the other woman had looked at her, last night and today.

“Bowen has earned some commendations, as you know. But Hatcher is the standard by which she measures herself.” Chuckling, he rattled the ice cubes in his glass. “And he’s a tough yardstick.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s smart, and he’s an honest cop. Bowen looks up to him. His allies are hers. That goes double for his enemies.”

“I doubt he thinks of you as an enemy, Cato.”

“Maybe that word is a bit strong, but he has a long-standing gripe with me, and now he’s taking it out on you.”

“There’s more water under the bridge than this recent mistrial?”

“I’ve heard of his rumblings. He thinks I’m not tough enough.” He shrugged as if the criticism didn’t concern him. “That’s a common complaint from hard-nosed cops.”

“He’s hardly Dirty Harry.”

He smiled at her analogy. “No, he’s not that hard-nosed. In fact, the man’s a contradiction. Once, when he was testifying at the trial of an accused child killer, he got tears in his eyes when he described the crime scene, the small body of the victim. To see him that day on the witness stand, you’d think he was a softie.

“But I’ve heard that he assumes another personality when he’s questioning a suspect, particularly when he knows the suspect is lying or giving him the runaround. It’s said he can lose his temper and even get physical.” He stroked her hair. “You got a glimpse of that side of him today, didn’t you?”

“I never felt physically threatened,” she said, only half in jest.

Cato responded in kind. “He wouldn’t dare. But the way he was questioning you about who fired first, you or that Trotter character, bordered on harassment.” He sipped his drink thoughtfully. “A call to his supervisor, Bill Gerard, or even to Chief Taylor may be in order.”

“Please don’t.”

Her sharp tone surprised him. “Why not?”

“Because…” She stopped to think of a plausible answer. “Because I don’t want to draw attention to the incident. I don’t want more made of it than already has been.”

Studying her, he set his drink on the coffee table and curved his hand around her neck. His fingers were very cold. “What are you afraid of, Elise?”

Her heart somersaulted, but she managed to form a puzzled smile. “I’m not afraid.”

“Are you afraid that the questions Hatcher and Bowen are asking about last night may lead to…something? Something uglier than what happened?”

“What could be uglier than a man dying?”

He studied her for several seconds, then smiled at her tenderly. “You’re right. Never mind. Silly thought.” He released her and stood up. “Finish your movie. Would you like Mrs. Berry to bring you something?”

She declined with a shake of her head.

He picked up his highball glass and carried it with him. At the door, he turned back. “Darling?”

“Yes?”

“If you hadn’t been downstairs last night, this incident would have been avoided. Trotter may have burglarized us, but that wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Everything is well insured. Perhaps from now on, you should confine your strolls through the house in the middle of the night to the upper floor.”

She gave him a weak smile. “That’s probably a good idea.”

He returned her smile and seemed about to go, when he hesitated a second time. “You know…another reason for Hatcher’s badgering.”

“What?”

“It gives him an excuse to look at you.” He chuckled. “Poor bastard.”

 

Duncan was in his office, seated at his littered desk, shuffling through telephone messages, trying to look busy for the benefit of DeeDee and the other detectives who were at their desks that afternoon, and wishing like hell that he’d never opened that note.

He couldn’t guess at Elise Laird’s purpose for passing it to him. But the result was that it had convinced him that her explanation for the shooting of Gary Ray Trotter was bogus. There was more to it than the luck of a dumb crook finally running out. If it had been strictly a matter of self-defense, she wouldn’t be slipping a note to the detective overseeing the investigation, asking him to meet her alone.

Which was not going to happen.

It wasn’t.

He pushed aside the unanswered telephone messages, propped his feet on top of his desk, and reached for a yellow legal tablet on which to jot down thoughts as they came to him.

In addition to the note, there were other reasons he—and DeeDee—found Elise Laird’s story hard to accept. One was the burglary itself. It seemed odd that Trotter was on foot in a classy neighborhood like Ardsley Park. The residential area was demarcated by busy boulevards, but the streets within the area didn’t invite pedestrians other than moms pushing baby strollers or people out getting their exercise. A man walking the streets a half hour after midnight would arouse immediate suspicion. A seasoned crook—even an unsuccessful one—would know that and have a getaway car parked nearby.

Also, it was an outlandish coincidence that Trotter had chosen to break into that house on the one night, out of all nights, that Mrs. Laird had forgotten to engage the alarm system.

Okay, so wine and sex could make you lazy. But her satiation hadn’t overcome her insomnia. She hadn’t drifted off into a peaceful, postcoital slumber. No, she’d gone downstairs for a glass of milk to help her fall asleep. Wouldn’t roaming around in the dark house have reminded her that she had failed to set the alarm?

Second, when she heard a noise coming from the study, why hadn’t she crept back into the kitchen and used the telephone to dial 911? Why had her first reaction been to grab a pistol and confront the intruder?

Third, Trotter didn’t seem like a guy who would brazen it out if caught red-handed. He seemed the type to tuck tail and get the hell outta there. Only a supremely confident burglar would stick around and have a face-off, especially if he was there only to steal something.

Duncan’s mind stumbled over that thought. Mentally he backtracked and looked at it again. He underlined if he was there only to steal something, then drew a large question mark beside it.

“Hey, Dunk.”

Another detective popped his head inside the door. His name was Harvey Reynolds, but everyone called him Kong because of his gorilla-like pelt. Every inch of exposed skin was covered in thick, curly black hair. No one dared speculate on what the unexposed parts of his body looked like.

His apelike appearance was further enhanced by his thick neck, barrel chest, and short legs. Despite his intimidating appearance, he couldn’t be a nicer guy. He coached Little League for his twin sons’ team and was dotty over his homely wife, believing himself lucky to have won such a prize as she. Duncan, who’d met the lady on several occasions, agreed with Kong. She was a prize. It was clear the couple were nuts about each other.

“Can I bend your ear for a minute?”

Duncan was eager to get back to examining that last niggling thought he’d written down, but he tossed the legal tablet onto his desk and motioned Kong in. “What’s the Little League team selling this week? Candy bars? Magazine subscriptions?”

Kong gave him a good-natured grin. “Citrus fruit from the valley.”

“What valley?”

“Beats the hell out of me. I’ll hit you up for that later. This is business.” Kong worked missing persons in the special victims unit, or SVU. Sometimes their cases overlapped. He pulled up a chair and straddled it backward, folding his hirsute arms over it. “Anything cooking on Savich since the mistrial?”

“Not even a simmer.”

“Bitch of a turn.”

“Tell me.”

“He never got nailed for those other two…uh…Bonnet, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, and a guy named Chet Rollins before him,” Duncan said tightly.

“Right. Wasn’t ever indicted for those, was he?”

Duncan shook his head.

“I thought you had him for sure this time. Is he gonna get away with doing Freddy Morris, too?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Limp-dick DA,” Kong muttered.

Duncan shrugged. “He says he’s hamstrung till we come up with something solid.”

“Yeah, but still…Feds have anything?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“They still steamed?”

“Oh, yeah. Breaks my heart. They never call, never write.”

Kong chuckled. “Well, anything that I can do to help you nail that son of a bitch Savich…”

“Thanks.” Duncan hitched his chin at the sheet of paper in Kong’s shaggy clutch. “What’s up?”

“Meyer Napoli.”

Duncan guffawed. “You must have been out overturning rocks today.”

Meyer Napoli was well known to the police department. He was a private investigator who specialized in fleecing his clients of huge sums of money by doing practically nothing except making guarantees that he rarely fulfilled.

It wasn’t unlike him to work both ends against the middle. If hired by a wife to get the goods on an unfaithful husband, Napoli was known to go to said husband and, for a fee, promise to return to the wife empty-handed. He also usually consoled the brokenhearted wife in a way that made her feel like a desirable woman again.

“Which rock did you find Napoli under?”

Kong tugged on his earlobe, from which a crop of black bristles sprouted. “Well, that’s the problem. I didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“Napoli’s secretary called us this morning, said Napoli failed to show up at his office for a meeting with a client. She called his house and his cell phone a dozen times apiece, but failed to raise him. That never happens. He stays in touch, she said. Always. No exceptions.

“So she went over to his place to see if he was dead or something. No trace of him. That’s when she called us. She’s been calling every hour since, insisting that something has happened to him. Said he wouldn’t miss a morning of appointments with clients, no matter what. According to her, he never takes a sick day or vacation, and even if he did, he wouldn’t without letting her know.

“She was bugging us so bad, hell, I gave in. I went over to his office and explained that unless there’s evidence of foul play, we don’t consider an adult officially missing unless it’s been twenty-four hours since he was last seen. She said there was nothing at his house to indicate foul play, but something bad must’ve happened to him or else he’d be at work.”

Duncan figured Kong had a good reason for telling him all this, and he wished he’d get to the point. His stomach had reminded him that it was past suppertime. It had been a very long day after a very short night. He was ready to take home some carry-out chicken, crack a beer, maybe play the piano to help him do some free associating about Trotter, specifically what he was doing in the Lairds’ house and why he hadn’t made a dash for it when he was caught.

He also needed to think about Elise Laird’s note, why she’d given it to him, and why he hadn’t shared it with his partner.

Kong was still talking. “I figured Napoli’s private office would be sacrosanct. Locked down, you know? But his secretary was so flustered, she didn’t notice that I was scanning the paperwork on his desk while she was wringing her hands, wondering where her boss is at.”

At this point, Kong produced the sheet of paper he’d brought in with him. Duncan saw on it a typewritten list of names. “I memorized some of the names I saw on paperwork scattered across Napoli’s desk,” Kong explained. “Typed up this list soon as I got back to the office so I wouldn’t forget them.

“Frankly, I figure Napoli dived underground to avoid somebody he’s pissed off, either an irate, dissatisfied client or some broad he was banging. But if the scumbag has met with foul play—the secretary’s convinced—I figured these names might come in handy. Gives us places to start looking for him.”

Duncan nodded, indicating that he followed Kong’s reasoning.

“Now, why I bring this up to you…” Kong pointed to a name about midway down the list. “Isn’t this your guy?”

Duncan read the name. Moving slowly, he lowered his feet from his desk, took the sheet from Kong, and read it again. Then in a dry, scratchy voice, he said, “Yeah, that’s my guy.”

 

“It was scandalous. From meeting to altar took less than three months.”

It was a short drive from the Barracks to Meyer Napoli’s downtown office. DeeDee took advantage of it to share what she’d pieced together about Elise Laird’s background.

“Short courtships aren’t that unusual or scandalous,” Duncan observed.

“Unless a distinguished superior court judge is marrying a cocktail waitress. Riiiiight,” she drawled in response to Duncan’s sharp look. “Elise worked the bar at Judge Laird’s country club.”

“Which is?”

“Silver Tide, naturally. Anyway, after meeting her, the judge began playing golf every single day, sometimes two rounds, but spent most of his time at the nineteenth hole.”

Duncan parked at the curb in front of the squat, square office building and put a sign in his windshield identifying him as a cop to avoid getting a ticket from one of Savannah’s infamous meter maids. He opened his car door and got out, hoping to catch a breeze. The air was motionless, suffocating. The sun had set, but heat still radiated up from the sidewalk, baking the soles of his shoes.

“Want to hear the skinny now or later?” DeeDee asked as they approached the door of the office building.

“Now.”

“The judge was a confirmed bachelor who enjoyed casual affairs with widows and divorcées with no intention of getting married. Why share the family wealth? But Elise dazzled him. He fell hard. The gossip is she screwed him silly, got him addicted to her, then refused to sleep with him again unless and until he married her.”

“What the hell’s taking this elevator so long?” While the air-conditioning inside the building was welcome, it did little to improve Duncan’s crankiness, which he blamed on the sultry heat. He punched the up button on the elevator several times, but heard no grinding of gears indicating movement in the shaft. “Let’s take the stairs. It’s only two flights.”

DeeDee followed him up the aggregate steps. Depressions had been worn into them by decades of foot traffic. This wasn’t prize real estate. A smell of mildew clung to the old walls.

“The judge’s friends and associates were shocked by the engagement,” DeeDee said. “The rock he bought her—have you noticed it?”

“No.”

“A marquise, reputedly six carats. I’d say that’s a conservative estimate.”

“You noticed?” Jewelry wasn’t something DeeDee ordinarily paid attention to.

“I couldn’t help but notice,” she said to his back as they rounded the second-floor landing. “Damn near blinded me this afternoon when we were in the sunroom. Didn’t you notice the rainbow it cast on the wall?”

“Guess I missed that.”

“You were too busy gazing into her eyes.”

He stopped in midstep and looked over his shoulder.

“Well, you were,” she said defensively.

“I was questioning her. What was I supposed to do, keep my eyes shut?”

“Never mind. Just…” She motioned him forward. He continued climbing the stairs and she picked up her story. “So, the besotted judge throws himself this big, elaborate wedding. Under the circumstances, some thought it the height of tacky and tasteless, and attributed his extravagance to his greedy and demanding bride.”

Duncan had reached the third-floor landing. Ahead was a corridor lined on both sides with doors to various offices. Names were stenciled in black on frosted glass. A CPA firm, an attorney, a dentist advertising fillings for the low, low price of twenty-five dollars. All were closed for the night. But one door about midway down stood open, casting a wedge of light into the otherwise dim hallway. He could hear Kong talking to Napoli’s secretary. Her voice rose and fell emotionally.

Before joining them, he wished to finish this conversation with DeeDee. He turned to face her, blocking her path. “What ‘circumstances’?”

“Pardon?”

“You said circumstances made the wedding tacky and tasteless.”

“The bride had no pedigree, no family of any sort. At least none turned up at the wedding. She had no formal education, no property, no trust fund, no stock portfolio, nothing to recommend her. She brought nothing to the relationship except…well, the obvious.

“And she wore white. A simple dress, not too froufrou, but definitely white, which some considered the worst breach of etiquette. She did, however, order personalized stationery. Good stock, ivory in color, with the return address in dove gray lettering. She sent handwritten thank-you notes on behalf of her and the judge to everyone who gave them a wedding gift. And she has a very nice script.”

Yeah. Duncan had seen her script. Scowling, he said, “Are you making this shit up?”

“No, swear to God.”

“Where’d you get your information?”

“The friend I mentioned. We go all the way back to Catholic school. My folks had to roll coins to pay for my tuition. Her family is very well-to-do, but we formed a bond because both of us hated the school.

“Anyway, I called her up, mentioned the shooting at the Lairds’ house, which she already knew about, because it’s caused such a buzz. Her mom is definitely in the know, plugged into the society grapevine. If you’re into this kind of stuff, she’s a reliable source.”

Duncan ran his sleeve across his forehead. The cloth came away wet. “Is there more? What color was the punch at the reception?”

She frowned at him, but continued. “Mrs. Laird never fails to RSVP to an invitation whether she’s accepting or declining. Evidently she picked up a few social graces when she became Mrs. Cato Laird, and she’s shown surprising good taste in clothes, but she’s still considered trash—and that word was emphasized in an undertone. She’s tolerated because of the judge, but she’s far from accepted. You can forget embraced.”

Duncan said, “You know what this sounds like to me? It sounds like Savannah’s social set found an easy target for their malice. Here you have a bunch of snooty, jealous gossips who would give up their pedigree for Elise Laird’s looks. They’d sacrifice Great-grandma’s pearls in exchange for a chest like hers.”

“Funny you should mention that particular attribute.” DeeDee took the final steps necessary to join him on the landing. “The judge’s circle of acquaintances might have overlooked her other shortcomings, even the fact that she worked in the bar at their country club. After all, it’s an elite club, its membership limited to only the ‘best people.’ But what they couldn’t forgive is what she was before becoming a cocktail waitress.”

“Which was what?”

“A topless cocktail waitress.”

“O R DID YOU JUST HAPPEN TO BE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD?” the judge added with less civility.

Yep, he’s angry, DeeDee thought. Just as Duncan had predicted he would be once he learned that they’d questioned his wife—or tried to—without his being present. They had the right to, of course, but had agreed to avoid ruffling the judge’s feathers if at all possible.

Mrs. What’s-her-name, the housekeeper, must have called him immediately upon their arrival, probably even before she went upstairs to tell Elise Laird they were here. It was clear that the domestic’s loyalty lay with the judge and that she seemed to have little regard for his missus.

Elise offered to pour her husband a glass of tea.

“No, thank you.” He kissed her on the lips, then pulled back and stroked her cheek. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine.”

“Still shaken?”

“I think I will be for a while.”

“Understandable.”

He guided her down onto the settee that was barely wide enough to accommodate both of them, pulled her hand onto his knee, and covered it with his. “What would you like to know?”

DeeDee saw Duncan’s jaw tense. He said, “I’d like to know if you want to call a lawyer before we begin. We’ll be happy to wait until one arrives.”

The judge replied crisply, “That won’t be necessary. But to show up here unannounced was a cheap trick and, frankly, beneath you, Detective Hatcher.”

“My apologies to you and to Mrs. Laird.” Duncan sat down in one of the wicker armchairs facing the couple. “The name of the man who died in your study last night was Gary Ray Trotter.”

Like Duncan, DeeDee closely watched their faces for any giveaway sign of recognition. There wasn’t so much as a flicker, not in the judge’s implacable stare, not in Elise Laird’s limpid green eyes.

The judge glanced down at his wife. Reading his silent question, she shook her head. Looking back at them, he said, “We don’t know him. I thought we’d made that clear to you last night.”

“We hoped the name might jog your memory, remind you—”

“Obviously not, Detective Bowen,” the judge said, cutting her off.

“A lot of people have been shuttled through your courtroom,” Duncan said. “Trotter was a repeat offender. Perhaps he’d come before your bench.”

“I would remember.”

“You remember every party to every case you’ve ever tried?” DeeDee said. “Wow. That’s impressive.”

He fired another impatient glance at her, then addressed himself to Duncan. “He was a repeat offender? Then what more is there to discuss? This Trotter broke into my house, fired a handgun at my wife, forcing her to protect herself. Thank God her aim was better than his. He died, she didn’t. Don’t expect me to cry over him.”

“I don’t expect that at all.”

The judge took a slow, deep breath as though to calm himself. “Then I guess I don’t understand why you’re here today. Why do you feel it necessary to make Elise relive this terrifying event?”

“We have some points that need clarification before we close the case,” DeeDee said.

“Elise told you everything she had to tell you last night. As a judge who’s heard years of courtroom testimony, I can honestly say that her account of what happened was comprehensive.”

“I agree, and we appreciate her cooperation last night,” DeeDee said to the couple, smiling at both. “Identifying Gary Ray Trotter has answered some of our outstanding questions, but created others, I’m afraid.”

“Such as?”

DeeDee laughed softly. “Well, Judge, he wasn’t a very accomplished crook. In fact, he was pretty much a loser, who couldn’t even hack it as a criminal.”

“So?”

“So Detective Hatcher and I were wondering why he chose your house to burglarize.”

“I have no idea.”

“Neither do we,” DeeDee said bluntly. “Trotter had a criminal history dating back to adolescence. Robbery mostly. But he was a goof. For instance, he once walked into a convenience store with a stick in his pocket in lieu of a pistol and demanded the money in the till. But he paid for the gas he pumped into his getaway car with his sister’s credit card.”

The judge smiled wryly. “Which I think explains why he failed as a crook.”

“I guess,” DeeDee exclaimed on a short laugh. “I mean, last night he didn’t even bring along gloves or robber paraphernalia of any kind. Can you believe that? Sort of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

Then she dropped her smile. “What the heck Gary Ray Trotter was doing in your study.”

After a moment of taut silence, the judge said, “I know one thing he did. He tried to kill my wife.”

Duncan pounced on that. “Which is another thing we must clear up, Mrs. Laird.”

“What needs clearing up?” the judge asked.

“Are you absolutely certain that Trotter fired first?”

“Of course she’s certain.”

“I asked her, Judge.”

“My wife has been through a terrible ordeal.”

“And I’ve got a job to do,” Duncan fired back. “That involves asking her some tough questions. If you haven’t got the stomach for it, Judge, you can leave.”

Elise held up her hand, stopping the judge from saying whatever he was about to say in response to Duncan’s angry put-down. “Please, Cato. I want to answer their questions. I don’t want there to be any doubt as to what happened.” She had addressed her husband by name, but DeeDee noticed that her green gaze didn’t waver from Duncan’s face, nor his from hers.

“As I told you last night,” she said, “when I accidentally switched on the foyer light—”

“Excuse me. Do you mind talking us through it where it happened?”

“In the study?”

“If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.”

“It will be very difficult for Elise to go into that room until it’s been cleaned, rid of all reminders of what happened in it,” the judge said.

“I realize it won’t be easy,” Duncan said. But he didn’t withdraw the request.

The judge looked at his wife. “Elise?”

“I want to help in any way I can.”

The four of them made their way into the foyer. Duncan approached the fancy console table. Beneath the marble top was a slender drawer that ran the width of the table. “You took the pistol from this drawer?”

“Yes, I came out of the butler’s pantry through that door,” she replied, pointing. “I paused there a moment. I didn’t hear anything, but, as I told you last night, I sensed a presence in the study. I went to the table to get the pistol.”

Duncan fingered one of the drawer pulls. “Did you make any noise?”

“I don’t think so. I tried not to.”

“Did you close the drawer?”

“I…I don’t remember,” she said, faltering. “I don’t believe I did.”

“She didn’t,” the judge said. “It was open when the first two policemen arrived in response to the 911. I remember pointing it out to them.”

DeeDee made a mental note to read the report filed by Officers Beale and Crofton.

Duncan resumed. “You walked from the table to the door of the study.”

“Yes.”

“Were you wearing slippers?”

“I was barefoot.”

“Do you think Trotter heard you approaching?” Duncan asked. “Or did he have no inkling you were there and aware of him until the light came on?”

“If he’d heard me coming toward the study, why didn’t he just scramble out the window?”

“That was going to be my next question,” Duncan said with a guileless smile.

“Then I must have startled him by switching on the light,” Elise said. “When it came on, he froze.”

“This is the switch plate?” Duncan flipped one switch, and the overhead light in the study came on. The other turned on a fixture in the foyer directly above their heads. He looked up at the light, then into the study. “DeeDee, would you play Trotter? Go stand behind the desk.”

She peeled away the crime scene tape that formed an X in the open doorway, then went into the study and took a position behind the desk.

Duncan said, “Is that about where he was standing?”

Elise replied with a slight nod.

“What was he doing, Mrs. Laird?”

“Nothing. Only standing there looking at me. Staring, like a deer caught in headlights.”

“Was he leaning over the desk, like he’d been trying to jimmy the lock on the drawer?”

“It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. Maybe he was bending over the desk drawer, I don’t know. The first mental picture I have of him is his standing there behind the desk, looking at me, motionless.”

“Huh.” Duncan looked toward DeeDee behind the desk as though imagining Gary Ray Trotter. “And what was it he said?” He came back around to Elise.

She didn’t flinch and she didn’t hesitate. “He didn’t say anything, Detective Hatcher. I told you that last night.”

Duncan nodded slowly. “Right. You did. But you spoke to him, correct? You ordered him to leave.”

“Yes.”

“Did he make a move toward the window?”

“No. He didn’t move at all except to raise his arm. Suddenly. Like a string attached to his elbow had been yanked.”

“Like this?” DeeDee demonstrated the motion.

“Something like that, yes. And before it even registered with me that he was holding a pistol, he fired it.” She placed a hand at her throat as though suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.

The judge moved closer and slid his arm around her waist.

Duncan asked, “Mrs. Laird, is it possible that he was firing a warning shot, meant only to try and scare you?”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“Did you feel in mortal danger?”

“I assumed I was. It all happened very fast.”

“But not so fast that you didn’t have time to ‘assume’ that you were in mortal danger.”

“That’s a reasonable assumption, isn’t it, Detective?” the judge asked, sounding vexed. “If a man who’s broken into your house fires a pistol, even if his aim is lousy, isn’t it logical to assume that your life is in danger and to act accordingly?”

“It seems logical, yes,” DeeDee said. “But Dr. Brooks had another theory worth considering. He suggested that maybe Trotter was falling backward when he fired his pistol, that reflexively his finger clenched on the trigger. That would explain his aim being so far off.”

Duncan was staring hard at Elise. “But that would mean that you had shot at him first.”

“But she didn’t,” the judge said. “She’s told you that a dozen times. Why do you keep hammering away at this?”

Duncan tore his gaze from Elise Laird’s stricken face and looked at the judge. “Because I’ve got to have a clear understanding of what happened. I dislike having to put these questions to Mrs. Laird. But I was there this morning when the autopsy was performed on Gary Ray Trotter’s corpse. I feel I owe it to him, crook or not, to determine how and why he wound up like that. You’re a public official, Judge. You have an obligation to the public to do your duty. So do I. Sometimes it’s no fun at all. In fact, most of the time it’s not.”

He turned back to Elise. “Are you absolutely certain that Trotter fired at you first?”

“Absolutely.”

“There. That ends it.” The judge’s statement was followed by a tense stretch of silence. Finally he said, “I admire your sense of duty, Detective Hatcher. I appreciate your quest for the truth. Elise and I have done everything within our power to help you perform your unpleasant duties.

“Haven’t you stopped to consider that we would like a full explanation for what happened here last night, too? We would like that perhaps even more than you and Detective Bowen. Elise has been as straightforward as she could possibly be. Are you now satisfied that it was a break-in that went awry?”

Duncan let the question hover there for at least fifteen seconds before answering, “I believe so, yes.”

My ass, thought DeeDee.

The judge said, “Good. Then if that’s all, I hope you’ll excuse us.” He turned, ready to escort them out, when Elise forestalled him.

“I’d like to know…” Her voice cracked. She swallowed, tried again. “I’d like to know if Trotter had a family. A wife, children?”

“No,” Duncan said. “His closest relative was an uncle up in Maryland.”

“I’m glad of that. I would have hated…that.”

“May I show you out now?” The judge started down the hall, expecting them to follow.

DeeDee came from behind the desk. As she moved past Elise, Elise reached for her hand. “Detective Bowen, I want to echo what my husband said. I know you’re only doing your job.”

Surprised by the move, DeeDee tried to think of something neutral to say that would be a fitting response, whether Elise was lying or telling the truth. “This can’t be easy for you, either.”

“It isn’t, but if I think of anything to add, I promise to call you.”

“That would be helpful.”

“Do you have a business card?”

“Right here.” Duncan plucked one from the breast pocket of his jacket and passed it to her.

“Thank you, Detective Hatcher.” Taking the card, she shook hands with him, too.

 

DeeDee was as bouncy as one of those fuzzy orange dogs that look like manic powder puffs. An ex-girlfriend had owned one. The damn thing had barked nonstop. Most hyper animal Duncan had ever been around. Until today. DeeDee was practically jumping out of her skin.

“She’s hiding something, Duncan. I know it. I feel it in my bones.”

DeeDee’s “bones” were rarely wrong. In this particular case, he hoped they were. He wanted to close this case with dispatch and remain in the judge’s good graces. He’d never been a big fan of Judge Cato Laird, believing that often he talked out both sides of his mouth. Tough on crime and criminals one day, favoring the protection of their civil rights the next. His opinions seemed to drift along with the ebb and flow of public opinion, adhering only to the majority rule of the moment.

Duncan couldn’t admire a man to whom popularity was more important than conviction, but he supposed in order to win elections, the judge had to practice politics. And he certainly didn’t want a superior court judge as an enemy. That’s what he was likely to become if he continued hassling the judge’s wife because of what his partner felt in her bones.

Unfortunately, his bones were feeling the same thing. Especially after that last interview.

He jerked the steering wheel to the right and crossed two lanes of traffic to the accompaniment of blaring horns and shouted invectives. DeeDee gripped the armrest of the passenger door.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m thirsty.” The car jounced over the curb as he came close to missing the entrance to a McDonald’s.

“You had sweetened iced tea. ‘Mrs. Berry thinks that’s the only way to make it,’ ” she said, batting her eyelashes and mocking Elise Laird’s drawl.

“I was served iced tea. I didn’t drink it. Besides, aren’t you overdue a shot of caffeine? Not that you need it,” he added under his breath as he leaned toward the speaker to place their order.

“Should we go back and talk to some of the neighbors?” DeeDee asked.

“What good would that do? They were canvassed last night. None reported a recent burglary or break-in. No one saw Gary Ray Trotter lurking around the neighborhood. Nobody heard anything out of the ordinary last night.”

“Maybe Mrs. Laird opened the door and invited him in.”

“That’s a real stretch, DeeDee.”

After picking up their drinks at the window, he got back onto the street and rapidly closed in on the bumper of a soccer mom’s van. “What is with everybody today?” he said as he went around the van. “People are driving like there’s ice on the road.”

“What’s your hurry?” DeeDee asked.

He whipped into another lane in order to go around a slow-moving parochial school bus. “No hurry. I just hate this damn traffic.”

Heedless of his complaining, DeeDee said, “Okay, so maybe she didn’t welcome Trotter like a guest; there’s still something wrong with that picture.”

“I’ll bite. What makes you think so?”

“Generally—”

“Don’t be general. Be specific.”

“Okay. Specifically, her reaction when you raised the question of her firing her pistol ahead of Trotter. She went whey-faced.”

He supposed that “whey-faced” was one way to accurately describe Elise’s expression. “I pushed pretty hard. She stuck to her story.”

“Most good liars do.”

“You think she’s lying?”

“Maybe not lying,” DeeDee said. “Just not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“You’re getting general again. Give me an example.”

“I don’t know. I can’t be specific,” she said, matching his irritability. “She just doesn’t act like a woman who killed a hapless burglar last night.”

“She didn’t know he was hapless. Gary Ray Trotter didn’t look like a screwup when he was standing in her house, in the dark, firing a weapon at her. Do you think she should have waited to shoot him until after she’d seen his résumé?”

His sarcasm earned him a glare.

“And she was concerned enough to ask if Trotter had a family,” he pointed out. “It bothered her to think she might have orphaned some kids.”

“I’ll admit that was a nice touch.”

“Why do you think it was a ‘touch’?”

“Why are you defending her?”

“I’m not.”

“Sure sounds like it to me.”

“Well, it sounds to me like you’re doing just the opposite. You think everything she says and does is disingenuous.”

“Not everything. For instance, I believe that she was barefoot.”

This time, she was on the receiving end of a baleful look.

“All I’m saying,” she continued, “is that I believe the sweet remark about Trotter’s family was made for your benefit.”

“My benefit?”

“Oh, please, Duncan. Wake up. She answers my questions, but whenever she wants to stress a point, such as her truthfulness, she looks at you.”

“You’re imagining that.”

“Like hell, I am. The lady knows on which side to butter her bread.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re a man.”

“Which, in the context of this discussion, is beside the point.”

“Right.” She used the tone she did whenever he denied knowing how to play the piano. For the next several moments, she was deep in thought, poking at the ice cubes in her drink with her straw. “You know what else? I think suspicion has reared its ugly head to the judge.”

“Now I know you’re seeing things that aren’t there,” he said. “He’s never more than half a foot away from her, treats her like she’s made of porcelain.”

“True. He’s very protective. Almost as though he’s afraid she might need his protection.”

“He’s her husband.”

“He’s also a judge who’s listened to hours of sworn testimony in his courtroom, as he reminded us today. He commended her comprehensive recall. But you can bet he also knows a lie when he hears one. And he got awfully defensive when we advanced Dothan’s theory about Trotter having been shot and reflexively pulling the trigger on his way down. Judge Laird pooh-poohed it without further explanation or discussion. His wife didn’t fire first. Period. The end.” She paused for breath. “Which leads me to believe that His Honor may be questioning his wife’s story.”

They arrived at the Barracks. Duncan pulled his car into a slot in the parking lot, but neither of them made a move to get out. He leaned forward, crossed his arms over the steering wheel, and stared through the windshield at the civilians and police personnel going in and out of the Habersham Street entrance.

He felt DeeDee’s eyes on him, but he let her be the first to break the weighty silence. “Look, Duncan, I know it’s hard to get past that face. That body. Although I know there’s been speculation about my sexual orientation from yahoos like Worley, I’m straight. But being straight doesn’t make me blind to Elise Laird’s appeal. I can appreciate—okay, appreciate and envy—the way she looks and the effect she has on the opposite sex. There, I’ve been honest. Now you, in turn, must be honest with me.”

She paused, but when he said nothing, she continued. “Can you honestly, cross-your-heart-and-
hope-to-die honestly, be objective when you look at her?”

“I’m a cop.”

“With a penis. And that particular organ is notorious for having lapses in judgment.”

He turned and looked at her then. “Have you ever, ever known me to compromise an investigation?”

“No. With you it’s either wrong or right, black or white, no gray areas. That’s why as soon as I made detective I petitioned hard to become your partner.”

“So where’s this coming from?”

“We’ve never investigated a case involving a woman that you’re attracted to. And you were attracted to Elise Laird the instant you saw her at the awards dinner. You can’t deny that.”

“She was a pretty face in the crowd.”

“Who you compared to a lightning strike.”

“That was before I knew her name. It was for sure as hell before she shot and killed a man.”

“So your attraction to her died along with Trotter? No lingering groin tugs in that direction?”

He used his thumb to whisk beads of sweat off his forehead. “The lady is poison, DeeDee. Don’t you think I know that?”

Her frown told him that wasn’t exactly a direct answer to her question and that she still needed convincing.

“First of all,” he said, “she’s married.”

“To a man you despise.”

“Irrelevant.”

“I wonder.”

“Irrelevant,” he repeated with emphasis. DeeDee didn’t come back with further argument, but she still looked doubtful. He said, “I’ve had my share of girlfriends and short-term bed partners.”

“An understatement.”

“Name one who was married.”

She stayed silent.

“Exactly,” he said. “I’ve massaged the issue of sexual morality to fit my lifestyle and to satisfy the urge of the moment, but I draw the line at adultery, DeeDee.”

She nodded. “Okay, I believe you. But if she wasn’t married—”

“She’s still a principal in an active investigation.”

DeeDee’s face brightened. “Active. Does that mean we’re not closing the book on it just yet?”

“No,” he said heavily. “Not yet. Like you, I sense there’s something out of joint.”

“It’s her. She’s…what was your fifty-cent word? Disingenuous?”

“The background check you ran on her didn’t produce much, did it?”

She ticked off on her fingers the facts she’d learned about Elise Laird. “She has no arrest record, no outstanding debts, and there was nothing printed about her in the local newspaper before she married Laird. She came out of nowhere.”

“Nobody comes out of nowhere.”

DeeDee thought about it for a moment. “I’ve got a friend with ties to the society set. Often the best source of information is good old-fashioned gossip.”

“Keep the inquiry discreet.”

“I won’t even have to ask for info. Once I mention Elise Laird’s name, I bet I get an earful. This friend thrives on gossip.”

They got out, but as they approached the steps of the entrance, Duncan continued down the sidewalk. DeeDee asked where he was going.

“I’m days overdue calling my folks. I can talk to them easier out here than in the office with all the commotion.”

She went inside. Duncan followed the sidewalk around to the front of the building that faced Oglethorpe Avenue, walked past the black-and-white 1953 squad car that was parked out front like a mascot, and continued on until he reached the middle of the block, where there was a gated entrance to the Colonial Park Cemetery.

A few stalwart tourists braving the afternoon heat were taking pictures, reading the historical plaques, and trying to decipher the inscriptions carved into the grave markers. He made his way to one of the shaded wood benches and sat down, but he didn’t reach for his cell phone to call his parents. Instead he sat there and stared at the leaning headstones and crumbling brick vaults.

He could imagine the ghosts of fallen Revolutionary War heroes staring back at him expectantly, waiting to see what he would do. Would he do what he knew to be right? Or, for the first time in his career, would he violate the dictates of his conscience?

Above the nearby rooftops were the twin spires of St. John the Baptist cathedral, serving as another reminder that to transgress was a matter of choice.

Despite these silent warnings, he reached into his trousers pocket and withdrew the note he’d put there after having it surreptitiously slipped to him by Elise Laird when they shook hands.

He’d felt it immediately, sandwiched between their palms. She’d clasped his hand tightly so the note couldn’t fall to the floor and give her away. Her eyes had begged him not to.

Despite her pleading gaze, he should have acknowledged the note right then. If not immediately, then surely as soon as he and DeeDee were alone. He should have told his partner about it, opened it, read it for the first time along with her.

But he hadn’t.

Now, it seemed as hot as a cinder lying in his palm. He turned it over several times, examining it. The single white sheet had been folded over twice to form a small square. It weighed practically nothing. It looked innocuous enough, but he knew better. No matter what it said, it meant trouble for him.

If it contained information on last night’s shooting, it amounted to evidence, which he was already guilty of withholding.

If it was personal, well, that would be even more compromising.

The first instance would be a legal matter. The second, a moral one.

It wasn’t too late to show it to DeeDee now. He could invent an excuse for not having shown it to her sooner, which she probably wouldn’t believe but would readily accept because she would be so curious to read the contents of the note. They would open it, read it, and together analyze its meaning.

Short of that, and almost as honorable an action, he could destroy it and go to his grave wondering what it had said.

Instead, with damp hands, shortness of breath, and a rapidly beating heart, with the spirits of the nation’s founders watching with stern disapproval, and the church spires pointing heavenward as though bringing his error to God’s attention, he slowly unfolded the note. The words had been written in a neat script.

I must see you alone. Please.