“What kind of preparations?”

“As her attorney, you must understand, I am not at liberty to say.”

“The cops mentioned a guy named Cave. Miles Cave. Have you ever heard of him?”

Clarence sucked his teeth as he stared at me a moment. “No. Never. But I will get to the bottom of everything, Victor, trust that at least. And, like I said, Julia’s case is well in hand.”

Well in hand indeed, I thought. It didn’t take but a glimpse to size up Clarence Swift. He was eager, earnest, humble, and harmless, all fatal traits in a defense lawyer. And in court, no matter whom the D.A. put against him, he’d be terminally overmatched. If Julia had to depend on him in a murder trial, she’d be lost.

“What kind of law do you normally practice, Clarence?” I said.

“Mostly wills and such, taxes and real estate.”

“Have you ever defended a murder charge before?”

“Not precisely.”

“Ever tried a criminal case?”

“The son of one of our clients was arrested for driving under the influence.”

“How’d that turn out?”

“Well, he had failed his Breathalyzer, Victor, and there was not much anyone could have done.”

“I suppose not.”

“I know this won’t be easy, being Julia’s bulwark against the ravages of false accusation. But trust me when I tell you, I have her case well in hand.” Clarence raised a long, bony finger in the air. “She’ll be free and clear before you know it.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

“Which brings me to the other reason I have come today.”

“Go ahead.”

“I understand you paid an uninvited visit to the house last night.”

“That’s right.”

“It must have been a disappointment to learn that Julia was still being held by the authorities.”

“I got over it.”

“I am working out a deal with the district attorney to have my client released. She could be out quite soon.”

“That’s great news.”

“Yes. ’Tis. But that might cause other problems in the investigation. So this is what I request, with all due respect, from you, Victor. It would be best for everyone, I believe, if you could manage to stay far away from Julia. No more visits to the house, no more rendezvous at your apartment or surreptitious meetings in hotel bars.”

“Hotel bars?”

“There is no need to stoke the suspicions of the police about a relationship between the two of you, no matter how misguided. No need to set tongues to wagging. As Julia’s attorney, I am asking that you don’t see her or communicate with her in any manner until this matter is resolved.”

I thought about that for a moment. “You don’t have the right to ask that.”

“Maybe not, but think of it as a favor to me.”

“I don’t owe you a favor.”

“Then think of it as an urgent request from her attorney. One that, if you refuse, might result in serious consequences.”

“Consequences?”

Clarence lifted his briefcase from his lap, stood. “Thank you so much for seeing me on such short notice. It was quite generous of you.”

“Consequences?”

He walked to the door, stopped at the entranceway, and swiveled his head. “I will keep you informed of the progress of the case and any further information I might be needing. I’m sure the two of us will work famously together. Famously.”

“What kind of consequences?”

“Good day to you, sir,” said Clarence Swift. “A most earnest good day.”

10

I sat in my car and stared out the window at the front of the Denniston house.

It looked altogether less disturbing in the late-afternoon sun. A lovely home in a lovely neighborhood where a loving family could pursue its lovely future. Which of course I knew to be a lie. This wasn’t a home that protected with its warm embrace, it was a heap of stone and wood in which the twisted destinies of flawed people played out to their bitter ends. Usually that meant divorce and desolation, other times it meant a slow descent into decrepitude and madness, and sometimes it meant murder.

Yet I couldn’t help myself from driving over, parking on the street, waiting as if in stakeout for some blessed arrival. Gwen had called with the ring of excitement in her voice. Mr. Swift was waiting at the police station with his car. He had worked out something with the authorities. The missus was coming home.

Shortly after I showed up, a boxy black Volvo pulled into the circular drive and parked behind the BMW. Clarence Swift bounced out of the driver’s seat of the Volvo, jumped around the car, bent at the waist as he obsequiously opened the passenger door. He remained in a bow as Julia left the car and headed toward the house as casually as if she had just come back from a routine day of shopping and lunch. Clarence Swift slammed shut the door and slipped into position beside her, his mouth at her ear, talking and whispering and importuning as they walked inside the house. The big green door closed behind them both.

I had the urge to run over, yank open the door, grab hold of Julia, and swing her around in the air, which was peculiar, because Julia was not a grab-hold-of-and-swing-around-in-the-air kind of girl. I could just imagine her puzzled expression, wondering what on earth I was doing. But I also had the paranoid urge to get the hell out of there, to run away and stay away and not allow myself to be drawn any further into the murderous mess she had made of her life. I was poised between two equal urges that left me paralyzed.

So I sat and thought about our shared past, our blighted present, our possible futures. One involved a lovely life in that very house, drinking champagne bought with Julia’s dead husband’s money, making love on Julia’s dead husband’s bed. The other involved me sitting in prison, growing old with my roommate Bubba while Julia shopped for scarves at Nordstrom. I thought about what I had found in the purse snuck behind my desk drawer and wondered which future that made more likely.

Clarence had said she had a cold. A cold indeed.

About half an hour after they had arrived, Clarence left the house and closed the door behind him. Before entering his car, he lifted his chin as if he had sensed something. I crouched down lower in my seat and kept staring. With his head swiveling back and forth like a dog’s head sniffing the air for a stray squirrel, it was as if a mask had slipped from his features. No more was he the humble and overmatched attorney. In this unguarded instant, I saw something else, the truth behind his fawning manner, and this is what I saw: Dylan Klebold in the flesh.

You remember Klebold, the quiet boy who went to school one day and started blasting away with a sawed-off shotgun and a TEC-DC9 semiautomatic. Before his big day at Columbine, Klebold wrote in his day planner, “The lonely man strikes with absolute rage.” And now here was Clarence Swift, scanning the landscape with a cold anger, as if everything his gaze alighted upon were about to be obliterated.

And then Clarence Swift was in the Volvo, and then he was pulling out of the circular drive. I ducked lower as his car passed mine and stayed down until I was certain he was gone. Not the bravest of acts, I admit, but something about that meeting in my office had told me to be cautious of the peculiar Mr. Swift. And it wasn’t just the threat of unpleasant consequences if I tried to see Julia that was causing my caution, though the flash of Klebold in his features added a little jolt to his warning. Swift had known about my meeting with Julia in a hotel bar. How had he known that if Julia wasn’t talking? And why did it bother him so much? Between the time he stepped out that door and the time he drove away, in my eyes he had morphed from an overmatched attorney to something far more frightening.

When I was sure he was gone, I popped up and stared again at the big green door. Was I going to go in and see her? Was I going to start it all anew, despite the fear that had blossomed along with the desire? As I dithered, someone else beat me to it.