"And I take it the administration didn't like it?"

She laughed harshly, then leaned across the table, and answered in a whisper, "I heard they actually fired him, which is when he went to the newspapers-"

"Excuse me." The laundry list of what Hardy didn't know about his client continued to grow, and to astound him. He and his client had to talk. Really. But he couldn't bother about that now. "You're telling me that Dr. Kensing broke the story, too? To the papers?"

She nodded. "He never admitted it, but everybody knows it was him. I think it's only a matter of time now before they really fire him, even if they have to make up a reason. Not that he's alone."

"What do you mean?"

She made sure again that no one had come within earshot. "I mean most people here are scared of losing their jobs, of either doing something or not doing it, either way. It's really bad." She frowned. "So are they going to charge Dr. Kensing with this murder? That would be awful."

"I don't know," Hardy said. "They might."

"Because Mr. Markham was going to fire him?"

"That could be a motive, yes." Another one, Hardy was thinking. But he asked, "You're sure it was Markham who wanted to fire him?"

"Sure," she said. "He ran the whole show here. Who else?"

14

"Glitsky, homicide." "Who is this?"

"What did I just say? This is Abe Glitsky, San Francisco homicide. Who's this?"

"Jack Langtry. Abe? Is this really you?"

"Yeah, it's really me, Jack. What's going on?"

"This is really weird. I just hit redial on Carla Markham's cell phone. She called homicide before she died?"

"Where are you now?"

"Downstairs. Evidence lockup."

"Don't move. I'm on my way."

Langtry was waiting in his office in the bowels of the hall. With him was another of his crime scene investigators, Sgt. Carol Amano. He had put the phone on the middle of the desk all by itself, almost as though it were some kind of bomb. He'd already ordered complete phone records on the Markham house and on this cell phone. He'd also called Lennard Faro at the lab and requested that he join them ASAP.

Glitsky was down here with them, pacing as he talked, which was something he rarely did. Langtry realized that his adrenaline was way up. "Okay, but let's consider other possibilities," Glitsky was saying. "It was in her purse. Maybe one of our guys couldn't get to a phone and called back in here while we were doing the house."

"No way." Amano wouldn't even consider it.

Langtry, too, was shaking his head. "I agree. Not a chance, Abe. You saw who we had on the scene. Me, Len, Carol, the other guys, we're talking the 'A' team. Nobody's taking a phone out of a purse at a homicide scene and using it to call home. It just couldn't happen. But assuming we've got what it looks like here, she called homicide. So what does it mean?"

"It would be helpful to know when," Glitsky said.

"We could have that in a few hours if we're lucky," Langtry replied. "But I think we can assume it was after she left the hospital and before the crowd started showing up at her place."

"Probably while she was driving home," Amano added.

Glitsky processed that for a second. "Which was before anybody knew about the potassium. Before we knew it was a murder."

"Maybe she knew it was a murder," Amano said with a muted excitement. "Maybe she did the murder and was calling to confess, then changed her mind."

"Was she at the hospital, Abe? When he died?"

"Yeah," Glitsky answered distractedly.

"Okay, then," Langtry said. Catching Glitsky's expression, he asked, "Why not?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe he broke up with her again." Amano clearly liked the idea. "He was leaving her for good. She went into a jealous rage…"

Glitsky was shaking his head. "And then luckily he got hit by a random car, giving Carla the opportunity to ride in the ambulance with him and then kill him with potassium at the hospital? After which she went home and entertained all of her friends for six or seven hours before finally killing herself and her kids? This doesn't sing for me, people. It doesn't even hum."

The two CSI inspectors shared a glance. "Do you have another theory?" Langtry finally asked.

Glitsky's scar was tight through his lips. "No. I don't like theories. I don't know what time she made the call, or why she made it, or if anybody in the detail picked up. She might have seen the accident, for all I know."

Amano walked over to the door and looked out down the hallway. Then she turned. "Here comes Faro."

A few seconds later, the snappily dressed and diminutive forensics inspector bopped into the office, said hi all around, asked what was up. When he heard about the cell phone, he nodded thoughtfully. Certainly, he thought, it was significant, but what it meant exactly he didn't want to hazard a guess. Like Glitsky, Faro liked it when evidence led to a theory, instead of vice versa. "But I do have some news."

"Hit me," Glitsky said.

"Well, two things. On the trajectory-we're talking Mrs. Markham here, the head wound-back to front."

Glitsky repeated the words, then asked, "So the gun was behind her ear, and the slug went forward? Strout say how often he's seen that with self-inflicted wounds?"

Faro gestured ambiguously. "You know him better than me, sir. He said sometimes."

"Helpful."

"I thought so, too. But the other thing. She was left-handed."

"How'd Strout get to that?"

"He didn't. I got it. There was a collection of lefty coffee mugs at the house, you know the kind-'Best Mom in the World,' 'Queen of the Southpaws'-that kind of thing. Also, she'd addressed some envelopes and the writing slants like a lefty."

"But the gun was in her right hand?"

"Near it," Faro corrected him. "But yeah. Anyway, the GSR"-gunshot residue-"results might give us a better hint if she in fact fired the thing, but they won't be in for a few more days."

"Okay, Len. Thanks." Glitsky's scowl was pronounced. "Well, thanks to all of you. Anything new comes up, I want to hear."

Glitsky wasn't about to join in the guessing games out loud, but this latest evidence all but convinced him of what he'd been tempted to believe from the start. Carla Markham's death hadn't been a suicide at all. She wouldn't have shot herself with the wrong hand and at an unusual angle. She wouldn't have shot the dog. Or her teenage children.

And this meant that someone had killed her. He didn't as yet know why, but the call to homicide on the day of her death made it likely that she'd seen or suspected the murderer of her husband.

Glitsky had the door to his office closed. He was drumming the fingers of both hands on his desk, trying to stop himself from this premature conjecture. He told himself that he didn't know enough yet to form any consistent theories, let alone any conclusions.

But one consideration wouldn't go away. If someone had in fact killed Carla, he was convinced that it was the same person that had killed her husband. He had no idea of the motive for the wife, but he didn't need that. He already had a suspect with a strong motive for the husband. And means. And opportunity.

It was time to squeeze him.

Kensing arrived home from work to find Inspector Glitsky waiting at his front door, tucked in out of the fall of rain. He greeted him politely, but seemed a little confused. "I thought Mr. Hardy had canceled this meeting."

Glitsky shrugged in a noncommittal way. "Sometimes lawyers don't want their clients to talk to the police. Usually it's when those clients are guilty. He told me you wanted to talk to us." Glitsky wasn't pushing. "I thought we might save each other some time, that's all."