"Johanna Apollo?" No, this was not possible. Riker closed his eyes. Bad dream, bad dream. If Jo had been on Zachary's jury, Mallory would have -

"You really didn't know?"

When Riker opened his sorry eyes, Zachary had moved closer, and he was smiling.

"Fits, though, doesn't it? She makes a great suspect. Think about it, Riker. A unanimous verdict of not guilty. Was the jury really all that stupid, or did someone influence them? Only a psychiatrist could've run that jury room and turned all the ballots my way. That's why I sent her long-stemmed roses every day for a month. I figured her for a groupie."

"Shut up, you psycho."

What else had Mallory failed to tell him? Just as he was wishing that she was within strangling distance, he saw her seated at the end of the bar. All her attention was trained on the fake blind man in the red wig. And now Mallory slid off her bar stool to follow the little man out the door, leaving Riker to the job of tucking Ian Zachary safely into bed.

Chapter 12

THE FAUX BLIND MAN WAS ACCUSTOMED TO BEING followed. Mallory had guessed as much when he changed trains three times, but she had remained with him, riding one car behind, though sometimes losing sight of the bright-red wig among the other passengers. He led her to Grand Central Terminal, almost deserted at this hour, and she watched him enter the downstairs men's room, a very suspicious act in itself. That public facility was a documented pesthole. Only vagrants did not avoid it, but he was not in that class. She had cost-estimated the black coat at something beyond the purse of a beggar, though his wig was cheap nylon hair and a very unnatural red. He must want people to notice him, but why?

She watched the rest room door and waited for him, guessing that he would change his appearance before he emerged. He would certainly lose the silly wig.

Mallory waited – and she waited.

Twenty minutes had passed. Only one man exited the men's room, but this was not the smooth-skinned youth, the fake blind man. This man was elderly, not aged with a white fright wig, but authentically wrinkled and peppered with liver spots.

She entered the men's room to make her own inspection, not yet willing to believe that she had been thrown off a surveillance detail by some rank amateur in a ridiculous disguise. This could not happen – not to her. One by one, she opened all the stalls, kicking open the ones that were locked, disturbing the slumbers of homeless men with authentic body odor and haggard faces, and definitely not her fake blind man in disguise. Angry now, she overturned the trash can on the floor, but found no sign of a red wig or a white cane. There was only one door, no other way out. A young man had walked into this room and vanished. Mallory decided not to share this humiliation with Riker.

"Yes, Victor, I'm quite sure that she was police," said the elderly lawyer as he draped the black coat on a chair. The white cane came loose and crashed to the floor, startling his companion. But then, every little thing made Victor Patchock nervous. The youngster was in one of his silent moods, and so the old man carried on both sides of the conversation. "Yes, she followed me right to the rest room door. Well, actually, she was following the red wig. Commendable plan, my boy." He had finally come to appreciate the bizarre logic of a fugitive calling attention to his appearance.

The lawyer stood before the only unshuttered window and looked down at the quiet street below. The Upper East Side was such a good neighborhood, but what a dreary, tiny room. His last offer to move Victor to some better accommodation had been declined. The young man had even worsened his lot by removing the doors to the closet and bathroom, then stripping the place of all bulky furnishings which might conceal an enemy. From where the old man stood, he could see a razor on the edge of the bathroom sink, and the drain was clotted with hair from the younger mans clean-shaven head. Victor had always been boyish in appearance, but now the bald pate made him seem downright babyish – if a baby could sneer and go insane.

The old lawyer plucked his own camel-hair coat from a hook on the wall. "It's late, and I need my rest." He did love this fresh excitement of being followed by a pretty woman, a touch of after-midnight sex. The drama had certainly enlivened his golden years and deepened his sympathy for this young man who could not go home again. But, of course, there were limits. And now, as if in gentle rebuke, denying a toy to a child, he said, "I can't get you a new gun. Sorry."

Mugs's lips curled back over needle-sharp teeth as he crept toward the door, his ears flattened back and fur bristling. Whatever he sensed out there in the hall, he was planning to take it by surprise and make short work of it. The cat looked up at Johanna, pleading for her help in this venture, for he had never mastered the art of opening doors. Suddenly he was angry and hissing. She was opening the closet – the wrong door.

Johanna found her jacket, dipped one hand into the pocket and pulled out the small silver gun. In barefoot silence, she stepped up to the hallway door and stood on tiptoe to see through the peephole. No one there.

Perhaps it was only a mouse after all, something small hiding below and beyond the perimeter of the fish-eye lens. She opened the door.

Riker had been sitting on the hall rug and leaning against the wood. Now he fell backward into the room and came face-to-face with the cat. "Hey, Mugs, ol' buddy."

The cat, somewhere between disgust and disappointment, padded off to his pillow basket, where he turned around three times, then curled into a ball.

"Hello, Jo," said Riker, still flat on his back and looking up at her. Johanna's weapon was concealed behind her back. "Riker, I've got two FBI men watching me. So, thank you, but I really don't need more protection tonight."

"Argus's men?" He rose to his feet. "Sloppy bastards. I didn't see either one of them when I got here."

She waved him to the couch, and while his back was turned, she slipped the silver gun into the pocket of her robe. "What are you doing here?"

"I just found out that you were on Ian Zachary's jury. That was a shock and a half."

"But you had so much information – "

"Your notes? No, they never mentioned you as the jury foreman."

And now he surprised her one more time. He asked none of the predictable questions, like How could you let that bastard get away with murder?

Over the next half hour, they settled into an easy truce. Their pact was sealed with Johanna's hoard of precious goat cheese and a fine bottle of red wine pulled down from the rack on the wall. They sat on the couch, side by side, their feet propped up on the coffee table. Johanna had eased into a rare mood of happiness, so mellow, so peaceful. And she was the one who finally returned to the subject of Ian Zachary's trial.

"I didn't even try to get out of jury duty." She refilled Riker's glass with the last of the bottle. "I was closing down my private practice and referring my patients to other doctors – finding good homes for all my puppies. And I was almost done. So it was easy enough to clear my calendar. I didn't really think the defense lawyers would want a psychiatrist on Zachary's jury. But they never objected to me, never asked a single question. They didn't waste any time on the other two women either. After a while, I figured it out. They were using all their challenges to stock the jury with men who fit the demographics of Zachary's radio show. It was a local program then, just the Chicago area. You know the type of fans he has? Young males, badly educated and immature. Most of them in going-nowhere jobs. Seven of the jurors fit that profile."