Then do the thing.

Hardy was just going to finish these last three pages. Otherwise, he’d have to go back and reread the first twelve again to catch up to his place in the brief, to where he was now, if he wanted to reboard the paper’s train of thought. Now, the opening pages were still clear enough in his memory, the syllogistic rhythm of the argument unbroken. He went right back to the spot where he’d left off, picked up his pen, read a few words.

There was a sound.

His head came up and he listened carefully. There couldn’t be a sound. There was no one in the building and he’d locked the door behind him.

Or had he?

Suddenly he couldn’t remember if he’d turned the dead bolt back. It didn’t matter, really, since he was going back down almost immediately, but maybe…

No, he’d locked it. He was pretty sure. He’d be done here in two minutes anyway.

And he was.

He’d heard no other noise, although lost in his reading, hurrying now to finish, scribbling the odd note, he was not likely to have heard one anyway.

Finally, he finished the brief, closed it back to its cover, put down his pen, and leaned back in his chair. He looked up. A silhouette was outlined in the doorway to his office.

39

‘Mr Hardy?’

Hardy’s hand was over his heart. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Did I startle you? I’m sorry.’

‘No, that’s all right. As soon as I land I’ll be fine.’

‘Your wife said you’d be working late. I thought…’

‘It’s all right.’ His breath was coming back. ‘How’d you get in here? Was that you who rang the bell?’

‘Yes.’

He took another lungful of air. ‘Where’d you go?’

‘Nobody answered, so I went back to my car. Then – I must have looked away for a minute – I saw the front door closing behind you, then you moving around up here through the window, and I got out to try again, but this time the door was open.’

‘Okay,’ Hardy said. ‘Okay. But I’m afraid it’s a little late. I was just finishing up here, going home. I’m sorry. I can walk you back down, and we’ll make an appointment for tomorrow. How’s that?’

She stepped into the room. Hardy noticed that the strap to her purse was around her neck and that she was holding her purse in front of her with both hands. Or rather, that one hand was in the purse, the other holding it. ‘I’m afraid that won’t do.’

Hardy started gathering his papers, pushed away from the desk, started to stand up. ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s going to have to-’

‘Sit back down, please!’

Something in her voice. He looked back up.

She’d moved another step closer and pulled the purse away, down to her side. Her other hand held a small gun, and she trained it levelly on him. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’

‘No, ma’am, but you’ve sure got my attention.’

‘My name is Pat. I’m Judge Giotti’s wife. I’m really sorry to be meeting you like this.’

You’re sorry? Hardy thought. But he said nothing.

Pat Giotti made some clucking sound. ‘You and Mario had a long talk today. He told me all about it.’

‘Yes, ma’am, we did. But he hired me as his lawyer, he may have told you, and I can’t repeat anything he said to me. It’s attorney-client privilege.’

A dry, mirthless chuckle. ‘I know all about that, Mr Hardy. I also know it has no real teeth. I know all the ways it’s been abused.’

‘I wasn’t planning to abuse it.’

‘No, I’m sure you weren’t, not now. But something could happen. Someday. The point is I can’t be positive about it and unfortunately, that’s what I have to be.’

Hardy’s brain was on fire, trying to find a way out in a last desperate spurt of mental energy before it was silenced forever. But no ideas came – other than to keep her talking if he could. ‘Were you this polite to Sal before you hit him?’

Her voice was tight with tension. ‘I don’t think rudeness serves any purpose. I didn’t want to hurt Sal. I don’t think I did hurt Sal.’

No, Hardy thought, only killed him.

But she was going on. ‘But he would have hurt us. He would have ruined everything. Nobody seems to understand that. Even Mario didn’t, always saying Sal was harmless, Sal was his old friend, a good guy. Well, let me tell you, Mr Hardy, Sal was out of control. He wasn’t going to stop on his own. Somebody had to stop him. And it didn’t matter, that was the amazing thing. He only had a few months anyway. He was dead in a couple of months at the most.’

‘I know,’ Hardy said. ‘So what happened that you had to do anything?’

Keep her talking. Think. Think!

‘You really don’t know? Mario didn’t tell you this?’ A bitter laugh. ‘It’s so typical. He’s always doing things like this, leaving it for me to clean up after him.’

‘Tell me,’ Hardy said.

In her calm hysteria she kept the gun trained on Hardy’s chest.

Her body shifted, its language terrifying. He thought she would pull the trigger now, that it was over. He sucked in a breath.

‘There was that bomb scare, that day, Friday. A little before lunchtime. You knew about that, of course.’

He nodded.

‘When they cleared the building, the courthouse, Mario was out in the alley with his staff. Suddenly Sal is there, pulling him aside, all in a panic, telling Mario he’s got to get the money together, the money isn’t in his safe. He’s thinking Mario took it back somehow. He tells him if he doesn’t get it back, he’s going to spread the word about the fire. He won’t keep quiet any longer.’

She lowered her voice, but not the gun. ‘Don’t you see, Mr Hardy? He would have destroyed Mario’s name. Which is all we have, all we’ve worked for all these years, Mario’s reputation with his peers. And to let that senile bum threaten it? No, he had to be stopped. I couldn’t let him bring Mario down. Sal wasn’t anybody. He was dead anyway.’

‘So your husband called you after he went back inside?’

She nodded. ‘He thought Sal had simply misplaced the money – taken it out of the safe, put it somewhere else and forgotten where. So he went back up to Sal’s room with him, to look for it. Can you believe the risk he took doing that? Anyone might have seen him and remembered. Then, when Mario couldn’t find any money, Sal went off at him. Mario yelled back.’

Another tumbler fell into place: Blue’s testimony, before her nap, the male voice in Sal’s apartment. It had been Giotti after all.

But his wife was going on, the gun still trained on Hardy’s chest. ‘After he got back to his chambers, he called and told me what had just happened. And still, he tried to tell me it was all right. Sal was just having a bad day. How could he believe that? How could he not see?’

‘So what did you decide to do?’

‘I didn’t know exactly. Not when I left to go there. Something, though. I was going to stop him. I brought this gun with me, just in case, but then there was the morphine out on the table. So much quieter and cleaner. I knew how to administer injections. One of my children is diabetic – I knew to put it in the vein. There was this heavy whiskey bottle. Sal never felt anything. I just knocked at his door and he let me in and we talked a minute, just like you and me now. And everything was there, laid out for me. As though God wanted me to do it, wanted to help me.’

With a jolt of terror Hardy realized that he’d led her to her moment. God had provided in this case as well: the building empty except for him. The open door. The cover of darkness for her escape.

It would be her second perfect crime.

He thought of a final question. ‘Does your husband know?’

It wasn’t really a laugh. It was too derisive. ‘Mario? How could I tell him? He’s a good man, a judge. He believes in justice. He doesn’t understand that sometimes you have to act, not pass some abstract judgment.’

‘So what does he think happened? That it was just his good luck?’