Wagner considered a moment. "I'm sure we can do that." A bell rang and he looked up at his wall clock. "Fifth period," he said. "Together or separately?"

"Separately would be better," Hardy said.

But it wasn't to be that simple. Wagner's desire to see Andrew cleared because it would benefit Sutro might have blinded him to the fact that he should not under any circumstances be allowing his students to talk to an attorney without parental permission. But obviously he couldn't let Hardy be alone in a room with one of his students, either.

Hardy was obliged to let him sit in. He couldn't help but think that this changed the dynamic dramatically- he had been planning a gloves-off discussion with each of the kids, but he had no choice. If the meetings were going to happen at all, they'd be in Wagner's office with the principal in attendance.

Alicia breezed in first. Hardy had heard next to nothing about her, either from Wu or from Andrew. His only preconception was that she was probably the model for the sister in Andrew's short story, locked in her room listening to death music and smoking dope. His first look at her- very pretty with beautiful long dark hair, clear skin and eyes, designer clothes- was a bit of a shock and brought him up short. Andrew's story, he reminded himself, was fiction. If the judge wound up having trouble with that concept, Hardy thought he could bring in Alicia as a witness and win the point without any further debate.

She took a few confident steps into the office, threw at glance at Hardy- a stranger to her- and spoke to Wagner. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Alicia, this is Mr. Hardy. He's one of the lawyers representing Andrew. He'd like to talk to you for a few minutes if you don't mind."

Her face grew serious, and she nodded first at Wagner, then at Hardy. "Sure. Okay. Why would I mind? Although Andrew and I aren't exactly what I'd call close."

"Why not?" Hardy asked.

"Well, I don't know. He's just… We don't have that much in common, I suppose."

"So you don't know much about what's happening with him?"

"Just of course the basics. What Dad and Linda have told me. I thought it must be some misunderstanding or something that Dad would have to work out."

Hardy found that an interesting turn of phrase. He asked her, "Would you be surprised to hear that Andrew tried to kill himself this morning?"

She stared. All the vivacity drained out of her face. She looked to Wagner. "Is that true? Is he dead?"

"No, but Mr. Hardy was at the hospital this morning."

"He tried to hang himself," Hardy said. "He didn't succeed."

The news derailed her for a beat. Without asking permission, she went to a chair and sat. "I guess I could see him doing that," she said. "He's just always so intense and so unhappy. And then when Laura… was killed, it got so much worse." She turned and faced Hardy full on. "But I don't think he killed her. You don't think he did, do you?"

Hardy shook his head no. "There might be some facts about that night that don't work if Andrew did it."

"See? I didn't think he did either."

Hardy hadn't quite said that, but he'd take it. He stood up, hands in his pockets, and began to pace the room. "But the problem I've got is that I don't know what else was going on in Andrew's life, something that might have had some connection to Mr. Mooney or Laura and given someone else, perhaps, a reason to have killed them."

"Surely not another student here," Wagner said.

"I'm not implying that. There's no evidence implicating anyone else here at Sutro." Hardy came back to Alicia. "But you're his sister. You may have heard Andrew say something that didn't seem to mean anything at the time, but now when you think back on it, it might have been important."

He thought that given the different crowd Alicia hung out with, the odds were against her providing some alternative theory of the crime, but at least she might start thinking about her brother's situation differently. In Hardy's experience, schools- like companies and coffee groups and men's clubs- always had secrets. If Andrew hadn't killed Mooney and Laura, then the person who had done it might have had some connection to Sutro. At least, from Alicia or one of the other students, he might get some rumors, something to wave in front of a judge or jury, as opposed to what he had now.

Which was nothing.

Nick and Honey are the character names of the young couple in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? who become foils for the vitriolic outpourings of George and Martha as their relationship implodes. Mooney cast Andrew and Laura as the leads, with the secondary couple's parts going to Steve Randell as Nick and Jeri Croft as Honey.

If Alicia North was the norm for the "popular" look at Sutro, Jeri was something else again. She'd dyed her hair a dark henna, rimmed her eyes with black kohl shadow. Waif-thin, the pajama bottoms she wore hung low enough on her hips to reveal a hint of pubic hair on her belly under the black T-shirt. In addition to the silver rings adorning both of her ears, she'd pierced her nose, eyebrows and tongue. When she got to the office, she greeted Wagner and then Hardy with an ill-disguised wariness. She tugged her pajamas up an inch or two. "So why again am I here?"

Wagner went through the explanation for a second time. The girl scanned Hardy up and down, clearly pegged him as another meddling adult in the Wagner mold. Suit and tie. A dork who started out by saying, "I'm trying to get at the truth of what happened that night."

She rolled her eyes, an actress all right. "I don't think so," she said. "If you're Andrew's lawyer and you're any good, you're trying to get him off, whether it's the truth or not. So give me a break, all right? And that night? I don't know what happened. I wasn't there."

"Okay," Hardy said. "Thanks for coming down, then." Dismissing her. Two could play at that game.

She threw a confused glance first to Hardy, then at Wagner. "That's it?"

Hardy, stonewalling, shrugged. "You obviously don't want to talk about it. I want to help Andrew and I'm sure there are other students here at Sutro who feel the same way I do. So why waste each other's time. Sorry to have interrupted your class."

She shifted her weight, hip cocked. "Who said I didn't want to help Andrew?"

Hardy, giving her nothing, looked up from scribbling on his legal pad as though surprised she was still there. "I got that impression. It's not a problem. Thanks again." He went back to his notes, spoke to Wagner. "Let's try Steve Randell."

"Wait a minute! Steve doesn't know anything either."

Patiently, Hardy said, "Well, if that's true, I'm sure he'll let us know."

"What could he tell you? He wasn't there either."

"I don't know, Jeri. What do you know, say, about Laura?"

"You mean she and Mooney?"

"We can start with that, sure."

"Well, the main thing, they didn't have anything going. Sexually."

"But Andrew thought they did?"

"Maybe. I mean, yeah, sure, the first couple weeks of rehearsal, Laura got a crush on him. So did I, you want to know the truth. He was just so there, you know?"

"This is Mr. Mooney now?" Hardy ventured an encouraging smile. "Just keeping the players straight. Mr. Mooney was so there, you said. You want to talk about that?"

A sigh. "Have you met Laura's parents?"

"No. They wouldn't see me."

"There you go. They wouldn't see her much either. I'm going to sit down." She folded herself down onto the floor. "The thing about Mike- Mr. Mooney- is there was no… like barrier, you know. I mean, at school he was a teacher and all, but when you got acting, you were with him. Just completely equal. He'd get inside your space and you'd just want to stay there. It was just total acceptance."

"Of what, though, exactly, if you can say?"