After a small pause, Hardy went on. “Sergeant, did you and your crime-scene unit get called to the scene of Mr. Preslee’s murder?”

“Yes, we did.”

A confused frown. “Well, Sergeant, it’s true, is it not, that you found not one shred of evidence inside Mr. Preslee’s home indicating that Maya Townshend had ever even been inside the place, much less murdered anybody there?”

As Hardy had anticipated, Stier was on his feet immediately. “Objection. Beyond the scope of direct examination. We’ll get to the Levon Preslee murder scene in due course.”

“Sustained.”

Hardy didn’t care. He knew he’d gotten on the boards first with that crime at least, making his point in front of the jury. Hardy came back to the witness. “No further questions.”

23

The door to the jail’s visiting room swung open and Hardy stood as Maya came in. He waited patiently while the female guard asked his permission and then undid Maya’s handcuffs with a gentleness that he found heartbreaking. Maya had proven herself time and again to be much tougher than she looked, but Hardy had found that it was the little personal indignities that often broke people’s spirits when they were in jail. But this guard was solicitous, even going so far as to touch Maya’s arm and give her a confident nod before leaving attorney and client alone in the glass-block-enclosed space.

“I hate this place, you know that?” Maya said as they sat down on their metal chairs. “It’s worse than the cell.”

“I can’t say it’s exactly my favorite either.” Hardy quickly took in their surroundings. He’d been here many times, and the small semicircular room had a certain familiarity to him. At one time, not so very long ago, the building they were in had been the “new” jail and the polished concrete floors and glass walls lent a sense of openness and light to these rooms that at first had seemed far less oppressive than the rectangular, confessional-sized attorneys’ visiting rooms at the old jail.

Over the years, though, this room’s diaphanous warmth, too, had dissipated somehow, perhaps under the psychic toll of its everyday use. Now it was just another old room, somehow colder for its modernity, its sterility, its cruel illusion of openness through the glass. “Maybe I should smuggle in some rugs, a couple of plants,” he said. “I could bring them in my briefcase every time. That’d spruce the place right up, I bet.”

Unable to fake even a stab at levity, Maya simply said, “I’m not sure it would help.”

“No, I guess not.” Hardy tried to maintain an upbeat and easygoing style, since he saw no reason to add to his client’s pain, but sometimes there was no help for it. “Has Joel been by?”

She nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat. “But outside, at the regular visiting place.” This was a long room for friends and relatives-as opposed to attorneys-similar in fact to those seen on television and in the movies, with a row of visitor stations on either side of Plexiglas windows with speakers set in them, rendering any true personal contact impossible. “It doesn’t really work out there. He only comes by because he feels like he needs to.”

“He comes by,” Hardy said, “because he loves you.”

“All right.” Maya clearly didn’t want to talk about it. She bowed her head, lowered her eyes. Then, with a forced interest: “So how’d we do out there today?”

“I was going to ask you.”

“I can’t believe they keep going ahead with it.”

“I know. I’ve had the same thought myself.”

“Especially with Levon. They have nothing at all, do they?”

“Your presence. I guess they feel that’s all they’re going to need, once they convince the jury on Dylan.”

She sat still a moment, hands on her lap. “I just keep thinking that if only he hadn’t been carrying that weed with him.”

“They probably would have found the stash at his house anyway, and the garden, and maybe the computer records too.”

“But if he wasn’t selling the stuff out of the shop…”

“We can’t just keep doing ‘if,’ Maya. He was.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” She paused. “So what about Kathy and Harlen coming down today? Does that help us?”

“I think so, though I wish she’d run it by me first.”

Another silence. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything you want.”

“The other person who you said did it. Is anybody looking for him?”

“Well, the cops aren’t. That’s a safe bet.”

“So how about us?”

“How about us what?”

“We look for him.”

“Or her. Don’t forget her.”

“No. I never would. But really.”

This gambit, or suggestion, or whatever it was, was heartening in some small way, but Hardy kept his emotional guard up. Though technically it didn’t matter what he actually thought about Maya’s guilt or lack thereof, she might think it would give him a psychological boost at the trial if she somehow got him believing she was innocent. And this question clearly telegraphed her assumption of another murderer, without her having to directly lie to her attorney by saying she hadn’t done it.

The problem was, he knew that she’d done something. Something damn serious, about which she obviously was carrying an enormous load of guilt. And he also knew, or thought he knew, what she’d been blackmailed about-robberies or perhaps worse that she must have committed with Dylan and Levon. So unless she’d committed murder in the course of one of those…

Whoa, he told himself. Therein lies the path to madness. But then he thought, why not? They’d come this far. And he came out with it. “Maya, yes or no, were you involved in the robbery that got Dylan and Levon sent to prison?”

She straightened her back. “Nobody can prove I was.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She hesitated. “No.” A beat. “Not that one.”

“So that is in fact what the blackmail was about?”

She didn’t answer, turned her face to look at the wall.

“I ask,” Hardy pressed on, “because you should know that unless you committed murder or some other heinous crime during one of these robberies, you can’t be charged with anything. Anything else, and the statutes of limitations have tolled.”

Her eyes came back to him. They bore a shine that he thought might presage tears. “Why are you so sure they were blackmailing me?”

“For one reason, it’s the thing that makes the most sense. You were involved in robberies with them in college. Yes?”

Finally, her shoulders gave an inch. “I’ve already told you. I did some bad stuff.”

“Bad enough for life in prison, Maya? Bad enough to never live with your kids or your husband again?”

She stared through him.

“You want to tell me what it was? Just put it out here between me and you. It’s privileged. Nobody else will ever know.”

“Don’t bully me.” Her words had a sudden calm edge.

“I’m not bullying you. I’m saying you can tell me anything you’ve done.”

“What for? So you’d do something different? I don’t think so. I think you’d do all the same things, make the same arguments in court, whatever it is you believe I’d actually done, isn’t that true?”

Angry now, Hardy did not answer.

And then suddenly, Maya came at him on another tack. “What you don’t seem to understand is that I’m being punished,” she said.

“For what? By who?”

“God.”

“God.” Hardy felt his anger start to wane, washed away in a wave of pity for this poor woman. “God’s punishing you? Why?”

“The same reason he punishes anybody.”

“Because of what they’ve done?”

She sat mute, facing him.

“Maya?”

“If it’s unforgivable, yes.”

“I thought his forgiveness was supposed to be infinite.”

She answered in a small voice. “No. Not for everything.”

“No? What wouldn’t it cover?”

“How about if what you harm is truly innocent-” Abruptly she drew herself up and stopped speaking.