“My hands are all wet.”

“I don’t care. Kiss me.”

After about thirty seconds he said, “Are we going to finish these dishes?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “At least not right now.”

Wet hair wrapped in a towel, wearing a pale yellow terry-cloth robe, Treya came out into their living room where Abe, in black flannel pajamas, sat on the couch, hunched over a couple of stacks of papers on the coffee table. “Well, look at this,” she said.

Shooting her a false glare. “You starting again with me?”

She smiled down at him. “You want me to?”

He patted the couch and moved over an inch or two.

She sat down. “Finding anything?”

Shrugging, he turned a page over, laid it facedown on the second pile. “That’s the problem.” Another page. And another. “Diz said it was about the blood, and he might be right.”

“What about it?”

“There isn’t any. Not on Maya’s clothes, not in her house. Nowhere.”

“Couldn’t she have just ditched them?”

Abe put his current page down and sat back on the couch. “Let’s see if this flies for you. She kills Levon in a pretty spectacularly bloody way. Spends a few minutes cleaning up, running water in the sink, no doubt splashing, and blood dripping off the table onto the floor like a few inches behind her.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, first thing, we know she’s got some blood on her.”

“We do?”

“Got to, Trey. No way with all that splashing front and back can she avoid it. So from there we’ve got two possible scenarios. One, she doesn’t see any blood and just goes from Levon’s to pick up the kids and then goes home with them. We’ve got a timeline for her somewhere in here”-he pointed to the papers in front of them-“that shows her actions from picking up the kids until the next morning. Her story, anyway, but corroborated by her husband and their housekeeper before anybody thought it was an issue. So I’m tempted to believe it. She didn’t go out.”

“Which means?”

“It means those clothes are at her home at seven the next morning when Bracco and Schiff show up, and luminol’s going to show the blood, even if she couldn’t see it.”

“All right.”

“All right. So it didn’t show up.”

“What’s the second scenario?”

“She sees blood and has to dump her clothes. But the problem with that is she picked up the kids promptly at three.”

“So she either brought a change with her-”

“Not.”

“No, I agree. Or she… what? Went home first and changed?”

Glitsky shook his head. “No time for that. And besides which, the maid says she didn’t come home first.”

“So what’s that leave?”

“That’s the question.”

“All the people who alibi her could be lying.”

“That’s true.”

“But you don’t think so?”

Glitsky nodded. “Not that it couldn’t happen, but they wouldn’t have known what they were covering for when they said it, so it’s unlikely.”

“So what does this all mean?”

“She wasn’t inside. I’m okay with no fingerprints, no DNA, all that. Hard, but doable if you’re careful. But if she was there and killed him, she got blood on herself, that’s all there is to it.”

“You know what, it’s good to see you into this.” She put her hand on his leg.

He turned to face her. “I’m starting to believe, hope, whatever, that Zack’s going to be all right.” He leaned forward and rapped on the coffee table. “Knock on wood. Anyway, so maybe I’m not hopeless. Maybe there’s something I can do to make sure they don’t get blown away on the Vogler side of the trial too.”

“Is the evidence better on that?”

“Oh, yeah. No question, basically. But still, if they left anything out, maybe I can help them get it back in.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Shore up if there’s any other weak spots. Whatever they might need.”

Treya sat silently for another minute, her hand resting on his leg. “So if the judge dismisses the Levon side, then what?”

“Nothing, really, except that Diz looks good for a media minute, which actually lasts only about thirty seconds.”

“No. I mean about Levon.”

“What about him?”

“Well, technically, wouldn’t he be an open case again?”

Abe’s mouth tightened up in concentration. “Not really. I mean, even Diz thinks she looks good for it, even if the DA can’t…” He ground down to a stop, met his wife’s eyes.

“Except,” Treya said, “she had no blood on her, did she? She never went inside. Which means somebody else was in there and killed him, doesn’t it?”

28

At around nine o’clock the next morning Hardy “no-commented” his way through the crowd of reporters who accosted him as he tried to sneak into the back door of the Hall of Justice. He was in relatively high spirits, having slept well for a trial day-waking up without an alarm at five-thirty as opposed to the more usual three or four.

Even though neither Kathy West nor Harlen Fisk had shown up at the truncated morning session of the trial yesterday, the powers that be had determined that a metal detector was still a necessity. So a line of spectators and more reporters snaked for fifty or sixty feet outside of Department 25. Upon laying eyes on it Hardy was about to backtrack and take his shortcut behind the courtrooms when he heard a familiar voice call his name and, turning, was somewhat surprised to see Fisk striding toward him.

The normally hale and hearty face seemed today to have an underlying pallor, and dark circles under his eyes spoke of a lack of sleep, but if Hardy had a sister on trial for murder, he thought he might lose a few zz’s himself. He stepped into the line and extended his hand. “Hey, Harlen. Got the trial bug, do you?”

He tried a smile that mostly failed. “Maybe some of that, Diz. But mostly I wanted to ask you, after yesterday, why can’t Jackman just drop the Preslee side of this thing?”

“Careful, Harlen, your politics are showing. The short answer is that Stier’s picked this fight for them and they’re in it. What I am hoping is that maybe Braun’ll do it for them.”

“She can do that?”

“She can grant my motion to dismiss when Stier’s done with his case. If I can convince her that no reasonable juror could convict on the Preslee count with this evidence.”

“What’s it going to depend on?”

Hardy chortled, leaned in closer to whisper. “In theory, careful weighing of the evidence. In fact, pretty much whim.”

“That’s heartening.”

“Welcome to Superior Court. But in truth, I think we might actually have a chance. There really isn’t anything that proves she killed Levon.”

Harlen nodded. “This whole thing is a mockery, if you want my opinion. Always has been.”

“I agree.”

“And if Braun does drop Levon, isn’t that saying Maya didn’t do it?”

“Well, not exactly. It means they can’t prove she did it.”

“So what do they do then?”

“Who?”

“The police. The people investigating his murder.”

Hardy’s grin had a sardonic twist to it. “Again, we’re up against theory versus reality. In theory the police should start looking for more proof, but there isn’t any that I’ve seen. So then, still in theory, they should revisit the investigation and see if they might trip over another suspect somewhere along the way. In reality, since the cops believe that Maya in fact did kill Levon-”

“That’s insane,” Harlen interrupted. “I know she didn’t do that.”

This stopped Hardy. “If you do, tell me how.”

The supervisor, too, hesitated for a second. “What I mean is my sister isn’t hitting somebody on the head with a cleaver, Diz. It just flat couldn’t happen.”

“I’m not saying I disagree with you. It’s a stretch for me too. But the cops think that’s what happened, even though she avoided all traces of blood, which is a pretty good party trick if she did. Anyway, the bottom line is that in reality, Braun dismisses Levon and nobody’s going to do a damn thing about it. They figure they’ll get her on Dylan anyway. But the good news-and this really is good, Harlen-is if Levon gets dropped, it’s no longer Specials.” By this Hardy meant special circumstances-mandated by multiple murder-and because of which Maya would be facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. Without Levon, life without was going to be off the table.