“That’s what I gathered. I think, though, she might be.”

Glitsky sat back as the tuxedoed, ultimate professional waiter drew back the curtain and took their orders-Hardy’s every-time-he-came-here sand dabs and a Crab Louis for Glitsky. When he’d gone, a small silence settled, until Hardy said, “So. You didn’t invite me down here to help me get Maya off.”

“True.”

“So?”

“So the bottom line is the case is starting to look like a loser for us. Certainly the Preslee side.”

“As it should be.”

“Okay, granted, maybe. That’s the problem when things start out so sloppy and get all political.”

“I’m more or less aware of that, Abe. What do you want?”

Glitsky took a beat. “I want to know if you’ve got something I need to know on Ruiz.”

“Like what?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t need to ask, would I?”

“If I do know something, how’s it going to help my client?”

“It probably won’t.”

Hardy broke a grin. “Wow, you really make it tempting. What do you have so far?”

“Essentially, nothing. If he hadn’t worked at BBW, we’d be at absolute zero.” Glitsky chewed another piece of ice. “As you may have surmised, this goes a little up the food chain.”

Hardy considered for a second, remained deadpan against the urge to show his surprise and pleasure. “Kathy?”

A nod. “Backstage, of course, and always deniable. But through Clarence, then Batiste.” The DA and the chief of police, respectively. Serious high-level pressure from above. “Her mayorship has made her case, especially after hearing about this Lori Bradford fiasco yesterday, that somehow a solid investigation into another BBW-related murder will set Maya free. I’m not so sure of that. It might help on Vogler, though I think she’s going down for that, and she won’t need it on Preslee. But whatever, Kathy thinks Ruiz is going to open a door, and she’s more or less dared us to do something on it, and fast, or maybe a head or two will roll.”

“Yours?”

“Not impossible. Maybe even the chief’s too. Who, you remember, serves at the mayor’s pleasure.”

The waiter knocked, opened the drapes, and delivered their plates. As the curtain closed, Hardy said to Glitsky, “So where were we?”

“Kathy West and Eugenio Ruiz.”

Hardy forked a bite of fish, taking his time. Finally, he made his decision and came out with his answer. “I might have something.”

“Might. I like that.”

“I knew you would. Hence my careful locution. I might have something if you’ve got something to trade.”

“Probably not. But what?”

“If you find something based on what I give you, I want it too.”

Glitsky didn’t hesitate an instant, shaking his head from side to side. “I can’t do that.”

“Fine.”

“Diz.”

“No argument, Abe. You can’t do it, you can’t do it.”

“You mean if it helps your case?”

“I mean whatever.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Hardy chewed and swallowed. “Not my issue. My issue is my client.”

“What if it doesn’t help her?”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Sorry, but those are the rules.” He hesitated. “Look, if it’s any help, give it to Stier too. I just wouldn’t like to see whatever it might be disappear, the way Lori Bradford did.”

Hardy, by now unexpectedly hopeful at the possibility of having the resources of the entire police department working on his behalf, nevertheless didn’t want to push. He had the cards here and Glitsky either would recognize that fact or not. He took a sip of his club soda, pushed some buttered capers onto his fish.

“It would be discoverable,” Glitsky said.

Hardy shook his head. “Before that. Under the table-under this very table if you want-but before it goes through Stier and company. From what you say, Jackman’s going to back you and so’s Batiste.”

“They’re my troops,” he said. “Bracco and Schiff. I undermine their case…”

“I get it. Though one could argue that it’s already undermined and they deserve whatever happens. But again, Abe, not my problem. And, hey, what I have might be nothing.”

It took Glitsky another full minute, maybe more, Hardy eating with gusto and apparent contentment, tasting none of it.

Finally, Glitsky capitulated. “You want me to sign an affadavit, or is my word good enough?”

Hardy put down his fork. Took a steadying breath against the rush. “There’s a guy who may or may not be named Paco who knew both Levon Preslee and Dylan Vogler back in college and who showed up from time to time at BBW to buy his weed. But not since October.”

“May or may not be named Paco.” Now dismissively. “That’s what we’ve been negotiating about?”

Hardy shrugged. “It’s what I got, Abe. Ruiz was looking out for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ruiz was going to get in touch with Wyatt Hunt if he came back into BBW. And by the way, it looks like the whole crew down there was getting cut in.”

“Yeah, we’re assuming that. We’ll be talking to all of them this time, instead of a select few. But this Paco, is he on Vogler’s list?”

“No.”

“No, of course not,” Glitsky said. “He wouldn’t be. How’d you find out about him?”

“Well, Ruiz, first. Then Maya.”

Glitsky’s eyes narrowed. “She knew him too.”

“Knew of him. The name. Back at USF. He hung out with Vogler and Preslee and-maybe-killed a guy in a liquor store they held up.”

This stopped Glitsky midbite. “Maybe.”

Hardy shrugged. It was what it was.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Except it was probably in the mid-nineties-ninety-five or -six.”

“It might have been in the papers. There would have been an investigation. Maybe a suspect.”

“Knock yourself out,” Hardy said.

“Did Paco know Ruiz was looking out for him?”

“No idea. Anybody working there could have told him, though.”

Glitsky put down his fork. “You’re not making this up?”

“Not any of it.”

After lunch Hardy stood and approached the forensic accountant in the witness chair, seemingly as relaxed as he’d been all morning. “Mr. Schermer,” he began, “you have given a great deal of technical testimony about accounting practices, working with numbers. Are any of these numbers subject to a margin for error?”

“Well, yes, of course. Some to a greater extent than others, but generally, yes.”

“Referring to the analysis you offered on BBW’s gross income versus the amount of raw coffee bought over the last fiscal year, would this have a greater or lesser margin for error than some of the other calculations you performed and shared with the jury?”

“Rather on the high side, I’d think. It is, after all, an estimate.”

“An estimate, with a margin for error rather on the high side. I see. And is there an industry standard that enumerates the margin for error in this kind of analysis?”

Here, for the first time, Schermer’s face creased into something like a frown. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well, I mean you take a certain weight amount of a raw product-coffee in this case-and you do an analysis that shows it takes, say, a pound of coffee to make a certain amount of cups, and then you deduce that the business didn’t buy enough raw coffee to make as many cups as it claimed it sold. Isn’t that the basic idea?”

“Basically, yes.”

“Well, then, can we assume that this type of analysis is a standard tool in the industry?”

“In a general way, yes.”

“With other products, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“How about with coffee? Is this a test with a long history of analysis and comparison with other similar tests?”

“Well, no. This was specific to this one business. BBW.”

“Specific to this one business? Do you mean to say that other licensed and accredited forensics accountants such as yourself, and in fact the organization to which you belong, have not established benchmarks to measure the reliability of these analyses?”