‘Couldn’t you have just asked him to leave last night, step outside for a minute?’

‘No, not in front of you. Then he would have known I’d told you something, wouldn’t he? And what could that be except Ron’s secret? He wouldn’t have let it go. You know Abe. It’s not a matter of trust, but he’s a cop. He’s always a cop first, even with you.’

Hardy knew she was right. A couple of years before, he’d had a case where he’d gotten confused on that point, and Abe hadn’t talked to him for several months. If Abe knew that Hardy was holding a secret that related to one of Abe’s cases and didn’t tell him about it, it would be tricky at best. Frannie had saved him from having to deal with that.

She sat next to him, her hands holding his on her lap. She was still in jail, but at least they were talking now, man and wife again. What he really wanted to know about was the relationship between her and Ron, but he wouldn’t ask that specifically. It shouldn’t matter. She was his wife and she needed his help. That was today’s issue; when she was out of this situation, he’d deal with the rest of it.

Also, he told himself that if it did matter, if something threatening to their marriage was going on, then she should tell him – she would tell him, wouldn’t she? He knew that the betrayal of failing to tell would be worse than anything she might have done. She would tell him.

But he couldn’t ask directly. He’d go general and see how she went with it. He put on his lawyer face, and asked in his least aggressive tone, ‘So what’s this all about?’

Frannie was using his hands as a pair of worry beads. He noticed she was shaking and took off his nylon jacket. He put it over her shoulders.

The guard knocked and said she was going to miss breakfast if this meeting didn’t end, but Hardy with his vast legal expertise finagled a couple of cups of coffee and this morning’s food unit, biscuits and gravy, for which they waited a few minutes in an uncomfortable silence.

Why doesn’t he ask me? she was thinking. Can he really care so little that he doesn’t even ask? If it were me, that’s the only question I’d have, about me and Ron.

He’s been in this business too long, that’s it. It’s changed him so fundamentally. Now he sits there so cold and clinical and he’s got another case, another problem to solve. Never mind if his wife’s been unfaithful. He just wants to know what happened. Just the facts, ma’am – but it wasn’t a Joe Friday joke with him. It was his essence.

Please, Dismas, would you just care enough about us to ask?

She tried to will him to talk, but he only sat at the table, patient and understanding, waiting for her breakfast to be delivered. Occasionally he would squeeze her hand, the way he might comfort any female client.

She wanted to punch him.

When the tray arrived, Frannie took a few quick bites. She was famished. She had been so upset last night that she’d been unable to get down any of her evening meal. Finally, she put the plastic spoon down and sipped at her coffee. ‘OK.’ She spoke to herself in a near whisper, as though afraid that even in this private room, someone would hear. ‘But this has to stay between us.’

‘This secret that can get you out of jail? You want me to know and not use it?’

‘That’s the only way I can tell you, Dismas. That’s what I promised Ron. I can’t tell you as my lawyer, especially not as my lawyer. Only as my husband. You’ll understand when you hear what it is.’

Hardy wasn’t sure this would prove to be true – he wasn’t understanding much of this as it developed – but he knew he had to know, and to know he had to promise not to tell.

He wasn’t comfortable with any part of the idea. And beyond his own personal reservation, there were two other basic, professional reasons for his reluctance to make this promise. As a licensed attorney, he was an officer of the court, obliged to cooperate with law enforcement in a whole slew of public matters.

The second reason was even more fundamental – if Frannie told her secret to him as her lawyer, it would be protected under the attorney-client privilege. No court could make him reveal it – it was a shield. What Frannie was asking was fraught with danger. As a private citizen, he could very easily find himself called before the grand jury and in the same position as his wife, unable to testify, tossed into the clink. Beyond that, if he got into any investigation about Ron Beaumont, and he couldn’t claim privilege, then he could very easily picture himself having to lie about what he did or didn’t know to the very people – Glitsky, Canetta – who might be helping him. It was ugly in all respects, and he tried to explain it all calmly to Frannie.

But she wasn’t budging. ‘No,’ she still spoke in a near-whisper, but her voice was firm. ‘What will happen is that you’ll trust the privilege.’

‘And? What’s your point? That’s how it works.’

‘But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the system doesn’t work.’

‘Uh oh,’ Hardy said.

‘What?’

‘The system doesn’t work. That oldie but goodie greatest hit of the sixties. Except I get nervous when I hear it. Because I’ll tell you what – sometimes the system does work.’

‘It didn’t in Ron’s case. It betrayed him.’ Her eyes had some of that old spark back in them, although Hardy wasn’t especially delighted to see it. She reached out toward him and her voice softened. ‘Dismas, you have to believe me on this. Ron had a reason not to trust lawyers, you’ll see.’

‘I don’t doubt that,’ Hardy said. ‘I don’t trust too many of them myself. But this is me.’

‘You the person, not you the lawyer.’

He hung his head and shook it from side to side. His wife had her hand on his knee. He drained the last gulp from the plastic cup of tepid coffee. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I promise. It’s between you and me-the-person, me-the-son, and me-the-Holy-Ghost. Let’s hear it.’

Frannie took a last look back toward the door to the room, making sure no guard lurked to overhear. Then she came back to Hardy, took a breath, and began. ‘Ron and Bree had been fighting a lot over this change in her jobs.’

Hardy didn’t like this opening. ‘I really hope that after all this preamble you’re not going to tell me, “Oh, yeah, I remember. He did kill her after all.” ’

The concept wasn’t all that funny, but she forced a smile. ‘He didn’t kill her. He was with me when she died.’

Whether or not this was good news remained a question, but he wasn’t saying anything about it right now. ‘All right. I’m listening. What were they fighting about?’

‘Well, her old job with the oil company was evidently pretty great. Anonymous but big money. She did her research and wrote her papers and nobody paid too much attention out in the real world. She was kind of a star in-house. I mean, she played a big role paving the legislative way for this three-billion-dollar industry, but she wasn’t really a public figure.’

‘But when she signed on with Kerry, that changed?’

‘Right. She started getting a lot of press right away about all the problems with these oil additives.’

‘So why was this an issue with Ron? I mean, if she was the one working, why did he have any say in it?’

‘Same reason I have some kind of input on what you do, the clients you take. At least I think I do, don’t I?’

This was true. Frannie wouldn’t want him to defend, say, the tobacco companies, or a mass murderer, and if he decided he had to/wanted to/needed to, they would certainly have words on the topic. But this whole area didn’t need to be aired, not this morning on top of everything else. Hardy glossed over it. ‘You’re right. But we’re not talking about me and you. We’re talking about Ron and Bree, and they were arguing, right?’

‘Right.’ She was tightening up, as clipped as he was. But he had to keep pushing her. He had to know.