She touched the cold, black plastic of the receiver. She tried to lift it, but she couldn’t. She put her hands to her face and rocked back and forth in front of the phone. She wanted to call so bad. Please, Roy, let me call. Don’t be mad. She couldn’t stand it if he was mad, ’cause if he was mad he might leave her and she loved him, needed him, so much.

She thought she heard a movement in the bedroom. She was going to look, but she was suddenly afraid. She had to call Roy. If there was a prowler, he couldn’t be mad. She sat down on the sofa and dialed his number. Her eyes never left the bedroom door.

4

Mark knocked on the door a second time and wondered if Sarah was home. He was beginning to worry about her. She had broken appointments twice this week and she was evasive on the phone. Cindy had been complaining about the hours he had been putting into the Coolidge case and, every day, she asked him about the rest of the money.

The money worried Mark too, but it was more than that. He wanted to see Sarah. He thought about her constantly. He could picture her pale features and her long blond hair and wanted more and more to touch her.

She was as beautiful as he remembered, but he could not miss the look she gave him. It was a mixture of surprise and embarrassment, as if he had caught her in the middle of doing something she was ashamed of.

“What’s wrong?” she asked nervously.

The question surprised him.

“Nothing’s wrong. I…I wanted to see you. About the case,” he said.

“Come in.”

She sounded distracted and she brushed at her hair as she led him into the living room.

“I expected to see you at the office on Friday,” he said when they were seated on the sofa.

“I couldn’t make it. I…I’m sorry I didn’t call. Something…An emergency came up.”

“That’s okay,” he said quickly, not wanting her to think he was criticizing and trying to hide his disappointment in her obvious lie.

“How is the…Bobby’s case coming? You said you had something to tell me.”

“It’s coming along just fine,” he answered, grateful for a chance to avoid confronting her. “I’ve uncovered a witness who can help us.”

He told her about Roger Hessey, talking quickly, afraid of losing her attention. She pretended to listen, but glanced around the room nervously, hearing only part of what he said. She wished he would leave. She knew he would ask about the money and she wasn’t sure how she should handle that.

“That sounds hopeful,” she said with what she hoped sounded like enthusiasm.

“Well, I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I’m beginning to think I’ve got something.”

They sat in silence for a second. Sarah didn’t know what to say. She was getting a headache and she wanted him to leave.

“I…Uh, before I forget,” Mark started, “did you talk to your parents about the, uh…the retainer?”

“About the money, Mark. I never called my parents.”

He said nothing, stunned, letting what she said sink in. He looked into her eyes. She was seated so close that he could see the smoothness of her skin and his desire for her made it difficult for him to accept what she had just said.

“But you said you would…”

She touched his arm and it was like an electric shock.

“I don’t want you to hate me, Mark, but I couldn’t. I was going to. I didn’t lie to you about that. When Bobby was first arrested, I couldn’t believe it. Then I saw him at the jail.”

She let go of him and stared into her lap. He wanted to hold her. To comfort her. It hurt him to see her distress.

“Mark, I don’t know what to think. If he did kill that girl…I don’t want you to continue on this case if you don’t want to. I don’t have the money. I…I lied to you. Not at first, but I couldn’t ask my parents. What could I say?”

She trembled and tears welled up in her eyes.

“Don’t you see? Could I say please help this man who raped and strangled a young girl who could have been me.”

She broke down. He moved to her and held her, trying to comfort her while inside his own emotions were in chaos.

He could see the city stretching below through the picture window. A silver plane floated in the blue summer sky. Tears like tiny pearls were flowing over the soft curve of her cheek. He kissed them away and suddenly he was kissing her lips and they embraced with an intensity that left him breathless. What was he doing? He broke away, frightened by the depth of his passion for her.

“Mark,” she said.

He got up and walked away.

“I’m sorry. I…”

“Don’t blame yourself. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

He turned toward her hopefully. She saw the look in his eyes.

“Mark, I can’t. Not now. Please understand. It’s all too confusing for me. Everything happened so fast. Keep the money I gave you. Tell Bobby to get another lawyer.”

“I can’t do that,” he said. “And I…It will be okay about the money. If you just…”

She turned away from him. It would have been easier if he had gotten angry at her. She could see how crushed he was and she could no longer bear to be near him. He took a step toward her, then thought better of it.

When the door closed, she sank down on the couch. She looked toward the window and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She looked away. The apartment was suddenly very dark and very lonely. She felt unclean.

Shindler walked past the reception desk toward Phil Heider’s office. He was exhausted, because he had spent half the night trying to calm down Esther. He was worried about her. If she cracked up, so did the case and she was beginning to come apart.

So far he had not told Heider about her midnight calls and the scenes he had witnessed at her apartment. He had gotten Hollander to prescribe some sedatives and he hoped those would get her through the two weeks left before the trial.

The trial. He shook his head. There would be no one there to help her when she testified. What if she cracked up on the stand? He had considered moving in with her, but had rejected the idea as too risky. The problem was that she had already tried suicide once. On the other hand, if it ever came out that the chief investigator in the case was screwing the star witness, Heider would never get a conviction.

“Roy.”

Shindler stopped and looked around. Al Caproni was hailing him from his office door.

“What can I do for you?”

“I wondered if you’d found out anything about Toller.”

“Who?” Shindler asked.

“Eddie Toller. The prisoner who said he saw the Murray girl alive in mid-January.”

Shindler’s face clouded.

“That’s closed, Al. Forget it.”

“Did you check it out?”

“There was nothing there.”

“I don’t know. He sounded so sincere. Maybe we should tell the lawyers for the Coolidges about him. We have a duty to tell the defense about any exculpatory evidence we know about and…”

“Listen,” Shindler said in a low, angry voice, “there is nothing exculpatory in a wild, unsubstantiated story that some con has made up in order to get his ass out of jail. Those two bastards raped and strangled a defenseless girl and butchered a young man worth ten of them. Have you seen those pictures? Did you see that boy’s face? Do you still want to tell the defense attorneys. Because, if you do, we’re going to lose this case and you’ll be responsible for setting that scum free.”

Caproni was stunned by Shindler’s outburst. The detective had always seemed so controlled.

“I didn’t mean to go tell them now, Roy. Only if there was something to Toller’s story.”

“I’m sorry I blew up like that,” Shindler apologized as soon as he realized what he had done. “I had a rough night last night. Look, I talked with Toller. There’s nothing to his story. I questioned him pretty hard and he backed down on a lot of things.”