Sitting at his desk in the dark, unaware of any conscious thought, his mind went to a story he'd heard or read somewhere about a woman who'd been adopted at birth and had never known her mother. Over the course of her life, if something made her so emotionally upset that she couldn't sleep, she'd developed the habit of getting up, boiling water, and cooking up a plate of plain pasta. After she ate it, she could go back to sleep.

When she was thirty-five, she decided to try and locate her birth mother, and after a difficult search, was eventually successful. She wrote to the woman, introducing herself, and asking if they could meet. Her mother had agreed – she could come to her house for a weekend, and they could get to know one another.

The meeting went well, but when it was time for bed, the emotional upheaval of it all kept the daughter awake well into the night. After tossing and turning for half the night in her mother's guest bedroom, she finally gave up and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Where her mother was fixing a bowl of plain spaghetti for herself! She said she always did that to help her get back to sleep. Would her daughter like some too?

Glitsky snapped back to where he was. Why had he thought of that?

His damn heart was beating a strong tattoo against his rib cage, but there was no pain as he stood up and turned on the light in his room again. He thought he knew exactly where he was going now, but he wanted to check to make sure.

Yes, there it was. Dead smack in the middle of the parameters he'd just established, and probably half a block outside the circle he'd drawn for the musketeers.

Hardy ate at home, but was back downtown by eight, in his office. At the Solarium table, all the attorneys – Freeman, Roake, Wu, Ingalls, and Rhodin – had gathered and were sharing their information and opinions.

Of the musketeers, the most successful during the day had been Amy Wu. She'd been working on the Abby Oberlin matter, and had discovered that Gene Visser had interviewed several staff members at the Pacific Gardens Senior Health Center in Visitation Valley, where Abby's mother had been in residence. Though he'd been more subtle than he had with Rich McNeil, he had still managed to intimidate two part-time nurses, as well as the owner of the facility, into believing that their license was in jeopardy if they did not disassociate themselves immediately from the first sign of this particular patient mistreatment lawsuit.

Wu had done well, Hardy told her, but he didn't think they needed what she'd found anymore. 'We've got enough tying Visser to Logan at this stage,' he said. 'The Cadaver has gotten the message – I'm sure of that. What we need now, it seems to me, is some strong connection to Elaine that will bring Torrey into the picture. Lieutenant Glitsky and Treya might have found a little something for us this morning, but before we discuss that, I'd be happy to entertain any other suggestions anyone might have.'

Wrapped in cigar smoke, huddled down behind his glass of red wine, David Freeman was a contemplative gnome, alone at the far end of the large table. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet during the initial discussions, and now he cleared his throat and sat forward. 'We ought not to forget that we are deep, deep in the trees here, people. They're pretty trees, I admit. They form nice patterns on the forest floor and their leaves are a wonder to behold.'

The younger attorneys caught each others' eyes, glad that they didn't sully their evening minds with alcohol. Hardy and Gina Roake shared their own look, but they knew David better, and their expressions didn't convey the same message. Here came a profound, and probably unwelcome, insight.

His forest-for-the-trees metaphor, subsumed by the legal issue, was forgotten. Freeman took in the faces around the table, focused on Hardy, and continued gravely, 'You can tie your three boys into the neatest knot you've ever seen and drop the whole package at Hill's bench and you still don't have nearly enough.'

Ingalls and Rhodin both started to respond, but didn't get far as Freeman shook his head, summoning silence again to the table. 'Ask yourselves this simple question. From the evidence presented in this hearing, disregarding all the hoopla about Torrey, Visser, and Logan, did Cole Burgess happen upon a lone woman walking in an alley and kill her for her money and jewelry? Yes or no.' More silence. 'Let's take a straw vote. Gina?'

She considered for a beat, not liking her answer. 'Probably.'

'Amy?'

'I don't want to admit this, but yes, I do think so.'

It went around the table, ending with Hardy, who made it unanimous.

'But why, then,' Ingalls demanded, 'is the judge letting all this in? He's got to see it as connected to the crime, right?'

Hardy, converted, took the answer. 'Maybe not even, Jon. He's giving us rope, that's all. This is a death penalty case. All the issues have to be on the record. Hill's going to hold Cole to answer and he's willing to let us thrash around for a while before he does it. He might also enjoy watching Pratt and Torrey sweat.'

'It's more than that, I'm afraid, Diz,' Freeman said. 'He's letting you develop an alternative explanation of events so completely that there won't be any room left for appeal if you lose. He's letting us lock ourselves in and throw away the key.'

'But these guys,' Rhodin began. 'I mean, this whole thing with Cullen's death. It's got to mean something.'

Freeman nodded, acknowledging the point. 'Sure it means something. It means that these three guys are all slightly-to-very dishonest allies and may have tried to cheat to win this case, which in turn is politically important to Torrey's boss. OK, so they overstepped their bounds. Does that mean that they purposely gave Cullen pure heroin so that he could inadvertently kill himself? What happened to Ridley Banks? I mean, what are we trying to get at here? And, most importantly, does any of it mean that Cole didn't probably kill Elaine? I don't think so. The judge is going to want to let a jury decide and a trial court won't allow hearsay, which means we've got nothing at all.'

And to this simple truth, there was no rebuttal. Hardy rose to his feet and began pacing. 'So what are you saying, David? Are you suggesting we stop trying to make the connections?'

'No. We still need those.'

Gina Roake asked, Then what?'

Freeman removed his dead cigar long enough to take an appreciative sip of his wine. 'We must be crystal clear in our minds that this is not some clever and ultimately empty legal strategy. Let's clearly acknowledge what we're doing here, and make no mistake about the gravity of it.'

Amy Wu spoke up. 'We had better be accusing somebody else of murdering Elaine, is that what you're saying?'

Freeman nodded. 'Otherwise it's just what Pratt called it. A smokescreen.'

Hardy stopped walking and fixed his gaze on the old man. Gina was bobbing her head in agreement. Jon Ingalls flashed a look around the table, then said what he obviously believed they all were thinking. 'Visser.'

'We don't know that. Not yet.' Freeman corrected him gently. 'It might just as well have been Logan. Or even Torrey.'

'No offense, Mr Freeman, but I can't see that,' Curtis Rhodin offered. 'Either one of them would have used Visser if they had wet work, don't you think?'

He shrugged. 'If Logan was coked up, if Torrey was cornered. Who knows? And again, it might have been none of them.' They were waiting to hear more. The point is that even if Dismas succeeds brilliantly in tying up our connections between these three men – and I have no doubt he'll do just that – all it gives us, at best, is a possible motive.'

'It gives us means, too, David, doesn't it?' Gina put in. 'Any of them could have gotten their hands on the gun, couldn't they? After all, they're all in the criminal business one way or another. They're going to have access to guns.'