'Dash, please. Everybody calls me Dash.'

David Freeman appeared at his door, and Hardy held up a finger, he'd be right with him. Back to the phone. 'So is there a time that might work better for you?'

'I'm here almost every day, this time. Beyond that, it's pretty wide open. But if you're not talking settlement…' He let that hang.

'I think that's premature.'

'Yeah, but they crank up the criminal charges, it's going to be much more expensive.'

'First they have to prove them, which they can't do.'

'Yeah, well, that's what everyone thinks. Then they do. Just a friendly reminder.'

'I'll keep it in mind.'

'I'll be here.' The line went dead.

Hardy clutched at the phone, realizing that he'd finally managed to connect with Dash Logan, only to fail to discuss anything substantive about his client's case or even to make an appointment to meet with him. He looked down at the receiver. Thanks a lot,' he said. 'Dash.'

'Dash. Hmm.' Freeman moved forward into the office. 'That would have been the inimitable Mr Logan, I presume.'

'Either him or his impersonator,' Hardy said, 'and about as cooperative as you'd led me to expect.' Suddenly Freeman's appearance in his office struck him as the unusual occurrence it was. 'So what brings you up here to the nosebleed seats? Don't tell me – Phyllis quit and you wanted me to be the first to know. No, that couldn't be it. You'd have brought champagne.'

'Not that,' Freeman said. 'Dear Phyllis is still with us.'

Hardy shrugged. 'OK, then, I give up.'

Freeman didn't answer right away, and that in itself was instructive. Hands in his pockets, he slouched his way across

to the window, where he stared down for a moment, then turned and leaned back against the sill. 'You may recall this morning we spoke about your involvement with Cole Burgess.'

'Non-involvement,' Hardy corrected him. 'I was just going down to talk to him at the hospital, get his side of what happened. I did. End of story.'

'So you're not representing him?'

Hardy began to shake his head no, then narrowed his eyes at the old man. 'What happened?' he asked, and the questions continued to tumble out. 'He tried to kill himself, didn't he? He did kill himself? No. Somebody else killed him, didn't they? Tell me it wasn't Glitsky.'

Freeman had to chortle. 'Easy, Diz, easy. He's alive as far as I know. But my trained legal mind can't help but notice that you seem to harbor a little concern for him.'

'Not really that.' A defensive shrug, then he gave it up. 'I came away not exactly convinced that the confession is righteous.'

'In what way?'

'He was in withdrawal and they promised him relief. He would have confessed to killing his mother. Hell, he might have actually killed his mother if they asked him to. In any event, it ought to be on the tape.'

Freeman shook his head knowingly. 'No it won't. No cop is that dumb. They make the promise off camera, then sweat him on it.' He straightened up and sighed heavily. 'Either way, though, whether he did it or not, the boy's got worse problems than he had this morning.'

'That'd take some doing.'

'Well, listen up. Evidently some doing got done.' Freeman filled him in on Sharron Pratt's speech at the Commonwealth Club.

By the end of the recital, Hardy had lowered himself down into a chair opposite the couch. His expression was one of shock and disbelief. He finally managed a word. 'Death?'

Freeman nodded. 'Unequivocally. And the arraignment is tomorrow morning.'

'But Pratt's never even asked for specials before.'

'She is now. She called it a sea change in her policy. Get tough, get votes.'

Hardy still couldn't imagine it. 'But he has no priors. They'd never ask for death on a guy with no record.' Freeman had no reply, but Hardy kept arguing. 'Death isn't possible for any number-'

'It is if she can prove first degree with specials.'

'But she can never hope to get a jury to do that. Even if he did kill Elaine, he was drunk or stoned or both at the time. Everybody admits that, even the cops. So you got a guy with no priors and serious psychiatric and substance issues. They don't get death. It's just not do-able.'

'Maybe not, assuming he's got a good attorney.' It was getting dark outside and the room wasn't bright, but Freeman's eyes shone in the dimness.

'Don't give me that look, David.'

All innocence, Freeman spread his hands. 'No look,' he said.

'I didn't say he didn't do it.' Hardy filled his lungs and let out the air in a whoosh. 'I said I thought his confession might have been coerced. That's not saying he didn't do it. There's a lot of other evidence.'

'I'm sure there is.' Freeman waited, his basset eyes un-moving. 'But the death penalty?'

'She can't go there,' Hardy said calmly. 'That's just flat wrong.'

'I thought you might feel that way.' The old man's poker face gave nothing away – even his eyes had gone flat. 'You don't want the case, I'm on it. But you're already there, he thinks he's your client. You've successfully defended death penalty cases before. You hate Pratt and everything she stands for, especially this decision.'

Hardy stood up abruptly, walked over to his desk, tapped

it a few times with his knuckles, then turned back to face the old man. 'So what am I going to do?'

Freeman nodded. 'I guess that's what I came up here to find out.'

9

Glitsky left the office early, carrying the videotape that contained the Burgess confession tucked into the inside pocket of his heavy shepherd's jacket. Back home, at a few minutes after five, he walked purposefully through the kitchen and down the hallway to the room on the left that had until recently been Orel and Jacob's bedroom. Now Jacob was nineteen and living in Milan, the half-black cop's son actually getting small parts as an operatic baritone. Isaac, Abe's eldest boy, had left the home too. He was now a senior at UCLA, majoring in economics, pulling down a straight A average. Orel had moved down the hall to Isaac's old room.

He walked the few steps over to the VCR, punched the power button, pulled the videotape from his pocket. Suddenly some sense of the place stopped him. His shoulders settled imperceptibly. He laid the tape on top of the television, raised his eyes to glance around the room.

He closed his eyes, feeling it the way it was only yesterday, though that was four years ago. The two boys had their bunk beds against that wall where the couch was now. And here, at the oak entertainment center, had been the pair of back-to-back desks where they did homework and piled their stuff. There had been junk everywhere – hockey sticks and football pads, every type of ball in the known world, sports and music posters all over the walls. The ineradicable smell, the incessant noise. Isaac still at home, his room down the hall. The growing boys filling every speck of the place with life, with potential.

And Flo. Flo singing in the kitchen or humming quietly at the living-room table where she did the bills. She was always singing or humming. She'd had a beautiful voice, a deep and rich contralto. Glitsky was sure that was where Jacob got his. His wife hadn't really been much of a softie, but she had loved melodic ballads, show tunes – 'Over the Rainbow', 'Till There Was You', 'The Rose'. Her favorite song from the day he'd met her was 'Unchained Melody'. It was as though the song were part of her very being. She'd be combing her hair, unaware that she was singing, and Abe would stop whatever he was doing, caught in it.

He made it a point to keep his guard up, but now, somehow, it had fallen. Standing there in his boys' old bedroom, inside a memory he never consciously decided to dredge up, he started to allow himself to hear her singing it once again.