A guard let Cole through the door on the other side and pointed to the chair opposite her. The boy nodded, shrugged, doing what he was told. He didn't even look to see her -just the chair, where he was supposed to go and sit.

Slack hair, shuffling gait, flat expression. The orange jumpsuit again. Always.

She tried to conjure an image of when he'd been younger – she still had his high school graduation picture on the dresser next to her bed at home. His hair was shorter then, neatly combed. Freckles and a wide open smile.

Where had that boy gone? Although she knew. She knew.

'Hey, Mom.'

'Hey, Cole.' She waited to see if he had something to say, but evidently not. She leaned forward, her mouth close to the speaker. 'Are you all right?'

His first answer was a humorless chuckle, but he didn't want his mom getting upset, so softened it. 'Better,' he said. 'Yeah. Fine.'

'Really?'

'Well, the massage girl didn't show up last night, but other than that…'

'But they're taking care of you? You're eating?'

He leaned back and patted his stomach. 'They're fattening me up for the kill.'

Jody frowned. 'That's not funny. Don't say that.'

He came forward again, serious. 'It's really not so bad. You just stay out of people's way.'

'But you're getting your… medicine.'

'So far.' His flat gaze challenged. 'And it's not medicine, Mom. It's methadone.'

'I know that,' she answered quickly. 'I know what it is. And you're doing OK with it?'

'It's all right.' He brought his own mouth closer to the glass. 'I'm thinking…' Nervously, he ran his hand along his jawline.

'What?'

He considered it for another long moment. 'Well, I don't know. You know my lawyer?'

'Yes, Cole, I know your lawyer. Mr Hardy.'

'Yeah, well, he suggested maybe I ought to think about asking them to cut back on the dose. If I wind up being in here a while, it might… I don't know.'

Jody did not dare succumb to hope, but it was the first time she'd been tempted in years. She was careful to try and phrase the reply in neutral terms. Too much enthusiasm from Mom might kill the impulse. 'It might be worth a try, Cole, but you've got a lot of other issues you're dealing with through this.'

He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest. A deep sigh escaped. 'I'm thinking it might be the only issue.'

She nodded carefully.

'I really do,' he said after a minute. 'I mean, it'd be easy enough to try here. If it didn't work, I could just go back to where I am now.'

'Well.' Jody's voice was resigned, low-key. 'It's worth thinking about.'

'They've got a program.' Then he added quickly, 'I'm not sure.'

She was happy to leave it there. 'If you think you could handle it.'

'I don't know,' he said. 'Maybe.' He came forward again. 'You don't have to come here every day, you know.'

'I know that. But I want to. I like seeing you, after all.' This admission seemed to make him uncomfortable, though, and she changed the subject. 'You should know that I'm meeting with Mr Hardy today to talk about money and things. You don't have to worry. That's all under control.' She glossed over it and kept on talking. 'Has he mentioned anything to you yet about what he plans to do? In terms of your defense?'

'Not really. We haven't really talked.'

Jody frowned. 'Well, I'll get something on that today, too. But did you see… do you get the paper in here?'

He shook his head. 'No mints on the pillows before bedtime either. In fact, no pillows. But why?'

She scratched at the counter. 'Because there was an article this morning about Cullen.'

'What about him?'

'Well, evidently he's saying he gave you the gun.'

Cole came forward, sat up straight. 'What gun?'

'The gun that was used to kill Elaine Wager. The murder weapon.'

'Cullen?'

She nodded.

'He never gave me any gun.'

'Well, in the paper today, there's a story about Cullen giving you the gun.'

'When did he do that? Did it say?'

'Friday or Saturday.'

'Friday or Saturday?' He was trying to dredge it up. 'That didn't happen.'

Jody leaned up to the glass, her mouth all but flush up against the talk box. She whispered, 'Are you telling me the truth here, Cole? I want to be able to tell Mr Hardy…'

Cole was glaring, his mind engaged. 'I'll tell him myself, Mom. Cullen didn't give me any gun on Friday or Saturday or any other time. I picked that gun up out of the street. It was such a little thing, at first I didn't even know what it was, just sitting in the gutter down next to her and…' He stopped. His mouth was open, his eyes searching somewhere within himself.

'What?' For a terrifying moment, Jody thought that her son might have had something like a stroke. 'Cole? What's wrong?'

The recovery was as abrupt as its onset. His eyes snapped back into focus, and if his mother wanted to see a greater clarity in them, perhaps she wasn't entirely mistaken. 'I didn't kill her,' he whispered in something like awe. 'She was already dead.'

17

After his dawn meeting with Rich McNeil on the Embarcadero, Hardy had turned around and driven back out to St Mary's Hospital, which was halfway back to his home from downtown. Now he was next to Glitsky's bed in the ICU. On the other side of the bed, a green heart monitor beeped steadily and repeatedly drew a jagged line across a small video screen.

'So,' he was saying, 'there's these two guys and the one goes, "That's how I want to die, just like my grandfather, where he's just sitting there talking, enjoying life, and suddenly his jaw drops down on his chest and his eyes close and he's gone. Yep, that's the way I want to go…"' Hardy paused. '"Not kicking and screaming like the other guys in the car."'

'Dying jokes?' Glitsky shifted under the sheets. 'You're telling me dying jokes?' The patient blew out a long and slow breath and closed his eyes.

Hardy thought he looked like hell. His pallor was pronounced. An oxygen tube wrapped around his face and settled under his nose. Some IVs were set up and apparently dripping into him. He opened his eyes again. 'I've got one.'

Hardy took it as a good sign. 'Hit me.'

'This rich guy is near death, fretting that he can't take his money with him when he goes.' Glitsky took another deep breath, adjusted the oxygen tube into his nose. 'So he asks God if he can. "Please, I've been good." And God finally gives in and says OK, he can take one suitcase full of anything he wants to heaven. So he decides that gold is always good and fills his suitcase with bricks of the stuff.'

'How'd he do that if he was near death?' Hardy asked. 'Gold weighs a ton. He'd have to get out of bed, go to the bank, if they even keep gold in a bank. How sick was he, anyway? What did he have?'

Glitsky glared at him. 'A heart attack. I don't know. Suspend your disbelief for a minute.'

'Yeah, but a detail like that-'

'Anyway, sure enough, the guy dies-'

'And about time, too.'

Glitsky collapsed back into his pillows. 'Never mind.'

'What?'

'You want to hear this or not?'

Hardy acquiesced. 'OK, the guy is dead…'

'Right. He gets to the pearly gates. St Peter says, "Hold it, no luggage allowed," and the guy tells Peter that in his case God made an exception. Peter should check with the boss.'

'This is a long joke,' Hardy said.

Glitsky ignored him, forging ahead. 'So God says our guy isn't lying. He's allowed to bring one suitcase. And Peter says, "You know, I've been here a long time and nobody's ever brought anything with them before. I'd be curious to know what it is." So the guy proudly opens his suitcase. And Peter looks at him and goes, "Pavement? You brought pavement?'"

Hardy crossed a leg and sat back. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. 'That's not really a dying joke.'