"Except if she knew that that's exactly what I'd think."

"The old double-reverse, huh?"

A shrug. "It happens. And in the same general vein, why wouldn't she file a complaint against Cuneo? If she'd have filed the first time I talked to her…"

"I know."

But Glitsky went ahead. "If she'd done that, end of story. He was off the investigation against her. But now it looks like she was trying to run him off with a bluff.

And why had she wanted to run him off? Because he was getting close, and because she was guilty."

But Hardy said, "I don't know why she didn't file. A million reasons. Fear, mostly, then maybe embarrassment, finally just hoping it would go away. You know as well as I do."

Glitsky had come forward to the front of the couch again, elbows on his knees and hands clasped. He let out a heavy breath. "You want my advice?"

"No. You'll just tell me I don't want to do this."

"Right."

"So how do you propose I get out of it? Give her to somebody else?" "It's possible."

Hardy shook his head. "Not in real life, it isn't. I believe I can help her. I know her. I want to help her." Glitsky narrowed his eyes. "You believe her?" "I think so. I'm not sure." "Which one?"

"Right." Hardy shrugged. "I know. On the basic question-is she a killer?-I'm with her. Other than that…" He let the sentence hang. "Here's some good news, though. At least now I know she's got the money to pay me."

"You're billing her, then?"

"Double homicide, special circumstances. I'm billing her, trust me."

This seemed to give Glitsky a little relief. "Just making sure," he said.

PART TWO

15

Hardy awoke with a start, sweat pouring off him.

Not that it was warm. In fact, if anything, it was unusually cold, not only inside his bedroom but out in the terrible night. It was the third week of January, and the second full day of the Arctic storm that was pounding at the bedroom windows, shaking them with a low rumble.

He threw the covers off and sat up, trying at once to remember and to banish the dream that had shaken him from his sleep. Reflexively, he checked the clock on his nightstand. 2:53. The trial would start in under seven hours. He had to get back to sleep. He couldn't show up on the first day wiped out with fatigue. There would be the gauntlet of reporters, first of all. Not only the local channels, but stringers for every station and cable outlet in the country had been parked in the back lot of the Hall of Justice for each of the motion hearings-to quash the warrant, to exclude Catherine's statements to the cops, admissibility, 995 for dismissal-they'd been there for all of them. And they'd be there this morning, too. The judge had forbidden any communication with them, but they could be relentless and he had to be sharp, get back to sleep. Now.

The dream had been sexual, that much he remembered. He dreamed almost every night now, and they were all sexual, all mouths and legs, switched identities, all frustration and guilt and deception-his subconscious working overtime to process the conflicts and unacknowledged tensions to which he would give no assent in his daily life.

He wasn't in love with Catherine Hanover, but there was no point in trying to deny the attraction. He also ached at her plight, at where her life had gotten to. The physical chemistry between them had always been palpable. As teenagers, to their mutual pride, confusion, horror and shame, they'd gone from untried virgins to lovers without any commitment or discussion on their third date. The care they both took to avoid even the most innocuous and casual physical contact over the past months had been such a constant companion that it felt like a living thing in the visiting room with them.

She'd been in jail for nearly eight months for a crime that with all his heart he wanted to believe she'd not committed. In that time, the weak, circumstantial case against her-which nonetheless had been strong enough to persuade the grand jury to indict her for special circumstances double murder-had only grown stronger. It hadn't helped, either, that with all the fanfare, Chris Rosen had succumbed to his ambition and was now a widely rumored, though unannounced, candidate for district attorney in the next citywide election.

Catherine's own mother-in-law, Theresa, had become the witness from hell. Dan Cuneo had interviewed her for the better part of a week in the first flush of the indictment last May, and she'd done all she could to braid the rope that would hang her daughter-in-law. According to Theresa, Catherine had threatened to kill Paul Hanover and Missy D'Amiens not just once or twice. It had been a running theme. The threats were often given in front of her children and other members of the extended family.

Catherine's position was that this was just the way she talked when the family was gathered together-she tended to be histrionic, to exaggerate for effect, and this Hardy certainly knew to be true from his own experience. From the beginning, she knew she was unwelcome in the Hanover family. Catherine felt that the only path to even modest acceptance within the family was to be entertaining, a personality. Without a pedigree, a past, a bloodline, it was all she had.

So yes, she'd often joked that they all really needed to get together and kill Missy before the wedding, though of course she'd never meant it. They'd all laughed. They couldn't have believed she ever meant it. (Beth thought the repetition ominous enough, though; all the kids considered it unimportant, a joke.)

Her husband piled on as well. In his statements to the police, Will denied that he'd ever had an affair with anyone. He had time cards from his secretary, Karyn Harris, the "other woman" Catherine had suspected, for the days when he'd been fishing, and the records showed that she'd been at the office every one of those four days. Moreover, the captain of the Kingfisher, Morgan Bayley, swore that he'd been out on the ocean the whole time with Will, but that their radio had been on the blink. He had the radio repair records to prove it. They'd also been out of the cell-phone reception zone and hadn't been able to call anyone on shore.

Will told Hardy that his wife had always been jealous. In the past couple of years, she'd become dangerously unstable in a number of ways-accusing him of adultery being just one of them. She'd also, he said, conceived either an affection for his father or a mania for his money. There was a strong and in some ways almost uncanny resemblance between Catherine and Missy D'Amiens- remarked on by anyone who knew them both-and Catherine seemed to believe that if Missy could snag her very wealthy and charismatic father-in-law, she could and should have done it herself. She imagined that Paul had propositioned her when she'd first been married. She should have gone with his father when she had the chance. At the end, Will said that Paul had told him that she'd even come on to him, and he'd had to rebuff her. Finally, she constantly berated Will for his business "failures," his inability to adequately provide for his children's education, for his general lack of acumen and drive-this when he made what he called "strong six figures per year."

Hardy subpoenaed his tax records-his top grossing year was 1999, when he had earned $123,000. Last year he'd earned $91,000.

Catherine's response to all of these claims? A curt dismissal, a refusal to even discuss it. "He's delusional."

For the record, the kids more or less sided with her. But she was in jail and their dad was home full-time, paying her legal bills (out of his four-million-dollar inheritance), peddling the line that he was on Catherine's side, he wanted to help her, he felt sorry for her. She was sick, but a good woman. He would still love her and take her back if she ever got "better." He never, not once, came to visit her in jail.