"That's a pretty tough story to cover up."

"Not if your lawyer was Jack Cullan."

Mason came out of his chair. "Harry and Blues went along with the cover-up?"

"They didn't know. She didn't have any ID on her. Later, Harry and Blues were fed the prostitute story. The Internal Affairs investigation was kept quiet. Blues was given a choice to resign or be prosecuted. It was a bluff that worked because no one wanted to hang the department's dirty laundry in public, including Harry and Blues. Blues took the deal."

"How do you know what happened if Harry and Blues don't know?"

Claire gathered her coat, finished her coffee, and stood up, facing Mason. "I represented the wife when she divorced her husband six months later. He'd told her what had happened, and she couldn't spend another moment under his roof. She told me."

"What she told you was confidential. Why are you telling me?"

"The purpose of the attorney-client privilege is to protect the client. My client committed suicide last month. The privilege didn't do her much good."

"Did you tell Harry?"

"Yes. I told him this morning. I should have told both of you sooner. I'm sorry."

"What did Harry say when you told him?"

"He thinks Blues found out that Jack Cullan had cost him his badge and had been waiting for a chance to get even. He thinks Blues used the incident at the bar with Bern Harrell as cover."

"That makes no sense. Blues has been charged with the murder, not Beth."

"Harry says that Blues got careless when he left a fingerprint in Cullan's study. Otherwise, Beth Harrell would have been the number-one suspect. Harry thinks Blues is using you to get him off. Harry says that you'll try to convince the jury that Beth Harrell killed Cullan."

"That's a hell of a risk for Blues to take."

"Harry says that a man with a dead spot takes risks no one else would consider."

"Does Harry know that you've told me all of this?"

"He asked me to tell you. He's afraid that Blues will take you down with him. He wants you to convince Blues to take a plea."

"I'm Blues's lawyer, not his coconspirator. How can Blues take me anywhere except to the poorhouse when he doesn't pay my fee?"

Claire walked over to Mason's board, picked up the black marker, and drew a large circle around Mason's question why kill me? "Someone knows the answer to that question, Lou. Don't take too long to find out."

Chapter Twenty

Mason decided it was time to connect the dots instead of waiting for someone else to draw the picture for him. He'd spent the last three weeks scrambling to get ready for the preliminary hearing even though the outcome was a foregone conclusion. The trial was in sixty days, and he would have to use that time to make something happen.

Getting Blues released on bail was one thing he had to make happen. He called Judge Carter's chambers to request a bail hearing. He was surprised when the judge's secretary informed him that Judge Carter was sending out an order that day setting a hearing for the following Monday, January 7, at eight o'clock. Shortly after he hung up, his fax machine rang and whirred as the judge's order arrived. He was reading the order when Mickey Shanahan knocked at his open door.

"This is not a good look for you, Lou," Mickey told him. "You've got to be perma-pressed and lightly starched, wrinkle-free, know what I mean, man? No worries. Everything is cool. That's what the people expect. This I-spent-the-night-in-a-Dumpster look isn't going to cut it. Listen to me. It's all about image."

"Turn around," Mason told him. Mickey hesitated. "Turn around now," Mason repeated.

Mickey saw the gun on Mason's desk, blanched, and did a quick pivot. "I'm just trying to help, for chrissakes. That's no reason to go ballistic, man."

Mason walked over to the dry-erase board and closed the cabinet doors. He was tired of people walking in and reading his mind.

Returning to his desk, he picked up the gun, balanced it in his palm, and shoved it into the holster. It felt like a prop, not a part of him. He couldn't decide whether to put it away or put it on. The fear he'd felt the night before had receded as he hid the attempt on his life behind the closed cabinet doors. He shook his head at the image of himself as a heat-packing action hero. Carrying a concealed weapon was the road to Palookaville, the punch line to a bad joke. He put the gun in a desk drawer, slamming the drawer shut loudly enough to make Mickey jitterbug in the doorway.

"For chrissakes," Mickey protested again. "Give a guy some warning that you're gonna make him piss his pants for saying hello."

"At ease," Mason told him. "About face."

Mickey looked cautiously over his shoulder at Mason, taking care to look for the gun, before turning completely around. "Hey, you still look like shit. You know that, man. That's not good, not good," he added, warming back up.

"What do you know about the Internet?" Mason asked him.

Mickey brightened as if he'd just added a thousand gigabytes to his game. "That's where it's happening, Lou. A Web site is just what you guys need. I can have it up for you by the end of the day."

"I don't want a Web site, Mickey. I want research on Ed Fiora. Every word ever printed. Can you do that?"

Mickey locked his fingers together and stretched his arms out. "My six-year-old nephew can do that in his sleep. I can do better than that."

"How much better?"

"Asset search, bank accounts, anything you want. There are no secrets anymore. Everyone's life is floating in cyberspace, waiting to be bought or sold."

"Use my computer," Mason told him as he wrote his password on a Post-It note. "Don't look at my board or I'll break both your legs above the knee."

"Does this mean I'm on the team?" Mickey asked.

Mason thought for a moment, hoping he wasn't making the wrong choice for Mickey. "Sure," he told him.

"Do I get a T-shirt?" Mickey asked.

"Only if we win," Mason said.

A shower and a shave later, Mason parked his car on the curb in front of the old People's Savings & Loan Building at Twentieth and Main. The bank had owned the six-story building, occupying the first floor, until it went under during the thrift crisis in the 1990s. Jack Cullan, whose office had been on the second floor for twenty-five years, had bought the building from the government.

The former S &L space was now occupied by a twenty-four-hour copying company, and the other floors were Class "C" office space. Class "A" space could be had in the newest office towers downtown, on the Plaza, or in the suburbs. Class "B" space was a generation older, but still offered decent amenities and a respectable letterhead for tenants. Class "C" was space reserved for those tenants who didn't care or couldn't afford to care about their address as long as the lights worked and they could pay the rent.

Mason climbed the stairs to the second floor and found the door to Cullan's office. Many law firms spent lavishly on impressive entrances to their offices with carefully designed logos, nameplates, and eye-catching art. Mason knew of one local firm whose lobby had been used to film scenes for a cable movie based on a wildly popular legal thriller. Another firm bragged to its clients that the paneling in its office had been made from a rare tree found only in the Amazon rain forest. As Mason reached for the handle to Cullan's plain oak door, he appreciated the simple inscription that had been painted on it years before-jack cullan, attorney. Stepping inside, he knew that Cullan's simple tastes were the only things the two of them had in common.

Shirley Parker looked up from her desk as Mason closed the door behind him. She had a buoyant, upswept hairstyle that had been fashionable decades ago, but was now a silvery-blue-tinted artifact. Though she was working for a dead man whose clients were unlikely to have appointments, she was immaculately dressed in a high-throated, deep-navy dress accented with a modest string of pearls. Her makeup was robust, adding an unnatural rose to her cheeks. She was a stout woman with stiff posture and disbelieving eyes, going through the motions because she didn't know what else to do.