The Chief starts toward his car and slaps the Kydd on the back as he passes. “The DA wants to arraign this afternoon,” he says to me.

The DA seems to be in quite a hurry. The autopsy, the arrest, and the arraignment all in the space of twelve hours. At this rate, I expect she’ll schedule the trial to begin next Monday.

“At open session,” the Chief continues, “unless an earlier slot opens up.”

Open session starts at four o’clock each day in Judge Leon Long’s courtroom. No matter what case is in progress before him, Judge Long adjourns at four to tend to what he calls the “untidy” business of the system: matters no one put on the regular docket because no one saw them coming. Matters like Rinky Snow. And Louisa Rawlings.

The two cruisers back out of the driveway, lights active but sirens mute. Louisa stares straight ahead from the backseat of the lead car. She’s wearing a calf-length beige trench coat, a matching broad-rimmed hat, nylons, and heels. Teardrop diamonds glisten on her earlobes. Her jaw is rigid, her eyes hidden behind Versace sunglasses.

The Chief backs up next. Mitch Walker is in the passenger seat, still grinning and chewing his gum. He waves to the Kydd. The Kydd stares at him but doesn’t wave back.

Just like that, they’re gone. We stand silent for a moment in the oyster-shell driveway, the Kydd seemingly oblivious to the fact that I’m still planning to strangle him.

“Now where were we,” I ask, “before we were so rudely interrupted?”

He stares at me, blank.

“Oh, I know.” I feign a sudden recollection. “You were offering your opinion—your professional opinion, I believe it was—about the course this case is certain to follow.”

His eyes move to his feet—his bare feet.

“Any other opinions you’d like to share?”

He takes a deep breath, looks up at me again, and shakes his head. “What do we do now?” he asks.

I should tell him that we don’t do anything now, that we no longer work on this case, that we disqualified ourselves the minute we got involved with the client.

But I can’t. There’s more to be done than one person can do. And most of it should’ve been done yesterday. I need help and, as always, the Kydd is it.

“First of all,” I tell him, “we establish a few ground rules.”

He nods emphatically. He knows what’s coming.

“If she’s lucky enough to be back in her own home at the end of the day, you aren’t to be anywhere near the place.”

“I know,” he says, still nodding.

“You don’t set foot on this property again unless I’m with you.”

“Okay.” He stares at his feet.

“And no matter where she is, you act as her lawyer, nothing else.”

“I get it.”

“Every word that passes between you two had better be about the case. Nothing else.”

He looks up at me. “I get it,” he says again. “I swear I do.”

His eyes tell me he does.

“Marty,” he says, “would you do me a favor?”

“A favor?” He’s out of his mind.

He swallows hard. “Would you not mention this to Harry?”

Harry. Another problem. I’m silent for a few seconds, as if I’m thinking it over, but I’m not. I already know I won’t tell Harry. Questions about my motive would plague me if I did.

“If he sees anything between the two of you that makes him ask the question, I won’t lie,” I tell the Kydd. “But I won’t bring it up either.”

“Thanks,” he says. “So what do we do now?”

“We split up. You head to the courthouse. Get into lockup if you can. Nobody questions her. Nobody talks to her. She doesn’t utter a word. Not even to the janitor.”

He nods. He knows this drill. He’s done it before.

“And call me if it looks like arraignment will happen before four,” I add. “I’ll keep my cell turned on.”

“Where will you be?” he asks.

“At the Fish Pier. I want to have a word with Taylor Peterson and his crew, if I can find them.” I fish my keys from my pocket and head for the Thunderbird.

When I back up, the Kydd is planted right where I left him. He makes me think of Lot’s wife, after she looked back at Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt. I stop in front of him and roll down my window. “Before you head to lockup, Kydd, remember the rules.”

He squares his shoulders in the morning sunshine, no doubt bracing for a continuing lecture on the Canons of Professional Conduct.

“Lockup’s a lot like the corner grocery store,” I tell him instead. “No shirt. No shoes. No service.”

CHAPTER 16

It’s one o’clock by the time I park in the upper lot of the Chatham Fish Pier. This morning’s sunshine has taken a powder and it seems more like twilight here than midday. I get out of the Thunderbird and the sky rumbles, fair warning of what lies not far ahead. Out over the Atlantic, a single sword of lightning stabs the horizon, Mother Nature’s version of the Nike logo. And as if on cue, large globes of rainwater land on my face and hands.

Sheets of Chatham fog roll in from the roiling ocean as I hurry down the steep hill to the lower lot. Parking here is officially by permit only, unofficially for trucks only. The lot is packed with pickups, old and new, pampered and trashed. Their beds are laden with stacks of empty fish totes, mounds of entangled nets, and coils of thick black chain. And, though the National Dairy Association would almost certainly object, more than a few of them sport bumper stickers that ask the all-important question: Got bait?

A few large box trucks are down here too, backed up to the dock, their rear double doors wide open. Two belong to wholesale fish buyers, the other to a commercial ice supplier. Guys in heavy hooded sweatshirts under orange oilskin overalls load and unload, using nothing but pure brawn. I recognize a couple of the younger guys from Luke’s crowd; they should be hauling textbooks through the hallways of the high school instead.

Taylor Peterson’s boat, Genesis, is one of a half dozen commercial fishing vessels tied up at the dock. I use the pier’s wooden pilings to steady myself as I lower onto its deck. Two bearded crewmen sit on inverted bait buckets, mending nets. They have a six-pack of Coors on the deck between them, an open bottle next to each bucket. They look up when I arrive, but say nothing, as if middle-aged women in suits climb aboard all the time. But then again, I remind myself, these are the guys who hauled in a corpse with this morning’s first codfish catch. On the list of the day’s surprises, I’m a distant second at best.

“Taylor here?” I ask.

One of them moves his hands, net and all, toward an opening in the center of the deck. “Down below,” he says. “Captain’s down below.”

“You press?” the other one asks. “Captain doesn’t talk to press.”

Well, that’s the first good news I’ve heard today. “No,” I assure him. “I’m not press.”

They both lower their long beards to their chests and return to their mending. I have their blessings, I guess. I can go below.

Taylor is seated at a makeshift table, an upside-down brown wooden fish crate stacked on top of a larger upside-down green plastic one. There’s an open porthole behind him, salty wet wind gusting through it, but still the odor of codfish guts almost overpowers me as I reach the bottom of the ladder. Taylor looks up as I semi-stand in the cramped hold, a small but genuine smile spreading across his weathered face. “Marty,” he says, his dark eyes amused, “something told me I’d run into you today.”

I laugh, realizing I’ve sunk to a lifetime low. Dead bodies now herald my social calls.

“Or your partner,” Taylor adds.

“I drew the short straw on this one,” I tell him.

“Pull up a bucket,” he says, tipping backward on his.

I find an empty white one in the corner, flip it over, and wipe my hand across its bottom, hoping for the best. Gives a whole new meaning to bucket seats. I settle across from Taylor at the makeshift table and realize its surface is covered with nautical charts. But those aren’t what he’s been studying. On top of them, neatly lined up side by side, are four Polaroids. I scoot my bucket chair closer to Taylor’s, so I can look at them right side up. And I don’t need to ask what—or who—I’m looking at.