“Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” says Harry. “Ya think maybe they swung from vines tied to the ceiling?” He looks at me as if to ask whether I’ve ever experienced such exotic pleasures.

I sit silently, looking at him, a poker face, confident at least that the cops can’t trace the leopard skin to me, and wonder who among Talia’s male cabal might have worn such things. It is troublesome. If Talia takes the stand and denies affairs with other men, she will no doubt be asked to explain this item of clothing.

Friends and acquaintances in her social circle have seen Talia out on the town in the tow of other men. Her sins of indiscretion have come home to roost. The men have all talked, reluctantly of course, to the police. Their names appear like a duplicate of the social register in the police report. The cops, it seems, are still busy searching for Talia’s accomplice in murder.

“Coop was right about one thing,” says Harry. “Whoever did it was a real amateur.”

“Maybe,” I say.

He looks at me. “Can you doubt it? The gun wiped clean. The blood in the elevator. Serious discrepancies in the time of death. Only a fool,” he says.

The suicide scenario, I concede, is thinly veiled. Not likely to deceive for long.

“An understatement,” says Harry.

He’s done with the last forensics report and puts it upside down on the finished stack of documents. “We’ve got some real problems,” he says. He starts a summary from the top.

“Time of death. Medical examiner puts it at seven-oh-five P.M. The shot in the office isn’t heard by the janitor until eight-twenty-five. The cops don’t catch up with Talia at home “til almost ten o’clock. Unless the medical examiner’s been smokin’ formaldehyde, Potter wasn’t killed in the office.”

I nod in agreement.

“That leaves us with the neighbor,” says Harry. “We better hope the lady’s got a reputation for keeping her head in a bottle.”

Harry’s referring to the statement of an old woman, one of Potter’s neighbors, who claims she saw Ben’s Rolls parked in the driveway of his residence sometime just before eight o’clock.

“If she comes across as believable,” he says, “and we can’t shake her testimony as to the time of her observations, it puts Potter in that house near the time of death.”

“Trouble,” I say.

“The jury’ll jump on it. If he was killed in the house, reason dictates it was a domestic thing. They’ll argue she whacked him in the house,” says Harry.

“The cops did us one favor,” I say. “At least they got over there with a forensics team and swept through the house the next morning. You read the forensics report. Did you see any evidence of violence at the house?”

He shakes his head. “Clean as a whistle.”

“If he was killed there, one would think there would be some physical evidence at the house.”

“One would think,” says Harry, like an echo. “But it’s not an absolute. They’ll speculate that it could have been done outside, or on a hard surface that was easily cleaned.” Harry’s doing his job, dogging the downside of our case.

“At least we can argue that they looked and found nothing.”

‘True,” he says. “And they won’t claim that she shot him there. A twelve-gauge would’ve left blood ‘n’ brains all over the place. Neighbors woulda heard it too.”

“Play cop,” I say. “Then how was he killed?”

“My guess?”

I nod.

“They’ll opt for the old reliable-blow to the head with a blunt instrument.”

“Doesn’t wash,” I say. “The pathology report says death was caused by the monster pellet.”

“In the whatchamacallit,” says Harry.

‘The basal ganglion.”

“Yeah, the ganglion.”

“Unless they know something we don’t, they’ve got a problem,” I say.

“Good to know they’ve got one.”

“Look it. Time of death is fixed by their own expert at seven-oh-five P.M. The shotgun blast isn’t heard at the office “til eight-twenty-five. Yet according to pathology the cause of death was the pellet to the basal ganglion. You tell me.”

Harry’s making faces, perplexed. In trial as in life, fear is most often clothed in the unknown. And for the present, our case is shrouded in mystery.

Now he’s pawing around in the pile of paper on the table. “I think you have it,” he says. “The pathology report.”

I reach into the stack and pull it out.

“The footnote,” he says. “The monster pellet. Read it one more time.”

I’m halfway through, when I stop in mid-sentence and look up into Harry’s beaming eyes.

“You thinkin’ what I am?” he says.

I nod, and in near unison we whisper: “A second shot.”

“Cooper-you little sucker,” I say. “You found a bullet fragment, didn’t ya?”

“Cheetam can kiss his ‘shotgun’s not a woman’s weapon’ theory goodbye,” says Harry.

“We need to find out if either Ben or Talia owned a small-caliber handgun. If they did, it might be registered. That means the cops know about it.”

Harry makes another note, then lays his pen on top of the pad and rubs his hands together. “All things being equal,” he says, “I’d rather have the other side of this one.” Harry means the state’s case. “Whadda you think?”

“It doesn’t look good.”

“Try this on,” he says. “Potter comes home early from the office, stumbles onto Sheena and the Jungle Boy swinging through the vines. They fight and Potter buys it, a quick shot to the head from a small piece. Maybe something in a bedside stand They put Potter in the car and take him for a ride.” Harry wrinkles his nose a little, like this story fits the state’s case. “They run him over to the office and pop him with the shotgun where the janitor hears it. The shot takes out the rest of the slug. Or maybe it fragmented on the way in, on some bone, and now passes for pellets, all except for this monster thing in the ganglion.”

I shake my head.

“Why not?” says Harry.

I’m not denying the plausibility of this scenario. I’m shaking my head in futility, for I have nothing with which to counter it.

“And it fits the fiber analysis of forensics,” says Harry.

Forensics has found traces of two carpet fibers on Ben’s clothing, an inexpensive manmade fiber used chiefly in some outdoor carpets and an array of recreational vehicles and trailers, and a more expensive nylon fiber. The second matches exactly the burgundy carpet in the trunk of Ben’s Rolls-Royce.

“We need to talk to Talia,” I say. “There must be something to confirm where she was that day.” She’s already told us she has no alibi for the time of death. According to Talia she was off alone looking at some property at the time of Ben’s murder, a house from an estate sale down in Vacaville. I’ve come up with nothing that can place her there, no telephone calls she made, no gasoline purchases with credit cards. She entered the deserted house alone using a lockbox key and let herself out when she was finished. For all intents she slipped off the face of the earth during those hours immediately preceding and following Ben’s death. It’ll play well for the state in showing that Talia possessed one of the vital ingredients of any murder, the opportunity to kill.

One of the double French doors behind us opens. We’re treated to the smiling countenance of Ron Brown. He swaggers in, all poise in a gray pinstripe with French cuffs a mile long darting from the sleeves. With one hand he fingers the center button of his coat, which is closed over a trim stomach. His upper lip ripples under the pencil-thin mustache, a sure sign that he knows something we don’t.

“I’ve got some good news,” he says. “In fact it’s a major coup for our side.”

“Fine, I can handle some good news,” I say.

I can see by the look on his face that Harry’s about to puke.

Brown hesitates briefly, relishing the moment. “I couldn’t tell you earlier. Sensitive negotiations were going on,” he says.

“Spare us,” says Harry.

I wonder what Cheetam and the eunuch have been up to. Then it hits me. They’ve cut a deal with the DA, a plea bargain to save Talia. Maybe Cheetam’s not as dumb as I think.