Guilt

Glitsky handed it back. 'They're all dead?'

'I don't know all. Three of us came home, I know that. But I haven't seen either of the other two in maybe fifteen years.'

The tea had cooled. Dooher went back around the desk and placed the frame in its former space, in full view now. 'Anyway, they trained me pretty well,' he was saying, 'to hate 'em. Charlie, I mean.'

'So what happened with Trang?'

'Like anything else. You finally meet one personally, get to know 'em a little, and you realize they're people first. I just put off meeting any of them for a long time. I wanted to keep hating them, you see? So the war would make some kind of sense. Dumb. It's so long ago now.'

'So who still hated him?'

'Trang? I don't know.'

'I understand he was suing you.'

Dooher had settled in the easy chair. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. 'Well, that's technically accurate. He'd filed a lawsuit where some priest took money from a woman. He was amending the suit, that was all. Trying to get more. Hey, it's his job. Anyway, I represent the Archdiocese. The whole thing hadn't gone very far. That's just our business. Litigation. Personally, we were on good terms.'

Glitsky didn't have any reason to doubt Dooher. He did believe that the killer was probably a tall, strong male, and though that described Dooher, he didn't have a patent on the build. 'I'm wondering if he mentioned anything to you about anybody else – clients, colleagues…'

The attorney gave it a long moment. 'Honestly, I can't think of anybody. I'll put my mind to it if you'd like.'

'I'd appreciate that.' Standing, Glitsky turned off his recorder and slipped it into his pocket. He handed Dooher his card. 'If something comes to mind, that's me, day or night.'

Dooher accompanied him to the door, opened it for him. The cotton clouds out the window had begun to glow with the lights coming on in the streets below. 'Do you have any leads at all, Sergeant, on who might have done this?'

'No, not yet. It's still early, though. Something may come up.'

'Well, good luck.' They shook hands, and Glitsky turned to leave as the door closed quietly behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Wes Farrell and Sam had been going out for a couple of weeks now and hadn't yet moved into the 'serious' phase, as they called it, of what they were also calling their quote relationship unquote. There was no plan as yet to escalate. Things were nicely physical. They were getting along, moving back and forth between their places, taking care of their respective dogs, although Quayle and Bart had yet to meet.

Wes was flirting with what felt like his first happy and carefree moment in about half a decade. It was the Saturday evening after a noon wake-up, followed by love-making and the Planetarium in Golden Gate Park. They'd sat in the plush reclining seats holding hands as the night sky came up indoors – Farrell learned more than he ever thought he'd need to know about the planet Neptune. Although you never knew – facts had a way of coming in handy.

They ended up sharing a short drink at the Little Shamrock, the bar where they had met.

It didn't hurt that the winter cold had lifted. Not that it was balmy, but anything above forty-five degrees seemed a gentle gift. The wind and fog were both gone, and here at dusk Wes was comfortable half reclining in the chaise outside, wearing blue jeans and a sweater on Sam's tiny fenced-in deck, surrounded by potted greenery, in the cupola created by three large redwood trees. She'd handed him a perfect martini – gin had always been, to Wes, the harbinger of summer – and told him she'd be out in a minute to join him, as soon as she'd put the game hens on to roast.

Sam was making him dinner, a first step into the heretofore dreaded return of the domesticity that had failed him so miserably the first time around.

They had talked about the implications of the dinner and decided they could risk it. Besides, Sam had pointed out, it wasn't going to be just the two of them and Quayle. Nothing that intimate. Other guests would be there to buffer the raging magnetic attraction that was nearly ripping the skin off their bodies. There was going to be some lawyer woman from her office, Christina, and her fiance, another lawyer, Joe. And Sam's brother- remember Larry and Sally? – would serve to balance out the lawyer ratio.

Wes sipped his drink. Sam thought he might be nervous meeting all these people in her circle at the same time. He supposed one day long ago this kind of situation might have had that effect, but today there was nothing but a sense of the exhilaration of new beginnings. Hope. It was great.

The door creaked. A hand on his shoulder. The scent of her as she leaned over from behind the chaise, laid a soft hand against the side of his face.

'You know what I can't believe?' she said. She came around the lounge chair, holding her own martini. Farrell loved a woman who drank like he did. He also loved the look of Sam – the way she had filled her glass right to the rim, slurping at it delicately to get that first taste, puckering her lips around it. 'Um-um.' She was wearing jeans, too. And a white sweater. And hiking boots. She looked seventeen.

He smiled up at her. 'What can't you believe?'

'I can' t believe that Pluto' s going to be inside the orbit of Neptune for the next eleven years. So it's not Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto anymore; it's Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, and Neptune.'

'That wacky old solar system,' Wes said. 'Just when you think you got it all figured out.' He moved his legs off the recliner, patted it with his palm, and Sam sat, the haunch of her leg tight up against him. He grinned at her. 'The good news is that this is the kind of fact on which I believe we can make some money.'

Larry and Sally arrived first. The sun was down and Wes was back inside with Sam – another round of gin poured and good smells emanating from the kitchen – everybody already getting along, laughing about St Patrick's Day.

'Hey, the parts I remember were great.' Larry, defending himself from his sister's mock attack.

'And how many parts do you remember?'

Larry paused, considering. 'At least two.'

'Including meeting Wes?'

He gave Farrell an appraising glance, shook his head. 'I'm afraid that particular moment didn't make the cut. Where were we exactly? No offense, Wes.'

'You had the T-shirt,' Sally said to Wes. She was as tall as her husband, with long dark hair that had gone about a third gray. Her friendly, attractive face showed more age than Sam's. She also wore nicer clothes, some makeup, dangling earrings.

'That's what did it,' Sam said.'The shirt. I saw that shirt and read the message and said, "Here's a guy I've got to meet.'"

'I thought it was how it fit me.'

That, too,' she said. That's what I meant.'

'You guys.' Sally was smiling. 'No foreplay until after dinner. It's one of the rules.'

'What shirt?' Larry asked.

Farrell recognized them both immediately. Shaking Joe's hand, taking in the woman – Christina Carrera. Yep, it was her, no doubt about it. Not looking any uglier either, he noticed. And it looked as though she'd found the right guy. Joe Avery was tall and thin, with an angular, clean-shaven face, shoulders a yard wide and no gut at all. It wasn't fair.

'You're at McCabe and Roth, aren't you?'

Joe included Christina. 'We both are.'

'Not quite yet.'

'Close enough.' Then, placing Wes. 'You've been to the office…'

'No more than two, three hundred times. Mark Dooher's my best friend.'

Christina snapped her fingers. 'That's it.' Explaining: 'I knew I knew the name Wes Farrell. When Sam told me… it's been driving me crazy. You go on camping trips or something with Mark, right?'