UNTIL DEATH DO US PART

By: CHRISTINE MCGUIRE

Synopsis:

The media have descended upon the Santa Rita courthouse like locusts,
for what's being called the trial of the century.  It's the first time a
California district attorney's office has charged a defendant with
attempted murder by intentional inflection of HIV, and they're counting
on Deputy DA Kathryn Mackay to win a conviction.  But when a bomb
explodes in the courtroom, disabling a young inspector, Kathryn joins
the investigators in a deadly race against time.  Working along side her
lover, Dave Granz, the inspector assigned to the case, Kathryn suspects
a connection between the bombing and the trial.  Yet work isn't the only
thing on her mind, for her private life has presented the most
frightening challenge that a woman can possibly face.  And there is no
respite insight: the timer is ticking...

Books by Christine MCGUIRE

FICTION

Until Proven Guilty*

Until Justice is Done*

Until Death Do Us Part*

NONFICTION

Perfect Victim (co-written with Carla Norton)

*Published by POCKET BOOKS

POCKET STAR BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

The sale of this book without Its cover is unauthorized.  If you
purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was
reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author
nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped
book"

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents
are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any
resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.

An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

This novel is lovingly dedicated to Helene, Gayle, Danny, Cindy, and
Elizabeth.

A Pocket Star Book published by POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon &
Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Copyright 0 1997 by Christine McGuire

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New
York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-671-53618-4

First Pocket Books printing January 1997

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon &
Schuster Inc.

Cover photo by Barros &

Printed in the U.S.A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With deep gratitude to Frederick Nolan.

Special thanks to my agents, Arthur and Richard Pine, and to my editor,
Julie Rubenstein.

PROLOGUE

3100 OCEAN Drive, SARATOGA.

SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 9:00 P.M.

The CD player in the living room of Lawrence Alonzo Sutterfield's
Saratoga townhouse whirred, clicked, and then sucked the silver disc
into its blood-red interior.  It counted the tracks, flashed a green 12
in the LED display, and then Whitney Houston's soft voice singing "I
Will Always Love You" floated across the room.

Candlelight from two vanilla-scented candles on end tables flanking the
sofa flickered, casting fleeting shadows of the two lovers onto the
opposite wall.

"I'll always love you, too.  Always.  No matter what, Lawrence
whispered.

It had been a perfect Saturday.  Two glasses of Chardonnay in the
elegant, sunken lobby lounge of the Fairmont Hotel with its shimmering
crystal chandeliers then a hand-in-hand stroll around the fountain in
the Plaza, smiling at the children running shrieking between the
vertical columns of water.  A two o'clock matinee presentation of
Fiddler on the Roof at San Jose's beautiful Performing Arts Center,
champagne and truffles at intermission, and afterward an intimate
seafood dinner at Scott's.  Finally a sunset drive home, sweet
anticipation simmering and smoldering, like a faint far-off drumbeat
increasing in intensity until it became a deafening thunderous roar.

"Please, " Lawrence pleaded.  His voice was throaty as he slid his hand
up his partner's smooth thigh, stroking, teasing.  "I can't wait."

"Soon, - was the whispered response.  "Slowly, lover.

Slowly.  " They had been regular though not exclusive sexual partners
for more than five years.  Four months had passed since their last
passionate encounter at the Pacific Hotel in Monterey, but now it seemed
to Lawrence Sutterfield as though they had never been apart.

"I love the things you wear, Angel," he said.  His voice was dreamy.
"Everything so flimsy, so sexy."

Eyes closed, he slipped his fingers beneath the lacy panties, feeling
the warm body half-naked beside his own on the leather sofa.

"Can we begin?" Lawrence whispered.

"First, you have to say how much you want me.  Say it.  "I want you,
Angel.  I've wanted you all day.  I want to make love to you."

"What would you like, Lorenzo?  The same game as last time?"

"Yes.  Yes.  I love it when you call me that.

"If that's what you want.  But you know the rules.

"Please, - Lawrence said.  "Yes.  Do it.  Use me.  Like you did in
Monterey.  "Oh, you're so bad.  Shameless.

"Yes, - Lawrence said.  "Yes, shameless.

"I thought so.  - The tone was harder, sterner.  Lawrence quaked with
pleasure.  "The truth now.  Have you been bad?  Have you?"

"Yes, " Lawrence said.  "Oh, Yes, bad "I want to know.  Tell me the
truth.  Have there been others?"

"They were just faces.  Nothing."

"You are wicked.  I hate it that I can't trust you.  Why do you do such
wicked things?"

"You weren't ...

"I always wanted you, but you ...  I couldn't get you. I called and
called.  I needed someone.

I missed you so terribly."

"Well.  Perhaps I'll forgive you.  If you're good." Their mouths met,
hot and hard.  Lawrence's hand caressed and explored.  Lust engorged
him. He moaned, burying his face in the blond hair falling across his
face.

"Please, " he said thickly.  "Oh, God, please, can we go in the bedroom
now?"

"You promise to do exactly what I tell you?"

"Yes." Lawrence panted.  "Yes, anything, anything."

"Come, then."

They went together into the bedroom.  A huge fourposter bed with pale
yellow silk sheets dominated the room, its head against the wall
opposite the door.  The heavy drapes were drawn.  Lawrence switched on a
small red bedside light, then lay down on the bed.

Drowning in anticipation, he watched the slim figure cross the room,
blond hair gleaming in the half-light.  A drawer slid open; he heard the
metallic jingle of the handcuffs, and he groaned aloud with pleasure.

"Are these what you want?"

"Yes, " he said.  "Yes, hurry, yes.  "You know what's going to happen?
You know you have to be punished?"

:'Yes, yes."

"Until you cry for mercy?"

"Please." His voice was thick, his breathing ragged.

"First things first." Severity in the voice now.  A touch of anger.  He
loved that.  He lay naked, legs apart, shivering with anticipation as
his wrists were manacled to the bedposts.

"Now, - he said.  "Please, now.

Slim, cool fingers caressed him.  Warm lips touched him, sliding, soft.
He shivered with delight, but he knew he must not speak until he was
spoken to.

"Do you like that, you wicked thing?  Do you want more?"

"Yes, oh, yes.  More, more."

"First your punishment.  For being bad Leather thongs, mysteriously
produced, whispered through the air and cracked against his naked skin,
streaking his face, neck, chest, and belly with angry red welts.  His
body convulsed, subsided.  The salt taste of blood touched his tongue.
He whimpered again with pain and ecstasy.

"Shall we go on?"

He moved his head in assent, unable to speak, eyes shut tight in
anticipation.  His body trembled like an aspen leaf in a summer breeze
as the leather thongs were used to bind his feet to the opposite posts
at the foot of the bed.  The next part was the biting.  Delicious pain.

"Please, Angel," he whispered.  "Oh, God, please, now.

"Wait Something new first."

Light caught the blade of a black bone-handled Buck knife.  Unease
chilled his skin, raising goose bumps.

"Angel?"

"Shhhhhh, my sweet.

The cold touch of the knife blade made him flinch.

Lawrence moaned aloud This was new, dangerously exciting.  They had
never done anything like this before together before.  Somewhere in the
far reaches of his mind, an urgent whispered warning sounded, but he
suppressed its urgency and ignored it.  Lust roared through his head
like a runaway freight train.  When the need became unbearable, he would
whisper "enough" the way they always did "More, " he said.  A soft hiss,
a cool sensation.  He felt the soft scrape of the blade.  The touch of a
soft weight on his body made him open his eyes.  He looked down and saw
something that looked like a sausage lying on his belly. - "What's ...
what are you doing?"

"All part of the game, lover.  Close your eyes.

He closed his eyes, surrendering again to sensation.

"You were bad Say it, Lawrence."

"I was bad." He moaned softly.  "I'm sorry, I was bad Oh, Jesus, enough.
Enough, Angel.  Come to me now, come to me."

"No." Angel's voice was hard, cold.  "You haven't been punished enough
yet.  "Please, Angel, " Lawrence begged.  "Please, stop, eno Lawrence
Sutterfield moaned again.  This wasn't how he'd planned it.  Nothing
like this.  He heard the click of the lighter, smelled the sharp tang of
cigarette smoke, and the excitement inside him faltered.  Something was
wrong.  Something was terribly, awfully wrong.

"That's ...  enough,"

" he said.  "I don't want this

"What you want, my dear Lawrence, is no longer relevant."

"Unfasten me!" Lawrence screeched, writhing against the restraining
handcuffs, eyes fixed in horror and disbelief on the smoke coming from
the thing on his belly.  "Jesus Christ, stop this!" he screeched.
"Angel, are you crazy?  Stop this!"

The bedroom door opened, and a shaft of candlelight from the adjacent
living room touched the blond hair and bare shoulders of the slender
figure standing in the doorway.

"By fire shalt thou be cleansed.  Lover.

The voice was cold and hating.  The words hung in the air like the
frozen breath of death.  The bound man screamed and screamed again, his
voice drowning the faint hiss made by the thing on his belly.  He
screamed for another thirty seconds, then, with a sputtering roar, a
merciless hard white blinding light erupted, and Lawrence Sutterfield's
body was engulfed by hell.

SANTA Rita COUNTY BUILDING THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 9:15 A.M.

Kathryn Mackay, Deputy District Attorney and head of the Special
Prosecutions Unit of the Santa Rita County District Attorney's office,
parked her new red Audi on a side street three blocks from the County
Building.  She unloaded her briefcase and laptop from the backseat,
strapped them onto her luggage cart, and headed for court.

Normally, she would have parked in her own assigned parking space, just
a few steps from the courts building, but this morning she knew her
space-and every other available empty spot-would already be occupied by
the reporters, attorneys, and spectators descending upon the courtroom
where her trial was about to begin.

Today would be the first time a District Attorney's office in California
had charged a defendant with attempted murder by intentional infliction
of HIV.

The trial of Richard Hudson was hot news and highprofile, and,
predictably, courtroom groupies and media from all over the state had
descended on Santa Rita like locusts on a Kansas wheat field.  And they
were just about as welcome, at least among county workers who suddenly
had no place to park and couldn't squeeze into the basement cafeteria
for their morning cups of coffee.

Someone said there wasn't a motel room to he had within twenty miles,
and when she saw the parking lot surrounding the front and west side of
the Government Center and Courts Building, Kathryn believed it.  During
pretrial proceedings, Judge Woods had denied the defense motion to bar
television cameras in the courtroom for this trial, ruling that TV
coverage was merely the twentieth- and soon-to-be twenty-first-century
means of affording more citizens the right to observe firsthand the
American judicial process in action.  As a result, radio and television
station vans with satellite dishes on their roofs squatted by the dozen
like waiting beasts of prey, their entangled tentacles of electrical
wires and cables creating an electrician's nightmare to which the
county's safety inspectors turned wisely indulgent blind eyes.  Like
everyone else associated with the trial, they knew it was going to be a
damned three-ring circus, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop
it.

"Morning, Kathryn."

She looked around to see DA's Inspector James Field smiling down at her.
Tall and well built, with sandy-brown hair and alert brown eyes that
always seemed to have a hint of amusement in them, Field had boyish good
looks that were deceptive: he had well over ten years of law enforcement
experience.

"Thought I better warn you, it's a madhouse in side," Field told her as
he swung open the door to the courthouse.  He was right.  A wall of
noise from the crowded hallway hit them, TV camera crews setting up,
sound technicians adjusting booms, floor managers shouting instructions,
reporters and spectators jostling for places near the courtroom doors.

As Field pushed the crowd aside to make way for the two of them to enter
the courtroom, Kathryn glanced at her watch and saw it was already
twenty before ten.  Any moment now, the sheriffs deputies would escort
the defendant into the courtroom.

She piled her files and laptop on the counsel table slightly to her left
and sat down.  Her opening statement, on five loose pages of notes, was
placed directly in front of her.  Those five pages of notes-and nothing
else-would be carried to the podium as she began her first direct
communication with the jurors since jury selection.

Kathryn subscribed to a few hard-and-fast rules with respect to opening
statements: just her printed notes, everything else made to look
extemporaneous, although she knew spontaneity was not her strong suit.
She never left anything as crucial as opening statements or closing
argument to chance: they were carefully constructed and rehearsed.

"This ours?" Field asked Kathryn, pointing to a package.  Wrapped in
brown paper and sealed with Scotch tape, it was flat and rectangular,
about the size of a videotape.  Kathryn glanced at the label and shook
her head.

"It's addressed to Marty Belker.  Would you mind taking it over to him?"
She looked up and noticed that defense attorney Martin Belker had
wandered over toward the door through which his client would appear. His
investigator had not yet arrived.  "Just lay it on his table-he'll spot
it when he sits down."

"Sure." Field picked up the package, pushed his chair back, and stood
up.  He had taken no more than a step or two toward the defense table
when there was a huge flat explosion accompanied by an orange and white
flash that seemed to emanate from the front of his body.

In the same instant but in what seemed like eerie slow motion, the blast
blew Marty Belker's briefcase off the counsel table, then the table and
the three chairs intended for defense counsel, investigator, and
defendant were propelled across the open space, landing in a heap
against the east wall of the courtroom.

Shocked and disoriented, but aware now that a bomb had exploded, Kathryn
discovered she was lying on her side against the restraining wall
separating the well of the courtroom from the spectator seats.

Her counsel table was on its side; papers, files, and laptop dumped on
the floor.  Orange smoke and a sharp, acrid odor filled the courtroom.
Papers spiraled lazily down, like strange wounded birds.  Everywhere
alarms were going off.

Kathryn looked up to see James Field tottering on shaking legs as blood
spurted out of the mangled mess of tissue and bone dangling from strips
of sinew and flesh that had been his hand.

"Oh, my God, help me," he groaned.  He took two faltering steps, then
collapsed like a bundle of dropped laundry.

Brushing back the hair from her face, she ran across the floor to where
Field lay unconscious on his back in a widening pool of blood.  The end
of his right arm was a mass of shredded flesh.  There were deep cuts on
his face, and he was breathing in struggling gasps.  The front of his
jacket was a frizz of crisped wool, and there was a black patch on his
shirt the size of a dinner plate.  She ripped off the sleeve from her
blouse and fashioned a tourniquet on his upper arm, using a splinter of
wood from the demolished table to tighten the knot, ignoring the
spurting arterial blood spraying her clothes and hands.

She stood up, coughing as the acrid smoke bit at her throat.  In the
drifting murk, she could hear people screaming and shouting in panic.
Above her head, shattered strip lights hung by their exposed wires from
the ceiling.  Broken glass and plastic ceiling tiles crunched beneath
her as she worked furiously to stem the flow of blood from Inspector
Field's ruined arm.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and they were not for herself.

"Damnit, Jim, stay with me," she urged the unconscious figure.  "You
hear me, Jim?"  "I'm here."  "Stay with me.  Everything's going to be
okay, I promise."

Through the thinning smoke, she heard the sound of voices shouting
hoarsely.

"Over here!" she yelled at the figures she could see moving toward her.
"For God's sake, hurry!"

"Kathryn, are you all right?"

She looked up from the bench where she was sitting outside the courtroom
to see the familiar face of Walt Earheart, lieutenant in charge of
detectives in the sheriffs office.  Nearly six feet tall and weighing in
around 240 pounds, Earheart looked more like a heavyweight boxer than a
cop.  There was concern in his eyes.

"Yes, okay, I'm fine," she said absently.

"You sure?" Earheart said.  "You're covered in blood."

Probing and searching with her fingers for blood, or worse, Kathryn
located only a sore spot on her left thigh.  Checking further, she
discovered a bruise on her leg the size of a grapefruit.  I must have
jumped when the bomb went off, she thought.  Probably hit my leg and
knocked the table over.

"No, I'm all right.  Shaken up is all.  What about Jim?"

"On his way to County Hospital," Earheart said.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Has someone told Rochelle?"

Jim Field's wife, Rochelle, was like family.  Everyone in law
enforcement knew her.  Before her marriage, she had been a dispatcher
for County Communications.

"I sent a car to take her over to the hospital."

"Anyone else hurt?" Kathryn asked.

"We got quite a few people in shock, maybe half a dozen with minor
injuries.  One of the TV people broke his arm.  Tripped over a camera
cable when he bolted from the courthouse.  Marty Belker got hit by
debris or flying glass.  Nothing serious.  He's at the hospital being
looked at, too.  Must have scared the hell out of him, just like the
rest of us.  It could've been a whole lot worse, though."

Unless you were James Field, Kathryn thought.

As she stood up, she felt a mild whirl of vertigo, and then it was gone.
Looking around, she saw there was machinery and movement everywhere.
Fire engines, ambulances, and patrol cars were parked in front of the
court building.  She saw the familiar white van of the Crime Scene
Investigation Unit-CSI to everyone in law enforcement-off to one side of
the parking lot.  Deputies were looping long strands of yellow
crime-scene tape around the perimeters of the building,, and other
officers were waving away curious citizens drawn to the courtroom by the
explosion.

"You have any idea what happened in there, Kathryn?" Earheart asked her.

"It was a bomb," she said.  "Some kind of letter bomb."

His expression changed.  "You saw it?"

When Kathryn nodded, he told her to wait and hurried across to speak
rapidly to a tall, hatchet-faced man standing near the entrance to the
courtroom.  He looked over at Kathryn, nodded, and came back with
Earheart.

"George Purington." He introduced himself.  "I'm commander of the bomb
squad.  We've met before, but it's been a while.  Don't feel bad if you
don't remember me." His words were measured, precise, his dark-eyed gaze
direct and steady.

"I remember you.  I'm glad you're here."

"You saw the device?"

"It was a package about the size of a videotape," Kathryn said.  "Brown
paper, Scotch-taped at the ends."

"How heavy?"

Kathryn frowned.  "I don't know.  It didn't look heavy."

"Did it have a name, an address on it?"

"I only got a glance at it.  I think it just said, 'Martin Belker, Esq."
And it was marked 'Personal."

"Who's Belker?"

"Defense attorney.  He works for the Public Defender's office."

Purington made a note.  "Stamps?"

"I didn't see any."

"Binding tape?  String?"

"No."

"Where was it?"

"On the counsel table."

"See anyone put it there?"

"No."

"Did you handle it?"

Kathryn shook her head.  "My Inspector, James Field, noticed it and drew
it to my attention.  I told him it was for the defense attorney."

"He'd already picked it up?"

"That's right."

Purington frowned.  "And then?"

"He started across the room, and it went-it exploded."

"Do you have any idea how long it was on the table before Field saw it?"

"No.  But it can't have been there long," Kathryn said.

"Why is that?"

"We were supposed to start at ten o'clock.  Usually, the bailiff unlocks
the courtroom early, so the lawyers can bring in files and get set up,"
Kathryn told him.

"The package was already on the prosecution table when we got here."

"So someone put it there .  .  .  when?"

Kathryn shrugged.  "Probably sometime between about nine o'clock and
about nine forty-five, when Inspector Field and I got here.  You could
narrow that down a bit by asking the bailiff exactly when he unlocked
the doors."

"Name?"

"Chris Taylor," Kathryn said.

"How do you feel?" Purington asked.  "Can you walk?"

"Sure," Kathryn said, then winced as the bruise on her leg gave a
warning throb.

"You want to grab on to me, Kathryn?" Walt Earheart said.

"I'll be fine, Walt." Kathryn smiled.  "Where are we going, George?"

"Take a look inside," he said.

Kathryn followed Purington and Earhart into the damaged courtroom.  The
smoke had cleared now, and the place was literally crawling with
criminalists in white jumpsuits, moving in a line across the floor on
their hands and knees.

"They're searching for fragments of the bomb," Purington said.  "Metal,
paint, glass, anything that might have a residue of the explosive."

Traces of residue would be sorted by mass spectrometers which added an
electric charge to molecule fragments and accelerated them through a
magnetic field, separating them by mass and energy, he told Kathryn, and
also by columns of absorbent material through which molecule mixtures
were forced, separating them by type.  Criminalists would look for
telltale molecular debris that could be used to link the bomb materials
to specific subjects.

"Going by what you say about the size of the package and the damage
here, I'd say it might have been some kind of plastic explosive," he
added.  "I have to tell you, though, identifying any explosive, or
determining how and where it was made, is pretty difficult."

"My jacket is in here someplace," Kathryn said.

"Kiss it good-bye," Purington told her.  "They'll have already bagged it
to send to the lab.  Point out to me where you were when the bomb went
off."

"I was sitting at the table, there," Kathryn said, pointing.  "Jim was
sitting beside me, then he picked up the package and started walking
toward-"

There was no need to point out where the device had exploded. A
coagulated pool of blood marked the spot.

"What kind of fuckin' psychos do such shit, anyway?" Earheart growled,
then caught himself.  "Sorry, Kathryn. " She shrugged.  It was a
rhetorical question, but Purington answered anyway.

"Take your pick," he said.  "There's plenty of nuts out there to go
around.  Loners who send letter bombs to talk-show hosts or the
telephone company.  Ticked off relatives who want to wipe out their
entire families.  Environmentalist wackos, who think the way to save the
redwoods is to blow up some logger's truck.

Goddamn extremists like the ones who blew up the Federal Building in
Oklahoma City."

"Do you need me for anything else?" Kathryn asked.  "If not, I'm going
up to the hospital to see my inspector's

"Fine with me," Purington told her.  "I know where to find you if I need
you."

As she turned to go, Kathryn heard someone call her name.  She looked
around and saw court bailiff Chris Taylor coming toward her.  His face
was pale and his uniform dust-stained and disheveled.  A thin trickle of
blood from a cut on his forehead had dried in an elongated S above his
right eyebrow.

"Any,news about Jim Field?" he asked urgently.

"They've taken him to County," Kathryn replied.

"I'm just on my way up there."

"Do they think-is he going to be okay?"

"Who are you?" George Purington interrupted.

"Sorry, George," Wait Earheart said.  "This is Chris Taylor, the court
bailiff we were talking about.  Chris, this is Commander Purington, bomb
squad."

Purington nodded briskly.  "Where were you when the bomb went off,
Deputy?"

"Up there," Taylor said, pointing to a spot behind and to the right of
the judge's bench.

"What time did you get to the courtroom this morning?"

Taylor stuck out his lower lip.  "Must have been about eight-forty, give
or take five minutes's

"Did you see anyone anywhere near the prosecutor's table at any time?"

Taylor's boyish face creased into a frown of concentration.

"There are a lot of people coming and going before a trial begins,
Commander," he said.  "We can't keep tabs on all of them all of the
time."

"No one's blaming you, Deputy," Purington said.

"I'm just trying to find out what happened in here."

"Do they-do you have any idea who did it?

Purington shook his head.  "Not yet."

"You ought to get that cut looked at, Chris," Kathryn said.  Taylor
smiled and touched his forehead almost apologetically.

"It's nothing," he said, and paused awkwardly.

"I'm just so sorry about what happened to Jim Field."

"Which reminds me, I'd better get going," Kathryn said.  "I'll tell him
you were asking about him, Chris."

"Would you do that?  Thank you."

"Keep me posted, Kathryn," Walt Earheart said.

"I'd come with you, but-" He made a gesture that encompassed the whole
scene.

"I'll check with you later," Kathryn called over her shoulder as she
headed toward her car.

Ten minutes later, she swung the Audi off Cabrillo Drive and took the
rising road that led up to the hospital standing on the crest of the
hill.  They said the view of Santa Rita and Monterey Bay from the CEO's
office on the top floor was spectacular, but Kathryn had never seen it.
Her visits to County General usually involved either the morgue in the
basement or the special suite set aside for the examination of rape
victims; there weren't too many opportunities to admire the view.
Occasionally, she visited her friend, who was head of the hospital's
mental health unit, but Margaret's office wasn't on the fifth floor.

As Kathryn walked into the emergency room, the image of James Field
walking across toward the defense table, the sudden orange and white
detonation, flashed through her mind with appalling clarity.

A doctor in bloodstained surgical garb appeared in front of her.

"Inspector Field," she said urgently.  "How is he?"

The doctor looked uncomfortable.  "Most of his injuries were
superficial," he said, looking away, and she realized how young he was.
"Burns, shock.

But...  his hand was ...  there was nothing left.

We...  they had to amputate."

"He lost his hand?"

"Yes," the doctor said.  "His right hand."

"Shit," Kathryn said.

ESPANOLA. SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 10:50 A.m.

Out beyond Shelter Island, bright golden light played on the ocean.  It
seemed almost sinful to be enjoying such a beautiful SUNDAY morning
while Jim Field was lying in a hospital room with his right hand gone.
It was hard to believe only three days had elapsed since the explosion
at the courthouse.  To Kathryn, it had been an eternity.

Friday morning, the day after the bombing, she had filed a motion with
the court to continue the trial until the following month.  The judge
had scheduled arguments for tomorrow, Monday.  If he denied Kathryn's
request to postpone, opening statements would commence the next day,
which meant that at ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, she might well have
to stand up in Department 8 of the Santa Rita Superior Court and explain
to the jury what the case was about.

The trouble was, circumstances had altered; she knew now the opening
statement she had so meticulously composed was no longer appropriate and
must be rewritten.  She looked at the computer screen and sighed.

She could hear Emma practicing Handel's Gavotte, one of the two pieces
her nine-year-old daughter had chosen to play for her violin examination
in two and a half weeks' time.  Not perfect, but pretty good, Kathryn
thought.  Emma worked as hard at her violin examination as she did for
English, history, or math exams.  If only practice and hard work could
always make everything come out perfectly.

Back to work, she told herself, aware that she would rather be listening
to Emma's violin than preparing for trial.  She relegated Handel to her
subconscious, forcing herself to concentrate.  She was Senior Trial
Attorney for Santa Rita County, and most highprofile cases landed on her
desk-murders, rapes, and politically sensitive prosecutions requiring a
responsive yet aggressive and single-minded prosecutor.

She couldn't recall a case with a higher profile than this one.  There
was no room for distractions.

Kathryn looked up from the dining-room table where she was working,
papers fanned out before her like cards to be played in a poker hand.
Outside in the sunshine, a cup of coffee on the table at his elbow, Dave
Granz slouched in a lounge chair on the deck reading the SUNDAY paper.
They usually spent their weekends together now; in the year since her
ex-husband, Jack, Emma's father, had been killed in a Los Angeles
courtroom shooting, Dave had quietly taken on the role of surrogate
father.  He didn't make any kind of big deal out of it; that wasn't his
way.  He was just there when he was needed, strong and reliable.  Almost
as if he could feel the weight of Kathryn's gaze, he raised his eyes and
looked her way.

"Need some help?"

She shook her head.  Dave's presence was another distraction.  It was
always good to have him around, yet at the same time ... She sighed and
glared at the small bright screen of her laptop as if she could make it
do her bidding by willpower alone.  It was no use; she lacked
inspiration.

The words were just words.  Maybe if I came back to it later, she
thought.  She saved and exited the file, switched off the computer, then
stood up and went across to the sliding glass door.  She was dressed in
her usual SUNDAY uniform: open-neck casual shirt and blue jeans.  She
was barefoot.

"More coffee?" she asked.

Granz looked up and grinned his familiar, lopsided grin.  The faint
white hairline scars that ran from his ear to his throat were a
permanent reminder of how near death he had come when a serial killer
called the Gingerbread Man had tried to cut him to pieces with a scalpel
just a couple of years earlier.

"No thanks.  Finished?" he said.

"For now," Kathryn admitted.  "I can't get a handle on it.  And this
sunshine isn't helping."

"Looks like the Princess is through fiddling, too," Dave said as Emma
sauntered onto the deck and plunked herself into a chair.  Emma never
simply sat; she sort of hovered over the chair, then collapsed into it,
settling into whatever position she landed.  Sam, her golden Lab, padded
onto the deck behind her and stretched out at her feet.  Another ball of
SUNDAY morning energy.

"Are we just going to sit around here all day?"

Emma said, frowning.  "Mom, are we?"

"How about we drive down to Mooney's Landing?" Dave suggested.  "Browse
some antique stores.  Get frozen yogurt.  Play your cards right, I might
even spring for an early dinner.  Great Mexican food at La Comida
Familia."

"Come on, Mom, can we go?" Emma said, her feet moving restlessly. "Can't
we do something?"

Emma knew there had been a problem at court on THURSDAY which delayed
opening statements to Monday; but she had no idea what had really
happened.

Kathryn had always tried to shield Emma from anything that might cause
her to fear for her mother's life, these days more than ever.  Emma had
worked through a very difficult period following the shooting that
claimed her father's life.  Kathryn would never take chances with so
delicate a matter.

"Aw, Mom, c'mon, I'm bored, " Emma said impatiently.

Kathryn smiled.  Emma's appetite for SUNDAY trips with frozen yogurt at
the end of them was insatiable.

And although it was definitely not Kathryn's favorite, when it came to
Mexican food, insatiable didn't begin to cover it.

"I really ought to stay home and finish my opening."

"I know," Dave said.  "Look, we won't be late.

Maybe if you come at it fresh later, it'll come easier.

You can sit in the backseat and think all the way down there and all the
way back.  Emma and I will keep nice and quiet."

"Mom?" Emma pleaded.

"We can stop off and show Emma the new research center at Elkhorn Slough
on the way, make it educational," said Dave.

"Elkhorn Slough, isn't that where they do the kayak tours?" Kathryn
asked.

"What are kayaks?" her daughter asked.

"Kind of a one-man canoe, Em," Dave said.  "Some people race them on
rivers."

"On e-person, not one-man," Emma corrected, "you chauvinist."

Kathryn grinned.  Her daughter was a quick learner.

"Right.  Sorry." Dave was a quick learner, too.

"They use them on the Slough to take tours into the tidelands and view
wildlife and native plants that can't be seen any other way.  There's a
walking trail around the tidal pools, but you can't see nearly as much
as by kayak.  Did you know they're talking about allowing people to mine
for minerals in the Slough?  Jade, I think."

"That's disgusting," Emma said.  Her schoolwork was making her very
conscious of environmental matters.  "We going there?"

"Maybe we'll swing by," Dave said.  "On the way."

They piled into Dave's red Jeep Cherokee and headed for Laguna del Mar
via Shelter Beach Drive, northeast on Liberty Boulevard, and then west
again.

"Pinos Altos?" Kathryn said as the sign slipped by.

"I thought you said we were going to Mooney's Landing."

"Just a little detour," Dave said.  Kathryn shook her head.

"What are you up to, Granz?" she said, feigning ternness.

"Yeah, what, Granz?" Emma said, aping Kathryn's mock pugnacity.

"Brunch," Dave said.

"We just had breakfast," Emma said.

"You call that breakfast?" was the cheerful response.  "One lousy muffin
and coffee?  Okay, lunch, then."

Kathryn turned her head and gave her daughter one of those
what-can-you-do-with-a-man?  looks.  Emma nodded agreement: clearly a
hopeless case.

They rounded a bend and saw a sign: "Pinos Altos Sausage Company." A
long, low redwood building resembling a hunting lodge stretched along
the road for at least half a block.  Cars lined the road and overflowed
onto a side street across from the store.

"Sausages?" Kathryn said as Dave slid the Jeep into a parking space
beneath a ten-foot-high menu.

"Sixty-one different kinds," Dave said.  "Best sandwiches in
California."

"That's quite a claim," Kathryn said.

Dave grinned.  "I'll just get one," he said.  "So you can taste.
Anything on the list you'd particularly like to try?"

"What's venison, Mom?" Emma asked.

"Deer meat," Kathryn told her.

"Yuck," Emma said, grimacing with genuine horror.  "People eat deer?"

"Sure," Dave said.  "You want some?"

Emma shook her head.  "No way!  I think I'm becoming a vegetarian."

They both looked at her in surprise.  "When did you decide that?" Dave
wanted to know.

"Oh, lots of the kids in my school are vegetarians," Emma said loftily.
"Valerie Beshore and Brittany James are vegans."

"This place does vegetarian sausages," Dave offered.

"No, just a Coke," Emma said.

"Me, too, except make mine diet," Kathryn told him.

Dave made an exasperated face.  "Wimps!  I bring you guys to the best
sausage sandwich place on the West Coast, and all you want is a Coke?"

"Go get your sandwich," Kathryn told him.  "Nobody said you can't have
one."

"If you're trying to make me feel guilty," Dave said, "it's not
working."

"Just don't get venison." Kathryn smiled.

She watched him fondly as he went inside.  There were times when he
acted more like a naughty little boy than the tough cop she knew him to
be.  Part of his appeal.  It would have been nice to have him working on
the Hudson case with her, but they both knew their personal relationship
had grown to a point that precluded the normal prosecutor-investigator
working partnership.

Quit thinking about work, damnit, she told herself.

Have fun.  Be like other people.  She smiled at her own thoughts.  She,
more than anyone, knew she wasn't like other people and, truth be known,
did not want to be.  She looked up as Dave came back.

"That's a sandwich?" she said.  "It looks more like a blimp."

"Good, though," Dave mumbled with his mouth full.

"What's in it?" Emma asked.

"Don't ask," Dave said.  "A vegetarian's nightmare, utterly
unspeakable."

Emma giggled.  Dave loved that giggle and spent a lot of their time
together provoking it.  When they had finished their snack, they drove
from Pinos Altos down to Liberty Boulevard and then headed south through
Catalina to pick up Elkhorn Road.

"How were you and Jim Field getting along?" Dave asked.  Field was only
in his second year as a DA's Inspector, and the Hudson case had been his
first high-profile assignment.

"I like him," Kathryn said.  "He's bright.  Reliable.

Thorough.  Right now, though, all I'm concerned about is how he's going
to pull through this."

Dave nodded as though what she had said confirmed his own thoughts.

"You really want to go to Elkhorn Slough, Ein?" he said over his
shoulder.  "Or would you rather go straight on down to Mooney's
Landing?"

"Where's the frozen yogurt place?"

"Mooney's Landing."

"Okay, let's go there."

Kathryn stared at him, and he put on a mockwoundedlook.

"Just trying to save time," he said.  "You said you want to get back
early."

"And you said the trip would be educational."

"Give me time," he said.  "You know the story of Pinos Altos, Em?"

"What story?"

"They teach you anything about the Spanish missions in your school?"

"Li'l bit," Emma said.

"You know the Spaniards came here first."

"Yeah, and founded the missions."

"The leader of the first Spanish expedition was called Don Gaspar de
Portola.  He came here from San Diego in 1769.  It took him three
months.  His men were the first white men to see this area."

"Was that his name, Don?"

"No, honey.  In Spanish, to call someone 'Don' is a mark of high
respect.  Like we might call a judge 'Your Honor.""

"What did he come here for?"

"To claim all the land around here for Spain.  He made his camp right
here in Pinos Altos.  They called it Bolsa de PAjaro because they found
a stuffed bird left here by the Indians.  The next day they marched
north to where Santa Rita is now.  It was Portola who gave the place its
name."

"What was here then?"

"Nothing," Dave said.  "About seventy years after Portola passed
through, there was a big ranch here, what the Mexicans called an
estancia.  They had redwoods growing all the way down here.  It was good
lumber country.  About 1853, two Americans built a sawmill.  Pretty soon
they had a couple of stores, a blacksmith shop, a schoolhouse, and a
church."

"But there's nothing here anymore.  What happened?

"They cut down most of the good trees, and the lumber business moved on.
So did most of the other businesses.  People moved away, over to
Catalina, or north to Santa Rita.  After World War Two, it opened up
again, but it was mostly a tourist and summer residential area."

"And a sausage factory," Emma said.

"That's right," Dave agreed.  "And a sausage factory."

"Mom, did you hear what Dave was telling me?"

Emma liked to share newfound knowledge with her mother.  Kathryn looked
up, startled.  She had been staring out the window, deep in thought, or
reflection.

"What, honey?"

"Mom, you were working, weren't you?  We're supposed to be having fun."

"I know.  Yes, I was.  I couldn't help it.  I'm sorry."

Emma gave Kathryn her most mature smile.  "It's okay, Mom.  We
understand."

She rolled her eyes at Dave in a conspiratorial grimace, which he
returned with a wink.  Kathryn shook her head in fond tolerance.  Emma
had always been close to Dave, even when he was no more than just her
mother's friend and colleague.  Although she had never referred openly
to the growing intimacy of their relationship over the last year or so,
it was clear it had her approval.  Well, they said a child's instincts
were usually right.

"Mooney's Landing," Dave announced, as if he'd built the place himself.

Below them, they could see the little fishing village, comprising a
small residential area, a shopping district where old stores had made
way for antique shops and boutiques, a couple of run-down but fully
functional fish processing plants, and a well-developed harbor where
commercial fishing vessels shared their moorings with an occasional
sailboat or powercraft.

The road went down the steep hill in tight curves.

Boats bobbed on the glimmering water, and a squadron of pelicans banked
to starboard overhead.

Signs directed them along Hill Street to the parking area.  Granz slid
the car into the parking lot straddling a white painted stripe,
occupying two parking places.

Emma grabbed the meter-money purse and jumped out.  She loved feeding
meters.

"Hey, hey, take it easy!" Dave remonstrated as Emma industriously fed
the machine.  "We're not staying all week.  And be sure to put money in
both meters."

"I know you're going to say this is a dumb question," Kathryn said,
letting her puzzlement show, "but Why are You taking up two parking
places?"

"TYPical woman." He smiled.  "This is a brand-new car, Yes?  So I plan
to keep it free from parking lot dings as long as possible, even if it
means paying for two Parking spaces.  Capisce, "Isn't that illegal?"

"Beats me.  Probably.  Tell you what, you can file charges Monday before
you start trial I'll confess and throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Besides"-he waved his arms in an arc to indicate the half-empty parking
lot-,,it looks to me like Mooney's Landing can use the revenue."

This time, it was Kathryn and Emma's turn to exchange conspiratorial
grins.  Men!

"Is it time for frozen yogurt, Mom?" Emma said.

"Let's walk a little first, sweetheart," Kathryn said.

"You'll get your yogurt, don't worry."

Emma made an impatient face, and Kathryn smiled.  Everything was
now-now-now when you were nine years old.

They walked down Water Street, which sloped steeply to the harbor, where
abandoned marine railway tracks bisected a wide paved area that
stretched about half a mile around the tight little bay around which the
town nestled.  An old crane bent over the empty docks like a rusty
scarecrow.  Along the oldfashioned pier, anglers were hunched over their
rods.

Kids trundled along on tricycles, and teenagers on rollerblades swooped
past, threading their way through the sightseers.  Dave bought Emma her
frozen yogurt, and then they strolled along the old waterfront toward
the steep hill at the south end of the bay, where a walkway led up to
the lighthouse that dominated the point.

"I used to come down here weekends with my dad when I was a kid," Dave
said.  "My uncle was harbor master.  We used to fish off the pier.
Hardly ever caught anything, but I didn't care.  Probably weren't more
than a hundred and fifty people living here then."

"It's still pretty," Kathryn said.  "What's up this street?"

"It leads to the square," Dave said, turning into a narrow, curving
street that led them up into a small, old-fashioned plaza with a little
bandstand.  Around the square were little boutiques and specialty shops,
one selling paintings and prints, a secondhand bookshop, another that
sold tea and coffee.  Shaded by pollarded trees, elderly couples sat on
the beaches feeding the birds.

Emma was fascinated by the antique shops with their little treasures
laid out on tables, exclaiming with delight over a pretty set of beads,
a tiny gold locket on a fine gold chain, a silver-backed child's
hairbrush and mirror.

At one counter, Kathryn stopped to look at a beautiful old half-hunter
cased Waltham pocket watch with a gold chain.  It would make a wonderful
present for Dave's birthday, just a couple of weeks away, but it was
very expensive.  And if she bought it now, she thought, would Emma be
able to keep the secret until the big day?

"Beautiful watch," the owner of the stall remarked.

He was a short man with a round, jolly face and shrewd eyes.  He wore a
linen jacket with a vest that looked like it had been made from an old
tapestry.

"How old is it?" Kathryn asked.

"Turn of the century, maybe a little earlier," the man said.  "Original
case and movement.  You don't see too many in that kind of condition
anymore."

"I don't know," Kathryn said.  "Four hundred dollars is a bit rich for
my blood.  How about three-fifty?"

The man drew in his breath sharply, then shook his head slowly from side
to side as if saddened by her lack of knowledge.

"That's a twenty-two-karat gold case," he said.

"Hallmarked.  I couldn't ...  tell you what, three-eighty."

"Three seventy-five," Kathryn said.

"What are you, a lawyer?" the man said.  "A lawyer, right?"

"Does it show?" Kathryn smiled.  "Is Amex okay, or do you prefer a
check?"

"Nothing personal," the man said.  "But I'll take Amex."

Emma watched wide-eyed as the man wrapped the watch in three layers of
tissue paper and then put it into a flat box which he sealed with Scotch
tape.

"Mom," she whispered, wide-eyed, as the man filled in the sales ticket.
"Three hundred and seventy-five dollars?  For an old watch?" -It,s a
very special watch, Em," Kathryn said.

"And it's for someone very special."

"Dave?" Emma whispered back.  "is it for Dave?

For his birthday?" -yes, it is," Kathryn said.  "But you've got to
promise not to tell.  It's our secret, you understand?

Yours and mine.  Promise?"

sure,,, Emma said.  "Gosh, Mom, you'd think I was just a little kid or
something."

Kathryn signed the sales slip, and they went out into the square.

"We better go find Dave," she said.  "He'll think we got lost."

Dave had left them to look around the antique shops at their leisure
while he browsed in the bookstore.  They walked across the square and
found him in a back room, looking through a drawer of old postcards.

"Find anything?" Kathryn said.

Born and raised around Santa Rita, Dave was always on the lookout for
old pictures of locations in and around the county.  He knew more about
the early history of the county and its surroundings than anyone Kathryn
had ever met.  He turned one postcard over.

"Look," he said.  "The old covered bridge across the Alameda Valley.
About 1894."

"Can I see, Dave?" Emma asked.  He smiled and showed her the old sepia
picture.

"My dad used to cross that bridge every night on his way home from
work," he said.

"What happened to it?"

"Highway One," Dave said, and put the postcard back into the box.  "You
guys hungry yet?"

Kathryn looked at her watch and was surprised to find it was already
after five.

"What did you have in mind?"

"We could eat here, drive back early.  That would give you plenty of
time to finish your opening statement."

"Sold," she said.  "Where do we eat?"

"We had Mexican food last time, right?  There's a fish place on the
pier," he said.  "It's called Mike's.

They do a great cioppino."

"What's cioppino?" Emma asked.

"It's a spicy fish stew," Dave said.  "They usually serve it with
sourdough bread."

"Fish stew?" Emma said, making a dubious face.

"It's great, Em.  They cook it with onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes,
basil, oregano, parsley, lemon ...

Um.

y Emma's expression suggested she wasn't altogether sold.  Kathryn
smiled and took her daughter's hand.

"Let's go take a look," she said.  "It'll make a change from watching
you two eating Mexican."

They walked the length of the pier until a sign appeared: "Mike's Fish
Market and Eatery." Behind the windows on beds of ice lay lobster and
crab, abalone, black-shelled mussels, oysters, clams, sea bass, tuna,
snapper, shark, Monterey Bay salmon, squid, scallops, sand dabs, and
tiger shrimp.

"Dave," Emma said, pointing.  "What are these fish called?"

Dave frowned as if concentrating seriously.  "Let me get this right," he
said.  "I don't want to make a mistake here." Then he nodded sagely-
"That One there is called Tom," he said, pointing.  "The one next to him
is Dick.  And the one on the right is Harry."

"Oh, Dave!" Emma giggled.  "Be serious."

He grinned unrepentantly.  "Never on a SUNDAY, Princess," he said.
"Never, never on a SUNDAY."

ESPANOLA

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 5.45 A.m.

Mornings were always a circus.  Usually, before she ever got to the DA's
office, Kathryn was exhausted, as if she'd already done a full day's
work.  And often she had.  Make breakfast, pack Emma's lunch, do a load
of laundry, iron the clothes she and Emma would wear that day, empty the
dishwasher, put food and water out for the dog.  Then, after sweeping
yesterday's cookie crumbs out of the front seat, hop into the car for
the short sprint to Lighthouse Drive to catch the school bus.  She
nearly always managed to get there in time for Emma's bus, although on
rare occasions they were a bit late and she had to drive all the way
over to the school.

This morning, Kathryn awoke at five-thirty.  She had slept little, and
fitfully.  Nightmare visions of Jim Field's mangled hand, or the
smoke-filled courtroom, or the distinctive muffled blast and orange
flames jolted her awake each time her weary mind slipped into sleep. She
was glad to get up and face the situation, tired but alert.  She went
into the kitchen, started water heating in a black and chrome whistling
teakettle, ground a scoop of fresh coffee beans, dumped them into a
Melitta filter cone, and went outside to pick up the newspaper.  Big
headlines led on a front-page in-depth investigative piece, delving into
the Santa Rita bombing and tying it to a larger national phenomenon.
Coverage in last weekend's papers had been sketchy; now she saw why.  An
involuntary shudder ran through her entire body as she read the account.
She folded the paper quickly and secreted it under the clothing in her
bottom dresser drawer to prevent Emma's reading it.  As she did so, she
mentally noted the date on the front page.

The nineteenth of the month.

"BSE," S he reminded herself.  During her last checkup, almost a year
ago, her doctor had recommended she carry out a monthly breast
selfexamination.

"BSE isn't just to detect breast cancer," Dr.  Ota had explained.  "It's
also part of the larger process of becoming acquainted with your own
body.  The sage said: 'Know thyself." It's good medical advice, too.

But for it to be effective, you must do it religiously at the same time
each month."

Like most women her age, Kathryn knew BSE was an element of self-health
care that no woman could afford to ignore or forget.  She had begun by
doing BSE every day for the first month so that she really got to know
the contours and feel of her breasts.  Familiarity made it easier to
notice any changes.  She would be looking for anything unusual, Dr.  Ota
told her.  A lump, obviously, but also dimpling or puckering of the
skin, or a discharge from the nipple.

Now Kathryn stood naked in front of the full length mirror in the
bathroom and looked at her reflection.  She saw a petite woman in her
early forties, with long, dark hair and wide-set brown eyes.  The body
reflected in the mirror was a good one, strong and healthy.  She prided
herself-privately, since she was far too modest to say as much to
another person-on the fact that she stayed in better shape than many
women ten or fifteen years her junior.  Of course, that was not by
accident; she routinely read legal briefs, studied court decisions,
prepared for trial, and even read personal letters while working out on
the Stairmaster set up in the spare bedroom.

She clasped her hands behind her head and pressed forward, feeling her
chest muscles tighten.  No change.

Good.  Now hands on hips, leaning slightly forward.

Okay, good.

It was much easier to do the next part of the exam in the shower,
because the soap lubricated the skin, making it slippery and easier to
feel the underlying tissue.  She started the water and allowed it to run
until it was very hot, despite admonitions of local water officials
concerning water conservation, a superfluous carryover from the drought
years.  Hot showers are one of life's nicest indulgences.  She stepped
into the steamy shower stall and grabbed the soap, an expensive clear
amber glycerine soap, another of her little extravagances.  Her mind
turned to the Hudson trial, reviewing the reasons she would advance in
her motion to continue the trial that she would make in court this
morning.

In criminal cases, the defendant has a statutory right to a speedy
trial, and continuances are granted only for good cause.  The big
question was, would Field's unavailability constitute that good cause?

Probably not.  Field was her investigating officer and not a material
witness.  In addition, Public Defender Marty Belker would oppose the
continuance for no better reason than the fact that anything that
disadvantaged her automatically benefited him.

She shrugged.  Perhaps her argument would not prevail, but she intended
to try.  Belker was an old adversary, She had prosecuted the first
murder case he ever defended, and she had won, making him another of the
many defense attorneys who had made the mistake of underestimating her.
The difference was he had never forgotten or forgiven.  She didn't like
Belker, and he made no effort to conceal his distaste for her.

As she soaped herself vigorously, the cascading water enveloped her in a
warm cocoon.  Putting her left hand behind her head, she lifted her left
arm, gently but firmly pressing with the pads of her fingers, moving in
small circles toward the nipple to explore her breast carefully and
thoroughly, paying special attention to the area between the breast and
the underarm as the literature instructed.  And there was a lump.  Small
but unmistakable.

No.  It can't be.

Carefully, she tested the spot a second time- It wasn't her imagination.
There was a lump.  Small, hard, undeniable.

She stood stock still, hardly able to breathe.  Everything else in the
world was exactly the same as it had been ten seconds earlier-the smell
of coffee coming from the kitchen, the sounds of Emma readying herself
for school.  Only now she had a lump in her breast.

It's a mistake, she told herself.  It's got to be.

For the third time, she moved her fingers carefully, her body cold even
in the warm torrent.  No mistake.

There was definitely a lump under the skin, between her left breast and
underarm.  She turned off the water and dried herself Sure, this was
cause for concern but nothing to panic over.  Little lumps usually
indicated something benign-an infected lymph node, most likely.  Glands
and lobules in the breast could feel like lumps.  Maybe it was something
like that.  Sure, that was what it was.  No need for concern, but she
would talk with Dr.  Ota, just to make sure.

But ...  what if ...  ?

No.

I won't allow myself to think about what if, she thought angrily.

But she knew she would.

COUNTY BUILDING, SANTA RITA

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 11:55 A.M.

The County Building would never win any prizes in an architectural
beauty contest.  Built in 1966 at the height of the Cold War, its
uncompromising gray concrete structure suggested its main purpose had
been to withstand a nuclear attack, and it probably had been.  Five
stories high, squat and square, it accommodated the offices of the
Sheriff, the District Attorney, Environmental Health, the Planning
Department, and the County Clerk.  With its wide stone floored
corridors, the flat white fluorescent light, its public hallways
featuring ever-changing art exhibits by talented local artists that few
people took the time to look at, it was a place to work, functional and
unloved.

Fending off reporters and TV crews hoping for sound bites, Kathryn
hurried across the partly openair atrium that linked the County Building
to the Courts Building, and up to her office on the second floor.  Once
inside, she closed and locked the door and walked directly to her desk.
Pausing only slightly, as she drew a deep breath, picked up the
telephone, and dialed a number she had memorized.

"Women's Medical Clinic."

"Good morning," Kathryn began.  "I'm a patient of Dr.  Ota's, and I need
to speak with her before she leaves for lunch.  It's extremely
important."

" I'm sorry.  Dr.  Ota is with a patient and isn't available," the
receptionist said in a regretless singsong.  "May I ask what it is you
need to see the doctor about?  I'd be happy to make an appointment for
YOU."

"No, I need to talk with her immediately," Kathryn insisted.  "This is
Kathryn Mackay, and Dr.  Ota is a close personal friend.  She won't mind
being interrupted if you tell her who it is.  Why don't you check with
her while I wait?"

Without another word, the receptionist clicked her onto hold.  Kathryn
waited no more than a minute or two before JoAnn Ota answered the phone.

"Kathryn, this is a nice surprise," she said.  "What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to come and see you, JoAnn," Kathryn said, wondering if her
voice sounded as tense as it felt.

"It's rather urgent.  I found ...  I think I have a lump in my breast."

"I see." Dr.  Ota's voice was suddenly brisk and formal.  "We'd better
get you in to see me right away.

I'm just checking my schedule.  How would eleven-thirty tomorrow work
for you?"

"I'm in trial, JoAnn.  Could you make it late this afternoon sometime?"

"Four-forty-five?  I'll wait if you're a little late."

"Thank you.  I'll be there. She gently cradled the handset in the phone
base and stared at it.  JoAnn Ota was her friend as well as her doctor.
Just telling her had eased the pressure, but the black thing lurking at
the back of her mind remained there, and she knew it would not go away.

Well, she would know soon enough, one way or the other.  One of
Kathryn's strengths was her willingness always to confront an enemy
head-on; she would play this the way she played everything else.

Her phone rang almost as soon as she put it down.

It was Dave Granz.

"I just got off the phone with Dr.  Death-oops, sorry ," he said.
"Didn't mean to say that."

Although the Sheriff, Jake Gylam, was ex-officio coroner, in Santa Rita,
as in most counties in California, the actual work was contracted out.
Dr.  Morgan Nelson, the forensic pathologist employed by the county as
its coroner, was a close friend.  Dave had never been able to completely
shake the habit of using the nickname one of the tabloids had given
Nelson years earlier when they discovered he had carne out more than
nine thousand autopsies.  Kathryn sometimes wondered if Dave used it
because he knew how fond she was of the man.  She let it go.

"Yes, and?"

"He ran preliminary tests on fragments the bomb squad dropped off," Dave
went on.  "Located traces of sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and methyl
alcohol-classic kitchen bomb ingredients.  Looks like a fairly crude
homemade device to him.  Maybe you should call him."

"Okay," she said. "You all right, Kathryn?" he asked.

"Sure, fine."

"You sure?"

"Dave, I'm perfectly all right," she said, a shade more forcefully and
formally than she meant to.

"It was just you sounded ...  worried," he said, and she heard the
concern in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Dave," she said.  "Just keyed up like always when I'm going
to trial.  Everything's fine."

No sense in him worrying over nothing, she reasoned, and smiled
ruefully.  Who was she trying to convince-Dave?  Or herself'?

COUNTY BUILDING, SANTA RITA

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 4:20 P.m.

Kathryn sighed as the phone rang yet again.  No rest for the weary, she
thought.  This time it was her boss, District Attorney Hal Benton.

"Got a minute?"

"For you, always," she said.  "I'll be right in."

When she walked into Benton's office, he was on the phone.  The District
Attorney was never informal; today he was wearing an impeccably
conservative gray single-breasted suit with a white cotton dress shirt
and a red and dark gray striped tie.  He put his hand over the
mouthpiece.

"Be right with you," he said, and waved her to a chair.  "Yes, fine, fax
the details to me and I'll get back to you," he said into the phone, and
put it down.

Although he had lived in California most of his adult life, his voice
still retained a trace of its Southern drawl.

"I've been trying to reach you for half an hour," he said.

"It's been one of those days," Kathryn said, and it was true.  She felt
as if she hadn't touched the ground since she arrived at the office.

"So what's the situation on the Hudson case?"

Hal always hoped for the best but expected the worst, she thought.  She
shook her head.

"Motion denied," she said tersely.  "No continuance.  We resume tomorrow
morning."

Benton made a face.  "Are you ready?" he asked.

"I'll - be ready," Kathryn promised.  "But you're going to have to
help."

"What do you need?"

"First and foremost, an inspector to replace Jim.

Dave Granz is helping out on a temporary basis, but I want him assigned
permanently."

Benton leaned back in his chair, regarding her levelly.  Fifty-five
years of age, he was a good-looking man, with blue-gray eyes and dark
blond hair.  A graduate of Stanford Law School, his first job had been
as an ADA in the Santa Rita District Attorney's Office, back then a
small office with only five prosecutors.  He had run for DA the first
time in 1978 and served in that capacity ever since.

"A year ago, I would have agreed.  But your relationship with Dave has
changed things."

"Ordinarily I'd agree with you, Hal, but we both know Dave is the best
inspector in the office.  And right now I need the best."

"No danger we're going to lose this one, is there?" he asked, a trifle
edgy.  "This is a high-visibility case, Kathryn. Lots of political
fallout.  The media are all over us.  I don't want Hudson walking free.
That's why I made sure you were on it from the start.  If anybody can
convict him, it's you."

Benton took it for granted that when he assigned a case to her, she
would win it.  The pressure his expectations might have generated in
most prosecutors did not affect her; it was no less than what she
imposed on herself.  She went into every trial expecting to win and
settled for nothing less.  The personal cost of doing so, great as it
was to her, was immeasurably less than the cost of mediocrity.  And
there was another, even more important consideration.  She never forgot
she was the sole voice for the victim.  It was what gave Kathryn her
passion, her complete involvement in every case she prosecuted.

"He won't walk," Kathryn said.  "Not if you give me Granz."

Benton thought about it for a moment, then nodded in reluctant
agreement.  He knew Mackay and Granz were the best
prosecutor-investigator team in his office.  And if Kathryn said her
relationship with Granz wasn't going to be a problem, then it wasn't.

"Okay, I'll talk to Norm about cutting Granz loose from his other cases.
What's the news on Jim Field?"

"They amputated," Kathryn said, hoping she wasn't revealing how hard the
news had hit her.  "No choice.  Morgan Nelson knows the surgeon, and he
said there was practically nothing left of the hand anyway-"

"How is he taking it?"

"How do you think?"

"Goddamn lunatics," Benton exclaimed angrily.

Kathryn's eyebrows arched.  Harold Benton was an old-fashioned
gentleman, and such language was untypical, a sign of extreme emotion.
He stood up and walked to the window, staring at the parking lot below.
"It's like there're more lunatics out there than sane people.  And you
can't tell who they are by looking."

"It feels like that sometimes," Kathryn agreed.

"Has anyone claimed responsibility?"

Benton shook his head.  "That's what's odd," he said.  "Someone plants a
bomb in a courtroom, there has to be a reason."

"The thing is, it might not be what you and I or any other normal person
would recognize as a reason, Hal," Kathryn said.  "People like that
don't think the same way we do.  You should know that better than
anyone."

"Nothing from DOJ?" Benton switched to his professional persona.  DOJ
was the Department of Justice crime lab.  Though the bomb that had
destroyed Field's hand had itself been destroyed, tiny grains of the
explosive mixture hadn't burned and were being analyzed by DOJ
criminalists.  They would no doubt confirm and expand on Dr.  Nelson's
preliminary analysis.

"It'll be a while before we hear from them.  Doc Nelson seems to think
it was a homemade device.

Kitchen-table job, no finesse.  And probably no signature."

"I hope that's not supposed to make me feel better," Benton said sourly.
"A homemade bomb with no signature is virtually impossible to trace."

"We'll just have to hope DOJ comes up with something, Hal.  We're all in
the dark otherwise."

Benton sighed and went back to his seat behind the desk.  "I guess," he
said.  "Anything else happening I need to know about?"

Kathryn shook her head.  "Not as of ten minutes ago, but give it time.
Look, I better get back to my office.  If I'm going to be ready
tomorrow, I've got a lot of work to do."

She was at the door when Benton said her name.

She stopped and turned.

"One other thing," Benton said.  "The sheriffs office is setting up a
task force to investigate the bombing.  As of now, you're assigned to
it.  Granz, too."

"Hal!" Kathryn protested.  "We've got a major trial starting tomorrow,
Dave isn't even up to speed yet, and you want to assign us to a task
force?"

"It's just a preliminary meeting," Benton said.

"Walt Earheart, George Purington from the bomb squad.  But I want you in
there."

"Okay, Hal," she said.  Benton was effectively doubling her workload. He
knew it, she knew it, and he knew she knew it, but there was no way of
ducking.

"If that's how it is, that's how it is.  When do we start?"

"S.O.  conference room at five-thirty."

"Then I'd better get moving."

"Good luck," Benton said as she closed the door.

I could use some, Kathryn thought.

WOMEN'S MEDICAL CLINIC.

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 4:50 P.m.

Kathryn checked her watch as she slid her car into a parking space.
Twenty minutes late for her appointment with JoAnn.  She sat silently
for a moment, preparing herself for what lay ahead.  It was not fear a
dread of knowing the worst, maybe.  Until you know for sure, you can
deny.  Scenarios flickered through her mind, nagging thoughts that just
would not go away.  A lump could mean cancer.  Cancer meant surgery and
radiation.  A lot of women died from breast cancer.

Emma.  Who would look after Emma?

The obvious answer was Dave.  He loved Emma, Emma loved him, it was that
simple.  He was the best thing in the world for her-as long as Kathryn
was there as well.  Her mind took her back to a night about a year ago,
in the dark weeks after Jack, her ex-husband, had been shot.  Dave had
come over unexpectedly, and they sat and talked for a while.  Then,
almost without preamble, he had asked her to marry him.  "Right now you
need someone," he had told her "So does Emma."

She remembered how she had felt, off-balance, uncertain how to reply.

"Dave, Emma isn't your responsibility, she's mine," she'd said.

Emma was only a part of it, he'd said.  "This is about you and me.  I'm
ready to make the commitment.  The question is, are you?"

Part of her had wanted to say yes.  But another, pragmatic part of her
knew it would be the wrong way to go.  The very nature of what they both
did for a living made independence an asset rather than a liability. And
deep down she knew, they both knew, they didn't need marriage to affirm
the deep affection and respect they had for each other, or his love for
Emma.

If she had made the commitment then, would it have been different now?
She shook her head.  Dave was a darling man, but there was no way he
could juggle the work he did and the life he lived to include being both
father and surrogate mother.  But if not Dave, then who?  The interior
of the car felt suddenly cold, and she shivered.  She could not recall
ever having felt more alone.

She got out of her Audi and locked it.  Dr.  Ota's office was one of two
in a modern single-story building next to the post office on Salmon
River Drive.

From its large parking lot, wheelchair ramps and stone steps led to the
main doors.  On the right hand side of the doorway was a large brass
plate on which were engraved the names of Dr.  Ota and her partner, Dr.
Carolyn Jensen.

"Hi, Ms.  Mackay," the receptionist said.  In her early twenties, Amy
Martinez had a mane of curly black hair and a smile that could light up
a room.

"You're right on time." Kathryn looked at her quizzically.  "Dr.  Ota
said to expect you around five o'clock.

How's Emma?"

"She's fine, thank you," Kathryn said, taking a seat at the far end of
the waiting room.  Amy was a pleasant young woman, but Kathryn didn't
feel much like making conversation.

"Kathryn, come in."

She looked up to see Dr.  Ota standing in the hallway.  So petite she
made Kathryn feel tall, JoAnn Ota wore a spotless white coat with a
stethoscope around her neck, white trousers, and white hospital shoes.
Her hair was jet black, parted in the middle so it fell in long wings
beside her high-cheekboned face.

When she smiled, she was beautiful.

"How are you?" she said, motioning Kathryn to one of the examination
rooms.  Her green eyes were sympathetic as she asked the question.

"A little shaky," Kathryn confessed.

Dr.  Ota nodded, as if she'd heard the same thing many times.

"Slip off everything from the waist up, put on this paper gown, and I'll
be back in a few minutes."

By the time Dr.  Ota returned a few moments later, Kathryn had undressed
and put on the gown.  She looked up expectantly as the doctor sat down
facing her.

"I'm going to do a manual examination now," she said.  "It's called
palpation.  Just relax."

Her fingers were cool and firm as she applied light pressure to
Kathryn's armpits and the area just above her collarbone.

"That's not where-" Kathryn began.

"I know, Kathryn," the doctor told her with a smile.  "I'm just checking
your lymph glands.  That's fine.  Now, lie down on the table for me,
will you?"

Kathryn stared at the ceiling, feeling strangely detached as JoAnn made
a careful, inch-by-inch examination first of her left breast and then of
the right.

"You were right," Dr.  Ota said.  "There does seem to be something
there.  Very small, but something."

Kathryn sat up.  "And?"

"Get dressed first," Dr.  Ota said.  "Then we'll talk in my office."

Kathryn slipped on her bra and blouse, fastening the buttons with
fingers that trembled slightly.  She followed Dr.  Ota into her brightly
lit office and sat down on the couch.

"What do you think it is?" she asked.

"We won't know until we do a mammogram."

"How soon can I have that done?"

"Let's see, today is Monday, I can probably get you an appointment with
the radiologist for Friday.  How does that sound?"

"The sooner the better," Kathryn said.

"Let's do it now," JoAnn said, and punched a button on the desk console.
Kathryn could hear the "Close Encounters" music clearly as the machine
dialed the preprogrammed number.

"Santa Rita Breast Center," a disembodied voice said, and she realized
JoAnn had left the phone speaker on so she could hear what was being
said.

"This is Dr.  Ota," JoAnn said.  "I'd like to make an appointment for
one of my patients.  Mammogram and ultrasound scan."

"Oh, hi, Dr.  Ota," the voice said.  "Sure thing.

Name of the patient?"

"Mackay, that's M-a-c-k-a-y.  First name Kathryn, K-a-t-h-r-y-n.  She'd
like to come in as soon as possible.  How about Friday.  .  ." She
looked at Kathryn with raised eyebrows......  morning?"

Kathryn nodded.

"Morning," Dr.  Ota confirmed.  "Do you have an opening.

"How about ten-thirty A.M., would that be acceptable?"

Kathryn nodded again.

"Ten-thirty will be fine," Dr.  Ota said.  "Thank you, Karen."

"You're welcome," the woman said automatically as she hung up.

"All set, Kathryn," JoAnn Ota said.  "Is there anything you want to ask
me?"

"Yes, what do you suggest I do between now and Friday?" asked Kathryn.

"First, take a deep breath," said Dr.  Ota.  "Use the time to educate
yourself.  Information is often the most powerful tool we have."

"Any suggestions?" asked Kathryn.

"Start with Dr.  Susan Love's Breast Book.

Kathryn made a mental note of the title as she gathered up her suit
jacket and purse.

"Call me Friday," JoAnn said as she gave Kathryn a quick hug, "when you
get through at the center.

Meantime, don't brood.  Try and put this out of your mind."

"I'll try," Kathryn said, holding everything in tight.

"Thank you, JoAnn."

She managed to hold back the tears until she got out the door and into
her car.  Then, after a few moments, mustering the inner strength that
always sustained her when the going got tough, she started her Audi and
headed back to town.

COUNTY BUILDING, SANTA RITA.

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 5:30 P.M.

Ac Fluorescent lights in ceiling panels, brown shell chairs, two scarred
metal tables set up to make a T, and a wood-framed map of the county on
the wall did nothing to give the cramped conference room inside the
Sheriffs office a personality.

Lieutenant Walt Earheart sat at the end of the T with Commander
Purington of the bomb squad to his right.  Kathryn and Dave took seats
on opposite sides.

"Purington has been in contact with BDC," Earheart said, for Kathryn and
Dave's information.

"They're prepared to assist if we need them."

BDC, the FBI's Bomb Data Center, was responsible for the technical
training of public safety bomb disposal technicians, preparation and
dissemination of explosive-related publications and bombing incident
summaries, sharing of technical information and bombing incident
statistics, and providing technical support in crisis management
situations.

"Probably won't be necessary," George Purington interjected.  "I'm
trained to conduct bomb crime scene investigations."

"That being the case, maybe George ought to head up this task force,"
Earheart said.  "Everyone agree?"

AB heads around the table nodded in agreement.

Purington's credentials were beyond reproach.  He had received his
training at the FBI Hazardous Devices School at the Redstone Arsenal in
Huntsville, Alabama.  HDS is the only school in the United States that
trains and certifies local public safety officials as bomb technicians.

"Okay, here's our situation as of now," Purington said.  "We don't know
who we are dealing with or who the target was."

"Wait a minute," Earheart said.  "I thought the package was addressed to
Marty Belker."

"It would have to have been addressed to an attorney, Wait," Kathryn
pointed out.  "We have papers and packages coming into court all the
time.

No one takes any notice of them.  Otherwise it would have been checked
by security."

"So our bomber knows that much about courtroom procedure," Dave said
thoughtfully.

"Or he just got lucky," Purington added.  "Bombers will lift a name from
a newspaper, a TV news report, anything to get the device into the
intended area.

Look, the name on the bomb doesn't mean that's who the target was.  It
could just as easily have been you, Kathryn."

"Kathryn?  Why?" Dave's voice betrayed his concern.

"Why not?" Purington snapped back.  "A lot of these guys are nuts, pure
and simple.  Maybe the bomber doesn't like women lawyers.  Maybe he
doesn't like you prosecuting a guy with AIDS.  Or maybe it's someone who
has a grudge against you."

"Same could apply to Jim Field," Kathryn cautioned.  "Or the judge, for
that matter."

"Which means we've got a helluva wide-ranging investigation on our
hands," Walt Earheart said heavily.

"Let's start with Belker, anyway," said Purington.

"Does the fact the device was addressed to him suggest anything,
anybody?  Is he a man with a lot of enemies?"

"He's represented his share of psychos over the years," Kathryn offered.

"Okay," said Purington.  "We'll need to look at all the defendants he's
represented this past year.  Anyone recently paroled who might hold a
grudge against him."

"I'll have one of my detectives take care of that," Earheart said.  "You
know, I'm surprised he hasn't screamed for protection knowing that bomb
was addressed to him."

"Not Marty," Kathryn said.  "He might be scared to death, but no way
would he let anyone see it especially anyone in law enforcement."

Earheart shrugged.  "One less bell to answer," he said
unsympathetically.

"What about Jim Field, George?" asked Kathryn.

"Him, too.  Have someone pull all the cases he's investigated since he's
been with your office.  While you're at it, better have all the cases
you've prosecuted in the past couple of years pulled as well," Purington
suggested.

As Kathryn nodded her agreement, Dave asked a question.

"Judge Woods?  Yeah, he's a possible, too," Purington said.  "We better
get a list of every case he presided over for the past year or so."

"What if this bombing isn't an isolated event?" asked Kathryn.

"We're ready for that," Purington said reassuringly.

"If we get a bomb threat, we have a total containment vessel with a bomb
containment sphere that can withstand the pressure, heat, and
fragmentation of most high-powered explosive devices.  The bomb truck
has a bomb disposal robot, protective suits, screening and disruption
equipment.  Not to mention some of the best bomb disposal specialists in
the country."

"Works for me," Earheart said.

"Only if the bomber delivers a threat ahead of time," Kathryn argued.
"What if he doesn't?"

A silence descended on the room.  Nobody had any answers for that
question, because nobody knew what the bomber would do next. Except the
bomber.

Getting away from the mundane routines of the job was always strangely
exciting, a feeling remembered from childhood of anticipation, of
something wonderful about to happen.  The twenty-minute drive to Mission
Hills allowed plenty of time to go over every detail of the plan.  Even
dream a little, seeing it through Angel's eyes.  How it would be.  What
would be said.  All of it.

Angel had played her part perfectly in disposing of Lawrence
Sutterfield.  But she could not do what she did so well alone.  That was
why they were the perfect team.  One to design the instrument, the other
to unleash its awesome power.

Bombs came in two varieties.  Explosives or incendiaries: bangers or
burners.  All you neededfor a perfectly effective banger was a plastic
explosive made from Potassium chlorate, Vaseline, and a blasting cap. Or
a moist explosive mixture made from aluminum bronzing powder bought in a
paint shop and carbon tetra chloride, extracted from afire extinguisher
or obtained from a dry cleaner's.

Or add weed killer-ninety percent of the people who used it in their
gardens didn't know it was simple sodium chlorate-to copper sul ateftom
yourftiendly local hardware store, some pure alcohol, ammonia hydroxide
from a bottle of smelling salts, and you had a primary explosive,
tetrammine copper chlorateTACCfor short.

There were plenty of others, the ingredients set out like recipes in the
two slim black paperbacks on the bookshelf behind the table, available
by mail order or at any public library to anyone with a library card.
All of them reliable.  All of them deadly.  And all of them absolutely
untraceable.

Only damned fools bought traceable quantities of chemicals, thousands of
pounds of ammonium nitrate like those lunatics in Oklahoma.  Using the
equivalent of fifteen hundred pounds of dynamite to achieve one's ends
was crude, unnecessary, and stupid, like using a .35 7 Magnum to shoot a
worm.

Buy small, buy often, that was the secret.  Never use the same store
twice in succession.  Wear different clothes every time you shop.  Avoid
chatting with whoever waited on you.  Leave nothing for anyone to
remember.

And so to work.

Neatness was important.

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Stainless steel mixing bowls on the table to the left; glass retorts on
the right, tool kit open in the middle.

Ingredients laid out in a neat row, waiting.  Perfection in preparation
leads to a perfect result.

Today it was another burner.  Simple ingredients again.  Thermite
scraped out of a highway flare.  Magnesium.  Iron filings.  A length of
bicycle inner tube.

Stuff you could buy at any hardware store without leaving any record or
drawing attention to yourself Put 'em together and what have you got?  A
small, totally deadly device about the size of a sausage that fit in
your pocket easily, absolutely untraceable to its creator.  Add a fitse
made from a couple of inches of drapery cord soaked in potassium
nitrate-saltpeter mixed with sugar if you wanted it to burn slowly-and
you had an incendiary bomb that would burn a hole through sheet steel.

As the deftfingers meticulously fashioned the deadly device, music
blared from the forty-watt speakers.

'Eighties sounds like Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, the Police.  Right
now, Elton John was singing a favorite, "Candle in the Wind."

Smiling, every step carried out with scrupulous care, without haste.
When the burner was completed, it was laid to one side.  Next came the
delay switch.  Like everything else, the secret of the thing was to keep
it simple, to use untraceable everyday materials: a cigarette, a paper
match, and a shoelace.  Use the shoelace to bind the cigarette to the
fuse of the burner with the paper match sandwiched between them, its
head on the actual fitse.  Simple as that.

Then, when the time came, light the cigarette and walk away.  In still
air, a common dry cigarette burns about an inch every seven or eight
minutes.  So if the match head is placed one inch from the burning end
of the cigarette, it will ignite the fuse six or seven minutes after
being lit.

Six or seven minutes, plus two more for the fuse to reach the bomb. For
the intended victim, an eternity of horrified, helpless terror.

The CD machine clicked and hissed, and Sting's sinuous voice filled the
room.  "Evry move you make, evry step you take, I'll be watching you.

SUPERIOR COURT &

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 10:00 A.M.

Kathryn Mackay half-turned in her chair at counsel table to survey the
courtroom.  Behind the waist-high oak barrier, the rows of bench seats
reserved for the public were crammed shoulder to shoulder with
reporters, photographers, camera crews, and spectators.

Kathryn recognized two or three faces as regular visitors to the
courts-court groupies, they were sometimes called.  Outside the double
doors, a sheriff's deputy barred entry to jostling latecomers who
protested their exclusion vociferously but were denied nonetheless.

There was a mounting urgency in the courtroom during the moments before
a trial began, as all involved in it readied themselves for what was to
come.  Kathryn watched as court reporter Kathleen Havill inserted a
fresh roll of paper in her machine with deft, precise movements.  When
she was satisfied, she stood, put her hands to the nape of her neck, and
tossed her gray-streaked blond hair, eyes sweeping the courtroom.  Then
she sat down again, gazing blankly ahead.  Court reporters were an
incredible group, Kathryn thought.  To anyone watching them during the
trial, they appeared detached, almost nonchalant, but their casual
demeanor concealed an uncanny ability to transcribe with absolute
perfection every word uttered "on the record," irrespective of the
speakers' accents, poor diction, or inadequate projection.

Now a rising buzz of interest emanated from the audience as the bailiff
escorted the defendant, Richard Hudson, into the courtroom.  Hudson wore
a plaid shirt with the collar outside the neck of his cotton sweater,
and dark brown Dockers.  He looked like a yuppie.  Martin Belker had
obviously gone for the casual look for his client, Kathryn thought.  A
formal suit and tie would have inspired a different reaction.  The jury
would perceive him as they would any other young, affluent Santa Rita
resident.  It was all a necessary part of the elaborate game of justice.

By virtue of being charged by the State with the commission of a serious
crime, and by being referred to continually as "the defendant," a
powerful and pervasive presumption of guilt attaches to an accused
person.  The judicial system attempts, not altogether successfully, to
mitigate that presumption on the part of the jury by permitting jurors
to see the defendant only at his or her contrived best.

Kathryn had often wondered whether jurors had any idea of the lengths to
which the State went to enhance a defendant's appearance of normality,
if not outright innocence, prior to a court appearance.  Take Richard
Hudson.  About half an hour before his scheduled court time, two
sheriffs deputies would have arrived at his county jail cell, conducted
a stripsearch, then placed him in manacles, leg-irons, and a restraining
chain that connected to the handcuffs, passing through a waistband and
in turn locked onto the leg-irons.  Clad in standard jail-issue bright
orange overalls, escorted by the heavily armed deputies, he would be
signed out through security and led shuffling across the street to the
bowels of the court building.

There, in an area referred to by law enforcement and prisoners alike as
"the Tombs," he would be placed in a holding cell, unshackled, stripped
of his orange jumpsuit, and dressed in whatever civilian clothing his
lawyer had delivered to the jail that morning.  If the prisoner was
considered a flight risk, as Richard Hudson was, a metal leg brace would
be placed under his pants to restrict mobility.

After he was thus clothed and secured, he was again placed in handcuffs
and leg-irons, escorted through interior passages, and brought to the
inside door of the courtroom, where all visible restraining devices
would then be removed.

Not until the judge was satisfied that the prisoner's appearance was as
normal as possible under the circumstances (there was an old
prosecutor's joke to the effect that the defendant frequently looked
more normal than the defense attorney) would the jury be allowed to file
into the jury box.  This routine would be repeated each and every day
the defendant was seen by the jury, no matter how long the trial lasted.

If they only knew, Kathryn thought as Hudson crossed to the defense
table on the right hand side of the well in front of the bench, his arms
swinging loosely, eyes dead, face completely expressionless.  He sat
down with a heavy sigh and stared straight ahead.

Why am I being put through all this?  His expression said.  Belker had
coached his client well.

She watched Bailiff Chris Taylor, who had brought in the defendant,
retrace his steps across the courtroom and take his position behind and
to the left of the bench near the door.  She recalled hearing someplace
that Taylor was studying for the sergeants' exam.  Like all SO deputies,
he was doing a stint in Court Security on a rotational basis.  He looked
alert and confident, not like the shaky kid she had interviewed on a
night long ago when he responded to a 911 call placed by a rape victim
named Karen Esterhaus.  Only recently assigned to the Patrol Division,
he had never been called out on a rape before, and he was still in shock
when she talked to him.  She saw Taylor draw himself up and knew the
judge was coming in.

"Ready, Dave?" Kathryn asked.  Benton had lost no time in arranging
Dave's full-time assignment to the case.  She was glad to have his
reassuring presence at her side.

"You bet," he whispered.  Anyplace else, he might have reached over and
squeezed her hand.  Not here.

It wasn't just a matter of how it looked; in court, Kathryn was all
business.  It was one of the things he liked best about her-the ability
to be strong, decisive, and totally in charge in the courtroom, while
maintaining her own special and undeniable femininity outside it.

"All rise!" Bailiff Taylor intoned loudly.  "Department Eight of the
Santa Rita Superior Court, State of California, is now in session, the
Honorable Jesse Augustus Woods presiding!"

As he spoke, the door on the right hand side of the wall in back of the
bench swung open, and Judge Woods swept in past the jury box in flowing
black robe to seat himself in the leather chair behind the bench
overlooking the courtroom.  He was a big man with broad shoulders and
large hands.  Dark hair crowned his leonine head, and his dark, deep-set
eyes missed nothing that transpired in his court.

"Be seated."

As the jurors and audience resumed their seats, the judge slid his
half-frame reading glasses over his nose and nodded to the court clerk,
Cathy Radina, who stood up.

"In the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County
of Santa Rita, the People of the State of California, Plaintiff, versus
Richard John Hudson, case number CR1432," she began, her clear,
well-modulated voice carrying to every corner of the courtroom.  "The
People of the State of California hereby accuse Richard John Hudson of
the crimes of attempted murder, to wit: violation of Section 664/187 of
the Penal Code, in that said Richard John Hudson did willfully,
unlawfully, and feloniously commit an attempted murder against the
persons of Victoria Mitten, Jane Sorensen, and Marian Browning.  Signed
Harold Benton, District Attorney, to which information the Defendant
entered pleas of not guilty as charged."

As the court clerk sat down, Judge Woods looked up, his glance shifting
from the jury to the defense table on his left and then on to the
matching table on his right where Kathryn sat with Dave Granz.

"For the record," he said, "the court will grant the prosecution's
motion to exclude witnesses.  Inspector Granz will be designated the
prosecution's investigating officer and will be permitted to remain."

By court order, witnesses remained outside the courtroom until their
testimony was required.  It was a common pretrial motion brought by
either the defense or the prosecution-often both-to avoid witnesses'
memories being influenced, or contaminated, by the testimony of other
witnesses.

"All right, Ms.  Mackay," Judge Woods said.  "Are you prepared to make
your opening statement?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Proceed."

Kathryn put down the glass from which she had taken a quick sip of water
while the judge was Speaking and rose to face the jury.  This was her
battlefield.  In this battle, as in all her battles, Kathryn intended to
be the victor.  A prosecutor's case begins as a jumble of unintelligible
facts, bits and pieces of information, some relevant and some not.  Her
job was to mold that mass of information into a coherent presentation of
the truth that the jury would clearly understand.  This was their first
exposure to the facts.

She must tell them a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  She
must do it all in an hour or less.  And do it better than anyone else.

She looked around.  Except for one or two muted whispers among the
reporters and the soft sigh of the air conditioning, there was hardly a
sound in the courtroom.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," she said to the twelve men and
women sitting in the jury box and the three alternate jurors seated in
chairs in front of them.  They looked at her expectantly.

"I want to talk to you about AIDS," she said, and paused for effect.
"Acquired immune deficiency syndrome.  It is a disease caused by a
virus-the HIV virus-which cripples the body's immune system, depriving
it of its defenses against common ailments that unaffected people would
easily survive.  Once the HIV virus infects the body, the progression of
the disease toward its terminal stage is irreversible, remorseless, and
inevitable.  There is no vaccine.  There is no cure.  There is no hope.
For the victim, the prognosis and the future are always the same:
death."

The courtroom was perfectly still.  The emotive words Kathryn had just
spoken seemed to hover in the air.

"A year ago, the defendant, Richard Hudson, was diagnosed with AIDS. He,
of course, knew-because his doctors told him-that the disease from which
he was suffering was sexually transmitted, contagious, and deadly."

Kathryn spoke slowly and clearly, looking from one face to another,
careful to make eye contact with each individual and hold contact just
long enough that the juror felt he or she was being addressed directly,
but not so long as to cause discomfort.

"In spite of what he knew, shortly after he was told he had AIDS, he
began placing what are called I romance connection ads'-ads for people
searching for new companions in hopes of entering into long term
relationships-in a local tabloid, the Coastal Times."

Another pause.  This time, Kathryn consciously reminded herself, as she
always did, to convey a real story, so the jury understood that the
people involved were people like them, that the people who had been hurt
were people like them, and that it was because of that fact that people
like them must render judgment.

"The defendant met Victoria Mitten through one of the ads he had placed
in the Coastal Times.  They rendezvoused at a downtown coffee house and
several times after work for drinks.  He invited her to dinner at his
home.  Over drinks, he told her it had been years since he had had a
relationship with a woman, assured her she had nothing to fear because
he had recently tested negative for HIV in connection with outpatient
surgery.  They had unprotected sexual intercourse on a number of
occasions.  Then, one day, the defendant called her, and told her he had
AIDS.

She was shocked, astonished that he could have deliberately lied to her
about such a thing.  He told her it wasn't his fault she was stupid. She
asked him for help.  He told her she'd find it in the Yellow Pages and
hung up on her.  Within weeks, Victoria Mitten tested positive for HIV."

Kathryn glanced at the clock.  Don't rush it.  Plenty of time.  Every
eye in the courtroom was fixed on her.

"Jane Sorensen responded to a similar but differently worded ad.  She
agreed to meet the defendant for coffee, at the same coffee shop he and
Victoria Mitten had frequented.  Ms.  Sorensen was cautious: they met
exclusively at the coffee house, for more than a month, before she
agreed to join him for dinner at his home.  Up to this time, she still
had not revealed to him where she herself lived.  He told her, as he had
told Victoria Mitten before her, that he had not been intimate with a
woman for several years, and that in connection with a minor outpatient
surgical procedure, he had recently tested negative for HIV.

"Hudson had Jane Sorensen perform unprotected oral sex on him a number
of times.  Oral copulation was the only sexual activity they engaged in.
Soon after, as he had done with Victoria Mitten, Hudson unceremoniously
terminated the relationship, this time by letter informing Jane Sorensen
he had AIDS.

Four weeks later, and again four weeks after that, Jane Sorensen had
herself tested for the HIV virus.  Those tests were negative; she is not
yet HIV-positive.  Not yet- "

Just a'brief pause.  She did not need to overdo it; she could see the
jury was hanging on every word.

"Like the others, Marian Browning replied to an ad in the Coastal Times.
As with Victoria Mitten and Jane Sorensen, the defendant met her at the
Santa Rita Coffee Roasting Company on Mercado Street.

After they had dated a few times, going to the downtown movie theater,
he invited her to his home for dinner.  Not surprisingly, he told Marian
Browning the same kind of lies he had previously told to Jane and
Victoria.  He lied about his relationships, or lack of relationships,
with other women, and he lied about having tested negative for HIV.

"Repeating the pattern he had established with Victoria and Jane, he had
unprotected sexual intercourse with the unsuspecting Marian.  He
terminated his brief relationship with her exactly as he had with
Victoria and Jane, coldly, unfeelingly, and without the slightest trace
of sympathy.  Terrified, she had herself tested for HIV, and-" a tiny
pause "-the results of that test were positive: Marian Browning has been
infected with the HIV virus's As she stopped speaking, every eye in the
jury turned toward the defendant - He stared blankly ahead, swinging
slightly on his chair, as if what was being said had no relevance or
connection to him.

"Attempted murder of the second degree, ladies and gentlemen, is the
attempted unlawful killing of a human being as the proximate result of
an act involving a high degree of probability that it will result in
death, an act committed for a base, antisocial purpose, with wanton
disregard for human life."

Kathryn turned slightly so that she brought Richard Hudson into her
sightline.  She wanted the jury to be under no misapprehensions about
whom she was referring to.

"The defendant had unprotected sexual relations with Victoria Mitten,
Jane Sorensen, and Marian Browning fully aware of the fact that he had
AIDS.

The sexual acts in which Richard Hudson engaged each of these three
women involved a high degree of probability that they would result in
their deaths, and he committed those acts for a base, antisocial purpose
and with wanton disregard for the lives of Victoria Mitten, Jane
Sorensen, and Marian Browning."

Kathryn drew in a long, deep breath, her throat dry with tension.  She
walked away from the podium, over to the jury box, and stood before the
jury.

"This is the last time I will speak directly to you until the conclusion
of this trial.  During the trial, I in confine my communications to
witnesses, who will relate to you facts that will prove those matters I
have spoken to you about this morning.  At the conclusion of the trial,
I will ask you to find the defendant guilty of three counts of attempted
murder.  Thank you." As she turned and walked back to her chair, she
glanced surreptitiously at her watch: Fifty-eight minutes.

"Thank you, Ms.  Mackay," Judge Woods said.

"Does the defense wish to make an opening statement at this time?"

Martin Belker rose.  "May we approach, Your Honor?"

The judge signaled his assent, and Kathryn and Belker approached the
Bench.

"Before I answer, I need to consult with my client, Your Honor," Belker
said.  "I suggest I use the noon hour to meet with him and advise the
Court of our decision at the start of the afternoon session."

Judge Woods's annoyance showed, but he controlled it.  "All right,
Counsel," he snapped, waving Kathryn and Belker back to their tables.
"But be ready after noon recess.  Step back."

"We'll take our noon recess at this time," he announced, "and resume at
one-thirty.  I'll ask the jury to return at two o'clock in order that we
can handle a few housekeeping matters outside their presence."

He swiveled around to face the jury and regarded them gravely for a
moment.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please be mindful of the fact that at all times,
whether you are in the courtroom or out of it, it is your duty not to
discuss this case among yourselves, nor may you permit anyone to speak
to you about the case.  Further, I enjoin you at a times until the
matter is finally submitted to you by me, and you go into the jury room,
that you keep an open mind on all the issues of the case.  Thank you."
He rose and swept out in a flurry of black, and the bailiff led the jury
out of the courtroom.  Kathryn glanced at the clock: it was exactly
eleven-thirty.

"Good opening, Kathryn," Dave said as she sat down.  "Strong."

"Good to know," Kathryn said.  She felt limp, the way she always did in
the aftermath of an hour of such high tension.

"You want to get a bite to eat?"

"Thanks, Dave, not today," she replied.  "I need to go over some files,
and I've got a stack of phone messages to return.  I'll grab a Yoplait
in the cafeteria and eat in my office.  See you later."

Something in his eyes told her Dave had detected a strange tone in her
voice; all she could do was hope he'd write it off as trial stress.  He
nodded in agreement as they gathered up their files and headed out of
the courtroom into the waiting rabble of media people jostling to get to
phones or set up here-and-now news items and sound bites.

As she emerged from the courtroom, one or two of the reporters shouted
her name, but Kathryn shook her head and kept walking.

On October 1, 1995, as a result of the sensationalism surrounding the O.
J. Simpson trial, the California Supreme Court had issued the "trial
publicity rule." The spectacle of attorneys having daily press
conferences on the courtroom steps was now a thing of the past.  She had
already made her position clear to the media before the trial began: she
would state whatever was on the record, comment on the scheduling of the
trial, but otherwise no comment.  Quite apart from the fact that any
attorney who violated the rule would be subject to disciplinary action,
trying her case in front of the TV cameras was not her style, and the
reporters knew it.

And since there were no witnesses for them to pursue today, they were
just going to have to manage the best they could with what they had.

She shrugged.  Things were tough all over.

SUpERIOR COURT &

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1:25 P.M.

Kathryn had barely enough time to gulp down her tea, finish her yogurt,
and repair her makeup before dashing back through the atrium to Superior
Court Eight.  Judge Jesse Woods made almost a fetish out of being
punctual and demanded the same standards from everyone appearing in his
court.

The Courts Building was a single-story hollow rectangle, the courtrooms
and other offices forming a box within a box skirted by long, wide
corridors whose walls were lined with the same unfinished cedar paneling
as the courtrooms themselves.  Severe, uncushioned oak benches flanked
the entrances to each court, with more beneath the floor-to-ceiling
exterior windows.  Here attorneys and clients met, families sat
worrying, witnesses bit their nails, spectators checked the notice
boards, jurors awaited their summons.

"Hi, Kathryn."

"Hello again, Jack," Kathryn said, plopping her bulky briefcase and box
full of files on the table in front of him.  The smiling deputy's name
was actually Peter Kennedy, but everyone in law enforcement called him
Jack.  Seeing him triggered a flashback in her mind to a chilly night on
Shelter Island and the mutilated body of a young woman lying dead in the
dunes at the edge of the ocean.  Jack had been on duty at the crime
scene that night.  It seemed like a century ago.

"Hey,, sorry to hear what happened to Jim Field," he said.  "That
courtroom.  Jeez, what a mess."

She nodded quickly, not wanting to relive it, and slid through the
Magnascanner arch.  Alice Hernandez, the deputy manning it, smiled hello
but said nothing.

Same bailiffs this afternoon as this morning, Alice?" Kathryn asked her.

"Yeah.  Chris Taylor on the jury, Kennedy on the defendant, I'm on the
doors."

Superior Court Department Eight was a new, specially built courtroom in
which high-security cases were heard.  It was similar to yet different
from other courtrooms in the annex.  Its heavy double doors were steel
lined.  Spectators, press, and attorneys alle checked in through the
Magnascanner, a metal detector exactly like those at airport security
stations.

Briefcases, camera bags, and other items were handinspected by an armed
deputy.  On a chair to one side was a metal-detector wand ready to run
over anyone who tripped the Magnascanner.  Occasionally, a lawyer
complained about violation of privacy, but prosecutors, especially
Kathryn, felt the courtroom security was long overdue.

inside, the differences between Superior Eight and other courtrooms were
striking.  The basics were the same: variegated wood strip paneling,
twin light Oak counsel tables and swivel chairs, lectern facing the
jury, state and national flags behind the judge's wooden bench, carved
wooden Great Seal, the judge's highbacked leather chair, a Santa Rita
Land Title Company calendar on the wall.  A sectional bookcase was on
the right wall, the jury box on the left.

Protecting the judge's bench from a frontal attack loomed a
five-foot-high bulletproof plexiglass shield.

Similar armored shields protected the windows, the jury box, and the
witness stand.

Although Kathryn realized the shields were necessary and that they would
eventually-inevitably become standard in courtrooms everywhere, she
could not help but feel such protective measures made a mockery of
everything the law stood for.  They conjured up memories of the day last
year when her ex-husband, Emma's father, had been killed by a criminal
defendant in an L.A.  County courtroom shooting.  Judges and lawyers
practiced an increasingly dangerous profession; courtrooms could become
battlefields as some disgruntled litigant or desperate criminal vented
his impotence on the system with a weapon.

Or a bomb.

Martin Belker was already seated at the table to her right as she
entered the courtroom, his notes piled in front of him, the defendant
sitting unshackled beside him.  The jurors were not yet seated, nor was
the judge in the courtroom.  As soon as the lawyers had been admitted,
bailiffs allowed spectators and press into the seating area.  As Kathryn
put her files on the table, Dave Granz entered the courtroom and joined
her at the prosecution table.

"Did you get something to eat?" she asked with concern.  Dave often got
so engrossed in what he was doing that he forgot meals completely.

"No time," he said.  "I've been reviewing reports, trying to get up to
speed on this."

"It's complex," Kathryn said.  "The facts and the law.  There aren't any
precedents."

"I'll get there," Dave said grimly.  "But it isn't gonna be easy.
Especially now we're assigned to the task force as well."

"That's life in the DA's office." Kathryn grinned.

"Just one long round of pleasure."

She opened her briefcase and placed a yellow legal pad in front of her,
ready to take notes.  She knew Marty Belker would make an opening
statement for the defense; the business he had given the judge about
consultation with his client was just a ruse.  He had not wanted his
opening to follow immediately after her own, while her words were still
fresh in the jury's minds.

She looked up as Belker sauntered across toward her, a slight smile
hovering around his thin lips.

"I figure my opening will take about two hours," he said.  "Do you plan
to start with a witness this afternoon?"

"I doubt it, Marty," Kathryn said.  "If it's going to take you until
three-thirty or later for your opening, my guess is Woods won't want to
start hearing testimony until tomorrow.  But if he changes his mind and
wants to go late today, I'm ready.  My first witness is in the
Victim/Witness office."

Belker's lips moved into something between a smile and a sneer.
"Surprise, surprise," he said sourly.

"When was the last time you weren't ready?"

He turned and ambled back to counsel table, where Richard Hudson sat
wearing his usual vacant stare.

Belker leaned over and said something to him.  Hudson nodded and looked
at Kathryn as if she were a hunk of meat on a butcher's tray.  Now, for
the first time, she wondered how any of his victims had found him
attractive.

"All rise!"

Judge Woods took his place on the bench and directed bailiff Chris
Taylor to provide each of the jurors with paper and pencil.  It was an
unnecessary directive; Taylor was an experienced peace officer and was
perfectly able to take care of his duties without direction, but he
never presumed.  There was gentleness in his acquiescence, Kathryn
thought, but then learning forbearance was what bailiff duty was all
about.

If the judge needed more water in his decanter, he asked the bailiff. If
the jury wanted coffee during their deliberations, they asked the
bailiff.  Bailiffs were charged with the security of the defendant. They
called the next witness into the courtroom, watched over courtroom
security scanners, directed people to the rest rooms, patroled hallways,
and sat stone-faced in courtrooms.  Whether it was a senior citizen
asking nervously if the rays of the Magnascanner were radioactive or an
attorney challenging their right to search his briefcase, the bailiffs
had to deal with it, calmly, tactfully, and with dispatch.

After the paper and pencils were distributed, Judge Woods addressed
Belker.

"Counsel, are you prepared to give an opening statement, or do you wish
to waive?"

Belker stood.  "No, Your Honor.  The defense wishes to address the
jury."

"Very well.  Can you advise the court as to the length of your opening
statement?"

"No more than two hours, Your Honor." Belker glanced at the clock; it
was almost one forty-five.  "I should be finished no later than four
o'clock."

The judge nodded.  "Proceed, please, Mr.  Belker."

To a prosecutor as experienced as Kathryn, the line Belker took in his
opening statement was as predictable as summer fog on the central
California coast.

She had shown his client to be cruel, vindictive, uncaring.  His job was
to establish the opposite, laying a foundation for the line he was going
to use in Hudson's defense.  He began by painting a picture of Hudson as
a victim from an early age-an only child whose parents had been
religious zealots who forbade him to have friends of his own age and
systematically abused him physically and sexually.  Placed in a series
of foster homes by Child Protective Services, he had never had the
benefits of a normal home life.

"Yet in spite of these experiences, Richard Hudson determined to better
himself," Belker told the jury.

"He studied hard and graduated near the top of his high school class,
put the past behind him, and moved to California.  He worked by day in a
travel agency and attended college at night to learn computer science.
He was diligent and hardworking and moved up the ladder to the position
he holds now with one of the best-known computer assembly firms in
Silicon Valley.  He has never been in trouble of any kind, not so much
as a speeding violation.  In spite of the traumas he suffered in his
childhood, he became a hardworking, decent citizen, popular with his
colleagues, many of whom are convince   as am convinced, that he is a
blameless man wrongly and falsely accused by overzealous prosecutors."

There was a lot more in the same vein.  Emotional and outraged, he
scorned the State's case, which, he promised he would show them, was
comprised of nothing but unreasonable circumstantial evidence.

He indicted the prosecution as shameless puppets pandering to
hysterical, "politically correct" extremists who were looking not so
much for justice as for a dumping ground for society's guilt about a
disease it neither understood nor tolerated.

The fact of the matter, he told the jury, was that Richard Hudson was
not a criminal, and the State should be ashamed for victimizing rather
than helping him.  If the State were to spend half as much of its time
and money developing a cure for AIDS as it did persecuting AIDS victims
like his client, they could all go home.

"Thank you for your careful attention, ladies and gentlemen," Belker
concluded.  "I say again, Richard Hudson is not the criminal here, he is
a victim, as much a victim as the unfortunate women the District
Attorney will parade before you in a feeble attempt to subvert your
rightful sympathy for them into misguided antipathy toward him.  Richard
Hudson is the victim of an uncaring state with distorted financial
riorities; the victim of an insensitive but politically correct District
Attorney; the victim of the most insidious and terrifying disease ever
to afflict mankind.  Do not make him a victim of the judicial system as
well.  You must find my client not guilty at the end of this trial."

He sat down next to his client with a that-showedthem expression on his
face.  Not bad as defense openings go, Kathryn thought to herself.
Belker had been emotional and moving, but, like most defense attorneys,
he had steered clear of the facts.  Kathryn banked on there being little
fire behind the smoke screen.  She shivered slightly at the thought of
fire and smoke and wondered how Jim Field was getting along.  Maybe she
would be able to get up to the hospital to see him tonight.

It was exactly four o'clock.  As she had expected, Judge Woods adjourned
court immediately, following the usual admonishments to the jury not to
discuss the case with anyone.  Presentation of evidence would commence
tomorrow morning with testimony from the first prosecution witness, he
told them.

Kathryn quickly scooped up her files, her mind already going into Mom
Mode, as Dave called it.

Between now and the time she picked Emma up from school and dropped her
at her violin class, she would consciously shed the formal identity of
Kathryn Mackay, prosecutor, and adjust to being the mother of a
freckle-faced girl who asked far too many questions.

Oh, Em, she thought, I love you.

EsPANoLA.

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 7:15 P.m.

Kathryn stood at the stove using a wooden paddle to stir white cornmeal
in an unlined copper pot.  Emma sat at the kitchen counter immersed in
the homework spread out before her.  They had only been home a few
minutes.  In spite of her best intentions, Kathryn had been late
arriving and paid a penalty for picking up Emma late from day
care-again.  To say Emma had been unhappy was putting it mildly.

The phone rang, dispersing the slightly tense silence.  Kathryn let the
answering machine pick up the call, monitoring it without revealing her
own presence.  A glance showed Emma's face already wore a resigned
expression.  She knew only too well what evening phone calls meant.

"County Communications, Ms.  Mackay," a terse female voice said.  "We
have a possible homicide at 380 Cabrillo Avenue, Alameda Heights.  An
explosion and fire."

"Damn," she said, and quickly picked up the phone.  Emma rolled her eyes
heavenward.  "This is Kathryn Mackay, I'm here."

"SO requests you get to the scene as soon as possible.  Do you know how
long you'll be, so I can advise them?"

Kathryn was on permanent call for homicide investigations.  Though they
"belonged" to the police until charges were filed, she was present and
involved at their invitation to assist and advise on legal and
investigatory matters that might affect potential prosecution.

"Tell them I'm on my way now," Kathryn said.  "It should be no more than
fifteen minutes.  Would you notify Inspector Granz and ask him to meet
me there?"

She hardly heard the dispatcher's automatic "tenfour." Her mind had
already moved into overdrive.

Possible homicide, explosion and fire.  Explosion?

Bomb?  She picked up the phone again and called her friend Ruth Draper,
who lived on the floor below, to come up and stay with Emma.

"Has something bad happened again, Mom?"

Emma asked, a thread of fear in her voice.  She knew the answer before
she asked.

Kathryn nodded.  "Someone is dead, Em.  I have to go out for a while.
Ruth will be here in a couple of minutes.  She'll finish cooking the
polenta for you."

"But we just got home!" Emma protested.  "You said if I promised to try
for all A's, you'd help me with my homework.  It isn't fair.  Can't
someone else go?"

"I have to go, Em, you know that.  I'm sorry, sweetheart, but it's my
job, and I can't help it.  But I'll get home as soon as I can.  If it's
too late to help with your homework, we'll do it tomorrow morning, I
promise.  Be sure to take a shower and wash that beautiful face-only,
listen, don't scrub off any of those freckles or I won't recognize you."

The little joke evoked a grudging smile which Kathryn decided to read as
Emma's acceptance, and she headed for the bedroom to change out of her
sweats.  But her daughter wasn't too disappointed to miss an opportunity
like this.

"Mom," she called, "if I eat all my dinner and take my shower and do my
homework, can I have a Snickers ice cream bar for dessert?"

Kathryn shook her head ruefully.  Caught again, she thought.

"Okay, but only one," she agreed as she hastily put on a pair of jeans
and a shirt.  "Then, if you have time, you can watch TV with Ruth for a
little while before bed.  Brush your teeth after you eat, too, and don't
forget to give Sam some fresh water.  G'bye."

"Take care, Mom," Emma said, and blew her a kiss as she went out the
door on the run.  She'd told the dispatcher she'd be at Cabrillo Avenue
in fifteen minutes.

She made it in twelve.

ALAmEDA HEIGHTs.

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 7:35 P.m.

The crime scene was easy to find.  The strobe lights of the police cars
and fire engines lit up the sky as soon as she turned onto the avenue.
Even though each was different in its own way, at first sight every
crime scene appeared the same-the yellow taped cordon, the carelessly
parked patrol cars, the background squawking of police radios, the weary
cop telling curious neighbors to keep moving, the crime scene van
outside the house.  Here, however, fire hoses snaked across the street,
and firefighters in yellow slickers stood by.

A skinny deputy held up a hand to stop her as she approached.  The
nameplate above his pocket said CAREY.  He bent down to peer into the
car as Kathryn wound down the window.  When he saw Kathryn, he touched
the brim of his hat.  "Hi, Kathryn."

"Hi, Jeff," Kathryn said.  "Okay to park here?"

"Pull over to the right some," Carey said.  "Ought to be okay there."

Kathryn parked her Audi behind one of the green and white patrol cars
and got out.  The deputy lifted the yellow tape so she could duck under
it.  As she headed up the path, she saw Dave's Jeep pull to a stop
behind her Audi.  He hurried over to join her.

At first glance, the house looked unremarkable, a Victorian-style home
on a large lot.  But as they drew closer, they spotted a huge gaping
hole, part blasted, part burned through the roof, and black scorch marks
on the exterior siding.  Brittle shards of shattered window glass
glinted in the damp lawn.  Anybody in front of the window when that bomb
went off would have been skewered like shrimp on a barbecue.  The smell
of scorched brick and dark, wet smoke hung heavy in the air.

They followed the corridor of tape to the front door of the house.  The
curious faces of neighbors resembled ghosts with sunken eyes and black
lips in the flickering neon lights of the police and fire apparatus.

At the door, another deputy logged them in.  His nameplate said
PETERSEN.

"Hi, Carl," she said.  "Bad in there?"

Petersen made a face.  "I've seen some bad ones," he said grimly.  "But
this.  .  ." He shook his head sadly.  "Top of the stairs."

The acrid stink of still-warm soot, burned wood, and something else,
richer and sweeter, pervaded the house.  As she led the way up the
stairs, Kathryn realized what it was.  Suddenly, vividly, she recalled
the smell of roast pork and SUNDAY dinners when she was growing up in
Kansas City.

Detective Henry Chu came out of the bedroom as they reached the landing.
Short, solidly built, conservatively dressed, Henry was a fastidious
man, choosy about his clothes; he looked more like a CPA than an
investigator.  Soot flecks dotted his dark gray suit and marred the
otherwise spotless white shirt.  He didn't look so good.

"What have we got, Henry?" Dave asked.

"A mess," Chu said disgustedly.  "Take a look for yourself "

A criminalist who was carefully examining what was left of the bedding
looked up as they came in, then returned to his painstaking work.  The
routine rarely varied.  The crime scene was photographed, measured, and
diagrammed.  Investigators dusted for latent and patent impressions;
others collected trace evidence.  Hairs, semen stains, blood.  Nobody
hurried, nobody took shortcuts.  There were no second chances at a crime
scene.

The interior of the bedroom was a blackened ruin, every surface covered
with greasy soot.  The smell of cooking was a stink now.  On what was
left of a collapsed king-size bed lay the charred, spread-eagled figure
of a naked man.  His arms and legs were extended in an exaggerated X,
feet and hands tied to the bedposts.  Below the navel was a huge volcano
of charred tissue, a hole about eight inches across burned right through
the body, completely destroying the genitals.  The dead man's face was
frozen in a rictus of agony, eyes protruding visibly.  A froth of bloody
foam surrounded the gaping mouth.

"Jesus," Dave said involuntarily.  "What the hell happened here?"

"Looks like somebody tied the poor bastard up, put some kind of
incendiary device on his belly, lit the fuse, and then walked away," Chu
said, a thin trace of anger in his voice.  "I don't know what the hell
he used, but whatever it was, as it burned down through the body it
ignited the body fat-t 's we got so much soot-and then set the bed on
fire.  Flames touched off the ceiling, then the roof-fat burns really
hot.  Luckily, a neighbor smelled smoke and called 911."

"Luckily," Granz said bleakly.

"He's right," Kathryn said.  "If the house had burned down, all we'd
have would be a pile of carbon.

Have you made an ID?"

"The neighbor lady says a middle-aged guy named Patrick Hanlon lived
here by himself," Chu replied.

"Odds are that's who it is, but we'll need dental records or X-rays to
confirm."

"Has Doc Nelson examined the body?" Dave asked.

"Been here and left for the Hellhole," Chu said.

A long time ago, Morgan had unwarily referred to the high-tech morgue
complex that occupied the basement of County Hospital as the Hellhole.
The label had stuck; now there wasn't a cop in Santa Rita who ever
called it anything else.

"We'll catch up with him there," Dave said.  "You want a ride, Henry?"

The detective shook his head.  "I got to stick around until the meat
wagon gets here."

In a broken mirror that lay askew against one wall, Kathryn caught sight
of herself looking down at the ghastly thing on the bed and wondered how
many victims like this one she had seen-shot, strangled, stabbed,
burned, beaten to death.  She tried always to maintain an air of
professional dispassion at murder scenes, but she had never attended one
yet that did not move her to pity and anger.  You could let the pity
out; it helped mask the horror.  The anger she banked.

One day, someone would stand trial before her for this atrocity.  And
she would recall that anger and then and draw strength and conviction
from it.  She touched Dave's shoulder.

"Nothing we can do here now," she said.  "Let's go."

COUNTY MORGUE, SANTA RITA.

8:15 P.m.

After stopping off for a welcome cup of coffee, and to give the
coroner's deputies time to transport the body to County, Kathryn and
Dave headed for the morgue.

Morgan Nelson was waiting for them in the VIP room when they arrived.

"Hello, Katie," he said.  "Dave."

Morgan Nelson was the only person Kathryn knew who called her Katie.  In
his late fifties, tall, slightly stooped, with cropped gingery hair and
wire-rimmed granny glasses, he looked tired and irritable.  Hardly
surprising, Kathryn thought.  It was a rare day he didn't work fifteen
hours, and often-like tonight-it was more like eighteen.  The dead are
not helpful; moving their inert, leaden bodies was hard, punishing work.

"We got a confirmed ID on him yet, Doc?" Dave said, gesturing toward
what remained of Patrick Hanlon on the steel operating table.

"His X-rays and medical records were on file here at County.  Patrick
James Hanlon, forty-six, unmarried.  Industrial designer, office in
Espanola.  Family in the Westwood area of L.A.  Henry Chu is trying to
locate them."

"Chu told us they found signs of forced entry at the house," Kathryn
said.  "Did you find any contusions or bruising consistent with a
robbery?"

"I already told Henry, nothing overt," Nelson said.

"Of course, I won't be able to tell you for sure until I open him up."

"It doesn't make any sort of sense to me," Granz; said flatly.  "Robbers
don't use bombs."

"You have any idea what the thing might have been made of, Doc?" Kathryn
asked.

Nelson shrugged.  "I could make a guess.  Anything that generated such
intense heat would probably have been thermite-based.  We'll probably
never know what the carrier was, the fire destroyed everything.  But I'd
bet on it having been a fairly basic device, a simple ignition fuse,
and-zap."

"Big, bulky?" Kathryn asked.

"On the contrary," Morgan replied.  "Something you could carry
comfortably in your jacket pocket."

"What's troubling is the way he was tied up," Kathryn said.  "It's not
consistent with a home robbery or an interrupted burglary."

Nelson smiled appreciatively.  "I thought I was the only one who'd
noticed that," he said.  "Go on, Katie."

"The whole scenario suggests bondage to me rather than restraint,"
Kathryn said.

"Are you saying a sex partner tied him up?  And then offed him with a
bomb?" Dave asked.

"Short of duress, suggest some other way you could persuade a man to
allow himself to be tied to a bed naked like that," Nelson said.

"But why use a bomb?" Kathryn argued.  "Why kill him at all, come to
that?"

"There's a reason," Morgan said.  "We just don't know what it is yet.
Maybe whoever killed him was someone he knew."

Dave looked up sharply.  "Because?"

"Depending on how far the parties involved go, S&M can be dangerous,"
Morgan explained.  "So your partner has to be someone you trust
implicitly, someone you can rely on to stop the moment it becomes
unbearable."

"Hanlon7s neighbors said he lived alone.  S&M takes two: one to give
pain, the other to receive it," Kathryn observed.  "Which, if Morgan is
right, means his visitor was someone he knew.  Dave, would you have CSI
search for and seize- any address books, check his desktop for e-mail,
any forums he might have been using on the Net?  I'll get a warrant for
his phone and fax, credit card, and bank records.  If any safe deposit
boxes turn up, we'll search them."

Dave nodded, scribbling rapidly in his notebook.

"You said you already have his medical records, right, Doc?" he said.
"Okay, I'll run his rap and DMV and have CSI seize and search any
vehicles the printout turns up.  Maybe we'll get lucky."

Kathryn felt a wave of tiredness sweep over her.  As if he could read
her mind, Dave looked at her and lifted his chin.  Let's go.  She
nodded.

"When are you planning to do the autopsy on Hanlon, Doc?" Dave asked.

Nelson shrugged.  "All being well, THURSDAY.  If not, Friday.  You want
to sit in?"

"No," Kathryn said.  "But I think we'd better."

Dave walked Kathryn to her car, where he kissed her good night.

"Give Em a kiss for me when you get home," he instructed her.

"She'll be sound asleep by then," Kathryn lamented.

"That's okay.  Kiss her anyway.He watched until her taillights
disappeared down the curving driveway, then turned and walked back into
the hospital.  To his surprise, the first person he saw in the reception
area was Jim Field's wife, Rochelle.  A slim, athletic woman with a
cloud of dark brown hair framing a heart-shaped face, she was wearing a
single-breasted cotton blazer with wide-leg trousers.  Dark shadows
beneath her eyes hinted at sleepless nights.

"Hey, 'Chelle, I'm glad I bumped into you," he said, giving her a hug.
"I've been meaning to call.They had known each other a long time.  He'd
been an usher when she married Jim Field.  It was 1986, he recalled, the
year Tyson became heavyweight champion and Challenger blew up in that
cerulean Florida sky.  Where did the time go?

"I was just leaving," she said.  "I'll be back in the morning with the
kids."

"How is he tonight?" he asked.

Rochelle drew in a deep breath, held it, then exhaled.  "We were
planning a trip to Cleveland, it's Jim's hometown, did you know?  We
were going to stay with his sister and her family, take the kids to see
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Now..." She shrugged.

"You can still go.  He'll be out of here in a few days."

It I guess," she said, looking away, her wide brown eyes suddenly
tearful.  "He keeps saying he's finished, can't even zip up his own
pants."

Dave nodded.  He'd seen a few maimed cops, men who lost the use of an
arm or a leg, and knew from personal experience something about what was
going on in Jim's head.  The first reaction was always a sort of panic.
Everything was a mountain.  Simple functions you had never even given a
thought to-tying a shoelace, buttoning a shirt, opening a beer-suddenly
became major tasks requiring total concentration or, worse, asking for
help.  Other skills had to be relearned completely, like driving or
writing a letter.

Field was a good tennis player, a member of the Sheriffs Office Police
Olympics Shooting Team.  One of his stress releasers was lifting weights
at the spa.  All that would have to go on hold until he was fitted with
a prosthetic hand and learned how to use it.  And even then ...

"He's a cop, Dave.  He doesn't know how to be anything else."

"He's still a cop, always will be," Dave assured her.

"Look, I'll talk to him, okay?"

"I wish you would," she said fervently.  "I don't seem to be able to
give him the reassurance he needs right now.  I think it's something
only another man can talk to him about-another cop."

"You mind if I ask you a question, 'Chelle?  Did Jim ...  did he have
any enemies?  Anybody he ever mentioned to you?"

Rochelle looked bewildered.  "Enemies?"

"He hasn't been threatened?  No hate mail, crank phone calls?"

She shook her head.  "Nothing like that." Her eyes widened.  "You don't
think the bomb was intended for Jim, do you?"

"I don't think anything, 'Chelle.  I'm just running through the
possibilities, that's all."

"What are you saying, Dave, it might have been someone he put away in
the past?"

"That's possible, too.  We're checking through his old cases right now.
Defendants, inmates, parolees, even suspects in ongoing investigations."

"I know some of them were ...  bad people.  The ones he put in prison. I
still find it hard to believe any of them might have ...  done this."

"Someone did."

Rochelle Field shivered, as if a cold wind had touched her.

"You okay, 'Chelle?" Granz asked.  "Have you talked to anyone?"

Rochelle shook her head.  "I'm not one of those people who think you can
talk this kind of hurt away as if it were a headache, Dave.  But I'm
working my way through.  I'll be all right."

"Never doubted that."

"I heard on TV there was another bombing," Rochelle said.  "Any
connection?" She tilted her head in the direction of her husband's room.

"No reason to think so," Dave said.  "It was a different kind of thing.
An incendiary device."

"What makes someone do such a terrible thing?" she said fiercely.  "Such
a terrible, wasteful thing?"

"I wish I could tell you," Dave said.  "The fact is, there's no simple
reason.  This one is paying off a grudge, that one is making a protest,
or else it's some weirdo group that thinks it's the only way to get the
world to pay attention to their grievances."

"Why don't they bomb bad people, Dave?" Rochelle said fiercely.  "Why is
it always innocent people who get killed or maimed?  Dainnit, why
couldn't he have been an accountant or something?  Anything but a cop."

There was no answer to that.

"How are the kids handling it?" Dave asked.

"Tracy's fine.  A thing like this has no real significance to a
four-year-old.  It's just Daddy had an accident.  But Clark-" Clark was
six, nearly seven.  His dad was his idol.

Dave remembered visiting the Fields one time and saying something about
his airconditioner having broken down.  Little Clark, a fine-looking kid
with marmalade hair and bright brown eyes, tugged at his sleeve.

"My dad will show you how to fix it, Dave," he said, adding proudly, "My
dad can fix anything."

"If you think it would help, I could maybe drop in SUNDAY.  You know,
talk to him."

"He'd like that.  You're one of his heroes.  And he knows you and Jim
are buddies."

"Chelle, I have an early morning," Dave said.  "I better go in and see
Jim."

Rochelle nodded her understanding.  "Thank you, Dave," she said, her
face serious.  "I appreciate you doing all this."

"See you SUNDAY," he said.

Jim Field's room was like hospital rooms everywhere, with the usual
sterile steel and Naugahyde furniture, the same tautly made bed, the
electronic monitors, the saline drip suspended on its F-shaped stand.
Field lifted his head as Dave came in.  His face was blank, unreadable.
There was no welcome in his eyes.

"How are you, Jim?" Granz said.

Field made an impatient sound.  "Me?  Never felt better.  Losing a hand
has put a whole new gloss on my life."

"Jim, this isn't the end of the world.  They have prostheses today that
look like the real-"

"Cut the bullshit, Dave," Field rasped.  "It's bad enough having to lie
here thinking about all the things I won't be able to do anymore without
you coming on like some fucking Little Mary Sunshine."

"Look, you got a tough break," Dave said.  "But tough breaks go with the
territory.  Nobody knows that better than me."

He gestured toward the scars that ran down the left side of his face.
Field's face was immediately contrite.

"Aw, shit, I'm sorry, Dave.  It's just ...  I keep thinking, is this
what I worked my butt off for all those years, to end up in a back room
filing reports?  I don't even know if I can do that.  What if they
retire me on a disability?  I don't know how to do anything but be a
cop."

"They're not waiting to get rid of you.  They want to know when you're
getting off your butt and coming back to work."

"Yeah, tell me about it.  And while you're at it, tell me how I'll be
able to play catch with my son.  Jesus, Dave, I don't know what the hell
I'm gonna do or how I'm gonna do it.  I just keep thinking, why me?  Why
the fuck did it have to be me?"

"Think of it another way," Granz told him quietly.

You could be dead."

"Lemme tell you, I wanted to be," Field said bitterly.  "At first, I
just wanted to die, to not have to face it or think about it.  I just
lay here with the same question going through my mind, over and over and
over: Why me?  Why the hell did I have to pick up that stupid, fucking
package?"

"Kathryn said it was addressed to Belker."

"Right," Field said.  "Just his name.  'Personal attention Mr.  Martin
Belker."

"How was it sealed, do you remember?"

"I already told the bomb team all this.  Brown paper, Scotch tape."

"Light, heavy?"

"Like a videotape.  That would be, what, half a pound?"

"And you've got no idea how long it had been there."

Field shrugged.  "It was there when we came in, but, you know, the
courtroom had probably been unlocked for almost an hour.  Anybody
could've walked in there and left it.  My best guess would be someone
who knew the courtroom was unlocked about nine, waited till the bailiff
went for coffee or to the john.

Wouldn't have taken more than a few seconds."

"When are they letting you out of here?"

"Couple of days, they said.  What's happening on the Hudson case?"

"I've been assigned to take your place.  As of this morning, we're back
in trial.  In fact, I oughta be reviewing reports right now.  Gonna be a
long night."

Field nodded.  "Go ahead, g'wan, get outta here.

I'm okay."

As Dave turned to go, Field abruptly asked, "Why do we do it, Dave?  Why
do cops like us go out there every day of the week and put their lives
on the line?

And keep on doing it?"

"You mean you don't know, or you want to hear what I think?"

"You ...  you nearly got killed.  Yet you're back on the street."

"It's what I do," Dave said.  "It's what I'm good at."

"Is that enough?"

"Maybe there's more to it.  Maybe it's because we can feel good about
ourselves out there.  It's simple.

We know who the good guys are, we know who the bad guys are, and we're
doing what we can to balance the books."

"I wish I could be so ...  certain."

"The only thing I'm certain about is that I'm not certain about
anything," Dave said.  "Look, Jim, I gotta go.  Anything you need?"

"Keep an eye on 'Chelle for me, will you, Dave?

And the kids?  Make sure they're okay.  Especially Clark."

"Sure," Granz said.  "And listen, I'll be back.  I need to pick your
brains so I can get up to speed on Hudson by the time Kathryn needs it."

"Anytime," Field said.

His manner had all at once become lethargic, and Dave remembered his own
hospitalization, the conflicting emotions, the abysses of depression,
the way you looked forward to your visitors arriving and ended up being
glad to see them go.

"Hang in there," he said.  If Field noticed him leaving, he gave no sign
of it.

SUPERIOR COURT & WEDNESDAy, JUNE 21, 10:00 A.m.

After requesting a brief sidebar before testimony commenced, Kathryn
asked Judge Woods to order the media not to film, photograph, or
identify on TV or in print the victims about to testify before the jury.

"Y our Honor!" Marty Belker protested.  "This is grossly unfair.  The
media have already filmed my client and identified him by name.  These
women-" Judge Woods held up a silencing hand.  "Victims deserve this
court's protection, Mr.  Belker," he said.  "Ms.  Mackay has a valid
argument.  Justice will be in no way better served by their being
submitted to that kind of an ordeal.  I'm going to rule in Ms. Mackay's
favor and issue an order prohibiting such coverage."

Belker scowled and slouched back to his seat.  It wasn't that he had
lost anything, Kathryn thought.  He just hated her winning.  She
returned to her table as Chris Taylor brought in her first witness,
Victoria Mitten, only half listening as court clerk Cathy Radina swore
in the witness.

swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
help you God?" the clerk droned.

"I do," Victoria Mitten said.  About medium height, she wore a simple
black jacket over a light yellow blouse, and a long black skirt.  Her
very white skin, long straight black hair, dark eyes, and full lips made
her otherwise plain face oddly exotic.  She sat in the witness chair as
directed by the court clerk and fidgeted nervously.

"State your name and spell your last name, please."

"Victoria Mitten, M-i-t-t-e-n."

As Judge Woods looked expectantly toward the prosecution table, Kathryn
rose and strode purposefully to the far end of the jury box.  It was
crucial that the jury hear what the victim said, and that she appear to
speak directly to them.  The goal of good direct examination was to
explain the facts to the jury clearly and simply, telling a story from
beginning to end.  During a trial, Kathryn became a storyteller, her
witnesses the pages and chapters of her book.

"Are you married, Victoria?"

The young woman shook her head.  "I live alone.  It used to be my
mother's house."

"How old are you?" Kathryn asked.

"Twenty-eight."

"Would it be correct to say that you have never had a long-term romantic
relationship?"

Victoria Mitten nodded.  "I ...  my mother was disabled.  I took care of
her.  It didn't leave much time for ...  other things."

"Your mother died recently?"

"In January of this year."

"And would I be right in saying that it was after your mother died,"
Kathryn said, "that you started reading romance connection ads?"

"I was so lonely with Mother gone.  I had very few real friends.  And it
seemed ...  safe enough."

"Is this the advertisement you replied to, Victoria?" Kathryn said,
handing her a newspaper identified as People's Exhibit 5.  one with the
red ring around it?"

Victoria Mitten reached into her purse and brought out a pair of reading
glasses.  She put them on, looked at the newspaper, and nodded.  "That's
it."

"Victoria, would you read the ad out loud for the jury, please-" During
direct examination, the witness became the central character in the
story that was being told.  The accomplished prosecutor orchestrated,
emphasized, and punctuated, but remained always in the background.

"Are you twenty-five to thirty, looking for romance, kindness, fun,
adventurer " Victoria Mitten read in a clear voice." 'Sweet nothings at
unexpected times, and support when you need it?  Reply with photograph
to Box PZ2245."

"Was this the first ad you had ever replied to?"

"Yes."

,What was there about this particular ad that attracted you?"

"I thought ...  it was the last part.  Support when you need it?  It
sounded so sincere.  Like whoever placed it would be a real caring
person."

"So you replied to the ad.  How, exactly?"

"I wrote a note to the box number and included my first name and
telephone number.  I didn't put my last name in the note, and I have an
unlisted number.  I figured that was a safe thing to do."

"I see.  Then what happened?"

"I got a telephone call a couple of days later."

Victoria Mitten kept her eyes fixed on Kathryn.  She had not looked at
the defendant since seating herself in the witness chair.  "From him.
From Richard Hudson."

"Victoria, would you please identify Richard Hudson for the jury."

Almost painfully, Victoria Mitten looked directly at Hudson for the
first time and pointed to him.

"Him.  There."

"Let the record indicate that the witness has identified the defendant,
Richard Hudson," Kathryn requested.  From now on, Kathryn would never
refer to Richard Hudson by name, but only as "the defendant."

"So ordered," replied Judge Woods.

Kathryn returned her attention to the witness.  "So the defendant called
you.  Then what happened, Victoria?"

"He-Richard Hudson-suggested we meet at the Santa Rita Coffee Roasting
Company on Mercado one evening."

"And you agreed."

"That's right." The look on her face left no doubt she wished she had
never done so.

"And after you met him there, what happened?"

"I thought he was very nice.  Polite, pleasant.  I thought he ...  he
was a gentleman." She blushed.

"We talked about all sorts of things.  TV shows we liked.  Books,
movies.  He drove me home.  We decided to meet again a few nights later.
We went to a place in Espanola for pizza and beer."

"What did the defendant tell you about himself, Ms.  Mitten?"

"He said he worked as a systems analyst at a computer assembly firm over
the Hill," she replied.

"By 'over the Hill,' you mean Silicon Valley?"

"Yes.  I'm sorry.  Outside San Jose."

"That's okay, no need to apologize.  You're doing fine.  Did he tell you
anything else about himself"

"He told me he had been married but was now divorced and there were no
children.  He said the reason he placed the ad was he was tired of being
alone but the idea of going to singles bars was repulsive to him.  He
seemed shy, so it made sense to me.  He wanted to meet a nice woman and,
you know, have a more stable relationship."

"And you agreed to see him again?"

She nodded.  "I met him again a couple of times, weekdays after I got
off work.  I thought he was ... you know, attractive.  Intelligent.  He
said he really liked being with me.  He said I was fun."

"Did your relationship with the defendant undergo a change at some
point?" Kathryn asked.

"Yes.  is "In what way?"

"He invited me to dinner at his home."

"Did you accept?"

"Yes, I wanted to go.  I wanted to see where he lived.

And ...  I really liked him."

"At that time, did you believe you had fallen in love with the
defendant?" Kathryn kept her voice gentle but insistent.

Victoria Mitten looked up at the ceiling, blinking away tears.  She
swallowed and then nodded her head, taking off her glasses and fumbling
them back into her purse.

"Yes," she replied almost inaudibly.

"Victoria, I know this is difficult for you, but can you speak a little
louder, please, so the jury can hear you?" Kathryn urged the witness.

Louder, "Yes."

"Tell us what happened the first night you went to the defendant's home
for dinner."

"I went to his condominium, up in Mission Heights.  It was nicely
furnished, books, music on the CD.  It was very clean and neat.  I
didn't know men kept their homes so clean." The remark brought an
audible chuckle from everyone in the courtroom.  "We drank champagne. We
had a lovely meal-crab, brie, and French bread.  He said it was his
favorite for special occasions."

"Did the defendant suggest making love?"

"After dinner, we sat on the sofa.  We were kissing and, you know.  He
said I was very sexy, he wanted to touch me all over with no clothes on.
I .  .  .  wanted to.

I had no real ...  experience with men.  But I knew ...  I told him he
had to use a condom."

"You suggested he use a condom?"

"Yes.  I knew it was dangerous not to." Her voice caught as she spoke.

"Victoria, this is very important," Kathryn said gently.  "You asked him
to use a condom, but he refused?"

Victoria Mitten shook her head.  "No, it wasn't ...

he didn't refuse, exactly.  He said it wasn't an issue.

He was very intense, very sincere.  He told me I was the first woman he
had been serious about for years.

"I've lived like a monk," he said.  I remember we laughed.  And then he
said, 'Victoria, if you're worried about AIDS, don't be.  Trust me,
there's nothing to be afraid of.  I had minor surgery a couple of months
ago, and I tested negative."

"And what happened then?"

"We drank more wine, and talked some more.  And then we ...  we ... made
love.

"Where, exactly, did you make love?"

Victoria Mitten's face flushed.  "Right there on his sofa in the living
room."

"I see.  And, once more-did the defendant use a condom?"

"No, he did not."

"Was that the only occasion on which you had sexual intercourse with the
defendant?"

"No.  We were seeing each other twice a week.  He always wanted to ...
to do it."

"How long did this go on?"

"Three weeks."

"And then what happened?"

"I came home from work one day, and..  .  I was making some tea.  The
phone rang.  It was him, Richard."

She looked up at the ceiling again, her throat working.

"Take your time, Victoria," Kathryn said softly.  "I know this must be
very distressing for you."

Victoria Mitten took a little handkerchief out of her purse and blew her
nose.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"There's no need for you to be sorry about any thing, Victoria," Kathryn
said firmly, putting emphasis on the personal pronoun.  "What did the
defendant say when he called you that evening?"

The jurors looked expectantly toward the witness, who cleared her throat
before speaking.

"He just said, 'I'm calling to tell you I've got AIDS.

You'd better get yourself a blood test." Kathryn heard one or two of the
jurors gasp and saw them cast surreptitious glances at the defendant,
who stared impassively at Victoria Mitten.  She turned back to the young
woman on the stand.

"And what did you say, Victoria?"

"I didn't know what to say.  I was stunned.  I couldn't believe what he
was saying.  But ...  I said, 'You must have known.  How could you lie
to me about something like that?"

"And he said?"

"He said, 'It's not my fault you're stupid."

"He said it wasn't his fault you were stupid?"

Kathryn repeated, looking at the jury.  "And what did you say?"

"I said, 'I have to see you, I have to talk to you." He said he didn't
want to see me again, ever.  I said, 'I need you to help me."

"You asked the defendant to help you.  What was his reply?"

"He told me to try the Yellow Pages and hung up."

Once again, Kathryn heard the jury's hushed gasp of shock.

"Did you try to contact the defendant again?" she asked.

"I tried to call him a dozen times, but I always got his answering
machine.  I went to his condo.  I don't know if he was home or not, but
he never answered the door."

"And what was your state of mind after you received that call and were
unable to contact the defendant?"

"I was afraid, I was frantic, I didn't know what to do, who to turn to.
I felt so ...  hopeless.  I cried for a week.  I couldn't believe what
he had told me was true."

"And then what did you do?"

"I called my doctor.  He said there was a new test called OraSure that
can determine if the antibodies to the HIV virus are in your saliva.  He
said it wasn't as accurate as a blood test, but it would tell me whether
or not I needed one."

"And did you submit to an OraSure test?"

Victoria Mitten nodded meekly.  "Yes."

"And what was the result?" Kathryn knew the answer to this question, and
so did the jury, but they must hear it from Victoria Mitten herself.

"It was positive."

"By positive, do you mean the test indicated the presence of HIV virus
in your saliva?"

"Yes."

There was a profound silence in the courtroom now.  No one moved.

"Then what happened?"

Victoria Mitten's eyes were teary.  "My doctor arranged for me to have a
blood test.  I got the results a few days later.  I am HIV-positive."

Kathryn allowed Victoria Mitten's words to hang in the silent air for a
long, long moment.  Behind her, someone in the jury box sighed audibly.

"Thank you, Victoria," she said.  She looked up at the judge.  "I have
no more questions for this witness at this time, Your Honor."

"Mr.  Belker?" Woods said.

"Thank you, Your Honor," Belker said.  He remained seated for a long,
considered moment.  Then he stood, putting his hands on both sides of
his face and looking thoughtfully at the floor as he walked across
toward the witness stand.  Kathryn, who had seen it many times, knew it
was a rehearsed pose.  But, of course, the jury did not.  To them,
Belker appeared to be a man concentrating deeply on what he was about to
say.  Which was precisely the impression he wished to give them.

"Ms.  Mitten," he said, "I have only a few questions, but they're
important ones.  Please let me know if you don't understand my questions
and I'll repeat them for you.  All right?"

"Yes, sir," Victoria Mitten said.  She shifted perceptibly in her seat.

"Now, Ms.  Mitten, you said you have never had a long-term romantic
relationship with a member of the opposite sex, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Never?"

"No, sir, never.  My mother-"

"Ms.  Mitten, you don't need to explain your answers.  If you can answer
my questions with a simple yes or no, please do so.  If I need an
explanation, I'll ask.  Now, have you ever had sexual intercourse with a
man besides Mr.  Hudson?"

"Objection, Your Honor!  Irrelevant!" Kathryn was on her feet instantly.

Woods frowned, looking from her to Belker and then back again.
"Approach," he commanded.

Kathryn and Belker approached the judge's bench.

"Where is this going, Mr.  Belker?" he asked in a hushed voice so the
jury could not hear.

"Your Honor, the State alleges my client deliberately infected the
witness with the AIDS virus.  Surely we are entitled to establish
whether she has had sex gig perhaps unprotected sex-with other men.

Kathryn demurred.  "Your Honor, the People have charged the defendant
with attempted murder.  Defense counsel knows full well that whether or
not his client actually infected her isn't relevant.  The prosecution
doesn't have to prove successful completion of the offense in an
attempted murder.  It is sufficient we prove he knowingly tried to
infect her."

Woods's frown deepened.  "Thank you for that lesson on criminal law, Ms.
Mackay, but I'm going to allow it.  Step back," he ordered, waving them
away.

"Objection overruled," he announced.  "Go ahead, Mr.  Belker."

Belker nodded and turned to face the witness again.

"Would you like me to repeat the question, Ms. Mitten?" he said.

"I can't.  .  ." The young woman's hands fluttered in front of her.  She
cast an agonized look at Kathryn.

"Answer the question, Ms.  Mitten," the judge odered, not unkindly.

"I'll ask you again," Belker said, clearly unabashed.

"Is Richard Hudson the only man with whom you ever had sexual
intercourse?"

"No."

"There were others?"

"Yes.

"How many others?"

"A boy in high school.  And one other."

"When was this ...  other relationship?"

"Two ...  no, three years ago."

"Three years ago, you had sexual intercourse with a man, Ms.  Mitten?"

"I ...  yes.  Yes."

"When you engaged in sexual intercourse with Mr. Hudson, you said you
asked him to use a condom, is that correct?"

Kathryn shook her head, letting her vexation show.

Changing topics abruptly was a shopworn defense tactic, intended to
confuse the witness.  The trouble was, it often proved effective.

"Yes, sir."

"And what, exactly, did he say when you asked him to put on a condom
before you had sex?  Did he say no?"

"I ...  I don't remember exactly what he said ...

his exact words.  But he told me it wasn't necessary, that he wasn't
HIV-positive."

The witness was clearly uncomfortable with this subject, and Belker saw
it.

"And you believed him?" Belker let his disbelief show.  "Did you insist
that he wear a condom?  Did you ask him more than once?"

Kathryn stood.  "Objection, Your Honor.  Counsel has asked the witness
several questions.  Which one does he want her to answer?"

"I'll rephrase my question, Your Honor," Belker interjected smoothly
before the judge could sustain the objection.  His point was already
made.  "Now, Ms.  Mitten, were you aware at the time you had sex with
Mr.  Hudson that HIV-AIDS-can be spread by unprotected sex?"

The witness stammered.  "Yes, but.  .  .

"Please, just answer the questions yes or no, if possible." Kathryn
could see Belker felt he was making considerable headway with this line
of questioning, and enjoying his success.  "So, although you were aware
of the risk of contracting HIV-AIDS-from unprotected sex at the time you
engaged in intercourse with Mr.  Hudson, you still chose to engage in
sexual relations with him not once but several times without using a
condom, is that correct?"

"You don't understand.  He was very insistent, very domineering, and I-"
"Thank you," he interrupted, cutting her off.  "Did you ever ask him
again to put on a condom before having sex?"

"No.  I could see it made him angry.  We never discussed it again."

"Did you ever discuss condom use with your other sexual partners, what
was it you said, in high school and two or three years ago?" Belker
queried, switching subjects again.

"No, we never ...  I never.  .

"Okay.  So, on numerous other occasions you assumed the risk of
contracting HIV by engaging in unprotected sex, just as you did with my
client.  Is that correct?"

"Objection!" Kathryn jumped to her feet.  "If defense counsel is going
to ask and answer the questions, he doesn't need a witness."

"Sorry, Your Honor."

There was no contrition in his words; Belker was not sorry, and his
suppressed smile of triumph showed it.  He turned ceremoniously and
walked back to counsel table, picked up his notes, and perused them,
brow furrowed, flipping pages for a full minute.

Kathryn knew this was an elaborate show for the jury's sake.  Belker
knew exactly where he was heading.  He walked back and stood directly in
front of the witness.

"Only a few more questions, Ms.  Mitten.  Now think carefully before you
answer, please.  Are you absolutely certain that it was you who brought
up the subject of condom use before you engaged in sexual intercourse
with Mr.  Hudson?  Given your prior sexual escapades .  .  ."

"Your Honor!" Kathryn was on her feet again.

"Sorry, Your Honor." Again, Belker was clearly not sorry.  "Given that
you never even discussed the use of condoms in your previous sexual
relationships, much less insisted on them, isn't it possible that it was
Mr. Hudson who supmested that he use a condom, and you who were too
eager for sex to wait?"

Astonished by the question, Victoria Mitten stared at Belker, unable to
reply.  Kathryn rose to object, but Judge Woods raised his hand as if
fending her off.

"Overruled," he said before she could speak.  "Answer the question, Ms.
Mitten."

"It's possible.  I don't remember for sure." Victoria Mitten's voice was
scarcely more than a whisper.

Martin Belker spoke more kindly this time.  "Ms. Mitten, you need to
speak up so everyone can hear.  I ask you again, isn't it possible it
was Richard Hudson who suggested using a condom on that first occasion
when you had sex, and you who were so eager to have sex that you chose
not to use one?"

There was absolute silence.  Every eye in the court room was fixed on
Victoria Mitten, every ear awaiting her reply.

"It's possible, but I don't think so," she replied, this time loud
enough for everyone to hear.

"Nothing further, Your Honor." Belker turned and slowly walked back to
his table, shaking his head in sad disbelief as a buzz of whispered
speculation mounted in the courtroom.  Kathryn was already on her feet.
What was needed now was some damage control.

"Redirect, Ms.  Mackay?" Judge Woods smiled, since the answer was
obvious.

"Victoria, you told the jury you had a relationship with another man two
or three years ago," Kathryn said.  "Do you believe it could have been
he who infected you with HIV?"

"No, it couldn't have been him," she replied, grateful for the chance to
explain.

"Please tell the court why."

"Objection, calls for a conclusion," Belker said.

"I'll rephrase it," Kathryn said.  "How long did that relationship last,
Victoria?"

"It was ...  it happened just the one time.  In the summer of '93."

"Can you tell us who the man was, Victoria?"

"He was a friend of my mother's." Embarrassment reduced her voice to a
near whisper, but it was audible to everyone.

"How old was he?"

"Do I have to say?" she asked.  The judge assured her she did.  "He was
fifty-nine.  His wife and my mother were friends."

"Did he ever tell you how long he'd been married?"

"Yes.  He said thirty-five years."

"And in the summer of '93, what happened?"

"His wife died.  He came to see my mother and me, to tell us.  My mother
was in herself He was so sad."

She shook her head slightly.  "So very sad."

"Your Honor," Belker protested.  "May we ask where all this is going?"

"Ms.  Mackay?" Judge Woods said.  "I take it you are going to make a
point here?"

"Just ' a couple more questions, Your Honor," Kathryn said.  "Now,
Victoria, do you remember a specific occasion when this man came to your
house?"

"Yes.  He was very upset, and I felt sorry for him.

He was crying.  About Alice.  About his wife.  I didn't think, just put
my arms around him, rocked him like a baby.  Then it ...  started to
become something else.

And I thought, it doesn't matter.  I let it happen.  It was just ...
consolation, really."

"Did it ever happen again?"

"No."

"So your only other sexual experience in the last ten years-apart from
your relationship with the defendant-was the one you have just told us
about, with a man who had been happily married to one woman for more
than thirty years."

"Yes."

"Thank you, Victoria.  No further questions."

"Mr.  Belker?" the judge said.

Belker shook his head.  "No questions," he said.

"The witness is excused," Judge Woods said.  "You may step down, Ms.
Mitten."

As Victoria left the stand, he looked up at the clock and nodded.

"It's eleven forty-four," he said.  "I think we'll adjourn for lunch.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, remember my admonition not to discuss
this case with anyone or with each other.  Court will reconvene at two."

"All rise!" the bailiff shouted.

As Judge Woods retired to chambers, the corps of reporters in the
courtroom erupted in a scrimmage of noise and movement, crowding the
doorway and shoving each other in their haste to get outside to their
microphones and cameras, to transmit their sound bites and updates to a
waiting world.  Kathryn ignored the ruckus and went across to where
Victoria Mitten sat on the witness stand, staring dully at the floor.
She looked up as Kathryn approached, tears in her eyes.

"Victoria, I'm sorry," Kathryn said, taking her hand.  "I know that was
difficult for you."

"It's not your fault.  You prepared me for him," Victoria said, shaking
her head.  "It's just ...  I didn't expect it ...  him to be so ...
horrible."

"Would you like some tea?" Kathryn said.  "We could go down to the-"
Victoria shook her head vehemently.  "I just want to go," she said.  "I
just want to get a long way away from here."

"There's a car waiting to take you home," Kathryn told her.  "Inspector
Granz will go with you, get you past the reporters.  You'll be fine."

I hope, she thought as Dave led the young woman out of the courtroom.
She looked across the room at Marty Belker.  He felt her glance and
grinned maliciously, light blanking the glass of his spectacles.  A few
minutes later, Dave Granz came back in.

"You want to grab a sandwich?" he said.  "Hey, you look angry."

"It's nothing," Kathryn told him, shrugging off her irritation.  "Yes, a
sandwich sounds good.  Your treat, right?"

Dave grinned and shook his head admiringly.  "You never quit, do you?"
he said.

"No," Kathryn replied.  "Never."

She was looking at Marty Belker as she said it.

The light fixture over the table had three adjustable sockets, allowing
the triple hundred-watt bulbs to rotate and point in any direction. They
were presently adjusted to illuminate all parts of the room in a hard,
brilliant white light.  The harsh glare of the spot lamps picked out
highlights on the bottles lying on the table.

Raw materials for the delayfuse were already laid out neatly.  A few
preparatory tasks needed to be completed first.

"You're so clever, " Angel said "No, " he replied "It's simple.

And it was, bomb making was so simple.  It didn't require a degree in
chemistry to construct one; a child of ten could do it.  Well, maybe not
a child of ten, but it was no problem if you were careful and reasonably
intelligent.  The care and intelligence were in the execution.  Angel
smiled at the double entendre.

"Will he suffer?" -Oh, Yes, " he replied "I can guarantee that.

People might see what was happening to these victims only as a
particularly bizarre revenge, but it was much more than that.  They had
all betrayed the gifts of beauty and gratification Angel had brought
them.  They had sullied something beautiful, thing irreplaceable, and
they must pay.  That was from thee real reason for the bombs.  It was a
cleansing, afire to consume and cauterize.

This one was for Peter, whose imagination the Marquis de Sade would have
admired.  Peter with his clamps and hot needles, gagged and bound, body
wet with sweat, arching with welcomed pain, gasping with explosive
relief at the end.  The adjective triggered another small smile.  Angel
had a wicked sense of humor.

"You have to be quiet now,"

" he told Angel, "V have to concentrate." He hated to be harsh, but it
was getting more and more difficult to make Angel leave him alone.  He
waited until his mind was clear, until he could no longer hear Angel's
voice.  Then he began.

First, sulfuric acid The only ingredient necessary was car battery acid,
concentrated by boiling it in a grays oven bowl-Pyrex mixing bowly were
perfect.

Then you set it aside to cool, taking care not to slop any On Your skin
or to inhale the deadly fumes, The lights were hot.  Careful not to
sweat into the mixturg- sweat is sally, and salt water would create
deadly chlorine gas.

"Next, use Potassium chloride and ordinary granulated sugar to make
sugar chlorate.  All you needed to do it was some boiling water.

"You're brilliant, " Angel told him.  "Brilliant. "It's easy." he said.
"Now hush.  You have to be quiet, "

Next, roll a tube from a square of cardboard, just large enough to fit
around a small glass jar with a lid.

Tape the sides and one end closed, pour the sugar chlorate crystals into
the tube, then set it to one side to dry.

Now, drill a hole through the lid of the jar.  Cut a rubber disc from an
old bicycle inner tube that will fit snugly inside the lid.  Check that
the seal is reliable, put in the sulfuric acid, cap tightly, then
carefully wash the outside of the jar to ensure there is no acid residue
that might injure your hands.

Vbih, the delay fuse.

"Tell me what you're going to do, " Angel begged.

"Tell me what will happen.  When the time comes, place the tube
containing the sugar chlorate crystals over the incendiary device itself
Start the delay fuse by turning the jar of acid upside down and sliding
it into the tube.  After a time- if the inner tube was thick enough, it
would take ten, maybe fifteen minutes- the acid would eat through the
rubber disc and ignite the sugar chlorate, which would in turn ignite
the incendiary device beneath it.

Ten, fifteen minutes, endless eons of unbearable fear.

And then.   .

"Adios, mi amor," Angel whispered

SUPERIOR COURT 8.

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 9:50 A.m.

"How strong is Sorensen?" Dave asked.

He sat to Kathryn Mackay's right at the prosecution table in Superior
Court Department Eight.  Kathryn's files and trial notes were on the
table in front of her.

As before, Martin Belker and the defendant, Richard Hudson, were seated
at the defense table to their right, to the judge's left as he presided
from his elevated position in front of the courtroom.

Today, Hudson's clothes were again informally casual.  As usual, Belker
was dressed conservatively, except for the Bruno Magli loafers.  Shoes
were his big indulgence.  He had once told Kathryn he had more than a
hundred pairs, and she'd sensed he was miffed when she wasn't impressed.

"She's pretty solid," Kathryn replied.  "I've worked with her like I did
with Victoria, prepped her for direct and cross.  We've gone over the
areas of her testimony where she's most apt to get upset or angry.  I
can only hope she doesn't let Belker get to her."

"It's always a crap shoot," said Dave.

Kathryn nodded in agreement.

She glanced up at the clock.  Court was about to convene.  Taylor led
the jurors in and waited while they took their places before coming to
his desk behind the jury box.  As he passed counsel table, Kathryn noted
there were dark shadows beneath his eyes as if he hadn't slept well. The
sergeant's exam was just days away, Kathryn thought to herself, or maybe
it was a new girlfriend.  She vaguely recalled that Taylor was still
single and lived with an aunt someplace.

With the jurors settled into their seats, the door behind and to the
left of the bench opened as Bailiff Chris Taylor shouted, "All rise!"
Judge Woods swept in.  Their flowing robes and grave demeanor always
gave judges the appearance of making a spectacular entrance, as in the
theater; they never simply came in.

All part of the pomp and circumstance.  Kathryn loved it.

"Ready or not," Kathryn whispered, as much to herself as to Dave.  "Here
we go."

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," the judge said briskly to the
jurors.

He looked next to the defendant, then at Martin Belker, then finally at
Kathryn.

"The record should reflect the defendant, Richard Hudson, is present
with his attorney, as is the district attorney." A nod to Kathryn, which
brought her to her feet.  "Your next witness, Ms.  Mackay?"

"The People call Jane Sorensen, Your Honor," said Kathryn.  Heads turned
as Dave Granz escorted the witness into the courtroom from the outside
corridor and directed her to the witness stand.

Jane Sorensen was blond, petite, and pretty, with blue eyes and a deep
tan.  She wore a dark blue trouser suit and cameo earrings, a necklace
pendant, and two very thin gold bangles on her right arm.  In repose,
her face appeared composed and confident.  She swore her oath, stated
and spelled her name, then glanced a trifle apprehensively at the jury.

"Good morning, Ms.  Sorensen," Kathryn said as she moved toward the rear
of the jury box.  "May I call you Jane?"

"Yes, thank you, I prefer that."

One of the surest ways to put a witness at ease was to use her first
name.  By dealing with it up front, she could further alleviate the
nervousness.

"Okay, Jane.  You look a little nervous.  Are you?"

"A little," the young woman said, her mouth turning up at the sides when
she smiled.

"There's nothing to be nervous about," Kathryn said.  "Just answer my
questions and tell the truth.

Now, where do you live, Jane?"

"I have an apartment in Mountain View."

"And what do you do for a living?"

"I'n an editor with a publishing house in San Jose.

We publish self-help books, cookbooks, travel guides."

"Are you married?"

"My husband and I were divorced in April last year."

"Do you mind telling us why?"

"He ...  it was another woman."

"How long had you been married?"

"Eight years."

"Children?"

"No.

"Have you been seeing anyone since your divorce?"

Jane Sorensen shook her head.  "No.  After my husband walked out on me,
I was pretty low.  I needed o ...  work on my self-esteem.  That was why
I thought ...  why I began reading the romance connection ads.  I
couldn't bear the thought of singles bars or blind dates."

"Was that how you met Richard Hudson?"

"Yes."

"Which paper did the ad appear in, Jane?" Kathryn asked.

"The Coastal Times.  I don't usually read it, but that's where those ads
are."

She was obviously embarrassed.  To put it mildly, the Coastal Times was
a rag.  Kathryn handed her a folded copy of the paper, premarked as a
people's exhibit.

"Is this the ad, Jane?"

Jane Sorensen glanced at the ad, which was highlighted in yellow, and
nodded.  "It is."

"Read it aloud to the jury, please."

"Honest above all, and looking for a kindred soul, I I .  am easy-going
and intelligent.  If you share these attributes and are between
twenty-five and thirty-: ive, please respond with photograph."

"And did you respond?"

"Yes," Jane replied.  "I wrote to the box number in the paper, enclosing
my phone number and first name as the ad stipulated."

"Then what happened?"

"He-Richard Hudson-telephoned me, and we arranged to meet."

"Please identify Richard Hudson to the jury," Kathryn directed her.

"He's seated over there." Jane pointed toward the defense table.

"Your Honor," said Kathryn, "may the record reflect that Ms.  Sorensen
has identified the defendant?"

"It will so reflect," said Woods.

"So, you arranged to meet.  When was that?" asked Kathryn.

"It was on Wednesday, September fourth of last year," Jane Sorensen
said.  "We met at seven-thirty P.M.  at the Santa Rita Coffee Roasting
Company on Mercado Street."

"And then?"

"When I sat down, the first thing he said was, 'I am now going to utter
the most boring sentence in the world.  My name is Richard Hudson, and I
work in computers." It was pretty corny, but it broke the ice."

"Go on."

"He seemed likable, well adjusted, a good personality.  It turned out we
were the same age, thirty-three, and both from Texas.  I told him about
my divorce, and he said he knew how I felt, his wife had cheated on him.
Like me, he had no children.  We both agreed the singles scene was a
pretty gruesome way to meet people.  I liked his sense of humor.  We
talked all evening.  It was amusing, it was friendly, it was relaxed."

"Did you decide to see each other again?"

"Yes, we had a date about a week later.  Afterwards, he told me it was
the best evening he'd had in a long time, he really enjoyed being with
me.  It made me feel ...  special.  I guess I was pretty silly."

"Did you see him again after that?"

Jane Sorensen's chin lifted slightly.  "Yes.  I wasn't desperate, you
understand.  But he kept calling, and I thought, why not?  So he would
come by and meet me after work.  We'd go to a movie or a concert.
Something simple."

"How long did this go on?"

"Four or five weeks."

"And then what happened?"

"He asked me if I would like to see where he lived.

Maybe have dinner at his place.  I said yes.  I wanted to know more
about him."

"Were you attracted to the defendant at that time?"

"Yes, very." Jane Sorensen looked across at Richard Hudson.  "He
was-he's a good-looking man.

Intelligent.  We seemed to have so much in common."

"Did you eventually go to his home?"

"Yes, I did."

"And where did he live, Jane?"

"In Mission Heights on Lassaigne Drive.  His condo was on the second
floor.  It had a beautiful view.  He had champagne on ice and soft
classical music on the stereo.  He asked me if I liked seafood; he'd
cooked scallops.  It was wonderful; he's a good cook."

"Then what happened?" Kathryn prompted.

She knew the next part was going to be tough on both of them.  Tough for
her to get the answers she wanted, even tougher on Jane Sorensen to give
them.

"We talked and laughed a lot, and I helped him with the dishes.  His
place was so clean.  He said he hated clutter, like it was a big thing.
Before I realized it, it was ten o'clock.  It was a weeknight, and I
knew I should go home, but he persuaded me to sit down on the sofa for a
few minutes to talk.  Then we, you know, we started kissing, and .  . ."

"I know this is embarrassing, Jane," Kathryn said witness hesitated. She
kept her voice sympabut encouraging.  "And I wouldn't ask you if it
weren't important.  But we need to know exactly what happened.  It went
a lot further than kissing, didn't it?"

Two high spots of color became visible on Jane Sorensen's cheeks as she
replied.  "It just went on and on, and then we both had most of our
clothes off, and he said why not spend the night with him," she said.

"He said we were both adults, and anyway I shouldn't drive after
drinking so much wine.  He was ...  not demanding, exactly, but
forceful.  Like only someone stupid would say no to a simple thing like
that."

"So did you spend the night with him?"

"No.  I told him I couldn't stay.  I didn't want to, Ms. Mackay.  I
hadn't slept with a man since my husband."

Jane Sorensen appealed to Kathryn with her eyes, pleading not to be
asked the next question.  But Kathryn knew there was no way to spare
her.

"You didn't stay the night.  But did you have sex with the defendant
that evening?"

Jane Sorensen locked her fingers together and looked down at them as she
spoke.  "Yes.  Well, not ...

exactly.  He wanted to, but I ...  he was so insistent, almost angry
about it, as if I was being childish.  That was the first time I saw the
other side to his character.

I sensed a rage burning deep down inside him, and it frightened me a
little, so I agreed, provided he used a condom.  He told me he didn't
have one.  I said in that case I wouldn't ...  I wouldn't do it without
a condom, and he pushed ...  I'm sorry, 1-1 can't, I'm sorry."

Kathryn's heart went out to the young woman in front of her, but she
could not let her avoid the issue: it was imperative the jury hear the
entire story from the witness herself.

"Jane?  Jane, it's all right," she said encouragingly.

"We're almost finished.  Just tell us exactly what happened."

Jane waited a few moments, then took a deep breath and squared her
shoulders.

"He said, 'Come on, damnit,' something like that, and then he just sort
of ...  pushed my head into his lap with his hand on my neck, and I
couldn't get ...  I was just ...  I did it, oral sex.  When he ...  when
we finished, he just stared at the ceiling as if I wasn't even there
anymore.  So I went into the bathroom and got dressed."

"I know this sounds like a ridiculous question, but I have to ask
you-did the defendant wear a condom when he had you perform oral sex on
him?"

There were one or two snickers from spectators in the well of the
courtroom.  She ignored them.

Jane Sorensen shook her head.  "No, of course not."

"What happened when you came out of the bathroom?"

"He hadn't moved.  I was embarrassed.  I didn't know what to say.  Then
he said, 'You going nowT I said something about it being late and I had
to go.  I got my purse, and then he came to the door with me.

He took me in his arms.  Suddenly he was so-caring.

He said, 'Listen, in case you're worrying, don't, that was safe sex." I
asked him what he meant.  He said, 'I had a small cyst removed three
months ago, and took a blood test.  I was negative for HIV." He showed
me the scar on his shoulder.  Then we kissed good night, and I drove
home."

"Did you see the defendant again?"

"Just twice more, that weekend.  Both times at his place."

"And did you have sex on both those occasions?"

"The same as the first time."

"The defendant had you perform oral sex on him?"

"I was ...  I sensed an anger in him.  I thought at the time it was
because I'd refused to sleep with him.

But now I realize it was deeper than that, a kind of resentment.  As if
he had a right to use my body any way he wanted to."

"You mean you were afraid?"

"Not afraid.  It's hard to explain.  He had a way of making me feel
guilty for not gratifying him somehow."

"I see.  Did the defendant have you perform unprotected oral sex on him
both times?" Kathryn asked.

"Yes." Jane nodded.

"Now, Jane, I'm sorry if this embarrasses you, but I must know if the
defendant ejaculated in your mouth.

Did he?"

Jane waited a long moment before answering the question.  She drew in a
deep breath and exhaled.

"Yes, he did."

"You're absolutely certain?"

Jane Sorensen looked surprised, then realized what Kathryn was asking
her.  "Of course I'm certain.  My husband and I ...  yes."

Kathryn paused for a moment to let the witness compose herself, then
asked another question.  "Why did you stop seeing the defendant, Jane?"

"On the Tuesday following that last weekend, I got a letter from Richard
Hudson.  He sent it to my P.O. box.  I hadn't told him where I lived."

"Is this the letter?" Kathryn handed a folded sheet to Jane Sorensen
marked as a people's exhibit.  She glanced at it and nodded.

"Yes, that's the letter."

"Would you read it to the jury, please?"

"Dear Jane," the witness read.  "I have decided not to see you anymore.
Please don't write or call." She looked up.  "It's signed, "Richard."
And there's a P.S.: 'I think you should know I have AIDS."

"Thank you, Jane," Kathryn said, taking the letter from her.  "How did
you feel when you received this?"

"I was devastated," Jane Sorensen said.  "I felt as if I'd been opened
up and everything inside me had been ripped out.  I tried to call him,
but all I got was an answering machine that said he was out of town.  I
went to his condo a few times, but he was never home.

Eventually, I gave up trying to get in touch with him."

"Then what did you do?"

"I called the AIDS 800 help line number, and they referred me to a
clinic where I could have a blood test."

"Did you take a blood test?" asked Kathryn.

"Not right away.  I picked up a brochure from the lobby and took it
home.  But when I read that the HIV virus can be transmitted even by
oral copulation, I got scared and went back for a test."

"What were the results?"

"Negative.  I didn't have the HIV virus.  But they told me more than
ninety percent of people who are infected with the AIDS virus won't test
positive for at least three months after exposure.  So I waited another
three months and had my blood tested again at the same clinic.  I'm
still negative."

"And how did you feel about what the defendant did to you?"

"I'm still afraid, and I'm angry he put me at such risk!" Jane Sorensen
said fiercely, glaring at the defendant as she said it.

"Thank you, Jane," Kathryn said.  "No further questions."

As she returned to her seat, Judge Woods nodded at Martin Belker.  He
rose and walked empty-handed to the witness chair, a scowl on his face
that announced he did not intend to treat Jane Sorensen as considerately
as he had treated the previous witness.

"Ms.  Sorensen," he began, his voice sharp, "you said you refused to
engage in sexual intercourse with the defendant unless he wore a condom,
is that correct?"

"That's right."

"Is that what you said to him?  Did you say, 'If you don't wear a
condom, I won't have sex with you'?  Did you call it a condom, or did
you refer to it as a rubber'?"

"What difference does it make?" Jane Sorensen was clearly not
intimidated by Belker's hostile manner.  "I told him he had to wear one,
but he said he didn't even own any."

"I'll ask the questions, Ms.  Sorensen," Belker snapped maliciously.
"Again, did you refer to it as a condom' or a 'rubber'?

"I don't remember."

"I see.

"Ms.  Sorensen, it's common knowledge that there is a risk of
contracting HIV from unprotected oral sex, isn't that true?" asked
Belker.

Kathryn leaped to her feet.

"Sidebar, Your Honor!"

She was headed for the bench before the judge could respond.  Belker had
no choice but to join her there.

"Your Honor, the witness isn't an expert on HIV," Kathryn protested
sotto voce.  "She isn't qualified to answer the question."

"She doesn't have to be an expert to testify on matters of common
knowledge," Belker argued.

"I'm inclined to agree, Ms.  Mackay," Woods said.

"But be very careful, Mr.  Belker.  Step back, please."

As both lawyers returned to their tables, Judge Woods turned to the
witness.

"Did you understand the question, Ms.  Sorensen?"

"Could I have it read back, Your Honor?"

Kathryn concealed a smile; she had prepared her witness well.

"Withdrawn.  I'll ask the witness another question," Belker said
smoothly, anxious to regain control of his cross.  "You were aware there
was some risk involved with oral sex, right, Ms.  Sorensen?"

Jane Sorensen took a moment to think about her answer.

"I knew there might be a small risk, I suppose.  I'm not sure."

"You knew there was a risk even before you picked up those brochures at
the clinic, didn't you?"

"I suppose so."

"How?  How did you know this before you read those pamphlets, Ms.
Sorensen?"

She shrugged, reluctant to answer.  "I just knew.  I guess everyone
knows, don't they?"

"And yet in spite of knowing it's possible to contract HIV through oral
copulation, you performed oral sex on Mr.  Hudson not once but on three
separate occasions." Belker pounced.  "Three times, isn't that correct?"

If looks could have killed, Kathryn thought, watching her witness's
face, Martin Belker would already be owl bait.

"Yes," Jane snapped.  "I told you he was ...  very insistent."

"Really, Ms.  Sorensen, you're not trying to tell us you did.  this
under duress, are you?"

"Not exactly," Jane said.  "But-"

"No more questions for this witness, Your Honor," Belker snapped,
cutting off whatever she might have been going to say.  He smiled
triumphantly at the jury, wheeled around, and headed back to the defense
table.  Judge Woods looked over at Kathryn and then ostentatiously at
the clock.

"Ms.  Mackay, anything more?"

"No, thank you, Your Honor," Kathryn said.  "No further questions."

"The witness is excused," Judge Woods said.  "You may step down, Ms.
Sorensen.  And we'll recess at this point.  Court will reconvene
tomorrow morning at ten o'clock.  The jury is again reminded of its
obligations not to discuss the case among themselves or with anyone
else."

"Not so good," Kathryn observed, rising to her feet as the judge left
for his chambers.

Dave touched Kathryn's arm gently.  "Like I said, a crap shoot."

He stood up.

"As soon as I get your witness into a car, I'm going to go upstairs to
the SO, see if anything's breaking on the bomb investigation," he said.
"Can you go with me?"

Kathryn shook her head.  "I'm leaving now to pick up Emma.  I promised
her I'd pick her up early for a change."

Dave nodded.  "Okay.  See you later in the Hellhole, right?"

"Be still, my heart," Kathryn said.

COUNTY MORGUE.

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 10:00 P.m.

At ten at night, the reception area of County Hospital was empty.  Apart
from a couple of drunks who'd gotten into a fight and were being patched
up under the eyes of a bored cop in the emergency room, nothing was
happening, and, barring an outbreak of small-hours violence, it would
probably remain that way for the rest of the night.

"You okay, Kathryn?" Dave asked as the elevator lumbered down toward the
basement complex Morgan Nelson had dubbed the Hellhole.  It was an apt
if irreverent moniker: over the years, thousands of poor souls had been
dispatched to the big sleep from here, many of them probably headed for
the destination for which the complex was nicknamed.  "You didn't say a
word all the way up here."

"I guess I'm just not in the mood for this tonight," she said, wrinkling
her nose.  The elevator doors rolled back, and the chilled air and
familiar all-pervasive antiseptic death odors of the morgue assailed her
nostrils.  No matter how many times she came here, Kathryn never quite
escaped her sense of being an intruder in an alien environment.  The
place had a familiar but not quite identifiable ambience, redolent of
the red-tiled corridors of the city swimming pool she remembered from
her Kansas City childhood, an odor somewhere between chlorinated water
and Lysot, the air flat and inert, the neutral-colored walls slightly
slick, as if coated with a film of moisture or something even more
unpleasant.

"Aw, come on, Kathryn," Dave chided her with a grin.  "What are you
trying to do, spoil my fun?"

"I'd have liked to get home before Emma goes to bed for a change, that's
all," Kathryn said, realizing it probably sounded like a whine but
unable not to say it.

The largest of the three autopsy suites was to their right as they
exited the elevator.  In addition to the usu at scales, steel lockers,
sinks, sluices, and soundproofed booths for dictating notes, it
contained three fully equipped stainless steel operating tables. Further
down the corridor on the right was what Morgan called the VIP room, used
for cases requiring special or extended study.  Directly across the hall
from the VIP room was the isolation suite, which was used for the
examination of advanced decomposition cases or those where infectious
diseases were present.  Fitted with high-powered extraction fans to
siphon out harmful gases and direct them to an incinerator, it always
conjured up gruesome associations that put a chill into Kathryn's blood.

At the end of the corridor, next to the huge cold storage room where
bodies were kept after autopsy, was the staging room where, after being
prepped and photographed, bodies were put on gurnies and taken to the
designated autopsy suite.  Inside, air conditioning maintained the
temperature at a level that had earned the suite the name "Siberia."
Walking into it was not unlike walking into a deep freeze, except that
spending a few hours in a deep freeze was a lot more fun.

"At least we're not in court tomorrow," Dave said.

"Did I hear you say something to Hal about coming in late?"

"I have to stop off in town," Kathryn said, without elaborating.
Tomorrow morning she was scheduled for her mammogram and ultrasound. And
maybe that's really what's bothering me, she thought.  With the thought
of all that awaiting her, watching Morgan Nelson dissect an incinerated
cadaver wouldn't have been her first choice of things to do tonight.

Morgan's cramped office was empty; one of the deputy coroners, Les
Dougherty, told them Nelson was waiting for them in the VIP room.  They
hurried down the corridor past the staff meeting room and a larger room
that contained the X-ray and photo processing facility, record storage
shelves, and rows of jars containing specimens of vital organs from each
autopsied body.

Morgan lifted a hand in salute as they came into the VIP room.  He was
wearing a green surgical robe and a face mask, and his lab pants were
tucked into pale green rubber boots.  The legend "Santa Rita Co.
Coroner" in untidy capitals was printed in laundryproof pen on the left
breast pocket.  His eyes glinted mischievously behind the gold-framed
granny glasses.

He seemed to be in a good mood.

"I was just about to start without you," he said cheerfully.  "You're
late."

"We got hung up downtown, Doc." Dave grunted, hitching one hip on a tall
stool in the corner of the room.  "And I didn't think the guest of honor
would mind.waiting."

Nelson grinned.  "He's got all the time in the world," he said.  "I'm
the one in a hurry."

He adjusted the rake of the shining table so the cockroach-shiny body of
the bomb victim lay tilted feet-down toward the sinks and constantly
flowing water.  On a bench to one side lay one large knife and the
series of smaller ones that would be used for various procedures during
the autopsy.  Morgan picked up one of the knives and started to whet it
on sharpening paper.  Kathryn had seen him do it a hundred times or
more, but somehow tonight the sibilant sound raised goose bumps on her
skin.

"Anything new on the courtroom bomb?" Morgan asked.

"That's what held us up," Kathryn said.  "We met with Purington.  He
says DOJ identified the components."

"And?" Nelson said.

"Pretty much what you predicted," Dave said.  "A kitchen-table job.  How
they can figure it out from what CSI scraped up in that courtroom beats
the hell out of me."

"They put all the fragments gathered at the sceneeverything, no matter
how microscopic-through a gas chromatograph spectrograph," Morgan
explained.

"It separates each element of the mixture into its individual
components.  Those components are then identified by comparison of their
mass spectra with known explosives.  What they're looking for are
taggants."

"Taggants?"

"A taggant is a microscopic chip, color-coded with eight or nine
pigmented layers.  Basically an identifier designed to survive the
explosion.  It's a government requirement that all commercial explosives
manufacturers not only include them during manufacture but report the
code used and the purchasers of each batch to the National Explosives
Tracing Center.  Your average half-pound of dynamite will contain around
two thousand taggants.  If an investigator can come up with enough
taggants at the crime scene, he can contact the NETC and identify the
plant, the date of manufacture, and who it was purchased by."

"But in this case ...  ?"

"With a kitchen-table job as opposed to a commercial explosive, there
wouldn't be any taggants," Morgan said. "Kitchen-table devices are
usually made from ordinary, everyday ingredients, not commercial
explosives."

"Purington says it was probably some kind of homemade plastic explosive
in a pressure-tight container, maybe a length of copper tubing sealed at
both ends to maximize decomposition," said Kathryn.

"They're trying to ID the type of pipe used.  He says they can sometimes
even determine its manufacturer from the fragments."

"Sometimes," Morgan said.  "But not by any means always.  How was it
detonated?"

"A simple clothespin device," Kathryn said.  "You open up a clothespin,
wind copper wire around each of the jaws, put a piece of wood or
polystyrene between the jaws to hold them open.  One wire to your
battery, the other to the initiator.  Link the battery and the
initiator.  When the package is opened or jarred in movement, the wood
falls out of the peg, the jaws snap shut, and-boom."

"Everything homemade," Dave said.  "Even the box it came in.  Purington
says whoever put that thing together was either lucky as hell or sure
knew how to cover his tracks.  And George doesn't believe much in luck."

"Do they have any leads on who the bomb was intended for?"

"Right now they're concentrating on Belker's clients," Kathryn said.
"He's won and lost his share of cases.  Considering the caliber of his
clientele, there are probably plenty of defendants and victims out there
with a grudge against him."

"Checking lists," Dave growled impatiently.  "You want the truth, we're
chasing shadows, Doc.  We don't have a lead worth a damn."

Morgan shrugged.  "Goes like that sometimes," he said.  "You know my
motto: 'Attempt the end and never stand to doubt, nothing's so hard but
search will find it out." Robert Herrick, 1591 to 1674."

"I'll pass that along to George Purington." Dave grinned.

"What about this guy, Doc?" Kathryn asked, with a gesture toward the
body on the table.  "Any similarities between the courtroom bomb and the
one that killed Hanlon?"

Morgan looked up sharply.  "Why?  Do you have some reason for thinking
there might be a connection between the two cases?"

"Two bombings within days of each other sounds like more than a
coincidence.  And you know me, I'm a skeptic."

"Well, that might change things.  Let's make sure we're all on the same
page," Nelson said.  "The device that blew Jim Field's hand off was a
bomb.  Primitive, maybe, but still a bomb.  And as far as we know, Field
wasn't the intended victim.  Our friend Hanlon here, on the other hand,
was quite deliberately killed by someone who tied him to a bed and
ignited an incendiary device on his body.  To my un-detectivelike eye,
the modus operandi is completely different."

"What kind of incendiary device?" asked Dave.

"From chemical traces I found on the body, it looks as if it was a
length of bicycle inner tube filled with a mixture of thermite,
magnesium, and iron."

"I've seen fire victims before, but I never saw anything do that much
damage to a body," Dave observed.  "It must have burned hotter than
hell."

"Hell probably isn't as hot," Morgan said grimly.

"Thermite-it's a mixture of powdered aluminum and iron oxide-generates
enough heat to melt most metals.  You've heard of them using thermic
lances to cut open safes." He gestured at the body of Patrick Hanlon on
the table.  "You can see what it does to the human body."

He tossed each of them a lab coat and a paper envelope containing a face
mask, which they put on.

Besides the mess made by bodily fluids that would soon be released from
their corporeal wrappings, there was always the risk of infection from
TB, hepatitis, or HIV.  Kathryn positioned herself on a stool next to
Dave and tried to watch dispassionately as Morgan unhurriedly began his
examination.

"What do you two know about burn degrees?"

"You mean like first degree, second degree, third degree?" Kathryn said.

"The scale was first formalized by a Frenchman called Guillaume
Dupuytren, chief surgeon o the Hotel Dieu in Paris.  He recognized six
degrees of burns.  Later his six groups were merged into three by an
Austrian dermatologist named Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, whose
classification was adopted.  Burns like these, with gross destruction of
subcutaneous tissue and muscle, even bone, third degree on the Hebra
scale, would have been sixth on the Dupuytren.

I expect to find the air passages acutely engorged and significant
amounts of mucus and soot in the trachea, respiratory tract, and lungs."

"Meaning what?" Kathryn asked.

Nelson didn't look up from his work.  "Meaning he was alive and
breathing while the incendiary device was consuming his body.  He could
hear it, feel it, and smell it.  Until he lost consciousness, at least."

"Jesus," Dave breathed.

"What are those cuts on his legs and torso, Morgan?" Kathryn asked.
"They look like they could be wounds."

"No, they're heat ruptures, Katie," Nelson explained.  "Produced by a
splitting of the soft parts as in cooking.  Which is pretty much what
happened to this poor guy.  He cooked in his own fat."

"Morgan, let me just back up a minute," Kathryn said thoughtfully.  "The
incendiary mixture you just mentioned that was used-thermite, magnesium,
iron filings.  It's not something just anyone would know, is it?
Wouldn't whoever did this need some kind of special knowledge?"

Morgan shook his head.  "Afraid not, Katie.  Any third-year high school
chemistry student could probably come up with the formula.  No special
knowledge required.  Okay, let's get started .  .  ."

Grunting with effort, Nelson carved a giant Y onto the trunk of the body
on the table, beginning at each shoulder and meeting at the gaping hole
in the belly.

The crisp burned flesh crackled as he sliced through it, charred pieces
breaking away to fall onto the table.

Next he peeled away the V of chest flesh from the upper incisions and
folded it back across the dead man's face.  A small rivulet of black
blood wormed down the dead man's cheekbone and formed a pool in his left
ear.

Grabbing each of the two flaps left by the long belly incision, pulling
and cutting simultaneously, Morgan separated the flesh from the ribcage
and peeled it back.

"You might want to step back a bit while I do this," he muttered as he
switched on the miniature buzz saw he used to separate the sternum and
for the two side cuts needed to remove the ribs.  Flakes of incinerated
flesh rose in the still air and fell back onto the body like strange
black snow.  As he stepped back, the glistening, closely packed interior
organs were fully revealed.

"Okay, now we can see exactly what happened here," Morgan said.  "See
how the center of the abdominal injury is roughly equidistant between
the shaft of the penis and the umbilicus?  The question I kept asking
myself was, if he knew what it was, why didn't this guy do something? He
could lift his backside, twist from side to side.  Why didn't he try to
shake the damned thing off"

"Okay, why not?" Kathryn said.

"Because he knew it wouldn't make any difference."

"How do you know?"

"I ran some tests," Morgan said.  "Found microscopic traces of
cyanoacrylate in the cavity.  Superglue to YOU."

"You mean the device was glued to his body?  He couldn't shake it off!?"

"Exactly."

"Jesus H.  Christ, Doc, are you saying he just had to lie there and
watch the damn fuse burning down?"

Dave exclaimed.  "What kind of animal does that to another human being?"

"Someone who hated him very much indeed," Morgan said quietly.  "Someone
who wanted him to suffer very badly.  Not just while he was lying there
waiting for the thing to ignite, but also after it did.  It would have
taken several minutes to burn through the epidermis and subcutaneous fat
and then down through to the abdominal aorta and the iliac arteries to
kill him."

"Damn," Dave breathed.  "So he wasn't just alive he was awake and
watching when his own body caught fire?"

Nelson nodded.  "You saw the bloody froth around the mouth.  That
suggests to me we'll find that his larynx is ruptured.  From screaming."

There was a little silence.  The grisly blackened thing on the table had
once been a living man.  It needed little imagination to picture what
its last few minutes on earth must have been like.

"Morgan, is there any question at all in your mind that this man died
from any cause other than the bomb-the incendiary device?" Kathryn
asked.

"None whatsoever," Nelson said.  "Look at him.

Unless there's a bullet in his brain or a pint of prussic acid in what's
left of his kidneys, a ten-year-old kid could tell you what killed him.
Even his innards are cooked."

"Then if it's all the same to you, I'm going to call it a night,"
Kathryn said.  "Dave, why don't you stay and keep Morgan company?"

"Hell, no need for that," Morgan said.  "Autopsying a body burned as
badly as this one is a long job.  You have to dissect right down to the
bones.  It'll be three or four A.m.  before I get through."

"You going to sleep here?" Although she knew Morgan frequently crashed
out on a cot in his office, Kathryn had never really gotten used to the
idea.

"Sure." Morgan grinned.  "That time of night, I'm a lot safer in here
with the corpses than I would be out on the street."

"You may be right at that." Dave grinned.  "Okay, I'll pick up your
protocol sometime tomorrow afternoon if that's okay with you."

"I'll put a priority sticker on it," Morgan promised.

"Drive safely."

The air outside felt warm and friendly after the chill of the autopsy
suite.  There was practically no traffic, and the freeway heading south
was almost empty.  A thin mist rolled in off the ocean, drifting across
the highway like wraiths, and the road signs loomed up and then
disappeared into it like ghostly galleons on some still sea.  It was a
while before Dave broke the silence.

"What's wrong, Kathryn?" he asked her.

"Wrong?" she said, and heard her own voice.  Too bright, damnit, she
thought.

"I never saw you quit on an autopsy before," Dave said.  "Ever."

"It wasn't the autopsy, Dave," she said.

"What, then?"

She shook her head.  "Not now," she said.  "Just ... let it rest, okay?"

She wanted to tell him, but somewhere in her heart she knew this was not
the right moment.  She reached out and touched his arm with her right
hand.

"Bear with me, Dave, please.  I've got a lot on my mind."

"You mean the trial?"

She shook her head again and did not reply.  Dave shrugged and looked
out the window.

"You know," he said quietly, "this is the first time you ever held out
on me, Kathryn."

Again she made no answer.  They drove in silence, the mist-shrouded
trees lining the road spectral in the pale moonlight.

SANTA RiTA BREAST CENTER

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 10:30 A.m.

Housed in a drab single-story masonry structure two blocks from County
Hospital, the Santa Rita Breast Center was the first free-standing
facility in the region for comprehensive breast diagnostic services.  It
offered comfort, convenience, and privacy to the women it served, as
well as state-of-the-art mammography.

An added distinction was the fact that all its doctors and technicians
were women.

The receptionist was a motherly-looking woman in her middle forties who
directed Kathryn to the waiting room off the hallway that ran the length
of the center of the building.  National Institute of Health posters
hung on the plain cream walls, one showing how to do BSE, another
explaining mammography.

"Would you like anything?" the receptionist asked.

The badge on her neat gray hospital coat said her name was Leonora
Kinney.  "Some coffee or tea?"

"Thank you, no," Kathryn said, although her mouth was already a little
dry.  She settled into a leather chair in the corner of the waiting room
and pulled a "daily" out of her leather tote bag, reading through the
transcript without really absorbing a word.  The electric clock on the
wall gave a small tock each time a minute elapsed.

"Kathryn Mackay?  I'm Pat Miller."

The slender woman standing in the doorway was about the same height as
Kathryn, but heels made her slightly taller.  She was in her
mid-forties, and her blond hair was streaked with silver strands.  She
had the bluest eyes Kathryn had ever seen.

"You're here for a mammogram, yes?"

"That's right," Kathryn replied.

"Shall we go in?"

Kathryn nodded and followed the technologist out of the room and down
the corridor, then through a door marked "Mammography." In it stood a
machine that looked like a giant photographic enlarger with various
sizes of adjustment wheels and controls.  The overhead lights were hard
and unfriendly.

"Slip off your blouse and bra," said Pat Miller, handing Kathryn a
hospital gown.  "Then we'll get started."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Just stand in front of the flatbed, here," Pat Miller told her.  "I'm
going to take two X-rays of each breast, one from the top and one from
the side."

"What about radiation exposure?"

"The risk is quite minimal," the technician answered.  "About what you'd
get walking nude on the beach for ten minutes.  You ready?  Okay, just
lift your breast and lay it on the flatbed.  Let me help you, that's it.
Good, good, now hold your breath, these things are cold."

She moved down a pair of metal plates, each about the size of a large
book, and placed one vertically on each side of Kathryn's breast,
squeezing it between them.  The metal felt alien and hostile, and
Kathryn shivered.

"Not hurting?" Miller asked.

"It's fine."

"Good.  The flatter we can get your breast, the better the picture will
be.  Okay, ready, here we go."

The big machine buzzed, and light passed through a lens somewhere inside
it.  Next, Miller moved the plates so they were horizontal, placing one
beneath Kathryn's breast and the other on top.  Once again, she pressed
the exposure button, and the machine emitted another heavy hum.  Then
they repeated the procedure with the other breast, and it was all over.

"That's it?" Kathryn said.

"It'll take a little while to develop your X-rays," Pat Miller told her.
"As soon as they are developed, Dr. Snyder will review them and meet
with you.  Would you like some tea or coffee while you wait?"

"Tea would be wonderful," Kathryn said, realizing as she spoke that her
throat had become parched.

She was shown to a private cubicle, where she sat waiting until the
receptionist brought in a steaming cup of tea.  Kathryn sipped
gratefully, realizing as she felt the warmth of the drink spreading
through her body that she had been cold.  She sat waiting, resolutely
not thinking.  Somewhere a phone rang.

Dr.  Marie Snyder was a small, dark, intense looking woman with a slight
accent that hinted at European origins.

"I've reviewed your X-rays," she said.  "And they do show an abnormal
area of density.  A lump, if you like.  Now we need to know what kind of
lump it is."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Kathryn said.

"It's fairly simple.  When we're young, in our twenties, our breasts are
made up mostly of breast tissue and are very dense.  As we get older,
the tissue ages, much as the skin does, and by the time one is in her
forties, it's about half tissue and half fat.  The thinner you are, the
more tissue there'll be.  You, for instance, still have quite dense
breast tissue, and that's the problem.  Cancer and benign lumps are the
same density as breast tissue.  So if there's this little white cancer
right in the middle of an area of dense tissue, it won't show up.
There's something there; it may be a cyst, it could as easily be a
fibroadenoma.  The ultrasound scan will enable us to locate it
precisely."

She left the room, and a few moments later, Pat Miller came back in.

"Hello again," she said.  "You finished your tea?"

"Finished."

"This won't take long," Miller said.  "I'll just put some jelly on your
breast to make it slippery.  Then I'll slide a small instrument called a
transducer along your skin, sending sound waves through your breast.

If something gets in the way, the waves bounce off.If nothing does, they
pass right through."

"What will the ultrasound tell you?"

"Primarily it helps us determine whether a lump is solid or
fluid-filled.  If it's solid, like a fibroadenoma or a cancerous lump,
we get bounce-back.  If it's some kind of cyst, the sound waves go right
through."

The ultrasound scan was over in less than ten minutes.

"Why don't you put your clothes on?" Miller said as she picked up the
printout from the machine.  "I'll run this over to Dr.  Snyder for
analysis.  Come on in when you're dressed."

Kathryn nodded and dressed slowly, suddenly aware of the beat of her
heart, the soft pulses of life in her body.  I can't have it, she
thought fiercely.  I won't have it.  She crossed the corridor, pulled in
a deep breath, and knocked on Dr.  Snyder's door.

"Well, it's not a cyst," Dr.  Snyder said briskly as Kathryn sat down in
a chair facing her.  Kathryn's heart sank.  She could feel a sort of
tingling sensation all the way up from her toes to her face.  And she
recognized it: fear.

"What happens now?" she said.  It seemed to her as if her voice sounded
like a croak, but if it did, Dr. Snyder appeared not to notice.

"I'll send my report to your doctor.  She'll discuss the various options
with you.  You're a prosecutor, aren't you?  I saw your photograph in
the paper.  The AIDS case."

"You've been following it?"

"It's very interesting," Dr.  Snyder said.  "It's not often you read
about a trial where there are moral as well as legal issues to be
considered.  Have you found it difficult with ...  this hanging over
you?"

"The hardest part is the not knowing," Kathryn admitted.

"I hear that a lot," Dr.  Snyder said.  "Have you talked about it to
anyone?"

"No," Kathryn said.  "I've wanted to, but somehow there never seemed to
be a right moment.  I guess what it is, you just want a chance to say
you're scared."

"I've heard that before, too." Marie Snyder smiled.

"You're worrying the whole time, have I got cancer, will I lose my
breast, will this thing kill me?  Let me tell you something.  Every
year, 182,000 American women are told they have breast cancer.  What you
have to hang on to is that fewer than a quarter of them die of it.  And
most of all, don't brood."

"I'm not the brooding type," Kathryn said, getting up to leave.  "Thank
you, Dr.  Snyder."

"No thanks necessary," Dr.  Snyder said.  "And Ms. Mackay?  Do you have
someone you can talk to about this?  A significant other?"

"Yes, I do."

"Talk to him," Dr.  Snyder said.

Men only wanted the body, few of them ever caring, ever wanting to know
what was behind the face, under the skin.  But Angel believed-knew-the
mind was much more important than mere physical beauty.  The intellect
was what separated the dross from the gold.

That was why, from the outside looking in, joining one of the
organizations for intelligent people.  MENSA, for instance-had seemed
like a logical step to take.  MENSAns needed an IQ of 132 even to
qualify for membership, the top two percentile of the populational was
gifted; 143 was considered to be genius level, Perhaps there one might
find that special other person, that longed-for meeting of minds that
happened so rarely in the workaday world.

But the MENSA meetings had lost their appeal very quickly, forty or so
very ordinary people packed into the small living room and dining area
of someone's home for a morning of breakfast and conversation, carrying
plates of waffles and fruit or glasses of juice, sitting on hard chairs
talking about Bosnia.  They seemed just a shade too self-satisfied, even
the ones who weren't obviously on ego trips.  Being bright on cue was
boring, boring, boring.  There had to be more to intellect than IQ
tests.

Then there was Intertel, whose members were required to score about the
ninety-ninth percentile to qualify.  There was Prometheus, where the
requirement was a score at the 99.997 percentile.  And above them all,
the Mega Society, where only one person in a million could meet the
99.999 qualification for membership.  The Mega Society's entrance exam
was the most difficult in the world; being one of its twenty-six members
was confirmation of special, unique qualities.

Of course, genius-level IQ was a curse as well as a blessing.  It made
so many of the people one encountered in daily life appear lead-footed
and slow-witted, their world narrowed down to what they had seen on TV
the preceding night, their opinions formed by whatever some bearded jerk
wrote in a newspaper.  Art was a framed print, music was a rock station,
literature was a book of poems by a geriatric movie star.

True intelligence was about being apart from and above such crass common
denominators.  It was about learning how to be what Nietzsche had called
Gbermensch, a superior being, a person of extraordinary power or
achievements, beyond mere good or evil, someone who had the pride and
strength to make rules or break them, to cast aside petty moral
strictures, to act and exist on a level to which the dull masses could
never even aspire.

"Do you understand, Peter?  Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

The darkened room was heavy with incenselike perfume.  The window
overlooking the small boat harbor of Laguna del Mar below was covered by
heavy drapes that shut out the late-evening light.

Muted traffic sounds from East Laguna Drive overlaid the Vivaldi
concerto playing softly on the stereo system.

"Let's stop talking now, Angel, " Peter Valenzuela said hoarsely. "Let's
begin the game.

"You're wicked.  When I want to talk.

"Afterwards.  After. -Mmmm," Angel said, pushing back long blond hair.
"And which game do you want to play tonight?"

"You know.  You know what I like.  The moon, Angel."

"So that's what you want.  Have you been a bad boy?"

"Yes.  I didn't mean to be ...  but yes, I did the bad thing again."

"You promised me you wouldn't do it anymore.

"I know.  But I couldn't help it."

"Very well.  Then you must be punished."

"Yes, " Valenzuela breathed.  "That's what I want, Angel.  Punish me.
I've been so bad "

"Bring me a glass of champagne first, " Angel said sternly.  "Then we'll
see."

Valenzuela poured the champagne, his hand trembling so badly that the
neck of the bottle rattled on the rim of the glass.  He handed it to
Angel, then sank to his knees, kissing the painted toenails.

"Angel, please, " he said.  "Angel, please, now.

"You want me to begin?"

"Yes, yes."

"You want the moon?"

Peter Valenzuela looked up, smiling dreamily.  it was their code for his
erotic jantasy: Fly me to the moon.

"Yes, the moon.  The moon, Angel.

"Shhh, " Angel said, stroking his hair.  "There's no hurry.  We have the
whole night.

LAGUNA DEL MAR

SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 11:28 A.M.

Ed Hatch no longer paid much attention to women.

He was not a misogynist, but as far as he was concerned, the Bible was
quite clear on the subject'.

"Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." Anyway, he
wasn't interested.  At sixty-eight years of age, he was happy to forgo
the pleasure of admiring women's bodies as they walked by.  Had she not
so obviously tried to conceal her face as she hurried out into the
street, he would hardly have noticed the slim blond woman he passed in
the lobby of his apartment block on Palmetto Drive.

Funny, he thought as she pushed the door open and hurried off down the
hill toward Altarnira Boulevard.

Why would she want to hide her face like that?  Then he shrugged.  These
days, a woman could have plenty of reasons for not wanting to be
recognized, if that was what she had been doing.  She might have been a
married woman, visiting someone who was not her husband.  She might have
been a call girl.  Or a drug runner.  Best to keep your nose out of it,
whatever it was.

He pushed the button for the third floor, and the elevator doors sighed
shut.  The elevator crawled upward at no great speed.  Ed Hatch had lost
count of the number of times he had complained to the manager about it.
Nobody did his job properly anymore.  Hell, nobody gave a damn about
anything anymore.  The world was going to hell in a handbasket.

The tinny Muzak was playing a jaunty version of "Once in a While." Even
though his hearing wasn't as good as it might have been, it sounded odd,
as if the tape was wowing.  Overlaying the tinkly tune, Hatch could
vaguely hear what sounded like long, highpitched notes in the
background.  Or ...  was it someone shouting?

The elevator doors opened on the third floor, and he stepped out. Almost
immediately, the acrid tang of smoke touched his nostrils, and at the
same time he heard, louder than before, the sound he had detected over
the Muzak in the elevator.  There was no question about it: what he
could hear was the sound of a man screaming.  He stopped dead in his
tracks, frozen with fear and indecision.  Lord God Almighty, he thought,
someone is being murdered.  What are you supposed to do if someone is
being murdered?

Heart pounding with terror, he scuttled along the hall toward the door
of 3C, his apartment.  His mind momentarily blanked out the stink of
smoke.  All he could think was police, police, call the police.  As he
reached his door, the screaming stopped abruptly.

Now from apartment 3B, opposite his own, he saw tendrils of smoke swirl
out under the door, thickening even as he watched to become a black,
oily sheet that climbed up the door, coating it with soot.

Other than the fact that the name of the man who lived in 3B was Peter
Valenzuela, Hatch knew nothing about him.  He looked around wildly as a
door opened further down the hall.  A horsey face framed in a halo of
unkempt hair poked out.  It was Henry Thorn, the insurance salesman who
lived in 3D.

"What's that screeching" he shouted.  "Ya hear it?"

"Call 911!" Hatch screamed.  "There's a fire, the place is on fire!"

Thom's jaw dropped open.  He disappeared back into his apartment.  Hatch
ran for the fire alarm, tearing off his shoe to shatter the glass.  The
strident bell deafening him, he grabbed an extinguisher, wrenching it
from its bracket.  Outside the door of apartment 3B, flickering tongues
of flame were beginning to lick their way up the wood.  He leveled the
nozzle and hit the trigger.  The chemicals whooshed out with a
frightening noise, blanketing the blackened door with foam.

For a moment, Hatch thought he had controlled the fire, but then
suddenly the door ignited with a sharp crack like a rifle shot.  As it
collapsed into the hallway, a ball of flame leaped outward, causing
Hatch to skitter backward in involuntary panic, dropping the fire
extinguisher and almost losing his balance.

Inside the apartment, he could see nothing but a sheet of fire.  He
looked down.  Before his horrified eyes, evil little ripples of flame
spread from the fallen, burning door and along the carpeted hallway.  He
picked up the fire extinguisher again and doused them, coughing and
choking as smoke billowed from the open doorway.  He could hear people
shouting, a woman screaming.  His throat felt as if it was on fire, and
he could hardly bear to keep his streaming eyes open.

Out of the roiling smoke, a tall man with a towel wrapped around his
face appeared beside him with another fire extinguisher, shouting,
gesturing.  Confused and dazed by the noise and heat, Hatch did not
understand a word.  The man grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the
fire.

"Leave it!" he heard the man scream.  "Get the hell out of here!"

At that moment, the sound of a dull explosion ripped through the burning
apartment.  It sounded like a gas boiler igniting, then, as if from the
mouth of a giant unslain dragon, a huge yellow and red breath of flame
roared out the gutted doorway, scorching the wallpaper and the picture
rails on the opposite wall.

Throwing up his hands to shield his face, totally disoriented and close
to asphyxiation, Hatch stumbled and fell, vaguely aware of the sound of
sirens, of breaking glass, of men shouting.  By the time the
firefighters dragged him clear and stretchered him to an ambulance, he
was unconscious, one of three casualties on that floor.

Four, if you counted Peter Valenzuela, whom they found on the bed in the
apartment.  Or what remained of him.

Kathryn and Dave were drinking coffee in her living room when, shortly
after noon, County Communications paged Kathryn to the crime scene.

"We'll take my car," she said.  "Okay?"

"No sweat," Dave agreed.  He knew Kathryn usually insisted on driving
alone to any crime scene.  For one thing, it afforded her maximum
flexibility, and for another, more personal reason, she preferred being
totally self-sufficient.

Palmetto Drive sounded a lot classier than it actually was, except to
those who knew that what they called a palmetto bug in Florida was in
fact a giant cockroach.  It was a short curving street that ran down the
hill from the center of Laguna del Mar, crossing Altamira Boulevard
before passing under the Alvarado Freeway where it became First Street
in Marina Village.

The apartment house was just below the Southern Pacific railroad tracks,
sandwiched between a recreation area with basketball hoops surrounded by
ten-foot-high wire fencing and a peeling stucco-faced block on the
corner of Altamira Boulevard that housed a dry cleaner, a print shop,
and a hairdressing salon called American Hairlines.

As they rounded the bend, they observed the familiar crime
scene-flashing strobes, the scattered array of police vehicles, fire
engines, a Channel Eight satellite truck, and the white CSI van parked
at an angle in front of the building.  Firefighters in yellow slickers
and helmets were rolling up their hoses on the wet pavement.  Curious
locals clustered in groups outside the yellow perimeter tapes, watching
enthralled as the police went about their business oblivious to the
audience scrutinizing their every move.  Kathryn braked the Audi hard to
slow the car on the slope.  A deputy waved them to a parking spot.

As they stepped out of the car, Kathryn spotted Walt Earheart lumbering
toward them.  His loose fitting tan sportcoat flapped as he hurried up
the slight incline, a sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

Late JUNE is usually the warmest time of year along the central
California coast.

"Thought you might be Doc Nelson," he said.

"He's on his way," Kathryn told him.  "I just talked to him on the car
phone.  What have we got, Walt?

Another fire bomb?"

"Uhm-huh.  Looks like a ringer for the Hanlon killing," Earheart said.
"Some sort of incendiary device on the lower body, the bomb squad says.
Burned hotter'n hell.  Set the whole apartment on fire.  Victim is
probably a Peter Valenzuela, age forty-eight, worked for a downtown
construction and drafting service, lived alone."

"Anyone see anything?"

Earheart shrugged a massive shoulder.  "I've got a team out now knocking
on doors," he said.  "But this is a busy area.  Lots of people coming
and going all the time."

"Building have a doorman?"

Earheart shook his head.  "Buzz-in."

"Who phoned it in?"

"Neighbor in the next apartment over, name of Thorn.  He said one of his
neighbors was out in the hall, told him there was a fire.  He called 911

"Anyone talked to the neighbor yet?" Dave asked.

"He's at the hospital," Earheart said, checking his notebook.  "Smoke
inhalation and first-degree burns.

I've got a detective up there waiting to talk to him.

Name is Edward Hatch, sixty-eight, widower, lives alone.  He tried to
put out the fire; it damned near extinguished him.  He's going to be
okay, though."

"You said a ringer for the Hanlon killing.  How was the body found?"
Kathryn asked.  "Was he restrained?"

Earheart nodded.  "Yep.  Cuffed to the bed, hands and feet.  Buck
naked."

"So this isn't just another homicide," said Dave, unless we have a
copycat."

"Yeah, great," Earheart said sourly.  "Listen, Purington has set up a
briefing for four o'clock this afternoon."

"Damn," Kathryn said.  "SUNDAY afternoon?  I promised Emma I'd take her
to the movies."

"You'll probably be able to make the early evening show," Earheart said
dourly.  "Let's face it, we're not gonna have a hell of a lot to
discuss.  No suspects, no motive, no leads.  Jesus, it makes me angry we
can't get a handle on this guy."

"We're all angry, Walt," Kathryn said.  "And feeling helpless and stupid
because people are being murdered and we can't stop it."

"At least we've got one thing going for us," Dave said.  "Nobody can
commit this kind of murder and not screw up sooner or later."

Earheart shrugged again.  "You know that," he said.

"I know that.  The question is, does the sonofabitch who's doing it know
that?"

The elevator shaft was still clogged by drifting smoke, so Kathryn and
Dave took the stairs to the third floor.  Along the unlit hall, the
carpets were waterlogged and slippery.  A huge black burn mark encircled
the carbonized doorway of the apartment like an obscene nimbus.  As they
entered, a deputy at the door logged them in and handed them face masks
to filter out some of the stink of smoke, burned wood, and burned flesh.
They didn't help much.  The walls were black with soot.  Flakes of ash
stirred and floated about them, and charred floorboards crunched beneath
their feet as they crossed the room.

was a small apartment, two bedrooms and one Ibalth.  The living room was
almost entirely gutted, the windows facing into the light blown out.
Inside the Vdemolished bedroom, the bright flare of halogen-arc lights
lent a movie-set atmosphere to the crime scene.

Investigator Charlie Yamamoto's flashgun bounced light off the greasy
black walls.  He looked up and acknowledged Kathryn and Dave with a
slight nod as they entered but otherwise went about his work as if he
were alone in the room.  At crime scenes, Charlie didn't miss a thing.

The dead man, if you could call the grotesque cadaver a man, lay
stretched in the position in which he had died, a bloody froth around
his mouth, head flung back as if still in agony, blind eyes staring
wildly at the ceiling.  Two investigators methodically measured,
diagrammed, and dusted every smooth surface that remained intact for
patent and latent fingerprint impressions, unfazed by the ghastly chaos
around them.

"Looks like the same MO," Dave said, bending over the body for a closer
look.  "Any sign of forced entry?"

"Door locks appear to be intact," said Walt Earheart, who had followed
them into the room.

"So the victim knew his killer.  Or, anyway, let him in," Kathryn
observed.

"That's the way it reads to me," Earheart said.

"CSI found remnants of a wine bottle and glasses on the floor in the
living room.  He might have been entertaining someone.  But with the
place and the body in this kind of shape, we can't be certain about
anything."

As with the earlier victim, Patrick Hanlon, some sort of incendiary
device had devastated the lower center of the trunk, burning a hole the
size of a plate through the abdomen.  The flesh beneath the handcuffed
wrists was mangled and bloody where the victim had wrestled with his
unyielding restraints, and the ropes anchoring his feet to the bed were
soaked with blood.  Both arms appeared to have been dislocated, probably
as the victim struggled to free himself.

"Neighbor who called it in said he thought he heard screaming," Walt
Earheart told them.

"Was it the same kind of device as last time?" asked Kathryn.

"Everything points to it," Walt replied.  "The bomb squad seized what
may be remnants of the contraption and took them to the lab for
analysis."

"Dave, check with the lab later, would you?"

Kathryn suggested.  "Odd the fire did so much damage outside the
bedroom," she observed.  "And so little in here."

The fire had marched across the floor from the bed to the chest of
drawers, ignited a nonstructural partition wall, and burst into full
flame in the adjoining living room, leaving the far side of the bedroom
relatively untouched.

"The fire chief confirmed the origin of the fire was right here."
Earheart gestured at the body.  "Like you say, Kathryn, a freaky burn
pattern."

"Every one's different," Dave said.  "Draughts, open windows, even
drains can affect the way the fire runs."

"Lucky for us," Earheart answered.  "If it had gone the other way, it
probably would've burned down the house.  At least we've got something
to work with."

"Doesn't look like a hell of a lot to me," Dave observed sourly.  "What
about this guy's family?"

"I've got detectives working on that," Walt said.

"Any signs of theft?" Kathryn asked.

"In a mess like this," Earheart observed from years of experience with
similar scenes, "it's gonna be tough to know whether anything was taken
or not."

"He's not wearing a watch," Kathryn said.

"I noticed.  We haven't found one.  Yet."

"What about his wallet?  House keys, car keys?"

Walt shook his head.  Kathryn turned to Yamamoto, who was still taking
pictures.

"Have your investigators photograph anything valuable that's still
intact, please, Charlie," she asked.

His head moved in acknowledgment.  He knew she was thinking out loud
rather than issuing directions, and he wasn't offended.

"What about the handcuffs?" Kathryn asked.  "And the rope?"

"Look like the ones found on Hanlon," Earheart replied.

"Valenzuela was forty-eight years old," Dave observed.  "He could have
been in Vietnam.  I'll get a fax off to St.  Louis on that one.  Then
I'll run his DMV, get his telephone and utility records."

"Good idea." Kathryn turned to Walt Earheart.

"Anything on his answering machine?"

Earheart shrugged.  "Sorry.  It melted."

"What about the medicine cabinet?  Anything there?"

"Just drugstore stuff.  Doesn't look like he was taking any prescription
medications."

"We need to know if Valenzuela knew Hanlon," Kathryn said.  "Or if they
had anything in common.

Anything at all."

"Walt, can you have your detectives take care of that?" Dave asked. "I'm
right in the middle of my investigation of Hanlon."

Everyone turned as they heard Morgan Nelson's familiar voice in the
hallway outside.

"Hi, Doc," Charlie Yamamoto said.  "The patient's over here."

"You're not much on the bedside manner, Charlie."

Morgan Nelson grinned back at the investigator.

"And I got to tell you, your patient doesn't look too chipper, either."

Dave Granz glanced at Kathryn and raised his eyebrows in silent
question: Are you finished?  She nodded in the affirmative.

"No point in us taking up valuable space," Dave said to Walt Earheart as
Morgan prepared to conduct his preliminary examination.  "We'll get out
from underfoot."

"Morgan, call me with your preliminary results when you're through,"
said Kathryn.

"Gotcha," Morgan said.

With a final glance over her shoulder, Kathryn headed out into the
ruined corridor and down the stairs to the street, Dave Granz close
behind.  The afternoon sun was welcome after the dank stench of the
murder scene, the difference between the warmth of life and the chill of
death.

Death.

Conjured up by sight of the contorted thing on the charred bed, the
finality of the word hung in her mind like a hawk in an empty sky,
always there, wheeling, watching, waiting to swoop.

"Let's get out of here," she said, and walked purposefully toward her
car, shrugging her shoulders to expunge the image from her mind.

LAGuNA DEL MAR

SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 1:27 P.m.

Kathryn chose the freeway route, accelerating into the number two
traffic lane as Dave settled comfortably into the passenger seat.  He
switched on the tape deck, and the soundtrack of The Big Chill blasted
out.  How appropriate, she thought as she threaded the Audi into noonday
tourist traffic.  How perfectly appropriate.

Her reaction confirmed the tentative decision she had made earlier.  Now
is as good as time as any, she thought.  But what do I say?  And how
exactly do I say it?

There was only one way, she decided: just come right out with it.  She
switched off the tape deck and drew in a long, deep breath.

"Dave, listen," she said, getting it all out fast.

"There's something I need to tell you, and I don't know how, so I'm just
going to come right out and say it.  Please don't say anything until I'm
finished.

Okay?"

He turned slightly in his seat, frowning.  "Sounds serious.  Did I do
something?"

"No, it's nothing like that.  Listen, now, please don't interrupt.  Last
SUNDAY, I found a lump in my right breast.  JoAnn Ota arranged for me to
have a maminogram and ultrasound at the Breast Center.  That's where I
was on Friday.  They confirmed there's a small lump.  They can't tell if
it's cancerous, so they want me to have it biopsied right away."

Dave hadn't moved since she began.  Now he just stared at her in shock.
"Kathryn, why-" he began.

"Not yet, let me finish," she said.  It was easier to talk now that it
was out in the open, now that it had been said aloud.  "I knew I ought
to tell you, but I didn't want to say anything until I was sure there
was something to tell you about.  I'm not sure, but I may need you to
drive me to the surgery center for the biopsy.  I haven't scheduled it
yet, but it'll be sometime next week."

Dave let out his breath in a long sigh.  "Ah, Jesus, Kathryn," he said,
and she heard the agonies in his voice.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know.  I honestly don't know.  I was waiting for it to be the
right time.  And it never was, till now."

"I knew there was something.  But I couldn't figure out what.  Now I
understand."

"I think ...  what I'm trying to say is, I've been going through so many
different emotions, it was all I could do just to cope.  I have such a
strong feeling for you, I want us to have a long time together.  And
then there was Emma.  She's just about gotten over dealing with her
father's death, and I didn't want to, I can't ...  oh, Dave, I'm so
damned mixed up and scared and angry."

Dave sighed audibly.  "Kathryn, listen to me, you aren't in this by
yourself.  We've gotten through bad things together before, and we'll
get through this, too, whatever it turns out to be.  Just tell me what I
can do to help, and I'll do it."

She looked at him.  "You've already done it.  More than you can imagine.
Just by being there when I needed you to be.  And by not saying
something stupid like 'Don't worry' or 'Everything will work out fine
And Dave-I don't want to talk about it anymore until the biopsy is done,
okay?"

He nodded.  "But what about Emma?  Are you going to tell her?"

"Not unless I have to."

"You're sure that's how you want it?"

She nodded.  "I'm sure."

Everything that needed to be said had been said Although she knew Dave
would need a while to deal with what she had told him, Kathryn felt
better knowing he knew.  They crossed the bridge over the yacht harbor
and drove along the Esplanade toward Espanola.  The beaches on Shelter
Island were crowded, and out on the ocean sailboats scudded before the
wind.  Hot dogs and ice cream and not a care in the world.  Just another
bright, sunshiny California day.

COUNTY BUILDING, SANTA RITA

SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 4:00 P.M.

The task force-Kathryn, Dave, Walt Earheart, George Purington, now
expanded to include Morgan Nelson-assembled around the tables in the
Sheriffs conference room a few minutes after four.  Through the windows
on the west side of the County Building overlooking San Patricio Park,
Kathryn could see children playing on the swings.  Although it was near
the beach, boardwalk, fishing wharf, and other tourist attractions, the
park was used mostly by locals.  On Sundays, young families gathered
there to picnic, feed the fat ducks in the pond, or just lie in the cool
grass.

Joggers and teenagers on rollerblades moved along the running track
beside the river.

On such a beautiful afternoon, Kathryn would have infinitely preferred
being out in the open with Emma and Dave instead of cooped up in the
stuffy little room inside the Sheriffs office.  But when a task force
meeting was called on a case she could eventually prosecute, her
presence was mandatory.  She made herself concentrate, DOJ found no
physical evidence to link the courtroom bomb and the incendiary devices
used to kill Hanlon and Valenzuela," George Purington was saying.  "The
construction methods and the materials used were completely different.
In addition, the courtroom bombing appears to have been a random act,
whereas Hanlon and Valenzuela were specifically targeted.  My conclusion
is that the courtroom bombing and the incendiary homicides are probably
not connected."

"What if you're wrong?" Dave said.  "What if there is a connection
between them?"

"What makes you think there might be?" Earheart asked, leaning forward,
brows knitted.

Dave shrugged.  "Nothing I could put in a report.

Just a gut feeling."

"Come on, Dave," Earheart said heavily. "Don't wish a serial bomber on
us."

"We may have one anyway," Purington said heavily.  "There are marked
similarities in the MO used in both the incendiary homicides."

"In that case, we better concentrate on that," Earheart said.  "Dave,
where are you at with Patrick Hanlon?"

"I've interviewed family members, neighbors in the immediate vicinity of
his home, and his business associates," Dave said, opening a thick
manila folder' "Patrick James Hanlon, born in Fullerton, California,
February 22, 1949.  Only child, parents reside in Westwood, California.
They don't know much about his private life; I gathered they weren't
very close.  He was in business for himself-an industrial designer.

Checked with his creditors.  He paid his bills on time.

Never been arrested."

"What about his sex life?" Earheart asked.  "CSI seized a whole stack of
S&M and bondage magazines from the spare bedroom."

"One of his business associates admitted to frequenting a popular gay
bar on The Strip with him.

Neighbors said he brought women home from time to time," Dave replied.
"So maybe he swung both ways."

"Neighbors tell you anything else?" Walt asked.

"Nothing specific, just he was no trouble, sort of quiet, kept mostly to
himself."

"What about his work?" Kathryn asked.

"Business associates, everybody I talked to, said he was a first-class
designer and a really nice guy, but they didn't know him very well.  I
ran registration checks on his car, a '90 Miata.  I'm waiting on
medical, telephone, insurance, and utility records."

"Anything to add on Hanlon, Doc?" Earheart asked.

Morgan Nelson shrugged.  "You've got my autopsy protocol," Nelson said.
"And before you ask, I can't tell you much about his sex life," he added
with a glint in his eye, "because there wasn't anything left of that
part of his body to draw any conclusions from."

"Could that be significant, Doc?" Dave asked.  "Is the killer burning
out that part of the bodies to cover something up?"

"Possibly," Nelson said.  "There's something almost biblical about it.
It could even be a very specific form of punishment.  The killer could
be saying, 'You used that on me.  But you'll never use it on anyone
else."I "You mean revenge?" Kathryn asked.  "For what?"

Morgan shrugged.  "Whoever did this wasn't a passing acquaintance, male
or female.  Casual relationships don't stir up that kind of emotion.
This was someone who really hated him."

"You mean, maybe someone Hanlon threw over for somebody else?" Dave
said.  "You think we should be looking for a lover or ex-lover?"

Nelson shrugged again.  "It's a possibility, that's all.

I was just thinking out loud."

"What about the Valenzuela homicide, Doc?" Earheart asked.  "You got
anything for us there?"

"I can't give you much yet, because I've only done a preliminary
examination at the scene," Morgan said.

"I'll know more after I've completed the autopsy.  It's scheduled for
Tuesday evening."

"George?" asked Earheart, looking at Purington.

"I've got DOJ's examination report on the Valenzuela bomb's components,"
Purington said.  "As I said earlier, there are a number of similarities
in the MO.  DOJ's findings tend to confirm the homicides of Hanlon and
Valenzuela are linked."

"How so?" asked Kathryn.

"The device that killed Valenzuela was homemade and thermite-based,
consistent with the one that killed Hanlon.  There was one major
difference, though," Purington added.  "CSI found a small bottle beside
Valenzuela's bed.  It contained traces of sulfuric acid and rubber."

"Which means what?" Earheart asked.

"It could mean the killer used a delay mechanism, something that took a
long time to set off the fire bomb," replied Purington.

"That might explain why Valenzuela's body was in such bad shape," Nelson
said.  "Arms dislocated, flesh torn from the wrists and ankles.  He put
himself through hell trying to dislodge the thing from his body.  He
knew he was going to die, and about as painfully as possible, a long
time before it happened."

"How long was the delay?" asked Kathryn.

"In real time, it could have been as much as fifteen minutes from the
time the device was activated until it triggered the bomb," said
Purington.  "For Valenzuela, an eternity.  The rest of his life."

"My God," Kathryn whispered.  "We have got to find some way to stop this
madman."

"Look, Kathryn, we all feel bad," Earheart said.

"We've all had sleepless nights over this.  But we can't work miracles."

"George, you think the Bomb Data Center could help us any?" Morgan
Nelson asked.

"Can't see how," Purington replied.  "They don't do direct investigative
work.  They're a great resource for information-technical research,
bombing incident summaries, and statistics, that kind of thing.  But
field work.  .  ." He ended the sentence with a shrug.

"Could they tell us how our bombings fit in statistically with the
national picture?" Kathryn asked.

"I can tell you that myself," Purington replied.  "In 1993, BDC received
reports on 2,980 bombing incidents.  The total number of casualties
involved was 1,372, forty-nine of whom died from their injuries.

That includes 1,042 persons injured when a bomb went off in the World
Trade Center building in New York City on February 26."

"Nearly three thousand a year," Kathryn murmured.  "That's what, sixty a
week, ten a day countrywide.  But not many fatalities.  So our bomber is
scoring unusually high."

"That's because he's not run-of-the-mill, which most of the cases George
has cited would have been," Morgan pointed out.  "Most bombings are
random.

Even when they're targeted, the target represents somethings corporation
or a government office, something the bomber can't reach.  These
killings aren't like that.  These are personal."

personal?" Purington said.

"Look at the scenario," Morgan said.  "Hanlonand Valenzuela, too,
probably-invites a partner to his home for sex.  Disregard the evidence
of forced entry at the Hanlon crime scene; assume it's the killer's
attempt to throw us off course.  Straight or gay, it makes no
difference, people who are into S&M and bondage don't take chances on
their sex partners.

Hanlon knew his killer and invited him into his home, just as Valenzuela
did.  I'd bet on it."

"You said ...  when you were autopsying Hanlon, you said whoever killed
him, it had to be someone who hated him very much," Kathryn recalled.

"Someone who wanted him to suffer very badly."

"Right," Morgan said.  "And it looks like he wanted Valenzuela to suffer
even more."

"Okay," Dave said.  "Let's say you're right.  Valenzuela knew his
killer.  Hanlon knew his killer, too.

That being so, they probably had some kind of sexual connection before.
So here's my question.  Why didn't the guy kill them the first time?"

"Something happened," Kathryn said.  "Something triggered him.  But
what?"

"I could give you a dozen reasons, Katie," Morgan said.  "And every one
of them a perfectly logical motive.  Fear.  Blackmail.  Religious mania.
Homo phobia.  Jealousy.  Revenge.  Abandonment.  Take your pick.  It
could be any of them, all of them."

By the window, Kathryn rested her chin pensively in her hands, elbows on
the conference table.  Off to the south side of the County Building was
a lawn bowling field, where every SUNDAY afternoon during the spring and
summer, elderly men and women clad in white participated in a
city-county sponsored tournament.  Many of them lived in three large
retirement complexes on crooked Cayuga Street, which delineated the
park's western boundary.  An animated exchange was taking place between
two groups of white-haired bowlers, and Kathryn smiled.  You didn't stop
wanting to win just because you got old.

"Well, I guess we're not going to accomplish much more today," Earheart
said, confirming what everyone already knew, that they were still a very
long way from identifying the killer of Peter Valenzuela and Patrick
Hanlon.  "Thanks for coming in, all of you.

And hey, Kathryn?"

Kathryn turned at the door.  "Did you forget something?"

Earheart grinned.  "Get a move on.  You and Emma can probably still make
the late-afternoon matinee," he said.

She did; and they did.

SUPERIOR COURT 8.

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 10:00 A.m.

Court reconvened in the case of the State of California versus Richard
Hudson in Department Eight of Santa Rita Superior Court at precisely ten
A.M.  Following the usual opening formalities, Kathryn's third witness,
Marian Browning, was seated, sworn, and settled into her chair behind
the bulletproof plexiglass shield protecting the witness stand.

Kathryn had scheduled Browning last for two reasons.  First, she
preferred to proceed chronologically before the jury; Browning had been
Hudson's final victim.  Second, strategically, Browning was by far
Kathryn's most impressive-albeit also most unpredictable-weapon.  A part
of Kathryn's mind grappled with the problem even as she prepared to
begin her direct examination.

She had to get Marian Browning to admit to the jury and the entire world
that she had let herself be persuaded to transgress against her own
rigidly observed credo of clean living and because of it became
HIV-positive.  The element of unpredictability-and it was not
inconsiderable-came from the fact that Browning was bitterly distressed
and angry about it and might well express that anger as forcefully in
court as she had in some of their earlier meetings.

Kathryn approached the witness from one side, so the plexiglass did not
impair her view and so that the witness would be facing the jury as she
spoke.  Neatly dressed, short and sturdy, with close-cropped brown hair
and wearing no makeup, Marian Browning had the sinewy physique of an
athlete.

"Where do you work, Marian?"

"At the People's Clinic, downtown.  There's another in Espanola, but I
never work at that one."

"And what do you do there?"

"I'm a nurse's aide."

"Tell me," Kathryn prompted, "as a nurse's aide, do you ever have direct
contact with patients who come in for medical care?"

"Sure.  I take their medical histories, make notes for the doctor or
physician's assistant, prep them, and so on.  A lot of times they don't
even have insurance, that's why they come there.  If they're scared or
worried, I try to reassure them before they see the doctor.  It's the
most satisfying part of my job."

"Okay.  You said you often work nights.  Why is that?"

"The clinic is open in the evenings for patients who work or can't come
in during the day.  I prefer nights so I'm free to work out at the
fitness center during the day when there aren't so many people."

"I understand you train with weights.  Would you tell us why?"

"I believe physical conditioning and a healthy life style are the key to
good health.  Working out with weights is one of my means of achieving
it."

"How many nights a week do you work at the clinic?" Kathryn asked.

"Five, but not necessarily the same nights each week.  It's a walk-in
clinic.  We're open seven days a week, eighteen hours a day, from six in
the morning until midnight.  My shifts rotate.  Sometimes it's Monday
through Friday, the next week Tuesday through Saturday, and so on.  So
there's always cover."

Further questioning elicited the information that Marian Browning lived
with her sister and brother-inlaw.  In exchange for caring for her niece
and two nephews and doing light housework, she paid no rent.

She lived in a spare bedroom with its own private bath.  Each morning,
after helping to get the children off to school, she stacked the
breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, did a load of wash, and tidied up
around the house.  Then she would catch a bus to the Midtown Fitness
Center, spending much of the late morning and early afternoon pumping
iron and working out on the rowing machine.  By the time she got
through, took the bus home, and showered, the children were home from
school.  She helped with their homework until their parents arrived home
from work.  By then, there was barely enough time for a quick bite to
eat before she went to work.

"Would you describe your lifestyle as hectic, Marian?" Kathryn asked.

"Yes, I would.  I have very little free time."

"I agree.  I'm worn out just talking about it."

Kathryn smiled and switched subjects.  "Do you have a boyfriend,
Marian?"

"No, I do not."

Kathryn picked up a copy of the Coastal Times which had been premarked
with a people's exhibit red sticker and handed it to the witness.

"Marian, please read to the jury the ad circled in that paper," Kathryn
told her.

"I'm.  not looking for a dream woman," Marian read, her diction clipped
and precise, "just a good friend for conversations, movies, cuddling,
and quiet times.  You are strong, educated and mature, twenty-seven to
thirty-seven.  Please reply with a photograph to Box 4834."

"Did you reply to this ad?"

"Yes.  I sent a photograph.  Head and shoulders."

Kathryn walked across to stand near the jury box, taking her time.  It
was a well-tried technique.  It required the witness to look at her, and
in doing so to look at the jury.  The space between them required them
both to project their voices.  If the witness could hear her, and vice
versa, then so could the jury.

Standing next to the jury also enabled her to watch them as well as
Marian Browning, to determine when they were paying attention and when
they were not.

"Will you tell the jury why you felt it necessary to find a partner
through a connection ad?"

"As I told you, I work nights, and it's hard to meet people.  I have
friends who met people through the ads, and it worked out fine.  I
thought I'd try it."

"Can you tell us what it was about that ad that motivated you to
respond?"

Marian Browning gave a self-conscious shrug.

"Look, I know I'm not a beauty queen.  But it said he wasn't looking for
a dream girl.  Someone to share more important things.  I guess I
replied because it sounded sincere.  Sincere," she spat, her voice
suddenly cold with rage as she turned to glare at Richard Hudson.  "What
a joke.  Richard Hudson is about as sincere as a rattlesnake, and twice
as deadly."

Belker was on his feet before she had finished speaking.

"Your Honor, this is unacceptable!  Ms.  Mackay is provoking this
witness, trying to poison the jury against my client."

"Sit down, Mr.  Belker," Judge Woods snapped back.  "The prosecution did
nothing improper here."

He turned to face the witness, leaning forward so she could see his
face.  "Ms.  Browning, I know this is difficult for you, but you must
only answer the prosecutor's questions.  You must not add personal
remarks of any kind.  Is that understood?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Marian Browning said.  She didn't sound particularly
chastened, Kathryn thought.

"So it was through the ad you've just read that you met the defendant?"
Kathryn continued.  Although she had not precipitated Marian's emotional
response, and would never condone it, it certainly had not hurt her
case.

"He called and suggested we meet."

Browning's testimony describing the sequence of events following her
initial meeting with the defendant was substantially the same as that of
Mitten and Sorensen.  He told her he worked in computers.  She didn't
understand much of it but found it fascinating.

They met a few times at the Coffee Roasting Company, usually in the
early evening before she went to work.  Movies and pizza on her nights
off, two weeks in a row; another night when-admitting it to the jury
clearly embarrassed her-she called in sick so she could spend the
evening with him.

Finally, one Saturday night, he invited her to his condominium for a
home-cooked seafood dinner.

Like the earlier witnesses, she remarked on what a fastidious
housekeeper he was, and on his culinary skills.  They spent a long,
leisurely evening eating, talking, listening to music, and drinking
wine-she rarely drank alcohol but under the circumstances allowed
herself to be persuaded.

"He said it was to keep him company, so he could loosen up," she said.
"He said he found it hard to talk about himself."

"And did he?"

Marian nodded.  "It was really late, and we'd been talking for hours.
Then right out of the blue, he told me when he was a kid, nine years
old, they put him in a home, his father had been ...  he was sexually
abused.  He never saw his parents again."

"Were you shocked by that?"

"No, just the opposite.  I knew it must be difficult for him to talk
about.  I felt he must really trust me to be telling me this."

Later still, he told her he had become a disciple of the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi, and for nine years he had been celibate, doing
transcendental meditation.

"He said that was why he placed the ad.  He'd forgotten what to do, how
to talk to women.  Then he suggested we get to know each other better
intimately.  He asked me if I knew what he meant."

"And what did you reply?"

"I said yes, I knew what he meant." She stared at the defendant.

"And did you have sexual intercourse with the defendant that night?"

"Yes, I did."

"And did Richard Hudson use a condom?"

Marian Browning shook her head.  "I told him he should.  He said, 'I
told you, I've been celibate for nine years." And he'd had a blood test
in conjunction with minor surgery a few months before and tested
negative for HIV.  I was drunk.  I believed him.  What a fool!

I should have just shot myself, it would have been quicker.  And more
fun."

Martin Belker was already on his feet again, but Judge Woods motioned
him to sit.  The judge turned once more to Marian Browning and frowned
down at her sternly.

"Ms.  Browning, I've admonished you once already.

You will confine yourself to answering the prosecutor's questions.  Do I
make myself perfectly clear?"

Marian Browning, who was glaring at the defendant, apparently did not
hear-or chose to ignore the judge.

"Ms.  Browning!" Woods boomed.  "Answer me immediately!  Do you
understand?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Marian Browning said tonelessly, her eyes never
leaving Richard Hudson's face.

"I understand."

Only partially mollified, Judge Woods nodded at Kathryn to continue.

"And was that occasion the only time you had sexual intercourse
together?"

Although Kathryn would never have admitted it, her witness's outburst
had been more than she could ever hoped for.  One of the unwritten laws
of the courtroom was that no matter what the judge told them to
disregard, a jury never forgot anything that was said in its presence.

"No.  It happened twice more.  At his place."

"And after that first time, did the defendant wear a condom when you
made love?"

"We didn't make love, Ms.  Mackay, we had sex," Marian Browning snapped.
"And, yes, he wore a condom both times.  I insisted."

"How could you be certain he always wore a condom, Marian?" Kathryn
asked.

"Because I took them with me.  I made sure he never touched me after
that without wearing a condom."

Kathryn put a look of incredulity on her face.

"Marian, let me get this straight.  Are you saying you only had
unprotected sex with the defendant once, and that after that he always
used a condom?"

"That's right.  And he got real angry about it.  Said he couldn't 'feel
it,' and kept saying if I cared about him at all, I would trust him. But
I told him no condom, no sex."

"How long did your relationship with the defendant last?"

"About two months in all.  But we were only intimate for a couple of
weeks.  He seemed to lose interest after I insisted that he use a
condom."

"Then what happened?"

"I hadn't talked to him for a couple of days after the last time we had
sex, then he called.  He said it was all over between us, he didn't want
to see me anymore."

"Were those his exact words?"

"Pretty much.  He called me a tight-assed bitch and said I deserved
everything that was going to happen to me.  I didn't know what he meant
at first.  He said, 'I've got AIDS, Marian.  I've had it for a year."
"What was your reaction to that?"

Marian glared at the defendant, then at Judge Woods, who cautioned her
with a silent arch of his eyebrow and a tilt of his head.  Marian made a
visible effort to control her emotions.

"There was such hate in the way he said it, at first I thought it was
some kind of sick joke.  But it wasn't.  It was like he was glad he'd
done it.  I tried to call him a dozen times, but all I ever got was an
answering machine.  So I didn't bother going to his place to see him-I
knew it would be pointless."

"Did you tell your sister?"

Marian Browning shook her head.  "I couldn't."

"So what did you do?"

"I went to another walk-in clinic in San Jose, where nobody knew me. The
aide there did what she could to help, but even though I knew I'd only
had unprotected sex once and the odds were in my favor, I was still
afraid.  I felt like one of those poor people who come into my
clinic-scared and alone."

"And what was the result of that test?"

"It was positive.  I have HIV."

Now, as sudden tears filled her eyes, the vulnerable young woman behind
the confident facade became visible.  She fumbled in her purse and found
a tissue, dabbing them away.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "I didn't mean to cry." Kathryn waited,
sharing Marian Browning's distress, knowing the jury would be as deeply
moved as she had been by this strong yet sensitive young woman's story.
When she was satisfied the witness was composed, she stepped back.

"I have no further questions for this witness, Your Honor," she said.

Almost two hours had elapsed since Marian Browning had taken an oath to
tell the truth.  With a glance at the wall clock, Judge Woods said,
"Thank you, Ms. Mackay.  At this point, the court will recess for lunch
and reconvene at one-thirty."

"All rise!" the bailiff called.

As the judge left the courtroom, Kathryn walked across to the witness
stand and touched Marian Browning's arm.  "That was just fine, Marian,"
she said.  "Thank you.  When court reconvenes, the defense attorney will
have some questions for you, then you'll be finished."

Marian Browning nodded her understanding.  "I'm ready."

"I know you are.  Just remember what I told you.  He may try to confuse
you, get you to contradict things you've already said.  Don't let him.
Just answer the question, tell the truth, but don't volunteer any
information that isn't asked for.  Don't guess.  If you don't know
something, say, 'I don't know." If he asks you a question you don't
understand, say so.  Give yourself time to think, to formulate your
answer before you reply.  And, Marian, be careful.  I understand your
anger, and I share it.  But this is not the place to show it."

"I'll try," Marian Browning said, and Kathryn knew she would.  Excusing
herself, she left Marian with the victim-witness advocate and went
across to where Dave was standing.  There was only so much preparation
you could give witnesses, only so many caveats they could remember.
After that, you just had to cross your fingers and hope for the best.

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 12:15 P.m.

"Walt Earheart's come up with a connection between Valenzuela and
Hanlon," Dave said.  He was sitting in one of the leather chairs in
Kathryn's office on the second floor of the County Building.
"Apparently, they both frequented the same gay clubs."

"Where does that get us?"

"It means we now have to at least consider the possibility we could be
dealing with a homophobic killer," Dave said.  "They often mutilate the
bodies of their victims."

If this guy could be a homophobic murderer, it would certainly put a
different spin on things," Kathryn mused.  "Maybe it's time to bring in
a profiler to help us."

The State of California had its own mind hunter, a Supervising Special
Agent of the Department of Justice's Criminal Investigation Response
Team who had completed a ten-month fellowship at Quantico, one of only
twenty-four graduates of the Criminal Investigative Analysis Program
nationwide.  But he was in constant demand, and often unavailable.

"Time's too precious in a case like this, Kathryn.

By the time we get a request processed through the bureaucracy, and the
profiler is assigned and up to speed, two or three more people could be
dead.  This psycho's moving too fast.  Why don't you work up the
profile?  You're as good as what's-his-name in Sacramento, anyway."

Before Hal Benton had appointed her his Senior Trial Attorney, Kathryn
had written and published a comprehensive research paper that proposed
that although profilers were available on request to all law enforcement
agencies, there was a case for each county having at least one
prosecutor on its staff capable of constructing a basic criminal
profile.  Her recommendations had been implemented all over the state,
including Santa Rita County.  As a result, she had spent six weeks
studying the techniques of criminal profiling with the "mind hunters" of
the Behavioral Science Unit-now the Investigative Support Unit-at the
FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.  For better or
worse, she was the resident expert.

"I don't have the expertise to profile homophobic incendiary bombers,
Dave.  We really should ask DOJ for their assistance."

Dave shook his head stubbornly, and she knew why.  Quite apart from his
innate mistrust of mind hunters in general, uppermost in his mind was
the fact that if they requested one, the profiler DOJ would send down
was Steve Giordano, with whom he knew Kathryn had once had a brief but
intense relationship.

"You underestimate yourself," he said.  "Look, why don't you talk to Doc
Nelson about it?  He's autopsying Valenzuela tonight."

"Maybe I will," she said.  "You going to be there?"

"I'm going to have to pass," Dave told her.  "Would you brief me
tomorrow?"

"Where are you going?"

"Jim Field is being discharged from County," he said.  "I'm bringing him
home."

SUPERIOR COURT &

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 2:00 P.m.

Court reconvened exactly on schedule, the way Judge Woods liked it.  He
made himself comfortable, took a brief moment to look at the jury and
the crowded public benches, then nodded to Marian Browning.

"You're still under oath, Ms.  Browning," he reminded her.  "Go ahead,
Mr.  Belker."

Defense counsel walked toward the witness stand and stopped well short
of the witness, as if he preferred not to be too close to her.  She
stared at him impassively, and Kathryn hid a smile; among professional
athletes, it was called a "game face."

"Miss Browning," Belker began, "you stated you only had sex with Mr.
Hudson three times, and only once when he didn't use a condom.  Is that
correct?"

"Yes.  1 "Are you sure about that?"

"Absolutely certain, sir.  I can count."

"I'm sure you can, but that wasn't the question.

Isn't it possible that you had unprotected sex with my client more than
once, maybe as many as a half-dozen times?"

"No, sir, it is not possible.  I am not promiscuous.  I know exactly how
many times I had sex with your client."

"Of course." Belker sneered.  "I forgot your infallible memory.  Let me
ask you another question.  How many glasses of wine did you drink that
night-the night you told us you had unprotected sex with Mr. Hudson?"

"Two or three.  I'm not certain.  I wasn't counting."

"You don't know how many glasses of wine you drank, but you're certain
how many times you made love with my client without a condom.  Do you
always get drunk on two glasses of wine?"

"I resent your implication, sir," Marian Browning snapped.  "I don't
normally drink wine at all.  And I can assure you that if I had not been
drunk, I would never have agreed to anything so unsafe.  I-"

"That's not what I asked you, Ms.  Browning!"

Belker snapped, anxious to interrupt her testimony, which was obviously
not going his way.

"Objection, Your Honor," Kathryn said.  "The witness hasn't finished her
answer."

"I agree," the judge said.  "You may complete your answer, Ms.
Browning."

"Thank you, Your Honor," Marian Browning said politely, clearly enjoying
being the cause of Belker's scowl.  "As I was saying, I am unaccustomed
to wine, and I was drunk.  But while it's possible I might not recall
how many glasses of wine I drank, I would most certainly remember how
many times I had sex.  Maybe you see it the other way around."

"I see, very well, let's move on."

artin Belker looked and sounded uncomfortable, as if he felt the witness
was proving to be more than he could handle.  Kathryn watched him as he
walked across to take a position near the jury box similar to the one
she had occupied earlier.  And for the same reasons, she thought.

"You told this jury you work as a nurse's aide, is that correct?"

"Thats right, Mr.  Belker."

"You've been a nurse's aide for, what, eight years?"

"Correct."

"And during those eight years, you have come into direct contact with
hundreds, if not thousands of patients, would you agree, Ms.  Browning?"

"I couldn't give you the exact number."

"Is it possible, Ms.  Browning, that in the last eight years, you could
have been bitten by a patient who, unbeknownst to you, was infected with
the HIV virus or AIDS?"

"It's possible, but I don't have any recollection of being bitten."

"You have from time to time performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on
patients, correct, Ms. Browning?"

"Yes," Marian replied hesitantly.

"Then it's possible you could have been exposed to the HIV virus while
performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a patient who, again,
unbeknownst to you, was positive for HIV or AIDS."

"I-I don't know."

"In the course of your work as a nurse's aide, you come into contact
with bodily fluids such as blood, isn't that so, Ms.  Browning?"

"Yes, but I wear latex gloves," replied Marian.

"Isn't it possible that on one or more occasions you neglected to wear
gloves and came into contact with a body fluid that carried the HIV
virus or was infected by AIDS?"

"No, Mr.  Belker," Marian shot back.  "I always wear gloves."

"Always, Ms.  Browning?  You're sure?" Belker said, putting theatrical
disbelief into his voice.

"Objection, asked and answered," said Kathryn, rising from her seat."

"Withdrawn," replied Belker.  He moved away from the jury now and back
to face Marian Browning.

"One final question in this area, and we'll move on.

You have from time to time during the course of your work as a nurse's
aide been stuck accidentally by needles, isn't that so?"

"From time to time," replied Marian warily.

"Could you estimate for this jury how many times this might have
happened?" asked Belker.

"No," replied Marian resignedly.

"Would I be correct in saying you consider yourself a knowledgeable and
competent health-care professional?"

"Yes, I do.  I take pride in my work."

"Of course you do," Belker said smoothly.  "I can see that.  So, it
would be fair to presume you stay current on health-care issues-for
instance, before you met my client, you were aware that certain
diseases, serious and sometimes deadly, can be transmitted through
unprotected sex?"

"Of course I was."

"You were aware before you made love to my client that if a person is
HIV-positive, he or she could transmit the virus to a sexual partner
through unprotected sexual intercourse-correct, Miss Browning?"

"I prefer to be addressed as 'Ms." not 'Miss," Marian Browning said
coolly.  "And, once again, I did not make love to your client, I had sex
with him.  But to answer your question, yes, I was aware that a single
unprotected sex act is all that's necessary to transmit the HIV virus."

"Thank you.  I'll try to remember your fine distinction between 'love'
and 'sex," Belker said sourly.

"Now, Mizzz Browning, wouldn't you agree with me that you knowingly and
consciously chose to engage in sexual intercourse with my client without
using a condom understanding fully the risks involved, ignoring all you
knew, and thereby voluntarily assumed the risk of contracting HIV?" For
a long, long moment, Marian Browning glared at Martin Belker, and
Kathryn could see her trembling visibly with anger.

"That, sir, is absurd!" she rasped.  "No, I did not voluntarily assume
the risk of contracting AIDS.  I could not assume a risk I did not know
existed.  Your client lied to me.  He invented a sick story about having
surgery and being tested negative for RIV for the sole purpose of
convincing me to have sex with him, then he got me drunk to make it
easier.  And it worked, sir-once.  However, to answer your question more
fully," she said, rising in the witness box as she pointed at Richard
Hudson, "your client-that man!-infected me with the HIV virus, and he
did it intentionally.  And I hope he rots in hell!"

A stunned silence enveloped the courtroom as she collapsed into her
chair, exhausted by her own anger.

It lasted only a moment, until Judge Woods reacted angrily to Marian
Browning's denunciation.

"Ms.  Browning, you have tried this court's patience enough!" he
snapped.  "I can, I will tolerate no further outbursts.  If you are so
misguided as to make another, I will be forced to hold you in contempt
of court and order you confined to jail until such time as you can
control yourself.  Do you understand me?"

The last four words were almost fired like separate shots from between
his clenched teeth.  If the judge expected Marian Browning to be
intimidated, he was immediately disappointed.  She looked him
unflinchingly in the eye before she replied.

"Your Honor," she said, "it was not my intention to be disrespectful to
you or the jury or to anyone else in this courtroom.  But I feel as if I
am being treated as the criminal here rather than as a victim.  Since I
am already under a sentence of death, and for no other crime except that
of being extremely imprudent, you will appreciate the threat of a few
nights in jail arouses no fear in me.  In fact, it would be a distinct
improvement over the hell I'm living in."

Kathryn felt like cheering.  In one simple speech, Marian Browning had
summed up the frailties of the judicial system and, in the process, done
more to enhance the prosecution's case and destroy the defense's than
the combined testimony of every other witness who would be called upon.
It came as no surprise to her when Martin Belker elected not to put any
further questions to the witness.

"Thank you, Mr.  Belker," Judge Woods said heavily.  "I think that will
be more than enough for today.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your attention, and once
again please keep in mind my admonition that you are not to discuss this
case among yourselves or with anyone else."

"All rise!" Bailiff Chris Taylor called as the judge left the bench.
Kathryn sat quietly, still stirred by her witness's testimony.  Only
rarely, perhaps no more than once in a career, if one was lucky, did a
prosecutor get a witness who had such a powerful effect upon a courtroom
as Marian Browning.  She stood up as Marian came across to the table.

"I just wanted to thank you, Kathryn," she said with a glance at Belker.
"That man tried to make me sound ...  loose and stupid."

"No way could he ever have done that," Kathryn told her.

"That's good to hear," she said.  "Would you ...

could I buy you a cup of coffee sometime?  After this is ...  all over?"

"I'd love that." Kathryn smiled.  "I'll walk you outside.  I've arranged
for an inspector to give you a ride home."

"No need, the bus is fine," Marian said.

Kathryn watched her as she pushed out through the barrier and left the
courtroom, a stocky, plainly dressed woman whom yesterday one might have
passed on the street without even noticing.  Yesterday, perhaps, but not
today.  Today Marian Browning had made everyone notice her: a decent,
brave, and honest woman who had had the courage to stand up in front of
the whole world and tell Richard Hudson-and all the other Richard
Hudsons out there-that she refused to be a victim.

COUNTY MORGUE.

MONDAY, JUNE 26, 11:15 P.m.

By the time Morgan Nelson was ready to begin the autopsy on Peter
Valenzuela, Kathryn had been in the autopsy suite for almost half an
hour.  Each time Nelson appeared ready to begin, the phone rang.

Finally, with a muttered curse, he switched it off and vowed to ignore
it the rest of the night.  Except for the constant soft murmur of
running water, the morgue was empty and still; along the corridor
somewhere, the sullen drip of a tap into an empty steel sink sounded
like the far-off echo of a slowly beaten drum.

"Something bothering you, Katie?" Morgan asked as he readied the
devastated body of Peter Valenzuela for examination.

"Nothing special." She fenced.  "Why do you ask?"

"You seem ...  preoccupied," Morgan said.  "I don't quite know how to
put it.  Like you have something on your mind you want to talk about,
but can't."

Surprised by his insight, Kathryn avoided the implicit question.

"You know me, Morgan.  I'm always on edge while I'm in trial."

He nodded agreement, but she sensed he was not entirely convinced.

"You sure you really want to tough this out, Katie?" he said.  "You
don't have to, you know.  It looks like it might be pretty much a rerun
of the Hanlon autopsy."

"Let me sit in for a while anyway," Kathryn said.

"I'd like to understand what happened to Valenzuela and Hanlon.  So far,
I haven't been able to."

"Scott Fitzgerald once wrote something about the rich being different
from you and me," Morgan said, working on his knives with steady
concentration.

"The same might be said of people like our friend Valenzuela here.
Sexual masochists are different from you and me."

"How so?" asked Kathryn.

"Cast your mind back to last summer.  The autoerotic deaths.  Remember?"

"I remember," Kathryn said feelingly.  Will I ever forget?

The long hunt for a vigilante who killed rapists and duplicated
autoerotic death scenes to conceal his murders had ended in the tragic
death of a DA's Inspector named Michael Gaines.  She never passed the
stairwell outside her condominium without hearing again the echo of the
shot that had ended his life.

And remembering Dave Granz, his face like iron, telling her it was over.
As if it would ever be over.

"Then you'll recall autoerotic sexual behavior is just having fun
without a sexual partner.  And that when it goes wrong, the majority of
autoerotic deaths are caused by asphyxiation."

"Risk-taking is the thrill, right?" said Kathryn.

"The closer you go to the edge, the bigger the charge."

"That's it exactly," replied Nelson.

"I seem to remember you telling me how important it was in such cases
that investigators carefully check knots and other restraints."

"Very important.  In a fatality, the way knots are tied, the way
handcuffs are fastened, can often indicate quite conclusively whether
the victim placed the physical restraints himself, or whether someone
else did."

"And here?"

"No question about it, someone else put them on."

"How can you tell?"

"You saw the body."

"You mean the way he struggled?"

Morgan nodded approvingly.  "Right.  If he'd been alone, put them on
himself, he'd have tied slip knots on the ropes, had the key to the
handcuffs close by where he could reach it when he wanted it."

"So what kind of sex games was he playing?"

"The common terminology used to describe this range of sexual behavior
is'bondage and domination." Bondage refers to the use of physically
restraining materials or devices that have special sexual significance
for the user-ropes, chains, handcuffs, hoods, blindfolds, gags-even
bandages.  Different degrees of restraint, different associations.  It's
all very individualistic."

"And domination?"

"It takes a variety of forms, from gentle sadism say, being
caress-whipped with a silk dressing gown cord or slapped around a
little-escalating to the infliction of, and willing submission to,
serious injury and sexual humiliation."

In addition to whatever pain might be induced by the restraints used,
the recipient might also invite the infliction of pain on erogenous
zones such as the nipples, anus, or scrotum, or on the actual genitalia
themselves, Morgan told her.  Usually the 'game' was ended by an agreed
signal between the dominator and the subject, a code word or a physical
sign if speech was not possible.

"There are as many varieties of sexual behavior as there are people,"
Morgan said.  "Your normal is someone else's anathema, and vice versa.
Whatever your imagination can conjure up, no matter how bizarre, no
matter how disgusting it might seem to you, someone somewhere has
already done it-in spades.  And got a sexual kick out of it."

"What about Valenzuela?"

"The cuffs on Valenzuela were lined with lamb's wool, Katie.  They were
for holding but not for hurting.  CSI found some burned remnants of what
might have been rubber foam insulation on the floor of the apartment. My
guess is there was something between his skin and the ropes on his
ankles when the game started, too."

"Padding?"

Morgan nodded confirmation.  "Some of these sadomasochistic games can
mark you up pretty badly," he said.  "Generally speaking, the people who
play them don't want their friends or relatives to know how they get
their kicks, so they use padding to prevent abrasions or bruising that
might trigger embarrassing questions."

"So what did his partner do to him?"

"That's what we're about to find out," Morgan said, switching on his
mini-cassette recorder.  "Okay, it's eleven twenty-one P.m., JUNE 26.
The body under examination is that of a well-nourished Hispanic male,
apparent age forty to forty-five, identified as Peter Charles-we'll
probably find he was born Pedro Carlos-Valenzuela by a coroner's ID band
present on the right ankle."

He fished in the pocket of his surgical robe and brought out a flexible
tape measure with which he quickly checked and called out the dead man's
height, five feet ten inches.  Kathryn jotted it down on the clipboarded
autopsy form Morgan had handed to her earlier.  Later she would make
notes of the weights of various organs as Morgan extracted them-lungs,
liver, heart, brain.

"Right," he said.  "Let's swab some of this soot off him, and maybe
we'll be able to see something."

With long, strong strokes of his powerful forearms, he swabbed the
encrusted soot and detritus off the dead man's upper torso.  The wet
flesh gleamed fishbelly-white in the bright overhead lights.

"Ah," she heard him say as he bent over the body.

"Interesting.  Come here, Katie."

She put down the clipboard and went across to stand beside the tilted
table on which the body lay.

Morgan Nelson handed her the six-inch-diameter magnifying glass he had
in his hand.

"Here," he said, pointing to the right side of the dead man's chest just
above the nipple.  "See?"

Squinting through the magnifying glass, Kathryn could see three dark
purple parallel lines, each perhaps half an inch across.  They ran
downward into the ghastly hole that had been burned through the body by
the incendiary device.

"What are they?" she asked.

"Wait," Morgan said.

Going around to the other side of the table, he lifted the dead man's
right arm with his left hand, holding out his own right hand and
wiggling the fingers, gimme.  Kathryn slapped the magnifying glass into
his palm.

"More here," he said.  "Come see."

She walked around the table and looked over his shoulder.  Around the
little run of muscle beneath the armpit was a similar set of marks.

"Couldn't see these at the death scene," he said.

"Parallel bruises and subcutaneous tissue damage on the left pectoralis
major and right serratus anterior.

Both consistent with the body having been struck with something whippy,
perhaps a split cane switch or a whip with leather thongs, probably the
latter.  Before he was killed, our friend here was flagellated."

He straightened up and beamed at Kathryn as if he had just done a clever
conjuring trick.  "The skin isn't broken, so I'd say it wasn't serious,
just hard enough to arouse.  In other words, sexual foreplay, not
punishment whipping."

"What was that thing they used to say, different strokes for different
folks?  This puts kind of a new spin on it, doesn't it?"

"If nothing else, it narrows down the field a tad," Morgan said.  "It
suggests the killer could be a sadist, or at the very least what they
call a dominator, someone who specializes in dishing out punishment
sex."

"Sexual intercourse?"

Nelson shrugged.  "No way of knowing," he said.

"If any sex took place, the fire destroyed any traces there might have
been on the body."

"What now?"

Morgan picked up his large surgical knife.  "I'll get started on the
cutting," he said.  "Katie, you look tired.  Why don't you go home, and
I'll call you with my findings."

Kathryn nodded.  "Maybe I will at that," she said.

"By the way, I talked to Dave about calling in a profiler.  He said I
ought to take a shot at it."

"It's a good idea.  You've got the training."

Profiling was not an art, it was a skill.  A crime scene Processed
through an experienced investigative brain.

Although Kathryn was not an investigator, her close association over the
years with the processes of law enforcement and investigation, enhanced
by the training she had received at Quantico, had given her a
comprehensive overview of criminal behavior.

The questions you wanted answered were not why someone had been killed
but how it had been done and what kind of person might have done it. Why
didn't matter.  Cops weren't interested in why.  They were interested in
how old the guy was, was he black or white, was he married or single.

"You want to talk it through while I'm getting our friend here ready?"
Morgan said, interrupting her reverie.

"You know how it works, Morgan, it's a step-by step thing," she said.
"First, evaluate the acts.  Then the crime scenes.  Then analyze the
victims."

"Okay," Morgan said.  "Start with the murders."

"Our killer is a planner.  We know he manufactures portable incendiary
devices and takes them with him to the scene of the killings.  Leaves us
nothing-no prints, no physical evidence.  That says organized and
intelligent to me."

"Agreed."

"There's a ...  ferocity about the killings.  You remarked on it.  You
said whoever was doing this really hated his victims, wanted them to
suffer.  Could he be homophobic?"

"He could be, but I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"The whipping.  If the killer was genuinely homophobic, he probably
wouldn't be able to control himself.  Whoever put those marks on
Valenzuela knew exactly how hard he was hitting him."

"Then why kill them?"

"Something that happened to him?" Morgan guessed.  "Something he holds
them responsible for?

Something they don't know they did, but he does?"

"The victims have only one thing in common," Kathryn pointed out.  "They
had sex with the killer."

"No," Morgan corrected her.  "That's the only thing we know they had in
common.  There could be a dozen other things we don't know about."

"Okay, accepted.  The killer knows his victims.  He has probably been
intimate with them before."

"Agreed."

"The victims are ethnically mixed: white and Hispanic.  Which means, on
statistical probability, the killer is white."

"And probably younger than his victims," Morgan added.

Kathryn nodded agreement.  The fact that the murders had been carried
out so methodically supported that proposition.  Which meant he would be
less than forty years old, quite possibly in his late twenties or early
thirties.

"And if he has multiple partners, that militates against his having a
live-in lover, so he either lives alone, in the parental home, or with
some undemanding other.  Given the age bracket, I'd go for alone,"
Kathryn decided.

"Don't forget the different social strata," Morgan reminded her.  "Our
killer is as comfortable in Valenzuela's little apartment as he is in
Patrick Hanlon's nice old Victorian house."

"So he'd be of a social class superior to Valenzuela but at least equal
to Hanlon?"

"Too easy," Morgan said.  "It would have more to do with background,
education, wouldn't it?"

"You're right," Kathryn said.  "Someone used to dealing with people of
all types.  A good education.

Maybe he speaks other languages.  Remind me to check with Walt Earheart
to see if Valenzuela spoke Spanish.  Could he be someone in the public
sector, perhaps?"

"Good, Katie," Morgan said.  "Very good indeed.

But he could just as easily work in the theater, music, the arts."

.  Kathryn shook her head.  "I don't think so.  This guy is too ...
feral."

"Interesting choice of words," Morgan observed.

"You think he's crazy?"

"Like a fox, maybe.  Which leads to the next question: How did he treat
the bodies of his victims?"

"With contempt, I'd say," Morgan replied.  "Even loathing.  He just lit
the fuse, walked away, and left them to burn."

"You see the anomaly?  Here is a man who has just played sadistic sexual
games which we can probably assume culminated in sexual intercourse,
then almost immediately afterward sets up his partners' deaths.

Not only that, he knowingly leaves them to suffer agonizing mental and
physical torture before the firebomb kills them."

"It's n, an anomaly if he feels they deserve it for whatever they did to
him.  Don't lose sight of the fact this is a person who enjoys
inflicting pain, Katie.

Someone who thinks punishment."

"An abuse victim?" Kathryn said, with a quick flash of inspiration.
"Someone who was punished, perhaps unjustly, as a child or young adult?"

"It's a truism abusers are frequently themselves the victims of abuse."
Morgan nodded.  "A history of physical abuse might certainly have
influenced his own sexual preferences."

"Okay, what have we got?" Kathryn said, counting on her fingers.  "An
organized killer, a cold blooded sadist who sets up and triggers the
deaths of his victims with considerable care.  A gay white man, in his
late twenties or early thirties, with a working knowledge of chemicals
and explosives, living alone, possibly abused as a child or young adult.
Intelligent, good with people, may speak Spanish, possibly works as a
public servant.  He'd have to be a car owner; the crime scenes are a
long way apart."

"It's a good start," Morgan told her.  "Keep working on it."

"I will," Kathryn said, encouraged by her progress.

"just tell me one thing: could Valenzuela have been murdered by a
woman?"

Morgan paused, one rubber-gloved hand on the dead man's chest, and stuck
out a meditative lower lip.

"Yes, a woman could easily have done this.  Dominatrix women frequently
figure in the kind of sexual activities we're talking about here,"
Morgan said.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just a thought.  Nobody asked the question before.

But everything we've said so far about the killer could apply to a
woman."

"Try it out on the task force," Morgan told her.  "Or run it past Dave.
Where is he, by the way?"

"Jim Field was being discharged from the hospital this evening," Kathryn
told him.  "Dave brought him home."

Morgan nodded.  "I saw him this morning.  Jim, I mean."

"How was he?"

Morgan shook his head.  "Not good.  Nobody seems to be able to get
through to him.  He's convinced himself he's going to be a useless
cripple for the rest of his life."

"And is he?"

"Not at all.  The stump's healing nicely.  In fact, one of the reasons I
went up there was to tell him I got him an appointment to see a
prosthetic specialist in San Francisco."

"And ...

Morgan shook his head.  "An artificial hand isn't going to cure what's
ailing him.  What's wrong with Jim is he really doesn't want to be
alive."

Or he's scared to be, Kathryn thought, with a sudden flash of intuition
that came from what she herself was experiencing right now.  It's easier
to opt out than to face it.

"You've gone very quiet," she heard Morgan say, and she realized she had
lapsed into silence.

"Just thinking about Jim," she said, hoping she was making it sound
reflective.  "Would it help if I talked to him?"

Morgan shrugged.  "Might be worth a try.  But it's going to take him a
long time to work all that bitterness out of his system."

"Yes," Kathryn said thoughtfully.  "I think right now I can understand
that."

Poised to make the big Y incision in the body on the table, Morgan
stopped as he saw her turn away from the sight of the blade going
through the flesh.

After gently laying down the big knife, he came around the table and
looked her straight in the eyes.

"What is it, Katie?" he said softly.

She shook her head and looked away.  "It's something I ...  something I
have to deal with on my own."

"Don't try to lock me out, Katie," he said, his voice almost sharp.  "I
know you too well.  Something's been troubling you all night.  I saw it
the minute you came in here.  Not work, something else.  Something bad."

She felt her resolve not to talk about herself crumbling.  Besides Dave,
Morgan was the best, most sympathetic friend she had, a dear, good man
who was closer to her in many ways than the father she had hardly known.
For nearly a decade, he had been her supporter and confidant.  If anyone
could ease her through this, it was Morgan.

"Talk to me, Katie," he urged her.  "Maybe I can help."

"Maybe you can at that," she said.  "Tell me about biopsies."

SUPERIOR COURT &

TUEsDAY, JUNE 27, 10:00 A.m.

"Your Honor, the prosecution calls Dr.  Ronald Freeman," Kathryn said,
and waited as her witness took his place on the stand.

Ronald Freeman was a tall, thin man with deep-set dark eyes and thinning
hair combed back from a center part.  His face was long and narrow, with
deep lines running from a prominent hooked nose to his thin-lipped
mouth.  His charcoal-gray suit and formal manner made him look like an
accountant.

With doctors, however, as with accountants, what you saw wasn't always
what you got.  Kathryn had once dated a CPA who had served in the United
States Navy's Submarine Service-definitely no place for the faint of
heart-and rode Harley-Davidsons in his spare time, yet showed up each
day at his office in a three-piece suit very much like the one her
expert witness was wearing.

She watched the jury discreetly as Dr.  Freeman swore his oath to the
court clerk.  She could see they already approved of him, as she had
intended they should.

"Good morning, Doctor," she said.  "Please tell the jury your
profession."

"I am a doctor of medicine."

"And where are you currently employed?"

"I am the Director of Health Services for Santa Rita County."

Kathryn had thought carefully before summoning an expert witness on
AIDS.  She had concluded that although most people, no doubt including
some if not all of the jurors, believed they knew everything there was
to know about AIDS, few people actually did.  It was her job now,
through Dr.  Freeman's expert testimony, to walk the jury through the
extremely complex nature of the disease, how it was transmitted, and
what effect it had on the human body, so that by the end of the trial,
they would understand well enough to arrive at a guilty verdict.

"As the Director of Health Services, Doctor, can you briefly describe
your duties for the jury?"

"Certainly.  I administer all aspects of the county's medical services.
We provide a wide range of healthcare services, many to indigent
patients, and we also interface with and advise the private medical
community on many health-care issues.  For instance, at our clinics-we
have six in various parts of the county we provide alcohol, drug
testing, and counseling programs; environmental and mental health
services; and routine ongoing public and private health-care delivery.
The difference between us and other healthcare providers is that we're
vastly larger than most private clinics, and we minister to a more
diverse patient base.  In addition, we provide certain health services
that are unavailable in the private sector.  For example, we have
specialized teams of health-care experts devoted strictly to the disease
of AIDS-an HIV testing program, HIV Early Intervention Program, an HIV
Care Team, and an AIDS treatment and counseling program.  We are the
only provider of such services in the county."

"Thank you.  Doctor, are you primarily an administrator, or do you
personally treat patients?"

"My administrative managers run the department.

I personally am heavily involved in the treatment of patients,
especially HIV-positive and AIDS patients.

My area of specialty is the prevention and treatment of AIDS."

"Would you please tell the court how and where you received your medical
training."

"Certainly.  I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in
medicine, performed my residency at Beth Israel Hospital in New York,
then trained for several years at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.  I returned several years ago to Johns
Hopkins University and earned a degree from the Program on Law and
Public Health.  I accepted the position of Director of Health Services
here in Santa Rita four years ago because this area of the country is
one of those most affected by AIDS.  I believed I could do something to
help."

"Have you served as a consultant and published any articles in your
field of specialty, Doctor?"

"Yes.  My research in the areas of HIV transmission and AIDS treatment
has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the American
Journal of Public Health, and the European Journal of Epidemiology,
among others.  I have served as a consultant to the California Prisons
Authority in connection with its AIDS-in-prison project; I am adviser to
the president's National Gay Task Force, the San Francisco AIDS
Foundation, and the American Foundation for AIDS Research."

The process Kathryn was obliged to walk the doctor through was called
voir dire, literally, "to see/to say," a means of demonstrating to the
judge that the witness was suitably qualified as an expert, and to the
jury that his opinions were valid.  An expert witness is the only
witness permitted by law to offer opinions rather than facts, to respond
to hypothetical questions, and tell the jury what he or she thinks
rather than knows.

Of course, both Judge Woods and Martin Belker were perfectly well aware
of Dr.  Freeman's qualifications; he was one of the state's most highly
respected experts on AIDS and other infectious diseases.  That wasn't
the point.  Kathryn knew the defense would gladly stipulate to the
doctor's impressive qualifications, but she preferred the jury to hear
them for themselves, "Doctor, would I be correct in saying that today,
thanks to movies, TV, and newspaper coverage, everyone knows what AIDS
is?"

Dr.  Freeman allowed himself a thin smile.  "Most people think they do.
But in point of fact, the average person knows surprisingly little about
the disease."

"I see," Kathryn said, looking at the jury.  "In that case, Doctor,
perhaps you could tell us exactly what AIDS is."

She felt the jury's eyes on her, knew their expectations.  One of the
things she had learned long ago about juries was that the way she
dressed, the way she applied her makeup, the way she conducted herself
in court, all had a profound effect on their perception of her, and of
the People's case.  The court was not a theater, but it was nevertheless
like being on stage.

Clothes were a statement.  If she dressed too casually, the jury might
conclude that the case was unimportant; This morning, as she did each
morning she was in trial, Kathryn had given careful thought to her
choice of clothing, striving to look formal but not stuffy, businesslike
but not unapproachable.

"The acronym A-I-D-S stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.  It
is a disease caused by a virus."

"And the name of this virus?"

"Its full name is human T-cell lymphotropic virus type three, or HTLV-3.
It is better known as the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV for short,
and it is extremely contagious."

"Can it be spread in the same manner as a common cold or chicken pox?"

"No.  It is contagious in the same way sexually transmitted diseases
such as syphilis and gonorrhea are spread."

"Can it be spread by everyday social contact?"

"No, it cannot.  Shaking hands, hugging, social kissing, crying,
coughing, and sneezing will not transmit the AIDS virus.  Nor-popular
misconception to the contrary-can it be caught in a swimming pool, or by
eating food touched by someone with the virus, or from sharing bed linen
or towels or cups or straws, or from doorknobs or telephones or toilet
seats."

"What about saliva?"

"The virus has been found in saliva, and also in tears.  However, since
the first case of AIDS was diagnosed in 1979, no instance of
transmission from these bodily fluids has ever been reported."

"What about more intimate contact, Doctor?  Body massage, say?"

Dr.  Freeman shook his head.  "As long as the contact is nonsexual," he
explained patiently, "there is no risk of contracting AIDS.  The same
applies to masturbation.  Most nonsexual behavior is safe."

"But some behavior is not.  Can you give us an example?"

"High-risk behavior-such as sex between homosexual and bisexual men.
About seventy percent of AIDS victims throughout the country are in this
category.  The other most common source of infection is from needles
shared between intravenous drug users."

"Can AIDS be contracted from heterosexual sex?

Sex between a man and a woman?"

"There is no risk of AIDS between two mutually exclusive or monogamous
partners in a long-standing relationship," Dr.  Freeman said.

In spite of his somewhat forbidding appearance, he was a good witness.
Decisive, clearly spoken, authoritative.  Kathryn's job now was to take
him step by step through every aspect of the disease without making it
sound like he was reading from a medical journal and losing the jury's
attention.

Taking him through it a step at a time, she had him first describe how
the virus infects the body and then how it destroys the immune system by
attacking the T-lymphocytes, replicating itself faster than the body can
replace its T-cells.

"What happens when the immune system is destroyed?"

"Without a functioning immune system to ward off other germs, the
infected person becomes increasingly vulnerable to infection by
bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and other viruses and malignancies such as
Pneurnocystis carinii pneumonia, tuberculosis, and meningitis."

"And cancer?"

"Yes," Freeman said.  "And cancer."

Kathryn paused to let the words sink into the jury's consciousness.  She
wanted them to realize the implications of what Richard Hudson had done
to the three victims whose stories they had heard.

One by one, the questions came and were answered: the incubation period,
the symptoms, the various types of cancer that could be triggered by the
disease.

Without appearing to, Kathryn watched the jury closely throughout the
witness's exposition.  If she had detected the slightest sign of apathy
or boredom on their faces, she would have cut Dr.  Freeman's testimony
short, but there was none.  Now just a few more questions would nail it
down and make the point.

"Tell me, Doctor, is there a cure for AIDS?" she asked guilelessly.

"No."

"Is any such vaccine in development?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Is there any vaccine that would prevent uninfected persons from
contracting the disease?"

"No, there is not."

"Is there any vaccine or drug that will halt the progress of the disease
once infection has taken place?"

"No, there is not."

"So if someone deliberately infected two persons with AIDS, he would
effectively be condemning them to death?"

"Objection!" Belker shouted, scrambling to his feet.  "Argumentative!"

"Withdrawn.  Thank you, Dr.  Freeman.  I have no further questions."

Belker was still on his feet, his face a study in frustration.

"Mr.  Belker, do you have anything for this witness?" Judge Woods asked.

"No, Your Honor," Belker said, still fuming.  "The defense will call its
own expert on AIDS later."

"That being the case, this would seem an appropriate point at which to
adjourn," Woods said.  "Thank you, Dr.  Freeman, you may step down." He
paused a moment and then addressed the general audience.

"As presiding judge, I am required to attend an important meeting
scheduled for tomorrow morning.

You are therefore advised that court will not reconvene until tomorrow
afternoon at two P.M.  I will again remind the jury to keep my earlier
admonitions in mind."

As the judge left the courtroom, Kathryn glanced around.  Most of the
media people had trickled out before or during Dr.  Freeman's testimony.
Nothing sensational today, nothing gory, nothing anybody would be
interested in reading in the newspaper or seeing on TV.  Dave Granz's
voice broke in on her reverie.

"You okay, Kathryn?  Anything you need?"

His solicitude touched her.  "Right now, no, I'm fine,9' she said.  It's
later I'm not so sure about, she thought to herself.  "Where are you off
to?"

"I need to check in with Wait Earheart," Dave told her.  "And I've got a
couple of things of my own I need to take care of."

"Anything breaking on the bomber?"

"Only our heads," he said, vexed.  "Sonofabitch hasn't left us much to
work with."

She watched him as he walked out of the courtroom, wishing they had more
time to talk.  Both for herself and for him.  She wanted to know how he
felt about what was happening to her, how he was dealing with the
possibilities it conjured up.  But there was always something that took
priority at work and then at home.  An old Helen Reddy song threaded
through her mind.  I am strong.  I am invincible.  I am woman.

She smiled to herself.  You better believe it.

COUNTY BUILDING

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 9:35 P.M.

"Anything breaking on the Hanlon and Valenzuela homicides?" Dave asked
Walt Earheart.

Earheart made a wry face.  He took a cigarette out of the pack and put
it in his mouth without lighting it.

They were sitting in his cluttered office opposite the conference room
in the Sheriffs Office.

"Not a damned thing," he said sourly.  "In fact, this whole mess is like
shoveling stainless steel ball bearings up a stainless steel hill and
trying to make them stick."

"What did your people come up with on Valenzuela?" asked Dave.

"Age forty-eight, born in Portland, Oregon, lived in the COUNTY since
1984.  Moved to Laguna del Mar about six months ago.  Kept pretty much
to himself at work, doesn't seem to have made many friends, although his
colleagues spoke highly of him."

"We need a connection," Dave said.  "Something more than the fact that
Hanlon and Valenzuela both frequented gay clubs."

"We did find one thing," Earheart told him.  "When we checked their
phone records, it turned out both of them had made calls to a number
listed for an astrologer named Angel Flores with an address in Mission
Hills.  I've sent detectives up there two or three times, but they've
never found anyone home.

Neighbors say they hardly ever see anyone about the place.  We ran the
name through the computer and came up with nothing.  No criminal
history, nothing-she doesn't even own a car."

"She?" Dave mused.  "Angel's a Hispanic man's name.  A woman would be
Angela, Angelica, Angelina.

"Come on, Dave, the computer-"

"Checks automatically, I know, I was just thinking out loud.  How many
calls were made?" Dave asked.

"Two for Hanlon, three for Valenzuela."

"Why?  What's the connection?"

"Jesus, Dave, who the hell knows?  Maybe they were consulting her for
financial advice.  I read someplace at least three hundred of the
companies in the Fortune 500 use astrologers." The big man grinned.

"What about Jim Field?" Dave said.  "Did you find anything to connect
him to Hanlon or Valenzuela?"

" Not a thing," Earheart said.

"Did you ask him if the name Angel Flores means anything?"

"Not yet.  I'll send a detective over to talk to him."

"Skip it," Dave told him.  "I'm on my way up there now.  I'll ask him
myself." He pointed at the unlit cigarette in Earheart's mouth.  "You
ever going to light that thing?"

Earheart took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth, looked at it, and
put it back into the pack.

"I'm trying to quit," he said.  "So I don't carry matches.  Listen, if
Jim comes up with anything on Flores, give me a call, okay?"

"You got it," Dave said.

SANTA RiTA BREAST CENTER

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 4:45P.m.

Kathryn arrived at the Center a little after four-thirty and sat leafing
through a magazine in the waiting room until it was time for her
consultation.  At precisely four forty-five, Dr.  Marie Snyder appeared
and ushered Kathryn into her office.

It was a warm room, a window with wooden blinds looking out onto the
narrow street, off-white painted walls, wine-colored carpeting, and dark
cherry office furniture.

"I've been reading about your trial," Dr.  Snyder said as they sat down.
"How much longer do you think it will last?"

"We should present closing arguments next week sometime," Kathryn told
her.

"So it's almost over."

Kathryn smiled.  "You know what they say: 'It ain't over until the fat
lady sings." For me, that means until the jury brings in a guilty
verdict."

"Think they'll find Hudson guilty?"

"That's a tough one to call," Kathryn confessed.

"All the defense has to do is convince one juror there's reasonable
doubt."

While they were talking, Dr.  Snyder had taken out Kathryn's file and
opened it on the desk in front of her.

"I've talked to a good friend of mine who's a pathologist.  About cancer
in general and breast cancer in particular," said Kathryn.

"Did you find that helpful?" Dr.  Snyder asked.

"In a way, yes," Kathryn said.  "I feel better having it out in the open
where I can deal with it, instead of lurking inside me like an assassin
waiting for his moment."

"Interesting analogy," Dr.  Snyder said.  "Did you ask your friend about
biopsies?"

"Yes, I did," Kathryn said.  "He suggested I discuss stereotactic
biopsies with you."

"Your friend is right on the money," she said.  "We think it's the wave
of the future."

"He said it's very new."

"It is.  It's ninety-six percent as accurate as surgery in detecting
cancer.  It's also quicker, less expensive, and easier.  Most important
of all, we get the answers fast.  No more waiting weeks for test
results-they're back in twenty-four hours."

"What exactly is involved?"

"Okay, start at the beginning.  It's called a stereotactic automated
large-core biopsy."

"Large-core?" Kathryn said warily.

Dr.  Snyder smiled.  "Only in microscopic terms," she said reassuringly.
"Here's what happens.  You lie facedown on a table that is lifted up in
the air, something like a car hoist.  The radiologist sits under neath
while the breast pokes through a hole in the table and is held by a
clear plastic screen.  Several stereoscopic mammograms are taken which
gives the radiologist a three-dimensional picture of the suspect area of
the breast on the computer screen."

"Would I be under anesthetic?"

"Local only.  There's no pain.  The whole procedure takes less than half
an hour."

"Does it leave a scar?"

Dr.  Snyder shook her head.  "No, and here's why.

The radiologist slips a hollow needle into the breast, stopping just
before the area to be tested.  She uses the computer to lock onto the
coordinates of the lump.

These are fed into a sort of gun that fires a smaller cutting sleeve up
through the needle, taking a minute core sample from the lump in a
fraction of a second."

"And that's it?"

"That's it."

"Will I have to be hospitalized afterward?"

"Not at all.  You'll only be here a couple of hours."

"Then what happens?"

"The radiologist sends the excised tissue to a pathologist.  The
pathologist runs a series of tests, then calls the radiologist to
discuss the results, positive or negative.  Then the radiologist calls
you."

Would you perform the procedure?" asked Kathryn.

"If you wish."

"How soon can you do it?"

"You don't beat about the bush, do you?" Dr. Snyder smiled.  "There's no
rush, you know.  A couple of days won't make any difference."

"They'll make lot of difference to me," Kathryn said fiercely.  "I need
this settled.  I want to get on with my life."

Marie Snyder shook her head, smiling.  "Kathryn, how did you ever become
such a balleboosteh?"

"A what?"

"It's Yiddish," the doctor explained.  "It means something like
career-woman housewife."

"And it's obviously the origin of the word ballbuster.  Is that how you
see me?"

"I see a tough lady.  Or maybe it's a lady who found out she needs to be
tough."

"Tough?" Kathryn smiled.  "I'm not so sure about that.  I remember when
I first moved up here, I called a friend and confessed that I didn't
know if I could do it all-single mother, full-time job.  And she laughed
and said, 'Kathryn, you'd better be able to do it all." So I learned to
be a fighter, Marie.  Once I identify the enemy, I step up and take it
on.  Maybe it's the Irish in me."

"Whatever it is," Dr.  Snyder said, "just make sure you never lose it."

"I don't have the luxury of choosing," Kathryn said, standing up.
"Thanks, Marie."

They walked to the exit together.  "Something tells me you've already
pretty much decided what you're going to do," the doctor said as they
reached the door.

"You're right." Kathryn smiled.  "I just need to make a few
arrangements.  I'll call you in the morning to confirm."

SUPERIOR COURT &

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 2:00 P.m.

Dr.  James Axler looked like everyone's idea of a benevolent and loving
grandfather.  Medium height, late fifties, slightly pudgy, with a full
head of white hair, he had beautiful brown eyes and one of the most
,endearingly warm smiles Kathryn had ever seen.

Kathryn had heard of Axler before.  He was one of the very few expert
witnesses whose professional credentials and stature lent him a
credibility comparable with that of Kathryn's witness, Dr.  Ronald
Freeman.  She was therefore not surprised when Belker called him to
testify.

After swearing the oath administered by the court clerk, Dr.  Axler
settled himself comfortably in the witness chair and smiled pleasantly
at Martin Belker as he replied that, yes, his profession was that of a
practicing medical doctor.

"Doctor, would you please tell the Court where you received your medical
training?"

"I earned my doctorate of medicine at Princeton University and completed
my residency at New York University Hospital.  It was in New York where
AIDS was initially diagnosed in the United States, and as a result of my
work at NYG, I commenced a study of epidemiology at Miami University
Hospital in Florida.  After being board-certified as a specialist in
epidemiology, I accepted a position as director of the AIDS Health
Project at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School,
where I served both as director of the project and as a member of the
medical school faculty."

"And where are you currently employed?"

"I am presently dean of the School of Public Health at the University of
California, Berkeley," Axler replied, his diction impeccable.  "As you
may be aware, Berkeley's School of Public Health is generally considered
to be among the United States' leading HIV and AIDS research
facilities."

"Do you specialize in any one particular area of epidemiological
research and practice, Doctor?"

"Yes, I do.  I specialize in HIV and AIDS."

Kathryn watched and listened patiently as Belker took his time showing
the jury just how expert an expert Dr.  Axler was.  Now, as Belker began
examining his witness, Kathryn leaned forward attentively, concentrating
on not just the questions but the intent behind them.

"Doctor, was it because of your experiences with AIDS patients while in
New York that you became interested in that disease and decided to
devote your entire professional life to the research and the treatment
of AIDS-affected persons?"

"Yes, that was one reason.  But there was another."

"Oh?  And can you tell the jury what that was?"

"Certainly.  I myself am HIV-positive."

Martin Belker looked at the jury in well-rehearsed surprise; of course,
he already knew the doctor's medical condition, as did Kathryn.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Doctor," Belker said.

"Forgive me, Mr.  Belker, but pity is the last thing either I or anyone
infected with the HIV virus needs.

Great strides are being made in AIDS research, and we will eventually
develop a cure.  There is hope, Mr. Belker.  Being HIV-positive is by no
means a death sentence."

"Thank you, Doctor," Belker said smoothly.  "I am sure our awareness of
your condition will help us all appreciate the legitimacy of your
testimony.  I'd like to now ask you a few questions about the HIV virus
and AIDS."

Axler nodded and folded his hands together in his lap, leaning forward
with his lips slightly pursed.

When Belkees next question turned to how the disease was spread, Kathryn
realized where he was heading.  His intent, reinforced by Dr.  Axler's
testimony, was to show that AIDS could be contracted even in the most
carefully regulated environmentsby exposure to blood through accidental
spills, by failure of protective gear, by accidental needle
pricks-laying the groundwork for suggesting, in his closing, that the
victims might have contracted the disease from some source other than
the defendant.

She bet herself his next platform would be the reliability-or
otherwise-of condoms, and she was right.

"Is the use of a condom a one hundred percent effective way to avoid
contracting AIDS?" Belker asked.

"No, nothing is one hundred percent safe," Dr. Axler said, "except
abstinence, which, as I remarked earlier, we humans seem loath to
practice." Dr.  Axler Dermitted himself a small smile, and Kathryn
noticed one or two of the jury returning it.  He was a good witness.

"No, there is a small but quantifiable risk of contracting HIV even
between sexual partners who use a condom all the time," he continued.
"Studies have determined a measurable failure rate among condoms,
varying from one or two percent to as high as twelve percent for certain
well-known commercially available brands."

"Twelve percent," Belker repeated, laying surprise on with a trowel.
"That's twelve failures in every hundred.  That would mean anyone who
engages in any form of unprotected sex risks contracting AIDS and that
even when a condom is used, there is still a slight but recognized
possibility that it may fail."

"That's correct."

"And would you say that almost everyone is or should be aware of these
facts?"

"I most certainly would."

"Thank you, Doctor.  Now, assuming that a person having
negligently-strike that-having consciously chosen to engage in risky
sexual behavior, becomes infected with the HIV virus.  Does that mean
they will inevitably develop AIDS?"

"No.  Someone can be HIV-positive for many years without developing AIDS
and, in fact, may never develop AIDS at all.  In my own case, for
example, I tested HIV-positive more than ten years ago, and I do not
have AIDS."

"Let me be quite sure I understand you, Doctor.

You're saying that even if one tests positive for HIV, it may never
develop into AIDS, is that correct?"

Dr.  Axler smiled his genial smile.  "Well, Mr. Belker, you are both
correct and incorrect.  Correct in summarizing my previous response.
Testing HIV positive certainly does not invariably lead to AIDS."

"And the incorrect part?"

"AIDS is not a fatal disease.  AIDS affects the body's immune system,
making the body susceptible to other diseases, but it does not itself
directly cause death.  The most frequent cause of death among AIDS
victims is pneumonia."

" So ...  AIDS is not a fatal disease in and of itself?" Belker
repeated, turning again to make eye contact with the jury.

"That's correct."

Belker nodded.  He had made his point, and he was happy, Kathryn
thought.  Even though two of Hudson's victims had contracted AIDS, he
was telling the jury, it didn't mean it would kill them.  Knowing
Belker, she knew there would be another half-dozen questions that had
Axler more or less say the same thing.  He wasn't taking any chances on
the jury missing the point.

"One final question, if I may, Doctor," Belker concluded.  "Taking into
account the risks of unprotected sex, and the demonstrable failure rate
of protective devices such as condoms, knowing as you do the extent,
nature, and wide availability of literature on HIV and AIDS, would it be
your expert opinion today that anyone-anyone-who engages in sex with a
new partner knowingly assumes some risk, however small, of becoming
infected by HIV?"

"Yes, that would be my expert opinion."

"Thank you, Doctor." Belker turned triumphantly to Judge Woods.  "No
further questions for Dr.  Axler, Your Honor."

"Ms.  Mackay?" Judge Woods inquired.

Kathryn sat at counsel table for several moments before rising.  She
stood and approached the witness, a perplexed look on her face.

"Dr.  Axler, I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm a little confused by one
of your answers to Mr.  Belker's questions.  I wonder if you could clear
it up for me and the jury?"

The perplexed look and the hesitant approach were a technique Kathryn
frequently used, identifying with the jury, who were often confused by
expert testimony.

Dr.  Axler smiled his ingratiating smile.  "Of course, Ms.  Mackay."

"Fine.  Now, you stated that in your expert opinion, information about
AIDS is so readily available to the general public that virtually anyone
ought to be aware of it, and that engaging in behavior similar to that
discussed in the literature, if such behavior is risky, constitutes a
knowing and willing acceptance of that risk.  Is that correct?"

Dr.  Axler smiled, this time a little less genially.  She saw him
playing back the tape of what he had said inside his head and deciding
he was on unassailable ground.

"Yes," he said stiffly.  "I believe that's the substance of my
testimony."

"Thank you.  Doctor, you told us you work in Berkeley.  Do you live
there?" Kathryn inquired.  In fact, she knew exactly where he lived, in
San Francisco, in the neighborhood known to natives as "the Avenues."

Axler was puzzled by the change of direction.

"No," he responded cautiously.  "I live in San Francisco,"

"And how do you get to and from work each day, Doctor?  Do you take
public transportation?"

"No, I drive."

"I see.  And when you commute to and from work, do you ever have
occasion to use Gough and Franklin streets?" She saw Martin Belker get
to his feet.  He had no idea where she was headed, but wherever it was,
he clearly didn't like it.

"Objection, Your Honor!" Belker brayed.  "The route Dr.  Axler takes to
and from work is irrelevant, as is his mode of transportation."

Kathryn smiled up at the judge.  "Your Honor, if I may be permitted to
proceed, I think the court will see the relevance of my questions," she
said smoothly.

Judge Woods deliberated only momentarily.  "Very well, Ms.  Mackay, but
make your point, please.  Objection overruled.  The witness will answer
the question."

Like Belker, Dr.  Axler sensed that this line of questioning was taking
him somewhere he didn't want to go, but he had no choice but to answer.

"Yes, I drive Gough and Franklin streets almost every day."

"And, Doctor, are those streets-Gough and Franklin-very steep?"

Axler glanced at Belker, who was poised to object but knew it was too
soon for him to do so again.

"Yes, they are among the steepest streets in San Francisco," he replied
grudgingly.

"They certainly are.  I have driven them myself, and I remember
thinking, God help anyone whose brakes fail on those hills.  Now,
Doctor, are you aware that there is a small but quantifiable failure
rate in the mechanical parts of automobiles-brake systems, for example?"
Kathryn asked.

Belker was on his feet again.  "Irrelevant, Your Honor!  Besides, this
witness isn't an expert on automobiles or mechanics.  He's a doctor. Ms.
Mackay should be instructed to restrict her inquiries to the area of Dr.
Axler's expertise."

"Your Honor, the defense opened the door to this line of questioning by
inviting Dr.  Axler to comment on matters of common knowledge," Kathryn
reasoned.  "I merely wish to further expand Dr.  Axler's testimony in
that regard."

Woods looked at Belker without too much sympathy.

"She's right, Mr.  Belker," he said gravely.  "You asked Dr.  Axler his
opinion on matters of common knowledge.  Now Ms.  Mackay has the same
right.

Objection overruled."

"Doctor?" Kathryn said, moving a little closer to the witness.  "Are you
aware that mechanical systems on automobiles-brake systems, for
instance-can fail from time to time?  Please answer the question."

"Yes," Dr.  Axler said testily.  "Of course I am."

"And how do you know that, Doctor?"

"The fact that machines aren't perfect is a matter of common knowledge.
Everyone knows that."

"Very good.  Then, Doctor, doesn't that mean that each time you-or, for
that matter, anyone else drive your car, you are knowingly and
voluntarily accepting the risk that someone's brakes might fail?

Do you believe, sir, that if a car's brakes failed on Gough Street,
killing or injuring you or someone else, that because you are aware of
and have accepted this extremely small risk, no action should be taken
against the car's owner, even if that person knew the brakes were faulty
and failed to do anything about it and failed to tell you?"

Too late, Martin Belker realized the trap Kathryn had led his witness
into.  He started to rise to object, but before he could open his mouth,
Judge Woods waved him back to his seat.

"Well, that's ...  that's not exactly the same thing ...  that's not
what I meant at all," James Axler stammered.  "There's always some risk,
but.  .  ."

"You're absolutely right, Doctor," Kathryn said.

"There's always some risk in anything we do.  So I ask you again, when
the owner of that defective car gets into it and drives over Gough or
Franklin streets, knowing those streets are extremely unsafe for cars
with faulty brakes, and then injures or kills someone when the brakes do
fail, do you advocate that the driver not be held accountable for his
reckless, despicably antisocial behavior?  That people may be exempted
from advising persons whom they may knowingly endanger so that those
persons may choose for themselves the level of risk they wish to assume?

Would you, sir, knowingly drive your own car over those same streets
knowing the brakes were about to fail, or would you-like any other
decent, responsible person-take all reasonable precautions to avoid
endangering innocent and unsuspecting passersby?"

Without waiting for Dr.  Axler's response, Kathryn turned and stalked
back to her table.  Even if he had made one, the doctor's answer would
have been superfluous.  She knew by looking at them that the jury had
already taken her point.

Time to move on, she thought.  The twin objects of cross-examination
were first to discredit adverse witnesses and second to draw out from
them, if possible, evidence favorable to your own case.  That was where
she was going now.  She turned around to face the witness.

"Dr.  Axler, you must be aware that statistics released at the 1995
White House conference on HIV and AIDS revealed that about five hundred
thousand cases of AIDS have been diagnosed nationwide?"

"Yes, I am."

"And are you also aware of the fact that more than three hundred
thousand people have died of the disease?"

"Of course."

"The toll has been heavy in California, hasn't it?

Do you know the figures, Doctor?"

Dr.  Axler's eyes were wary, but he had to answer.  "I believe there
have been approximately fifty-two thousand deaths."

"You're absolutely right," Kathryn said.  "And isn't it also a fact that
Santa Rita COUNTY has the seventh highest per capita incidence of AIDS
in the State of California, that the epidemic has claimed the lives of
more than three hundred and twenty-five COUNTY residents, and that
officials estimate about one thousand more carry the virus?"

"I believe your statistics are substantially correct," the doctor
replied.

Kathryn swooped.  "You testified on direct that contracting the HIV
virus does not inevitably lead to AIDS.  Tell me, Doctor, how do you
reconcile your testimony with these frightening figures?"

"Objection, argumentative!" Belker shouted.

"Withdrawn," Kathryn said smoothly.  "Dr.  Axler, are you saying here
you know for certain that a person who becomes infected with HIV will
never contract AIDS?"

"No, I am not.  I do not know.  No one could know any such thing for
certain," Axler replied edgy.

"In fact, Doctor, doesn't the undeniable fact that three hundred
thousand people have died from AIDS if anything suggest the very
reverse-the probability that a person who contracts HIV will die from
AIDS?" Belker was on his feet again.  "Objection, calls for
speculation!"

"Withdrawn," Kathryn said.  "No further questions."

She smiled politely at the witness.  He didn't smile back.

Angel's sanctum sanctorum was a three-room, one and-a-haf-bath apartment
in a modern building on a hillside near the Mission Heights Mall.  All
of the rooms were neat almost to the point of austerity.

Except for the bedroom.

The boudoir, as Angel preferred to think of it.

It was the largest room in the apartment, dominated by a four-poster bed
with velvet draw curtains that actually worked and matching red velvet
drapes on the windows.  On one wall hung a fill-length antique mirror
with an ormolu frame, flanked by two full-sized farmed Mucha prints.

This was where Angel came to life.  No one had ever seen that.  No one
ever would.  It was a ceremony as personal, as meaningful, as that of a
matador donning the traje de luces, the suit of lights, before the
corrida to come.

And tonight, what would it be?

Tonight, the sexy underthings chosen with such loving care from the
Victoria's Secret catalog.  Tonight, the clinging black silk dress with
the cutaway that swooped almost to the coccyx, the tight halter top that
emphasized the proud breasts.  Tonight, the pure silk panties from
Bloomier's, the stiletto heels, the diamante ear studs.

Simplicity.  Elegance.

Tonight, the Estee Lauder makeup, the Chanel lip gloss and perfume, the
Lanc6me eyeshadow and lash thickener.  The blond tresses combed and
teased just so.

Then the tan cashmere coat from Saks, the little black purse.

And hidden beneath them ' the hatred.

None of them ever saw that.  Angel was for too clever to let any of them
see the rage burning behind the mask, the clothes, and the makeup, under
the skin.

Until it was too late.  Until it was time for them to pay for what they
had done, the way Patrick Hanlon had paid, the way Peter Valenzuela had
paid.

Tonight, it would be Gray's turn to pay.

Gray was a Pisces, and gullible as a fish.  All of them were.  And, like
all of them, Gray had swallowed Angel's astrological bait.  It was hard
to believe that men with otherwise lively, critical minds could believe
in something discredited by scientific discoveries as long ago as the
seventeenth century, but they did.  They wanted to believe the heavens
ruled their destiny, exercising impersonal sway over mere humans through
cosmic energy, that in some mysterious way at birth they had been given
a kind of blueprint that decreed the course they took through life.

Like wicked, wealthy, sybaritic Gray with his Dom Perignon and his
inexhaustible supply of pot.  He was waiting now in his beautiful
Cathedral Heights home.

Waiting for Angel to tell him that with Mercury moving forward again and
Mars boosting his energy, he could become tonight the real Gray instead
of all the roles he played for others, bringing him celestial permission
to embark again with Angel on the long, exquisitely excruciating voyage
of sexual exploration they had shared before, each increment
choreographed, expected.  The breathless urgency of foreknowledge, the
stormy sea of chastisement, the long, slow, lingering pirouettes of
reward.

Angel knew exactly which delicately perverted little games Gray liked
best, which little nuances excited him, which goads aroused him.  And
tonight, he would have them all, whatever depravities his iniquitous
heart desired.  Except for one thing, Angel thought, smiling.

Tonight, one thing would be different.

Tonight, the climax would be ...  unique.

ALAmEDA HEIGHTS.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 8:30 P.M.

Turning north off Alameda, Dave followed the climbing curve of North
Laguna Drive around to Coronado Avenue and pulled to a stop outside the
Field house, a three-bedroom ranch-style home with a patch of lawn in
front in need of cutting.  Rochelle Field answered the door, wiping her
hands on a dish towel.  Without makeup, her hair untidy and straggling,
she looked wan and tired.

"I was just cleaning up after dinner," she said.  "Did you eat?  You
want me to fix you something?"

"It's okay, I ate already," Dave lied.  "How are you, 'Chelle?"

She lifted a shoulder and gave him a smile that didn't part her lips.
"You know," she said.  "Okay."

"Kids in bed?"

She nodded.  "And don't even think about going up there to say good
night," she said firmly.  "Or they'll still be running around at ten
o'clock."

"Anything you say, boss." Dave grinned.  "Jim inside?"

"Go on in," Rochelle said.  "You want a beer?"

"Thanks, 'Chelle, I'm fine," Dave told her, and went into the living
room.

Jim Field was sitting on the sofa, apathetically watching TV.  He looked
up as Dave came in.

"Thought I recognized that voice," he said, pointing the remote at the
set.

"Leave it on if you're watching something," Dave said.

Field shook his head and switched the set off.

"Crap," he said.  "One thing you find out real quick if you're home all
day, there's nothing but crap on TV."

"Oh, I don't know," Dave grinned.  "All those soap operas.  Just like
real life."

"Crap," Field repeated.  His face looked puffy, and his color was bad.
There were coffee stains on his shirt, and he needed a shave.  "So what
brings you out here?"

"Just touching base," Dave said.  "And one thing I wanted to check out
with you."

"Shoot," Field said.  "You want a beer?"

"Chelle already offered me one," Dave said.

"Hell, have one.  Gives me an excuse," Field said.

"Hey, 'Chelle, how about a couple of Coors?"

"Sure, coming up," Rochelle called from the kitchen.

"Anything new on the bombing?" Jim asked as Rochelle came in and handed
them their beer.  She put a bowl of Doritos on the coffee table in front
of the couch and went back into the kitchen.

"I just came from the Sheriffs Office," Dave said, choosing not to
notice Jim's use of the singular.  "Walt Earheart says, and I quote,
it's like shoveling stainless steel balls up a stainless steel hill and
expecting them to stick."

"I know that feeling."

"Turns out, apart from being gay, Hanlon and Valenzuela had something
else in common," Dave continued.  "An astrologer in Mission Hills, a
woman called Angel Flores.  That name mean anything to you?"

"Angel Flores, Angel Flores," Field said, looking at the ceiling.
"Sounds stagey, doesn't it?  Angel Flowers."

"You ever hear it before?"

Field shook his head.  "Sorry.  Doesn't ring any bells with me."

Dave shrugged.  "Just thought I'd check.  It was always a long shot."

"Okay, Granz," Jim said.  "What did you really come up here for?  Out
with it."

Dave held up his hands, palms out.  "You got me wrong," he protested. "I
came by to ask you about Angel Flores."

"Yeah, and check how the cripple is doing, right?"

Field said sourly, lifting his bandaged arm.

"Hal Benton said to say hello," Dave said, ignoring the remark.  "Wants
to know when you're coming back to work."

"Good question," Field said.  "Quien sabe?  as they say in Chihuahua."

"Chill out, Jim, it's never that bad.  You're just feeling down."

"You'd know."

"Listen to me, Jim," Dave said, his voice hard.

"I've been all the way down that road.  I've had all the .  nightmares
you're having, all the bogeymen crawling nigh around in your skull.
Looking at the woman you love and wondering if she shudders when she
looks at you.

Listening to that little green worm in your brain that keeps telling you
you'll never be a whole man again, nothing will ever be the same, the
tears and the selfpity.  Lying in bed in the morning and wondering
what's the fucking point of getting up, and lying in bed at four A.M.
wondering if it wouldn't be a lot easier to just be dead.  How am I
doing, Jim?  How am I doing?"

Field shook his head.  "You-I never knew."

"There was a psychopath out there.  We called him the Gingerbread Man, a
bastard who was killing young women and mutilating their bodies.  One
night, I got a call from a guy who said he'd seen our man dumping the
body of a girl, and I arranged to meet him in a parking lot.  It turned
out it was the killer.  He fractured my skull with a wrench and then
went to work on me with a surgical scalpel.  Like a butcher slicing pork
chops."

His voice was harsh.  He touched the hairline scars that ran down the
side of his face, a faraway look in his pale blue eyes.

"At first they thought I'd just die, but I pulled through.  And then
they told me the good news, Jim: maybe my face would heal, but my right
hand was so badly chopped up they doubted I'd ever get back more than
about thirty percent mobility.  When I heard that, I thought, 'Shit,
it's finished, just take me outside and shoot me."

"You never talked about ...  your hand," Jim Field said.

Dave held up his right hand, stretched the fingers wide, then made a
fist.

"Four operations, physical therapy, you name it.

And I worked.  Jesus, how I worked at it.  But that wasn't what got me
out of the hole.  What got me out of the hole was a lady by the name of
Mackay."

Field frowned.  "Kathryn?"

"See, she believed in me, Jim.  Every time I gave up on myself-and there
were quite a few times I didshe was there.  She made me believe I could
do it."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Kathryn was my someone to keep trying for, Jim," Dave said.  "She still
is.  You've got someone, too.

Rochelle, the kids.  Make a fight of it, Jim.  Don't quit on them,
okay?"

Jim Field looked at him eye to eye for a long, silent moment.  Then he
shook his head and smiled wryly.

"Never figured you for a shrink," he said.

"And such reasonable consultation fees."

Jim held up the beer can in his left hand.  "That mean you want another
of these?"

Granz shook his head.  "I'd better get going.  Give me a rain check?"

"Sure," Jim said.  "And Dave?  I hear you."

"Knew you would," Dave said.

As he stood up, his pager began beeping.  Rochelle Field heard it, too,
and came in with a portable phone.

"I knew it would be County Comm," she said.  "I already dialed them for
you."

Dave took the phone and spoke into it.  "County Comm, this is Inspector
Granz," he said.  He listened for a moment, nodded.  "Cathedral Heights
Drive, 8144, got it," he said.  "Tell Ms.  Mackay I'm in Alameda
Heights, and I'll meet her at the scene."

He put down the phone and looked up to find Rochelle and Jim watching
him intently.

"Bad?" Field said.

Dave nodded, his face grim.  "We've got another one," he said.  "Another
fire bomb."

CATHEDRAL HEIGHTS DRIVE

WEDNEsDAY, JUNE 28, 9:39 P.m.

Cathedral Heights was up in the mountains about ten miles out of town in
what its residents liked to call redwood country.  With few homes in the
area selling at less than a million dollars, it was one of those places
where they just didn't have crime.

Well, Kathryn thought as she picked her way through the tangle of fire
hoses lying on the wet gravel, they had it now.  The CSI van was drawn
up outside the house, the area cordoned off with yellow tape to ensure
the integrity of the chain of evidence, investigators already at work
checking for tire and shoe tracks.  Kathryn saw Dave Granz's Jeep easing
past the fire appliances and waited till he came across to join her.  He
didn't waste time on pleasantries.

"County Comm said a fire bomb," he said.  "Same as the others?"

"Looks like, from what I read in the affidavit," Kathryn replied.  As in
the Hanlon and Valenzuela investigations, she had reviewed and approved
the affidavit for the search warrant.  "Let's go inside and take a look
before they move the body to the morgue.

Morgan should be in there already."

Dave nodded in agreement.  "Does the SO have an ID on the victim yet?"

"Tentative one.  Graham Carter," she told him as they ducked under the
yellow tape and walked up the drive to the house.  "You may remember
there were a lot of news features on him sometime back.  He made a
serious fortune reissuing radio nostalgia on CD.  As you can see from
the home he built."

"Any witnesses, anyone see anything?"

"I talked to Walt on the cellular on the way over.

Carter employs a Filipino cook-housekeeper, but she only works till
seven.  He's got detectives out checking the neighborhood, but the
houses are so far apart up here.  .  ."

She shrugged and left the rest unsaid.  Dave didn't need an explanation.
The Carter house stood on almost an acre of wooded land, reached by a
semicircular graveled drive that curved gently between the trees and was
almost invisible from the road.  It was the sort of home nobody ever
goes into by mistake.

"Here comes Doc now," Dave said as the familiar figure of Morgan Nelson
appeared backlit in the open doorway.  He lifted a hand as he saw them.

"Katie," he said.  "Dave.  Looks like we've got another one.  Body
handcuffed to the bed, incendiary device ignited on the groin.  Same
kind of damage as last time, burned right through the body and the bed.

Luckily, the bedroom has stone floors, so this time the place is in
better shape."

"Same MO as before?" Dave said.  "Naked?  Feet tied, handcuffed?
Indications of S&M?"

"Looks like.  I won't be able to tell you for sure until I get him on
the table."

"Who's the 10, Morgan?" Kathryn said.

"Harry di Stefano caught the call," Morgan said.

"But Wait Earheart's taken over."

"There's Walt now," she said, and raised a hand.

Earheart saw the signal and came over to join them.

He appeared disgruntled and out of sorts, as if he was looking for
someone he could blame for being called out on this.

"Boy," he said, exhaling gustily.  "What a mess.  It's good to breathe
fresh air."

"How bad is it inside?" Dave asked.

"The bedroom's gutted," Earheart told him.  "But apart from smoke
damage, the rest of the house is pretty much okay.  Maybe this time CSI
will find something that gives us a handle on the bastard who's doing
this."

"What about the housekeeper, Walt?" Kathryn asked.  "Has she been
located yet?"

"She lives in Prospect Heights.  I sent Coughlin and Silvero down to
interview her."

Kathryn nodded.  The two SO detectives were one of the best teams on the
force.

"If there's not much damage inside, maybe we'll be able to build up a
better picture of the victim's lifestyle this time," Kathryn said.
"Dave, check in with CSI.  The warrant's 'wish list' includes Carter's
business and personal records.  Be sure they seize his address books,
correspondence, computer files, email, you know the drill."

"Got it," Dave said.

"Walt, my office can obtain Carter's medical, telephone, and utility
records.  We'll contact his bank.

Seize his bank records and search any safe deposit boxes that turn up."

Earheart nodded automatically.  They'd done all this before.  As Kathryn
finished speaking, a large white van with a dish antenna on its roof
swung into the parking lot, and a young woman with blond hair that shone
in the lights got out and looked around expectantly.  She was followed
by crew with cameras and mike booms.

"Shit," Walt Earheart said, his voice aggrieved.

"Channel Eight.  Just what we need." He shrugged his massive shoulders
as if readying himself for combat and went across to talk to the TV
people.

"You got any idea when you'll autopsy, Doc?" Dave asked Morgan.

"I imagine you guys'll want my protocol on this one sooner rather than
later," Morgan said.  It was a tenet of homicide investigation that you
got your best chances of coming up with a suspect in the first
forty-eight hours.  Every day after that, the odds against finding the
killer mounted.  "How about tomorrow morning?"

"Sounds good to me," Dave said.  "But Kathryn won't be-" He stopped
abruptly, his face stricken, realizing he had spoken out of turn.
Kathryn touched his arm and smiled reassuringly.

"It's okay, Dave.  Morgan knows."

"That so?" Dave said, and Kathryn thought she heard a thin thread of
displeasure behind the words.

It wasn't jealousy-pique, maybe.  Dave had never really come to terms
with her close relationship with Morgan, maybe never would.  She gave a
mental shrug.  Men were from Mars, Dave more than most.

She loved him for what he was, not what she might be able to turn him
into.

"You call me tomorrow, let me know how it went, Katie," Morgan said.
"Dave, 11:00A.M.  in Siberia, okay?"

"Got it," Dave said again.

As Nelson hurried away, Kathryn glanced back toward the brightly lit
area behind her.  The bombings were beginning to attract as much media
attention as her AIDS prosecution.  Two more TV vans had arrived now,
and another couple of cars.  The blond reporter was talking to Walt
Earheart, He'll love that, she thought.

"Let's go see what happened in there," she said, and led the way across
to the house.  Logging in with the cop on the door, they found
themselves in a spacious tiled hall with a curved staircase, a coating
of soot marring its paintwork.  At the top of the stairwell was a hall
with beige carpeting.  A starkly modern painting hung askew on a wall
above a soot-covered sofa and glass-topped table.  Triple doors and a
huge picture window looked out onto a deck that encircled the front of
the house.  Every flat surface was greasy to the touch.  The carpets
were soaked with water and blackened with stamped-down soot.

It was almost impossible to imagine what the interior of the master
bedroom had originally looked like.  Burned sticks that had been
furniture, charcoal underfoot that had been carpet, charred remnants of
drapes on the shattered windows formed a ghastly backdrop for the ruined
bed on which the contorted body of Graham Carter lay, the pale whiteness
of his upper body contrasting bizarrely with the seared and blackened
flesh around his devastated groin.

As they came in, Charlie Yamamoto was taking overall and detailed color
photographs and Polaroids of the scene.  The zip and buzz of the camera
drives and the bright flicker of the flash gun lit the room like a scene
from Dante.

"Charlie, when you can, get some photos and video we can use in court,
okay?" she said.  "Like last time.

Nothing too specific, you know what to do."

Charlie nodded.  Witnesses and jurors in a trial were rarely as hardened
to crime-scene photographs as cops.  A set of pictures and video that
minimized gore, genitals, and distracting background material was often
very useful in both investigation and trial.

"Did Doc Nelson fix a time of death?" Dave asked Les Dougherty, who was
standing outside the room with a gurney, waiting for clearance to take
the body away.

"He said he couldn't be precise, but around nine."

Kathryn leaned over to examine the handcuffs shackling the dead man's
wrists to the twisted brass headboard.  As before, they were lined with
lamb's wool.

"They look like the same kind as before," she said.

"Are these things widely available?"

"They don't sell them in Safeway." Dougherty grinned.  "But if you know
where to shop.  .  ."

"Would that be somewhere to start?  Specialty places, sex shops?"

"SO has already covered that angle," Dave said.

"Anyway, most of the people who use this sort of stuff usually buy
mail-order.  But you're right, it might be worth another shot."

They went back down to the ground floor and out into the cool night air.
Walt Earheart was standing outside talking into his squawk box.

"Do you need me for anything else?" she asked when he was through.
Earheart gave her a negative head shake.

"We're closing it down as soon as the TV people have got what they
want."

"Ten , seconds on the local news," she said.  "Not much to get burned
alive for, is it?"

"Some people will do anything to get into the movies," Walt said with a
tired smile.

"Okay, I'm outta here," Kathryn said.  "Dave, see you later' She walked
to her car around the outside of the crowd, avoiding the TV reporters.
One of them recognized her and waved, but Kathryn pretended not to
notice.  She needed time alone now.  Time to psych herself up for
tomorrow.  Time to think about consequences.

Time.

It was the most precious commodity in the world.

You spent it from a purse that could never be refilled and never thought
of what you were spending.

She drove back to Espanola, up the hill to her condo, and parked the car
outside.  Like closing a door, she put the awful sights she had seen out
of her mind.  The air was summer-soft and balmy.  It was good to be
alive.  She looked up at the sky.  The stars were coming out.

Waiting, waiting, how I hate waiting.

LAGUNA DEL MAR

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 9:25 A.m.

Ed Hatch looked slightly taken aback when he opened his apartment door
and saw Dave Granz standing in the hall outside.  Granz showed him his
badge.

"Like to ask you a few questions, Mr.  Hatch," he said.  "Could you
spare me a minute?"

"Police?" the old man said.  "I already talked-"

"I'm an inspector from the District Attorney's office, Mr.  Hatch," Dave
told him.  "How are you feeling?"

Hatch shook his head irritably.  "Had the damnedest hacking cough ever
since that fire," he complained.  "Feels as if the damn smoke got stuck
inside my throat.  Can't seem to cough it up."

He was wearing a baggy, stained white polo shirt over grubby slacks,
with carpet slippers on his feet.

His eyes were rheumy, and his hair was uncombed; he needed a shave.

"May I come in, sir?"

"What?" Hatch looked surprised.  "Oh, sure, sure.

Place is a bit of a mess, you know how it is."

The layout of the apartment was almost exactly the same as Peter
Valenzuela's: a sort of hallway, with the kitchen on the right, opened
up into the living room with the bedroom on the left.  The air was
stale, and Dave was conscious of a persistent smell, somewhere between
unwashed clothing and cooked cabbage.

The wood-block floor was badly in need of sanding and polishing, Dave
noticed, with a frayed carpet at its center.  Beneath the two windows
looking out onto the street was a table and four ladderback chairs.  In
the center of the table lay a big, battered, leatherette bound Bible. In
one corner, two sagging armchairs were arranged in front of a
twenty-seven-inch Motorola TV that was probably the most valuable thing
in the apartment.  On one wall was a bookcase with what looked like
family photos on top, on the other a glass fronted cabinet containing
dozens of miniature liquor bottles.  Hatch followed Dave's gaze.

"Collected them for years," he said.  "Me and the wife.  We'd go to
Mexico, get tequila, go to Canada, get whiskey."

"Are you a widower, sir?" Dave asked.

"Ellie died six years ago," Hatch told him.  "Fifty-seven.  Cancer of
the esophagus."

"I'm sorry."

"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," Hatch said philosophically.
"I was just making coffee.

It's only instant, you want some?"

"Instant's fine."

"Comin'up," Hatch said, and bustled off.  While he was in the kitchen,
Dave glanced at the framed pictures on top of the bookcase.  One was a
wedding photograph, its colors faded by age.  The young man in Army
uniform was clearly Edward Hatch.  His bride was dark-haired, plump,
cheerful-looking.  In a silver frame next to it, a smiling young couple
stood outside a frame house, proprietorial pride on their faces.  Son,
perhaps, or daughter, he decided.  There were a number of smaller
photographs, most of them of a young tow-headed boy and a little girl
with long blond hair at different ages.  Grandchildren, he guessed.

"How do you take it?" the old man called from the kitchen.

"Black, no sugar," Dave said.  "You were in the service, Mr.  Hatch?"

"Right," Hatch said as he reappeared from the kitchen carrying two cups.
He handed one to Dave.

"How'd you know?"

"Just looking at your pictures," Dave said.  "World War Two, right?"

"Volunteered in forty-one," Hatch said.  "Feet never touched the ground.
We shipped out to England right after D-Day.  I was assigned to the
Third Army, activated August first.  You know who commanded the Third
Army?"

"No, sir, I don't."

"General George S.  Patton.  Old Blood and Guts, we called him.  Ever
hear of him?"

"Yes, sir.  There was a movie-"

"Movies!" the old man said contemptuously.  "It wasn't like in the
movies, son.  Two hundred and eighty-one days we fought, all the way
from France to Czechoslovakia. They gave me the Silver Star.  My boy
Teddy has it, that's his photo there."

"Rough times," Dave observed.

"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him
will I trust." Psalm 91.  You can sit down if you want to."

"This is fine," Dave said, leaning against the doorjamb.  Time to move
the conversation into the present, he thought.  "How about we go over
what happened the day of the fire together?"

"You people found out who done that yet?"

"Not yet, sir.  Look, why don't I just ask you a few questions, okay?
Maybe jog your memory."

"I talked to all those police downtown.  Told them everything."

"I saw the reports, sir.  I'd just like to go over what you remember, if
you don't mind."

Edward Hatch shrugged and sat down in one of the armchairs.  Please
yourself, his body language said.

"What was the weather like that day, Mr.  Hatch?" Dave asked.

The question clearly wasn't what Hatch had expected.  He canted his head
to one side so he looked like a curious rooster.

"Weather?" he said.

"Nice day?"

"It was a real nice morning.  No mist, warm."

"You'd gone out to do what?"

"I went over to the Seven-Eleven, I was out of milk for breakfast."

"Can you remember what time you left, Mr. Hatch?"

Hatch shrugged his bony shoulders.  "Nine-thirty, quarter of ten,
something like that."

"Lot of traffic about?"

"Traffic?" Hatch said, his voice querulous.  "What's traffic got to do
with it?"

"Just trying to put you back there that day in your mind, Mr.  Hatch,"
Dave said disarmingly.  "Now, why don't you tell me what happened? Don't
leave anything out, no matter how unimportant."

One of the newer techniques of interrogation was what was known as the
cognitive interview.  In typical police interviews, detectives basically
asked the witness to tell what happened, which resulted in a narrative
response followed by a series of questions about detail.  Then they went
over it again from the top.  In the cognitive interview, the questioner
tried to trigger memory by taking the witness back to the crime scene
and asking the witness to tell what he or she saw and not to hold back
any detail, however trivial.  When the account was finished, the
questioner then asked follow-up questions in reverse order, starting at
the end of the story and working back.  Although it took a little
longer, the technique produced not only more pertinent detail but often
as much as a third more facts than before.  Kathryn and Dave had used
the technique together many times.

"Easy enough," Edward Hatch said, pulling on an earlobe.  "You want
s'more coffee?"

"No, thanks," Dave said.  "So you were on your way back from the
Seven-Eleven.  Then what happened?"

"I had the sack in my arms, milk, I bought some English muffins.  I
crossed over the street, said hello to Bill Miner, the old gray ghost we
call him, plays pool all day down there in Duffy's bar.  When I got to
the door, I had to back in, the door's got a strong spring on it.  That
was when I saw the woman, and I sort of

"Woman?" Dave said sharply.  "You never mentioned a woman when you
talked to the sheriffs detectives."

Edward Hatch frowned.  "Sure I did.  I told them.

Sure I did."

"No, sir, you did not."

"Well, hell, it was just some woman, couldn't be that important, could
it?"

"Let me decide that, Mr.  Hatch," Dave said urgently.  "Okay, here it
is, you're coming back from the Seven-Eleven, you come into the foyer of
the building, and you see a woman.  What was she doing?"

"Leaving, I guess.  I didn't pay her too much mind."

"Can you remember what she was wearing?"

"Sure.  She had on a tan coat, she kind of pulled up the lapels, ducked
her head down as she passed me.

And I thought, funny that, why would she care if I saw her or not?"

"You didn't speak to her?"

"Apocrypha 3:23," Hatch intoned.  "Be not curious in unnecessary
matters: for more things are showed unto thee than men understand."

"Sure, sure.  So the woman-she went out of the building.  Did she go up
the hill or down?"

"Down, toward Altamira.  I seen her through the window as I got in the
elevator."

"Okay, you're in the elevator.  What happened next?"

"I thought I heard something on the way up, but you know how it is these
days, every place you go they play that damn rinky-tink music.  Soon's
the elevator doors opened, I smelled smoke.  And I heard someone
screaming."

"You said it was a man's voice-are you sure?"

"Sounded like it.  I ran along the hall to my door.  I was going to call
the police.  Then I saw smoke coming out of 3B.  Old Henry Thom come out
his door, and I yelled at him, 'Call the fire department!"

"Had the screaming stopped?" Dave asked.

"Far as I remember, yes."

"The building doesn't have smoke alarms?"

Hatch made a contemptuous sound.  "Cheapskate who owns this place?  You
must be kidding."

"How bad was the fire by then?"

"Smoke everywhere, couldn't see a hand in front of your face," Ed Hatch
said pridefully.  "Then the door blew out into the hall, whoomph!  Dam
near got me, but someone pulled me back, I don't know who.  I s I
blacked out.  When I heard sirens, and then I gues woke up I was in the
ambulance on my way to the hospital."

"Thank you, Mr.  Hatch," Dave said.  "That's fine.

Just a few more questions, then I'll get out of your hair."

"I'm not going anyplace," the old man said with a shrug.

"Does the name Patrick Hanlon mean anything to you, Mr.  Hatch?"

Hatch shook his head.  "Nope."

"Graham Carter?"

"Nope.  1 "These are their photographs.  You ever see either of them,
visiting Valenzuela, maybe?"

Ed Hatch stared at the photographs, then shook his head a third time.

"Not as I recall."

"Okay.  This friend of yours, Bill Miner," Dave said.  "Where would I
find him?"

"Now?  Your best bet is Duffy's, down the hill and around the corner of
Altamira.  He hangs out there all the time."

"Can you remember what you said to him that morning?  On your way back
from the Seven-Eleven?"

Hatch frowned.  "Something about the weather.

Gonna be another hot one, gonna get hot today, something like that."

"Then you came into the building."

"Like I told you.  I had the shopping sack in both my hands, so I had to
push the door open with my butc, "And that was when you saw the woman?"
Dave said.

"She was just coming out the elevator."

"You said she was wearing a tan coat.  What kind of coat?  Long?  Short?

"Long.  Midcalf."

"What kind of material?  Close your eyes, think."

"Wool, maybe.  Good quality."

"Did it have a belt?" Dave asked.

"No.  It was loose, full.  Like it was more for evening wear."

"Good, good.  What kind of collar?"

"I don't recall."

"You said she tried to hide her face," Dave said.

"How?"

"With the coat collar, I get it.  Yeah.  Yeah.  A big turnup collar,
right?  Right."

"Okay, we're doing great," Dave said.  "Tan coat, no belt, big turnup
collar.  What kind of shoes?"

Hatch furrowed his brow again.  "I didn't notice."

"What's the floor in the hall made of?"

"Tiled, sort of imitation marble."

"Did she make a noise as she walked?"

Hatch's brow cleared.  "Yeah.  Sure she did.  Click click click.  Heels,
she had on heels."

"How tall?"

Hatch shrugged.  "Medium.  Five-eight, like that?"

"What about her hair?"

"Long, blond."

"Straight or curled?"

"Oh, curled.  Real stylish."

"What color eyes?"

"I told you, she kind of ducked her head.  I couldn't really see."

"Was she carrying anything?  Purse?  Shoulder bag?"

"No Purse.  Just a sort of briefcase."

"A leather briefcase?"

Hatch shook his head.  "Just one of those black webbed plastic things
with the Velcro handles, you know , ten bucks in Woolworth."

"You said she wore heavy makeup.  What did you mean?"

"It was like, you know, piled on.  Overdone."

"You mean thickly applied?"

"Yeah.  And a lot of lipstick.  That shiny stuff."

"Lip gloss?  Red, pink, what?"

"Red.  Like a wound."

"Why'd you think she hid her face?"

"I figured she didn't want to be recognized."

"You ever see her before?"

"No."

"You're certain?"

"Sure."

"Then why would she be afraid of you recognizing her?"

The frown reappeared on Ed Hatch's forehead.

"Good question, son," he said.  "I never thought of that.  I just
figured, you know, maybe she was someone else's wife, or a call girl, or
maybe she was peddling drugs."

"That happen a lot in this building?"

"Well, no.  I just figured."

"Why?"

"You know.  The way she looked.  Overdone.  Tarty."

"Mr.  Hatch," Dave said.  "Youre terrific."

Ed Hatch looked at him in astonishment.  "What?"

"Your buddy Bill Miner," Dave said, standing up.

"You said I'd find him at Duffy's, right?"

"What you want to talk with him for?" Hatch said querulously.

"So he can help us catch the lunatic who killed Peter Valenzuela and put
him in prison," Dave told him.

"Remember Saint Paul to the Romans," the old man said sententiously.
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

"Not if I get there first, he won't," Dave told him.

COUNTY BUILDING

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 10:45 A.M.

"I've been trying to reach you," Wait Earheart said as Dave Granz walked
into his office.  "I think we've finally got a break.  Take a look."

Fanned out on his desk was a pile of color photographs, not the usual
police eight-by-tens but Standard 35-millimeter snapshots.  Groups of
men in casual clothes, some at the beach, others standing by a car,
somewhere in San Francisco by the look of it.

"Where did you get these from?"

"CSI seized them at Carter's house," Walt said.

"Recognize anyone?"

Dave shrugged.  "Can't say I do."

Earheart grinned.  "When you saw them, they weren't looking their best,"
he said.  He laid a finger on one of the shots that showed a slender man
in his late forties standing beside another shorter, thicker set man
with dark curly hair.

"The one on the left is Carter," Earheart said.  "The guy on the right
is Peter Valenzuela."

Dave looked up sharply.  "They knew each other?"

"Pretty well, by the look of it," Walt said.  "Here they are again.  And
here."

"What about these others?  This is Valenzuela again, right?  But who's
this guy in the other photograph?"

Earheart smiled.  "Thought you'd have guessed," he said.  "It's Hanlon."

"That means-"

"Wait," Earheart said, holding up a hand.  "There's more."

"Tell me."

"We submitted incident summaries of our bombing homicides to the FBI
Bomb Data Center.  Turns out Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office had
submitted an incident report that matched the MO of the Hanlon,
Valenzuela, and Carter homicides.  The BDC faxed us a copy of their
report.  A guy by the name of Lawrence Sutterfield was found burned to
death on JUNE ninth in Saratoga.  As I said, same MO, same bomb
materials, but the narrative statement of the report puts Sutterfield in
the company of a young woman in the early afternoon hours preceding his
death."

"I'll be damned," Dave said.  "That's what I came UP here to tell you,
Walt.  There was a woman at the Valenzuela scene.  She was seen leaving
the apartment building just a few minutes after the fire started."

Earheart raised his eyebrows.  "Where did this come from?"

"The old boy who fought the fire, Ed Hatch."

Earheart frowned.  "How come he never told us When we interviewed him?"

"He didn't think it was important, just some woman he passed in the
hall."

"She didn't live there?"

"He said he never saw her before," Dave said.  "But here's the kicker,
Walt.  Someone saw her on the street after she left the building, a guy
named Bill Miner.  He swears what he saw was a man dressed up as a
woman."

Earheart stared at Dave without speaking for a long moment.  "Jesus,
Dave, are you sure?" he said finally, and sat down.  "A transvestite?"

"Walt, remember what Doc Nelson said about the dominatrix?  It all fits
together, the S&M, the bondage, the whip marks.  .  ."

"Okay, suppose you're right," Earheart said.

"Where do we start looking for the worn-the guy?"

"CSI seized an address book from Carter's home, correct?" Dave asked.

Earheart nodded.  "Bingo," he said, and tossed a slim leather-bound
indexed book onto the desk.

"You going to tell me, or do I have to look myself?" Dave said.

"Hanlon, Valenzuela, they're both in there.  And so is our old friend
Angel Flores."

"Angel Flores.  Jesus, yes, of course!" Dave said.

"That's it, Walt!  Don't you see?  That's our mystery cross-dresser.
It's got to be.  Your detectives thought she was a woman because they
saw the word astrologer.  But probably that's just a cover.  That's how
shehe-makes his sexual contacts."

"You saying you think this Angel Flores could be the bomber?"

"Make me a better offer.

"Say you're right.  Then who was the target in the courtroom?"

"I've been wondering about that, too.  Then something Rochelle Field
said popped up in my mind.  She said, 'Why is it always good people who
get hurt we don't they bomb the bad guys? And I thought, what if the
target of the courtroom bombing was Hudson?"

"But ...  Hudson's straight," said Walt.  "Isn't he?"

"You thought so.  We all thought so.  But what if we're wrongs What if
he's bisexual?  Walt, if he's somehow connected to Hudson, Valenzuela,
or Carter, all this would start to make some sense."

"What do you want to do?" Earheart said.  "Go over to the jail and ask
him?"

Dave shook his head.  "He's got a lawyer, Walt, which complicates
things.  Besides, there's someone else we need to talk to first."

"You mean Angel Flores?" Earheart said.  "I told you, we already tried
to locate her half a dozen times, how do you-?" He was talking to
himself Dave was already on his way.

ESPANOLA.

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 4:45p.m.

Dave didn't say a word as they came into the condo, just took Emma's
hands in his and adopted the conspiratorial adult-to-adult tone of voice
that virtually guaranteed she would do anything he asked.

"Listen, Em, your mom needs a couple of hours to herself," Kathryn heard
him telling her daughter.

"How about you and I take Sam for a walk on the beach?"

"Cool," Kathryn heard Emma reply.

"Does cool mean you want to go?" Dave asked her with a smile,
remembering when "hot" meant yes.

"Of course it does, Dave," Emma said with more than a hint of
impatience.

Kathryn smiled as she heard the door close behind them.  It was uncanny
the way Dave read her moods, always a surprise to find such sensitivity
under that brusque, no-shit exterior.  Very few people were privileged
to see that side of Dave, and she considered herself lucky to be one of
them.  She knew exactly when he picked up on her unspoken message-as
they were entering the Breast Center parking lot after her biopsy, she
had kind of leaned into him as they got to the car, her head on his
shoulder.

"You know what, Dave?" she said.  "I'm tired."

"Is that a fact?" he responded with heavy irony.

"You damn near got killed in a bombing, you've been putting in sixteen
hours a day with the Hudson trial and the bomb investigation, and you
top it all off with a biopsy, then what do you do?  You complain you're
tired!  Boy, what a wimp!" He kissed her on top of her head.  He loved
the smell of her hair.

They had driven over to pick up Emma in silence, not needing to talk,
and as soon as they walked through the door, he had whisked Em and Sam
off to the beach, Sam's tail wagging happily as they strolled down the
hill.  And, the truth was, Kathryn was glad to get the time alone, some
space in which to organize her thoughts.

Before she went to the Breast Center, she had decided that the best way
to put the medical rituals out of her mind would be to concentrate on
something else.  So, as the white-gowned nurse prepped her for the
procedure, Kathryn directed her thoughts away from what was happening to
her body, concentrating instead on ' the closing argument she would make
the following day in the Hudson case.  And, to her mild surprise, it had
worked.  By the time the doctor was finished, she had decided on the
points she needed to make and how to make them.

The local anesthetic ensured that the operation itself was painless, as
Dr.  Snyder had promised, but Kathryn found the experience of being
conscious of everything that was happening to her body without the
appropriate accompanying sensations oddly unsettling.

"You can take the bandage off tomorrow," Dr. Snyder told her afterward.
"Shower, if you like."

"Will I feel pain after the anesthetic wears off?" asked Kathryn.

"Not significant pain.  Take a couple of Tylenol if it keeps you awake.
Go home, take it easy.  I'll call you tomorrow with your test results."

"Thanks, Doctor.  For everything."

"No thanks necessary, Kathryn," Dr.  Snyder replied, giving Kathryn a
small hug.

And now the waiting began, and the questions that would not go away
stalked through her mind like jungle cats.  Is it cancer?  Will I lose
my breast?  Worse, my life?

Who'd look after Emma?

She knew what Dave would say if she put the question into words.  And he
would mean it, too.

There was no one in the world better for Emmaproviding Kathryn was there
as well.  But could Dave handle Emma alone?  Could he be her father,
mother, teacher, and confidant as well as chauffeur, cook, cheering
section, and support team?

No matter how many times she chased it around inside her head, Kathryn
couldn't come to an acceptable conclusion.  She sighed and opened her
laptop, trying to concentrate on her closing argument.  Try not to worry
about tomorrow, Marie Snyder had said.  The unspoken question lurking in
the deep recesses of her mind would not go away so easily.

What will I do if it's cancer?

The evening was warm and windless, the ocean flat and calm and the sky
the color of blueberries.  Down below, the Shelter Island lighthouse
beamed its bright signal toward unseen ships on an unseeable horizon.

"Finished your closing?" Dave asked as Kathryn walked out onto the
balcony and sat down in the lounge chair beside his.

"I think so," she said.  "I can run through it again before court
tomorrow morning."

Tomorrow.  Don't think about it..

"You ought to get an early night," Dave suggested gently.

"Yes, Mother," she said, sipping the hot cup of tea Dave had brewed for
her, glad of the warmth it put inside her.

"You're preoccupied, I can tell.  What is it, the bombings?"

Kathryn could read Dave's moods almost as well as he read hers.  Does
that make us soul mates?  she wondered.

"It can wait," Dave said.  "Dr.  Snyder told you to take it easy."

"She meant my body, not my mind.  Come on, what is it?"

"Angel Flores."

Dave told her about his interview with Ed Hatch earlier that day, his
discovery that the woman who had been seen leaving the building where
Peter Valenzuela had been torched might have been a man, and his later
conversation with Walt Earheart.

By running Angel Flores's telephone number through the cross-directory,
he told her, detectives had speedily determined that Flores lived in a
ground-floor apartment in Mission Hills, not far from the Hillside
Shopping Center.

"Earheart had sent deputies up there a few times trying to locate
Flores, but they never found anybody home.  I checked with neighbors,
and one of them, a Mrs.  Marina Blythe, said Flores only comes up there
occasionally.  I contacted the property management company that manages
the apartment complex, and they told me the rent is always paid by a
Bank of America check card."

"Did you contact B of A?" asked Kathryn.

"I went up to the Mission Hills branch this morning.  Right after I
talked with Wait.  I spoke with the manager.  He said all he is
permitted to tell me is whether someone has an account with the bank
and, if so, what the account number is.  Government Code Section 7480
prohibits his giving out anything more without a court order."

"And?"

"And Angel Flores has a check card account with B of A.  She, or he,
simply presents the card number to the property management company to
pay the apartment rent and signs an authorization slip.  The rent amount
is automatically deducted from the checking account into which the
deposits are made.  There aren't any checks written.  Deposits are
always made at ATMs.  No face-to-face contact with anyone in any branch
of B of A."

"Couldn't you get anything else on the account?"

"Not without a court order.  So I got in touch with a guy I know.  We
worked on an embezzlement case a few years ago and recovered some money
for the bank.  He agreed to give me some information if I promised to
forget where I heard it."

Kathryn made an angry exclamation, and he held up his hands in a mock
surrender.

"I know, I know, you don't like me making deals like that, but we've got
to have this stuff today."

"Damnit, Dave!" Kathryn's exasperation with his fait accompli was real.
Even though she knew he had done the street-smart thing, it didn't mean
she couldn't register her disapproval.  "Okay, no questions about who
told you-what did you find out?"

"Well, for openers, he said that on the application form opening the
account, Flores gave the County Planning Department as employer."

"The Planning Department?  Then we can easily-" Dave held up a hand.
"Uh-unh.  Way ahead of you.

The Planning Department personnel officer was my next stop.  Nobody
named Angel Flores has ever worked there."

"Damn.  Where does that leave us?"

"I'm not sure.  But something is weird.  The apartment no one lives in.
The bank account that's accessed by remote control.  The telephone
number with no long-distance or message-unit phone calls that can be
traced.  Everything's set up to give nothing away.

It's like chasing a goddamn ghost." The tension in Dave's voice revealed
his frustration.

"Well, we know Angel Flores exists," Kathryn nsisted.

"Not necessarily," Dave answered.  "It's a lot of work, but it's still
possible to put together a false identity.  Start in the Santa Rita
cemetery.  Find the grave of a child who was born about the same time
you were, but died during infancy.  Not uncommon at all.  Armed with the
name, date of birth, name of the child's mother and father, apply for a
replacement birth certificate from the County Clerk-Recorder's office.
You'd have to swear out an affidavit of loss, but that's no problem. The
certified birth record becomes the foundation of your new identity.
Using the birth certificate, apply for a Social Security number.  Take
those two documents to the Department of Motor Vehicles and get a
driver's license.  From there on, it's a piece of cake.  Credit cards
and charge accounts are easy.  Pretty soon, you've created a brand-new
person-who doesn't exist."

"Okay, the next logical question is why?  Why would someone go to all
this trouble?  Especially the apartment."

"That's a good question.  Maybe she, or he, needs a place to change
identities," Dave speculated.  "To metamorphose.  Or maybe.  .

"Or maybe what?"

"Hey," Dave said very softly.  "What if...  suppose the apartment is
where she-he-makes the bombs."

Kathryn stared at him incredulously.  "Are you sure you don't read
minds?"

"What?"

"I'll explain later," she said.  "Go on, go on."

"My instincts say Angel Flores doesn't exist," Dave explained.  "That
nobody actually lives at the Mission Hills apartment, at least not
full-time.  And she damnit, why do I keep saying she-whoever this Angel
Flores is, I'm sure of one thing, it's not a woman-it's a man who
cross-dresses as a woman.

Sure as hell."

"Okay, let's say you're right," Kathryn said.  She wanted Dave to
confirm her profile without any prompting.  "Flores is a man, not a
woman.  Tell me what he's like."

"Young," Dave said, thinking out loud.  "From what Hatch told me, he has
to be.  Young and goodlooking, slim, medium to slight build.
Intelligent, too, enough to be attractive to men of very different
backgrounds.  Those victims weren't dummies.  Plenty of social skills,
charm, sophistication.  But behind that exterior there's a psychopath.
Another bomb waiting to go off."

"Very good," Kathryn said.

Dave leaned forward.  "What did you mean when you said did I read minds?
Have you worked up a profile?"

Kathryn nodded confirmation.  "It's preliminary and incomplete, but we
definitely agree on the salient points.  We see the same guy."

"Go on."

"I talked it through with Morgan Nelson.  Our preliminary findings show
that the bomber is most likely a white man, late twenties or early
thirties, possibly abused as a child or young adult.  He'll either be
living alone or with someone who's very permissive and uncritical.  He's
intelligent, good with people, may speak Spanish, and probably works in
the public sector or for a service-oriented company.  And he has a
compelling need for escape occasionally.  Craves solititude when his
mood regresses to childhood.  A secret apartment would be perfect."

"Public sector." Dave knitted his brow in concentration and looked
skyward.  "That fits, Kathryn.

Someone who knows his way around the County Building could have put that
letter bomb on the counsel table without drawing attention to himself
And Flores pretended to be with the Planning Department on the bank
application.  Probably the first thing that came to mind at the time."

"It's promising," Kathryn said.  "But it doesn't get us anywhere.  What
we need is a link between Flores and one of the bombings.  Even a weak
link would be enough.  That would be enough probable cause to get a
warrant to search the Mission Hills apartment."

"Richard Hudson," Dave said.

"What about him?"

"What if Hudson was the bomber's target?"

Kathryn frowned.  "Hudson's not gay."

"That's what Wait said, too, but what if we're wrong?  Suppose he's
bisexual.  Then it all starts to come together.  It would explain his
relationships with your victims but still connect him to Flores.  Hell,
Kathryn, maybe Hudson just isn't out of the closet."

Kathryn was silent for a long moment, assimilating the implications of
what Dave just said.  She had learned long ago never to dismiss even the
most bizarre idea without full consideration.  An old friend had once
told her, "Always remember, when one door closes, another door opens."
It was advice she never forgot.  Was this a new door opening?

Dave interrupted.  "We need to talk to Hudson, Kathryn.  And sooner
rather than later.  Can you fix that?"

"It's pretty tricky," Kathryn told him.  "The Sixth Amendment prohibits
police-initiated questioning of a represented suspect regarding the
crime he has a lawyer for.  And Hudson's represented by counsel."

"I know that.  But the prohibition only applies to those crimes he's
charged with, doesn't it?  I'm no lawyer, but I wouldn't have thought
that prevents us from talking to him about other matters.  Or does it?"

Kathryn shook her head.  "The Sixth Amendment restriction doesn't apply
i we only question Hudson about a crime other than the one he's charged
with."

"Then let's go."

"Wait, wait," Kathryn said.  "Hudson has previously invoked his Fifth
Amendment Miranda rights to counsel.  All police interrogation, no
matter what it's about, is barred unless his lawyer is present.

Which means there's only one way we can talk to him-with Belker there."

"Shit," Dave said angrily.  "Well, it will have to do.

We need to talk to this guy, Kathryn."

"I know," Kathryn said, making her decision.

"And we're going to, right now.  I'll call Ruth to come up and stay with
Emma.  You contact Belker, have him meet us at the jail right away. Tell
him we need to talk with his client, and don't take no for an answer."

"Let him try," Dave said.

"What are you going to do?" Angel said.

"I don't know.  I don't know.

"Granz is getting too close.  You heard what Marina said.  He's talked
to the property manager.  He's probably talked to the bank.  You can't
let him fin out.

about me.  You have to stop him."

She was right, of course.  She was always right.  It had been a shock to
learn from their Mission Hills neighbor that Granz had been poking
around, the questions he had been asking.  No one had asked those kinds
of question before.  It had all seemed foolproof How much had he found
out?  How much had he guessed?  How dangerous was be?

"He can't stop us, " Angel said.  "You mustn't let him jeopardize the
plan.  Richard Hudson has to die.  You promised me."

"It's too dangerous, Angel.  It's ...  this isn't the way I wanted it.

"There's no choice.  You know there's no choice.

"I know.  But how, Angel?  How?"

"You'll think of a way, You always do.

"His car?  That big red Jeep he's so proud of?"

"Yes," Angel said freely.  "Yes, good, yes."

SANTA RITA COUNTY JAIL.

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 6:40 P.M.

"You know who I am, Mr.  Hudson," Kathryn said.

"This is Inspector David Granz of the DA's office."

"I've seen him in court," Hudson said.

Dave said nothing but nodded his acknowledgment at Richard Hudson and
his attorney, Martin Belker.

They were sitting in the interview room of the Santa Rita County Jail, a
matching single-story complex built at the same time and from the same
uncompromising concrete as the County Building.  Furnished with only the
bare necessities: a rectangular, battleship-gray steel table bolted to
the floor, four upright chairs, and a wall telephone to communicate with
the jail officers outside, the room stank of stale tobacco smoke and
sweat.  Hudson an Belker sat to get er on one side of the table, Kathryn
and Dave opposite, nearer the door.

"What do you people want?" Hudson asked.

It wasn't immediately apparent whether the question was directed at
Belker or Kathryn, but it was obvious Hudson wasn't happy.

"As I told Mr.  Belker, we'd like to ask you a few questions.  It won't
take long.  I'd like to record the interview, if I may," When Belker
signaled his approval, Dave placed a mini-cassette recorder on the table
in front of Kathryn, punched the Record button, checked that the tape
was turning, and nodded to Kathryn.

"For the record, it is JUNE twenty-ninth, six forty-five P.M.," she
began.  "Present are myself, Kathryn Mackay, District Attorney Inspector
David Granz, Richard Hudson, and Mr.  Hudson's attorney, Martin Belker.
Mr.  Belker, you've consented to your client's interview, correct?"

"Contingent upon your assurance that this matter does not relate to the
ongoing trial of my client."

"You have that assurance," Kathryn told him.  "We wish to ask your
client some questions about a totally different matter.  A murder
investigation."

"Wait a minute-" Hudson said.

"You're not a suspect, Mr.  Hudson," Kathryn reassured him.  "But we
think you may have some information that may assist law enforcement in
identifying the killer."

"Really?" Hudson said smoothly.  "I can't imagine how.  I feel like I've
been in jail so long, I'm not sure I even remember who's president
anymore."

He smiled at his own little joke.  He was relaxed and self-assured, as
if the shabby little room was his own apartment, Kathryn and Dave
friends who had dropped in.  It wasn't going to be easy to crack that
confidence, Kathryn thought.  His treatment of the women he had infected
with HIV, everything she knew about him, told her Hudson was one of
those men who consider themselves superior to the common herd and not
bound by its rules.

"Well, why don't we ask you a few questions and see?" she proposed.

"Of course," Hudson said urbanely.  "But let me ask you something before
you begin.  If I cooperate, if I come up with something that would help
you, what's in it for me?"

Belker raised his hand palm outward to silence him.  "Please let me
handle this, Richard," he said firmly.  "Ms.  Mackay, I've advised my
client that it may be in his interest to listen to what you have to say.

So why don't you lay it out for us?  If my client knows anything that
would be helpful to you, then we can talk about what he can expect in
return."

"Of course," Kathryn said.  "Now, Mr.  Hudson, have you been reading the
newspaper while you've been in jail?"

Hudson frowned.  "Sure.  The Gazette.  Why?"

"Then you'll have read about this series of bombings we've been having,"
Dave suggested.

"Oh, is that what this is all about?  Yes, I saw the headlines.  I
didn't pay much attention, though.  What I saw looked pretty gruesome."
He gave a theatrical little shudder-an untypically feminine reaction,
Kathryn thought.

"Mr.  Hudson, the information I'm going to give you now is confidential;
it has not been revealed in the press." Kathryn glanced at Belker and
then back at Hudson for a reaction, but got none.  "The media have
reported these incidents as fire-bombings, but we have withheld the
information that in each instance the victim was killed by an incendiary
device that was placed directly on his genitals.  They were literally
burned alive."

Kathryn's intent was to shock both Hudson and Belker-and from the
expressions on their faces, it had worked.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Hudson exclaimed softly.  "On the genitals?
What kind of lunatic would do a thing like that?"

"We believe the killings are related," Kathryn continued.  "We believe
the victims were all killed by one person, someone they were involved
with sexually.

And we believe the killer will strike again; there will be more victims
unless you help us."

"I'm sorry, Ms.  Mackay, but I don't see how my client could possibly
have any information that would be of use to you," Belker protested. "He
was in custody before the bombings began."

"We know that, Marty, and as I said, he obviously isn't a suspect." She
turned her gaze fully on Hudson.

"What we want to explore is the possibility he may have known one or
more of the victims.  Did you, Mr. Hudson?"

He frowned.  "Know them?  No, of course I didn't know them."

"You didn't know a Patrick Hanlon?"

"NO." Hudson smiled disarmingly.  "Look, I mean, I read his name in the
paper.  But that's all."

"What about Peter Valenzuela?"

"No."

"Graham Carter?"

Hudson made an impatient sound.  "Look, I'm trying to be helpful, but I
don't know any of these men."

"You're quite certain?" Dave pressed.  He was sure they were on the
right track, but if Hudson was telling the truth, they were back at the
beginning.

"Positive," Hudson said, pushing back his chair and standing up.  "Are
we through?"

"Sit down, please," Kathryn said, firmly but not unpleasantly.  She
needed his help.  Hudson sat down, a frown creasing his forehead again.
He looked at Belker, who just raised his eyebrows.

"Let's begin again," Kathryn suggested.  "Maybe the names don't ring a
bell, but if we told you more about them, perhaps it would help.  Okay?"

Hudson shrugged.  "If you insist."

"Once again," Dave chimed in.  "Think carefully.

Are you sure the name Patrick Hanlon doesn't mean anything to you?  He
was an industrial designer.  Lived on Cabrillo Avenue in Alameda
Heights."

"No.  I don't know anyone in that part of town."

"Peter Valenzuela?  Forty-eight years old, draftsman, lived in an
apartment on Palmetto Drive?  Small guy.  Dark hair."

Hudson shook his head again.  "Same again.  No."

"Graham Carter, the record producer?  Lived in a big house up in
Cathedral Heights?"

"I told you, no.  I read about them being killed in the paper, but
that's all.  The names don't mean a thing to me.  Believe me, I'd be
more than happy to tell you if I'd known them, but-"

"How about Angel Flores?" Kathryn asked off handedly.  The effect was
electric.  Hudson momentarily froze, mouth half-open, eyes wide with
alarm.

Then he regained his composure.  He knows something, Kathryn thought.
She didn't have to look at Dave to know he'd seen it, too.  His next
words confirmed it.

"Come on," Dave urged.  "You know who we're talking about.  Angel
Flores, lives in Mission Hills?" Hudson shook his head.  "No ... look,
that's the end of it, okay?  I don't know any Angel Flores."

"I hope you're telling the truth," Kathryn said.

"You - see, we think Angel Flores killed those three men.  Hanlon and
Valenzuela.  Graham Carter."

Hudson started to say something, then checked himself.  He turned to
look at Martin Belker, who realized something important had just gone
down but had no idea what.  Hudson got to his feet again.

"Look, you've asked me, and I've answered you," he said.  "That's it.  I
have nothing more to say." He turned to his lawyer.  "Marty, please
advise the District Attorney that this interview is over."

Granz got up, too, and walked around the table to stand beside Belker's
chair facing Hudson.  "You're making a big mistake, Mr.  Hudson," he
said quietly.

"A really big mistake.  You should reconsider."

Hudson smiled and shook his head.  "No, Mr. Granz," he replied
confidently.  "I told you I have nothing further to say, and I mean it.
I don't know any of those men, and I don't know any woman named Angel
Flores, either."

Dave's expression hardened.  He stepped closer, his face not a foot away
from the prisoner's.  "Who said Angel Flores was a woman?" he snapped.

"It was ...  you said-"

"No, I didn't."

Hudson tried bravado and shrugged.  "Well, I just assumed-"

"Angel is a man's name," Dave said.

"No more questions, please, Mr.  Granz!" Belker snapped, rising from his
chair and moving between his client and Dave Granz.  He turned to
Kathryn.

"My client has nothing further to say.  This interview is terminated."

Kathryn looked at Hudson for a long moment, then shrugged.  "As you
wish," she said, a lot more nonchalantly than she felt.  She stood up
and began putting items into her briefcase.  "If that's the way you want
it, Marty, that's fine with us.  We were just trying to keep your client
alive, that's all.  Let's go, Dave."

"Wait a minute," Hudson said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop.
"What do you mean, trying to keep me alive?"

"Someone's trying to kill you," Dave told him casually as he moved over
to the phone.

"What?" Hudson said.  "What?"

"You heard what the man said," Kathryn said curtly.  "I told you we
think Angel Flores killed Hanlon, Valenzuela, and Carter.  We think it
was also Angel Flores who bombed the courtroom last week.

And we're pretty sure the bomb was intended for you, Mr.  Hudson.  You."

Hudson stared at them for a long moment, then disbelief curled his full
lower lip.  He shook his head pityingly.  "You must be pretty desperate
to try a stunt like that," he said.  "Come on, Marty, get me out of
here."

Belker rang the bell that summoned the detention officer to escort the
prisoner back to his cell.  As Hudson walked past him, Dave tapped him
on the shoulder.

"Think about this, asshole.  He nearly got you last time.  If we don't
catch him, he'll probably try again."

Richard Hudson hesitated for a moment, as if he was going to say
something, and then followed the guard out of the room.  He didn't look
back.

They had made their decision.

He would kill Hudson when the jury brought in its verdict.  That was the
way Angel wanted it, and so that was how it would be.  In a way, it was
a better, a more appropriate finale, even though it hadn't been planned
that way.  He had originally intended it to be Lawrence first, then
Richard.  After that, Patrick and Peter and, last, the sybaritically
epicene Graham.  Then the bomb intended for Richard had gone off too
soon and spoiled everything, and he told Angel they had to wait, they
must, it was too dangerous to try again right away.

"You have to, - Angel said.  "He has to pay for what he did." -you,"
see, " he said.  "You'll see.

He imagined the scene, the foreperson handing over the verdict forms,
the judge directing the clerk to announce the verdict, blissfully
unaware that the whole procedure was totally irrelevant.  Another court
had already handed down its ruling.

That was how Angel wanted it.  That was how it would be.  And when it
way over, the charade of his own life would be over, too.  No more
pretending.  No more lying.  They had gone over it again and again.
Angel was right, it was the only thing to do.  It was honesty.

was bravery.  Then everyone would know, then they would understand He
stood looking around Court was in recess.  The empty room was like a
stage with the scenery still in place, barren without the presence of
the actors who brought life onto it.  The empty jury box, the court
reporter's machine on its tripod pushed to one side, the unoccupied
counsel tables, the vacant witness stand all kindled a hint of sadness
in him.

Such a waste.  All through childhood, the thousands of times in those
adolescent years spent trying to understand what it was about onesef
that was different, desperate to sight others who felt the same way he
felt, who were as he was.  Them looking at him.  Him looking at what
they wanted him to be, wondering if that was what he really was,
ignorant of his own life, making it up as he went along.

"He's so gifted, " his aunt used to tell people.  "So artistic.  All the
lovely things he makes for me to wear."

Of course, she never knew, never even guessed.  Those nights propping up
some bar, "Strangers in the Night, " on the jukebox, strangers rejecting
him, him rejecting them.  And all the rest of the time concealing it,
acting the part life had given him, even though his heart was breaking.
Until he found Angel, and release.

He sighed.

Today the jury in the Hudson case had heard both the prosecution's and
the defense's closing arguments.

He had watched throughout with amused detachment, the only person in the
court who knew nothing either of them mattered.  As the prosecutor led
the jury through the maze of complex testimony they had heard, his mind
was on the more important matter Of how he was going to kill Hudson.

He had talked everything over with Angel, examining each option again
and again, discarding one after the other until only one was left.  The
courtroom was by far the preferable theater.  It would be televised.
Everyone would see it.  Everyone would know why.  It was also the most
dangerous, but he no longer cared about that.  He was doing it for
Angel.  Nothing was more important.

The dialogue going on inside his head was so intense that he had to
force himself to concentrate on what was going on in court.  The
prosecution spoke first.  He liked Kathryn Mackay.  She was bright and
intelligent and tough when she had to be, but you knew there was
sympathy there if you needed it.  She always did a good job; today would
be no exception.

The prosecutor had the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt; therefore, the thrust other argument was to convince
the jury she had done so.  He knew close cases were often won or lost in
argument.  Dead bang winners could be jeopardized by poor argument.
Closing argument was the prosecution's opportunity to focus the jury's
attention on the key issues, to get them to arrive at the desired
verdict.

"As I told you at the beginning of this trial, ladies andgentlemen, "
she began, "attempted murder of the second degree is the attempted
unlawful killing of a human being as the proximate result of an act
involving a high degree of probability that it will result in death, an
act committed for a base, antisocial purpose, with wanton disregard for
human life."

Throughout her long discourse, the prosecutor spoke to the jurors in a
friendly, conversational tone, her manner methodical, her arguments
logical and reasoned.  She was sincere without being emotional, leaving
all the theatrics, cute jokes, and humor to the defense.  In her final
remarks, she once more reminded the jury that for the defendant to be
guilty of attempted murder, it was necessary only to show he had
knowingly tried to infect his victims with the AIDS virus.

Whether he had been successful in doing so mattered not at all.

It was a good argument, he thought.  Crisp, logical, clear, simple.  She
had paid attention to her opponent's opening statement and the line of
the questions he had directed at witnesses during trial, and now in her
own closing anticipated his probable closing argument.  He knew from
experience that some prosecutors held back their best shots, sandbagged
the defense attorney, and then pounced in what was called rebuttal.  Not
this one., Kathryn Mackay didn't appear to hold anything back.

It would be interesting to see whether she had any tricks left in her
bag when she got her second opportunity to argue her case to the jury.

He watched her as she came in smiling after the recess.  She was
noticeably brighter, happier, her eyes shining as if she had received
good news.  He wondered if she had, and if so, what it was.

Now it was defense lawyer Marty Belker's turn to address the jury for
the last time.  His closing was perhaps predictably- more dramatic, more
emotional than that of the prosecution.  Good defense argument wove in
emotional elements in such a way as to move or motivate the jury. Shrewd
and intense, Belker pulled out all the stops, pleading fervently for
compassion, imploring the jury to see his client for the victim he
really was.

"Here is a young man who began life disadvantaged, his parents religious
zealots who denied him friends of his own age and abused him physically
and sexually.

Here is a young man who was placed in one foster home after another, who
had never had the benefits of a normal home life.  Yet in spite of these
experiences, Richard Hudson put the past behind him.  In spite of
everything he suffered in his childhood, he became a hardworking, decent
citizen.  Then fate inflicted another cruel blow, making him a victim
once again.  He contracted AIDS."

He paused, sipped some water from the glass on his table, drew in a deep
breath, and continued.

"Now, as if that were not enough, he is brought here before you on
charges that never should have been brought.  While my heart, while all
our hearts ach for those infected with AIDS, the prosecution did not,
cannot prove that Richard Hudson infected these women with the HIV
virus."

He paused again and took another sip of water.

"The fact of the matter is, as we have shown, that one of these women
could as easily have been infected by prior sexual partners, another by
one of the patients I at the walk-in clinic where she worked.  And you
will recall that one woman is not infected at all."

He went on to implore the jury, as he had done in his opening statement
ten days earlier, not to further punish Richard Hudson, an innocent man
who was a victim not only ofAIDS but also of persecution by the State of
California and the Santa Rita District Attorney's office.

"Justice demands that you send a clear message to your community that
victimization for political reasons is unacceptable, " he told the jury,
his forehead glazed with sweat.  "Justice demands that you acquit
Richard Hudson!"

It was hard to believe now, during this recess before the final act of
the trial, with the dust motes spiraling in the shafts of sunlight
coming through the window, that such highly charged drama had taken
place here. Not that any of it mattered.  All Kathryn Mackay's efforts
to persuade the jury to find Hudson guilty, all Marty Belker's eloquent
attempts to convince them Hudson was not guilty, weren't going to make
the slightest difference.  Hudson would neither serve time nor walk
free.

"I want him to die, " Angel had said.  "And I want everyone to know
why." So die he would, right here in this room.  He looked around,
visualizing how it would play the way a dance director looks at a stage
to choreograph his dancers' movements.  Him here, me there, thus and so,
then tell them why, and end it.

There was a sort of poetic justice to it.  A pity there was no way of
cleansing Richie with fire like the others, but it would be close
enough.  Close enough.

He smiled at the thought.

SUPERIOR COURT &

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 3:30 P.M.

"Rebuttal, Ms.  Mackay?"

Kathryn stood up and smiled at the judge.  "Thank you, Your Honor," she
said.

He smiled back, and she wondered if he could sense the way she felt.
Although her demeanor now was serious, inside she was still exhilarated,
renewed, almost giddy.  At twelve-thirty, earlier than she had expected,
Marie Snyder had called her at her office.

"Good news, Kathryn," she'd said without preamble.  "Your biopsy test
results are negative.  The lump was benign: there's no cancer."

It was like the sun coming out on a miserable winter day.  A weight
lifted off Kathryn's heart, and she found tears in her eyes.  For a
moment she was unable to speak.

"Thank you, Dr.  Snyder," she heard herself say into the receiver.
"Thank you."

She got up and looked at her face in the mirror.  It seemed impossible
that there was no change.  Surely something should show, she thought.
Excitement danced inside her.  No cancer, no cancer, no cancer.

She picked up the phone.

"Dave, could you come over to my office, please?"

"Sure," he said.  "Anything special?"

"Just get over here."

She was smiling when he came in.  It was no use, she just couldn't help
it.

"You got your biopsy result," he said.  It wasn't a question.

"I'm in the clear, Dave.  There's no cancer."

A sudden unexpectedly overwhelming wave of relief swept through her, and
she buried her face in his jacket so he would not see the tears.  He
held her close for a moment, not speaking.

"You know, Kathryn," he said softly.  "I can say this now.  When you
first told me, I did something I haven't done for a long time.  I went
to church and prayed- %

"And your prayers were answered." He did not reply, and she looked up.
He turned his head away so she could not see his eyes, his throat
working.

"Yes," he said after a moment.  Then, smiling, he took hold of her by
her shoulders, holding her at arm's length.  "We should celebrate.
Dinner somewhere swell.  Champagne."

"No," Kathryn said, almost fiercely.  "We don't need any celebration.
Nothing in the world could be better than this."

Now she stood to make her final argument to the jury.  Strong,
confident.  She'd admired, even enjoyed, Martin Belker's closing
argument.  If she had been defending Hudson, she would probably have
argued pretty much the same things, tried to evoke the same emotions,
made the same plea.  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Belker
watching her, a small frown creasing his forehead as if he could sense
and was made uneasy by her visibly fresh vigor and certainty.

Like most good prosecutors, Kathryn believed that if you could not hit
rebuttal paydirt in thirty minutes, you ought to sit down.  Thirty
minutes, then-half an hour to respond to the defense's summation and to
make her most powerful and lasting impression on the jury before it
retired to deliberate.  She took a deep breath and turned her attention
to the jury box.

"If it please the court," Kathryn began softly.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defense is right about one thing.
Richard Hudson truly is a victim.  A victim of the most frightening, the
most deadly disease ever known to the human race.  But as we were told
by the defense's own expert witness Dr.  Axler, himself infected with
the HIV virus, we must not pity.

Sympathize, certainly.  Show compassion, by all means.  We would be less
than humane if we did not offer him that much.

"But we must not under any circumstances allow sympathy or compassion to
blind us to the inhumanity and horror of the defendant's criminal
behavior.

Richard Hudson deliberately and with malicious intent set out to infect
three young women with a disease he knew was certain to cause their
deaths.  Not during a passionate moment of exchanged love, not in an
anguished cry for companionship or commiseration, not by an unfortunate
but forgivable oversight.

No! These were pure, unmitigated, and intentional acts of attempted
murder.

"Who better than someone himself infected and facing inevitable death
could understand the despair, the sheer terror these three women would
experience when they learned they might be infected with AIDS?

Surely, knowing the depth, the extent of that fear, only a monster-a
vile, despicable monster-would deliberately and with depraved intent
transmit that unspeakable afflication to another human being?

"Yet that is exactly what Richard Hudson did.  He deliberately and
meticulously spun a web of deceit into which he lured three unsuspecting
victims.  He placed carefully composed relationship ads in a tabloid. He
romanced his unsuspecting victims, wined them and dined them, won their
confidence, and anesthetized them with lies about his celibacy.  Then,
like a spider with the fly trapped inescapably in its web, he injected
each of them with a poison so deadly that everyone it touches is doomed
to a slow and agonizing death.

"Did he allow his victims a choice?  No more than the spider does the
fly.  How could they make a choice to assume a risk voluntarily when
they did not even know that risk existed?  He told them a vicious and
plausible lie about having been tested negative for HIV, knowing, fully
aware that inside his body a lethal time bomb was ticking, a time bomb
he then planted inside these women's bodies without their knowledge and
unquestionably without their consent.

"The defense attorney argued the prosecution failed to prove motive,
that absence of motive establishes his client's innocence.  The defense
attorney is wrong.  Motive is not an element of the crime charged.

His Honor will instruct you that motive need not be shown by the
prosecution for you to find the defendant guilty.  Nevertheless, while I
have no obligation to prove the defendant's motive, I'll take a few
minutes to address what the evidence has shown motivated Richard Hudson
to commit his crimes.

The defendant became infected with the HIV virus, and that infection
progressed irreversibly to AIDS.  A rage, a consuming anger grew inside
his heart, a cold and savage determination to revenge himself upon the
same sex he believed infected him.  This was revenge, pure and simple,
an act born out of the rancor and self-loathing bitterness in his heart.
He set out to deliberately and intentionally infect these women with
AIDS, to make them suffer for the injury a woman had done to him.  And
he did so, without regret, without conscience, without remorse.

"I said earlier it would be inhumane not to feel compassion for the
defendant, ladies and gentlemen, and that is true.  But we must also
feel revulsion.  Here is a man who not only deprived his victims of the
right to choose but deliberately resolved to deprive them of their right
to live.  Richard Hudson attempted to murder Victoria Mitten, Jane
Sorsensen, and Marian Browning as surely as if he had placed a gun to
their heads and pulled the trigger.  And I ask you to convict Richard
Hudson on those three counts of attempted murder.  Thank you."

She returned to her seat and sat down, limp as a rag, totally drained.
It wasn't enough to present your case well, to explain the evidence, to
establish the facts.  If you didn't put any passion into it, the jury
didn't take any away with them.  She had shown them she cared and wanted
justice for the victims.  If she didn't, why should they?  That was her
contribution, the extra something she had to give.

Through the fog of her sudden tiredness, she was conscious of Judge
Woods's voice instructing the jury they must now retire and elect a
foreperson.  Court would recess until they had reached their verdict. It
was all over.  Kathryn turned to see Dave smiling at her.

"You were even better than I thought," he said.

"What does that mean?"

"Belker just slid me a note: Hudson wants to talk."

"Okay, let's do it," she said.

He nodded.  "I'll just go get my tape recorder out of the Jeep.  Meet
you at the jail, okay?"

Whistling tunelessly, Dave walked briskly down Pacific and turned onto
Alvarez.  As he crossed the street toward the parked Jeep, he pressed
the key button to disarm the alarm and release the central locking.
There was a sudden orange glare, and a hard slam of sound flattened his
eardrums.  The front of the Jeep leaped upward two feet off the ground,
and the hood, ripped off the vehicle by the force of the explosion,
somersaulted over his head like some weird, lopsided bat, to land with a
tinny crash against a wall behind him.  He heard glass shattering, the
sound of a man's hoarse shout.  A ball of smoke rose from the wrecked
Jeep, and a thin tongue of flame licked across the bodywork.  It was
only then Dave realized he was sitting in the middle of the street where
the blast had blown him off his feet.

Rough hands helped him up, pulling him away from the burning vehicle.
Somewhere a siren wailed, coming nearer.

"That your car, buddy?" someone asked.

"Yes, it is, goddamnit!" Dave growled angrily and thought to himself,
What you don't know, buddy, is that bomb was meant for me.

SANTA RiTA COUNTY JAIL.

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 4:45 P.m.

The interview room still stank of sweat and stale smoke.  The graffiti
on the walls were as obscene as ever.  Kathryn and a still-shaken Dave
Granz sat facing defense attorney Martin Belker and his client Richard
Hudson across the interview table, exactly as they had the day before.
Word of the attempt on Dave's life had traveled fast, and she could see
the prisoner was scared now, really scared.

"I guess we don't need to tell you things have changed since we last
talked, Mr.  Hudson," Kathryn said.  "Someone put a bomb in Inspector
Granz's car.

I'm confident when the bomb squad's report is in, it will confirm what
we already suspect, that the bomber was Angel Flores."

Dave placed the jail's mini-cassette recorder on the table and started
it.

"Start talking, Hudson," he said.  "Time's running out."

Martin Belker held up a hand to tell Hudson not to speak and looked
straight at Kathryn.

"My client has recalled certain information which might be helpful to
your bombing investigation," Belker began.  "He is willing to cooperate
with you as far as possible, but we will require something in return."

It was standard bargaining procedure.  Quid pro quo, Kathryn thought.
The better you get, the better you give.

"What exactly did you have in mind?" she asked.

"I'm sure your client isn't motivated solely by a desire to be a good
citizen."

"Drop all charges against him," Belker demanded.

"Your case is shaky, anyway.  Drop all three counts, and maybe we can
help."

Kathryn stood up.  "You didn't beat about the bush, Marty, so neither
will I.  I won't do that.  We wasted our time coming over here.  Let's
go, Dave." She began stuffing papers in her briefcase.  Dave looked at
Hudson and shook his head.

"You poor sad asshole," he said.

"Wait," Hudson said.  Belker silenced him with a look.

"All right," he snapped.  "Drop the Sorensen count.

If my client goes down on the other two counts, you agree to recommend
to Probation and the Court that the sentences run concurrent."

Kathryn kept her expression neutral, concealing her inward elation.  She
was tempted to grab the offer and run, but there was more to it than
just that.

"You know I can't commit to a deal without the District Attorney's
personal okay, Marty," she said.

"That's my offer," Belker said.  "Take it or leave it."

"We need to hear the information first." Kathryn turned to look directly
at Hudson.  "How about it, Mr. Hudson?"

"I want to ask you something first." he said.  "It's about this ...
these bombings.  You said you thought ...  he might try to come after me
again?"

"After what happened half an hour ago, I'd say it's gone from possible
to probable," Kathryn said.

"Then I think you ought to give me round-the-clock protection, starting
right now."

"We'll do everything we can to ensure your safety," Kathryn said.  "But
you've got to help us, too."

Belker shook his head and pointed at the cassette recorder.  "He won't
talk to you until we've cut a deal and it's on that machine."

Kathryn checked that the recorder was running.

She didn't want there to be any confusion about what was said or
promised.  Then she looked directly into Hudson's eyes.

"Okay, here's the deal," she said.  "You talk, and we listen.  Tell us
something that gets us to the bomber, something solid, not just
guesswork, and I'll talk to my boss.  I'll recommend we drop the
Sorensen count and ask for concurrent sentencing on the other two.

No guarantees.  My boss can say no, and if he does, that's the end of
it."

Hudson looked at Belker, uncertainty written all over his face.

"Take the deal before I change my mind," Kathryn told him.  "Right now,
or we're out of here.  And we won't be back."

Belker looked at her, then at his client.  "Can we have a couple of
minutes alone?"

Kathryn grabbed her briefcase and stood.  "Five minutes.  And Mr.
Hudson, while you're making up your mind, don't forget we believe you
were the tar-get of the courtroom bombing.  We think Angel wants you
dead."

Dave used the phone to have the detention officer let them out of the
interview room.  As the door closed behind them, Granz turned to raise
his eyebrows at Kathryn.

"You're getting soft in your old age.  I thought you'd be a rock."

"I'm being pragmatic," she said.  "What with Sorensen testing negative
for HIV, the jury may very well hang or acquit on that count alone.  As
for concurrent or consecutive, I can recommend concurrent sentencing to
the judge till I'm blue in the face, but ultimately the sentence is up
to him.  And even if Hudson went down on all three counts and the judge
maxed him out, the harsh reality is with AIDS he could be dead before he
serves out his sentence."

No more than two minutes passed before Martin Belker swung the interview
room door open and motioned Kathryn to come in.

"What are the chances Benton will go along with your recommendations?"
he wanted to know.

Kathryn wasn't completely sure herself, but she didn't tell Belker that.
"He's never rejected a deal I've recommended before.  And he wants the
bomber caught.  I think he'll go along, but I can't promise.  If he
doesn't, no deal, no matter how helpful your client has been."

"That's pretty iffy," Belker said, but he was wavering.

"Fish or cut bait, Marty," Kathryn snapped.

"We're not making a movie here.  If your client has got anything to say,
let's hear it."

Belker showed his exasperation for a moment but then shrugged
philosophically.  "Okay.  You've got a deal.  Do you understand what the
deal is, Richard?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Go ahead, then.  Tell them what you told me," Belker said.  Hudson
nodded and turned to face Kathryn and Dave.

"I lied when we talked yesterday," he began.

Dave looked up.  "No shit?" he said with hugely fake amazement.  Kathryn
kicked him gently under the table.  They needed this information, and
she didn't want Dave's sarcasm to alienate Hudson.

"Are you saying you knew some of the men who were killed-Hanlon,
Valenzuela, or Carter?" she asked.

"No, that was the truth.  I didn't know any of those people." Hudson
looked uncomfortable, trapped.  The little silence lengthened as
everyone waited.

"I ...  met someone called Angel once through a ...  a mutual friend,"
Hudson continued.  "I'm not sure it's the same one you're talking about,
but I think it could be.  This was a while ago."

"This friend, was it a man or a woman?" Kathryn asked.

"A man."

"What's his name?" Dave asked.

Hudson shook his head, his body tense, his eyes wary.  "That's not part
of our deal," he said.  "Knowing my friend's name won't help you catch
your bomber.  The only reason I'm telling you about this at all is that
if Angel turns out to be the bomber, my friend may be in danger.  If you
make me ID him, I'm not saying another word."

"We don't need to know his name.  Go on please," Kathryn said.  It
wasn't important right now to know the friend's identity, only Angel
Flores's.  If it proved necessary, she was confident she could get
Hudson to reveal his friend's name later.

"We had a special relationship, my friend and I."

"A sexual relationship?" Kathryn asked.

He looked at her for another long moment, his eyes thoughtful, then
shrugged.  "Yes, a sexual relationship."

"You're telling us you're bisexual?"

Hudson was silent for a moment.  He looked at Kathryn almost pleadingly.
"What you said, in court.

About me.  It wasn't ...  that wasn't why.  I don't blame women."

"Richard," Belker said sharply, "as your attorney, I must advise you not
to continue discussing this matter with Ms.  Mackay."

He shrugged.  "It doesn't matter anymore.  The jury is out."

"Go ahead," Kathryn said softly.  "Tell me why.  I'd like to know."

"I'm not sure I could tell you in a way you'd understand."

"Why don't you go ahead and try?"

"All those years," he said, his eyes blank with memory.  "When I was a
kid.  The ...  things they did to me.  And they were my parents.  it's
as if they burned something in my soul.  It's not just ... women.  It's
everyone.  Anyone.  All I have inside me is an emptiness. If you ate my
heart, it would poison you.

"You can't punish everyone for what two people did to you," Kathryn
said.

He shrugged.  "I just thought I'd tell you.  You seem to ...
understand."

"Let's get back to your friend," Belker said, cutting Hudson off.

"What was your relationship with him?" asked Dave.

"It wasn't exclusive.  I didn't have exclusive relationships.  But we
had known each other a long time.

My friend liked threesomes.  Sometimes he would bring someone home and
call me to come over.  He was into S&M, too, you know what I mean?  He
liked to be tied up, then whipped before he had sex.  I'm not into that
sort of thing, so whenever he was in that mood, he had to see somebody
else."

"Go on," Kathryn said encouragingly.

"Last time I saw him must have been over a year ago, maybe the end of
March or early April of last year, something like that.  He called me
and asked me to come over.  Said he had someone special he wanted me to
meet.  It was late, maybe nine O'clock, but I drove up there, and he let
me in.  He was wearing a silk robe, barefoot, a bottle of champagne in
one hand, two glasses in the other.  That told me this special someone
else was already there."

"How did you know that?"

"My friend only drank when he was having what he called 'special sex."
Then it was always champagne, expensive champagne, and he never drank
alone."

"Okay, So you went in.  What then?" Dave asked.

"We went into what he called his den.  A big room with a real fireplace,
soft sofas, and cushions everywhere.  There were no lights, only
candles, and I could smell some kind of incense burning.  He said, 'I've
got a surprise for you.  Come and meet Angel."

"Angel?" Dave's voice was tense.  Kathryn touched his arm gently, and he
relaxed, but only slightly.

"I saw this woman sitting on the sofa.  Blond hair, a black silk dress,
great body.  When she said hello, she had this soft, sexy voice.  I
wondered what the hell was going on.  My friend never brought women
home.  My friend said Angel was going to make tonight very special for
us.  So we drank some champagne, a lot of champagne, and we started
fooling around.  Then we were all together on the sofa, and it was, you
know, getting steamy in there.  And that was when I realized, I mean,
there's some things you can't hide, right?"

"Angel wasn't a woman," Dave said.

Hudson looked surprised for a moment.  Then he nodded confirmation.
"That's right," he said.  "But in that light, those clothes ...  you'd
never guess."

"How old would you say Angel was?" Dave asked.

Hudson stuck out his lower lip.  "Late twenties, mid-thirties?"

"Eyes?"

"Green."

"Natural hair color?"

:'No idea."

"Height, weight?"

"Five-seven, five-eight, maybe a hundred and thirty, a hundred and forty
pounds?"

"Did you hear your friend call her any other name?

Only Angel?"

"Only Angel."

"Okay, go on, what happened then?"

"As I was saying, one thing led to another, and my friend and I were
undressed with our hands cuffed behind our backs.  Angel produced a
leather whip out of a bag, a kind of cat-of -nine-tails thing, and then
we-II

"You don't need to share the details of your sex life with us, Mr.
Hudson," Kathryn interrupted, not unkindly.  She turned to Martin
Belker.  "Is this all you've got, Marty?" she asked, unable to conceal
her disappointment.  "If it is, I have to tell you it's not enough."

"No, wait, there's more," Belker said anxiously.

"Tell them about Angel, about following her home," he told Hudson.

"Afterwards ...  it was quite late.  I followed her back to town when
she left my friend's place.  I was, well, to tell you the truth, it was
curiosity.  And it had been ...  I was intrigued, you know.  I thought
maybe I could call her sometime on my own. "What kind of car was she
driving?" Kathryn asked.

"White Nissan Sentra, late model, probably a year or two old."

"Did you get a license number?"

A head shake.  "I wasn't interested.  I just wanted to know where she
lived."

"We know where she lives," Kathryn said patiently.

"Mission Heights, off Highland Valley Drive.  What we want to know is
why she's-why he's never there."

"Okay, wait, maybe I can tell you that, too.  See, I was curious who
this Angel really was.  After I followed her home, I checked the
mailboxes.  There was an A.  Flores, so I figured that had to be her.  I
pushed the bell, but nobody answered.  I thought, strange.  I went back
to my car and waited, I don't know, fifteen or twenty minutes.  I was
about ready to leave when I saw someone come out of the building, a man.
It was raining, and he had on a three-quarter-length darkcolored
raincoat and a rain hat.  But it looked like he was wearing it more to
disguise himself than to keep dry.  You know, the brim of the hat was
pulled down so it covered his face, and the coat was buttoned all the
way up to the neck, and the collar was turned up.

Looked weird as hell, especially in Santa Rita where hardly anyone wears
a raincoat, no matter how hard it pours.  It wasn't until he got into
Angel's car that I realized it was, he was her.  So I followed him."

"You know who he is?" There was no mistaking the tension in Dave's voice
now.

"No, I never saw his face, only where he went.  I meant to go back
sometime, but then I was arrested before I got around to it.  Like I
said, I'm not into S&M, but I enjoyed myself that night.  I guess I was
trying to work up the courage to call him."

"All right, where did he go?  What was the address?"

"South side, 282 28th Avenue."

Dave was on his feet in one lithe movement.  "Let's get out of here," he
said to Kathryn.  "We've got to talk to Wait Earheart.  Now."

MISSION HEIGHTS.

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 6:22 P.m.

After first contacting Judge Susan Barber by telephone, Dave faxed her
his signed supporting affidavit and a search warrant to search Angel
Flores's Mission Heights apartment and the 28th Avenue address.  The
judge confirmed receipt of the documents, swore Dave as the affiant, and
once she was satisfied the affidavit demonstrated probable cause, signed
the warrant and faxed it back.  As soon as it was in his hands, Dave
wrote "duplicate original" on the signed document, and they were ready
to roll.

Deputies, detectives, and crime-scene investigators were dispatched to
both locations simultaneously.

Commander George Purington and specialists from the bomb squad
accompanied the officers to the Mission Hills apartment on the
likelihood they would find bombs or bomb-making equipment on the
premises.

"Kathryn, you want to ride up to Mission Heights with me?" Walt asked.

"Thanks, Walt, but I'd better take my own car in case the Hudson jury
comes back with a verdict," she told him.  "I'll meet you up there."

By the time Kathryn reached the apartment block on the hillside west of
Highland Valley Road, CSI had already begun its meticulous search and
inventory of the contents of the apartment.  Joe Coughlin, one of the SO
detectives, confirmed there had been no sign of Flores.

"Go take a look in the bedroom," Coughlin told Kathryn, and pointed at a
doorway.  "Looks like Madonna used to sleep here."

Kathryn went in.  The room was dominated by a king-sized four-poster bed
with blood-red velvet drapes that matched the drapes on the windows.  On
the wall opposite the door hung an ornate full-length antique mirror
with a gilded frame, flanked by framed prints of paintings by Alfonse
Mucha.  In front of the window was an antique dressing table littered
with every conceivable kind of makeup.  A velvet love seat stood against
the side wall.  A crime-scene investigator was going through rows of
dresses in the walk-in closet.  Another was examining drawer after
drawer of flimsy underwear.

"Jesus," Earheart said, looking around.  "You think maybe Flores brought
tricks up here?"

"I don't think we're dealing with a prostitute here, Walt.  It doesn't
fit the profile," Kathryn said.  "I'd say this is more likely to have
been some sort of refuge, a place where he could 'become' Angel, the
female.  And enjoy it."

"Lieutenant!" someone called.  "Take a look at this!"

With Kathryn following, Earheart went back to the simply furnished
living room where Joe Coughlin's partner, Tom Ney, was standing with a
wastepaper basket in his hands.

"Just found these," he said.  He turned the receptacle over, and a
litter of torn photographs cascaded onto the table.  It took only a
matter of moments to fit them together; they were pictures of the
fire-bomber's victims-Patrick Hanlon, Peter Valenzuela, Graham
Carter-all angrily torn in half and discarded.

"In here," called George Purington.

Kathryn and Wait went through the adjoining room and into another fitted
out as a brightly lit workshop.

A long workbench with vises and clamps, rows of tools, retorts, and
stainless steel mixing bowls stood next to a steel shelving unit holding
labeled boxes of chemicals and gallon and half-gallon glass bottles
containing sulfuric, nitric, hydrochloric, and other acids.

"Shit," Walt said.  "This is where he made the bombs, right?"

"Right," Kathryn said.  "The devil's workshop."

On a shelf above the bench between two stone bookends made of petrified
wood were a dozen or so paperbacks, among them The Anarchist's Cookbook,
The Improvised Munitions Black Book, The Black Book Companion, Ragnar's
Guide, and The CIA Field Expedient Incendiary Manual.  No need to guess
where the bomber got his information.

George Purington was bent over the bench using a magnifying glass to
study some materials one of the technicians had recovered from a
wastebasket.

"Bad news," he said by way of greeting.  "Our boy made a bomb in here,
quite recently, maybe yesterday, maybe even this morning.  We've got
fresh traces of potassium chlorate, some smears of petroleum jelly,
copper filings, and a couple of small pieces of piping."

"Which tells you what?" Earheart asked.

"Plastic explosive, copper tubing, my guess is he's made a pipe bomb,"
Purington said, straightening up.

"And he's walking around with it right now."

He was not the slightest bit surprised when they told him the jury in
the Hudson case had reached a verdict.

Court would reconvene as soon as Judge Woods, prosecutor Kathryn Mackay,
and defense attorney Martin Belker could be located and summoned to
attend It was as if it had been predetermined, inevitable.

Angel was pleased, too.  Excited.

Now they'll know.  Now they'll all know.

,The pipe bomb he had made last night was beside hin,snugly packed
inside a layer of Play-Doh.  The igniier was a simple device made from a
book of matches and a strip of friction tape.  One sharp tug would flame
the matches and ignite the short fuse.

Unstoppable, immediate, and lethal.  Hudson would be dead before anyone
could even react.

Twenty-eighth Avenue ran east-west through Little Italy, so called
because some of the earliest residents of what had once been the little
fishing village of Santa Rita had been Italians.  Many of its houses
featured Victorian-style bay windows, decorative glass vestibules, and
gingerbread woodwork beneath the roof eaves.

As they approached the house, Charlie Yamamoto, who was driving,
switched off the engine of his car and coasted to a stop outside.
Detectives had established earlier that the owner was Madge Collins, a
widow who had lived in the house most of her life.  A metal plaque on
the wall beside the front door announced the building had been declared
a historic structure by the County of Santa Rita.  Built in 1886, in the
form of a cross with none of the rooms joining, it looked like a lot of
work had been done on the place, and Dave bet himself it would feature
handcarved woodwork, original hinges and doorknobs.

"Looks quiet enough," Dave observed.

"That's when to watch out," Yamamoto said grimly.

As Dave reached for the door handle, the car phone buzzed.  He picked it
up.

"Dave, it's Kathryn, where are you?"

"We're at 28th Avenue now.  Just going in.  What's up?"

"I just got a call the Hudson jury has a verdict.  I'm heading -for
court now.  Try and get back as soon as you can, okay?  And Dave, be
careful.  Purington said Angel is carrying a bomb around with him."

"Do my best," he promised, and joined Charlie Yamamoto on the sidewalk.
Charlie lifted his chin to SO detectives Ed Black and Merv Phy, whose
car had slid to a stop behind theirs.  They acknowledged the unspoken
message with lifted hands and moved down adjacent Lucero Street to cover
the back of the house.

Dave led the way up the stone steps to the front door, knocked loudly,
and said in a loud voice, "Police officers!  Open up!  We have a search
warrant!"

No response.

"You want to force entry?" Charlie Yamamoto said.

Dave held up a hand as he heard a querulous female voice and the sound
of soft shoes sliding on a stone floor.

"All right, all right, coming, coming."

The door swung back to reveal a stooped elderly woman in a shiny black
dress with a frilly collar of white lace at the throat.  Her hair, which
was almost as white as the lace, was combed straight back and coiled in
a bun at the nape of her neck.  Her face was long and thin, with high
cheekbones and deep-set dark eyes.  Liver spots dotted her forehead and
the backs of her hands.

"What is it, young man?" she said, a trifle irritably.

"What is it?"

Late seventies, maybe eighty, Dave estimated.  She looked as if she had
stepped straight out of the pages of a Charles Dickens novel, and her
accent made him wonder if as a younger woman she might have immigrated
from Great Britain.

"Mrs.  Collins?" Dave said.  "Mrs.  Madge Collins?"

"Yes?"

"My name is David Granz, ma'am.  I'm an inspector with the District
Attorney's office.

"Goodness," the old lady exclaimed.  "Police?  Is something wrong?"

"Are you alone in the house, ma'am?" Granz asked.

"Why, yes.  Just now I am."

"We have a warrant to search your home, Mrs. Collins," Dave said,
showing her the document.  "May we come in, please?" Dave asked.

"Search warrant?" the old lady said.  Although obviously taken aback,
she nonetheless was as polite as she would have been to invited guests.
"Yes, of course, please do come in."

She led them into what in another era would probably have been called a
front parlor.  Furnished in the Victorian style, with flocked wallpaper
and patterned carpeting, it featured an ornate marble fireplace with a
mantel clock, an upright piano with a Spanish shawl thrown across it,
and a chaise longue that didn't look as if anyone had sat on it since
1812.

The room smelled strongly of cats.

"May I ask what all this is about?" she inquired, motioning Granz and
Yamamoto to sit.  She was so charming and innocent that Dave felt bad
about violating the sanctity of her home.

He sat down on the sofa without answering her question, while Yamamoto
remained standing.  The old lady patted her chest with a bony hand.

"Would you young men like some tea?"

"I'm afraid this isn't a social call, ma'am," Yamamoto said.  "We need
to ask you some questions."

"Yes, yes, of course, oh, my goodness, how exciting," the old lady
flapped.  "How can I help you?"

"Does the name Angel Flores mean anything to you, Mrs.  Collins?" Dave
asked.

She frowned.  "Flores?  Flores?  No, I don't think so.

It sounds Hispanic.  Is it Hispanic?  I don't know any Hispanic people."

"You live alone, Mrs.  Collins?" Dave asked her.

"Oh, no," she said.  "My nephew Christopher stays with me from time to
time."

"Is he here?"

"No, he's gone to work."

"Where does he work, Mrs.  Collins?"

"I'm surprised you don't know, officer-what did you say your name was?"

"Granz," Dave said.  "What do you mean, you're surprised I don't know?"

"Chris works for the Sheriff," she said brightly.

"I don't know any Christopher Collins working in the Sheriffs Office."
Granz frowned.  "You, Charlie?"

"No."

Old Mrs.  Collins shook her head patiently.  "He's not my son, Mr.
Granz," she said, smiling forgivingly.

"He's my nephew.  My sister's boy.  I was awarded custody of Chris when
he was twelve.  He had been ... persecuted." She bit off the word as if
it tasted bad.

"You mean abused?" Charlie Yamamoto asked.

Her chin came up proudly.  "We put all that behind us," she said firmly.
"I gave him a new home, a new life here."

"And a new name?"

"He didn't want that.  He said he wasn't ashamed of who he was."

"You mean his name isn't Collins?" Charlie said.

"No, no." The old lady smiled.  "It's Taylor.  Chris Taylor."

"Chris Taylor?" Dave echoed.  "Jesus, Charlie he's one of the bailiffs
in the Hudson trial!"

They stared at each other in horror.  The bomber was in the courtroom.
And Kathryn was in there with him.

SUPERIOR COURT

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 6:15 P.m.

Kathryn watched closely as Bailiff Chris Taylor led in the jury and then
assumed his place at the table between the jury box and the barrier
separating the well of the court from the spectator area.  He looked
pale and tense, and she wondered why.

As was often the case, the members of the jury wore somber expressions,
as if each was feeling the burden of his or her responsibility.  Kathryn
wondered whether their solemnity was caused by the presence of the TV
cameras.  People-jurors were no exception often put on what they thought
was an appropriate face for TV.

The rasp of the buzzer tripped by the judge opening the door to enter
the courtroom stilled the hum of conversation.  Everyone stood as the
bailiff snapped his command and Judge Woods took his place on the bench,
a slight sheen of perspiration the only evidence of his high-speed drive
back to the courtroom from the Cathedral Heights Golf Club.

"Please be seated," he said, and turned toward the jury.  "Ladies and
gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?"

The foreperson was a well-dressed man in his middle fifties whose name
was Robert McCubbin.  He worked, Kathryn remembered, for a public
utility company.  McCubbin stood up and cleared his throat.

"Yes, Your Honor, we have."

The phone on the bailiffs desk gave its muted shirr as Judge Woods
nodded to Jack Kennedy, the second bailiff.  As he started across the
courtroom, the phone on Taylor's desk rang for a second time.  Odd,
Kathryn thought.  Why isn't he answering it?

Kennedy took the verdict form from McCubbin and handed it to the judge,
who read it with no visible sign of emotion before handing it down to
the court clerk.  The bailiffs phone shirred yet again, and Judge
Woods's forehead creased into an irritated frown.

"Answer that phone, please, Deputy Taylor," he snapped.  "I want silence
in here while the clerk reads the verdict."

"The verdict is guilty."

At first, Kathryn wasn't quite sure what she had heard.  The voice had
come not from the court clerk but from behind and to her left.  Judge
Woods's mouth was set in an O of astonishment.  A startled hum of
conversation filled the courtroom.  Every eye was now fixed on the
bailiff, standing at his table.  The phone rang again.  Taylor ignored
it as before.

"This court is now mine!" he announced.  "And my sentence is death!"

Judge Woods's brows came together, anger suffusing his face.

"What the hell is going on?" he snapped.  He gestured to Jack Kennedy,
standing stock still next to the court reporter.  "Kennedy, remove
Deputy Taylor from this courtroom immediately." Kennedy took two steps
forward, his hand moving toward the butt of his holstered Glock
automatic.  Taylor lifted his right arm so everyone in the courtroom
could see it.

In his clenched fist was a length of metal piping perhaps a foot long.

"Don't, Kennedy!" he shouted.  "This is a bomb.

Do exactly as I say, or I'll detonate it!"

Somewhere in the courtroom, a woman screamed.

Kennedy froze.

Angel, Kathryn thought, knowing without knowing how she knew.  Taylor is
Angel.

"Shut up!" Taylor yelled.  "Silence!"

As if on his command, the telephone on the desk stopped ringing.  The TV
cameras had already swung around to zoom in on Taylor.  Kathryn turned
so she could see him, trying frantically to remember everything she had
concluded about his personality as she continued to refine her profile.
A planner, organized and in control.  Intelligent, educated.  Proud and
vain.

A punisher.  Probably himself a victim of abuse.

Schizoid?  Multiple personality disorder?  Was there a lever, a trigger
anywhere in there?

"This court isn't under your control anymore, Judge Woods," Taylor was
saying, his voice tense but calm.  "The doors are secured.  No one gets
in and no one leaves until I have had my say."

"What ...  what do you want?" the judge said.  His voice was muted, as
if he was conscious of the need not to antagonize Taylor.

"Him!" Taylor said, pointing the steel tube toward Richard Hudson.  The
defendant and his counsel shrank back as if the thing might leap upon
them.

"Are you Angel?" Kathryn said, standing up slowly, assuming control of
the situation as naturally as she did the courtroom when in trial.  "Are
you Angel Flores?"

Taylor turned to stare at her, his eyes burning with rage.

"Shut up, shut up!" he shouted.  "I'm doing the talking here, not you!"

"You are Angel."

"Be quiet!"

"Why did she kill them, Chris?" Kathryn asked, keeping her voice low,
unthreatening.  "What did they do to her?  How did they hurt her?"

Her brain was turning like a dynamo.  Maybe she could talk him down.  If
she could hold Taylor's attention long enough, there was a chance of
outside intervention.  How long would it take for someone to notice, for
officers to respond?

"You want to know?" Taylor said.  He moved across the room so he was
standing next to the defense table.

Hudson cowered back.  Marty Belker's face was the color of putty.  "I'll
tell you!  Angel was beautiful, she was caring.  She gave them
everything they wanted everything!  Made all their dirty little dreams
come true.  And what did they give her in return?  One of them gave her
AIDS!  Maybe this one right here!"

He grabbed Hudson's sweater in his clenched left fist and pulled him
toward him across the table, then jammed the pipe bomb under his chin,
forcing his head back.

"Was it you?" he shouted.  "Was it you, Richard?

You bastard, was it you?"

"Jesus," Hudson croaked.  "Jesus, listen-" His legs turned to jelly, a
dark stain spreading across his pants as fear voided his bladder.

"They're all dead, Richard!" Taylor shouted, yanking him to his feet,
dragging him away from the defense table and out into the center of the
courtroom, the pipe bomb jammed under his chin.  "You hear me?  Cleansed
with fire, all of them.  Except you."

"Listen to me, Chris!" Kathryn said, her voice clear but devoid of
threat.  "You don't want to hurt any of these innocent people.  Angel
wouldn't want this!"

Taylor turned to face her, his face twisted in anger.

"What do you know about it?" he said, the words sounding as if they were
being wrenched from his throat.  "How could you know?"

"Tell us what happened," Kathryn said.  "Tell us what happened to
Angel."

He hesitated momentarily, a faraway look in his eyes, and she knew he
was listening to her now.

Maybe there was still a chance, she thought.

"They all hated her," he said.  "They hated her being so beautiful."

"She wouldn't want to end it like this," Kathryn said.  "You know that."

"She would!" he said, a sob in his voice.  "She does!"

"No, Chris," Kathryn said.  "Not Angel.  There is no Angel.  There's
only you.  You're smart, you're clever.

You know it's true."

"Sure," he said bitterly.  "Smart, clever.  Be the honor student, be the
class president, be the wrestling champ.  Be the All-American boy.
Nobody knew.

Nobody understood what I was going through.  Except for Angel.  She
understood.  And look what they did to her!"

"You heard the doctor, Chris.  He said there was hope," Kathryn said
very softly, taking a step for ward.  "Put down the bomb.  We can get
you help.  I promise, just put the bomb down."

Taylor looked at her, and she could see the longing in his eyes.  If she
could just get another few metaphysical inches closer, she thought,
there was a chance, a faint chance he might capitulate.

"No!" he said, his voice rising to a shout again.

"It's too late!  I'm already dead.  Angel is dead!" He grabbed Hudson's
jacket and dragged him back until they were close to the bench.  "And so
are you, Richard!"

With a thunderclap of sound that flattened the eardrums, the doors of
the courtroom burst open inward, and a phalanx of officers in dark blue
body armor surged into the narrow aisle, shouldering aside the
television crews.

"Down, down down down!" they yelled.  "Everybody down on the floor now
now now!"

In the swirling smoke from the blinding, deafening flash-bang of the
stun grenades, there were screams, shouts, pandemonium.  Flat on the
floor only six feet away, Kathryn saw Chris Taylor yank Richard Hudson's
body around in front of his own, using him as a shield, heard the SWAT
commander yell, "Hold your fire!"

Taylor moved backward crabwise around the bench, which Judge Woods had
already abandoned for the safety of the floor.  Keeping his hostage
between them and himself as the SWAT team moved inexorably toward him,
Taylor dragged Hudson behind the heavy security shield.  He raised his
right arm in the air, like an athlete punching the sky.  Metal caught
the light.

"Everybody get down, get down, get down!" one of the SWAT cops yelled.
"Down down down down!"

As if time had frozen, as if the world was standing still, no one spoke,
nothing moved, as Taylor ripped apart the igniter and stood up behind
the bulletproof shield, his other arm around Richard Hudson's neck in
deathly embrace.

"Cleansed!" he screeched, clutching the pipe bomb to his heart.
"Cleansed with fire!"

A sudden bright orange and white flash and a simultaneous hard flat
explosion rocked the room.

There was hardly any blast, all of it contained behind the security
screen.  When she looked up, Kathryn saw the plexiglass was cracked like
a shattered windshield and streaked with bright, crawling crimson. Smoke
coiled upward as the SWAT team moved warily forward and around behind
the bench.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" one of them said.

EPILOGUE

UCSR Music AuDiToRium

SUNDAY, JuLy 2, 5:30 P.m.

"Nervous, sweetheart?" Kathryn asked.

"Oh, Mom!" Emma protested.  "I'm not a beginner, you know."

She was very animated, her dark eyes alight with excitement.  She had
spent a good three-quarters of an hour before they left home lovingly
polishing her violin and making sure she had plenty of rosin for her
bow.  Today was her big day, the Certificate of Merit evaluation and
recital in the music auditorium of the University of California at Santa
Rita, a beautiful enclave in University Heights, northwest of town.

"Mom, watch my violin, okay?  I want to go talk to Mollie," she said.
She looked very grown-up in her new black dress with the white stockings
and black patent leather shoes.

"Don't be long," Kathryn told her.  "They'll be starting anytime now."

"Oh, Mom," Emma said impatiently.  "I'll just be over there."

The auditorium was crowded with parents.  Today's recital was part of a
program sponsored by the Music Teachers' Association of California, the
annual evaluation at which students demonstrated their progress by
playing solos of their own choice before their parents and friends. Emma
had chosen "Gavotte" by Handel.  It was a difficult piece, but she had
practiced hard and was very confident.

Kathryn, looked up as Dave edged along the row and sat down beside her.

"Dave, you're just in time.  How'd the meeting go?"

"Good, I think," Dave said.  "Jim is leaving for San Francisco tomorrow
to be fitted with a prosthetic hand.  He'll spend a few days up there
breaking it in."

"That's good news."

"Hal told him he wants him back.  Jim's agreed to come back a couple of
days a week for starters."

"How's Rochelle?" Kathryn asked.

"Making plans for that trip to Cleveland." He smiled.  "How about you?
You recovered from the media blitz?"

"I never want to hear the word reporter again as long as I live,"
Kathryn said.

The last twenty-four hours had been a blur.  In the wake of Friday's
astonishing events, it seemed as if every TV station and newspaper in
the country had descended on Santa Rita looking for exclusives.  Hal
Benton had wisely opted to mount a press conference at County.  Being at
the sharp end of it for two hours had been an ordeal Kathryn was happy
to put behind her.

"Shhh," Emma said, sliding into her chair alongside Kathryn.  "They're
getting ready to start.  I have to go.

"Good luck, Princess," Dave whispered.  She pretended not to hear and
joined the other young people mounting the rostrum to take their places.
She sat down and stared straight ahead, as if furiously determined not
to look at her mother or Dave.

The program consisted of seven solos and two ensemble pieces accompanied
by Mrs.  His cock, their teacher, on piano.  When the teacher announced
it was Emma's turn, she stood confidently before her music stand and
began.  She played well and without errors and smiled as the audience
applauded.

Watching her daughter, Kathryn had a sudden awareness of loss,
infinitesimal but acute, as she realized that the poised youngster on
the stage was no longer just her little girl.  Emma was growing up,
taking her first confident steps toward a life in which Kathryn would
play only a supporting role.  Growing up, she thought.  Growing away. It
was simultaneously a sad and happy thought.

After the awards ceremony, they agreed to meet back at the condo.  On
the drive home, Emma clutched her certificate.  Dave had promised her
he'd have it framed so she could hang it in her room.

"I think a celebration is in order," Dave said when they met back at the
condo.  "How about Sophia's?"

"Yeah yeah yeah!" Emma said enthusiastically.

"Burritos!"

"Chips and salsa," Dave added.  "What do you say, Kathryn?"

"Sounds terrific so long as we're not too late.

Tomorrow's a school day, and I have to be in court early," she said.

"What's a media blitz, Mom?" Emma asked unexpectedly, and for a moment
Kathryn was taken aback.

The astonishing scenes of Chris Taylor's final moments had been featured
at the top of the news on every TV channel Friday night.  Saturday and
SUNDAY it was front-page news.  Today Kathryn had hidden the newspaper
before Emma could see it.

"When something very important is happening and all the TV stations and
newspapers have stories about it," she said.

"Like the O.  J.  Simpson trial?"

"That's right."

"Or the one you were in?"

"Yes, that, too."

"I saw it one night on TV.  You were talking to a doctor."

"You saw it on TV?"

"I didn't watch long," Emma said.  "It was pretty boring, Mom."

Kathryn smiled.  If that was the sum of Emma's exposure to the events of
last week, fine.

"Dave?" Emma said.  "Can I have frozen yogurt for dessert?"

"A brilliant musician like you can have anything she desires."

"Then can we take Sam?"

"Dogs and restaurants don't mix, Em," Kathryn said.  "We'll take him for
a walk later."

"We could sit outside," Emma pleaded.  "He'll be good, Mom.  I promise
he'll be good.  Won't you, Sammy?"

Sam lifted his head, gave her a mournful look, and thumped his tail on
the floor.

"See?" Emma said proudly.

They all piled into Kathryn's Audi and drove up the hill to Laguna dele
Mar.  They ordered their food and went outside to sit at a table beneath
the trees on the little patio.  Sam lay in the shadows watching
hopefully for someone to throw a tidbit.  When they were finished, Emma
took in the paper plates and plastic forks and emerged with her frozen
yogurt.

"What did you get, Em?" Dave asked.

"My favorite," she said.  "Peanut butter with chocolate sprinkles."

"You sure you don't want something?" Dave asked Kathryn.

She shook her head.  "I'm fine."

"I've wanted to ask, did Woods give you any hint what the verdict was?"
Dave asked Kathryn.

"Not the blink of an eyelid," she said.  "And even if he wanted to, the
law precludes him from revealing the verdict.  So we'll never know."

"One thing I couldn't figure out," Dave mused.

"How come Hudson never realized Taylor was Angel?"

"He never saw Taylor up close.  Only Angel.  I imagine she looked a lot
different."

"How do you think the verdict would have gone?"

"My gut feeling is the jury would have convicted on Mitten and Browning
and hung on Sorensen.  But now we'll never know.  Taylor preempted them.

"I know you feel cheated," Dave said.  "But there was nothing anyone
could have done."

"Damnit, it doesn't seem like justice somehow," Kathryn said angrily. "I
feel like I let everyone down.

The men who were murdered.  And Hudson-I cut him a deal, and he got a
death sentence instead."

"Think of it this way," Dave said quietly.  "It was passed a long time
ago."

She nodded.  "I guess so.  I just wish .  .

"Let it be, Kathryn," Dave said.  "Let it be.  At least for this
afternoon."

"You're right," she said.  "This is Emma's day."

"Mine, too," he said lightly.

Kathryn feigned puzzlement.  "Your day?"

"Sure," he said.  "It's my birthday.  You forgot, right?"

"Wrong." She smiled.  "We didn't forget, did we, Em?"

Emma smiled conspiratorially as Kathryn laid the package on the table.

Dave picked it up, frowning.  "Hmmm," he said thoughtfully.  "Looks too
small to be a new Jeep.  So what can it be?"

"Open it, Dave, open it!" Emma said, wide-eyed with anticipation.

He tore open the gift paper and opened the box.

The watch glinted, soft gold in the late sun.  He took it out of the box
and held it in the palm of his hand.

"Kathryn, it's beautiful," he said softly.  "I-I don't know what to
say."

"Happy birthday, Dave," Kathryn said.

"Yeah, happy birthday, Dave," Emma said, and kissed him on the cheek.

He looked at Kathryn, and she saw the emotion in his pale blue eyes.
"How about we head home?" he said.  "I know you want to make it an early
night."

Kathryn smiled.  "Not that early," she said, and kissed him.

"Well, well," Dave said.  "What was that for?"

"Openers," Kathryn told him, and kissed him again.  Emma grimaced and
rolled her eyes skyward in pantomime embarrassment.

"You two!" she said.