"I also figure he bugged the phones and the bedrooms."

"And what do you think we've got on the tapes?"

Victoria said: "It doesn't matter. All tapes are inadmissible if Katrina didn't know she was being recorded."

"Admissible in the Miami Herald," Pincher said. "Your motion to suppress will be heard the day before jury selection. Maybe the judge will keep out the tapes, maybe he won't. Either way, they'll d.a.m.n sure be on page one of the paper."

"I a.s.sume you have transcripts for us," Victoria said.

"Better than that." Pincher nodded to Gloria Mendez, who opened a briefcase and pulled out a portable tape recorder.

"Tape A-twelve," Gloria said. "Barksdale master bedroom suite, eleven-oh-three P.M., two weeks before the murder."

"Alleged murder," Victoria corrected her.

Gloria punched the PLAY b.u.t.ton. For several seconds, the only sound was Sade singing "Smooth Operator." Then a sleepy woman's voice: "Wish Charlie would stay away longer."

A man grunted. "Uh."

"You don't know what it's like. He makes my skin crawl."

Katrina Barksdale's voice. No doubt about it.

"Uh-huh." The man graduating to two syllables.

"He thinks he's so smart. All his books. All his poems."

"Poetry's for f.a.gs." The man again. Blue-collar Boston in voice. Chet Manko.

"Sometimes I wish he'd just disappear," Katrina said.

"You want Mr. B gone, he's gone."

There was a four-second pause.

"Smo-oo-th operator."

"Bad idea, Chet. If we break up, cops snoop around, you might get nervous and cut a deal."

"You dumping me?"

"I saw it on TV. Dateline, 60 Minutes, one of those. The wife's boyfriend nailed her for the murder they did together."

"Why you dumping me?"

"I'm not, Chet. I'm just saying two people is one too many for a murder."

"Smo-oo-th operator."

Silence again, and Gloria Mendez hit the STOP b.u.t.ton.

Victoria said: "That's your case? Chet Manko offers to kill Charlie and Katrina says 'no.'"

"Don't be too hasty, Victoria," Steve said. "I think they got her."

"You do?" Incredulous.

"Yeah, it's a crime to play 'Smooth Operator' while having s.e.x."

"You two aren't that dense," Pincher said. "Manko says he'll kill her husband. She says never mind, she'll do it herself."

"She does not," Victoria said.

"It's implied when she says, 'Two people is one too many for a murder.'"

"Typical Pincher case." Steve shook his head. "Conjecture piled on inference topped by innuendo."

But that's not what Steve was thinking. He was thinking about the four-second pause between Manko's offer to kill Charlie and Katrina's semi-rejection of the idea. He put himself in the jury box. He'd expect an innocent woman to say: "No way, Chet." And you'd hear the anger in her voice. But the pause made it appear she'd been calmly thinking it over, finally replying, essentially: "I don't trust you, Chet. If I'm going to kill my husband, I'll do it myself."

Steve the Juror thought that Katrina was a woman who may have considered killing her husband. But Steve the Lawyer still trusted his gut. He didn't think Katrina possessed the kind of evil required to do the job. Sure, she might be shallow and greedy and unfaithful, but a killer? It was a huge leap, and he wasn't making it. Not yet, anyway.

"You've got too many dots to connect, Sugar Ray," Steve said.

"There's stuff you don't know. After he finds out his wife's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, Barksdale goes to his lawyer, tells him to draft divorce papers."

Miranda Cooper handed over a legal doc.u.ment captioned: "Pet.i.tion for Dissolution of Marriage."

Steve was caught off guard. He'd known about Manko, so the hump-a-rama photos didn't surprise him. But Katrina had never said anything about a divorce.

"There was no divorce pet.i.tion filed," he said.

"Didn't say there was," Pincher said. "Del, fill him in. It's obvious his client hasn't."

Farnsworth sat up straighter. "Barksdale tells Katrina he knows about Manko and he wants out of the marriage. This is not good news for the lady. Under the prenup, she'll get squat. But if Charlie dies while they're married, she gets a third of his estate."

"That's what we call motive." Pincher's tone was condescending.

"She begs forgiveness," Farnsworth said. "Swears she still loves him. Give her another chance, she'll dump Manko. She lures Barksdale into bed for his favorite kind of kink. Then she kills him."

"In case you're still thinking accident," Pincher added, "take a look at the report from our human-factors expert."

Miranda Cooper pulled out another doc.u.ment.

"It'd be virtually impossible for someone to accidentally strangle in that contraption," Pincher said. "All Barksdale had to do was lean forward to relieve the pressure. But he couldn't do that if she's holding him down."

"So what's your deal?" Victoria said.

"What makes you think I'm offering?" Pincher said.

"Your orientation lecture to new prosecutors. 'Never lay out your case for the defense, unless you're pushing a plea.'"

"Quite right." Pincher turned to Gloria and Miranda. "I hope you two paid attention the way Ms. Lord did." He took his lavender handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, shook it out, refolded it, slid it back. "Plead to second degree. Twelve-year sentence, out in nine."

Steve put on his poker face. They'd have to talk to their client before responding.

"I remember something else you said in that lecture," Victoria said. "'You're trial lawyers, not plea bargainers. So try your winners and plead out your losers. Never offer a plea unless your case has a hole in it.'"

"Top of your cla.s.s, Ms. Lord," Pincher said.

"You're afraid of losing. I don't know why yet, but we'll figure it out. Until we do, you can take your plea and shove it."

Whoa, Steve thought. When did she become a cowboy?

Ray Pincher raised an eyebrow and c.o.c.ked his head, as if trying to determine if his hearing had failed him. "Solomon, perhaps you should tell your neophyte partner that she might be outsmarting herself here."

"I don't tell her anything, Sugar Ray. She's got better instincts than I do."

Hang tough. Never contradict your partner in front of the enemy.

"I'll hold the offer open until tomorrow at noon." Then, as unruffled as his lavender shirt, Pincher stood and with a mortician's smile said: "I'll escort you out."

Steve and Victoria gathered the discovery doc.u.ments and walked out of the conference room, with Pincher leading the way to the elevator. Halfway down the inst.i.tutional corridor of metal walls and industrial carpeting, the State Attorney gestured toward a closed door. "Before you leave, Solomon, there's someone who wants to see you."

A nameplate on the door read: John B. Zinkavich, Esq.

Division of Family Services

"You got any other doors?" Steve said. "Maybe one with a new car behind it? Or a trip to Acapulco?"

Thirty-two.

THE LATE RUFUS THIGPEN.

"Did I just hear you turn down a plea without consulting our client?" Steve asked.

"Katrina will do what I tell her," Victoria replied. They were standing at the door to Zinkavich's office.

"That's awfully arrogant."

"Right. Sounds like something you would say."

"Ancient history. I've decided to become more like you."

"Don't get too principled. We've got a murder case to try."

"So?"

"Don't wimp out on me, Steve."

"Jeez, I've created a monster."

"I still have my ethics. I'm just becoming more pragmatic." She rapped twice on the door and turned the k.n.o.b before anyone said to come in.

Jack Zinkavich, lumpy and disheveled, was slumped in a chair at his regulation gunmetal desk, a box of Krispy Kremes within reach of a pudgy arm. A man in an orange jumpsuit sat in a straight-backed chair, his ankles shackled together.

Along a wall, cardboard boxes overflowed with Juvenile Court files, the detritus of Miami's endless familial dysfunctions. On the windowsill sat a dozen stuffed animals, playthings for the young witnesses who trooped in with social workers, guardians ad litem, and cops.

"Look who's here," Zinkavich called out, grabbing a glazed Krispy Kreme. "The weasel and the princess."

"What's up?" Steve asked. "We've got work to do."

"You know this guy, Solomon?" Zinkavich pointed the donut toward the man in the jumpsuit.

Steve glanced at the prisoner. Late thirties. Shaved head. Jailhouse pallor and an ugly scowl. "Never saw him before. What'd he do?"

"Cocaine trafficking. Picked up yesterday. History of auto theft, B-and-E, domestic violence." Zinkavich chomped on the donut, spoke with his mouth full. "What about you, Thigpen? Recognize this a.s.shole?"

The man in the orange jumpsuit stirred. "That's the heathen," he said.

Zinkavich licked a sugar slick from his lips. "I got good news and bad news for you, Solomon. The good news is, Rufus Thigpen ain't dead. The bad news is, he can testify against you."

"For what? I don't know this guy."

Thigpen raised his unshackled arm and turned his head. A purplish scar ran like a polluted stream from the crown of his skull to the top of an ear. "You busted my head, f.u.c.kface. The night you took the kid."

Steve remembered him now: the psychotic shepherd with the curved stick. He'd had a beard and shoulder-length hair and smelled like a wet beagle.

What was it his father always said? "Our past clings to us like mud on cleated boots."

"Mr. Thigpen is a victim of your violent behavior," Zinkavich said. "And quite a compelling witness."

"Steve Solomon is not a violent man," Victoria said.

My trusty partner. Leaping to my defense.