Hawk drank some beer and ate two oysters and patted his lips with a linen napkin.

"So it ain't Haskell and it ain't Gavin, who you got in mind for it?" Hawk said.

"Well, it could be person or persons unknown," I said.

"A perennial favorite," Hawk said.

"Or it could be Sterling."

"Wondered when you'd come 'round to him."

"I'm not happy with it," I said.

"Don't blame you," Hawk said.

"How could a guy that Susan would marry kill his ex-wife and cut out her tongue?" I said.

"Well, Susan seen something in him," Hawk said.

The white dress paraded back from the ladies' room. We watched her, listening for a flourish of trumpets. She was listening too.

"You've been talking to Rachel Wallace," I said after the blonde had sat down.

"We had a drink couple weeks back," Hawk said. "Faculty club at Taft."

I had a moment of quiet contentment as I imagined Hawk at the Taft University Faculty Club.

"And she shared her theory," I said, "that Susan is drawn to men whose faults appeal to her."

"Would explain you," Hawk said.

I drank some beer and looked out the window at the tops of city buildings arranged appealingly across the line of sight.

"You take the scenario I painted for Gavin," I said, "of why he or Haskell would want to kill Carla Quagliozzi, it would work pretty well for Sterling too, if he feared she might tell. The cut tongue could be a message to Gavin."

"But he got a secret, why does he ask you to help him with the hara.s.sment suit?"

"Because he was afraid it would shed too much light on his life and the other stuff would show."

"So why didn't he just flash the nude pictures to Jeanette Ronan's hubby?" Hawk said. "That would stop the hara.s.sment suit."

"Chivalry?"

"A dude who will kill a woman and cut out her tongue?"

I shrugged.

"You show the pictures to Judge Ronan?" Hawk said.

"Jeannette," I said.

"'Cause you didn't want to get her in trouble," Hawk said.

"I figured she'd find a way to call it off."

"You soft hearted for a guy with no neck."

"I have a perfectly good neck," I said. "I just wear my collars high, like Tom Wolfe."

"Sure," Hawk said. "So what you going to do now?"

I shook my head.

"I have no idea," I said.

chapter forty-five.

I WAS SITTING ON a round bench with Susan in the center s.p.a.ce of the Chestnut Hill Mall, which was sw.a.n.kier than Ivana Trump. There were several shopping bags around me on the floor, each of which had things in them that Susan had bought and I carried.

"Do you like that white silk jacket?" Susan said.

"Breathtaking."

"And you don't think it makes me look fat?"

"No I don't."

I had learned over the years not to give smarta.s.s answers to the kinds of dumb questions Susan asked when she shopped. It was nothing she could help, and no amount of smart talk on my part could dissuade her from it. Giving a widely amusing answer to such questions in fact tended to call forth more questions.

"You're not just saying that?"

"No."

"And the platform sneakers? Do you think they are, you know, too something."

"They look great," I said.

"Not too too?"

"Definitely not," I said. "'Things look good because you wear them."

There was a live combo playing jazz in the center of the mall, which meant, I suppose, that the demographics of the mall skewed mature. Like me.

"But you don't like them only because I'm wearing them," Susan said. "You'd like them on other people."

Simple yes and no, I reminded myself. You elaborate, you get into a swamp.

"They're great looking on anyone," I said. "On you they are podiatric perfection."

She was content. The combo was doing a nice job on "Sleepin Bee." We listened.

"Harold Arlen," I said.

Susan nodded as if she were interested. But I knew she wasn't. Susan didn't care whether it was Harold Arlen or Arlen Spector. The combo went into "A Foggy Day." We were alone on the bench. My hand was on her right thigh. She put her hand over mine. I took in a large breath of mall air.

"There's some reason to believe that Brad Sterling has killed two people," I said.

She was still. The music played. People moved past us carrying bags. Susan turned slowly to look at me.

"Tell me," she said.

I told her. She listened quietly. Now and then she nodded her head. When I finished she was very inward for a time. I waited. The combo moved from "Foggy Day" to an uptempo take on "Summertime."

"Well, it's logical," she said. "Though I can't imagine him doing it."

"Person or persons unknown is still an option," I said.

"But not a useful one," Susan said.

"No."

"I wonder if I overreacted when he came to me," she said. "I'm certainly capable of it, Ms. Fixit."

There was no sound of guilt in her voice. She was a.n.a.lytic. She could have been talking about people she barely knew.

"Someone complains to me about being overweight," Susan said with a half smile, "I immediately suggest ten steps to solve the problem, when all they wanted was for me to say, 'You're not so fat."'

"Probably a useful trait though, in your profession," I said.

"Actually, a more useful trait in my profession is listening quietly."

I nodded.

"Maybe all Brad wanted when he came to me was for me to say, 'Oh, poor baby.' Instead I involved you, and if you are right, it's the last thing he would have wanted."

"Or maybe he just wanted money," I said.

Susan shook her head emphatically.

"I know better than to give him money," she said.

"Or maybe he was already in way over his head and was half-hoping I could save him without knowing what I was saving him from."

Susan smiled sadly. "Yes," she said. "'That's exactly the kind of hare-brained scheming Brad would be capable of. Do you think you can find him?"

"I think he'll find us," I said.

"Because?"

"Because he's shown a pattern of running for help to the women he's known," I said.

"Yes, that's consistent."

"His sister has shut him off," I said. "Carla's dead. There's at least one other ex-wife. I don't know where. But he owes her child support, and few things annoy an ex-wife more."

"So he'll come to me," Susan said.

"Sooner or later," I said.

She nodded.

"When he does," I said, "remember he may have killed two people."

Susan nodded again. She was looking straight into my eyes.

"If he appears," she said, "I will call you at once."

"Oh good," I said.

chapter forty-six.

JUDGE FRANCIS RONAN came into my office wearing a seersucker suit and a blue shirt. His yellow silk tie matched his yellow silk pocket handkerchief. You don't see that many seersucker suits anymore, and I thought that was a good thing. He sat down in one of my client chairs and crossed his left leg over his right. He wore wing-tipped cordovan shoes and blue socks with yellow triangles that matched his tie and show hankie. He was freshly shaven and smelled gently of bay rum. He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and tented his hands in front of his mouth and looked at me silently.

I said, "Good morning, Judge."

He nodded. I waited. He studied me some more. I leaned my chair back and put my feet up. He tapped his tented hands against his upper lip. I folded my hands and let them rest on my stomach.

"First," Ronan said, "I apologize for sending those two cretins to threaten you."

"'They didn't threaten me very much," I said.

"They had once appeared before me in court. I thought they were more formidable than apparently they were."

"Or I was more formidable."

Ronan nodded his head once. "Perhaps," he said. "In any case, it was uncalled for."