I couldn't process, but it wasn't. Instead I hung on the edge of unattained clarity, so tantalizingly close that I would've wept to reach it.

"I didn't know it was important," I answered thinly.

"I couldn't have guessed " She'd found the weapon that killed Bernie?

In Mai Sternway's house?

"Shit!" Ginny snarled hoarsely.

"What's it doing here?"

I knew the answer. Or I didn't, but I almost did. My brain felt like a crash zone, the place where frames of reference collided to extinguish each other.

"One step at a time." I could hardly recognize myself.

"Is there ID in any of the wallets?"

"Just a minute." I heard her shuffle through the contents of the bag.

"Here's one. Woman's clutch purse, red, with a driver's license. Kerri Lee Fuller." She read the address. Then she demanded through her teeth, "What the fuck is this shit doing here? What does Mai have to do with Bernie Appelwait?"

"I don't know." Maybe I did. Almost. But it felt false somehow, misleading, like an intuitive leap in the wrong direction that lands, impossibly, on solid ground.

"I've got a theory, but I don't like it. I'm not sure it makes sense."

"Spit it out, Brew." Without transition, her voice changed. She'd recovered her poise.

"I know we're not partners anymore. But this is my business too, now.

Mai Sternway is my client. We need to work together."

And she knew how to do that. She'd had years of practice.

A day or two ago in a previous reality I might've retorted, Fuck that.

But not today. Not after Nakahatchi had jolted me out of myself, and Marshal had answered my questions. Not when Ginny had made it clear that she wanted to heal the breach between us.

"One step at a time," I repeated. For my sake this time, not hers.

"Marshal asked me to give you a message. He's traced that phone number, the ID-blocked one." I recited it for her.

"But he doesn't know who it belongs to yet."

"Got it," she muttered. Then she waited.

"You need to do two things," I went on carefully.

"Get that bag to Marshal. Without letting Mai know you found it. Tell Marshal it's for Sergeant Edgar Moy. And try out that phone number on Mai. Look for any hint that she recognizes it."

Before Ginny could react, I went on, "I'm going to track down this Kerri Lee Fuller, ask her if she was at the tournament. Then I'll give that phone number to Moy. He'll identify it faster than Marshal can."

Ginny accepted that as if she routinely let me tell her what to do.

"And your theory is?" she inquired when I was done.

"It doesn't feel right," I insisted.

"I don't trust it." Then I took a deep breath and told her, "But I'd bet my left ventricle I know whose number that is.

"Turf Hardshorn, James M. The goon who tried to kill me last night."

By rights, that should've confused the hell out of her. She knew how my mind worked, however. She couldn't leap blind the way I did but she could catch up in a hurry.

"So your theory," she replied slowly, putting it together as she talked, "is that he's the thug Mai hired to frame her husband. You think the same bozo who ripped off the tournament also made those threatening phone calls, slashed her tires, did everything else." She paused.

"That part makes sense. He sounds like the kind of bastard you'd want to hire if you were trying to frame your husband for stalking you.

"But the bag " I could imagine the predator's concentration in her eyes, the sharp lines of her mouth, the unconscious flexing of her fingers and claw. She might as well have been standing in front of me.

"What's it doing here?"

She answered her own question.

"Maybe he stashed his haul at her house as a kind of insurance, to implicate her if she ratted him out." Again she paused.

"Or they had some other idea, like planting it at Sternway's, only Hardshorn got killed before they could do it. He might've planned to leave the club as soon as he saw Sternway there, so he could get to Sternway's apartment while it was empty. But you ruined that by recognizing him. Or Sternway did by defending you."

Quietly she added, "Of course, none of that helps your theory that Hardshorn didn't kill Appelwait."

Listening to her, I felt my blast of clarity recede toward the horizons. The shock still resonated, but I wasn't translucent anymore.

In another minute I'd be as blank as a stone.

And there was still too much I hadn't grasped.

I'd been positive that Hardshorn wasn't alone with Bernie in the men's room.

"That'll be Moy's interpretation," I admitted.

"Unless I can come up with something better." Otherwise he'd close the case, and I'd be left like a fool with my brain hanging out.

Ginny didn't argue.

"As a theory," she mused, "it sounds plausible enough. What's wrong with it? I already told you I don't think her husband is harassing her. The pieces don't fit.

"And I can tell you this. Mai hasn't had any more threats since last night."

Since Hardshorn was killed.

I couldn't contradict her. I had too many strands, all tangled, and no way to sort them out. Besides, they were pure instinct about as tangible as that flicker you sometimes get at the corner of your vision, the one that feels like a fading glimpse into another dimension.

Mr. Sternway lets his wife treat him like dirt.