'And how long have you known him?'

'I don't know exactly. A couple or three years.' Another explanation to the jury. 'He's kind of an honorary mom. We tease him about it.'

'We?'

'You know, the other moms at school.'

Scott was just fishing, talking about whatever came up. Here before the grand jury, strict relevancy wasn't much of an issue. 'Did he seem to resent this role?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, being Mr Mom? Did he ever talk about resenting that his wife worked and he didn't?'

Mrs Hardy gave that a minute's thought. 'No. I don't think it bothered him.'

'Did you find that strange?'

'What? That he took care of the kids or that he didn't resent taking care of them?'

'I don't know. Both. Either.'

Another beat while she reflected. 'Not any more than anybody else.' Mrs Hardy broke a smile to the jurors. 'I think sometimes our little darlings get hard for anybody.' Then, back to Scott, more seriously. 'But with Ron, he seemed fine with it. His wife did her job, he did his. He's a good father.'

'She made the money and he didn't?'

'That's right, Mr Randall. It happens here in the Nineties.'

'And that didn't bother him? Being the man and not making any money.'

'I just said that. It didn't seem to.' Her voice took on a sharp edge. 'I don't know what you're trying to get at.'

'I'm trying to find out who killed Mrs Beaumont.'

'Well, it wasn't Ron. He was with me when she died. We were having coffee at the Starbucks on 28th and Geary, near Merryvale School.' This seemed to remind of her something and she glanced up at the wall clock, pursed her lips.

Scott Randall pushed ahead. 'And how did that come about?'

'What?'

'Having coffee.'

'I don't even understand that question. We just decided to go get a cup of coffee. There wasn't anything sinister about it.'

'I didn't say there was.'

'Well, it seems to me you implied it. We met at school dropping off the kids, and Ron said he felt like a cup of coffee and I said I thought that sounded good. So we both went.'

Again, she glanced at the wall clock. 'Look, I'm sorry, but are we almost done here? I've got to go pick up my kids pretty soon.'

'When we're done,' Scott replied. 'After we're done.'

Scott did not view himself as a cruel person, but a woman's tears on a witness stand were as unimportant as the temperature in the room, or the lighting. Sometimes you had to deal with them, that was all. But you had no feelings about them one way or the other.

Frannie Hardy, on the stand before him now, crying, did not make his heart go all soft. True enough, she was quite lovely, well dressed, with striking green eyes and bright red hair, and if he'd been anywhere but in a courtroom with her, he might have had other thoughts. But not now. She'd brought her troubles upon herself and now she was paying the price.

She wasn't sobbing. Scott was sure these were tears of anger. He didn't care.

'You have to let me make my phone call.'

'No, ma'am, I'm sorry. You're staying here.'

'You told me we'd be finished by now.'

Scott shrugged. 'I said we might be. It was possible. I thought we would be, but you're not answering my questions. That's slowing things down.'

It was already half an hour past when she was supposed to have left to pick up her children. She'd been on the stand for two hours.

'Let's go over this one more time, all right?'

'I'm not saying anything until you let me use the phone.'

It had devolved into a pitched battle of wills, and Scott held the high ground. He made the rules in this room, and Mrs Hardy was going to play by them.

Scott had long since abandoned the casual approach. He was standing at one end of the front table so he could look now at Mrs Hardy and now at his jurors.

'Mrs Hardy, you're putting me in an awkward position. As it stands now, if you don't answer my questions you're going to force me to go to a judge in the Superior Court and get a contempt citation issued against you. You might very well get thrown in jail. Do you understand that? If that happens, if it gets to there, then you'll get your phone call to your attorney. But I'm not letting you off this stand in the middle of your testimony. We can be finished here in ten minutes if you cooperate, but if you don't, it's going to be a long afternoon.

'Now,' Scott pressed her. 'Let's try again one more time. You have testified that you knew - Ron Beaumont had confided in you - that his relationship with his wife was in a difficult stage. Isn't that true?'

'Yes, he told me that.'

'And did he tell you the nature of these difficulties?'

'A little bit.'

'Did Mr Beaumont tell you anything that suggested he was unhappy or angry with Mrs Beaumont?'

Frannie shook her head. 'No, I wouldn't say so. But really I have no idea how he felt. We didn't talk about them.'

'But he did tell you he was having difficulties?'

'I would say so.'

Scott Randall turned over a few pages on his yellow legal pad. He looked at the jury, then back to the witness. 'Mrs Hardy, do you find Mr Beaumont attractive?'

Her lips went tight. 'I have never thought about it.'

Scott conveyed his disbelief clearly to the jury. 'Never thought about it? You obviously had a relationship with him, a close relationship - isn't that true? And you didn't notice if he was attractive or not?'

'I may have noticed, but I didn't think about it. We were friends, that's all.'

'And yet he chose you, and you alone, to confide in about his marital problems.'

'I don't know that. He might have confided in other people. I don't know if it was only me.'

'Were you two having an affair, Mrs Hardy? Is that it?'

Frannie Hardy was biting down hard on her lower lip. She clipped out the words. 'I've already told you, we were friends.'

Scott Randall remained matter-of-fact. 'That's right, that's what you told me. But friends have affairs all the time. Did his wife find out about you - was that it? Was she going to make problems for the two of you?'

'I'm not going to dignify that with an answer.'

'Well, you'd better dignify something with an answer, and pretty soon. You're digging yourself into quite a hole here - don't you realize that?'

Frannie was shaking her head back and forth wearily. How had it all come to this so quickly? She closed her eyes and forced her voice to remain calm, rational. 'Look, Mr Randall, what do you want me to say? I'm late picking up my children, that's what I'm thinking about. I'm not having any affair with Ron Beaumont, and never did. I never met his wife. I don't think Ron's problems with his relationship led to his wife's death.'

'Let us decide that, Mrs Hardy. You've admitted that the problems existed. Just tell us what they were.'

Frannie didn't know it, but Scott Randall and the grand jury had already heard Ron Beaumont say that Bree and he were getting along fine and there were no problems between them. Scott thought it might be a good time to mention this to Frannie. She sat still, her face a blank now.

'Mrs Hardy?'

'I promised him it would remain between us and I wouldn't tell anybody. I gave him my word.'

Scott sensed an opening. 'Mrs Hardy, let's be realistic. No one believes that promises are that sacred anymore. This could be a crucial element in a murder investigation. Are you sure you haven't mentioned what Mr Beaumont told you to your husband or one of your girlfriends?'

She was staring at him, trying to keep her anger in check. More tears threatened. A drop escaped from her right eye. 'I promised,' she repeated. 'I gave my word.'

Scott looked back out to the jurors. He took a beat and sighed. 'All right, Mrs Hardy,' he said, 'You don't leave me any choice.'

By four thirty, Superior Court Judge Marian Braun had already had a long day on the bench presiding over an unusually depressing murder trial. Members of a gypsy clan had convinced several wealthy old people that they were their friends. They had persuaded them to sign over their a.s.sets, and then poisoned them with 'magic salt' - digitalis. The magic salt was a big yuk - the defendants had giggled as they sprinkled it on. Marian Braun was used to bad people committing heinous crimes, but this one got under her skin.

Today had been particularly dispiriting because a dozen or more very tough-looking relatives of the defendants had put on a show of force by appearing in her courtroom just in time to intimidate the state's main witness, another of the clan who hadn't been able to live with her conscience and who'd been promised immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony. But the thugs in the courtroom got their message across - the woman suddenly couldn't remember witnessing any of the defendants sprinkling salt on anything. Now it seemed possible that these heartless killers were going to go free.

When Judge Braun's bailiff came to her chambers and told her that Scott Randall had a contempt citation for her at the end of her already lousy day, she grabbed her robes, breathing fire, and strode impatiently through the hallways to the grand jury room.

'No, ma'am. As Mr Randall has explained to you, you don't have a choice unless you're claiming a Fifth Amendment right. But you've told me that your testimony will not incriminate yourself, which rules out that option. 'You've got to tell him what you know.'

Frannie Hardy shook her head. This had been going on for so long that all her patience was used up. 'I can't believe this is the United States.' She scanned the faces of the jurors, went to Scott Randall and finally rested on Marian Braun. 'What's the matter with all you people? You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Don't you have any real lives? I haven't done anything wrong.'

This line of discourse turned out to be a tactical error. Judge Braun wasn't about to have the validity of her life and work called into question by some n.o.body witness. She snapped out her reply. 'First, in this room you address me as "your honor". Next, as to doing something wrong, you are refusing to cooperate in the investigation of a murder case. Like it or not, that's a crime. Now for the last time, young lady, you answer the question or you go to jail.'

'I'm not your young lady.' A pause. 'Ma'am.'

Braun slapped at the table. 'All right, then, I'm ordering you held in the county jail until you decide to answer Mr Randall's questions.' Judge Braun half turned. 'Bailiff...'

But Frannie was on her feet now, her Voice raised, color high. 'You want to talk contempt? I hold you in contempt. G.o.d help the system if you cretins are running it.'

Braun's steely gaze came back to her. 'You just got yourself four days before this grand jury citation even starts to run. You want more, young lady, just keep talking. Bailiff.'

The guard came forward.

4.

Hardy got Frannie's call at six twenty and made the half-hour drive downtown to the Hall of Justice in seventeen minutes. On the way, he stopped fuming long enough to think to call Abe Glitsky on his car phone, to see if he could work some magic. The county jail and the Hall of Justice were on the same lot. Maybe Glitsky could get the ball rolling.

But the lieutenant was waiting for him by the back door of the Hall, at the entrance to the jail. He wasn't wearing his happy face.

Hardy came up at a jog, slacks and shirtsleeves, no coat, knowing before he asked. 'She still in there? She's really in there?' Though he never doubted she was. This wasn't the kind of funny birthday prank Frannie was likely to pull on him.

'Yep.'

Barely slowing, Hardy swore and turned in toward the jail's entrance. Glitsky reached and caught his sleeve, stopping him. 'Hey!'

'Let me go, Abe. I'm getting her out of there.'

'Not without a judge you're not. I couldn't.'

When Glitsky let go ofhis arm he stayed put, glaring in the dusk. The night had turned windy and cold. The lawyer in him knew that his friend was right - it wasn't a matter of summoning some patience. They had to find a judge, the night magistrate, somebody. To facilitate night-time warrants and other late business, the judges rotated magistrate duty so that there would be one judge on call every evening.

Even as Hardy said 'Where's Braun?' he was moving again, toward the Hall, Glitsky on his heels.

But though they had no trouble getting by the night guard and into the building, after they took the stairs to the second floor they couldn't get into the area of the judge's chambers, which were behind the courtrooms. Hardy banged on doors all the way down the hallway. No answer.

A clerk, working late in one of the rooms, opened her door and poked a head out. 'It's closed up back there. Everybody's gone home.'

Hardy kicked the door and the sound echoed off the walls. Then, suddenly, just as they turned to head back downstairs, the door opened. 'What's all this G.o.ddam racket?'

Leo Ch.o.m.orro wasn't Hardy's favorite judge, although he was glad enough to see him now. It didn't appear to be mutual - Ch.o.m.orro was scowling. Then, noticing Glitsky, he nodded more genially. 'Evening, lieutenant. What's going on here?'

Glitsky laid it out in a few words. They needed a judge to vacate a contempt citation and get Hardy's wife out of jail.

'Your wife?'

'Yes, your honor. There's been some kind of screw-up.'

Ch.o.m.orro's scowl deepened. 'What was she doing down here? She's not an attorney, too, is she?'

'No. She got called before the grand jury and the next thing she knew she was in jail.'