have much of a case, all that bullshit and no arrest,” Wyzinsky said.

“We’re nailing down the finer points,” Lucas said.

“Yeah, I got a nail for you right here,” Wyzinsky said. “How’s Weather?”

“She’s fine.”

“You guys going to Midsummer Ball?”

“If Weather makes me,” Lucas said. “I do look great in a tux.”

“So do I,” Wyzinsky said. “We ought to stand next to each other, and radiate on the women.”

“I could do that,” Lucas said.

“So—let me talk to her again,” Wyzinsky said. “Is it Widdler? And, Lucas—don’t ask her any more questions, okay?”

WIDDLER TOOK the phone, listened, said, “See you there, then.” She rang off and said to Lucas, “You two seemed pretty friendly.”

“We’ve known each other for a while,” Lucas said. “He’s a good attorney.”

“He won’t let friendship stand in the way of defending me?”

“He’d tear my ass off if he thought it’d help his case,” Lucas said. “Joe doesn’t believe people should go to jail.”

“Especially when they’re innocent,” she said. “By the way, he told me not to answer any more questions.”

FOUR COPS were working through Widdler’s house. Lucas suggested that she pack a suitcase, under the supervision of one of the crime-scene people, and move to a motel.

“We’re not going to leave you alone in here, until we’re finished. We can’t take the chance that you might destroy something, or try to.”

“Can I use the bathroom?” she asked.

“If they’re done with a bathroom,” Lucas said. “And Mrs. Widdler: don’t try to leave the area. We’re right on the edge of arresting you. If you go outside the 494–694 loop, we probably will.”

WYZINSKY SHOWED UP while Widdler was packing. He was short, stocky, and balding, with olive skin, black eyes, and big hands, and women liked him a lot. He was bullshitting a cop at the front driveway when Lucas saw him. Lucas stepped on the porch, whistled, and waved Wyzinsky in. The lawyer came up, grinning, rubbed his hands together. “This is gonna be good. Where is she?”

“Upstairs packing,” Lucas said. He led the way into the house. “Try not to destroy any evidence.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Smith came over: “We thought she’d be happier if she moved out while we tear the place apart.”

Wyzinsky nodded: “You finished with any of the rooms yet? Something private?”

“The den.” Lucas pointed. Two big chairs and a wide-screen TV, with French doors.

“I’ll take her in there,” Wyzinsky said. To Smith, he said, “Jesus, John, you ought to eat the occasional pizza. What do you weigh, one-twenty?”

“Glad to know you care,” Smith said.

“Of course I care, you’re nearly human,” the lawyer said. He looked around, doing an appraisal on the house; its value, not the architecture. He made no effort to hide his glee. “Man, this is gonna be good. A dog named Screw? Can you say, ‘Hello, Fox News,’ ‘Hello, Court TV’? Who’s that blond chick on CNN who does the court stuff? The one with the glitter lipstick? Hello, blondie.”

“In your dreams,” Smith said, but he was laughing, and he went to get Widdler.

WYZINSKY AND WIDDLER were talking in the den when a cop came out of the home office: “You guys should come and look at this,” he said.

Smith: “What?”

“Looks like we have a suicide note. Or two. Or three.”

Eventually, they decided that there were either three or four suicide notes, depending on how you counted them. One was simply a note to Jane, telling her the status of investment accounts at U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and Vanguard, and noting that the second-quarter income-tax payments had all been made. Whether that was a suicide note, or not, depended on context.

The other three notes were more clearly about suicide: about depression, about growing trouble, about the unfairness of the world, about the sense of being hunted, about trying to find a solution that would work. One said, to Jane, “If I don’t get back to you, I really loved you.”

WYZINSKY AND WIDDLER talked for more than an hour, then Wyzinsky emerged from the den and said, “Mrs. Widdler has some information that she wants to volunteer. She says that she has to do it now, or it might not be useful. If any of this ever comes to a trial, I want it noted that she cooperated on this. That she was helping the investigation. I would like to make the point that she is not opening herself to a general interrogation, but is making a limited statement.”

“That’s fine with me. We’ll record it, if that’s okay,” Lucas said.

“That’s okay, though we don’t really