At this, Fields leaped to his feet and shouted, “Judge, there’s a harmless old lady back there in shackles!”

Furst tugged at Fields’ arm to get him to sit down and shut up, but by then the bailiffs were moving toward him fast.

Fields ignored them and continued to shout. “Myra Greene is eighty-nine years old! They’ve got her back there in chains! I don’t care what you do with me, but…”

Judge Groesbeck was instructing Fields to sit down, his lawyer was standing now and pleading with him to cooperate, and the bailiffs had Fields by the arms and were struggling with him and glancing at the judge for guidance.

Cornwallis threw up his hands and said, “Need I say more? This unstable man must not be released on bond.”

“He’s going to indict Myra!” Fields yelled. “Judge, you know Myra! This is insane!”

A grim-faced middle-aged man in horn-rimmed glasses, Judge Groesbeck banged his gavel repeatedly, and when Fields refused again to be seated, the judge ordered the bailiffs to take him back to the lockup. Fields was led away, not resisting, but still shouting about Myra Greene’s incarceration.

With Barry out of the room, the judge looked through some papers and said, “Might the defendant be referring to this matter of aiding a fugitive that I’m to hear next? It seems that way.” He looked from Cornwallis to Furst and back again. Furst sat shaking her head.

“That would appear to be the case, your honor.” Cornwallis said. “Myra Greene aided Barry Fields in his flight from the law. This is, as your honor knows well, a class-B felony. We intend to prosecute Mrs. Greene, and her arraignment is on the docket for this morning.”

The judge said, “And you’ve got her back there in the lockup? This eighty-nine-year-old woman?”

“Judge, the commonwealth does not, of course, plan to oppose bail for Mrs. Greene. We don’t see her as a serious flight risk.”

“No,” the judge said. “Myra Greene on the lam I would have a hard time imagining.”

Now Ramona Furst asked to speak. She said she believed that Fields was understandably upset to see his good friend needlessly in chains, and she was sure he would observe courtroom decorum after Mrs. Greene was released.

“Are you suggesting that your client should determine the court’s schedule?” the judge asked.

“No, your honor. I’m only trying to do what will work for the court and for all of us.”

The judge considered this and said, “Mrs. Greene’s case is another matter. I have to say, I’m amazed that it seemed necessary for this eighty-nine-year-old woman to be dragged in here as if she were Khalid Sheik Mohammed. But your client, Ms. Furst, is another case. His recent actions, from his flight to his outburst just now, show that he is not rational and is not in control of himself. So I am granting the commonwealth’s request for a dangerousness hearing before I consider any bail request. I’ll order that hearing for Monday morning. Meanwhile, Mr. Fields will remain in custody at the County House of Correction. For the record, how will Mr. Fields plead?”

“Not guilty, your honor.”

“Monday morning at nine, then,” the judge said and gestured for Furst to move on.

I wanted to see what kind of horrors Cornwallis had in mind for Myra Greene, but I needed to talk to Furst, and I followed her and her assistant out the door and onto the courthouse steps while Radziwill and Josh stayed behind. A ragtag mob of print and television newshounds came at her, and I stood aside while Furst declared Fields innocent and the victim of a prosecution based on no evidence at all. She said Fields’ flight and courtroom behavior were the actions not of an irrational man but of a rational and justifiably angry young man, and she was sure that the court would agree with her on Monday.

As Furst turned to go back inside, I got her attention and told her I was the investigator Bill Moore had hired.

Furst said, “Where is Bill, anyway? Do you have any idea? I can’t get hold of him.”

“I don’t know, but we should talk. I’ve been on this for twenty-four hours, and I’m spinning my wheels.”

“I’m not getting a whole lot of traction either,” Furst said, “thanks in part to a client who won’t tell me anything about anybody. He does insist that he didn’t shoot Jim Sturdivant, which I happen to believe. But we need to do three things, Donald. Show that Barry could not have done the crime, which won’t be easy with no alibi. Show that Barry had no motive for shooting Sturdivant – some bullshit argument over Sturdivant hiring you to investigate Barry doesn’t cut it. And, if we can, show who had a better motive for killing Sturdivant. As I see it, that last part’ll be your job. Are you up to it?”

“Sure,” I said, responding more to an organized, attractive and assured woman’s sense of clear mission than to any sense that I had any clue as to what to do next.

“Good,” Furst said. “Call me later this afternoon with what you’ve got, and maybe we can do a late dinner. I’ll give you all I know, which is next to nothing.”

She gave me her cell number, then headed back toward the courthouse to consult with her volatile client.

I yelled after Furst, “Are you representing Myra Greene, too?”

“She doesn’t want a lawyer,” Furst yelled back, “but Groesbeck will appoint one. Don’t worry about Myra. Thorny may have met his match with this woman.” Furst hurried into the courthouse, dragging her briefcase full of bullion.

Curious as I was to witness Myra Greene’s arraignment, I decided my time would be better spent concentrating on Jim Sturdivant and deciphering who might have wanted him dead. One of the hot-tub borrowers? That seemed increasingly unlikely, though I was obliged to check them all out. And while nobody I met seemed to like the guy, neither did Sturdivant inspire murderous hatred. Most people just thought the toads were icky. Except for Barry Fields, who despised Sturdivant. The more I saw of Fields and the more I learned about him, the more his raw rage was apparent. What was he so angry about? And could that rage turn even more violent than it had in the cheese section at Guido’s? And then there was Man of Mystery Bill Moore. Where had he disappeared to, anyway?

No sooner had I asked myself that question than someone showed up with the answer. A broad-faced middle-aged woman with soft gray eyes that matched her short hair had been seated in the courtroom. Now she came out the door and down the steps and approached me.

“Bud Radziwill tells me you’re Don Strachey, the investigator,” the woman said. “I’m Bill’s friend Jean Watrous. I have a message for you from Bill.”

“Let me guess. He can’t do lunch.”

She smiled. “That’s right. How did you know?”

“Bill has a way of missing appointments. Like court dates for his fiancé. Where is he, anyway?”

Her look darkened now. “He’s in Washington. He’ll be back in a day or two, and he asked me to tell you he’d be in touch. He said for you to just to go ahead with your investigation of Jim Sturdivant. And if you have expenses beyond the retainer Bill has given you, you can come to me.”

I said, “What’s Bill doing in Washington? Is he checking out other assassins like himself who might have had something to do with the murder?”

Watrous reddened and glared at me. “What do you know about Bill’s history?”

I said, “Plenty,” thinking the lie might elicit some actual useful information about Moore. Wrong again.

Watrous snapped, “That’s horrible! You are just… horrible!” With that, she turned and strode away without another word.