If you get the chance.

Was that a warning? she wondered. “Frank, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. If you don’t mind, let’s move on to something else.” She took Robin’s picture from the pocket of her jacket and handed it to him. “This came in a plain white envelope in yesterday’s mail. Robin is wearing the outfit she had on Tuesday morning when she said she saw that unfamiliar car parked across the street and thought someone might be after her. She was right.”

The anger vanished from Green’s face. “Let’s talk about protecting her.”

He agreed with Kerry’s plan to notify the school, and to drop Robin off and have her picked up. “I’ll find out if we have any convicted sex offenders recently released or moved into the area. I still think that sleaze you convicted last week may have friends who want to get back at you. We’ll request that the Hohokus police keep an eye on your house. Do you have a fire extinguisher?”

“A sprinkler system.”

“Get a couple of extinguishers just in case.”

“You mean in case of a firebomb?”

“It’s been known to happen. I don’t want to frighten you, but precautions have to be taken.”

It was only as she turned to leave that he mentioned the murder in Summit.

“Jimmy Weeks worked fast, but your ex is still going to have a hell of a time getting him off, even without Haskell’s plea bargain.”

“Frank, you talk as though it’s a foregone conclusion that this was a hit!”

“Everybody knows it was, Kerry. The wonder is that Jimmy waited this long to get Haskell. Be glad you got rid of Weeks’ mouthpiece when you did.”

Bob Kinellen did not hear the news about Barney Haskell and Mark Young until he entered the courthouse at ten of nine and the media pounced on him. As soon as he heard what had happened, he realized that he had been expecting it.

How could Haskell have been so stupid as to think Jimmy would let him live to testify against him?

He managed to appear appropriately shocked, and to sound convincing when, in answer to a question, he said that Haskell’s death would in no way change Mr. Weeks’ defense strategy. “James Forrest Weeks is innocent of all charges,” he said. “Whatever deal Mr. Haskell was trying to make with the U.S. attorney would have been exposed in court as self-serving and dishonest. I deeply regret the death of Mr. Haskell and my fellow attorney and friend Mark Young.”

He managed to escape into an elevator and brush past other media representatives on the second floor. Jimmy was already in the courtroom. “Heard about Haskell?”

“Yes, I did, Jimmy.”

“Nobody’s safe. These muggers are everywhere.”

“I guess they are, Jimmy.”

“It does kind of level the playing field though, doesn’t it, Bobby?”

“Yes, I would say so.”

“But I don’t like a level playing field.”

“I know that, Jimmy.”

“Just so you know.”

Bob spoke carefully. “Jimmy, someone sent my ex-wife a picture of our little girl, Robin. It was taken as she was leaving for school on Tuesday by the same person who was in a car that made a last-minute U-turn right in front of her. Robin thought he was going to come up on the sidewalk and run her over.”

“They always joke about New Jersey drivers, Bobby.”

“Jimmy, nothing had better happen to my daughter.”

“Bobby, I don’t know what you’re talking about. When are they going to make your ex-wife a judge and get her out of the prosecutor’s office? She shouldn’t be.poking around in other people’s business.”

Bob knew that his question had been asked and answered. One of Jimmy’s people had taken the picture of Robin. He, Bob, would have to get Kerry to back off investigating the Reardon case. And he had better see to it that Jimmy was acquitted in this one.

“Good morning, Jimmy. Morning, Bob.”

Bob looked up to see his father-in-law, Anthony Bartlett, slip into the chair next to Jimmy.

“Very sad about Haskell and Young,” Bartlett murmured.

“Tragic,” Jimmy said.

At that moment the sheriff’s officer motioned to the prosecutor and Bob and Bartlett to step inside the judge’s chambers. A somber Judge Benton looked up from his desk. “I assume you have all been made aware of the tragedy involving Mr. Haskell and Mr. Young.” The attorneys nodded quietly.

“As difficult as it will be, I believe that, given the two months already invested in this trial, it should continue. Fortunately, the jury is sequestered and won’t be exposed to this news, including the speculation that Mr. Weeks may be involved. I will simply tell them that the absence of Mr. Haskell and Mr. Young means that Mr. Haskell’s case is no longer before them.

“I will instruct them not to speculate on what happened and not to let it affect their consideration of Mr. Weeks’ case in any way.

“Okay-let’s continue.”

The jury filed in and settled in their seats. Bob could see the quizzical looks on their faces as they looked over to Haskell’s and Young’s empty chairs. As the judge instructed them not to speculate on what had happened, Bob knew damn well that that was exactly what they were doing. They think he pled guilty, Bob thought. That’s not going to help us.

As Bob pondered how badly this would hurt Weeks, his eyes rested on juror number 10, Lillian Wagner. He knew that Wagner, prominent in the community, so proud of her Ivy League husband and sons, so aware of her position and social status, was a problem. There had to be a reason Jimmy demanded he accept her.

What Bob did not know was that an “associate” of Jimmy Weeks had quietly approached Alfred Wight, juror number 2, just before the jury had been sequestered. Weeks had learned that Wight had a terminally ill wife and was nearly bankrupt from the medical expenses. The desperate Mr. Wight had agreed to accept $100,000 in exchange for a guarantee that his vote would be Not Guilty.

Kerry looked with dismay at the stack of files on the worktable beside her desk. She knew she had to get to them soon; it was time to assign new cases. In addition, there were some plea bargains she had to discuss with Frank or Carmen, the first assistant. There was so much to be done there, and she should be focusing her attention.

Instead she asked her secretary to try to reach Dr. Craig Riker, the psychiatrist she sometimes used as a prosecution witness in murder trials. Riker was an experienced, no-nonsense doctor whose philosophy she shared. He believed that, while life does deal some pretty tough blows, a person just has to lick his wounds and then get on with it. Most important, he had a way of defusing the obfuscating psychiatric jargon spouted by the shrinks the defense attorneys lined up.

She especially loved him when, asked if he considered a defendant insane, he answered, “I think he’s nuts, but not insane. He knew exactly what he was doing when he went into his aunt’s home and killed her. He’d read the will.”

“Dr. Riker is with a patient,” Kerry’s secretary reported.

“He’ll call you back at ten of eleven.”

And true to his word, at exactly ten of eleven Janet called in that Dr. Riker was on the phone. “What’s up, Kerry?”

She told him about Dr. Smith giving other women his daughter’s face. “He denied in so many words that he did any work on Suzanne,” she explained, “which could be true. He may have referred her to a colleague. But is making other women look like Suzanne a form of grieving?”

“It’s a pretty sick form of grieving,” Riker told her. “You say he hadn’t seen her from the time she was a baby?”

“That’s right.”

“And then she appeared in his office?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of guy is this Smith?”

“Rather formidable.”

“A loner?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Kerry, I need to know more and I’d certainly like to know whether or not he operated on his daughter, asked a colleague to do the job, or if she had the surgery before she went to him.”