"I work for a local law firm now, and we've got this messy criminal case. I mean, it's crazy." So far, all true. "My boss wants me to find this guy who might be able to testify for our client, but all we know is he was one of two plaintiffs in this court two years ago, in an asbestos case. I have the names, but I can't figure out which one he is."

"Why not call both?"

Good question. "That's what I thought. But my boss told my specifically not to call them. And when I asked why, he told me it was none of my business, just do it his way."

Donna Collington laughed as if she understood.

"Been there, done that. But I still don't know how I can help you. Those asbestos cases are all a blur. Just one long line of old men spitting into handkerchiefs and dragging their oxygen tanks around."

"Well, this gentleman would have been one of the last ones, before consolidation. He also appears to have been rather rambunctious."

"Rambunctious?"

"Feisty. Bad tempered. Prone to outbursts. Maybe he made threats, or acted up."

Donna laughed again. "You mean like somebody who might have tipped the judge's water pitcher on a lawyer's head?"

"Yes, for example."

"Not ‘for example.' For real. He was this little guy, looked like an elf, cute as could be. He didn't even seem that sick, compared to the others. But he got so upset when some of the others got more money that he grabbed the judge's pitcher-splash, all over the lawyer's head. His lawyer. I'd hate to see what he'd have done to the lawyer for the other side if the bailiff hadn't cuffed him."

Yes, you would, thought Tess, who had seen the photographs in the autopsy report. "Do you remember his name?"

"Only his first name. Because his wife was screaming it out over and over, trying to calm him down. ‘Oh, Abner. Oh, Abner. For the love of God, Abner.' I almost wet my pants. And the judge was trying so hard not to laugh, he split his. Li'l Abner, we called him."

Tess checked the printout Feeney had given her. Abner. Abner Macauley. A match.

"Thanks, Donna."

"No problem. You go make your boss happy, now." She smiled sweetly, wagging a long red nail at her. "Tyner Gray should be real happy with you today. But next time don't come in here telling me lies, girlfriend. I knew who you were working for all along. Everybody in the courthouse knows about that long-haired girl who ran the fifty-yard dash through here last week."

Tess blushed. She had forgotten what a small world the courthouse was, how little was secret here. All along, Donna Collington, with her innocent baby face, had known who she was and what her "messy case" was about. Humbled, she headed back to Fells Point and her shift at the bookstore, for which she was already late.

Kitty gave her a baleful stare when she showed up at the register on a run from the bus stop. She was rearranging the children's section, setting up for a House at Pooh Corner party for the weekend. After reading a magazine article about the increasingly competitive nature of children's birthday parties, Kitty had decided to go head-to-head with Chuck E. Cheese, luring Baltimore's more bookish parents into the store for theme parties-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows. All the children received five dollar gift certificates to the store. A shrewd investment, as their parents inevitably dropped at least fifty dollars more when they came to pick the kids up.

"Kitty!" Tess said, going on the offensive. "You're actually wearing clothes! Is officer Friendly out making Baltimore safe for democracy?"

Instead of her usual kimono Kitty wore black linen pedal pushers with tiny bows at the cuffs and a black cotton sweater several sizes too large for her small frame. It kept sliding back and forth, exposing first one shoulder, then the other. Crow, perched on a ladder in the women's fiction section, was almost dizzy from watching the sweater swoosh back and forth.

"At least I made it to my yoga class this morning," she said. "I don't let men disrupt my life. I disrupt theirs."

So Jonathan's visit had not gone unnoticed. Kitty didn't disapprove of casual sex, just of Jonathan. She thought Tess could do better. Tess knew she could do worse.

"Look-some of us aren't goddesses. We have to settle."

"Even goddesses don't always settle." That was Crow, from his perch. "Athena never wanted a man. The nymph Laurel turned into a tree rather than end up with Apollo. And he was a god."

Tess ignored him, lowering her voice so only Kitty could hear. "Jonathan's not so bad. When he's excited about something, about work, he needs someone who understands. His current girlfriend doesn't."

"Doesn't understand that he needs to sleep with someone else? No, I suppose she doesn't."

Crow was staring at them so intently that Tess was sure he was going to fall off the library ladder. She whispered, "It's not really about sex. The sex is secondary, almost…perfunctory."

"All the more reason not to have it," Kitty said smugly.

Tired and irritable, Tess was on the verge of saying something wounding to her aunt, something she might regret, when she noticed a wan, tiny figure approaching the register. Head down, the woman moved resolutely, a posture the store's employees usually identified with someone intent on finding the Kama-sutra or a book with orgasm in the title.

But it was Cecilia, the little Kung Fu-fightin' bride-to-be from VOMA. Tess wondered what book she wanted. Kitty had an entire section about rape, including several books about trying to have a normal sex life again.

"Your card didn't say it was a bookstore," Cecilia said. Her voice sounded faintly accusing but also confused.

"I guess it didn't." Tess groped desperately for whatever persona she had presented the other night. What had she told her? Who had she been?

"We're partners," Kitty said, a smooth and accomplished liar. It dated from her early days in the business when she was juggling bills and creditors.

"Oh." Cecilia rocked on her heels in front of the counter, her eyes on the wide wooden planks beneath her feet. "I called on the phone to get directions, but I've never been here before. I guess I wasn't sure what it was."

Tess gave Kitty a look and she evaporated, gesturing to Crow as she retreated to her office that he should take over the cash register. Tess led Cecilia to one of the old library tables.

"At first I felt bad about the other night," Cecilia began, her eyes studying the grain in the oak table. "We shouldn't be in the directory-almost no one who shows up meets the criteria-and we always end up turning people away. For some of them there's not always another place to go."

"Well, no harm done," Tess said brightly. Apology accepted. That's that. Please leave, as I have no memory of what I told you about myself the other night. "I'm not holding a grudge."

"I said ‘at first.'" Suddenly Cecilia had no trouble making eye contact. Her transformation was swift and sure, much faster than it had been Monday night, when she had metamorphosed more gradually from little Cece to Cecilia. "But then I realized you weren't really interested in joining the group. You were there to spy on us."

"What makes you say that?" Other than the fact that it's true.

"You went to all this trouble to find VOMA and made a big stink when you couldn't join, presumably because you needed to talk about what happened to you. But in the coffee bar, when I asked you about your rape, you didn't want to talk at all. I could tell from the questions you asked me that you didn't know what it was like. You were too tentative, too polite."

Tess said nothing.

"I want you to tell me why you were there."

"You tell me something first. Is there a woman named Mary in your group? A woman whose rapist was represented by Michael Abramowitz?"