“Of what?”

“Of the man.” Sam pumped his head, his movement jerky. “It was of the guy who fell off the balcony the other day. I remembered that story, from the news.”

Partridge, with the videotape. “He showed you a photo of him?”

Val asked, “Sam, if the man was dead, how could he be a threat to the judge?”

Sam turned to her. “The detective said the man worked with a gang and they were trying to kill her.”

Val’s mouth dropped open. “How could you believe that, Sam? That sounds crazy. And he shows up, all by himself, without the marshals?”

Cate raised a hand. “Wait, please, Val. We need to get the story. Sam, how did Russo get into my office from yours?”

“He said he had to search chambers for wiretaps. ‘Sweep for wiretaps,’ he called it. He said that the man and his gang used wiretaps to find out about judges they were going to kill.”

Oh, man. “Where did you go, while he searched?” Cate asked, trying to keep him on track.

“He said he had to search the clerks’ office, too, so he told me that I had to go out and come back in about half an hour. So I went down to the cafeteria and got lunch.”

Val’s brown eyes flared. “How could you leave him alone in chambers?”

“He was a detective!” Sam wailed, getting upset again. “I thought he was okay!”

“Okay, relax, Sam. Val, relax.”

“Judge, I’m really sorry,” Sam repeated. “Please don’t say anything, Judge. Word gets around, and I still don’t have an offer yet, for next year.”

“Don’t worry.” Cate walked to him, put a hand on his knobby shoulder, and looked at Val. “Did you call the marshals?”

“Not yet. I was about to, when you came in.”

Cate’s gaze traveled back to the law clerk. “Sam, don’t speak to anyone about this, please. Don’t tell any of your friends in the other chambers.”

“I don’t have any friends in the other-”

“Okay.” Cate couldn’t bear to hear it from him, too. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“What about Emily, when she comes back?”

“Val will tell her. You can talk to her, of course. But don’t either of you discuss it outside chambers.” Cate ran a hand through her hair. “Now, go back to your office and leave Mommy and Daddy alone, okay?”

“What?”

“Go.” Cate pointed at the door. “Out.”

“Sure, Judge.” Sam turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.

Cate said, “Somebody tried to break into my house this morning. I think it was Russo.”

Val’s hand flew to her mouth. “Are you for real?”

“He’s angry that I ruled against him, best I can figure.” It was partly true, and Cate would die if Val knew about the videotape. “I already have a call in to Detective Nesbitt.”

“I can’t believe it. Your house, down Society Hill? He take anything?”

“No. He didn’t get in.”

“Praise God. Wait, that where you went this morning? How’d you know your house was gonna be broken into?”

Micah. “No, I had something else to do, then they called me in the car.”

“I see.” Val mulled it over. “Well. So, a detective did this? Trying to make your life miserable? Seems like he’s after you, or looking for something in here. He didn’t mess up my office, or the clerks’.”

“I have no idea what he’s looking for. I think he’s just plain mad.”

“Off his rocker?”

“Yep. He can’t want to be a detective anymore. He just killed his career.” Cate eyed the wreckage of her office. Russo had just broken the last barrier, and she didn’t know if he could ever get back. “He must have reacted strongly to Marz’s suicide. He must blame me for it.”

“I’m glad he didn’t kill you. Or me.”

“Or Sam.”

“Hmph! Save me the trouble of killin’ him my own self!” An unlikely grin spread slowly across Val’s face, and Cate burst into laughter, which felt unexpectedly good. Val said, “I tell you, I’ve seen clerks come and go, every year new ones. I’ve watched them get married, have babies, get divorced. But in all my years, I’ve never seen as strange a two as these. Each one’s crazier than the other. Sam, he takes the cake.”

“Nah, he just got scared.”

“He got scared? Now I’m scared. You scared?”

Cate felt it too, then. “Honest? Yes.”

“It’s not safe around here, all of a sudden.” Val pursed her lips. “I better tell the marshals and they’ll tell the FBI. And the chief should send out another court-mail, about Russo this time.”

“Oh, here we go.” Cate didn’t know how long she could keep a lid on that videotape. This was about to get public. There would be questions from the FBI. “I bet Meriden’s on the phone to the chief as we speak.”

“Probably on the cell on the way down the hall.” Val clucked. “That man is a jerk, and he does not like you at all.”

“All of a sudden, nobody does.”

“Can’t understand why. I like you.” Val smiled warmly, and Cate smiled back.

“I like you, too.”

Val turned on her heel, her dress swirling, then turned back. “Judge, I almost forgot. You have a plea hearing at two-thirty this afternoon and a sentencing at four-thirty. I should cancel both.”

Cate groaned. “No, I can’t keep canceling these court dates. It backs up my docket and I’m on trial next week, in that products case. Keep the four-thirty.”

Ring! went a phone, and Cate sprinted for her purse, which she’d left in the reception area.

That better be Nesbitt. Or Sorian. Or the cavalry.

Cate froze, standing in her ruined office, her phone at her ear. When Nesbitt told her, she was facing the window, so she remained facing the window, though she suddenly saw none of the view.

Nesbitt had said: “Judge, Russo stole my case file, on Simone. He has the record, about you.”

“Judge? You there?”

“He really has the record?”

“Yes. I gave you a copy. I kept the original in the file.”

“The record of my”-what had Nesbitt called it, only hours ago-“personal whereabouts?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“What about the pictures?”

“Those too. Copies, not the originals.”

Cate tried to process it and couldn’t. “How did this happen?”

“Come down to the Roundhouse, Judge. We need to talk about it.”

“Be there in fifteen minutes.” Cate let the phone snap closed.

Cate had never been at the Roundhouse before and couldn’t ignore its seaminess. The lobby downstairs was a dark, empty space, reeking of cigarette smoke that blew in from the smokers in front of the building. Nesbitt met her there, clamping a strong arm on hers, and whisking her up a funny, podlike elevator to the Homicide Division. They passed a cramped waiting area with two black couches, arranged facing each other against a wall that read WANTED and was covered by rows of eight-by-ten glossies of scary, affectless faces. Then Cate was pressed through a swinging half-door she’d seen in only the cheapest bars.

“This way, Judge,” Nesbitt said, and led her through a large, dim squad room that contained about twenty institutional-gray desks, stacked with files and arranged in no apparent order. Water-stained curtains hung unevenly, and on the right side of the room sat a row of file cabinets of different colors and sizes, in grimy gray, black, tan, and even olive green, lined up like rotten teeth. Detectives in shirt-sleeves talked on the phone at the desks, and one read the Daily News, his shiny loafers crossed on his desk. All of them pointedly ignored Cate and Nesbitt.

“Come on in, Judge,” Nesbitt said, gesturing her into an office off the squad room, and at Cate’s entrance, a tall, thin detective in a houndstooth suit stood up, with a professional smile. Nesbitt stepped in behind her. “Judge, this is my sergeant, Marvin Shiller.”

“Hello, Sergeant.” Cate extended a hand across the desk, trying to act as dignified as possible. Both men knew her secret, and it felt lousy. She could only imagine the jokes they’d made before she got here, and she wondered how many of the other detectives in the squad room knew, too. She forced herself to meet Shiller’s eye as he shook her hand, and he almost crushed it in a large, rough palm. She said, “Quite a handshake.”