The super was short and wore a dirty T-shirt, baggy pants, and a grizzled, apathetic expression. When he spoke, a scotch-scented wind wafted toward Bennie. “No, I didn’t hear nuthin’ the night Ant’ny got killed,” he rasped in a voice sandpapered by cigarettes.

“But you live downstairs,” Bennie said. “You heard the gunshot, didn’t you?”

“The cops already axed me that. I told ’em, I don’t hear nothin’ at night.”

“Even a gunshot?”

“I didn’t hear nothin’. So I’d had a few. That agains’ the law?”

“Did you ever hear Connolly and Della Porta? Talking, arguing, anything?”

The old man’s watery eyes lit up. “Anything? You mean anything?”

“Fine. Anything.”

“No.” He burst into laughter that ended in a hacking fit. Judy and Mary exchanged glances, standing in the hallway in front of his apartment. The television, specifically Oprah Winfrey’s theme song, blared from behind a white door grimy with fingerprints. “I hardly ever saw ’em. They was never around. Him bein’ a cop and all, I figgered he was busy.”

“Did they have a lot of visitors?”

“Hell if I know. I stay in my place. My brother-in-law, he owns this dump, he likes it that way. Any way he likes it is fine with me.” The super squinted. “You say you’re a lawyer? All a youse are gal lawyers? Do they have that?”

Bennie let it go. “Does that sign out front mean that Della Porta’s apartment is vacant?”

“Hell, yes. That apartment’s nothin’ but trouble. I could show it all day, ain’t nobody gonna rent it. Nobody want a place with a man got shot, even furnished and all. Plus he’s askin’ too much.”

“The apartment’s been vacant since the murder? With the original furniture?”

“Sure. Got everything ’cept the rug. I throwed that out when the cops was done with it.”

Bennie sighed. Trace evidence would be long gone. “Is the furniture the same as it was? You didn’t rearrange it, did you?”

“I don’t get paid enough to move nothin’.”

“I need to see that apartment. Can I borrow the key?”

“What the hell.” The super fumbled for his pocket and dug around inside. “Who you think cleaned that mess upstairs? Yours truly. Who you think took up the g-d rug, had blood all over it? Yours truly. Who sanded the floors? Repainted the bloody wall? Packed all their shit up and put it in the basement?”

“Yours truly?” Judy said, and the super grinned in toothless appreciation.

After they got the key, Bennie charged up the stairway with the associates to the second floor. The stair was long and skinny, covered by a dirty red runner, and on the second floor was a door without a sign or number.

Bennie unlocked the door. “Keep your eyes open,” she said, stepping inside the apartment. “Take note of the layout of the place. Look at the orientation of the rooms, the furniture. Check views from the windows, lighting. Try to remember what you see, no matter how insignificant it seems now. Got it?”

“Yep,” Judy answered. She snapped a photo, but Mary lingered at the threshold, unnoticed.

Bennie scanned the apartment. The large room had two windows that faced the street, a northern exposure, and contained a table with four chairs to the right, making up a dining area on the east side. On the left side of the room a couch sat flush against the wall and in front of it was an oak blanket chest. A Sony Trinitron sat on a TV cart between the windows and an oval mirror hung on the wall. Bennie made a note of the brighter squares in the textured wallpaper where pictures had been hung, and there was a light square in the center of the floor where a rug had been. “Take a picture from this spot, Carrier,” Bennie said. “Take a bunch.”

“Gotcha.” Judy clicked away as Bennie crossed the room to the couch.

“Here we go. Here’s the bloodstain.” Bennie strode directly to a discolored patch in the hardwood, which was glossy in uneven patches, the refinishing sloppy. Della Porta’s blood must have seeped through the rug. She remembered from the police file that the bullet had been a.22 caliber. It had made a small hole in Della Porta’s forehead and blasted through the back of his skull. The loss of blood had been significant.

“Jeez.” Judy walked over and took a picture. “No wonder the super hasn’t rented the place. Nobody sweeps blood under the rug.”

“Which way did the body fall? Where’s DiNunzio?” Bennie asked, and both heads snapped to the doorway where Mary stood rooted. “DiNunzio, what are you doing? Come over here.”

“Coming.” Mary walked over as purposefully as she could and looked down. On the floor was a dark brown stain shaped like France. Her stomach flipped over. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Della Porta was found face-up,” Bennie said. “Was his head tilted east or west?”

“East? West?” Mary couldn’t think clearly. A man had died here, shot in the head. She visualized a slug of hot lead tearing apart the soft wetness of his brain. Destroying what should have been inviolate.

“West is to your left, east to your right.”

Mary couldn’t take her eyes from the bloodstain. She’d seen the autopsy photos and the mobile crime unit photos. So much blood in a line of work that was supposed to be bloodless.

“Which is it? East or west?”

“Can I… check the file?” Mary slid the accordion from under her arm.

“No. You read it, didn’t you?” Bennie snapped, and Judy touched her sleeve.

“What’s the point, Bennie? It’s hard for her-”

“Quiet, please. Mary doesn’t need a lawyer, she is a lawyer.” Bennie was doing this for a reason, but she didn’t need to broadcast it, and she even knew the answer, which didn’t matter anyway. “DiNunzio, this is a murder case, so blood is a prerequisite. Don’t think of the body, think of the file. Think of the paper. It’s just another case. Now, was he facing east or west?”

“West,” Mary said, the answer materializing from a police photo she didn’t know she remembered.

“Good girl. What did the coroner have as the time of death?”

“The coroner said between seven-thirty and eight-thirty. It was in his report.”

“There you go. Now, Connolly told me she was at the Free Library on Logan Circle. She left at six-thirty and walked home. The shooter was somebody Della Porta buzzed in, and the murder took place almost immediately after. Della Porta was standing at the time and was shot point-blank. He crumpled and fell backward, face-up. It’s all consistent with the M.E.’s report, that’s what they’re going to say. You think I’m right, DiNunzio?”

“That’s what they’ll say.”

Judy looked puzzled. “You know what I don’t get? It’s a long walk here from the library, an hour or more. Why did she walk? There’s buses, cabs, everything.”

“I don’t know, maybe she likes to walk.”

“Then she has no alibi. If she left at six-thirty, she could still be walking home at the time of the murder.”

“I’m aware of that.”

Judy swallowed hard, then risked job termination. “Did she do it?”

“She’s our client, Carrier. Whether she did it or not is beside the point.” Bennie checked her growing annoyance. “Legal Ethics 101. It’s not prosecutors on one side and defense lawyers on the other, with equal and opposite functions. That’s sloppy thinking. The roles are different in kind. The prosecution is supposed to seek justice, and the defense is supposed to get the defendant acquitted.”

“You don’t think Connolly’s guilt is relevant? What about justice?”

“Connolly is my client, so I have to save her life. My job is about loyalty. Is that noble enough for you?”

Judy cocked her head. “So it’s a conflict between justice and loyalty.”

“Welcome to the profession.”

Mary heard the edge to Bennie’s voice and recognized it as anxiety. If Bennie and Connolly were the twins they appeared to be at the emergency hearing, Mary could imagine the strain Bennie was feeling. Judy, who hadn’t been at the hearing, was missing the point.