‘I presume, Mr Fowler…’ So the honorific wouldn’t be used, either. Andy wasn’t going to be called “judge.” If Marian Braun was any barometer, Hardy decided, Andy was in for some very rough weather. Braun asked if he had an attorney present.

‘I do, Your Honor.’ He half turned. ‘Dismas Hardy.’

A murmur ran through the courtroom. Hardy barely heard it, standing and moving by Jane. But he hadn’t reached the aisle before Elizabeth Pullios was on her feet. ‘Your Honor, I object. Mr Hardy was a member of the prosecution on this case. Aside from that obvious conflict, he has had access to material that falls under the attorney-client privilege. He cannot represent the defendant here.’

Hardy found himself talking. ‘If the court pleases…“ He got ignored.

Braun pulled her glasses down to the end of her nose, then took them off completely. ‘Write me a motion on that, Counselor, and have it on my desk by tomorrow morning.’ She scribbled something in front of her and raised her eyes. ‘Mr Hardy, would you care to join us on this side of the bar?’

Hardy came up the aisle and through the gate. ‘Your Honor, I’d like to request a short recess. I’d like a few words with the judge here.’

‘I am the only judge in this courtroom, Mr Hardy. Clear?’

‘Yes, Your Honor.’

‘We’ve barely begun and I’ve got an exceptionally full docket today, so let’s forgo the recesses and try to keep things moving. Is that all right with everybody?’ Clearly it was going to have to be all right. ‘Mr Hardy,’ Braun was saying, ‘you might save Ms Pullios a long night if you feel there’s a conflict with you representing the defendant.’

Hardy wasn’t inclined to save Pullios a long night – it was a small bonus. ‘No, Your Honor, I don’t have a conflict.’

Pullios got up again. ‘Mr Hardy assembled the files on this case.’

‘That wasn’t this case, Your Honor. Ms Pullios perhaps has them confused because it’s the same victim. Mr Fowler wasn’t the defendant.’

‘I don’t have anything confused, Your Honor. Mr Hardy was all over that file.’

‘If it please the court,’ Hardy said, enjoying this, ‘as Ms Pullios knows full well, she was the People’s attorney of record the last time a defendant was before the court for killing Owen Nash. I was specifically denied an official role.’

Braun’s gavel came down. ‘All right, all right. I’ll read your motion, Ms Pullios. Tomorrow morning.’ She put her glasses back on, seemed to be deciding something.

‘Good work,’ Fowler whispered. ‘What happened to your head?’

Braun continued. ‘Meanwhile, let’s keep to the business at hand, shall we? You’ve got a plea, Mr Fowler?’

Hardy would have preferred to leave Andy to his permanent representation at this time – one of the suits in the jury box – but after the run-in with Pullios, thought it would be better to go ahead.

‘Your Honor, before entering a plea, the defense would like some time, say two weeks, to review the file in this case.’

Pullios started to object again, but Braun tapped her gavel, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think you’ll need two weeks to decide what to plead. We’ll continue this arrangement and take defendant’s plea next week.’

‘Thank you, Your Honor. Now on the matter of bail…’

‘Yes, bail. The state has requested no bail in this case.’

Hardy asked permission to approach the bench. Braun waved both counsel forward.

‘Your Honor,’ Hardy said, ‘isn’t no bail a little unusual?’

‘This is an unusual case, Mr Hardy.’

‘Granted, Judge, but the last time the state brought a person to trial here for killing Owen Nash, we had a risk-of-flight defendant and even she was given bail. There’s no risk of flight here. The judge isn’t going anywhere.’

Pullios started to argue, but Braun responded quietly. ‘Mr Fowler has given us an ample indication of the contempt in which he holds the judicial process. I have no faith that he will appear once, or if, he is released.’

‘Judge, please, you know that’s ridiculous -’

Braun sucked in a breath. ‘You’d better brush up on your etiquette, Mr Hardy. If I hear again that my judgments are ridiculous you’ll spend some ridiculous nights in jail for contempt.’

Hardy studied the floor a moment. ‘I apologize, Your Honor. But I would respectfully ask you to reconsider.’

Walking back to where Fowler stood, Hardy shook his head. ‘Then plead now,’ Fowler whispered. ‘Not guilty.’

Hardy met Fowler’s eyes, feeling embarrassed but having to say it. ‘I don’t know you’re not guilty, Andy -’

‘Enter the plea,’ Fowler snapped. ‘Does your conscience also require you waste the week?’

It was a good point, and Hardy made the plea. The judge canceled the continuance and took Hardy’s plea of not guilty. The case was set for Calendar the next Monday, October 18, at 9:30 A.M., in the same department.

He wasn’t even going to go and request the evidence files from the D.A. What he planned to do was meet Andy upstairs right away and discuss his choice for another attorney. He stood in the hallway with Jane, head throbbing.

‘Hardy! Dismas, excuse me.’ It was Jeff Elliot, smiling his smile. ‘Remember me?’

Jeff leaned on one crutch and Hardy introduced him to Jane. ‘The judge’s daughter? I’d love a minute with you if you could.’

‘Watch this guy.’ It was Hardy’s escape line.

‘Where are you going?’ Jeff asked.

He stopped, half-turned. ‘After a brief career,’ he said, ‘I’m retiring from defense work.’

‘Don’t do that,’ Jeff said. ‘You were great in there.’

‘Thank you. Now if you’ll all excuse me…’

Elizabeth Pullios emerged from the courtroom. She was accompanied by a young male assistant D.A. whom Hardy didn’t know. Pullios touched her assistant’s arm, stopping him, and walked over to Hardy’s group. ‘Locke won’t release any files to you until Braun rules on my motion,’ she said to him. ‘There’s no way you can do this.’

Hardy smiled. ‘I like your red tie,’ he said, ‘it kind of matches your eyes.’

She stared at him. ‘You know, I almost hope I’m overruled,’ she said.

‘Why is that?’ Hardy asked.

‘If you’re doing the defense, it makes the case a slam dunk.’

Hardy didn’t go directly upstairs to see Andy Fowler. Instead, he left Jane and Jeff Elliot, then carried his pounding head out to the parking lot under the freeway. It was cold, but the chill suited him.

Pullios thought his involvement would make it a slam dunk, did she? It was tempting to find out.

He forced himself to consider Andy Fowler in a new light. He could help him for a day – some mixture of appeasing Jane, doing a favor for a man who’d done him a few. But this was not to be confused with actually defending him for murder.

He kept telling himself he wasn’t a defense lawyer. There was a different attitude, an orientation he didn’t have. He’d been a cop. He didn’t believe many people got arrested when they hadn’t done something. May Shinn had been an exception.

But to think it could happen twice with the same victim stretched things pretty thin. Hardy hadn’t seen the new evidence they’d gathered on Andy, but it must be pretty damning. Even if every judge, D.A. and police officer in the City and County hated Andy, Chris Locke would never allow Pullios to go for another indictment on Owen Nash if he wasn’t convinced he was going to get a conviction…

Still, there was the decidedly unusual if not unprecedented nature of the investigation. Whatever had gone on since May Shinn’s release seemed to have circumvented the police department.

Glitsky would have told Hardy if they had found anything implicating Andy, as a matter of personal interest if nothing else. And they didn’t replace an experienced homicide investigator like Abe Glitsky with another guy from the homicide team without any notice.