Ms. Maxwell paused, then nodded, still blushing wildly.

The spectators groaned and sat back in their hard pews. Dar watched as the bailiff brought a pen and a stenographer’s notebook. Ms. Maxwell wrote on a page for what seemed like many minutes. The bailiff tore that page out of the notebook and handed it to the judge. The judge looked at the page with no change in expression and then beckoned the two attorneys forward. Both lawyers read the page without comment. The bailiff took the piece of paper and carried it over to the jury box.

The juror in the first seat was a woman, also wearing glasses, very tall and thin but surprisingly buxom, dressed in a black business suit and white blouse, her hair also tied back in a bun.

“You may give the paper to the foreman of the jury,” said Judge Williams.

“Foreperson,” said the woman in the first seat, sitting up even more rigidly than before.

“I beg your pardon?” said the judge, raising his chins and jowls from his cupped hand.

“Foreperson, Your Honor,” repeated the first juror, her thin lips almost disappearing as they became even thinner and primmer.

“Oh,” said Judge Williams. “Of course. Bailiff, please give the paper to the foreperson of the jury. Madam Foreperson, please pass it on to the other jurors, including the alternates, after you have read the message on it.”

All eyes in the courtroom were riveted on Ms. Foreperson as she read the note, the muscles around her pursed lips twitching as if she had suddenly tasted something very, very sour. She shook her head as she handed the paper to the juror on her left.

Dar had noted earlier that Juror Number Two—an overweight man wearing a madras sport jacket—had been on the verge of dozing off. Now the man sat with his arms folded above his ample belly, his eyes downcast. He was not quite snoring. Dar knew that dozing jurors was not an uncommon phenomenon in jury trials, especially on hot summer days. He had seen it many times himself, even while he was testifying in what amounted to murder trials.

Madam Foreperson elbowed Juror Number Two, whose head snapped up and eyes opened. Unaware that all eyes in the courtroom were on him, he turned to the buxom professional woman, took the piece of paper, and read it. Eyes widening, he read it again. Then he turned his head slowly back toward Madam Foreperson, gave the woman a wink and a nod, folded the piece of paper, and put it in his jacket pocket.

There was enough silence in the courtroom to carve into cubes and sell to schoolteachers by the pound. All heads swiveled back to the judge and the bailiff.

The bailiff started to walk back toward the jury box, paused, and looked to Judge Williams for direction. The judge started to speak, stopped, and rubbed his jowls. The plaintiff looked as if she were about to slide down out of sight in the witness box out of pure mortification.

Judge Williams said, “The court will take a ten-minute recess.” He banged his gavel and disappeared in a flurry of robes as all the spectators stood, the geezers elbowing one another and wheezing with quiet laughter.

The jury filed out. Juror Number Two was still smirking and winking at Madam Foreperson, who looked back once over her shoulder at Number Two, rolled her eyes, and then disappeared from view, radiating chill into the air.

Back in Syd’s basement interrogation-room office, Dar found Chief Investigator Olson hard at work. The secretary had stepped out. A portable fan and the open door alleviated the worst of the stuffiness, but fifty years of close encounters of the third kind between sweating felons and equally sweaty cop interrogators still left a hint of miasma in the little room.

“Thanks for waiting to see me,” she said. “The DA and Dickweed showed me the morning papers. I see they’ve quit calling you the Road Rage Killer.”

Dar poured himself a bit more cop coffee, and said, “Right. Now I’m the Mysterious Detective.”

“Let’s see how good a detective you are,” Syd said, and gestured toward her map with the red, blue, green, and yellow thumbtacks. “Can you tell me what the legend is for my little tactical command center map here?”

Dar pulled his reading glasses out of his sport coat pocket and then peered over the top of them. “Red and blue are on roads—mostly freeways, not surface streets. So I’d guess…swoop-and-squats?”

Syd nodded, impressed. “Mostly swoop-and-squats. Can you tell the difference between the reds and blues?”

“Nope,” he said. “There are a lot more reds than blues…Wait a minute, I remember this one on the I-5 here. It was a fatality accident. Ancient blue Volvo. Unemployed green-card immigrant driving. All the trappings of a swoop-and-squat, but the driver of the squat car died.”

“All the red pins are swoop-and-squats with fatalities,” said Syd.

Dar whistled softly. “So many? That doesn’t make much sense. Swoop-and-squats are usually staged on surface streets, not freeways. Too dangerous on freeways—someone has to be alive to collect the money.”

Syd nodded. “What about the green pins?” she said.

Dar studied the location of the more numerous greens. Two seemed to be out in San Diego Harbor. Another three were clustered together in an unlikely spot in the bare hills east of Del Mar. Others were scattered around the L.A. and San Diego metropolitan areas and much of the area in between. None were on roads.

“Construction-site accidents,” said Dar. “The two in the bay looked at first like possible fraud cases because of the high coverage, but in each case they were long falls from scaffolds—both fatal. Nasty.”

“Still fraudulent, though,” said Syd.

Dar gave her a doubtful look. “I investigated the one at the aircraft carrier,” he said. “The painter working for the civilian contractor had a history of fraudulent claims, but in this case he took a header sixty-five feet into a pile of steel pipes. His family didn’t need the money that bad. The whole family was making a good living with slip-and-falls and swoop-and-squats.”

Syd smiled and crossed her arms. “How about the yellow pins?”

“There’s only one on the map,” said Dar. “The others are all over here in the margins waiting their turn.”

“And?”

“And the one on the map is above Lake Elsinore, about where The Lookout Restaurant is perched, so I’d guess yellow has something to do with me.”

“Correct. Actually, the yellow pins will mark points where someone has tried to kill you.”

Dar raised an eyebrow and looked at the margin of the map. Another dozen yellow pins were waiting.

“I need to visit Lawrence and Trudy’s place,” Syd said briskly, gathering up her huge shoulder bag and setting her personal computer in a carrying case. “I know roughly where they live out by Escondido, but I’d rather ride with you.”

Dar shook his head. “I could get you out to Escondido, but I’m not coming back to the condo tonight. The media…”

“Oh, yes,” said Syd with a smile. “I watched some of their stakeout on the seven A.M. local TV news. They still don’t have a picture of you. It’s driving them bugfuck.”

“Bugfuck?” repeated Dar. He rubbed his chin.

“How did you get out of there this morning without being mobbed?”

“The police who were on duty outside the warehouse kept them on the main street below,” said Dar. “I just drove the Land Cruiser out the back way and through some alleys before coming down the hill.”

“They probably have the tag number for your Toyota as well,” said Syd.

It was Dar’s turn to nod. “But I parked way and hell in the rear of the secure Hall of Justice lot,” he said. “Right under the drunk-tank holding cell windows.”

Syd made a face.

“Yeah, I know,” said Dar. “I’ll wash the truck tomorrow. But I don’t think the media will see it there.”

“All right,” said Chief Investigator Olson, “but why can’t you give me a ride out to the Stewarts’ place?”