"That's what he told me. Do you remember who the client was?"

"I never knew, so it's not a matter of remembering. But I don't think she mentioned it. And, Wes? I don't think I have to familiarize you with the old dinner with a client trick, do I?"

"You got that sense Monday?"

"I can't say it was as strong as a sense. She just dropped the excuse early enough, it could have been preemptive, that's all. The New York thing was coming to a head. Maybe she saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to face it yet with Spencer."

Farrell said, "You know anybody who might have wanted to hurt her? Anybody she was afraid of?"

"Andrea? Afraid. No. And I can't imagine anybody wanting to hurt her."

But his brow clouded briefly, and Farrell saw it. "What?"

Tombo hesitated again, then drew a deep breath. "Just something Spencer mentioned this morning, that maybe she'd stumbled on some great story, some big scoop."

"About what?"

"Dirty operations-I guess wet ops, even-being run out of the prisons. Except that, as I told Spencer, for about a zillion excellent reasons, that can't happen."

"But Andrea thought it could? Or it was actually happening?"

"All I can say, Wes, is she never mentioned it to me."

Wu was with Jason Brandt and a distraught Carla Shapiro at the secretary's apartment on Grove at Masonic when she got Farrell's call from Tombo's office about Andrea's possible Monday night meeting with a client. They sat around a kitchen table on the fourth floor of the older apartment building. The floor was black-and-white checkered linoleum, the counters white tile. The sweating window over the sink looked into an open shaft and then across fifteen or twenty feet of open space to the kitchen of another mirror-image apartment. Getting the dishes cleaned and out of the sink didn't appear to be a priority either for Carla or her roommate, who was out for the night.

Wu closed her cell phone. "That was somebody else we're working with, Carla. He says Andrea might have had a client meeting Monday night, too. Does that ring a bell at all?"

The poor young woman was drained with anxiety and lack of sleep. She'd changed from her prim and preppy work clothes into some oversize, formless gray sweats, which diminished her underweight frame even further. Her reddened eyes seemed to plead that she'd taken all of the questioning she could handle, but she steeled herself for another effort. "God, Monday," she said. "I don't even remember Monday anymore."

Because Andrea would often call her after normal business hours, Carla had gotten into the habit of keeping her desk calendar up to date on her Palm Pilot. They'd already gone over Andrea's appointments for the past couple of weeks, but now she dutifully punched in Monday again, scrolled to the evening, sighed. "I don't have anything for it in here."

"Maybe we can talk about Tuesday, then." Brandt spoke in an understanding, even sympathetic tone. "Let's start with the last time you saw Andrea, how's that? And that was Tuesday, right?"

"Right. It was, let's see, about ten thirty or eleven. We'd all just heard the news about Judge Palmer, and I went into her office to see if she was all right." Carla looked to each of them. "She wasn't. She was just sitting there in a daze."

"Crying?" Wu asked.

"No. Like she was in shock. She said she'd just seen him the day before."

"There you go," Brandt said. "Monday."

Carla nodded. "Okay. Okay, now I'm remembering. She was at lunch with the judge that Monday."

"Was that their semiregular monthly status conference?" Wu asked.

"Yes. They usually had it on Mondays."

Brandt kept it on point. "Do you remember her coming back after lunch?"

Carla closed her eyes for a moment, trying to bring it back. When she spoke, it was with a kind of relief. "All right. She did come back. She had a meeting in his office with Mr. Piersall, which was the norm after she saw the judge. It went on for a while, longer than usual."

"Do you know why?" Wu asked.

"I think so. Evidently there was a problem at Pelican Bay -you know, the prison-last week that got the judge really upset. But she barely mentioned that to me, other than saying she had to talk to Mr. Piersall about it a little. So by the time she's done with that it's now almost three fifteen, and the Trial TV limo comes to get her at three thirty." Suddenly she gave a little start, looked off into the middle distance. "Oh."

Wu came forward. "What?"

"This is probably nothing, but I just remembered, Betsy Sobo."

"Who is?" Brandt asked.

"Another associate. Upstairs."

Wu asked, "What about her?"

"She called twice while Andrea was with Mr. Piersall. Andrea had asked her if she'd come down and talk to her about something. So she'd blocked out a half hour and was a little upset when Andrea wasn't back from Mr. Piersall."

Brandt asked, "Do you know what Andrea wanted to talk about with her?"

Wu asked, "Were they friends or something like that?"

Carla shook her head. "No to both. You know, we have a hundred attorneys. It's not like everybody knows everyone else. I don't think I've ever seen her. She's not in the union group and works on another floor. I didn't know Andrea even knew her, but I guess she did."

Wu pressed. "And she'd made an appointment to see her?"

Brandt amplified. "This was after she'd come back from seeing the judge?"

"I'm not sure of that. It might have been anytime, really. But it was for that afternoon."

"But they didn't get together that day?" Brandt asked.

"No. I know they didn't. Andrea ran out of time."

"So maybe they connected that night." Wu's color was up. If Andrea had met this Sobo person for any length of time on Monday night, she would no longer be a suspect in Palmer's murder. "Can you get in touch with her?" she asked.

"Now?" Carla glanced up at the wall clock: 9:40. "I'm sure I can somehow."

Carla obviously had tracked down associates before. She called the firm's night number, got the directory, connected to Sobo, who, of course, as a young associate was on permanent call, never off the clock.

Wu punched in her pager number, and they all waited in a kind of suspension for about three minutes. And then Wu's cell phone rang.

"This is Betsy Sobo," the voice said. "Can I help you?"

"Betsy, hi. This is Amy Wu. You don't know me, and I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, but I'm an attorney with Freeman Farrell and I'm over here now at Carla Shapiro's apartment. Andrea Parisi's secretary?"

If Sobo had been angry at Parisi on Monday, there was no sign of it now in her voice. "Oh, God. Have they found her?"

"No. Not yet. That's what I'm working on. You had an appointment with Andrea on Monday afternoon, is that right?"

"Yes. I said I'd give her a half hour, but she…she got busy and couldn't make it."

"So here's my question. Did you reschedule or anything? For Monday night by any chance?"

"No."

In the cold, humid kitchen, Wu's shoulders fell. "So you didn't see her Monday night?"

"No. What would I have seen her about?"

"That's the other thing I wanted to ask. Why she wanted to meet with you."

"I didn't know that, either, specifically. She just asked me if I could spare some time while she picked my brain, and I said sure, she being such a star and all."

"Did she say what she wanted to pick your brain about?"

"Again, not specifically. She was rushing out to a meeting with Mr. Piersall."

"So she called you after her appearance before Judge Palmer?"

"I don't know about that." Suddenly, it hit her. "Wait a minute. You mean the Judge Palmer? Who got shot? You're saying Andrea was with him on Monday?"