"But he got paroled again."

"During the campaign season," Hunt said, "when there were all the problems."

"Correct. And he's been out ever since, until last Saturday when he got violated back in again-I checked when I saw that article. For the record, I think the escape was legitimate."

"So what happened, you think?"

"I think his controller gave him the job to kill Palmer, and he decided the job was too hot for him. I mean, killing a federal judge isn't vandalism to a campaign headquarters. Mowery said no, and they violated him back in for disobeying."

"And what about the breakout?"

"He either got the message that they were serious, and he was going down for hard time, so he changed his mind, or he broke out on his own."

"So this kind of activity is really going on? This is what Andrea had been looking into?"

"Maybe. She mentioned the possibility to me on Monday. She didn't know about Mowery, though. Not by name, anyway."

"Did you mention her suspicion to Pine?"

Miserable, Piersall pulled at the sides of his face. "Maybe enough for him to get the idea."

Craig Chiurco and Tamara Dade came across exactly like what they were, a couple of young lovers. They had known each other-both working with Hunt-for almost two years but were still in their first six months as sweethearts. This was the first time Wyatt had assigned them to the same job, and it had the feel of a date about it, especially here at MoMo's, which neither of them felt they could afford to frequent in their regular lives. But they were here now, on the job, long after the dinner crowd had gone home.

Which didn't mean the place was empty and dragging by any means-to the contrary, the meeting and greeting seemed to be at a high pitch.

This meant that Mary Mahoney wasn't going to be able to get with them for a while. After she'd talked to Hunt and gotten his instructions, Tamara had called to make sure that Mary was working tonight. And then they'd gotten themselves a bit turned out and cruised downtown.

Now, by the front door so they wouldn't miss Mary if she forgot that she'd promised to see them, Tamara sipped a cosmo, and Chiurco a gin and tonic. It was a good night for celebrity sightings-they spotted Robin Williams and Sean Penn in separate parties at the back. The mayor, Kathy West, was holding court at a large table by the front windows. They were just trying to identify who was sharing the table with her when a well-formed black man walked by them on the way to the men's room. Chiurco pointed and said to her, "Jerry Rice."

"That isn't Jerry."

"Number eight-oh in the flesh. Bet?"

She held out a hand, palm up, and paused. "Five bucks," she said.

He raised his hand and slapped it down on her own gently. "Five it is." They turned to their drinks, each harboring smiles as Mary Mahoney emerged from the crowd in the bar and came over to them. "I don't know if it was going to free up here for a couple more hours, so I asked Martin-my manager-if I could take a break since it was about Staci. He was cool, but it can't be too long, okay?" There wasn't another free stool to be had, so Chiurco got up and offered her his, asking her at the same time if he'd just seen Jerry Rice walk by.

"Oh, yeah, that's him. He's in here all the time."

Chiurco flashed his girlfriend a smug little grin, and the waitress said, "I still can't believe we traded him, you know. That was so dumb."

"I don't know," Chiurco said. "I've got to believe it's better than the Giants trading for all these guys who are at the end of their careers, instead of trading them away."

"Yeah, but Jerry. It's like if they would have traded away Montana."

"I never would have traded either one," Tamara said. "And now I'd let Jerry play until he didn't want to anymore, then make him a coach and keep him around forever."

"Then rename the park after him." Chiurco, having fun, going with the moment, letting the ice break naturally.

"I like it." Mahoney nodded. " Rice Park? Rice Field?"

"How about The Rice Field?" Tamara asked. "The Rice Field."

"Perfect," Mahoney said. "We'll tell him when he comes back."

"Except he's not a Niner anymore," Chiurco said.

Mahoney made a sad face. "Oh, yeah. That." With hardly a pause, she switched gears. "So you guys said you're with a private investigator, not the police?"

"Right," Tamara said. "The Hunt Club." She had a card with her name on it and presented it to her. "Right now we're hunting for Andrea Parisi."

Mahoney wore her expressions on her sleeve; now she looked a question. "The trial person? I saw that on TV, but I didn't really…she's really missing?"

"Why wouldn't you believe it?" Chiurco put in.

A shrug. "No real reason. I mean, she just missed one show, right? And they only had it on one channel. I thought it was probably some ratings thing."

"No," Tamara said. "She's really missing. Since yesterday afternoon."

"And she's got something to do with Staci?"

Tamara kept it low-key. "We don't know. That's what we're trying to find out."

"Evidently," Chiurco said, "Staci had one of Andrea's business cards in her wallet."

"That's it? That's the connection?" Reaching down into her apron, she pulled out a thick deck of business cards and placed it on the table. "That's tonight," she said. "That's every night." She took Tamara's card and placed it on the top of the stack. "Now you're in it." She turned to Chiurco. "You got one, you can buy in, too. I hope that's not all you have."

Tamara, cool and elegant, took a sip of her drink. "Not exactly."

Chiurco leaned in, elbows on the high table. "So we're trying to figure out if there was some connection between all three of them. If Staci knew Andrea, for example."

"She never said anything about that to me." Mahoney felt on firm ground here. "And she would have. Definitely, I think. She was a big Trial TV fan."

"So you two were close?" Chiurco asked.

Just like that, the liquid eyes threatened to overflow and she dabbed underneath them.

They waited.

Mahoney sighed, sighed again, then shrugged. "I was nice to her when she first came on here, and maybe that hadn't been so normal for her in her life before. That's the impression I got anyway."

"So you didn't know her before she started working here?" Tamara asked.

"No."

"Do you know if she grew up here in the city?"

"I don't think so. Just the last couple of years. Before that, I don't know."

"Because," Tamara continued, "no one has turned up from her family. The police haven't been able to get any kind of background on her yet."

The waitress frowned. "Nothing?"

"Not a thing."

"That's just so wrong." She brightened for a second. "But wait. I know she has…had, I mean, a younger brother. She had his picture in her room."

"Did you ever meet him?"

"No."

"How about his name?" Tamara was carrying on the interrogation while Chiurco stood, arms crossed, letting her go with it.

"I don't know what it is," Mahoney said. "She just called him her brother." She looked over at the bar; she'd been on break about long enough and this brother stuff wasn't going to help Staci or find Andrea. "We never really talked about him. I just saw the picture and asked who he was and she said, 'Oh, that's my brother.' We didn't really go into it. He was just her brother."

"This couldn't have been her first waitress job," Chiurco said, taking a different slant, trying to get Mary back into it.

"No. She worked, I think, at a Thai place out on Ocean. She was going to school at City College and lived out on that side of town before she got the place here."

"What's here?" Tamara asked.