“Stop it with that crap, Nola.”

She moved closer, until they were only inches apart. Beam almost backed away, but stood his ground. She looked up at him impassively.

“Then what? Why are you here?”

“To say I’m sorry.”

She stared into him for several seconds before answering. “What I said about you being responsible for Harry’s death, it’s true.”

“Yes, it is.”

He wished he could explain to her the relationship between a cop and his snitch, the relationship he’d had with her husband. He’d respected Harry Lima. You might even say they were friends. But they were opponents playing the same game, and Harry found himself at a disadvantage. It was Beam’s job to press his advantage, to use Harry Lima, and he’d used him up.

“I don’t forgive you,” said Harry’s widow.

“That’s not what I’m expecting, or asking. I simply wanted you to know how I felt.”

“Why should I care?”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I remember the way you used to look at me,” she said, surprising him. Horrifying him. This wasn’t why he’d come here.

“Look at you?” Beam automatically feigning ignorance.

“When Harry wasn’t watching.”

Christ! Where’s she going with this?

She surprised him again by slapping him hard. The sharp impact was like a gunshot in the cluttered little shop.

Beam didn’t move. The left side of his face stung as if bees had swarmed it. He couldn’t feel anger. She seemed completely unafraid of him. He understood why. I’ve already done my worst to her.

“You came in here to make yourself feel better,” she said.

His heart was hammering hard. “Yes.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then leave.”

They stared as if trying to see deep into each other, neither so much as blinking, until finally Beam nodded, turned, and moved toward the door.

“I miss Harry,” she said behind him.

“So do I,” Beam said, and pushed out into the heat.

He thought she might yell after him not to come back, perhaps that she hated him. But she held her silence. She wasn’t the sort to yell anything after anyone.

Beam knew he would be back, because he understood that he needed this woman’s absolution.

And that she knew it.

17

The court had been informed that the witness, the former William Tufts, had legally changed his name to Knee High and would be so addressed. The squat, frenetic little man with the screwed up features was, as far as Melanie could perceive, Cold Cat’s factotum, though his job title was, as he described it, Assistant to the Man. Like Cold Cat, he was African American, but unlike Cold Cat, his demeanor was anything but cool; he seemed unable to sit still in the witness chair.

“Is it true you and the defendant shared lunch in your apartment on the day of Edie Piaf’s murder?” asked Farrato the prosecutor, as if the very act of sharing lunch on that fateful day somehow suggested guilt or, at the least, dark secrets.

“We did lunch, yeah.”

“We being…?”

“Knee High an’ Cold Cat. Had us some sushi an’ beer an’—”

“Please confine your responses to answering the questions,” Judge Moody wearily reminded Knee High. It was the fourth such warning since he’d been sworn in. “And try to refer to yourself in the first person rather than the third.”

“Yeah. Yes, your honor. Knee—We had us some—” Knee High bit down on his words and was silent. The judge seemed pleased by this restraint.

“Was this lunch delivered to your apartment?” Farrato inquired.

“Naw, was leftover from the night before. We had us—” With a glance at Judge Moody, Knee High fell silent.

“Was anyone else present for this lunch of”—Farrato made an unpleasant face—“leftover sushi?”

“Jus’ me an—No.”

“Then you and the defendant were alone?”

“Yes.”

Farrato smiled thinly. He would step by step reveal to the jury that no one, not the doorman, not any of Cold Cat’s backup musicians, not Cold Cat’s chauffeur—no one—could testify in court that Cold Cat was anywhere near Knee High’s apartment at the time of Edie Piaf’s murder.

He faced the toad-like witness, who seemed so guileless that he worried Farrato on that minor point. Knee High didn’t look smart enough to lie to protect his friend, though that surely was what he was doing. “During what time did this lunch take place?”

“Cold Cat—”

“Richard Simms,” Judge Moody reminded the witness.

“Mr. Richard Simms, he showed up all dressed real sharp—”

“Simply give us the times,” said the Judge

“He showed up right at one o’clock, left right at two.”

“Are you certain of the time?”

“I am ’cause I got this new Rolex.” Knee High held up his left wrist. “Knee High been checkin’ the time most every few minutes, make sure I’m with Greenwich Village, an’ jus’ to look at the watch.”

Judge Moody let that one pass.

Farrato appeared pained, but continued. “Is there anyone who can corroborate your story that Richard Simms was with you between the hours of one and two o’clock on the date of Edie Piaf’s death?”

Knee High appeared puzzled. “Collaborate?”

“Corroborate,” Farrato repeated.

Knee High looked to the judge.

“Did anybody else see or talk to you there?”

Knee High bit his lower lip, thinking hard. “No. But we was there. Ain’t no way Cold Cat coulda got to his an Edie’s place an’ killed her. Not if she died ’tween one an’ two.”

Which Edie had, Melanie knew, because before the trial the news media had revealed that Edie phoned a friend and left a message at 12:55, and her body was discovered five minutes after two o’clock, when her personal trainer arrived to find Edie’s door unlocked and Edie dead.

“Is it not possible that the defendant left your apartment slightly before two o’clock?” Farrato asked.

“No—yes, it is not possible. Knee High looked at his—my—gold Rolex ’cause—”

“Mr…High,” the Judge cautioned.

“No.” Knee High crossed his arms and shook his head. “Knee High an’ Cold Cat was there together till one minute past two. Knee High looked, ’cause a second hand on a Rolex move steady like, an’ Knee High wanted to—”

“Mr. High!”

“No. Yes. Not possible.”

Melanie stole a look over her shoulder and saw that Cold Cat’s mother had been allowed back into the courtroom. She was smiling, knowing the innocent believability of Knee High. This attorney-witness exchange was good for her son, with whom she exchanged encouraging glances.

Farrato was unmoved by Knee High’s act. He knew the little man was lying, and he knew that before the trial was over, he would remove Richard Simms, aka Cold Cat, from that meal of day-old sushi, and place him where he belonged, in Edie Piaf’s apartment at the same time Edie Piaf died. Knee High was impressing the jury now, and no doubt he’d impress them when Murray presented the defense phase of the trial, but Farrato would slice Knee High to pieces on cross-exam. The stubborn gnome obviously worshiped Cold Cat, and was obviously—to Farrato, anyway—lying to protect him. Farrato smiled a quarter inch wider. A lecture on the consequences of perjury would do the trick with Knee High, at the opportune time.

Melanie saw Farrato smile and didn’t like him. He seemed so arrogant, so unlike the defendant Cold Cat, who looked genuinely hurt and puzzled that he should be here. And he was suffering emotionally because of Edie Piaf’s passing—you could read the grief on his face for his lost love.

Even as Melanie thought this, she watched Cold Cat glance at his mother, who was returning the look with an expression of mother’s love that couldn’t be faked.

Cold Cat’s mother seemed to sense Melanie staring at her. She glanced Melanie’s way, then lowered her gaze to her lap, as if embarrassed to be caught in a moment of tenderness.