“I’d like both tanks topped off, please, 100 low lead,” I said with saccharine sweetness. “And I’ll need to rent a car for a few days, if you’d be kind enough to make the arrangements.”

“Certainly. I’ll be pleased to help you with that, sir. I assume you’ll be requiring an economy car during your visit?”

“What would make you assume that, Kimberly?”

My accusatory tone caught her off-guard. “Well, I mean…” She glanced toward the Duck, dwarfed among sleek, multimillion-dollar private jets, then back at me, as if to say, any nitwit could plainly see that I would be needing an economy car given the pile of junk I flew in on.

I planted my forearms on the glossy mahogany counter and leaned deliberately, threateningly, into Kimberly’s personal space.

“I’ll be requiring a Cadillac Escalade… Kimberly.”

Her tongue darted nervously over her thin lips and she hunched her shoulders — sure signs of fright, which was exactly my intent.

“My pleasure, sir.” Kimberly snatched up the phone and called Enterprise, if only to escape my steely gaze.

No one requires a three-ton sport utility vehicle whose gas mileage can be measured in negative integers. I had impulsively demanded an Escalade only because I didn’t want some washed-out counter clerk who normally catered to zillionaires thinking I was one step removed from personal bankruptcy, even if in truth I was.

The Escalade was a black gunboat with chrome rims, heated steering wheel, refrigerated cup holders, burled walnut trim, in-dash satellite navigation system, and an imposing rearview mirror presence that screamed, “Get the bleep out of my way.” I felt every inch the stylin’ pimp daddy as I cruised westbound along Interstate 8 through San Diego’s Mission Valley. I had to admit: it was a darned comfortable ride.

I stopped off for a late lunch at El Indio, a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint where I’d eaten frequently when I was still with Alpha, conducting joint training ops with the SEAL teams out on Coronado. We shared with the Navy guys some of our tactics — wearing ballet slippers, for example, instead of standard-issue combat boots, when sneaking up on enemy outposts. They, in turn, introduced us to their favorite watering holes, and to El Indio. I sat outside under a hazy sun and inhaled four Baja-style fish tacos. Each was as exquisito as I remembered. After I’d had my fill, I called and left another message for federal prosecutor Stephen Tassio. But not before I belched. Then I headed downtown.

Charles Dowd practiced law in a twenty-three-story bank tower adjacent to Horton Plaza, which had once served as San Diego’s bum central before the strip clubs and dive bars all gave way to swanky eateries and a gentrified shopping mall. I forked over ten dollars and my car keys to an indifferent Salvadoran parking attendant in the basement and rode the elevator to the ninth floor.

Dowd’s office was located among a warren of suites with a communal conference room and a shared receptionist — a cost-conscious arrangement intended by independent practitioners like Dowd to convey the scope and power of being associated with a swanky major law firm without actually working for one.

The receptionist was bosomy and sharp featured. She put down her copy of Entertainment Weekly, pushing a strand of shoulder-length chestnut hair behind one ear and touching the side of her neck with her head slightly cocked.

“May I help you?”

Her gestures conveyed sexual interest. I once might’ve followed up on them, before Savannah became a constant on my mind.

“Cordell Logan to see Charles Dowd.”

“Is Mr. Dowd expecting you?”

“He is.”

She picked up her telephone, tapped a couple of buttons with the eraser end of a pencil, keeping one eye on me, and let Dowd know I was in the lobby.

“Down the hall. Last door on your right.”

“’Preciate it.”

“Anytime,” she said with the hint of a smile.

Definitely interested.

Dowd was waiting for me outside his office in his shirt-sleeves, red suspenders, and a bright paisley tie, hanging loose. The fingers of his right hand clutched a fat, unlit cigar. He was paunchy, on the north end of sixty, and wore what remained of his hair in a ragged gray Afro that brought to mind an aging, black Bozo. Nobody, however, would’ve characterized his temperament or intellect as clown-like.

“I appreciate you taking the time to see me.”

“As I indicated,” he said without shaking my hand, “you’ve got ten minutes.”

His rumpled appearance matched the decor of his office. Case files and law books were strewn about. His desktop looked like the aftermath of a tsunami. The walls were naked but for a battery-operated clock and a framed law degree. The timepiece was hammered copper and shaped like the continent of Africa. The sheepskin was from Yale.

“I’ve been trying capital cases for thirty-five years,” he said as he parked himself behind his desk in a well-worn leather executive chair. “Dorian Munz was as guilty as they get. That doesn’t mean the government had the right to do him like it did. No man’s got that right.”

I sat down in a folding chair opposite his desk. “You said on the phone you’d let me have a look at Mr. Munz’s closing remarks.”

“You a PI?”

“Flight instructor.”

“A what?”

“It’s a long story and you’ve got ten minutes. If I could just see the videotape…”

He eyed me sideways, firing up his cigar with a lighter shaped like a gavel. “I still don’t get what you’re trying to get at, Mr. Logan.”

“Just trying to bring a little closure to a father who lost his child.”

“Closure’s vastly overrated.”

Dowd dug a laptop out from under a pile of legal briefs on his desk, typed in a few commands, swiveled the computer screen in my direction, checked his watch, then sat back with his feet up, smoking and gazing out at the sailboats plying San Diego Bay.

The videotape was black and white and less than a minute long. It offered few insights beyond what Hub Walker had already shared with me: Munz lay lashed to a gurney, gazing into a camera mounted on the ceiling above him. Through tears, he alleged that Ruth Walker had stumbled upon a billing scam in which Castle Robotics had ripped off Uncle Sam to the tune of nearly $10 million for work that was never performed. Ruth, he said, intended to go to the authorities with what she knew before she was killed. But that wasn’t the only reason, he said, why Greg Castle wanted her dead.

“Ruth had a baby, Castle’s baby,” Munz said into the camera. “He wanted her to get an abortion and she said no, so he killed her — or had somebody do it for him.”

Munz acknowledged that his relationship with Ruth had turned bitter but insisted he was no murderer. “I loved that girl,” he declared. “I’ll always love her.”

The tape ended.

“What proof did Ruth Walker have that Castle’s company was ripping off the Defense Department?”

“Mr. Munz received an anonymous letter about a month after he was convicted,” Dowd said, flicking the ashes from his cigar into a cut crystal bowl on his desk. “All the letter said was that Castle was dirty, that Ruth Walker knew it, and that’s why she died.”

“Any idea who sent the letter?”

“Not a clue.”

Whoever mailed it, Dowd said, also sent copies anonymously to various local news media outlets. The story dominated San Diego’s newspaper and TV stations for several days before the press lost interest. Beyond that anonymous letter, Dowd said, his client had no real evidence tying Greg Castle to Ruth Walker’s murder, nor for his assertion that Castle had fathered Ruth’s baby. The condemned man was merely grasping at straws, hoping to forestall his execution.

“I petitioned for a retrial,” Dowd said. “I argued that the letter introduced sufficient reasonable doubt. My motion, however, was denied. The Ninth Circuit held that the evidence presented by the prosecution was, and I quote, ‘Overwhelming and irrefutable.’ ”