“People fight,” she says. “What’s the big deal?”

“In stage two, the verbal abuse escalates. The yelling gets louder, more threatening. Then there’s a single explosion. The woman gets physically beaten up-once.”

Sonia nods, says nothing.

“That’s followed by a respite, a break. No abuse at all. Until stage three.”

She lowers her eyes to her lap again.

“Stage three is essentially a repetition of the first two stages-on fast-forward. The time between beatings gets shorter and shorter.”

For a full minute, the telephone line between us is quiet. Sonia takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “Okay,” she says. “I get it.”

“You should know,” I tell her, “that the law doesn’t recognize a woman as battered unless she’s gone through the complete cycle-all three stages, and with the same man-at least twice.”

Sonia lets out a soft laugh and stares at her lap again, hugging her cast. “Twice?” Her eyes are brimming when she looks back at me. “No problem.”

She’s had it.

“Are we done?”

“Yes.”

She hangs up her phone, stands, and turns away.

I hang up too, and press the buzzer. The matron opens the door behind Sonia in a millisecond. She must have been leaning on it.

It occurs to me, as I pack up my briefcase, that I’m two for two. First in Buck Hammond’s case, and now in this one, I’m arguing that the dead guy deserved it. I’ve barely begun my career with the defense bar, but I seem to be developing a niche.

The moon is almost full tonight. Beams of light shimmer on the salt water at the end of Bayview Road. They light up the beach and the narrow lane, reflecting off the newly fallen foot of snow. The weatherman was right on.

Sonia Baker’s cottage, crime scene tape and all, is bathed in a soft yellow glow. Geraldine’s Buick is parked at the curb, empty. She’s already gone inside.

Every light in the place is on. Soft lamplight peeks out from behind ivory lace curtains. If it weren’t wrapped in that black-lettered tape, the small shingled house would look cozy and inviting on this frigid night. It occurs to me, for the first time, that Maggie Baker will probably get good and homesick long before all this is over.

Geraldine agreed to meet me here at seven, but I’m a half hour late. I was only a few minutes behind schedule when I left the Barnstable County House of Correction, then I got stuck behind a sander on the single-lane portion of the Mid-Cape Highway. This isn’t good. Geraldine doesn’t like to be kept waiting.

The front door is unlocked. I let myself in, tapping on the inlaid glass to announce my arrival. Sonia’s living room looks altogether different than it did twenty-four hours ago. Howard Davis’s body is gone, of course; so is the blood-drenched sofa, the serrated knife, and the Johnnie Walker Red bottle.

A white, powdery film covers every surface in the room-the remaining furniture, the doorknobs, even the windowsills. It’s residue from the print search. Patches of the living-room rug-close to where the couch and body were-have been excised. A scuffed wooden floor shows through the holes.

“In here, Martha.”

I follow Geraldine’s voice to Maggie’s back bedroom, a room we surveyed quickly on last night’s brisk tour. It holds only a single bed, an oval braided rug, and an old pine bureau. The lamp on the bureau-a ceramic ballerina with a chipped tutu and a frilly pink shade-is on. Maggie’s hairbrush sits beside it.

The room’s walls are covered with the predictable tattered posters of movie stars and rock singers, but otherwise the space is surprisingly neat for a teenager’s. My stomach registers a small surge of hope; maybe a touch of Maggie’s tidiness will rub off on Luke.

Geraldine doesn’t look up when I join her. She’s busy filling two shopping bags she’s positioned on Maggie’s bed. I wouldn’t have a clue about packing for a teenage girl, but Geraldine selects items from the bureau’s open drawers without hesitation, as if she’s been Maggie Baker’s personal shopper for years.

“How do you know what to choose, Geraldine?”

She gives me that look, the one she perfected during the ten years we worked together. “Martha, get a brain,” it says. Then she gestures toward the bureau’s open drawers; they’re just about empty. No choosing necessary.

“Divine inspiration.” Geraldine raises her hands to the heavens, as if even she can’t comprehend the extent of her God-given talents. She empties the last few items from the bureau and shuts the drawers. She drops the hairbrush in with the clothes, hands both shopping bags to me, and turns off the ballerina lamp. She pauses to light a cigarette, and heads for the bedroom door.

“Funny,” she says, walking in front of me down the short hallway to the kitchen, “you never struck me as the foster parent type.”

“It’s temporary, Geraldine.”

“Temporary?” She throws a skeptical look over her shoulder at me. “As in until-her-mother-serves-a-life-sentence temporary?”

“No.” I don’t particularly like talking to Geraldine’s back, but I seem to do it a lot. “As in until-we-figure-out-who-the-hell-killed- Howard Davis temporary.”

She leans against the kitchen sink, her cigarette poised in midair, and shakes her blond bangs at me. Long ago, Geraldine diagnosed me as chronically naive. Now I’ve convinced her the case is critical.

“Your client killed Howard Davis, Martha. We both know that.”

“I don’t think so, Geraldine.”

“He had it coming. I won’t fight you there.” She flicks her ashes into the sink. “You’ll probably score with the psychiatric workup. If any woman’s been battered, she has. And if old Prudence comes through for you, we’ll plead it out. But your client’s doing time, Martha. Real time.”

Suddenly I’m exhausted. I rest the shopping bags on the floor, pull a chair out from the kitchen table, and drop into it. I can’t help wondering why it is that Geraldine is always certain of her position and I-no matter which side of the aisle I find myself on-am not.

She can read my mind, of course; she always could. She blows a stream of smoke into the center of the kitchen before explaining it all to me. “Martha, you feel sorry for her. Your emotions are clouding your judgment. And who doesn’t feel sorry for her? We all see she’s been to hell and back. But stabbing him eleven times wasn’t the answer.”

I raise my eyebrows. No need to waste my breath; she knows what I’m thinking.

“Yes, they do work,” she says. “Restraining orders work in most cases.”

Actually, they work in all cases-one way or another. Sometimes the bully is afraid enough of the Big House to stay away from his favorite whipping post for a while. Other times he doesn’t give a damn and needs to be sure she knows that. So he shows up and beats her again-often within hours of being served.

In a select few cases, the restraining order is a trigger. The document itself induces a new level of rage. The abuse reaches new heights-or depths-and the woman who sought protection from the system ends up in the county morgue.

Geraldine knows all of this at least as well as I do. No need to argue about it now. I force myself to my feet and lift the two shopping bags. “Thanks for these,” I tell her.

I’m almost out of the kitchen when I remember. I stop in the doorway and put the bags down again.

“What?” Geraldine’s cigarette freezes and she eyes me guardedly. “What now?”

“I just want to check something.”

I go back to the kitchen table and walk around it, my eyes on the wide-pine floor. There they are. Two glass lighthouses, one cracked. They’re side by side against the trim on the floorboard, small black and white grains spilled out from their silver caps.

The salt and pepper shakers.

Geraldine crosses the room and stands beside me, cigarette at her cheek, her green eyes following my gaze. “So what?” she says.