"I understand that. And of course that's the strategy for your position. But it's also one that either denies the existence of or willfully ignores a rather substantial circumstantial case."

"If it was so substantial, Clarence, why didn't Abrams take it to the grand jury first?"

Jackman raised his shoulders, then let them fall. "He didn't want to wait to call them into special session. He was concerned about your client's flight risk. He became convinced-because of the weight of circumstantial evidence that he and Inspector Juhle had amassed- that your client needed to be in jail."

Gina opened her mouth to respond, but Jackman cut her off before she could say a word. "And I must add that your client's behavior after he found out about the warrant-harassing private citizens, carrying a loaded firearm…"

"On that, Clarence, if Juhle hadn't broken our deal, that gun would have been back in Stuart's safe the next morning…"

"Ah, but as it was, it turned out that your client had the gun with him at the precise time that you were telling Inspector Juhle he didn't." For the first time, Jackman's tone grew firm. "You don't lie to policemen, Gina. You're an officer of the court. I don't know what you were thinking. What if Juhle had gone to make his arrest and somehow acted on your assurance that Mr. Gorman was unarmed? Does the potential for disaster there escape you?"

Chastised, and justly so, Gina still held her ground. "We made a deal, Clarence. If Juhle broke the deal, how is that my fault?"

"Because his mandate is not to keep deals with defense attorneys. His mandate is to arrest murder suspects when a judge has seen fit to issue a warrant. If he can do that before the time you arranged, that's what he needs to do. We don't let suspected murderers go have a latte until it's to their convenience to appear for their arrest. We arrest them. Surely this is obvious enough."

"Surely it's equally obvious," she retorted, "that with so little evidence, Gerry Abrams hurried this arrest so he could get his name in the paper, Clarence. That's what that is about."

Jackman's voice rumbled. "That allegation is beneath you, Gina. Mr. Abrams has never before been a hound for the press. He has a consistent and unified theory on this case. I talked to him at some length just yesterday and he is convinced that the-granted, heavily circumstantial-evidence allows for no other conclusion, beyond reasonable doubt in his mind, that your client killed his wife."

"That's just a knee-jerk prosecutor's reaction, Clarence. You know that."

If he did, he didn't acknowledge it. "Well," Jackman sighed. "If his evidence is flawed or inconclusive, it seems to me that it's to your advantage. You pressed for an early preliminary hearing-tomorrow if I'm not mistaken, right?-and no doubt that request has hampered and will hamper the People's ability to build an impregnable case." He spread his hands out. "I don't really know what you'd like me to do, Gina. Which is how we began here today. I'm not going to overrule Mr. Abrams. He's built a case that will either fly or not on its merits. That's how we do it."

"Stuart's an innocent man, Clarence. Someone else killed his wife. Not him."

"That's why we have trials, Gina. And hearings. Mr. Abrams has to prove that, and it's your job to stop him if you can."

"Maybe, but it shouldn't have even been allowed to get to this stage. They have nothing. This is just wrong, Clarence."

She realized at once that she'd gone too far. Jackman's nostrils flared briefly, a tight-lipped smile came and went. "Well…" Rubbing his hands together, Jackman's face cracked in a parody of a smile as he got to his feet. "Maybe mine is just another knee-jerk prosecutor's reaction," he said, "but I only see one suspect in this picture, Gina.

And I also see a defense attorney who's perhaps feeling the pressure of her first murder trial walking a very thin ethical line of her own." "Clarence, I'm not-"

"You're not presuming upon our years of cooperation and friendship and making a personal appeal to the district attorney to subvert the system and dismiss charges that have been brought by this office in a timely and legitimate manner?"

"No, I'm-"

"Ah, good then. I must have been misunderstanding you. I hoped I was." Somehow Gina was standing by now too, and Clarence was moving her, hand on her elbow, toward the door. Then he had his hand on the doorknob. "Show us what you've got at the hearing tomorrow. I'll keep a close eye on the evidence. Your client will get a fair hearing, Gina. That's what he's entitled to, and that's what he'll get."

Understandably, Juhle's betrayal on the arrest deal also knocked the bottom out of Gina's well of credibility with Stuart. How in the world, he wondered aloud to her in angry terms at his very first opportunity before the arraignment and bail hearing, could she possibly have been ignorant of the fact that Juhle would trace her location by cell phone? Surely this was a standard police procedure, done every day? Surely she should have known about this, and avoided such a telephone call at all costs? And if she did know, why did she trust Juhle not to do it? Was she stupid or naive? Because clearly she was one or the other.

Then, she should absolutely have known that her assurance to him that he would be able to peacefully turn himself in on their timetable was chimerical at best and negligent at worst. Not only was his decision to surrender based on that faulty presumption, but his very life was immediately and directly threatened. If he'd had his wits about him enough to actually reach for the gun right at his tableside,

there was no question either Juhle or one of his backup officers would have shot him dead. Surely, this was malpractice if ever there was such a thing.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she'd talked him into agreeing to something he desperately didn't want to do, and also she'd done it in a way that had actually, and dramatically, hurt his case, and the perception of his guilt. In fact, although Stuart never used the gun, the mere fact of his possession of it created a sea change in the tone of reporting on the case. Why had she not warned him to get rid of the gun before she made the phone call?

Before, the killing was newsworthy because of the personalities and profiles of the principals; Stuart's marginal fame; the usual glamorous smorgasbord of money, complicated business issues, and sex. And although Stuart was clearly the front-running suspect, in most of the early stories, there was a sense of debate: Did he or didn't he? What were the pros and cons? How much evidence, really, was there, and what did it matter?

Since the arrest and its details-the flight to a motel room, registering under a false name, the loaded gun within an arm's reach on a table next to the bed-had become public, the presumption of innocence, or even the suggestion of possible innocence, was no longer in the mix. And this, of course, made it easier to believe in Stuart's "threats" to Bethany, and even in his "threatening" visits to Fred Furth and Kelley Rusnak, in spite of these latter witnesses' statements to the contrary. It didn't matter if they had felt threatened during their talks with him; Stuart's very presence was a threatening act. The talking heads and columnists got it right: an armed murder suspect with an all-points bulletin out on him calls on you while you're working, there's an element of threat.

But beyond even that, the near-ubiquitous perception that Stuart was at the very least no better than every murder suspect the Hall had entertained over the years had other immediate and personal consequences.

The first of these was bail. Normally there is no bail in a murder case, or at least no bail that anyone could reasonably be expected to make. But occasionally, especially when there may be issues of self-defense or of lofty community standing, a judge will grant bail of, say, a few hundred thousand dollars. Which of course in Stuart's case would have been doable. But at the bail hearing, Gina could hardly argue with any credibility that her client wasn't a flight risk. Everybody in the courtroom, and most certainly the judge, knew that he'd already tried that once.