JILL BERNHARDT, the tough, savvy assistant district attorney assigned to the bride and groom case, kicked off her Ferragamos and curled her leg up on the leather chair behind her desk. She fixed her sharp blue eyes directly on my face. "Let me get this straight. You think the bride and groom killer is Nick Jenks?" she asked. "I'm sure of it," I said. Jill was dark, disarmingly attractive. Curly jet-black hair framed a narrow, oval face. She was an achiever, thirty-four, a rising star in Bennett Sinclair's office. All you needed to know about Jill was that as a third-year prosecutor, it was she who had tried the La Frade case, when the mayor's old law partner was indicted on a RICO charge for influence peddling. No one, including the D.A. himself, wanted to submarine his or her career by taking on the powerful fund-raiser. Jill nailed him, sent him away for twenty years. Got herself promoted to the office next to Big Ben himself. One by one, Raleigh and I laid out Nicholas Jenks's connections to the three double murders: the champagne found at the first scene; his involvement in Sparrow Ridge Vineyards; his volatile relationship with the third bride, Kathy Voskuhl. Jill threw back her head and laughed. "You want to bust this guy for messing up someone's life, be my guest. Go try the Examiner. Here, I'm afraid, they make us do it with facts." I said, "We have him tied to three double murders, Jill." Her lips parted into a skeptical smile that read, Sorry, some other time. "The champagne connection might fly, if you had him nailed down. Which you don't. The real-estate partnership's a nonstarter. None of it pins him directly to any of the crimes. A guy like Nicholas Jenks -public, connected- you don't go around making unsubstantiated accusations." With a sigh, she shifted a tower of briefs aside. "You want to take on the big fish, guys? Go back, get yourself a stronger rod." My mouth dropped at her hard-edged reaction to our case. "This isn't exactly my first homicide, Jill." Her strong chin was set. "And this isn't exactly my first page-one case." Then she smiled, softened. "Sorry," she said. "It's one of Bennett's favorite expressions. I must be spending too much time around the sharks." "We're talking about a multiple killer, " Raleigh said, the frustration mounting in his eyes. Jill had that implacable, prove-it-to-me resistance. I had worked with her on murder cases twice before, knew how tireless and prepared she was when she got to court. Once, she had invited me to go "spinning" with her during a trial I was a witness at. I gave up in a sweat after thirty grueling minutes, but Jill, pumping without pause, went on at a mad pace for the full forty-five. Two years out of Stanford Law, she had married a rising young partner at one of the city's top venture firms. Leapfrogged a squadron of career prosecutors to the D.A."s right hand. In a city of high achievers, Jill was the kind of girl for whom everything clicked. I passed her the security photo from the Hall of Fame, then Nicholas Jenks's photograph. She studied them, shrugged. "You know what an adversarial expert witness would do with these? It's pup shit If the cops in Cleveland feel they can convict with this, be my guest." "I don't want to lose him to Cleveland," I said. "So come back to me with something I can take to Big Ben." "How about a search and seizure," Raleigh suggested. "Maybe we can match up the champagne bottle from the first crime scene to the lot he purchased." "I could run it by a judge," Jill mused. "There must be someone out there on the bench who thinks Jenks has done enough to bring down the structure of literary form to the point where they'd go for it. But I think you'd be making a mistake." "Why?" "Some two-time crack whore, her you can bring in on suspicion. You bring in Nicholas Jenks, you better arraign. You alert him that you're onto him- you'll spend more time fending off his lawyers and the press than making your case. If he's it, you're gonna have one shot and one shot only to dig up what you need to convict. Right now, you need more." "Claire has a hair in her lab from the second killing, the De Georges I said. "We can make Jenks give us a sample of his beard." She shook her head. "With what you have, his compliance would be totally voluntary. Not to mention, if you're wrong, what you might lose." "You mean by narrowing the search?" "I was talking politically. You know the game rules, Find say." She riveted those intense blue eyes directly at me. I could envision the headlines, turning the case back against us. Like the screwups with O. J. Simpson and Jon Benet Ramsey. In both cases it seemed the cops were as much on trial as any possible defendants. Jill got up, smoothed her navy skirt, then leaned on her desk. "Look, if the guy's guilty, I'd like to tear him apart as much as you. But all you're bringing me is an unlucky preference in champagne and an eyewitness on her third vodka and tonic. Cleveland's at least got a prior relationship with one of the victims, bringing up a possible motive, but right now none of the jurisdictions have enough to go on. "I've got two of the biggest headline grabbers in the city looking over my every move," Jill finally admitted. "You think the district attorney and the mayor want to pass this thing on?" Then she fixed unflappably on me. "What's the litmus test here? You're sure it's him, Lindsay?" He was linked to all three cases. The desperate voice of Christine Kogut was clear in my mind. I gave Jill my most convincing nod. "He's the killer." She got up and made her way around the desk. With a half-smile, she said, "I'm gonna make you pay if this blows any chance of getting my memoirs in print by forty." Through the sarcasm, I saw a look flare up in Jill Bernhardt's eyes, the same resolute look I had seen when she was spinning. It hit me like a spray of Mace. "Okay, Lindsay, let's make this case." I didn't know what made Jill tick. Power? An urge to do right? Some manic drive to outperform? Whatever it was, I didn't think it was far from what had always burned through me. But listening to her cogently mapping out what we needed to indict, a tantalizing thought took hold of me. I thought about getting her together with Claire and Cindy.

AT AN OLD-FASHIONED STEEL DESK in the dingy halls of the Chronicle's basement library, Cindy Thomas scrolled through four-year-old articles on microfiche. It was late. After eight. Working alone in the underbelly of the building, she felt as if she were some isolated Egyptologist scraping the dust off of long-buried hieroglyphic tablets. She now knew why it was referred to as "the Tombs." But she felt she was onto something. The dust was coming off secrets, and something worthwhile would soon be clear to her. February… March, 1996. The film shot by with indistinguishable speed. Someone famous, the Cleveland bride's friend had said. Cindy pushed the film onward. This was how stories were earned. Late nights and elbow grease. Earlier, she had called the public relations firm Kathy Kogut had worked for in San Francisco, Bright Star Media. News of their former staffer's death had reached them only that day. Cindy inquired about any feature films Bright Star might have had an association with. She was disappointed when she was told the firm didn't handle films. The Capitol, she was told. The concert palace. That was Kathy's account. Undeterred, Cindy plugged Bright Star's name into the Chronicle's data bank. Any subjects of articles, names, companies, reviews written in the past ten years were recorded there. To her mild delight, the search came back with several live responses. It was assiduous work, and discouraging. The articles covered a period of more than five years. That would tie in with the time Kathy was in San Francisco. Each article was on a different microfiche cassette. It required going back into the files. Requisitioning. Three items at a time. After four sets, the night librarian handed her the clipboard, saying, "Here, Thomas. It's all yours. Knock yourself out." It was quarter past ten- she hadn't heard a peep from anyone in over two hours- when she finally came upon something interesting. It was dated February 10, 1995. Arts Today section. "For Local Band Sierra, New Film Taps into a Hit." Cindy's eyes shot down the text, fast-forwarding to anything that stuck out: plans for their album, an eight-city tour. Quotes from the lead singer. "Sierra will perform the song at tomorrow night's bash at the Capitol to kick off release of the film Crossed Wire." Her heart stood still. She zoomed ahead to the following day's Arts section. She consumed the article almost in a single suspended breath: "… took over the Capitol. Chris Wilcox, the star, was there." A photo, with a dishy actress. "Bright Star… other recording stars in attendance." Her eyes traveled over the three accompanying news photos. In tiny print, underneath each shot, she noticed the photographer's name: "Photography by Sal Esposito. Property of the Chronicle." Photography… Cindy jumped out of her seat at the microfiche desk and hurried back through the musty, ten-foot high stacks of bundled, yellowing editions. On the other side of the Tombs was the Chronicle's photography morgue. Rows and rows of unused shots. She had never even been in here… didn't know how it was laid out. Creepy, creepy place, especially this late at night. In a flash, she recognized that the aisles were chronological. She followed the signs at the end of each aisle until she found February 1995. She ran her eyes along the outside of the stacked plastic bins dated the tenth. When she spotted it, it was on the highest shelf. Where else? She stepped up on the lower shelf, on her tiptoes, and wiggled the bin down. On the dusty floor, Cindy frantically leafed through folders bunched up in elastic. As if in a dream, she came upon a folder marked in large black letters: "Crossed Wire Opening- Esposito." This was it… Inside were four contact sheets, several black-and-white glossies. Someone, probably the reporter, had written the names of each person, in pen, at the bottom of each shot. Her eyes froze as she came upon the photo she was hoping for. Four people toasting the camera, with arms locked. She recognized Kathy Kogut's face from the photos Find say had come back with. Red hair, curly. Trendy inlaid glasses. And next to her, smiling into the camera, was another face Cindy knew. It took her breath away. Her fingers trembled with the realization that she had deciphered the hieroglyphics at last. It was the trimmed, reddish-colored beard. The narrow, comp licit smile- as if he knew where all this might one day lead. Next to Kathy Kogut was the novelist Nicholas Jenks.