Slough glanced at the bag as she rushed in, and raised his eyebrows. Shopping? Adrienne felt her face go red.

For the next three hours, they continued to prep their witness. At no point did either of them ask if Amalgamated had actually used the new mix. They simply and repeatedly wondered how anyone could be expected to remember what he’d been thinking six years ago. Was it possible that Mr. Johnson had been, well—doodling? Or thinking of some other responsibility?

At about four P.M., a light dawned in Ace Johnson’s dungaree eyes. “Y’know,” he said, leaning forward with a confidential air. “I’ll be honest with ya. I don’t remember what the hell I was thinking about when I wrote that.”

Slough smiled.

Five minutes post-smile, she was back in her cubicle and four hours after that, she was still there, feeling enervated, ragged and bored. Her sister’s ashes were in the corner, on the floor beside the shredder, beneath the hat rack that held her coat.

She yawned, put aside the list of questions she’d been preparing, and pulled out her organizer.

Before she went home, she’d have to finish the commentaries that went with each of the questions, print out the file, and leave it on Slough’s desk so it would be there when he got in tomorrow morning. Other items on the list included Call Ramon re Jack. The doorman had promised to take him on Saturday—which reminded her: Jack probably had to go out. In fact… She took a deep breath and geared herself up to call Mrs. Spears. It was either that or go home, and she couldn’t go home—not yet. So she tapped in the number.

“Hiiiiiii… “ she exclaimed, drawing on the last dregs of “perkiness” that remained to her. “I’m at the office, and—there’s a teeny problem? With Jack?” She hated herself when she talked like this, but—“Oh, you’re saving my life Mrs. Spears, I just don’t know how to thank you, you’re an angel! No, really! I mean it!”

When she hung up, she sat back in her chair, and swiveled, left to right. Her eyes fell on the urn, and she told herself for the hundredth time that she had to do something with Nikki’s ashes. Scatter them on the Potomac… or something. But where? And how? Did she just stand on the river bank, and sort of… dump them out? Or should she do it from a bridge? And which bridge? Or rent a canoe…

With a sigh, she looked at the next entry on her to-do list: Duran

That son of a bitch…

She flipped her pen over and bounced the end of it against the corner of her desk. Duran. Her threat was turning out to be an idle one. Other than running into his office and shouting at him, she’d done… nothing. Too busy.

She was still thinking about Duran when Bette came in with half a dozen little white containers from Tasty Thai. Digging into a heap of Green Curry Noodle, Adrienne remarked that she was going to crucify the shrink who’d killed her sister.

“Well, maybe,” Bette said.

“‘Maybe’? The way he twisted her around? What do you want to bet he’s got a list of complaints against him a mile long?”

“You think?”

“I’d bet on it,” Adrienne told her. “And if I’m right—I’m going to ruin him. I mean it! Nikki may have been spacey—”

“Ummm… Scout: ‘Nikki may have been spacey’?”

“Okay, so she was very spacey. But this fantasy about child abuse—that’s why she killed herself. And it had absolutely nothing to do with reality.”

“You know that? I mean, you know why she killed herself?”

Adrienne nodded. “It was in her will. Which was what she left instead of a suicide note. And this guy, Duran—who she names in the will—invented it all. And then—he makes her believe it.”

Bette winced.

“It was all she could talk about. And that’s supposed to be helping her!?” She dipped into the carton of Pad Thai, tasted it judiciously and shrugged. “Mine’s better,” she decided.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Nail him.”

“How?” Bette asked.

“How do I know? I don’t even have time to walk the dog.”

“So why not let the city investigate him?”

Adrienne scoffed. “The other day… I made a call to the Board of Medicine—they’re the licensing authority for clinical psychologists—and you know what they told me? They said I should be wary—they actually used the word ‘wary’—about the pitfalls of ‘outcome-based malpractice suits’ (that’s also a quote) in the field of mental health.”

Bette rolled her eyes.

“Like I need their legal advice!” Adrienne exclaimed, gritting her teeth.

Bette’s chopsticks delivered a morsel of Pad Thai to her mouth, while Adrienne renewed her attack on the curry. Finally, Bette asked, “Why don’t you hire Eddie Vanilla?”

Adrienne frowned. Looked up.

“Isn’t that what he does?” Bette asked. “I mean, isn’t that exactly his kind of thing?”

Adrienne shook her head slowly. “I guess, but… I can’t afford that! How much does Eddie charge, anyway? Fifty bucks an hour?”

“Well, there’s your sister’s money—you’re the executor, aren’t you? Under the circumstances, I think you’d be within your rights to hire an investigator.”

The idea hadn’t occurred to Adrienne, who was so used to being poor that she’d never thought of hiring someone to do anything she could do herself—even if she didn’t have the time. “Maybe you’re right,” she conceded.

Edward Bonilla, who was perhaps inevitably known as “Eddie Vanilla,” was a retired Army guy who’d spent much of his life as an investigator for the CID. A few years earlier, he’d become a licensed P.I. in the District, listing himself in the Yellow Pages under “Bonilla & Associates.”

Who the “Associates” were, was anyone’s guess. But he’d done pretty well, serving papers, doing asset searches, divorce work, and handling due-diligence investigations for law firms involved in mergers and acquisitions. By all accounts, he was good at tracking down recalcitrant witnesses and doing public records research, though his interviewing skills were considered suspect. (One of the lawyers at the firm called him “Eddie Gorilla”—but not to his face.)

He might be perfect, Adrienne thought.

And he was a neighbor, too, working out of a townhouse on Park Road, just a block from Adrienne’s English basement. He was a fixture at Mt. Pleasant neighborhood association meetings. A maven on security issues and a hard-liner where property values were concerned, Bonilla had been instrumental in organizing the Mt. Pleasant Neighborhood Watch. “My posse,” he called it, leading bands of orange-vested homeowners on their evening patrols.

“Have some more,” Bette said, offering her carton.

Adrienne shook her head, and offered her carton in return. But Bette wasn’t interested. Getting up, she dumped her trash in the wastebasket. “Back to the grindstone,” she said, and headed the way of her cubicle.

Adrienne sat back in her chair, and had a few more bites of curry. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of hiring Eddie Bonilla. There wasn’t any downside that she could see, and there was no way she was going to let this guy, Duran, get away with what he’d done. A little scrutiny would be very much in order. And Bonilla would be perfect. Flamboyant, but still a pro. And even though he was busy as hell—the firm was doing two or three M&A’s a month—she knew he’d find the time for her. They were, like, friends. Not really—but sort of.

A year ago, he’d come to her door (this was shortly after she’d moved in), escorted and introduced by Mrs. Spears. “Adrienne, I’d like to introduce Mr. Bonilla.”

Her first thought had been that Eddie Bonilla was a trip. He was a short, skinny guy, somewhere in his fifties—who looked like he was still living in the Fifties. He wore khakis, but called them “chinos.” His hair was slicked back on both sides, while a pompadour crashed and burned on his forehead. Like Elvis, he had magnificent sideburns. Most curiously of all, his clothes seemed slightly too small for him—despite the fact that he was thin—as if he was a kid who’d just gone through a growth spurt.