But as he looked at the face of Ellie Hatcher, he wondered if he couldn’t use the extra help.

He went to the Tools menu and clicked on the Clear Private Data command, erasing his search information on YouTube before closing the browser window. Rachel Peck would be leaving work soon and enjoying her night out on the town.

ELLIE HAD SUCKED DOWN half of her grande peppermint mocha by the time she finished giving Donovan the play-by-play of the events at Leon Symanski’s house.

“Unbelievable. When Susan Parker showed up at the courthouse this morning with Jaime Rodriguez, I really assumed it would all turn out to be b.s. Either Rodriguez was lying, or his friend was lying, or maybe Symanski was some insane criminal wannabe.”

“Instead, he’s some insane criminal actually-be who says he killed Chelsea Hart. Although,” she quickly added, “Rogan did float the possibility that Myers is still our man.” As things stood, she had mixed feelings about meeting alone with Donovan. Until Rogan was around, the least she could do was to sound neutral.

“Well, with Symanski’s confession, we’ve got enough to prosecute him, but whether we’d win at trial is another question.” Donovan broke off a chunk of the banana bread they were sharing. “They’ll argue the confession’s coerced. And then even if we can use the confession, we need other evidence to corroborate it. At least we’ve got the earring. That would get the case to a jury, but convincing twelve people beyond a reasonable doubt wouldn’t be easy.”

“Rogan thinks a good lawyer can argue the earring fell off while Chelsea was at the club and Symanski found it.”

“It also doesn’t help that the guy who pointed us in Symanski’s direction was a drug dealer who runs with one of Jake Myers’s buddies. They’ll argue Rodriguez was sending us in the wrong direction as a favor to his pal.”

“So it all comes down to Symanski’s confession in the alley. Either it’s real, or I forced it out of him at gunpoint. Terrific. Now I can see why Eckels sent me home.”

“That’s why Knight wants to see you. Eckels thinks it looks bad if you’re working the case after what happened between you and Symanski in the alley, but Knight thinks it looks a lot worse if you get pulled. If the department treats you like a bad apple, a jury might be inclined to see it the same way. The key is to keep you on this. You and Rogan work well together, right?”

“Yeah. No question.”

“All right. So you work it side by side. Two good detectives, backing each other up. That way there’s not too much pressure on the word of either one of you. By benching you, Eckels is causing major problems for us at trial.”

“Between me and you, Eckels doesn’t care if he causes problems for other people.”

“Hey, stop worrying about it. Knight will work something out. You saw that the Daily Post broke the story about the victim’s hair being chopped off?”

“Although I believe they said ‘shaved.’ Salacious just the same, though.” She’d seen the update on the paper’s Web site at her apartment. Byline: George Kittrie and Peter Morse. Ellie wondered if breaking the story had been worth it all to Peter.

“So, come on, you haven’t given me your take yet. Is Symanski our guy or not?”

“I don’t know.” Neutral. Report the facts. Present both sides. Let Donovan make up his own mind.

“Oh, come on. The guy told you he did it. What’s in your gut?”

I strangled her, and I cut her up, and I took her earring. There were only two possible explanations for what happened in that alley. Either Ellie forced Symanski to speak those words, or he had murdered Chelsea Hart. And whether anyone accepted it or not, Ellie knew that Symanski hadn’t simply recited that sentence. He’d looked her in the eye. He’d spoken with a pleading desperation that was unambiguous: he had truly wanted her to believe him.

“I know I didn’t coerce that confession, so, yeah, I think he did it.” Ellie felt guilty that she might be biasing Donovan, but at least she was still keeping the cold cases to herself. She wanted to raise the subject once more with Rogan before she brought anyone else in on her theory.

“And Jake Myers is totally innocent?”

“It would follow. But are you really sure enough to drop the charges?”

Donovan shook his head. “What a mess. I’ve got law school friends who make four times my salary, and all they have to think about is which enormous company should get how large a pile of cash. Why do we do this to ourselves?”

“Hey, speak for yourself, Mr. ADA. I get paid even less than you, but all I have to do is catch the perps and hand them over. You get to make all the decisions about charges and plea bargains and sentences and all that business.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to worry about getting stabbed in an alley.”

“Well, at least not at work.”

“Oh, and you’re funny too. That’s just great.”

“You’ve got something against funny?” she asked.

“No, in fact I’m a very big fan of the sense of humor.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“It’s yet another reason to wish this coffee wasn’t just a coffee. But, that’s all right. I’m good at keeping it strictly professional.”

“Is that what this is? A strictly professional coffee that’s just a coffee?”

“I assumed so, what with the nondescript ‘plans’ you had the other night and everything.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’ll have any plans along those lines in the future.”

“So, the extremely polite shutout from the other night-”

“Consider it retracted. If I’m permitted to retract, that is.”

“I think it can be managed.” He looked at Ellie with a cool smile that made her suddenly aware of the unflattering overhead lights in Starbucks. “Unfortunately, with that, our coffee that wasn’t just coffee may have to end. Knight will kill me if we’re late.”

THANKS TO CALLER ID, Rogan didn’t bother with a greeting.

“Let me guess. You’re on your third drink and have pasted Eckels’s picture to a dartboard.”

“One beer, one peppermint mocha. No dartboard, but an excellent suggestion nevertheless.”

“Beer and peppermint mocha? Disgusting.”

“Where are you?”

“St. Vincent’s. Symanski’s finally awake.”

“I’ll be right there.” Ellie hung up before he could argue.

SHE FOUND ROGAN sitting in a wheelchair in the third floor hallway of St. Vincent’s Hospital. A uniform officer stood guard at the door across the hall.

“You shouldn’t sit on that when your legs work,” she said, kicking one of the wheels. “Bad karma.”

“I’d lie in an empty casket right now. My ass is whooped tired.”

“Is Symanski talking?”

“Yeah, if ‘Get me a lawyer’ counts as talking.” He used his hand as a puppet to act out Symanski’s single sentence.

“Fabulous.” She used the wall next to Rogan as support and slid down into a crouch.

“Speaking of karma,” Rogan said, “Symanski’s in bad shape.”

“He’s probably faking it. You didn’t hit him that hard.”

“No, not from me. He’s got some kind of melanoma.”

“Skin cancer?”

“No, like lung cancer or something. The doctor said it was from asbestos?”

“You mean mesothelioma?”

“Yeah, that’s it. You’ve been attending med school on the side?”

“No, like almost everything I know, I learned it from the television.” She parodied a familiar ad for one of the city’s omnipresent personal injury law firms. “‘If you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you know there are hundreds of questions about what steps to take. Let Datz and Grossman help you with your legal rights while you deal with this difficult diagnosis.’”

“Damn, girl, you do watch too much TV. Now you better go and get your butt out of here. Eckels will go nuts if he finds out.”

“That’s what we need to talk about. Simon Knight called me in and said he wants us both working on this-together. He’s worried that if a jury hears Eckels pulled me from the case, it will taint me as a witness.”