The Second Chair

"I'm sure. But you notice I managed to pay Cecil already without touching anybody. Did he tell you you looked good?"

"Yes, he did." Finally, begi

"I love that. Like what, they have an ugly contest to get into law school?"

"I know," she said. "But guys say it all the time. Like it's a compliment. Wow, imagine that, a woman with enough brains to be an attorney and yet not a total scag."

"Not even half a scag, in your case. Not trying to kiss up or anything."

"No. Calling me half a scag is not kissing up."

"Okay, you're way less than even half a scag. You pla

"You buying?"

"One. If you promise not to touch me."

"You're safe," she said.

7

For eighteen hundred dollars a month, Wu rented a twenty-by-thirty-foot studio apartment on the top floor of a large building on Fillmore Street, north of Lombard. The unit was essentially one large, high-ceilinged room, with a small but functional open kitchen, a tiny toilet and shower-only bathroom in the back corner, a decent clothes closet. The futon she slept on converted into a sofa during the day. She also had an old upholstered reading chair next to an end table where she kept her magazines. The only really nice pieces of furniture, aside from a relatively new, high-tech television set, were a Japanese changing screen and a cherry dining table that her father had bought her when she passed the bar. More often than not this doubled as her work desk.

The best thing about the apartment, and the reason for the ridiculous rent, was the windows- two oversized ones along the Fillmore wall, and another couple over the sink and counter in the kitchen area. From their vantage four stories up, all of these afforded really nice views of Marina Park, with the Golden Gate Bridge off to the left, Marin County just a swan dive and a long swim away.

The built-in bookshelves on the opposite wall were filled to bursting with her CDs and law books and a wide selection of hardbacks, mostly nonfiction- history, biography, political science- but one shelf of novels. A bright multicolored eight-by-ten rug covered most of the hardwood. She kept the place neatly organized and very clean.

Now, wrapped in a heavy turkish nightgown, she sat at her table with her briefcase open and her third cup of morning coffee in front of her. The sun, just up, came in over the sink windows and sprayed the wall to her left. She'd been awake for forty-five minutes, had taken the hottest shower she could stand and gulped down four aspirins. She'd eaten a banana, half a canteloupe, and then three eggs scrambled up with soy and leftover rice. Two cups- not demitasses, but her old cracked mug- of espresso. The throbbing in her head was getting to the manageable state, she thought, but still she hesitated before opening the folder she'd just taken from her briefcase. She had picked it up- newly transcribed interviews, more discovery- from Boscacci.

Last night she'd never gotten to them. Instead, like almost every other night for the past few months, she had gone out to find a party. For a moment there, in the dead of the night with Jason Brandt, it had almost seemed as though it would turn out to be more than that. But by the time the alarm went off, he had gone.

Just as well, she had told herself after the initial stab of realization that he'd left. Probably just as well.

Now that she'd committed her client to admitting the petition against him, she had a long moment of terror imagining that she'd find something among this latest evidence indicating that Andrew had not in fact murdered his teacher and his girlfriend. She didn't believe it was likely, but Dismas Hardy's reaction had brought home to her the seriousness of the situation. She'd leveraged not just herself and her client, but the reputation of the firm.

If she didn't deliver, it would be bad.

Finally, she reached into her briefcase for the folder, pulled it out and set it in front of her, then opened it.

She sat with Hal and Linda at the dining room table again. No sign of the maid this time. The house was almost eerily quiet to Wu after she'd finished acquainting the Norths with the most recent developments in the case. She needn't have worried about finding exonerating evidence. The new discovery was, if anything, more damning than what they'd seen so far- the testimony of Andrew's best friend, motives, more about the gun. Tension between the couple was thick but transparent, and to break it, Wu had asked if there was anything else about Andrew that she might need to know.

"You already know about the joyride," Linda said.

"No," Wu replied. "I mean before that. Did Andrew have any kind of history of misbehavior or violence? Anything like that?"

"No," Linda said. "Nothing serious."

Hal North cleared his throat. "Well…"

"I said nothing serious," Linda snapped. "I didn't say nothing at all. Don't give me that look, Hal. I'm not trying to hide anything."

"I'm not giving you a look. We just disagree about what was serious or not."

"Maybe it would be better," Wu interjected, "if you just told me everything and let me decide whether it seems important now or not. I gather there were a few incidents."

"Years ago," Linda said. "Literally, when Hal and I were first together."

"What happened?" Wu asked.

Linda drew a labored sigh. "All right. The one, it was when I told him that Hal and I were getting married. I remember it was a Saturday afternoon, a nice su

"And what happened?" Wu prompted her.

Linda's lips were pressed tightly together as she fought for control. "He just… He just lost his temper."

"Did he hit you?"

When it became obvious that Linda couldn't or wouldn't answer, Hal took over. "He hit her, me, Alicia. He went over to the sink and started throwing the dishes at us. I took a couple of stitches in the face stopping him." He touched a still-visible scar along his jaw, let out a deep breath. "It wasn't pretty."

"But that was seven years ago," Linda said. "And it was my fault anyway. I think I must have just been a terrible mother."

"You are not."

"But I was, before you. You weren't there." Linda turned to Wu. "You should know all this. Andrew's father walked out on us both when he was three, and I needed to work, so I became a waitress, then later a hostess."

"You know Beaulieu?" Hal interrupted with real pride, pointed at his wife. "Hostess at Beaulieu."

This was one of the city's premier di

But this was ancient history to Linda, and she waved off her husband's intended flattery. "Anyway, I was young and selfish and liked to have a good time. I admit it, though I'm not proud of it. I had… opportunities come my way and I wanted to take advantage of them. Anyway, most of the opportunities came with men attached- it's okay, Hal, she probably needs to know this. It's not like a state secret anyway." Linda sighed and continued. "In any event, the men I saw often weren't so nice to Andrew. And I didn't have the strength or understanding or simple will to do much about it. So he came to hate the idea of my boyfriends." She reached out a hand to her husband. "Including Hal, I'm afraid. At first, at least."

"He still simmers," Hal said. "Maybe not at me, specifically…"