One of my old law professors once told me that jobs without problems generally don’t pay very much.

  For now, the only job that matters is getting Rob Jacobson out of jail before Kevin Ahearn tries to put him there for good, and forever.

  Ahearn goes first.

  “Your Honor,” Ahearn says, “I’d like to begin with an apology for wasting the court’s time with this frivolous and rather outlandish request for bail from the defendant and his new attorney. Or should I say old?”

  I shake my head, grinning.

  “Who you calling old, Kevin?”

  That gets a rap of the gavel. Today even that is music to my ears.

  “Ms. Smith,” Judge Kane says. “We’re all aware what a noted wit you are. Save it for when you’re back outside and addressing the media.”

  “Now it’s my turn to apologize, Your Honor. It won’t happen again.”

  Well, we all know that’s a lie.

  “I’m well aware that you’re not much for boundaries,” the judge continues. “Just you be aware that I’m a bear for them.”

  Less than five minutes in and I’m not just back on the ice, I feel like I’m on my way back to the penalty box.

  As I listen to Ahearn, I’m reminded all over again what a good lawyer he is, even if I did take him to the place Jimmy calls Beatdown City the last time we faced each other. He still has that commanding courtroom voice, and presence, and good timing, even playing to a jury of one today.

  He’s also playing a much stronger hand than mine.

  Maybe everything old is new again.

  “I understand, Your Honor,” he says, “that the defendant’s previous trial should, by law, have no bearing on this one. But as we all know, that’s a mere legal distinction. Because how can the fact that the previous charges against him were for equally hideous crimes possibly be considered irrelevant to the matter we’re here to discuss, however a previous jury found?”

  He walks over and sits down on the railing in front of the empty jury box, dropping his voice down a couple of notches, turning his tone conversational, as if he and Judge Kane are the only ones in the room.

  “This man was previously accused of murdering a father, a mother, a teenage daughter. A daughter, as a witness testified in open court, with whom the defendant was having a wildly inappropriate relationship before her death.”

  “Objection,” I say.

  “No objecting today, Ms. Smith.” She shakes her head, slowly, almost sadly. “No sustaining, no overruling. But you know that, don’t you? This is a bail hearing, not a trial. So please don’t interrupt again.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor.”

  “If you’ve already had to apologize twice, we’re not really off to a good start, are we?”

  This is Killer Kane, in full. I did a lot of reading about her on the plane, after I finished writing out the remarks I’m about to make. I know she’s someone you don’t want to antagonize, but sometimes I can’t help myself. My pop used to tell me that no maple tree he ever saw ever turned into an oak.

  “In conclusion,” Ahearn says, “let me remind the court that this man is about to stand trial for a second triple homicide—same MO as the first one. How many times has something like that ever happened in this country’s justice system? Never. And never will again. So we aren’t just talking about a potential flight risk here. We’re talking about a potential serial killer. For those reasons alone, bail should be denied.”

  He is walking back to his table when he stops and points a finger at Rob Jacobson.

  “You’ve heard the expression about locking up your daughters, Your Honor? This man makes us want to lock up whole families, until the state locks him up for good.”

  You done good, Kevin, I think.

  You’re just not as good as me.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I DON’T WANT THE last words Judge Kane heard from Ahearn to hang in the air for a moment longer. So I come in hot, making my voice louder than it needs to be.

  “Opposing counsel makes it sound as if my client is being charged, in front of this court, with six homicides. Only he’s not. My client stands accused—falsely, I might point out—of three murders, for which he will eventually be acquitted and for the best possible reason: Rob Jacobson didn’t kill any of these people, because he’s never killed anybody in his life.”

  I take it down a notch now, reminding myself to slow down, not get ahead of myself, not sound as if I’m trying my whole case in the next few minutes.

  “I don’t need to remind Mr. Ahearn, as painful as such a reminder might be to him, that Rob Jacobson was acquitted by a jury of his peers in that first trial. Lo and behold, he wasn’t guilty until proven innocent, as Mr. Ahearn wanted him to be, when all the facts came to light.”

  I’m pretty sure I hear Ahearn say, “What facts were those?” to Maggie Florescu, but the judge doesn’t hear him. Or doesn’t care, maybe because she likes him better than she likes me. Wouldn’t be the first time. Probably won’t be the last.

  As long as I last.

  “Judge,” I say, “it would not only be unfair to force my client to remain in custody, it would be cruel in light of the time he has already spent behind bars for previous crimes he absolutely did not commit.”

  I move back to our table and point to Rob Jacobson.

  “Mr. Ahearn says this man, this innocent man, is a flight risk. No, he is not. On the contrary, he isn’t going anywhere, because he is going to stay right here and fight to clear his name. Again. And I’m going to fight right along with him.”

  I’m walking back to the table, talking to Judge Kane over my shoulder, surprising myself with what next comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.

  “Like we’re both fighting for our lives here.”

  Judge Kane says we will have her decision shortly, and that no one should leave the courtroom. She’s not lying. She’s back in less than ten minutes. A jury of one coming back.

  “I’ll make this short and sweet,” she says. “Bail is set at five million dollars.”

  I see Jacobson lean forward, feel the steam come off him, know him well enough by now to know that he’s about to say something stupid, react like this is a restaurant and he’s shocked at the amount of the bill.

  I stop him with a grip on his arm strong enough to quickly cut off circulation.

  “Shut up,” I say into his ear. “And pay up.”

  Judge Kane then begins to explain the conditions of Jacobson’s bail apart from the money, including his wearing an ankle monitor, and how he will be released from the jail in East Meadow as soon as he has paid the $5 million either by check or wire transfer. And that any violation, of any kind, will land him back in East Meadow, with absolutely no chance at supervised release until the trial begins.

  “Do you understand these terms as I’ve explained them to you, Mr. Jacobson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No, Your Honor, I do not.”

  “Then we’re done here, at least for now,” Judge Alicia Kane says, before heading for her chambers as if being chased, the click of her heels sounding like gunfire.

  When the door shuts behind her, I turn to Rob Jacobson.

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  Then he’s the one putting a hand on my arm and telling me we need to find a conference room because there’s something important he needs to tell me.

  “It’s about Brigid.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  ANOTHER CONFERENCE ROOM FOR Rob Jacobson and me. Flashing back to the first trial, at the courthouse in Riverhead, I can’t remember a single time I felt better about things when walking out of a room like this than when I walked in.

  “We need to make this quick,” I say to him. “I’m jet-lagged, I need a hot bath, and then I need a hot meal with the man of my dreams.”

  “Dr. Dolittle,” Jacobson says.

  “Funny,” I say, “since Ben thinks I’m the one who talks to the animals.”

  “Ouch,” Jacobson says. “And here I thought I still had a chance to be the man of your dreams.”

  “Only in your dreams,” I say. “Now please focus, Rob. What about Brigid?”

  He hesitates, somehow looking at everything in the room except me.

  “There’s no easy way for me to tell you this,” he says finally. Still not looking at me. “But we’re seeing each other again. She wanted me to be the one to tell you. And to tell you at the same time the subject is not up for discussion.”

  I’m not sure what he thinks my reaction will be. I’m not disappointed in him. There’s nothing more he can do to disappoint me. I am disappointed in my sister. She’s shown shockingly bad taste. What’s more, she knows this man’s history with women, the younger the better.

  That she won’t even discuss this with me feels like catching a break.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  I put my hands on the table between us and push off it. It takes all the strength I have left in me to get to my feet.

  “Just do me one favor.”

  “Anything,” he says.

  “Try not to hurt her.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I mean with the ankle monitor, dumb-ass,” I say with a twinkle, and head out.

  A probation officer is standing just outside the door.

  “He’s all yours,” I say.

  I’m about to cross Main Street when I see Dr. Ben. I come to a dead stop. He’s talking to someone whose back is to me.

  Guy in a hoodie.

  My breath comes out of me like air coming out of a punctured tire, remembering the last time I exited the courthouse and saw a hoodie just like this one.

  Despite being as worn out as I am, I’m running across Main, toward the parking lot and Ben’s Range Rover.

  As I get to the car, the guy turns around, pulls the hood from his head, sticks out his hand.

  “Hi, I’m Edmund McKenzie,” he says. “I wanted to meet the asshole who’s still defending Rob Jacobson.”

  “I heard you were missing,” I said.

  “Who told you that?” McKenzie says.

  Ben steps away from the Range Rover. “Problem?” he asks.

  “I’ve got this,” I tell him, motioning with my hand that he’s to stay where he is. To McKenzie I say, “Get out of my way.”

  He puts up his hands. “No problem,” he says. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

  He still hasn’t moved.

  “Have you ever been raped?” he asks.

  He winks at me. Then he walks away. I can hear him whistling.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jimmy

  JIMMY IS AT THE end of his bar, nursing a beer. Jimmy has the Yankee game on both sets, but he’s paying no attention.

  Jane and Ben left about fifteen minutes ago and Jimmy is thinking about Jane—what McKenzie said to her at the courthouse, what Joe Too said that night at Jimmy’s house, and what a shame it would be if Jane died of something other than the cancer.

  If Joe Too and his girlfriend could get to Jimmy that easily, they could get to Jane if they wanted to. It really does seem as if that sonofabitch Joe Champi has come back from the grave to terrorize them all over again.

  Jimmy finishes his beer and is getting ready to leave when his phone makes that marimba sound Jimmy is too lazy to change, the one that has half the people in the bar reaching for their phones every time they hear it.

  UNKNOWN CALLER.

  “Cunniff,” Jimmy says into his phone.

  “McKenzie,” the voice at the other end replies, as if trying to imitate Jimmy.

  “Oh,” Jimmy says, “it’s the asshole who called my partner one today.”

  “Just wanted to get her attention.”

  “Well, let me get yours,” Jimmy says. “Stay away from her. Or the next time I see you I’ll swing you around by your nuts.”

  McKenzie waits a beat before responding. “I’m just calling to tell you what a thrill it was for me to finally meet Jane. I saw her leave the bar. Next time you talk to her, tell her I’d do her in a heartbeat.”

  Jimmy calmly gets off his barstool and walks out the door. His eyes are searching Main Street, then farther, past Bay Street, to where the harbor begins.

  No sign of Edmund McKenzie.

  But he’s out here somewhere.

  “Since you’re obviously in the neighborhood, why don’t you drop in and I can start bouncing you around right now?”

  “Wow. The attitude. And here I was just trying to pay her a compliment. I would think she’d be happy that all the miles she obviously has on her wouldn’t be a deal breaker.”

  “Fuck you.”

  McKenzie just laughs.

  “You and your partner need to know something, Cunniff, in case you don’t already.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  JIMMY CUNNIFF LOVES LIBRARIES so much he’s now a board member at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. As a kid in the Bronx he spent time at the one in Morris Park to stay out of trouble when his friends weren’t.

  That seat on the board also has something to do with an old girlfriend who worked in real estate before realizing that Jesus would be back before Jimmy was ever going to propose to her. She moved away and married somebody else, but Jimmy remains on the board.

  The annual Friends of Jermain fundraiser is one of the South Fork’s social events of the year. Jimmy, Dr. Ben, and I are in the packed auditorium at Pierson High School with people who in season turn up at every event wanting to be seen, hoping to be photographed for Hamptons magazine, and generally congratulating each other for having money to give away to good causes like this one.

  That I normally wouldn’t have been caught dead—even when I thought that was an appropriate choice of words—at a society event isn’t particularly surprising or meaningful to me.

  But this is:

  The room looks like a who’s who from Rob Jacobson’s first murder trial.

  Rob Jacobson himself is home with his ankle bracelet. It’s been a few days since the bail hearing and I haven’t spoken to him or my sister, even knowing I’ll have to open the lines of communication with both of them eventually.

  But Claire Jacobson, Rob’s soon-to-be ex, is keeping her distance on the other side of the auditorium. Otis Miller, whom I unintentionally outed during Rob’s first trial, is there with his partner. I’m blocked on his name but they’re chatting away with Gus Hennessy, Rob’s former friend and Claire’s onetime lover, who nearly torpedoed us during that first trial.

  “The gang’s all here,” Ben Kalinsky says.

  Jimmy snorts. “The Westies were a nicer gang than this.”

  He points out the event’s chairperson, Elise Parsons, who finally outlived her elderly robber-baron husband but still lives for nights like this. Jimmy informs Ben and me that for years the relationship between Rob Jacobson and Elise Parsons has been an open secret in the Hamptons.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to talk about who he hasn’t slept with?” Ben asks. “Just to streamline things?”

  I smile at him and proudly raise a hand.

  “Was it still going on with Rob and Elise even after he ended up under house arrest?”

  “I heard it ended badly,” Jimmy says. “But at least nobody got shot.”

  Our plan is to stay about an hour. Ben and I are a few minutes away from the opening bid in the live auction and a clean getaway when Elise Parsons heads straight in our direction. The aging debutante is, bless her heart, the whole package: hair, makeup, not a bad body, lots of good Botox, enough jewelry to open a Tiffany pop-up store. She was probably a knockout back in the day. But for the catty life of me, I can’t imagine which day that might have been.

  “Well,” Elise says when she reaches me. “I see the bitch is back.”

  I keep my smile in place.

  “Nice to see you, too, Elise. Usually people get to know me a lot better before they call me that.”

  “I’m aware why your hideous client is unable to attend,” she says. “What’s your excuse for being here?”

  She does a little toss of her head, hair unmoving, for effect.

  “It actually did take nerve for me to show up,” I say. “But not for the reason you think.”

  “You’re really going to defend him all over again? Seriously? Just how much of a whore are you?”

  Elise looks flushed, voice continuing to rise, as if she’s already had too much to drink. Up to now, the event has been relatively sedate, even boring. The auditorium hushes to the unspoken thrill of listening in on a scene like this.

  “Elise,” Ben says calmly, trying to diffuse an impossible situation. “Please lower your voice.”

  She doesn’t. We’re way past that by now.

  Suddenly a younger and much prettier version of Elise appears. Known as Ellie, she shares Elise’s name.

  “Mom,” she says, “I heard what you called her. But there’s no reason to insult any other whores here tonight.”

  “Is he screwing you, too, Jane?” her mother asks me, loud enough now for the parking attendants outside to hear. “Everybody on the South Fork thinks so.”

  I look at Elise Parsons, then her daughter, then back at Elise.

  I motion her closer and lower my voice to a near whisper.

  “It was you who married Gramps,” I say, smiling sweetly at her. “So who’s the real whore?”

  And with that, the chairperson for Friends of Jermain hauls off and slaps me, the sound so loud it echoes off the polished floor.

  TWENTY-SIX

  A FEW NIGHTS AFTER all the fun at the library gala, I invite Dr. Ben over for dinner, telling him that I’m doing the cooking for a change.

  “What are we celebrating?”

  “How about me walking away from Elise Parsons after she got the first swing in? My dad used to tell me that if a hockey fight was about to break out, I had to be the one to throw the first punch.”