“Anytime, doctor.”

  When Claire had left the courtroom, Yuki called her next witness.

  CHAPTER 38

  YUKI HAD CHOSEN Dr. Laurie Birney carefully. She was a well-known and highly respected psychologist in her fifties, a top expert in the field of dissociative identity disorders as a practitioner and an educator, and often called as an expert witness in cases like this.

  After Dr. Birney was sworn in, Yuki asked questions that elicited her credentials and accomplishments. Then Yuki turned her head to see how Mary Elena was doing. She couldn’t read her client’s expression—which she thought was a good thing. Yuki also saw Red Dog standing at the back of the gallery. She caught his eye before turning back to her witness.

  “Dr. Birney, have you ever treated or even met Ms. Hayes?”

  “No, I have not.”

  “Have you had patients with dissociative identity disorder?”

  “Oh, yes. I wrote my first thesis on DID when it was still called ‘split personality’ or ‘multiple personality disorder.’”

  “And you’re an expert on other dissociative disorders?”

  “It seems immodest to say so.”

  “That would be a yes?”

  Dr. Birney smiled and said, “Yes.”

  Yuki still felt the burn of Schneider’s smug opening statement, in which he claimed that psychology was bull. Yuki was damned sure he would use that same argument in his closing statement, too. And it would only take one holdout on the jury to crash her case against Tyler Cates into a wall.

  But Schneider hadn’t yet gone up against the authority of Laurie Birney. Her soft ways might fool him into taking a chance.

  As Yuki turned back to her witness, she noticed peripherally that DA Parisi had moved from the courtroom entrance to the prosecution table and had taken her seat next to Nick Gaines. Parisi was watching. Not signaling. So Yuki walked closer to her witness.

  “Dr. Birney, please tell the jury about DID, what was once called multiple personality disorder.”

  “You don’t have to ask twice,” said Dr. Birney. “It’s my life’s work. How long have we got?”

  There was appreciative laughter in the courtroom followed by complete silence as Dr. Birney explained DID.

  “DID is notable for the patient’s missing chunks of memory that cannot be explained by forgetfulness. And the hallmark of DID, the inspiration for movies like The Three Faces of Eve, is the presence of at least two distinct and as many as dozens of personalities that are enduring parts of the individual’s main personality.

  “These fragmented personalities are generally utilitarian in nature in that they come into being to protect ‘the body’ by serving as a line of defense against further attack or fear of attack.”

  “This is recognizable, is it not?” said Yuki.

  “It can be. Memory loss, disorientation, depression, suicidal thoughts are a number of symptoms that are common in dissociative disorders—and from the point of view of the afflicted person, awakening inside your main personality in a situation you don’t recognize, or similarly coming into real time in an alternate personality, can be disabling, especially if the individual has been physically assaulted. With DID, you have no memory of this situation, this assault or circumstance. That’s devastating.”

  There was a loud shriek from the prosecution table behind Yuki. She whipped around to see Mary Elena standing, facing and screaming at DA Parisi, who rose awkwardly to his feet, stepping backward.

  Mary Elena yelled, “You go. Go away, Oompah!”

  Parisi said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “Go away!” Mary Elena yelled again.

  Judge St. John banged the gavel and said to the court, “Court is in recess for a half hour. Does that give you and your client enough time, Ms. Castellano?”

  Yuki said, “Your Honor, I can’t be sure. If that’s not enough time, we’ll return without the plaintiff.”

  Bailiff Riley Boone escorted the jurors out the side door to the jury room and at court officer Louie Mack’s direction, those in the gallery complied as the room was emptied.

  Yuki said, “Mary Elena, come with me.”

  “My name is Ana. Don’t you know me?”

  Yuki understood that an alter named Ana was present. Ana seemed larger than Mary Elena. She stood straighter, making her shoulders appear wider. She was angry, furious actually.

  Nick Gaines said, “I’ll walk Dr. Birney to her car.”

  Yuki put her hand loosely around Ana’s upper arm in order to guide her and said, “Ana. My office is just at the end of the corridor. We’ll talk, okay?”

  Ana ripped away from Yuki and, glaring at the foot traffic in the corridor, walked alongside, stayed with her to the DA’s office suite. Yuki thanked God that they had not run into Parisi.

  CHAPTER 39

  SONIA ALVAREZ SHOUTED at me, “Quick! Patty’s room. Second floor, second room on the right.”

  I slammed the desk drawer shut, put the key in my front pants pocket, drew my gun, and followed Alvarez up the stairs. Bevaqua lunged past me, stiff-arming Alvarez out of his way and kicking open Patty Delaney’s door. Alvarez held her weapon in a two-hand grip. Bevaqua was halfway across Patty’s room when Alvarez yelled, “Arthur! Stop! Hands up. Stay where you are.”

  I didn’t get it. “What’s happening here?”

  “I’d really like to know,” said Alvarez.

  We were in Patty’s bedroom, a peach-colored chamber with a view of the bay through a pair of French doors. It had changed since I’d been here last. Patty had redecorated with a romantic bent.

  I looked across the room to Patty, a cherubic blonde in her thirties, about five six, 140, now sitting naked on the edge of her four-poster bed. She pulled a floral quilt around her up to her chin, while heaving deep, wailing sobs. Alvarez had maneuvered Bevaqua so that he was facing the closed bedroom door.

  I looked around. The gas fireplace opposite the bed was lit. An oil painting of an entwined nude couple on a chaise longue hung above it. The man’s face was hidden in his partner’s pale blond hair. There was a full-sized beveled mirror on the ceiling positioned over the bed.

  I looked back to Patty, who was sobbing no, no, no, hugging pillows and crying into them.

  Bevaqua shouted at Alvarez as she patted him down.

  “I’m not armed. Don’t be crazy, Inspector. I was trying to… Listen, Sergeant, I meant no harm. I’m in charge of the staff. Now more than ever. Okay if I put my hands down?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m sorry I shoved you,” he said to Alvarez. “Very sorry. I just didn’t want for Patty to…”

  “To what?”

  I was processing slowly, like a first-generation computer, running theories, computing possibilities, weighing scenarios in the absence of facts. According to the note card I’d found in Jamie’s desk, he and Patty were in love. The question that seemed to have an obvious answer: Was Bevaqua also involved with Delaney? Of course.

  “I want to console her,” Bevaqua shouted. “To befriend her, goddamnit.”

  “Arthur,” I said. “Put your hands on your head.”

  Alvarez had holstered her gun and frisked Bevaqua up and down, front and back.

  “He’s unarmed,” she said.

  I had to be sure. I stooped beside Arthur and checked his ankles, didn’t find a gun or any kind of weapon there, either. I said, “Arthur, go downstairs with Alvarez and wait for me at the kitchen table.”

  “You’ve got this all wrong.”

  “Do it or I’m taking you in.”

  “Okay, I’m going downstairs now. I’m doing what you say.”

  CHAPTER 40

  ARTHUR BEVAQUA SHOT a look over his shoulder at Patty as he left the room with Alvarez. Her gun was in her hand again and she was walking right behind him.

  I was confident Alvarez would be sitting across from Bevaqua at the granite kitchen table when I got down there. But at this minute, Patty was still under the covers clutching a blue garment to her face. It was a pajama top. Large man–sized. She was keening now—a terrible sound of bottomless grief that I didn’t think could be faked.

  I holstered my gun, switched on the overhead light, and looked around the room again. I was seeing things I hadn’t noticed while crashing through the doorway with my gun drawn. Baby-blue thong panties on the floor near the Victorian bed; a horse whip over the back of the armchair. I toed a diaphanous curl of a nightgown with my shoe. I said, “Quite a party here, Patty. You and Arthur?”

  Patty rolled toward me, propped her upper torso on her elbow, shook her head vigorously, and cried again. “Arthur? Noooo. It was Jamie!” she bleated. “We made love until sunup. He was right here yesterday morning, his final hours alive. Now I want to die, too.”

  I’d just seen Patty an hour ago when she served lunch. I had noticed she was downcast but I hadn’t imagined this. I had to reorder my thoughts—yet this Patty matched with “my darling Pattycakes.”

  “Do you know who killed him?” I asked this woman who looked vulnerable enough to bleed through her skin.

  She shook her head no.

  “Patty, you must have some idea. Was Jamie afraid of anyone? Had he been threatened? Did he have anything to do with Holly’s murder?”

  “No, no, no. But he didn’t love her anymore. They had no secrets, though. Jamie and I—you’re not going to believe me.”

  “I’m on your side, Patty. Talk to me.”

  “We were going to get married,” she sputtered. “Holly knew, and they were going to get a divorce.”

  “Who else knew that?”

  “It wasn’t time to tell. Then Holly got shot…”

  Patty searched my face looking to see if I believed her. I hadn’t decided. I said, “Please get dressed. We need you to come to the station and give a formal statement.”

  “Again? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Arthur’s coming, too.”

  “Why? Arthur didn’t do anything.”

  “Let’s go, Patty,”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You always have the right to a lawyer.”

  While Patty pulled on jeans and a cardigan, I opened drawers in her nightstand, then her dresser. Looking for what, I didn’t know. A diary. A weapon. Letters from Jamie. Drugs. I had a search warrant for the house and I figured that covered individual rooms. If not, bad on me.

  I found nothing but fancy dildos and lubricants along with her workaday outfits and lacy underclothes.

  I turned on the closet light, gave her laundry basket a good tossing, moved on to the overhead shelves, feeling up handbags for the weight and shape of a gun. Nothing, nada, zero.

  The red-eyed blonde turned to give me a questioning look.

  “Do you have a gun, Patty? Tell me now if you do.”

  “No. I don’t have a gun. Arthur doesn’t have a gun. He’s my friend. He’s the only one who knows, knew, about me and Jamie.”

  She ran from the room and down the stairs. I followed as she turned toward the kitchen. She went into Arthur’s arms while Alvarez and I looked on.

  CHAPTER 41

  THE KITCHEN WAS one of those to-die-for rooms one sees in glossy home decor magazines—marble-tiled walls and floor, with a stone table in the middle of the room—but I focused on Arthur Bevaqua, who had his arms around Patty, cooing, “It’s going to be all right.”

  “Never,” she said. “It will never be all right, Arthur.”

  I pulled out a chair for Patty and one for myself. She sat next to Arthur and I sat beside Alvarez. Arthur looked grief-stricken, as if he’d accidentally backed his car over his dog. The house was big and empty and quiet, except for the sound of Patty’s thick breathing and the distant sound of a lawn mower.

  I asked the two sitting across the table from us, “Who’s caring for the grounds?”

  “Joe Casey and Mike Thomas. They’re here once a week. They don’t come into the house. I hired them. They never met Jamie or Holly.”

  I asked Alvarez to go outside and get their information and IDs. “Call for a car and ask them to come to the station for questioning. We know they didn’t do it. We just want to know what they’ve observed.”

  Alvarez got up from the table and headed out.

  I asked Arthur and Patty if they knew or had a good guess about who’d killed the Frickes.

  Arthur answered. “Don’t you know that I would do anything to know? If only I had a hint or a suspicion as to who killed Mr. Jamie and Mrs. Holly, I would give it up. You wouldn’t have to ask. I loved them both.”

  “Arthur. Think. Who hated them? Who’d been swindled? Who’d been ditched? Who was jealous?”

  He said, “Sergeant, no offense. There’s a whole world of people the Frickes knew that I never met, or only met to bring a drink to. I opened doors. I hung up coats. I supervised the staff and sometimes I served meals. I kept the press from the door. I was a utility. I knew from things Jamie told me or dictated to me that a lot of people didn’t like him. Players and fans from any city with a soccer team that lost to the Bleus. Any man with a woman Jamie had slept with. There were many.”

  “No,” said Patty, fresh tears starting. “You’re wrong about that.”

  “Patty, it’s true.”

  He put his arm around her again and she put her elbows on the table and cried into her sleeves. Then she got up and unloaded the dishwasher.

  I said, “Anyone you think we should be looking at?”

  “This is just talk,” Arthur said, “because I don’t know anyone who would have killed either of them. I’m a house manager. Understand? Talk to Marilyn Stein again. She knew everyone who knew Holly.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Talk to Mr. Jamie’s driver. Rafe Talbot. He was totally checked out and cleared before he got this job.”

  Alvarez poked her head back in the room. She said to me, “Backup is here.”

  Perfect timing.

  CHAPTER 42

  I SPOKE WITH Alvarez while standing in the Frickes’ semicircular driveway. “Turn Bevaqua over to Brady, Cappy, and Chi for interrogation, in whatever order.” I pictured Cappy or Brady interviewing Arthur, surrounded by morgue shots of the deceased Frickes. He might open up. How many ways could he say, “I have no idea. I have no clue”?

  Would Arthur confess? Would he finally spill a name?

  I went on, saying to Alvarez, “Turn Delaney over to Conklin.”

  She and I both knew that Conklin was the best cop with women ever born.

  “Brief Brady and sit in on as many interviews as possible,” I said. “I’m going to call him and say to take his time getting their statements. Never mind tears and ‘swear to God’s. If anyone knows who killed the Frickes, it’s these two.”

  I continued, “Keep the gardeners apart. Ask anyone on the team to talk to Casey and Thomas. Lemke and/or Samuels would both be good. If no one else is around, you do the interviews. I’m standing by,” I said.

  I called for another couple of units. Dispatch said, “On the way, Sergeant.”

  I walked to the garage, stepped through the open roll-up door. A muscular guy with thick white hair was inside sweeping the floor.

  “Rafe Talbot?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I showed him my badge and we went together into his upstairs living quarters.

  CHAPTER 43

  RAFE TALBOT’S QUARTERS were as plain as a block of wood. Plain double bed covered with a gray sherpa blanket. Sink with a towel bar. A shelf of paperback books.

  The kitchen table had a white linoleum top and looked like it had come from a used furniture store. A refrigerator hummed. The few posters on the wall were of rock groups from the 1980s. Beneath the posters sat what looked like a very pricey entertainment unit: a huge TV, abundant sound equipment.

  There was no mess anywhere, no laundry, no dirty dishes. I saw no tattoos on Talbot’s neck or arms but the shape of his nose suggested that he’d been a fighter or that at least someone had gotten in a punch. I judged him to be fifty-something.

  “Sergeant, I have no idea who killed Jamie.”

  He looked like he wanted to talk, but couldn’t find the words. He just couldn’t do it. He shook his head.

  Finally, he said, “What can I do? How can I freaking help when I don’t know and can’t even imagine it?”

  Jamie Fricke had never warmed any part of me, so clearly there were things about him I just didn’t get.

  “It was my fault,” Rafe Talbot said over and over again. “I should never have let him take the car without me.”

  And then he started talking in paragraphs.

  “Yesterday morning, a little before eight thirty, Arthur told me to bring the car around. But Mr. Jamie said he was just driving over to Steiner Street. He’d be back in five minutes. He didn’t say who he was meeting, and I didn’t ask. Just drove the Jag to the front door, got out, handed him the keys.”

  Using my phone as a recorder, I spent an hour with Rafe going over the same well-trodden ground. Holly was loved. Jamie had many women and was apparently loved by some, feared by others. Rafe had only had this job for a couple of years. He knew the staff casually. No one confided secrets to him.

  Rafe also had a girlfriend, Greta Schmidt, who worked as a caregiver, day shift. He spent his nights off at her place over in the Sunset district. She spent some nights, like last night, with Rafe. She’d left this morning while it was still dark.

  He continued by saying he didn’t know of anyone who would have killed the Frickes, but he listed several people who thought that Jamie was a son of a bitch, people Rafe had picked up or dropped off in the car, people who made a comment or two. He started writing names on the back of a grocery store receipt.

  “Once I knew who we were picking up, where we were going, I’d close the barrier between the seats and put my earbuds in. I listened to my music when I was driving Mr. Jamie and guests.

  “Everyone liked Holly,” he continued. “I drove her, too.”

  I asked, “Did she ever step out on Jamie?”