Anna composed her features into a look of boredom mixed with contempt. “You keep speaking of ‘friends,’” she said, and then hissed in her fluent Spanish: “El muerto al hoyo y le vivo al bollo.” Dead men have no friends.

  “You do not wish to choose how you will die? It is the only choice most of us ever get.”

  “But you will have to choose first. El que mucho habla, mucho yerro. I feel sorry for you, taking on an errand and making such a botch of it. You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “If you’re smart, you’ll tell me.”

  She curled her lips in scorn. “That is the one thing I will not do.” She paused. “Pepito Salazar would not want me to.”

  The driver’s expression froze. “Salazar, you said?”

  Navarro had mentioned the name of one of the most powerful cocaine exporters of the region, a man whose trading enterprise outstripped even that of the Medellin kingpins.

  Now the man looked suspicious. “It is easy to invoke the name of a stranger.”

  “When I return to the Palaquinto this evening, it is your name I will be invoking,” Anna said provocatively. The Palaquinto was the name of Salazar’s mountain retreat, a name known only to the few. “I regret we were not formally introduced.”

  The man spoke with a tremor in his voice. To make trouble for a personal courier of Salazar was more than his life was worth. “I have heard stories of the Palaquinto, the faucets of gold, the fountains of champagne …”

  “That’s only for parties, and if I were you, I wouldn’t count on any invitations.” Her hand dipped into her small purse for her hotel keys.

  “You must forgive me,” the man said urgently. “My instructions came from people with incomplete knowledge. None of us would dream of dishonoring any member of Salazar’s entourage.”

  “Pepito knows that mistakes will be made.” Anna watched the .38 dangling loosely in his right hand, smiled at him encouragingly, and then, in a swift movement, dug her keys into his wrist. The jagged steel stabbed through flesh and fascia, and the gun dropped into Anna’s lap. As the man howled in agony, she scooped it up in one deft movement and placed the muzzle at the back of his head.

  “La mejor palabra es la que no se dice,” she said through gritted teeth. The best word is the one that is not said.

  She ordered the man out of the car, made him walk fifteen paces into the scrubby roadside vegetation, then got into his seat and roared off. She could not afford the time, she told herself, to replay the terrifying encounter; nor could she allow panic to seize her instincts and intellect. There was work to do.

  The house that had belonged to Marcel Prosperi was set back from the Avenida Mariscal Lopez. It was an immense Spanish Colonial mansion surrounded by extravagantly landscaped property, and it reminded her of the old Spanish missions back home in California. Instead of a simple lawn, though, the expanse of land was terraced with rows of cacti and lush wildflowers, protected by a high wrought-iron fence.

  She parked the silver Mercedes some distance down the road and walked toward the entrance, where a taxicab was idling. A short, potbellied man emerged from it and ambled toward her. He had the dark skin of a mestizo, a drooping black bandito mustache, black hair combed straight back with too much hair goo. His face gleamed with oil or perspiration, and he looked pleased with himself. His short-sleeved white shirt was translucent in places where sweat had soaked through, revealing a mat of dark chest hair.

  Captain Bolgorio?

  Where was his police cruiser? she wondered as his cab drove away.

  He approached her, beaming, and enveloped her hand in his two large clammy ones.

  “Agent Navarro,” he said. “A great pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Come, Señora Prosperi is not used to being kept waiting. She is very rich and very powerful, Agent Navarro, and she is accustomed to getting her way. Let’s go right in.”

  Bolgorio rang a bell at the front gate and identified themselves. There was a buzz, and Bolgorio pushed the gate open.

  Anna noticed a gardener hunched over a row of wildflowers. An elderly female servant was walking down a path between ledges of cacti holding a tray of empty glasses and open bottles of agua gaseosa.

  “We’re all set to go to the morgue after this interview?” Anna said.

  “As I said, this is really not my department, Agent Navarro. A magnificent house, is it not?” They passed through an archway into cool shade. Bolgorio rang the doorbell at the side of an ornately carved blond wooden door.

  “But you can help arrange it?” Anna asked, just as the door opened. Bolgorio shrugged. A young woman in a servant’s uniform of white blouse and black skirt invited them in.

  Inside was even cooler, the floor tiled in terra-cotta. The servant led them to a large, open room that was sparely decorated with woven primitive rugs and earthenware lamps and pottery. Only the recessed lighting in the stucco ceiling seemed out of place.

  They sat on a long, low white sofa and waited. The maid offered them coffee or sparkling water, but both of them declined.

  Finally a woman appeared, tall and thin and graceful. The widow Prosperi. She looked around seventy but very well taken care of. She was dressed entirely in mourning black, but it was a designer dress: maybe Sonia Rykiel, Anna thought. She wore a black turban and outsized Jackie Onassis sunglasses.

  Anna and Bolgorio both rose from the low sofa.

  Without shaking their hands, she said in Spanish, “I don’t see how I can help you.”

  Bolgorio stepped forward. “I am Captain Luis Bolgorio of the policía,” he said with a bow of his head, “and this is Special Agent Anna Navarro of the American Department of Justice.”

  “Consuela Prosperi,” she said impatiently.

  “Please accept our deepest condolences on the passing of your husband,” he continued. “We simply wanted to ask you a few questions, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “Is there some sort of problem? My husband was sick for a long time; you know. When he finally passed away it was surely a great relief for him.”

  Not to mention for you, too, Anna thought. “We have information,” she said, “indicating that your husband may have been killed.”

  Consuela Prosperi looked unimpressed. “Please sit down,” she said. They did, and she sat in a white chair facing them. Consuela Prosperi had the unnaturally tight skin of a woman who has had too many facelifts. Her makeup was too orange, her lipstick glossy brown.

  “Marcel was ill for the last several years of his life. He was confined to bed. He was in extremely poor health.”

  “I understand,” Anna said. “Did your husband have enemies?”

  The widow turned to her with an imperious glance. “Why would he have enemies?”

  “Señora Prosperi, we know all about your husband’s past endeavors.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I am his third wife,” she said. “And we did not speak of his business affairs. My own interests lie elsewhere.”

  This woman could hardly be ignorant of her husband’s reputation, Anna knew. She also did not seem to be much in mourning.

  “Did Señor Prosperi have any regular visitors?”

  The widow hesitated but an instant. “Not while we were married.”

  “And no conflicts that you know about with his international ‘trading’ partners?”

  The widow’s thin lips compressed, revealing a row of vertical age lines.

  “Agent Navarro means no disrespect,” Bolgorio put in hastily. “What she means to say is—”

  “I’m quite aware of what she means to say,” Consuela Prosperi snapped.

  Anna shrugged. “There must have been many people over the years who wanted your husband apprehended, arrested, even killed. Rivals. Contenders for territory. Disgruntled business partners. You know that as well as I.”

  The widow offered no response. Anna noticed her thick orange pancake makeup cracking over her sun-lined face.

  “There are also people who sometimes provide early warnings,” Anna went on. “Intelligence. Security. Do you know if anyone ever contacted him to warn him of any possible threats?”

  “In the nineteen years we were married,” Consuela Prosperi said, turning away, “I never heard anything of this.”

  “Did he ever express to you the fear that people were after him?”

  “My husband was a private man. He was an absentee owner of his automobile dealerships. He never liked to go out. Whereas I enjoy going out quite a bit.”

  “Yes, but did he say he was afraid to go out?”

  “He didn’t enjoy going out,” she corrected. “He preferred to stay in and read his biographies and histories.”

  For some reason, Ramon’s muttered words ran through her head. El diablo sabe más por viejo que por diablo. The devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil.

  Anna tried a different tack. “You seem to have very good security here.”

  The widow smirked. “You do not know Asunción, do you?”

  “There is great poverty and crime here, Agent Navarro,” Captain Bolgorio said, turning to her with outspread hands. “People of the Prosperis’ means must always take precautions.”

  “Did your husband have any visitors at all in the last few weeks of his life?” Anna went on, ignoring him.

  “No, my friends came over quite a bit, but none of them ever went upstairs to see him. He really had no friends in the last years. He saw only me and his nurses.”

  Anna looked up suddenly. “Who supplied his nurses?”

  “A nursing agency.”

  “Did they rotate—did the same ones come regularly?”

  “There was a day nurse and an evening nurse, and yes, always the same ones. They took very good care of him.”

  Anna chewed at the inside of her lower lip. “I’m going to have to examine certain of your household records.”

  The widow turned to Bolgorio with an expression of indignation. “I don’t have to put up with this, do I? This is a grotesque invasion of my privacy.”

  Bolgorio tented his hands as if in supplication. “Please, Señora Prosperi, her only interest is to determine whether there was any possibility of homicide.”

  “Homicide? My husband’s heart finally gave out.”

  “If we must, we can obtain them at the bank,” Anna said. “But it would be so much simpler if—”

  Consuela Prosperi got up and suddenly stared at Anna, nostrils flared, as if the American were a rodent that had made its way into her house. Bolgorio spoke in a low voice. “People like her, they do not tolerate invasions of their privacy.”

  “Señora Prosperi, you say there were two nurses,” Anna said, soldiering on. “Were they very reliable?”

  “Very.”

  “But were they never sick or absent?”

  “Oh, from time to time, of course. Or they would ask for a night off when there was a holiday. Año Nuevo, Día de los Trabajadores, Carnaval, that sort of thing. But they were very responsible, and the agency was good about bringing in replacements without my ever having to worry. And the replacements were every bit as well trained as the regular nurses. Even on Marcel’s last night, the substitute nurse did everything she could to try to save him—”

  Substitute nurse. She sat upright, suddenly alert. “There was a substitute nurse on the night he died?”

  “Yes, but as I said, she was as well trained—”

  “Had you ever seen her before?”

  “No …”

  “Can you give me the name and phone number of the nursing agency?”

  “Of course, but if you’re implying that this nurse killed Marcel, you’re being foolish. He was ill.”

  Anna’s pulse quickened. “Can you call this agency?” she asked Bolgorio. “And I’d like to go to the morgue right now—could you please call ahead and arrange to have the body prepared for us.”

  “The body?” Consuela Prosperi said, alarmed, rising to her feet.

  “My deepest apologies if we must delay the funeral,” Anna said. “We’d like your permission to do an autopsy. We can always get a court order, but it would be simpler and faster if you’d give us permission. I can guarantee you, if you’re having an open-casket service, no one will ever be able to tell—”

  “What are you talking about?” the widow said, genuinely puzzled. She walked to the immense fireplace and lifted an ornate silver urn from the mantel. “I just received my husband’s ashes a few hours ago.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Washington, D.C.

  Justice Miriam Bateman of the United States Supreme Court got up with great effort from her massive mahogany partners’ desk to greet her visitor. Leaning on her gold-handled cane, she made her way around the desk and, smiling warmly despite the great pain from her rheumatoid arthritis, took her visitor’s hand.

  “How nice to see you, Ron,” she said.

  Her visitor, a tall black man in his late fifties, leaned over to give the diminutive Justice a peck on the cheek. “You look wonderful as always,” he said in his deep, clear baritone, his enunciation precise.

  “Oh, rubbish.” Justice Bateman hobbled over to a high-backed wing chair by the fireplace, and he took the matching one next to her.

  Her visitor was one of Washington’s most influential private citizens, a widely respected, extraordinarily well-connected attorney in private practice who had never held a government job, yet had been a confidant of every President, Democrat and Republican, since Lyndon Johnson. Ronald Evers, famous, too, for his splendid wardrobe, was wearing a beautiful charcoal pin-striped suit and a subdued maroon tie.

  “Madame Justice, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “For God’s sake, Ron, it’s Miriam. How long have we known each other?”

  He smiled. “I believe it’s thirty-five years … Miriam, give or take a decade. But I still keep wanting to call you Professor Bateman.”

  Evers had been one of Miriam Bateman’s star students at Yale Law School, and he had been instrumental behind the scenes in getting Justice Bateman nominated to the High Court some fifteen years earlier. He hunched forward in his chair. “You’re a busy lady, and the Court’s in session, so let me get right to the point. The President has asked me to sound you out on something that must not leave this room, something he’s been giving a lot of thought to. Please understand, this is highly preliminary.”

  Justice Bateman’s piercing blue eyes radiated keen intelligence behind the thick lenses of her eyeglasses. “He wants me to step down,” she said somberly.

  Her directness caught her visitor unprepared. “He has enormous respect for your judgment and instincts, and he’d like you to recommend your successor. The President hasn’t much more than a year left in office, and wants to make sure the next Supreme Court vacancy isn’t filled by the other party, which looks awfully likely at this point.”

  Justice Bateman replied quietly, “And what makes the President think my seat’s going to be vacant any time soon?”

  Ronald Evers bowed his head, his eyes closed as if in prayer or deep contemplation. “This is a delicate matter,” he said gently, like a priest in a confessional, “but we’ve always spoken openly with one another. You’re one of the finest Supreme Court Justices this nation has ever seen, and I have no doubt you’ll be mentioned in the same breath as Brandeis or Frankfurter. But I know you’ll want to preserve your legacy, and so you have to ask yourself a very hard question: how many more years do you have left?” He lifted his head, and looked directly into her eyes. “Remember, Brandeis and Cardozo and Holmes all outstayed their welcome. They lingered at the Court well past the time when they could do their best work.”

  Justice Bateman’s gaze was unyielding. “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked unexpectedly. Then, lowering her voice conspiratorially, she said, “I’ve got a Sachertorte I’ve just brought back from Demel’s in Vienna, and the doctors tell me I really shouldn’t have any.”

  Evers patted his flat midriff. “I’m trying to be good. But thank you.”

  “Then let me return bluntness with bluntness. I’m familiar with the reputation of just about every judge with any stature in every circuit in the country. And I have no doubt the President will find someone highly qualified, extremely bright, a legal scholar of range and breadth. But I want to let you in on something. The Supreme Court’s a place that takes years to learn. One can’t simply show up and expect to exert any influence. There’s simply no substitute for seniority, for length of service. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned here, it’s the power of experience. That’s where real wisdom comes from.”

  Her guest was prepared for this argument. “And there’s no one on the Court as wise as you are. But your health is failing. You’re not getting any younger.” He smiled sadly. “None of us is. It’s a terrible thing to say, I know, but there’s just no way around it.”

  “Oh, I don’t plan to keel over any time soon,” she said, a glint in her eye. The telephone beside her chair suddenly rang, startling both of them. She picked it up. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” came the voice of her longtime secretary, Pamela, “but it’s a Mr. Holland. You asked me to put him right through whenever he calls.”

  “I’ll take it in my hideaway office.” She put down the phone and stood with difficulty. “Will you excuse me for a moment, Ron?”

  “I can wait outside,” Evers said, getting to his feet and helping her up.

  “Don’t be silly. Stay right here. And if you change your mind about that Sachertorte, Pamela’s right outside.”

  Justice Bateman closed the door to the study and laboriously made her way to her favorite chair. “Mr. Holland.”

  “Madame Justice, forgive this intrusion,” said the voice on the phone, “but a difficulty has arisen that I thought you might be able to help us with.”