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azaleas that were her real love. People who walked by on their way to the bookstores and restaurants and antiques shops of the Central West End always told her when they saw her how lucky she was. When she was in her garden, she agreed.
    She was in her garden when Sam noticed her.
    "Bad night, huh?" he asked as he hobbled across the lawn, propped up with his silver-headed ebony cane.
    Molly didn't bother to look up from her work. "What makes you say that?"
    He laughed, a gravelly sound that made Molly want to grab the cigarette out of his mouth. "The fact that you usually use more than your bare hands to dig up the dirt."
    Molly sat back on her heels and peered up at the gnarled old man who looked more like a German gnome than the corporate wizard he'd once been. "Immigration's open, Sam."
    Sam just nodded. He knew Molly's theory on death and dying. Heaven, she'd long since decided, was run on a quota system, like the INS. When St. Peter was low on bodies, people dropped in the street like flies. Young people, innocent people, people who had no business succumbing to stupid illnesses and incredibly bad luck. When the numbers were met, on the other hand, you couldn't kill somebody if you beat them over the head with a hammer.
    Tyrell's autopsy had proved the point all too clearly. According to the findings, he should not have died. The gunshot had not been fatal. The shock had.
    And according to the family, there should have been no reason for Pearl to have written a suicide note or taken her own life.
    Immigration was open, and lawyers and small black kids were on the list. It was enough for Molly.
    "I also heard on the news," the old man said, pulling out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his ashen face, the cigarette bobbing at the corner of his mouth as he talked, "that there is some kind of scandal brewing in the Medical Examiner's Office. Did I hear your name mentioned?"
    Molly turned her attention back to the weeds that seemed to have taken root amid the dahlias during her absence of the last few days. "You heard my name mentioned."
    "Should you be talking to a lawyer?"
    "You ever catch me talking to a lawyer, Sam," she said with feeling, " you have permission to put a gun right to my head and pull the trigger. It's easier that way."
    Sam tsked and shook his head. "It was a bad thing, that lawsuit, Molly."
    Molly couldn't have agreed more. "A bad thing, Sam. Especially for that ambulance chaser who started it all, if I ever get my hands on him."
    Sam gazed up at the hazy August sky as if awaiting inspiration. "You know, there's an old Jewish saying."
    "If you hear the sound of boots, get the hell out of Warsaw?"
    Sam chuckled, an old man with emphysema and a faint East European accent. "No. That's just Sam's saying. I was thinking more along the lines of clouds and silver linings."
    "The Jews came up with that?"
    "Who else?"
    Molly grinned up at the crinkled, gray face and sly eyes of the old man she did love. "Who else."
    "We also say that a hot cup of tea will make any problem better."
    "I thought that was the English."
    "They stole it from the Jews."
    Molly smiled, straightened, decided that she would like some tea after all. Even if she was still dressed in her scrubs and nursing shoes. Even if her back was hurting like a sore tooth. Even if she hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours and still had to complete the paperwork she'd brought home with her.
    The news crews who had done their damnedest to hound her all night and morning would not know to find her at her neighbor's house, and since she was the only person on her block without an answering machine, they couldn't leave messages.
    Besides, Sam's tea was not exactly a ritual the English would have recognized. Sam's tea, which he claimed cured all ills, probably killed them instead. Especially with the alcohol content involved.
    "Yeah," Molly said, linking arms with him. "Tea sounds wonderful."
    Molly left her nursing bag right there among the oak