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turned away. “Someone at Ahiahi.” His voice was harsh, full of the kind of anger I understood. “Goddamn. So that’s why Collins came…”
    I felt a quick shock. I’d not expected this. “Were you at Ahiahi when Richard died?”
    â€œYes.” But his thoughts clearly were not in this room. “Someone at Ahiahi.” His big hands clenched into fists.
    Yes, he sounded angry. And vengeful. But he was there when Richard was murdered. I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust anyone. Yes, he had been CeeCee’s fiancé. But lovers can quarrel.
    â€œWhy aren’t you at Ahiahi now?” I asked him. “They gather every year. To remember CeeCee.”
    For a moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer.
    Finally, his voice harsh, he said, “I don’t do pilgrimages.”
    â€œBut you went the first year.” The year Richard died.
    He ignored that. Instead, his eyes were once again hard and suspicious. “Why have you come to me? What do you want?”
    â€œI want to talk to you about CeeCee.” What did I want? I wanted to peer into his mind and heart. I wanted to understand him and through him to understand who CeeCee Burke was and why someone wanted to kill her.
    I glanced swiftly around the office. I’ve been in a few law offices. Paneled walls. Hunting prints. Or drawings of barristers at the Inns of Court. Framed diplomas. Sometimes the Order of the Coif prominently displayed. Leather furniture. Fireplace. Oriental rug or two.
    Not this one. Gray tiled floor, bleak white walls. Except for one wall.
    My eyes widened. I saw more than I wanted to. My gaze jerked toward him.
    The big lawyer gave a grim smile. “Not for the squeamish. Juries can’t be squeamish about personal injury.” He pointed at the jumble of color prints, pictures with lots of bright red blood. “Before and after photos. Before, you see a man or woman or kid when life was good. Happy faces. Weddings. Babies. Walking. Or running.” He pointed at the snapshot of a smiling young woman holding a new baby. “Debbie Morales and Judy. Debbie was twenty-six, worked in the day-care center where her baby stayed. Single mother. Paid her rent on time. Damn proud to be off welfare. Rented a tiny apartment. Kept telling the landlord she was getting headaches and something was wrong with the heater. She and Judy had been dead for six days when they found them. Carbon monoxide. See that picture.” He pointed to the next photo.
    I didn’t look.
    â€œIt was summer. Bloated and maggoty. Yeah, this wall tells it like it is. The happy pictures are before, before they got maimed or burned or crushed or killed. Juries see the pictures, they understand what happened. And, of course, there’s my old friend Bob. He’s a big help.” He reached out to touch a yellowed, bony shoulder.
    I stared at the bones. “Bob?”
    He ran his fingers over the rib cage. “Bob goes to court with me. If you can show a jury—really show them—what got broke or burned or smashed and make them feel it in their bones or gut, the sky’s no limit.”
    â€œYou make somebody pay.”
    â€œEvery time.” His arrogance was startling. “It’s the greatest game in the world—and I always win.”
    I believed him. And I wondered what that kind of confidence might do to a young man. It could engender a dangerous egotism.
    Appraisal flickered in his eyes and I realized he was quick. Whip-quick.
    â€œYeah, lady, I’m the best. But my clients deserve the best. I can’t give them back their health. Or their lives. But I can make the rich bastards pay.” He waved his hand, dismissing the wall. “But none of that matters to you.”
    It mattered. It told me a lot about Stan Dugan. And something about CeeCee Burke.
    â€œI want to know about CeeCee.” About this I could be honest. Maybe the sincerity reached