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way?” Worth asked.
    â€œWell, no, I didn’t. She was very nice and eminently streetable, Worth, but…”
    â€œYeah, ‘but.’ Always the ‘but.’ Well, look, she’s a criminal defense lawyer. Under all that linen, legs, and lace, she’s a gunfighter. Does mainly political corruption cases, of which we always seem to have one or two going here in the capital of the great state of Maryland, my Maryland.”
    â€œSo I’ve read. I mean about the corruption. Sounds a little high-powered for what’s going on here. I mean—”
    â€œYou just stepped off your rock of expertise, Doctor, if I may be so bold,” said Worth, interrupting him. “If you think Julie’s in trouble, high power is what you want right out of the gate. Especially if the Dark Side over there in Bancroft Hall is going shields-up, Mr. Sulu.”
    Ev smiled at Worth’s wild blend of metaphors and Hollywood allusions. But then he thought about what Worth was saying, which was precisely what he’d been worried about earlier.
    â€œLook, I’ll call Liz for you,” Worth offered. “You know, a referral. Then she’ll owe me lunch.”
    â€œCan I afford this?” Ev asked.
    â€œCan you afford not to? Yes, Liz is expensive, but you’ve got the money, right?”
    Worth was right about the money. Joanne had been killed one rainy night by a drunk driver, an elderly but still practicing surgeon, no less, at the top of the towering Chesapeake Bay Bridge. He’d passed her in a drunken weave on the westbound bridge at high speed and lost control on the wet, steel surface. Caroming off both guardrails, he’d come back at her, head on, and knocked her car completely off the bridge. The state troopers had found her car’s license plate in the road debris. It had taken divers two days to find the car, intact but windowless, so she’d probably survived the bridge impact, but not the drop into the bay from nearly two hundred feet in the air. Or maybe she had, considering the fact that her air bag had been deployed but the shoulder belt unlatched. Joanne wouldn’t start the car without her seat belt.Even worse, her body had never been recovered. While Ev and Julie were still reeling from this news, Worth had stepped right in, threatened the doctor’s insurance company with a $20 million personal injury lawsuit, and obtained a substantial seven-figure settlement in less than a week, plus a public admission by the drunk-driving doctor that he was an alcoholic. So, yes, he had the money. He would have preferred to have his wife.
    â€œOkay, Worth,” Ev said, still thinking about what had happened to Joanne. “And, not for the first time, many thanks.”
    â€œSemper fry,” Worth said, and hung up.
    Â 
    Ev made an almost-perfect landing with his scull alongside the pontoon dock, then nearly tipped himself into the creek extracting himself. He ended up sitting on the hemp mat with skinned knees and elbows, holding on to the slim craft with one heel. He looked around as discreetly as he could to see if any of his rowing neighbors on the creek had been watching, but no one appeared to be about except Mrs. Murphy next door, who waved and smiled. He smiled weakly, waved back, and pulled the scull up onto the dock, secured it on its rack, and went up the path to the house, cooling rapidly as the sweat evaporated from his skin. He’d gone all the way up to the Route 50 bridge in a burst of sustained effort he hadn’t attempted since his days rowing crew for the Academy. He would pay for that run tonight, he realized, but this business with Julie had stressed him out, and heavy-duty exercise was his best cure for that.
    He got a shower and checked messages. Nothing from Julie, but there was one from Liz DeWinter. She’d given him her home number. Brother Worth coming through, he thought. Battle had become a big-time legal eagle in the