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week. It was payday for Newcastle’s city employees, and the restaurant sat dead square in the center of the action. With the municipal courthouse a block away, the DA’s office behind that, and the police department another block and a half distant, Lawson’s was packed to the rafters at every week’s end; and depending on what had “gone down” during that particular seven-day period, the atmosphere among the town’s legal guardians could swing from jovial and partylike to outright glum.
    The eatery was one of the few remaining single-story structures in the downtown area. Caught in a kind of fifties time warp, its decor was classic diner: lots of plate glass windows facing the street, lots of chrome dotting the long pink Formica countertop with its matching swiveling stools, and a linoleum floor that had carried so many feet in identical directions it could have doubled as the Yellow Brick Road—except that Lawson’s tiles were gray and pink. Pink was the coffee shop’s theme color—bubble gum, cherry, flamingo, cotton candy: Somehow they all blended together in the vinyl-upholstered banquettes and booths, in the waitresses’ uniforms, and in the walls themselves.
    What was remarkable was that no one questioned the choice—and hadn’t for half a century. Just as none of the regular patrons would have dreamed of asking why the jukebox stations in every booth still operated on nickels, or why only artists like Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, and Patsy Cline were represented. Lawson’s was pre-rock-and-roll, pre-Elvis; and just forget about rap, hip-hop, or ska. Besides, the volume was turned down so low it was impossible to hear the songs over the din of clattering glasses, dishes, and silverware, and the boisterous banter between customers, waitresses, fry cooks, and dishwashers.
    Rosco stepped through Lawson’s etched-glass doors at twelve-thirty and couldn’t help but smile. The clamor inside was actually louder than outside. Street noise had nothing on the restaurant. He was immediately greeted by Martha Leonetti, senior waitress, self-styled top dog, and wiseacre supreme. She and the eatery were more or less the same age, proof of which was the blond beehive hairdo Martha had sported for the thirty-plus years she’d been employed there.
    As was her wont, she slapped Rosco on the butt and said, “Hiya, cute buns, where’s that little wife of yours? You two are like those black-and-white magnetic Scottie dogs; can’t pry ’em apart with a spatula or dynamite. Makes me worry when I don’t see you and Belle together.”
    Rosco glanced at his watch. “She’s meeting me at . . . well . . . twelve-thirty. I gather she’s not here yet.”
    Martha winked. “Would I have patted your tush if your missus were sitting at table number two? I don’t think so. But your ex-partner is down at the corner booth with Dr. J . . . Big barn fire out at Collins’s last night, but I guess you heard all about it. The whole thing sounds fishy, if you ask me. When the rich can’t get richer legally, they can always rake their insurance companies over the coals . . . or get into politics. That’s where the real money is.”
    Rosco chortled. “Everything sounds fishy to you, Martha. But who knows? You’ve been right before. I’ll join Al and Abe. If Belle shows up, send her over, will you?”
    “You betcha, buttercup.”
    Rosco worked his way down the restaurant’s center aisle, dodging waitresses and greeting former coworkers: plain-clothes and uniformed officers alike. There wasn’t an empty table. At the far booth sat his former partner, Lieutenant Al Lever. With Al was the police department’s chief forensic investigator, Abe Jones. The two men couldn’t have been more dissimilar. While Al was decidedly middle-aged, balding, and overweight, with a smoker’s cough that followed him everywhere, Jones had the appearance of a movie star in his youthful prime. He was African-American, the son of an Episcopal priest