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go beyond you and me?”
    â€œNot if you say so.”
    â€œI’ll send a note down this afternoon. And a docket number.” He relaxed, stood erect again, and smiled, then hid the smile. “You know the hardest, the most difficult part of what I do?”
    McGuire shook his head.
    â€œIt’s knowing that people, people on the other side, think that I don’t have any feelings about their situation. It’s all adversarial, that’s the system, that’s how it works. But it’s not always true. You can win and still feel something for the loser, for the other side. Not everybody here feels that way, of course. I might be the only one who does. But the older I get, the more it eats away at me, sometimes seeing the other people, when they lose, become very emotional. I feel for them, some of them. There’s no right and wrong in law sometimes, only winners and losers.”
    â€œIs this one of those cases?”
    â€œYes.” Flanigan paused at the door. He smiled back at McGuire. It was a smile of embarrassment. “That’s something else I’d appreciate if you didn’t share. What I said just now.”
    A note arrived that afternoon in a sealed brown envelope carried to McGuire by Flanigan’s secretary, a woman in her forties with large dark eyes and a mass of dense, curly black hair. McGuire remembered her from his tour of the office, when she had made a point of introducing herself and smiling at him.
    McGuire could not recall her name.
    â€œLorna Robbins,” she said. “Mr. Flanigan’s secretary.” Her voice was high-pitched, with a singsong quality. She wore a flowered silk blouse whose buttons strained to contain her bosom, and she seemed in no hurry to leave. “How are you making out? Is there anything you need?”
    McGuire assured her there was nothing.
    â€œWell . . .” She straightened the bottom of her blouse where it disappeared in the waist of her skirt, and walked to the door. “I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other. If you’re working on whatever Orin gave you there.”
    McGuire turned the envelope over. The flap was sealed with heavy tape. “You don’t know what’s in here?” he asked, holding the envelope up.
    â€œNo idea. Mr. Flanigan drafted it himself on his own computer.”
    â€œHe does that often?”
    â€œNot while I’ve been here.”
    â€œHow long’s that?”
    â€œEight years next month. The last two with Mr. Flanigan.” She leaned against the door.
    â€œIs he a nervous guy?”
    â€œMr. Flanigan’s a wonderful man, and a good lawyer. One of the best.”
    â€œHe’s not nervous?”
    â€œWhy are you asking me this?”
    â€œMaybe he’s intense.”
    â€œA little, I suppose.”
    McGuire grunted.
    â€œWe all are. We carry a big workload upstairs, and some of our cases, Mr. Flanigan’s especially, they can get heartbreaking. The people, I mean. Mr. Flanigan, he gets wrapped up in his cases sometimes. I’ve seen him. It hurts him, some of these cases . . .”
    â€œI wasn’t prying . . .”
    â€œ. . . and it’s hard on him sometimes . . .”
    â€œTrust me, Laura . . .”
    â€œLorna. It’s Lorna.”
    â€œLorna, I hear what you’re saying. I made a mistake, bringing it up.”
    â€œOkay . . . A lot of us, you know, executive assistants and secretaries, we’re a little nervous about having a police officer among us . . .”
    â€œI’m not on the police force anymore.”
    â€œ. . . because, you know, it’s almost as though we’ve done something wrong.”
    She had a ripe sensuality that middle-aged women often acquired, one that McGuire was finding attractive. “Would you like to talk about what my job is, sometime?” McGuire smiled his warmest smile and tilted his head.
    Lorna Robbins bit her lower lip and nodded. “Over