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made heaven.”
    “What
does heaven mean to you?”
    “A
good place.”
    “What’s
good about it?”
    “You’re
rich and you get cool stuff.”
    “What
kind of cool stuff?”
    “Whatever
you want.”
    “Who
goes to heaven?”
    “Good
people.”
    “People
who don’t do really bad things.”
    “No
one’s perfect,” he said and his voice tightened.
    “That’s
for sure,” I said.
    “I’m
going to heaven,” he said.
    “After
you’re delayed.”
    “Yessir.”
    “You
talked before about getting rich. How’re you planning to do that?” I said.
    Rebirth
of the smirk. This time it endured, and his eyes drilled into mine and his
delicate little hands became bony little fists.
    “
’Cause I’m smart,” he said. “Can I go to sleep, now? ’Cause I’m tired. Sir. ”
    * * *
    The
rest of the sessions were unproductive, as he wavered between claims of fatigue
and feeling “sick.” My attempts to elicit specific symptoms were fruitless. A
physical by a jail doctor had produced nothing. The last time I saw him, he was
reading the Bible and ignored me as I sat down.
    “Interesting?”
I said.
    “Yup.”
    “What
are you up to?”
    He
put the book facedown on the cot and stared past me.
    “Troy?”
    “I’m
feeling sick.”
    “Where?”
    “All
over.”
    “Dr.
Bronsky checked you out and said you’re fine.”
    “I’m
sick.”
    “This
may be the last time I come to see you,” I said. “Anything you want to tell
me?”
    “What
are you gonna tell the judge?”
    “I’ll
just report what we talked about.”
    He
smiled.
    “You’re
happy about that.”
    “You’re
a good person, sir. You like to help people.”
    I got
up and picked up the Bible. Small gray smudges marked his place. Genesis,
chapter four. Cain and Abel.
    “Quite
a story,” I said.
    “Yessir.”
    “What
do you think of it?”
    “Of
what?”
    “Cain
killing his brother, getting cursed.”
    “He
deserved it.”
    “Cain
did?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Why’s
that?”
    “He
did sin.”
    “The
sin of murder.”
    “Exactly,”
he said, taking the Bible from me and closing it softly. “Like Rand. He’s going
to hell.”

CHAPTER 8
    I met with both public defenders in a conference room at
the jail.
    Lauritz
Montez was there when I arrived, a slightly built man, thirty or so, with dark
hair pulled back into a ponytail. An extravagant waxed mustache overpowered a
fuzzy chin-beard. He wore a vintage gray tweed three-piece suit and a skinny
blue bow tie that was more like a shoelace.
    Sydney
Weider breezed in a few seconds later. She was older— early forties— thin and
tall, with efficient blond hair and wide pale eyes. Her tailored black suit and
crocodile bag and big pearl earrings were beyond a P.D.’s salary. Maybe the
rock on her finger explained that. Maybe that was a sexist assumption and she’d
cleaned up in the stock market.
    She
sat down and twisted the ring so the diamond faced inward. Put on a pair of
tiny little gold-plated reading glasses and said, “Well, here we are.” Her
words came out crowded together. Big hurry to express herself.
    Both
of them had wanted individual meetings. I told them we’d start out together and
see how it went.
    It
didn’t need to go further. They worked on me individually but their goals were
identical: emphasizing the youth and criminal inexperience of their clients,
pointing out the wretchedness of each boy’s upbringing, letting me know that
anything other than a juvenile trial would be cruel and inhuman.
    By
the end of the hour, they were working as a team. From talking to Troy I sensed
Weider would be laying everything on Rand, but it wasn’t my place to bring that
up.
    As
she warmed up, she talked even faster, seemed to dominate Montez. Ending up
with a long dissertation on the evils of video games and public housing, she
snapped her Filofax shut, removed her glasses, and cross-examined me with her
eyes.
    “What’s
your report going to say?” Machine-gun burst.
    “I
haven’t