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experience, a man's motives for complimenting a woman were always suspect, a stepping-stone to sex or some less grandiose manipulation. She asked abruptly what this was about.
    "Well," he said, "let me use your word. It's awkward. I've been appointed by the U . S . Court of Appeals on a case. A second habeas. Rommy Gandolph. Do you recall the name?"
    She did, naturally. Only two capital cases had reached sentencing in the years she had sat in Felony. In the other, the death penalty had been imposed by a jury. Rommy Gandolph had been her responsibility alone. Bench trial. Bench sentencing. She'd reconsidered the case again a couple of months ago when she'd received a letter from Rud- yard with the typically crazed claims of a prisoner who, ten years after the murders, suddenly said he had critical knowledge to share with her. Probably someone she'd sent to the joint, now hoping to get her clown there to spit in her eye. Searching her memory of the Gandolph trial, she could still summon the photos of the bodies in the restaurant food locker. During the trial, one of the cops had explained that the freezer was vast because of the wide menu Paradise offered. A strange undoing.
    "Right," said Raven when she described the case. "Good Gus. But you know the game. I have to plow every row. There are even moments when I'm delusional and think he might be innocent. I have this associate," he said, "she's been tearing this case apart, coming up with amazing stuff. Here, look at this."
    From out of his thick case, Raven handed over the first of several sheets of paper. Apparently, he was trying to work up a theory that Gandolph had been in jail on a probation violation at the time of the murders. Few records remained, and Gandolph's rap sheet offered no corroboration. But within the last few days, Arthur had found a transfer manifest showing that his client had been transported to court on the morning of July 5, 1991, from the House of Corrections.
    "And what does Muriel say to that?" Gillian asked. Muriel Wynn, who'd been the junior prosecutor on the case a decade ago, was now the Chief Deputy P . A . and the short-odds favorite to succeed Ned Halsey as the Prosecuting Attorney in next year's election. Gillian had never cared much for Muriel, the kind of hard-boiled woman the felony courthouse produced often these days. But, truth be told, Gillian's appreciation for prosecutors, even though she had once been one, had all but disappeared given her experiences of the last several years.
    "She thinks Rommy's probation officer must have gone out and collared him that morning so he didn't blow his court date," Arthur said. "I don't buy it on a Friday, right after a holiday, when nobody wanted to be working. Muriel also says it's ridiculous to think that both the client and the defense lawyer missed the fact that Rommy was in jail when the murders went down. But he wasn't arrested until four months after the crime, and Rommy doesn't know today from tomorrow."
    Gillian's wager would have been that Muriel was correct. But she was unwilling to jump into the argument. With Arthur, she felt recalled to a mode of decorum she thought she'd left behind: she was trying to be judicial. Notwithstanding her efforts to respond neutrally, he appeared to detect her skepticism.
    "There was a lot of bad evidence," he said. "I know that. I mean, Rommy confessed about twenty times. And Christ could return to earth to testify in my client's behalf and I'd still lose at this stage. But the guy had no history of assaults or armed robberies. Which Molto and Muriel explained at trial by claiming my guy was dusted, and now all the research on PCP says it doesn't correlate to violence. So, you know, there's stuff."
    "And how did the Court of Appeals appoint you, Arthur?"
    "Beats me. They always figure big law firms have the resources. Besides, someone up there probably remembered I have death- penalty experience from prosecuting Francesco Fortunato."
    "The fellow who