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just stopping in to say hi."
    "Okay," Healy said, "hi."
    "And maybe to ask you if you know anything about that murder in Pemberton about eighteen months ago."
    "Maybe that too, huh?" Healy said. "College kid?"
    "Yeah," I said. "According to the trial transcript, a State detective named Miller was on it."
    "Yeah, Tommy Miller."
    "You follow the case?"
    "Not really. As I remember it, it was pretty open and shut. Two eyewitnesses saw the perp kidnap her, right?"
    "So they tell me."
    "So why are you asking about it?" Healy said.
    "Had a defense attorney right out of law school, she thinks he was innocent, and she botched the defense."
    "And she hired you to get him off?"
    "Sort of. She works for Cone, Oakes now, and she got them to hire me."
    "Must be a nice change of pace for you," Healy said, "a client who can pay."
    "Nothing wrong with it," I said. "How's Miller?"
    "He's all right. Probably a little rough around the edges. Thinks being a State cop makes him important."
    "Tough guy?"
    Healy shrugged.
    "Compared to who?" he said. "Compared to some high school kid with a loud mouth and a nose full of dope, he's tougher than scrap iron. Compared to Hawk, say, or me… or you." Healy shrugged.
    "He ambitious?"
    "He's an eager beaver," Healy said. "Probably want to be CID commander someday."
    "Think he'll make it?"
    "Not soon," Healy said.
    "How is he as an investigator?"
    "Far as I know he's pretty good. I don't like him. But he clears his cases and mostly they result in convictions that stand. He doesn't cut a lot of corners."
    "How is he on race?" Healy shrugged.
    "No worse than most," he said. "Your guy black?"
    "Yeah."
    "You think he got railroaded because of that?"
    "I don't know," I said. "Everywhere I go I keep hearing nigger nigger. And everywhere I go people stonewall me."
    Healy nodded slowly. He was in shirt sleeves, sitting back in his chair, with one foot propped on the edge of his desk.
    "Well, it could be," Healy said. "I'm a white Irish guy, been a cop thirty-five years. Heard a lot of nigger nigger. Sometimes it's because you're dealing with a bunch of ignorant racist assholes, and sometimes it's because the black guy has done something bad and everyone's mad at him. But they're not mad at him because he's black, you unnerstand? They're mad at him because he did the bad thing, and `nigger's' a convenient thing to call him. I don't know about Miller. But what I do know is that race matters less to most cops than the media likes to make out. You know? You arrest some black guy with a rap sheet three and a half yards long, and the media questions you. Is it because he's black? No, it's because he's got a rap sheet three and a half yards long. For a similar crime. It's like the Stuart thing awhile back. The cops' information is that a black guy shot a white guy and his wife at the fringe of the black ghetto. They're supposed to start shaking people down at Brae Burn Country Club?"
    "I would have suspected at once," I said, "that he murdered his wife and wounded himself badly to cover it up."
    "Yeah," Healy said, "happens all the time."
    "Would Miller frame a guy?"
    "Hey," Healy said, "the guy works for me."
    "Would he?"
    "Lotta cops would. Most of them wouldn't frame an innocent guy," Healy said. "But a lot of them might help the evidence a little if they figured they had Mr. Right."
    "If Mr. Right were black…?"
    Healy shook his head.
    "I don't know," he said. "It wouldn't make it less likely."
    I thought about that while I got up and had a drink of spring water from the jug on top of Healy's file cabinet.
    "I'm going to have to talk with Miller," I said.
    "He's off today," Healy said. "I'll ask him to stop by your office tomorrow."
    "Thank you."
    "Don't let him scare you."
    "I'll keep reminding him I know you," I said.
    "I'd rather you didn't shame me in front of my men," Healy said.
    "Self-defense," I said.

Chapter 10
    I MET SUSAN at the bar at Rialto, after her last appointment. The thank-God-it's-evening crowd