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asleep.
    The next morning when the dogs and I got back from our run, the newspaper was in the mailbox. I picked it up and headed for the back lawn so Willie and Pantera could rub some of the mud off their feet. While they chased each other around the yard, I scanned the Leader-Post . As they would for more days than anyone could have anticipated, Ginny Monaghan and Cristal Avilia dominated the front page.
    The story about Ginny focused not surprisingly on her daughters. The paper had printed side-by-side photos of the girls with each of their warring parents. The picture of Ginny and her daughters had come from her campaign literature. The twins were immaculately groomed, but their smiles were tight, and I remembered the misery of getting our kids to pose for the requisite family campaign portrait. The photo of the girls with Jason Brodnitz was a candid shot of the three of them skiing, ruddy with cold and pleasure. In the battle of the photo op, Ginny had lost round one.
    There was no picture of Cristal Avilia, and the story was sketchy on details – a thirty-four-year-old woman had become the city’s sixth homicide victim of the year. Cristal Eden Avilia had been found dead outside her condo in the warehouse district shortly after 6:00 p.m. Wednesday. The police were not releasing the cause of death. Anyone with information about her death was asked to call police.
    I dropped the newspaper on the picnic table. No use starting the day with a reminder of the complexities of the outside world. I called the dogs. “Come on, you two, let’s go inside and say good morning to our big sparkly top banana.”
    When I walked into the kitchen, it seemed the universe was unfolding as it should. The coffee was brewed; the juice was poured; the porridge was made; and Zack was sitting at the breakfast table thumbing his BlackBerry, wholly absorbed. I never tired of my husband’s face. He was a handsome man: balding, thick-browed, and dark-eyed, with a generous, sensuous mouth and a vertical fold, like a bloodhound, in his right cheek. In court he could freeze an opponent with his barracuda smile, but at home his mouth softened and his smile was melting. The dogs loped over to him, and I kissed the top of his head. He flicked his BlackBerry off. “Breakfast is ready, our daughter is safe in her bed, and you and the dogs are here. Life is good.”
    “You bet,” I said. I filled the dog bowls.
    Zack watched with awe as Willie and Pantera inhaled their food. “Imagine loving any food as much as they love that stuff,” he said.
    “And it’s the same thing, day in, day out.” I read the label on the sack. “Ground yellow corn, poultry by-product meal, animal fat preserved with mixed-tochopherols, animal digest …”
    Zack frowned. “What the hell is animal digest?”
    “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” I brought our coffee over to the table and began ladling out the porridge. “Mmm,” I said. “Cashews – my lucky day. So what’s with all the messages? It’s only a little after seven.”
    Zack sipped his coffee. “It seems that Cristal had many clients. Judging from my messages, a lot of them are lawyers.”
    “If they’re lawyers, why don’t they talk to someone from their own firms?”
    “Because the lawyers in their own firms are respectable, and they’ve done something they’re ashamed of. Sometimes only the Prince of Darkness will do.”
    “Is that why Ned sought you out at the end?”
    Zack sipped his coffee. “I guess, and isn’t that a hell of a note? He’d been partners with Doug Meinhart and Gerry Loftus for fifty years, but when he decided to end his life he couldn’t go to them because he’d indulged in a common sex act and some desperate fantasy.” Zack drained his juice. “Not nice stuff, according to the rigorous standards of Osler Meinhart and Loftus. Do you know that every Friday for fifty years the partners and staff there have gathered in their boardroom to have a glass of