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spike of gray at the temple. People said we looked alike but any resemblance was pretty superficial. He had a certain warmth, it was true, a wholesomeness that women liked—but there was also something about him that was a little too crisp, too earnest, for my taste anyway, a land of FBI officiousness, a moral sensibility, a confidence in what is right, what is wrong, that got under my skin.
    Elizabeth smiled.
    “How was your trip to Louisiana?” he asked.
    “Fine.” Elizabeth lowered her eyes and I thought about the two of them out on the tennis court.
    “Would you like to join us?” I asked.
    “No, no. I heard you were working with Haney Wagoner on the Dillard case. So I thought I’d come over and give you a friendly, adversarial hello.”
    “Well, hello, then,” I said. “This place is pretty busy for a Monday night.”
    “It’s been busier since the murder, I understand,” said
    Elizabeth. There was a small gleam in her eye. “They ate here that night, didn’t they?”
    “Sure,” I said. “A little murder, it’s good for business.”
    “Yes. But Dillard didn’t kill her here,” said Minor. “Maybe he didn’t kill her at all,” I offered.
    “Come on. There’s not much doubt about that. Otherwise, why’s Haney lining up his psychiatric experts? You examined him yet?”
    “Can’t talk about that.”
    “No?”
    “You’ll have to ask Haney. If he goes with the psychological defense, I’m sure you guys will get your shot.”
    It was the kind of case, a couple of years back, I would have been testifying as a prosecution witness myself, gathered around the table with the rest of them, drinking and joking. Things had changed, though, since Minor’s promotion—and I was on the outside now.
    Finally Minor left us and went back to his table. I couldn’t say I was sorry to see him go.
    Elizabeth raised her glass to her lips.
    “He sounds confident.”
    “Well, he’s got a good case. And Angela’s coffin—it makes a great stepping stone.”
    “You sound bitter.”
    “I’m not. You know that, hon. I’ve got everything.”
    I leaned over and smiled as well as I could. She was skeptical but she couldn’t help herself, she smiled back. I put my hand on her hand, and listened to her talk about her father, her home, and as she did her accent thickened, the Southern voice, central Louisiana, no longer the drawl with the edges taken off—softened by a few years out east and another dozen in California—but the younger voice, raw and melodic, the sound of the swamp and petticoats and the radio over the water on a humid night, the kind of voice men hear in their dreams as they drift off to sleep on the long drive over Lake Pontchartrain. Her accent always thickened as she talked about home, and I was seduced into seeing myself as part of that world, in that old house, walking in her father’s shadow
    By the time we finished dinner, the Courthouse Gang had left. It didn’t matter, I knew I’d see them again soon, like it or not. If not in the courtroom, then at the Wilders’ party, in the not too distant future. The Wilders had a fondness for forensic types, particularly those involved in the psychological end of things.
    We drove back through the dark along Marsh Road. We wound away from Highway 101, following the bay, snaking along the low ridge between the marsh and the high brown hills. On occasion, you could see the prison, glistening across the inlet. Houses lay in the hollows below us, on the shore between the bay and the road.
    “How did Minor know you were in Louisiana?”
    “I must have mentioned it to him. Didn’t I tell you? I ran into him at the racquet club.”
    “Oh. I didn’t realize you had spoken.”
    “We talked—for a little while. He’s a bright man.”
    “In a pedestrian kind of way.”
    She laughed. “That’s not nice.”
    “I’m not trying to be nice.”
    We pulled into the driveway. I put my hand on her leg, and kissed her. Her lips were wet and cool, but