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"I hope not. I've reviewed the transcripts. So far, from what I see, I'm not inclined to go with incompetence of counsel."

"That's magnanimous of you. Though in all honesty that trial wasn't one of my finer moments, I'm afraid. But what are you going to do when your client won't plead? I know I could have gotten him a manslaughter, and he could be out by the time he's forty. Now…" He shook his head. "Anyway, when I heard it was about Scholler, I thought you were coming here as a courtesy to tell me in person that I'd fucked it up and that was the basis of your appeal."

"Nope."

"So what are you thinking? The PTSD?"

Hardy nodded. "The judge shouldn't have kept it out. My call is that Ninth Circuit judges are going to fall all over themselves spinning this thing when it gets in front of them. Scholler had a legitimate disability of some kind that the jury couldn't hear about? And he did, right?"

"Oh, yeah. We had the experts. The diagnosis was cold."

"Are you kidding me? And the judge didn't let it in? How could it not be relevant and admissible?"

"How indeed?"

They both, of course, were familiar with the notorious liberal slant of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had made countless rulings on the admissibility of extenuating circumstances in murder cases, such as childhood abuse, dysfunctional parenting, or exposure to violence on television. If PTSD being ruled inadmissible didn't get their attention, Hardy would eat his bar card.

"Well." Hardy held out his hands, palms up. "Need I go on?"

"Not to me," Washburn said. "I do think that PTSD's the best play, though that just might be my own self-interest talking. I've kicked myself a hundred times over some decisions I made in that case. If I were doing the appeal, I might go for incompetent counsel."

"What would you have done differently?"

"Well, fought harder with Evan to take a plea, is the main thing." Washburn focused on an empty space in the air between them. "Done more with the Khalil murders, maybe, although God knows what that would have been-I spent fifty grand on my private eye and he got nothing remotely usable. Then-this was my favorite-I got halfway through my own chief medical witness when I realized that his testimony, if anything, helped the prosecution. But the main thing, as I say, would have been a plea."

"But he wouldn't take one."

"Adamant. He didn't remember doing it and wasn't going to say he did. Period."

Hardy shook his head. "Dumb."

Washburn shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he thinks he probably didn't do it."

"What do you think?"

The old man waved that off. "I never go there."

Going for levity, Hardy put on half a grin. "Even for fun?"

"Never, nohow, no way, ever."

"I can't stand a man who won't express his opinions."

"No. Me neither." Washburn sat all the way back on the couch. "But the poor fucking guy. You met him yet?"

Hardy nodded. "I went down there last week." A beat. "I bet he'd take that plea now."

"Yeah, I bet he would." Washburn had already given Hardy about twenty minutes of his time, call it two hundred dollars' worth, although he wasn't charging him for this visit. Still, time was money and if there was no business to be done between these two men, Washburn would not make any until Hardy left. "So. How else can I help you?"

"I was hoping to pick your brain a little."

"How little?"

"Six to eight hours over the next month or so."

Washburn came forward again. "My professional courtesy rate is two hundred."

"Sounds reasonable," Hardy said. "I don't know how much time you have right now, and I don't want to impose…"

Washburn held up a hand and looked over at the grandfather clock that stood sentinel where the windows met the bookshelves. It was quarter to four. "I'm comfortable going till five," he said. "Feel free. Pick away."

***

A MONTH into his new old job, his second hitch as head of San Francisco's homicide detail, Lieutenant Abe Glitsky walked alone down the fifth-floor hallway and turned into the small room-itself bisected by a counter-that served as the unit's reception area. It was five-twenty, and both of the clerks stationed here had left, probably gone home for the day. Glitsky, after his initial disapproval, was getting used to the idea of hourly employees putting in their time and going home. While he'd been deputy chief of inspectors over these past few years, he'd always felt it odd that even the clerical jobs were so personal-you got in early and you stayed until your boss went home because if you didn't, someone else might get close to him and then you might not rise in the bureaucracy when he did. Or she, of course.