“Mr. Haller?”

I turned as I recognized the voice from the guardhouse phone. Elliot’s gatekeeper, Mrs. Albrecht, had stepped into the room from some unseen entrance. Elegance was the word that came to mind. She was an aging beauty who appeared to take the process in stride. Gray streaked through her un-dyed hair and tiny wrinkles were working their way toward her eyes and mouth, seemingly unchecked by injection or incision. Mrs. Albrecht looked like a woman who liked her own skin. In my experience, this was a rare thing in Hollywood.

“Mr. Elliot will see you now.”

I followed her around a corner and down a short hallway to a reception office. She passed an empty desk — hers, I assumed — and pushed open a large door to Walter Elliot’s office.

Elliot was an overly tanned man with more gray hair sprouting from his open shirt collar than from the top of his head. He sat behind a large glass worktable. No drawers beneath it and no computer on top of it, though paperwork and scripts were spread across it. It didn’t matter that he was facing two counts of murder. He was staying busy. He was working and running Archway the way he always did. Maybe it was on the advice of some Hollywood self-help guru but it wasn’t an unusual behavior or philosophy for the accused. Act like you are innocent and you will be perceived as innocent. Finally, you will become innocent.

There was a sitting area to the right but he chose to remain behind the worktable. He had dark, piercing eyes that seemed familiar and then I realized I had just been looking at them — the knight on the steed out in the living room was Elliot.

“Mr. Elliot, this is Mr. Haller,” Mrs. Albrecht said.

She signaled me to the chair across the table from Elliot. After I sat down Elliot made a dismissive gesture without looking at Mrs. Albrecht and she left the room without another word. Over the years I had represented and been in the company of a couple dozen killers. The one rule is that there are no rules. They come in all sizes and shapes, rich and poor, humble and arrogant, regretful and cold to the bone. The percentages told me that it was most likely Elliot was a killer. That he had calmly dispatched his wife and her lover and arrogantly thought he could and would get away with it. But there was nothing about him on first meeting that told me one way or the other for sure. And that’s the way it always was.

“What happened to my lawyer?” he asked.

“Well, for a detailed explanation I would have to refer you to the police. The shorthand is that somebody killed him last night in his car.”

“And where does that leave me? I’m on trial for my life in a week!”

That was a slight exaggeration. Jury selection was scheduled in nine days and the DA’s office had not announced that it would seek the death penalty. But it didn’t hurt that he was thinking in such terms.