As I walked to the door, I could smell the Pacific, hear the slow breathing of rustling tide. No one answered my knock or two bell pushes. A young woman across the street opened her door and observed me. When I faced her, she went back inside.

I waited awhile longer, took out a business card, wrote a note on the back asking Sydney Weider to call me, and dropped it in the mail slot. As I returned to my car, she came walking up the block.

She had on green sweats and white sneakers and dark glasses, walked with a stiff gait that threw her hip out at an odd angle. Her hair was chopped short and she’d let it go white. She was still thin but her body looked soft and loose-jointed and ungainly.

I stepped out to the breezeway in front of her house. She saw me and stopped short.

I waved.

She didn’t react.

I stepped toward her and smiled. She thrust her arms in front of her torso in a sad, useless defensive move. Like someone who’d seen too many martial arts movies.

“Ms. Weider— ”

“What do you want?” Her lawyer’s voice was gone, tightened by fear-laden shrillness.

“Alex Delaware. I worked on the Malley— ”

“Who are you?”

I repeated my name.

She stepped closer. Her lips fluttered and her chin quaked. “Go away!”

“Could we just talk for a minute? Rand Duchay’s been murdered. I’m working with the police on the case and if you could spare— ”

“A minute about what?” Ratatat.

“Who might’ve killed Rand. He was shot last— ”

“How would I know?” she yelled.

“Ms. Weider,” I said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but it might involve your personal safety.”

She clawed the air with one hand. The other was balled tight, flat against her flank. “What are you talking about? What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s possible— ”

“Go away go the fuck away!” Shaking her head frantically, as if ridding it of noise.

“Ms. Weider— ”

Her mouth gaped. No sound for a second, then she was screaming.

A gull harmonized. The same neighbor from across the street stepped out.

Sydney Weider screamed louder.

I left.

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 25

The haunted look in Sydney Weider’s eyes stayed with me during the drive back home.

I went to my office and played Search Engine Poker. Thirty hits came up for “Sydney Weider” but only one was related to her work on People v. Turner and Duchay. A paragraph in the Western Legal Journal, dated a month prior to the final hearing, speculating about the ramifications for juvenile justice.

Weider had been quoted predicting there’d be plenty of “ground-breaking consequences.” No words of wisdom from Lauritz Montez. Either he’d declined to comment or no one had asked his opinion.