It was wooden, with frayed feathers and weighted in front. I threw it. It struck the seven with a soft thud. I took another and began thinking. Lydia Cantwell’s killer had a key, or she had let him in. He had raped her, or they had made love. And then he had strangled her with such intensity of hate that afterward he needed satisfaction from a picture. I threw again. It bounced off the metal ring of the bull’s-eye and onto the floor.

I snatched a third dart from my desk drawer. There was a quick rap and the door opened. I looked up, surprised.

Nora Culhane’s dark green eyes caught the dart in my hand with a sardonic glance. “Interrupting anything?”

“Any day now. What do you want?”

“I thought we might try having a civil conversation.”

“Why? The last time we tried that you were setting up my client. Now your so-called ‘discrepancy’ is this morning’s headline. You people are building pressure to indict Henry Cantwell whether the evidence is there or not.” I threw the dart. “What the hell do you care—he gets indicted, you get a raise, and by the time he’s acquitted, railroaded, or just plain broken you’re Birmingham’s first anchorwoman. You don’t need me for that.”

She hesitated, glancing downward. “Look, Mr. Shaw, we’re both trying to find things out. Maybe if you’d quit being so emotional, we could help each other, okay?”

Her voice was cool enough. But her eyes were uncertain.

Maybe, I thought, she would know something useful.

Maybe, too, I’d sensed an ambivalence beneath the toughness, as if she were inhabiting a role she didn’t yet believe. It didn’t make me like her, exactly—I just liked myself less. But two hours later, when she asked why I’d agreed to lunch, all I said was, “Because I guessed you were Irish.”

We were sitting in a flagstone courtyard bordered by bamboo plants, ferns, and trees in wooden planters. More trees grew from spaces in the flagstone to form a leafy arbor. In the air was the lilting talk of women in silk and the clatter of plates. Black waitresses in print dresses dipped among the tables. “So you’re an ethnologist,” Culhane said dryly.

“It’s just that you couldn’t be anything else, even if the name weren’t yours. Next time you’re home—which I’d guess is Boston—look for women with china skin and bright green eyes or maybe freckles, and see that if their hair isn’t reddish or black it’s the kind of auburn you have. They’ll be Irish.”

“You’re quite observant.”

“No great trick if you’re Irish, too. Frankly, though, I came to persuade you to lay off Henry Cantwell.”

“He’s too logical to ignore,” she said bluntly. “And I’ve talked to anyone who’ll stand still.”

“Including Jason?”