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She took a guess. “Was he more concerned about his looks lately, would you say? Worrying about aging?”

“I couldn’t say,” he snapped, clearly annoyed with her line of questioning. “What could his own surgery possibly have to do with him being murdered? You act like it was Bill that went crazy and killed somebody or something.”

“It’s very hard to know this early in the investigation what is important,” Nina said. She ventured a second guess. “He had something done recently, didn’t he?”

“A face-lift. His second,” Brett offered crisply. He looked at his gold Piaget watch. “I’m sorry. I have patients to see.”

“Is it possible that Dr. Sykes had a compelling need to stay young looking that went beyond his professional requirements? Maybe he did it out of desperation, to keep his young wife?”

“I would never speculate about that.” He crossed his arms. “Anything else?”

“Well, yes. You could tell me where you were on the night Dr. Sykes was murdered.”

“Why, at home, making love to my lovely wife,” he said. He strode to the door and held it open for her. She got up and walked through it. “A pleasure meeting you,” he said coldly, leading her out to the reception area.

She would have Paul check his alibi, but she certainly could believe he was at home and his wife was fantastically beautiful and was making mad love to him that night, as he had said. What else would a man who looked like that do on a Saturday night?

Ginger Hirabayashi said, “God, I love this place.” She stood at Nina’s office window, the one that looked out over the lake. “You are so lucky to be here.” She came back and leaned over the desk. “Finished reading?”

“You’ll have to explain it all to me anyway,” Nina said. “I know I need to become an expert on DNA testing, but the language just doesn’t track for me.” Ginger had come up to talk about the blood evidence in Nikki’s case. A forensic physician with a nationwide reputation and an alternative lifestyle, she was linked in with experts in just about every scientific field.

“You only have to know enough to ask the right questions,” Ginger said, running her hand over the soft short bristles of her black hair. She had tossed her black leather jacket on the other chair and was wearing a men’s white T-shirt tucked into her jeans. “They have two areas for blood investigation in this case, the samples taken by the police from the crime scene and weapon and Nikki’s blood on the outside wall of the house six inches from the French doors that led into Sykes’s study.”

“So there’s no doubt it’s Nikki’s blood on the wall outside?”

“None. A ninety-nine point ninety-nine plus probability of a match there. Hey, Sandy! Bring me some coffee!”

“Get it yourself,” said the voice from the outer office.

Getting coffee out of Sandy required a certain tone of voice Ginger didn’t own. Nina said, “I’ll get you some.” She brought back the cup to Ginger, closing the door to her office behind her.

“She’s thrown you off the mat,” Ginger said. “She reminds me of this sumo wrestler from Samoa I used to go see in Yokohama.”

“I wouldn’t say that to her face,” Nina said. “So. It’s Nikki’s blood on the wall. And the blood on the sword—”

“We have only the preliminary report, remember,” Ginger warned.

“. . . is Dr. Sykes’s blood?”

“Yes. As we can see from the crime scene photos, it’s all over the floor, too. He bled to death, rather quickly due to the deep gash in his neck, which nicked the carotid.”

“What about the slashes on his face? His nose . . . is there some way to match the blade to those cuts?” Nina said.

“They all match,” Ginger said. “It’s obvious that the sword was used to mutilate his face from the general circumstances and also from the autopsy photos. Whether before or after the coup de grace may be hard to establish but it sure makes sense that it happened after he was totally disabled.”

“You have a funny look on your face. What’s up?”

“Oh, it intrigues me that the murder weapon was a samurai sword. I know something about them.”

“I wonder why he fixated on collecting swords, and why he kept this sword in particular,” Nina said.

Ginger looked at the photograph. “It’s an old and well-kept specimen, and weapon collecting is a huge hobby worldwide. I collect something similar myself. Flutes.”

“Doesn’t sound similar to me.”

“But it is. Samurai had a long tradition of converting common objects into weapons. The
katana—
the sword—wasn’t always convenient to use, so they had other weapons which could be easily concealed but could be quite lethal.”

Sandy pushed the door open. Seeing that they were still talking, she leaned against the doorjamb, folded her arms, and listened.

“For example, the
tessen
, an iron fan. Looked like a fan, but the ribs were iron. And the bamboo flute was the perfect marriage of art and function. According to the story, it was redesigned to be made from the bamboo root, making it longer and stouter like a club so that it worked as a deadly weapon, too.”

“You have one of those?” Sandy asked.

“Several.”

“You scare me, Ginger.”

“And you scare me, Sandy.”

“What about the blood on the sword?” Nina said.

“I’m getting to the sword,” Ginger said. “There’s nothing in the report you received about a trace sample that didn’t match with the victim. But . . . I have a good friend in that lab in Sacramento that did the initial workup. And for you, Nina, I got a copy of a report your prosecutor’s been holding back. Guess he’s waiting to spring it on you at the prelim. How do you like that?”

“I love it.” She poised a pen over her yellow pad. “What’s in this purloined report?”

“There was one blood sample they got from the sword so itty-bitty they managed only one test on it. Here’s the dope on that. This speck definitely does not match the victim’s blood. But . . . and you’re not going to like this . . . they found a similarity to Nicole Zack’s blood.”

“It was Nicole’s blood?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But usually it’s a definite match or it isn’t.”

“Problem was, because there was such a preponderance of victim blood on the sword,” Ginger said, “they only had one sample that differed, but the difference appears legitimate. The test shows an unusual third allele on the autoradiograph that matches a sequence also found in Nicole’s blood. In my opinion, that’s not conclusive, but it may be enough for the prosecution experts. They may not agree with me.”

“Oh. I don’t love that.”

“Sorry.”

“So you’re not able to conclude that it’s Nikki’s blood?”

“Well, it’s this allele problem.”

“Ginger, talk to me like you do to a kindergartner, okay? What tests did they do?”

“Okay, a nutshell run-through of PCR, which is short for polymerase chain reaction. When we have a blood sample or biological material like hair from a crime scene, the first thing the lab does is isolate the nuclei from that material. Then they isolate and amplify the DNA found in the nuclei—that’s the PCR part. They take the amplified fragments and separate them using gel electrophoresis. The DNA is transferred onto a nylon membrane, hybridized to labeled probes, washed and used to expose X-ray films, so they can see where the labeled probes ended up. What you get out of this process is an autoradiograph of patterns, kind of like a photograph with supermarket bar codes on it. That’s the DNA pattern, and if you can match it up with a suspect, you are one joyful homicide detective.”

“So the autoradiograph showed that the sample of blood they took from the sword might not have been Nikki’s blood?”

“Not exactly . . .”

“Tell me about the allele they found in this one sample,” said Nina, frustrated. “I never heard of an allele, but I have a bad feeling I’m going to have to become an expert.”

“Each person inherits two alternative forms of a gene, one from each parent,” Ginger said patiently. “Those alternative forms are called alleles.

“There are usually two alleles for simple traits, such as eye color, blood type, etcetera. In this case, there was an unusual third allele found on the sample they discovered that did not match Dr. Sykes’s patterns. It did match Nikki’s. The pattern is somewhat rare but doesn’t specifically pinpoint her as the other person who bled on that sword. It’s a suggestive but not damning finding.”

“Hmph. Experts,” Sandy said.

“It could well be her blood,” Ginger continued. “It’s likely to be her blood, since there is this uncommon similarity. But if I was a police forensic technician I wouldn’t be able to testify with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that it was her blood.”

“Great!” Nina said. “They still haven’t placed her inside the house, then.”

“Let’s make sure we get Daria’s blood tested. Or maybe it will turn out to be the blood of someone the samurai killed four hundred years ago,” Ginger said, eyebrow arched. “That’s about how old that sword is. You know, they say the samurai sword carries the soul of the samurai in it. And sometimes the souls of those the sword killed.”

“It must be crowded in there,” Sandy said. They all looked at the picture of the old sword again. Handsome, with a gilt handle and hilt, it lay curved on the floor next to Dr. William Sykes’s bleeding body, glinting and wicked-looking.

Still too many damn cars, Paul thought at ten o’clock as he set out on the freeway to do the alibi check. By God, he planned to charge Nina every dime she owed him for this wasted time. This environment was working on him, and he didn’t like the feeling. Nina would never move to Carmel to be with him, never give up a goddamn thing for him, but she was still lodged like flak in his ass, a constant aggravation. A mile before his exit onto Santa Monica Boulevard, he found himself jockeying for position with a Caprice driven by a young man wearing a Dodgers cap and the florid, warped look of a driver who is permanently enraged.

The car attempted to zip in front of Paul twice, got blocked, dashed into the lane alongside attempting to pass, gave up and tried one last time, scraping Paul’s fender very slightly. The scratch finally did it, forcing Paul to drop back. Once settled into the coveted position in front, the death driver slowed to a crawl, his middle finger prominently positioned in the rearview mirror as a victory sign, his mouth open in a laugh.

There was only so much a man could take.

Paul knew about control, knew how to impose it.

He hoped he scared this bastard Caprice.

Pulling out from behind and up beside the car, he swerved close. Good thing he had accepted the rental car insurance for a change. Something must have told him it might come in handy. The Caprice never flinched.

So, stronger measures.

He gave it a tap on the mirror. The mirror shattered. So did the one on his rental.

He watched his fellow driver’s face contort, but not for long, because he was accelerating, speeding up, feeling gloriously in control of his vehicle and of the situation. With a jerk, he swung left and regained dominance.

The Caprice limped along behind.

He looked in the rearview mirror. The Caprice was dropping back. Another car took its place.

He was grinning like a baboon. He felt like a baboon. The more intelligent, human part of him was asking, what was that all about? Because just for a second there, he hadn’t cared if he hit the other car, hadn’t cared if he killed himself asserting his rightful place in the line. I thought you were going to pay more attention, he told himself, and stopped grinning.

He decided to forget it and turned his thoughts to the upcoming interview. Nina just wanted to be sure that Beth Sykes wasn’t part of her case. Beth had been in LA visiting a friend the night her husband and son died, fine—but Nina had instructed him to double-check at an early stage. Anyone could concoct an alibi.

She was getting more suspicious and more aggressive from case to case. When she had moved to Tahoe, she had been an appellate lawyer who had a way with words and a problem with inexperience. The hard knocks she had taken since would have sent some lawyers scurrying for a way back into appeals work, but Nina was a fighter. Now she was smart and tough, not just smart. With some wonder, Paul thought, she really is dedicated. She’s in it for the long haul.

He hadn’t thought she would last.

Jan Sapitto lived close to Beverly Hills in West Hollywood. Her high-rise condo would command quite a view on a day that had a view. Unfortunately, the fog had sneaked in with Paul, and her tall windows looked out upon featureless murk.

Before going up to the seventeenth floor, Paul cornered the doorman. Slipping a bill into the man’s willing hand, he asked about the weekend of Bill Sykes’s death. Had she had a female visitor that weekend?

The doorman remembered Beth Sykes’s arrival. She had gone up with Jan late Thursday night. He didn’t remember her leaving, but said high traffic in and out on weekends made it impossible to keep track of every tenant and visitor.

So far, Beth’s alibi held up the way most alibis did— shakily.

A medium-size woman with bow-shaped lips painted a flamboyant fuchsia, Jan Sapitto wore a tight knit shirt with tight jeans and a snug apron with a logo in the shape of a rose that said, “Faux Foods.” Long, frizzled golden hair blew down her back, except where she had tucked a silver clip in the shape of a butterfly.

Paul showed her his identification and she let him in. Sandy had called and prepared the way.

She sat him down on a stool in front of a long granite kitchen island.

“I’ll be with you in a second,” she said. “Sorry. I’m right in the middle of this.”

“Smells good,” he said, as she rushed to the stove and lifted a lid to release a steaming aroma.

“Cream of asparagus soup. Artichoke frittata. Mashed potatoes for the ice cream.”

“Pardon?”

She pointed to the table through double doors, where a glistening golden turkey, carrots, pies, and other side dishes were laid out invitingly on a lace cloth beside silver candelabra on an oversized dining-room table. For the centerpiece, a cornucopia decorated with autumn leaves spilled out bright, perfect oranges, apples, bananas, and Concord grapes.