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project goes and ruins your effort by killing a girl.”
    Rothenberg gritted his teeth, then relaxed. “One way of putting it.”
    “Then why are you helping him now?”
    “Partly money, but mostly, well, when his mother contacted me, the case seemed more interesting than it does now. Legally speaking, I mean.”
    “How so?”
    Rothenberg paused, fingered the file in front of him. “My client is William, not his mother.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Since your client is the mother, not the son, I’m not so sure I can talk with you about his case.”
    “What have we been talking about—Jimmy Hoffa?”
    “No, I mean the merits of the case. The factual and legal arguments, my work product, conference with him, and so on.”
    I thought back to my year of law school. “Can’t I be your necessary agent, even if one of us is working for free?”
    He smiled. “That’s pretty good. But the mother hired you, even without money, and that means I didn’t, and therefore I don’t think a court would buy you as an agent for William’s lawyer.”
    Rothenberg made no effort to end the interview, so I assumed he wanted me to try a different tack.
    “Would it be a fair bet that the reason William’s case is uninteresting is because it’s ironclad against him?”
    Rothenberg, wrinkling his brow, allowed, “It would.”
    “Then there probably wouldn’t be any cosmic harm if you were to go the men’s room and I, without your knowledge or help, sort of skimmed Daniels’ file.”
    Rothenberg brightened. “Hypothetically speaking, no. No harm at all.” He stood up. “Would you excuse me? I have to take a leak.”
    “Sure.”
    He closed the door behind him.
    I suppose somebody could fault Rothenberg for not observing the spirit behind some of his attorney ethics. However, all he really did was save me a second trip to his office, since William could have authorized me to see his file once I saw him.
    The folder Rothenberg had been playing with was marked DANIELS, WILLIAM E. I opened it.

Four
    A N INTAKE SHEET was stapled to the left inside of the folder, but the only significant fact I didn’t already have was William’s date of birth. He’d just turned twenty.
    The bill of indictment listed two crimes. Murder in the first degree and unlawful possession of a firearm. The possession charge bespoke a thorough, if overzealous, prosecution. Even if Rothenberg somehow beat the killing, William was gone under the state’s tough gun law for an automatic, no-parole one-year on the unlicensed-weapon charge. But first things first.
    The victim’s name was Jennifer Creasey, age eighteen years. The police report read like a synopsis of a Charlie Chan movie.
    Uniformed officers Clay and Bjorkman were summoned to the office of Dr. Clifford Marek, One Professional Park, Calem. There they met Dr. Marek, who showed them in the basement a young white female, deceased, with apparent gunshot wounds to the chest, identified as Jennifer Creasey. Dr. Marek gave them a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson Detective’s Special revolver, serial number 7D43387. The rounds in all six chambers had been expended.
    The officers asked the source of the weapon and were taken by Dr. Marek back upstairs to William E. Daniels. Officer Clay remained with Daniels and read him his rights while Bjorkman summoned the Detective Bureau. Detectives O’Boy and Rizzi interviewed the doctor and other patients on the premises.
    According to the interviews, Daniels and the decedent were members of a therapy group Marek conducted each Thursday night. Hypnosis figured prominently in the treatment, with a different group member being hypnotized by Marek each week, then being questioned by the doctor and each other member.
    I shook my head. Lord, let me never be psychoanalyzed.
    That night was Daniels’ turn to be hypnotized and questioned. He arrived late, appeared restless, irritable. Having already waited for ten minutes, Marek began without Jennifer Creasey. After putting Daniels