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Mrs. Beal was dazzling in a blue sweater and a loop of pearls, the yellow-tinted variety. “How is your mother doing, through all this?” she asked, either forgetting that my parents were divorced or exhibiting such sterling good manners that a little detail like divorce made no difference.

I was ready. “We are distressed at how the justice system is being misused,” I said. “My sister Georgia is coming down to be at the preliminary. The assistant DA, Montie Carver, the one with the blond hair down to here, is the kind of hired gun who takes one look at a community activist like my dad—” And aches to shoot him down, I was about to say, but stopped myself. Was there a delicate way to express these impressions?

“He's a hungry prosecutor,” said Mr. Beal, in the same way he would have said
hungry weasel
. “One of the best.”

I had been pretending to know more than I did. I had seen Carver's name in headlines in the
Chronicle
, and I had glimpsed his face on Eyewitness News. I knew he had a reputation as an aggressive attorney in cases involving fraud against senior citizens, but I had taken hope at the fact that he was an
assistant
district attorney. Glancing down at my saffron rice, I felt uneasy.

“But Bonnie's father has Jack Stoughton in his camp,” said Rowan breezily.

“Oh, well, in that case,” said Mr. Beal, with just a little too much haste, “we can look forward to a happy resolution.”

“Key lime pie for dessert,” Mrs. Beal whispered, bending close.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Georgia arrived late the night before the preliminary hearing. I was telling myself I wasn't apprehensive about the next day, but the knock at the door nearly stopped my heart.

I hurried to open it. A woman who looked very much like Mom gave me a grin, the porch light gilding her features. I hadn't remembered her being quite so tall or heavyset.

“I'm sorry I'm late,” she said. “I dropped by to see Dad.”

This shouldn't have surprised me, but I was suddenly full of questions about what she thought about Cindy's taste in art, Dad's improvements to his back garden. And how Dad looked to her.

But you don't hurry Georgia. She told us all about her new pickup, a Ford Ranger. “It's amazing how they gear trucks so low,” she said, mystifying me. “You go ten miles an hour, you have to shift out of first.” She was wearing a denim skirt and old-fashioned tennis shoes, the canvas kind you can throw into the washing machine. Her top was a plaid lumberjack flannel, Northwoods chic.

Mom made us melted cheese sandwiches, an old family favorite, although Georgia gave me a conspiratorial purse of the lips when Mom wasn't looking: Who eats these things any more?

She ate every crumb. It was wonderful to have her there. She gave her husband a call, saying she had arrived safely. I couldn't help overhearing. She called him
Sweetie
. She was always reminding him to take vitamin E or wear a warmer sweater. Paul was finishing a degree in highway engineering. He worked as a dispatcher for Cal Trans, telling road crews where to find broken branches and washed-out pavement on Highway One.

“Brilliant!” said Georgia, congratulating Myrna on her litter. The cat leaned into Georgia's legs, purring. Sometimes you think cats must have excellent memories, instant recall of their friends.

It was good to see Georgia, but it also underscored the crisis we were in. It was the sort of overly cheerful mood I associated with my grandparents' funerals, everyone chattering, afraid to shut up. My sister asked me how my brain was functioning, “after they stuffed it back inside your head.”

I let it stay jokey, how it turned out the human brain wasn't all that important.

Georgia told us things we already knew, that she was studying manipulatives for children, how play can be the same as learning. She was studying at Humboldt State, learning how to organize activity areas with good sightlines. She said it was definite, she was going to be a kindergarten teacher.

“I'm so glad!” said Mom, in a tone of such feeling, I had to realize once again that Mom wished I had more ordinary goals, swimming instead of diving.

Then, in a low, intent tone, Mom asked, “What did you think of Cindy?”

Georgia gave a little nonlaugh, one of Mom's.

“Really?” Mom said.

Georgia made no sound.

My mother said, “That's what I was afraid of.”

I had hoped Georgia and I would talk long into the night. I had even set aside my most recent video, but Georgia said that driving always tired her out, and she would be worthless tomorrow if she didn't get some sleep.

It was the sort of thing Mom said, that she would be worthless if she didn't eat soon, or rest for a while. Besides, there was a silence about Georgia, things she didn't want to say. When I went to bed, I tried to sense my sister's presence in the house. Was that her, running water in the back bathroom, closing the closet door in her old bedroom?

Maybe I was hoping she would scratch at my door and sneak in, like in the old days, so she could tell me about a book she was reading, a poltergeist in a South Dakota farmhouse, or a region in the Caribbean Sea cruise ships sailed across never to be heard from again.

Before the divorce Dad sometimes read us stories. Georgia came into my bedroom, older, allowed to stay up an hour later. One of our favorite tales was about a rabbit who dressed up in bark and branches to scare the daylights out of a fox. My father imitated the rabbit in a deep, chilling voice: “I am the spirits of all the rabbits you have eaten, Brother Fox!”

A blind pedestrian would have little trouble crossing streets in downtown Oakland. Traveling roughly west to east, when the signal changes to green, an electronic
twirp twirp
sounds. The signal to cross north to south is the call of a cuckoo. Georgia and I parked her pickup in a pay lot on Alice Street, and passed one of the white Alameda County Sheriff's buses, a new load of prisoners facing justice. Mom had explained how busy she was, so my sister and I marched up the steps to the courthouse, just the two of us, Georgia keeping up matter-of-fact chatter, lumber mills closing, her septic tank backing up.

The first sign you see is
WARNING WEAPONS PROHIBITED
. Georgia took one look at this and said, “Damn!” And I couldn't keep from laughing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The prosecutor, Montie Carver, had one of those tans you know come from a tanning booth, every inch of his body under his clothes the same unblemished bronze. His yellow hair was expensively long, and except for his gray suit and cuff links he looked like the kind of parking lot attendant who collected big tips.

My father wore one of the suits he had hand tailored in a shop off Union Square. It was a suit that didn't look expensive, the sort of business outfit you barely notice, with a crisp white shirt and a dark tie. When he saw Georgia and me he gave us a thumbs-up, and he nodded and gave his award-winning smile to acquaintances in the courthouse audience.

But the courtroom was crowded, and many of the people saw my father's smile and looked right back, unsmiling, stonily silent. Cindy occupied a seat in the front row, a navy blue, nearly nautical blouse, her hair gathered back into a gold clasp. The effect was prim; she looked younger than I did.

The witness swore to tell the truth and took his seat. Carver asked him to state his name and occupation. He was Allen Post, the owner of a foundry that manufactured every kind of manhole cover, from the big steel disks you see in intersections to the little ones in the sidewalk that seal pipes and cables. “People walk on my product all the time, and never know it,” said Mr. Post.

Carver didn't bother looking at his notes, but unlike the lawyers you see in movies, he didn't wander around the courtroom. “Mr. Post, did you file a suit with the Isabella Construction Company?”

“Yes, my new house—the house I had built—was a delight to my wife and myself. It was a beautiful place, but it had cracks in its foundation.”

Carver raised a hand, glanced at Her Honor, and cautioned the witness not to answer everything all at once, let the testimony come out little by little. The judge was a woman with white hair and glasses, the theatrical sort of glasses frames that make the person wearing them look small and big-eyed.

“Who was your legal representative during this lawsuit?” asked Carver.

Mr. Post had a gray mustache and shaggy gray hair surrounding a bald spot. A broad shouldered, ham-fisted man, he looked like he could pick up a manhole cover and skim it like a Frisbee. He could not help looking briefly at my father as he answered, “Harvey Chamberlain.”

“Was your lawsuit successful, Mr. Post?”

“There were cracks you could put your hand into, and this is a three-story house, with a view of the whole Bay Area. A view like a jewel box. But the first serious rain and the structure was going to slide.”

“Mr. Post,” said Carver, with a little laugh. “Could you answer my question?”

“The construction company settled out of court,” said Mr. Post.

“What was the amount of the settlement?”

“The entire house had to be jacked off its mooring, the old foundation broken up. It was our dream house, my wife and I planned that place our whole lives.”

“If you could tell us the amount of the settlement, Mr. Post.”

“Five hundred thousand dollars.”

“When did you receive this payment from the construction company?”

Mr. Post found it difficult to say: “I never did.”

“Did you ever receive any explanation for this?”

“A zillion explanations.” The witness did not want to look at anyone, gripping the wooden arms of the chair. “Every time I called Mr. Chamberlain, he said the company still hadn't sent the check. For two years, he said the construction company was sitting on the money.”

Jack sat beside my father, his head in a medical turtleneck. With every question my father's attorney seemed to grow a little taller in the chair.

“What did you do?” asked Carver.

“After so much time, I couldn't wait any longer. I got on the phone myself, made some calls, to the president of the construction company. He said they had sent a check to my lawyer, Mr. Chamberlain, for the entire amount, right after the settlement had been reached.”

Jack hitched himself to his feet, objecting.

Georgia craned her neck as Mrs. Jovanovich found her way to the witness stand. “It's dear old Mrs. What's-her-name,” whispered Georgia in a tone of surprise.

It took a long time for her to cross the courtroom with the help of two metal canes tipped with white rubber. Finally, a bailiff, with his holster and his badge, offered her an arm, and she made it to the witness stand at last.

She is the kind of woman you imagine as an empress, elderly but in full command of both her army and her navy. When she speaks, though, you are reminded of the inroads age has made on her powers.

“And what legal help did you seek in managing your estate, Mrs. Jovanovich?” Carver was asking.

“I couldn't begin to collect the rents and deal with the tax documents, and then when one of my properties had fire damage, and an apartment building suffered in one of our earthquakes, I had so many pieces of paper it was bewildering.”

Carver met the judge's eyes. “Just take your time, Mrs. Jovanovich,” he said, gently, but speaking clearly, “and answer the questions slowly. We all want to hear what you have to say.”

“And please speak right into the microphone,” said the judge with the sort of kindly smile people give frail people.

Mrs. Jovanovich crooked the mike a little closer, with something like a practiced touch, and her voice resounded. “I asked Harvey Chamberlain to help me, and he said he would.”

“He acted as your attorney?”

“He was my legal and financial advisor. In collecting insurance money, pursuing money owed to me, and in helping sort though my expenses. I have so much to do, and I can't do it all anymore, Mr. Carver. Mr. Chamberlain is always such a pleasure to be with. He is so full of life. My late husband and he used to play golf together, although I do believe Mr. Chamberlain let my husband win.”

Carver slumped a little. “Could you estimate for us, Mrs. Jovanovich, the size of your estate, in terms of dollars?”

“I should have brought my financial records with me,” said Mrs. Jovanovich. “I'm so terribly sorry—”

“Just roughly, to the best of your recollection,” said Carver.

“Oh, I'm afraid I deal with hundreds of thousands of dollars, Mr. Carver. I have to apologize, because I know some people have so little.” Her face wrinkled into a kindly apology, as though ashamed of her relative wealth. “My husband and I worked hard to build up a considerable amount of property.”

“Could you tell us, please, how you began to question the professional services Mr. Chamberlain was providing?”

“You phrase it so politely, Mr. Carver,” said Mrs. Jovanovich. “You're being very kind, and I appreciate it.” She lifted a finger to silence Carver, and continued, “I discovered that Mr. Chamberlain was deceiving me. He was robbing me.”

Jack climbed to his feet, said something in an exasperated tone, but before the judge could address the witness, Mrs. Jovanovich's amplified voice was saying, “Mr. Chamberlain is a thief.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Whenever the microphone shifted away from her voice, Mrs. Jovanovich gripped it and got it right back where everyone could hear what she was saying. Dad sat with his hands folded at his lips, making a tent of his forefingers. I couldn't see his eyes, but I knew he was gazing upward at the blank wall above the judge.

Georgia folded her arms, one of my mother's postures. The courtroom began to get warm. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the colors were even more vivid than before, the egg-yellow collar of the man sitting in front of me, the glittering cuff link on Carver's sleeve. I wondered if I could slip past the spectators, to the door, and out into the corridor.