ive and obviously there was money somewhere in her
vicinity. While the last two items could have been true of a raving
maniac, Kirk was human enough to be swayed by them.

"I'm afraid," he said, "you've come to the wrong man about this, Miss
North." His smile was frank and winning enough to startle her. "The case
is out of my hands; has been since the District Attorney's office took
over. Why don't you take it up with them?"

* * * * *

Her short laugh was openly cynical. "I tried to, the day the trial
ended. I got as far as a fourth assistant, who told me the case was
closed, that new and conclusive evidence would be necessary to reopen
it, and would I excuse him as he had a golf date. When I said I could
give him new evidence, he looked at his watch and wanted me to write a
letter. So I wrote one and his secretary promised to hand it to him
personally. I'm still waiting for an answer."

"These things take time, Miss North. If I were you I'd--"

"I even tried to see Judge Reed. I got as far as his bailiff. If I'd
state my business in writing.... I did; that's the last I've heard from
Judge Reed _or_ bailiff."

Kirk picked up his cigar from the edge of the desk and tapped the ash
onto the floor. "Shall I," he said, his lips quirking, "ask you to write
_me_ a letter?"

Naia North failed to respond to the light touch. "I'm through filling
wastebaskets," she said flatly. "Either you do something about this or
the newspapers get the entire story. Not that I'll enjoy being a public
spectacle, but at least they'll give me some action."

"What do you want done?"

She put both elbows on the desk top and bent toward him. He caught the
faint odor of bath salts rising from under the rounded neckline of her
blouse. "That man must go free, Lieutenant. He didn't kill his
wife--_or_ Gregory Gilmore."

"Who did?"

She looked straight into his eyes. "I did."

"Why?"

Slowly she straightened and leaned back in the chair, her gaze shifting
to a point beyond his left shoulder. "Nothing you haven't heard before,"
she said tonelessly.

"We met several months ago and fell in love. I let him make the
rules ... and after a while he got tired of playing. I didn't--and I
wanted him back. For weeks he avoided me."

"So you decided to kill him."

She seemed genuinely astonished at the remark. "Certainly not! But when
I saw him take this woman--this assistant of his, or whatever she
was--into his