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clients jumped bail, skipped town, and Dixie hauled them back.
    “In your two seconds of TV fame today, I noticed an absence of your usual mule-headed, media-scorning composure.” Belle turned from the window, and her wide gray eyes made a slow study of Dixie’s face. “In fact, you looked upset.”
    “I did come across pretty spacey, didn’t I?”
    “What were you doing there?”
    “Identifying the body—oh, you must’ve seen an early newscast, before they released the name.” Edna and Bill Pine had been clients of Belle’s partner Ralph Drake, who handled all the firm’s estate and property law. Dixie had recommended Ralph years earlier, when the firm was struggling. When Marty opened his gallery, Ralph handled some paperwork. A year ago Ralph had probated Bill’s will; now he’d have to probate Edna’s. “Maybe we’d better sit down,” Dixie told Belle.
    Over coffee, she walked the defense attorney through the morning’s disasters, beginning with Dixie’s overdraft problem and ending with Marty’s accusation that she should’ve been a better neighbor.
    “You aren’t buying that, are you?”
    Dixie shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable in the red leather guest chair. She stretched her legs out and studied the scuffed tips of her boots.
    “How is it that months can zip past while we aren’t looking?” she grumbled. “When you and I were in law school, a year lasted forever. Now a year lasts fifteen minutes.”
    “Dixie, you aren’t responsible for every old chum who decides to go postal.”
    “Even you?”
    “Trust me, when I go it’ll be by aneurysm during an ingenious closing argument. No mystery. No gunning down cops.”
    “That’s the part I can’t get a grip on. I saw Edna rob that bank—calm as a rock, everybody on the floor, poor old Len handing over the money. I saw Edna take the bags out to the car. Unless she’s lost a bundle in the stock market, I know she didn’t need that money, so it had to be some bizarre sort of suicide scheme, and I can even understand that, in a way. It would account for her being as spruced up as I’d ever seen her, wanting to go out looking her best. But Edna Pine never even raised her voice to one of us kids, never hurt anybody. I can’t believe she intentionally shot that officer.”
    “She fired at you, didn’t she?”
    “She shot the
chair,”
Dixie said firmly.
    Belle’s scrutiny became more intense. “Loss, grief, loneliness, shame, despair—Flannigan, if people could handle their emotions better, I wouldn’t have so many clients.”
    Dixie polished the top of one boot against her other jeans-clad leg as she considered Belle’s comment.
    “Is there any chance Edna was about to lose her home and property? For tax liens, maybe?” Perhaps Carl was closer to the truth than she’d given him credit for.
    Belle punched a button on her desk phone. “Not my department. But we can ask Ralph.”
    Ralph Drake, Dixie’s least favorite of the three law partners, had lustrous silver hair that undoubtedly came from a bottle and sported a tan so dark he could pass for a swarthy Italian—an image he promoted by tossing Italian phrases into every conversation. Tall, thin, moderately attractive, he’d recently married forthe seventh time in his forty-six years, and was rumored to be window-shopping already for
numero ocho.
For any woman under thirty, Ralph revved up his relentless Casanova act; any client who wasn’t rich, female, or famous he managed to royally piss off. Nevertheless, he supported his share of the corporate overhead by being damn good at civil law. He also was superb at attracting clients, mostly female, who were occasionally somewhat famous and always somewhat rich.
    He flashed his swarthy Italian smile at Dixie.
    “
Cara mia
, Ms. Flannigan.” He actually kissed her hand in greeting. “Che
bella sei oggi—how
beautiful you look.”
    Dixie looked as ratty as she had on entering the bank that morning, possibly worse. Yet, even