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every once in a while she’d throw a jealous fit.” That scene in the apartment. Leila lunging at him, scratching his face; her wild accusations. His hands on her wrists, restraining her. What had he felt? Anger. Fury. And disgust.
    â€œYou tried to give her back the engagement ring?”
    â€œYes, and she refused it.”
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œElizabeth phoned. Leila began sobbing into the phone and shouting at me to get out. I told her to put the phone down. I wanted to get to the bottom of what had brought all this on.
    â€œI saw it was hopeless and left. I went to my own apartment. I think I changed my shirt. I tried to call Craig. I remember leaving the apartment. I don’t remember anything else until the next day when I woke up in Connecticut.”
    â€œTeddy, do you realize what the prosecutor will do to that story? Do you know how many cases are on record of people who kill in a fit of rage and then have a psychotic episode where they block it out? As your lawyer I have to tell you something: That story stinks! It’s no defense. Sure, if it weren’t for Elizabeth Lange there wouldn’t be a problem. . . . Hell, there wouldn’t even be a case. I could make mincemeat of that socalled eyewitness. She’s a nut, a real off-the-wall nut. But with Elizabeth swearing you were in the apartment fighting with Leila at nine thirty, the nut becomes believable when she says you shoved Leila off the terrace at nine thirty-one.”
    â€œThen what do we do about it?” Craig asked.
    â€œWe gamble,” Bartlett said. “Ted agrees with Elizabeth’s story. Henow remembers going back upstairs. Leila was still hysterical. She slammed the phone down and ran to the terrace. Everybody who was in Elaine’s the night before can testify to her emotional state. Her sister admits she had been drinking. She was despondent about her career. She had decided to break off her relationship with you. She felt washed up. She wouldn’t be the first one to take a dive in that situation.”
    Ted winced. A dive. Christ, were all lawyers so insensitive? And then the image came of Leila’s broken body; the garish police pictures. He felt perspiration break out over his entire body.
    But Craig looked hopeful. “It might work. What that eyewitness saw was Ted struggling to save Leila, and when Leila fell, he blacked out. That’s when he had the psychotic episode. That explains why he was almost incoherent in the cab.”
    Ted stared through the window at the ocean. It was unusually calm now, but he knew the tide would soon be roaring in. The calm before the storm, he thought. Right now we’re having a clinical discussion. In nine days I’ll be in the courtroom. The People of the State of New York v. Andrew Edward Winters III. “There’s one big hole in your theory,” he said flatly. “If I admit I went back to that apartment and was on the terrace with Leila, I’m putting my head in a noose. If the jury decides I was in the process of killing her, I’ll be found guilty of Murder Two.”
    â€œIt’s a chance you may have to take.”
    Ted came back to the table and began to stuff the open files into Bartlett’s briefcase. His smile was not pleasant. “I’m not sure I can take that chance. There has to be a better solution, and at any cost I intend to find it. I will not go to prison!”

8
    MIN SIGHED GUSTILY. “THAT FEELS GOOD. I SWEAR, you’ve got better hands than any masseuse in this place.”
    Helmut leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Liebchen, I love touching you, even if it’s only to ease your shoulders.”
    They were in their apartment, which covered the entire third floor of the main house. Min was seated at her dressing table wearing a loose kimono. She had unpinned her heavy raven-colored hair, and it fell below her shoulders. She looked at her reflection in