Chapter One Pete and Killian were divorced on a Thursday afternoon early in November. It was an unremarkable enough day on the face of it. The freeways, the vital circulatory system that made it all possible, were clear and streaming throughout the urban sprawl. The beaches were overcast, with sunshine in the mountains and upper deserts. The temperature registered seventy-seven degrees at the Civic Center, and there was smog in the basin.The big court building beneath the common pall of haze generated its own temperature of course and, for that matter, its own peculiar climate. As it happened, Cynny Holman was there that same Thursday afternoon, engaged upon a similar though unrelated matter. While Killian was making her way up through the subterranean parking levels, Cynny was already in the courtroom, one of a number of identical wood-paneled boxes which lined the corridors of the building, floor upon floor.The court was momentarily quiet except for the surreptitious rustle of a newspaper from somewhere among the spectators. The judge coughed softly and turned his chair on the swivel, tilting it a little in order to rest his back."You say he was frequently absent from home for several days at a time?"Cynny was in the witness chair on his right, her hands folded over her purse. She was feeling more nervous than she had expected and kept her eyes fixed upon the well-shaven face above the black robe, avoiding the rows of spectators below. Most of all, she did not want to look at Janet in her chic black-and-white dress, seated erect and alert between the lawyers at the counsel table in front of the bench."Yes, that's correct," Cynny said. "It was very upsetting to Mrs. Anderson, naturally. And very difficult and embarrassing for her to try to carry on their normal social life. I remember one occasion, my husband and I attended a dinner party at their home and Mr. Anderson simply didn't appear at all. Mrs. Anderson held up dinner as long as she could, she obviously was upset and under great strain. Finally she made some very feeble sort of explanation that she had reached him by phone and he was detained on business, and she served without him. All through dinner she seemed to be trying not to burst into tears."Someone departed through the doors at the rear, and there was the sudden sound of intermingled voices and footsteps from the corridor outside, a brief thrust of life into the air-conditioned insularity of the courtroom. The doors swung shut again, and the room hushed. Among the rows of spectators (most of whom were pairs of women bound on a similar errand), a woman murmured to her attorney, and the bailiff stared at her warningly."And on occasions when he did appear with her at social gatherings, what was Mr. Anderson's behavior toward his wife?" the judge asked, teetering his chair comfortably.Cynny looked into his plump face and wondered if this man really could have the least possible interest in learning that. It seemed more likely that through the years he had trained himself not to listen to a single word of this, one more dreary recital of the same cliches and half-truths that he must hear repeated every day that he sat on this bench."He behaved very badly," she said in her clear, unhurried voice. "It was really terribly embarrassing. Either he would make a point of ignoring Mrs. Anderson in a cruel, obvious way, or he would say the most cutting and unkind things to her in a humorous -- well, in the guise of humor but it wasn't in the least funny. His attitude in every way, he seemed to be constantly belittling her.""Belittling," the judge murmured. "Yes."Have I said the magic word, Cynny wondered. And within her mind the stolid man on the bench was transformed into an IBM card-sorting machine, chastely draped in a black robe and sifting through punch cards with tremendous speed and efficiency for the right combination of clic