Yuki snorted tequila up her nose and sputtered, “I have earned the right to get drunk. I made a brilliant opener and then the judge gets a call. His sick mother is fading fast. He adjourns court for the day. By tomorrow, Phil Hoffman will have read the transcript and will pick my bones clean in his opener.”

At that, Cindy, dependably the last to arrive, scooted into the booth next to Claire and bumped her hip, saying, “Give me a couple of inches here, girlfriend.”

Claire said, “Are you all going to listen to what happened to me today? Or do I have to fight for the talking stick? Because I will do it.”

“You go first,” Yuki said, holding up her empty glass to the light. Claire didn’t wait for anyone to object.

“I get called to go to this house in the Sacramento Delta,” she said. “A friend of mine called in a favor. So I drive to this swampland — can only get there by these veiny little roads and levees — and I find this hunting cabin.

“This old dude who lives there paid all his bills two weeks in advance and hasn’t been seen since. Now people are starting to ask, ‘What happened to Mr. Wingnut?’”

Cindy was thumbing the keys on her Crackberry while Claire told her story.

“There’s this long lump under the bedcovers,” Claire said, plucking the PDA out of Cindy’s hand, putting it in her pocket, treating Cindy like she was a little girl.

“Hey!” said Cindy.

I had to laugh — and I did.

Claire went on, ignoring Cindy pawing at her pocket and retrieving her phone. “I pull back the blankets and the dead man has been mummified by the heat and he’s holding a freakin’ AK forty-seven in his hands.”

Cindy stopped what she was doing and stared at Claire.

“He was dead? Holding an AK forty-seven?”

“He killed himself with that gun,” Claire said. “Sent my pulse rocketing into the low one-eighties. You can believe that.”