Over the months and years since he'd started in homicide, Cuneo hadn't made much of a secret of his feelings for Glitsky. When he'd been a newcomer to the detail, still partnered with Russell, one of his first cases had concerned the shooting of an old man named Sam Silver-man, who ran a pawnshop a couple of blocks off Union Square. At that time, the head of homicide was Barry Gerson, and Glitsky-nominally a lieutenant-worked in a sergeant's position as supervisor of payroll. In the course of Cuneo's investigation into Silverman's death, this nobody Glitsky somehow insinuated himself into the detail's business-butting in, offering his advice, getting in the way. He'd once run homicide, and the unwelcome interference struck Cuneo, Russell and Gerson as a power play to get his old job back.

Eventually his investigation made it clear to Cuneo that Glitsky's other motive for his involvement in that case was to help out a defense attorney friend of his named Dismas Hardy, whose client, John Holiday, was the chief suspect in the killing. When Gerson finally went out to Pier 70 to arrest Holiday-Cuneo believed the event had to have been arranged by Hardy in some way-something went terribly wrong. Holiday, Gerson and three Patrol Specials that the lieutenant had brought with him as backup all wound up shot to death, the perpetrators never identified or, of course, apprehended.

Promoted to homicide lieutenant to fill Gerson's spot, Lanier had conducted the investigation into the incident. He had a talk with his longtime friend and colleague Glitsky and, no surprise, found nothing. Hardy had never left his office that day, either-ten witnesses there said so. There was no case against either of the men, although Cuneo in his heart of hearts continued to believe that somehow they'd both been involved. When he learned that Glitsky's alibi for the time in question was Hardy's law partner Gina Roake, his belief became near certainty.

But though he took his questions to Lanier and then, on his own and top secret, to Jerry Ranzetti with the Office of Management and Control, which investigated internal affairs, he couldn't get to anything approaching proof of wrongdoing. Ranzetti even told him that he'd run across issues-not exactly hewing strictly to the department's best interests-with both Glitsky and Hardy working together in at least one other previous case. But not only were both men extremely well connected-tight with the DA, some supervisors, the chief of police, even the mayor-but knowing the system intimately as they both did, they played it like maestros and made no mistakes. His interest piqued by Cuneo's theory, though, Ranzetti did nose around for a while on the Gerson killing-after all, this was a cop shooting, and so of the highest priority-but he hadn't been able to put either Glitsky or Hardy anywhere near the scene when the shootings had occurred.

Then, the next thing Cuneo knew, Frank Batiste became chief and Glitsky the payroll clerk got himself promoted over half the rest of the qualified lieutenants to deputy chief. He considered the appointment a travesty and wasn't particularly discreet about sharing his opinion with some of his fellow cops. Without a doubt, through Lanier or one of the other homicide people who'd heard him spouting off, Glitsky had heard of Cuneo's disapproval-to say nothing of his allegations of criminal complicity and cover-up.

Cuneo sat dead still, The Thinker, his elbow resting on his chair's arm, his chin in his hand. That's what Glitsky's phone message was really about-he was serving notice. Cuneo had trash-talked and then tried to backstab him, and Glitsky had found out.

Now it was payback time.

Catherine Hanover lived in a small Moorish-style two-story stucco home in the Marina District, on Beach Street a block east of the Palace of Fine Arts. As was his wont when time didn't press, Cuneo parked within sight of the address she had given him last night and sat in his car, watching and getting a feel for the place while he drummed on the steering wheel.

What he saw was a low stucco fence that bounded a well-kept property at the sidewalk. The houses on either side were both noticeably larger, outsized for their lots. The Hanovers' front yard wasn't deep by any stretch, and a brace of mature trees canopied nearly all of it. He noted the black Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan parked in the driveway, and the lights upstairs behind what looked like a functional wooden-railed deck. This area of the city tended to get more sunshine than points farther west, and the low evening rays painted the entire neighborhood in a mellow gold.

Cuneo popped a breath mint, checked his hair in the mirror and opened the car door. A good breeze made him reach back in for his jacket.

The genes were good in the family, he thought. The teenage girl who answered the door might have been a face model. "Hi," she said. "Can I help you?" Well brought up, too.

He had his badge out, his polite smile on. "I'm Inspector Cuneo, San Francisco homicide. I was hoping to talk to your mother." He turned the wattage up on his smile. "I'm assuming Catherine Hanover is your mother?"

"You got it, every day. I'm Polly." She half turned. "Mom! There's a policeman out here to see you."

Over the young woman's shoulder, Catherine appeared from around a corner. She carried a dish towel and was wiping her hands with it. "Well, invite him in, then." As she came closer, he noticed a white streak of something high on her cheek. Her daughter saw it, too, and she took the towel and wiped off the offending stuff, whatever it was, and gave the towel back. A friendly look passed between mother and daughter; then Polly went back to wherever she'd been and Catherine, as lovely as he'd remembered, was standing in front of him. "Hello again," she said with some formality. She touched her cheek. "Flour," she said, "I'm making pasta. It gets everywhere, I'm afraid. Please, come in."

"Thank you." He was already inside, closing the door. "Did you say you were making pasta?"

"That's right."

"Not the sauce, the actual noodles?"

She favored him with a smile. "The actual noodles. Do you like homemade noodles?"

"I don't believe I've ever had them."

"You should try. They're a lot of work, but worth it, I think." In the light of day, Catherine's face was nearly as perfect as her daughter's, rescued from mere cuteness by deeply set green eyes and a strong nose. A striking, mature face. "My children are so spoiled. They won't even eat store-bought anymore. It's got to be my own. Maybe I should be flattered." She twisted the towel, took in and let out a quick breath.

Cuneo was standing next to her and reached out his hand. He touched her arm as though commiserating somehow. She backed away a step. "Anyway, you're not here for that."

"No." He stayed close to her. "We like to come by and see how everybody's holding up. The day after is often worse for next of kin. Also, frankly, maybe things occur to you that might have gone right by in the emotion of the moment, like last night."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Anything. Something your father-inlaw might have been going through, or Missy said. Why he might have had a reason to kill her."

Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head to one side. "What do you mean?"

"About what?"

"Well, you were just talking about why Paul might have wanted to kill Missy. I thought you had decided that that couldn't have happened. You, the police, I mean. That's what the other inspector told me, anyway."

"The other inspector? Glitsky?"

"That's it. Glitsky."

"You talked to him already?"

"Yes. He called a few hours ago. We talked for about fifteen minutes. I would have thought you two would have communicated together. Haven't you talked to him?"

Cuneo showed nothing. Smiling, shrugging, he made it clear that this was normal enough. He patted her arm again. "He's on days. Sometimes we cross each other. It's all right. But how did you get to Hanover not shooting anybody? That's what you said, isn't it?"

"Right." She had backed away another step and bumped her leg against one of the room's chairs. Suddenly, she put a hand to her forehead. "What am I thinking, keeping you standing out here like this?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned and led the way, pulled out a chair for him around an oval, well-used wooden table that overlooked the backyard. Then she was moving back across the kitchen. "Can I get you some water? Coffee? Anything?"

"I'm good, thanks." He sat, half turned, kept his eyes on her. Obviously appraising, obviously approving. He thought he was keeping it low-key, even subtle. "So," he said as his fingers started tapping on the table, "Glitsky?"

She finally tucked the dish towel into the refrigerator's handle and now, with her hands free, didn't seem to know what to do with them. Leaning up against the kitchen counter, she crossed them over her breasts. "Well, I told him about Paul's right arm being useless since the polio, so he sure didn't shoot himself over the right ear. Not with his right hand, anyway."

"No," Cuneo said, "I'd guess not."

"And then since Missy's wound was up in the back of her head-you knew that?"

He nodded, though it was news to him.

"So she probably didn't shoot herself there, either."

"So someone else was there?"

"That's what Inspector Glitsky seemed to think. It's the only thing that fit."

The sound of steps on stairs and then a tall, well-built hazel-haired teenage boy entered the kitchen. Wearing the uniform of cargo pants and a gray Cal sweatshirt, he stopped in his tracks when he saw Cuneo, looked at his mother, back to the inspector. "Hey," he said.

Cuneo nodded. "Hey."

"My son, Saul," she said. "Saul, this is Inspector Cuneo. He's investigating who might have killed your grandfather."

At the mention of it, the boy's shoulders sagged, and his face rearranged itself to accommodate the grief that threatened to show. Cuneo stood up and the boy came over to shake his hand. "Nice to meet you," he said. "I hope you catch him, whoever it was."

"You got along well with your grandfather?"

He nodded. "He was great. He rocked. He really did." Looking out the windows over Cuneo's shoulder, he shook his head. "I can't believe somebody killed him."

"Maybe they really wanted to kill his girlfriend and he was just there."

"Yeah," Saul said, "maybe that." Awkward, he stood another moment, then turned to his mother. "I was just getting some food."

"All right, but save room for dinner." She pointed toward the refrigerator and he walked over, lifted a carton of milk and went to drink from it.

"Saul!"

"Oh, yeah." He grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filled it with milk, found a handful of cookies and started to leave, but then stopped at the doorway. "I hope you catch him," he said again. "Really."

"We're trying."

When Saul's steps had retreated back upstairs, Cuneo got up from his chair and crossed over to where Catherine was standing. "You've got nice kids," he said. "Is that all of them?"

"There's one more upstairs. Heather, the youngest. It's homework time, so I'm surprised you got to see any of them. This time of day, they just disappear."

"And they're just working like that on their own? You must be one heck of a good mother. What's your secret?"

"Are you kidding? It's day-to-day survival. Just so they keep talking to you and don't ever get a chance to forget that you love them more than anything. Do you have children?"

He hung his head for an instant. "Regrettably, I'm single." An apologetic smile. "Just never found the right woman, I guess." Figuring the segue was seamless, Cuneo asked, "By the way, have you had any luck contacting your husband yet?"

"No." She snapped it out, suddenly edgy. Then, covering. "He's a little late getting in is all. Probably means he caught a lot of fish." The sides of her mouth rose, although it was a sad sort of a smile and she sighed. "We'll be eating albacore 'til Christmas. I'm sure he'll call when he gets in."

Cuneo took another step toward her, looked around the warm room, again laid a brief touch on her forearm. "If I had this to come home to, I know I would," he said.

"Yes, well . . ." She crossed to the refrigerator, grabbed the dish towel, turned to face him, now twisting the towel some more. "Well," she said again, "that pasta isn't going to make itself. If there's nothing else . . ."

"I think that about covers it. I'll check in with Glitsky and get ourselves coordinated. I'm sorry about double-teaming you. That's never our intention. People get nervous around too many cops." He smiled right at her. "You're not nervous, are you?"

"No. Well, maybe a little bit."

"Don't be. Not with me, anyway. I'm harmless, really, and much sweeter than I look." Cuneo flashed a grin, then got his wallet and pulled out his business card, grabbed his pen from his shirt pocket. "Here," he said, writing on the board where she was making her pasta, "this is my home number. Work is printed on the front. If you think of anything you think might be relevant, anytime, day or night, or even if you just want to talk, if your husband goes fishing again . . ." He let it hang, half a joke, but serious enough if she wanted to take him up on it.

She was nervous, though, he was thinking as he drove up to Becker's fire station. Nervous the whole time. Something definitely was going wrong with her husband.

But no thoughts, not even those about his possible future conquest of Catherine Hanover, could stand up to the immediacy of his problem with Glitsky. Now not only had the man usurped his case, he'd stood it on its ear. This morning when he'd gone off duty, Cuneo was all but convinced that this seemed to be a more or less straightforward murder/suicide, with Hanover and D'Amiens the only two principals involved. Unfortunately, that's what he'd told some reporters. Now here it was barely twelve hours later, and Glitsky had gotten in behind him to his witnesses. To know the details about the locations of the head wounds, he must have also gone to the medical examiner. So he was working this case soup to nuts and already had a big jump, in spite of the fact that Cuneo was out of the gate first.

Cuneo figured that his only chance to save his job was to catch up. But the good news was that this case now looked like a righteous 187, a first-degree double murder. This was what Cuneo did and did well. And it had the added bonus that Paul Hanover was an important and well-known citizen, and Missy D'Amiens, as his fiancee, was going to have an interesting story as well.

It wasn't generally appreciated how few murders had bona fide motives. In his experience, most times people got killed for inane reasons. Some husband wouldn't let his wife change the channel. Some guy's dog shit on another guy's step. They wouldn't turn down the goddamned music. Stupid. But with someone like Hanover, or maybe even Missy, there would probably be a righteous motive-money, betrayal, extortion, jealousy. Whoever killed these people would have done it for a specific reason. Find the reason and the job was essentially done. Of course, proving the motive was a whole different kettle of fish than simply identifying the person who had it. You needed physical evidence. But at least, with a solid motive, you'd know where to look.

He could get this case back from Glitsky yet. He'd make another appointment with Catherine, with the rest of the family. Check out Paul Hanover's relations with past clients and partners, ex-wives if any, people to or from whom he donated or accepted money. He, Dan Cuneo, would find who benefited from these deaths and bring that person in. He'd make the arrest and solve this case before Glitsky knew what had hit him.

Arnie Becker was still going. His younger partner, J. P. Dodd, in a filthy, charcoal-stained T-shirt and black pants, was crashed on the cot in their little side room at the Arson Unit headquarters on Evans Street, but Becker-showered and looking freshly dressed-sat at a card table sorting through what looked to be a few hundred scraps of paper, placing them into discrete piles in front of him as though he were dealing poker. Cuneo knocked on the open door. "How you doin'?"

Becker stopped, looked up, smiled politely. "It might not have been D'Amiens," he said. He scanned the piles in front of him and put his hand on one. A thin one- two pieces of paper.

"Who? The woman in the fire?"

Becker nodded, handed the paper across. "Those two people-they're married-saw her walking from the house just before the alarm got called in."

"Saw Missy? They're sure?"

"A couple of them reasonably enough. Others not so sure."

"But if it was Missy, then who ...?"

"Was in the house? I don't know." His face suddenly looked much younger, invigorated by the question. "You've got to love a good mystery, though, now and again, don't you? Who's missing besides her? And if it's not her-D'Amiens-dead in the house, then where might she be? Huh?"

"Really." Cuneo looked at the names and addresses. "You got copies of these?"

"Already made 'em. Those are yours."

A pause. "You talk to Glitsky?"

"This morning, a little after you left."

"So he knows about this?"

Becker didn't even look up. Obviously-and why would he not?-he assumed the two cops were working together, and Cuneo saw no reason to raise a flag. The arson inspector continued sorting methodically. "I figured you'd be around sooner than he was and you could tell him. These people aren't going anywhere. They live right there on Steiner." Finally, he sat back. "I'd like to know who it was, though. In the house."

"If it wasn't Missy," Cuneo said, "then whoever she was looks pretty good for the murders." He nodded. "If it was her that people saw leaving."

Maxine Willis lived in one of the surviving Painted Ladies, three houses down from Paul Hanover's. In her early fifties, she was a very large, handsome, well-dressed black woman with a deep and booming voice. Her living room walls were stylishly adorned with tribal African art-dark-wood masks, spears, several framed works depicting working people or animals completely rendered in butterfly wings. The sofa was zebra skin, the chairs brown leather. Out the jutting front window, enough natural light remained that they could still see the park, but it was fading fast.

"No. See? I knew it was her. And it was a little earlier than this," she said. She turned and they both glanced at the clock on the mantel-8:15. "I saw her clearly."

"Missy D'Amiens?"

She nodded. "Although I hadn't ever met her to talk to. I didn't know her name until I read it in the paper this morning. But it was Mr. Hanover's girlfriend all right. I'd seen her here on the block a hundred times."

"Would you mind telling me exactly where you were and what you saw?" Cuneo's foot tapped a time or two, but he caught it and willed it to stop, though immediately he began to tap his notebook.

"Well, Joseph and I were having a party with some friends, Cyril and Jennifer. Just some supper and then we were going to go up to Slim's, where a friend of ours was playing, but then of course the fire put an end to all that."

"And Joseph is ...?"

"My husband. I expect him now any minute. He saw her, too."

"From where?"

"Right here."

"In this room?"

"Uh huh. The light is so good come evening. We like to have our cocktails out here, with the park out there across the way." She closed her eyes for a minute, then moved to the windows that looked out over the street. "I was about right here."

Cuneo came over and stood next to her. The park was deserted except for a man walking a dog on the crest of the hill. Nearer, the street in front of them yawned empty, although cars lined both sides of it. No pedestrians on the sidewalks, either. The area was still a mess due to the fire.

"Okay, and where did Ms. D'Amiens pass?"

Maxine Willis lifted the lace curtain to one side and pointed. "Just out there. She was parked by that near light post just up the street."

"So she was going to her car?"