Something about the man's tone-a mixture of arrogance and impatience-struck Bracco. He knew that people reacted to cops in all kinds of different ways. Every once in a while, though, he believed that the reaction revealed something unusual, perhaps a consciousness of guilt. Kensing was reaching for the door handle, but Bracco suddenly and instinctively wanted to keep him for a few more words.

"You say Mr. Markham was your boss? I didn't realize he was a doctor."

Kensing straightened up at the car door and sighed again. "He wasn't. He ran the company I work for. Parnassus Health."

"So you knew him well, did you?"

A pause. "Not really." He shifted his gaze back over Bracco's shoulder again. "Now if we're done here…"

"What's in the house?" Bracco asked.

"What do you mean? Nothing."

"You keep looking back at it."

"Do I?" He shrugged. "I wasn't aware of it. I suppose I'm worried about them. It's been a real tragedy. They're devastated in there."

Bracco was picking up an off note that might have been fatigue but might be something else. He could turn his questions into an interrogation of sorts if he could manage to keep the right tone. "I thought you said you didn't know him well."

"I didn't."

"Yet you're worried about his family?"

"Do you have some problem with that? Last time I checked, it wasn't a crime to care about a victim's family." Kensing swiped a hand across his forehead, cast a quick look up and down the street. "Look, Officer, are we going somewhere with this that I'm missing?"

Bracco didn't answer. Instead, he asked a question of his own. "So, you didn't have any strong feelings about him?"

The doctor cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean? As a boss?"

"Any way."

This time, the doctor paused for a long moment. "What's your name, Officer, if you don't mind? I like to know who I'm speaking with."

"Bracco. Sergeant Inspector Darrel Bracco. Homicide."

As soon as Bracco said it, he knew it was a mistake. Kensing nearly jumped at the word. "Homicide?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you're investigating Tim's death? Why? Does somebody think he was murdered?"

"Not necessarily. A hit and run that results in death is a homicide. This is just routine."

"Routine. Checking the cars coming to his house?"

"Right. And you just called him Tim."

"Does that mean something? His name was Tim."

"You didn't know him very well, and yet you called him by his first name?"

Kensing was silent, shaking his head. Finally, he let out a long breath. "Look, Inspector, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. The man died in my unit today, while he was under my care. I've known him for fifteen years, and I came by here to pay further condolences to his wife and family. It's almost ten o'clock and I've been up since six this morning and I'm the walking dead right now. I don't see where calling the man by his first name has any meaning, and if you don't mind, I've got an early call again tomorrow. I'd be happy to talk to you at the hospital if you want to make an appointment."

Bracco realized that maybe he'd pushed his spontaneous interrogation too far. Everything Kensing said, tone or no tone, made perfect sense. There was no real point in harassing this probably decent doctor who had, in fact, voluntarily opened the door to another interview tomorrow. The inspector knew he'd overreached.

"You're right. But I may call you in the next few days."

"That'd be fine," Kensing said. "I'm not going anywhere."

They both stood in the street for another beat; then Bracco told him good night and turned for the house. Glitsky had told him it started with the family, and maybe he'd find something inside, get some valuable first impressions. But he hadn't gone two steps when he heard Kensing's voice again. "You're not thinking about going up to the house, are you?"

He stopped and turned. "I thought I might."

The doctor hesitated, seemed to be considering whether to say anything. Finally, he spoke up. "Well, you'll do what you're going to do, Inspector, but you might want to consider giving them a break tonight and coming back tomorrow. They've had a bad day. They're wrung out. I guarantee none of them drove your hit-and-run car. What are you going to ask them that can't wait?"

Bracco had had a long day himself. He looked back at the house, still lit up. It struck him that his need to find something, anything, to do with Tim Markham's death, and thereby prove his worth to Glitsky, was pushing him too far too fast. He'd invented phantoms and made some interrogation mistakes here with Kensing, just now.

And he was about to do it again with the family when he had no plan and there was really nothing to ask. He should leave them to their exhaustion and grief. Tomorrow was another day.

Bracco nodded. "That's a good call, but you and I might be talking again soon."

"I'll look forward to it," Kensing said, and opened the door to his car.

8

Glitsky had lived in the same upper duplex for twenty years and now, between the blessing of rent control and the latest surge in San Francisco real estate, he knew he would be living there when he died. Even if the owner sold it, a new owner could never make him leave unless he wanted to move in himself, and that would take forever and cost a fortune. Glitsky's rent could never go up beyond a piddling percentage. And with converted condo one-bedroom fixer-uppers now going for half a million dollars anywhere in the city, he knew he could never afford to buy something else. As it was, he paid rent of less than a thousand dollars a month for the place, which was on a quiet dead end, a really beautiful tree-lined block north of Lake. His backyard opened onto a greenbelt and running path at the border of the Presidio, so he often woke up to birds chirping rather than sirens wailing. Deer and raccoon sightings were common. He didn't kid himself-he knew he was one of the very fortunate.

Still, it wasn't as though he lived in ducal splendor. Ducal splendor, he felt, was hard to come by in thirteen hundred square feet, especially when that area was subdivided into three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. Still, with Flo he'd raised his three boys here; the lack of room had never really been an issue then, and it wasn't now. For the past several years, a housekeeper named Rita Schultz had lived with him and Orel, and she had slept behind a screen in the living room. Rita was gone now, which made the living room seem gigantic. Treya's sixteen-year-old daughter, Raney, had taken over what had for a short while been the television room down the hallway behind the kitchen. They had plenty of room.

It was now 7:30 and both kids had gone off to school. Glitsky and Treya were both drinking tea, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, which wasn't big enough to spread out the sections, so they played a quiet game, covering a portion of each other's pages whenever they turned their next one. When Treya had done this for the fourth time, covering the lengthy article Glitsky was reading about the latest news on the ancient water flows on Mars and what they all might mean, he put down his mug, reached over and, quite gently, ripped the offending page down the middle. He then dropped it on the floor.

"You are such a fun person," she said. "I don't care what everybody says."

"Are there people who don't think I'm fun?"

"Some, I think."

Glitsky shook his head. "This is very hard to believe. Hardy told me the same thing just last year." He made a caricature of a smile, which his scar rendered grotesque. "But put another page over mine before I finish this article and I'll rip your heart out. Okay?"

"We need a bigger table."

He was trying to get back to reading, but stopped again and looked across at her. "Yes, we do. But we'd need a bigger kitchen to hold it, and then where would we be?"