Wes put his head back in her lap, rubbed a hand over where Sam had pulled. "If you're going to get snippy about it, put simply, here it is. The city contracted with Parnassus to provide all its employees with basic HMO health coverage on what they call a capitated basis."

"Which is?"

"I'm glad you asked. It means that Parnassus gets a set amount every month to provide all the physician and hospital services to city employees who are enrolled in the HMO, which they can do at no cost to them. It comes with the city gig."

"Okay. We've still got that bed."

"I'm getting there, please. So what happens in real life is that Parnassus gets a monthly check from the city. It becomes part of their general operating income. Then, like any other set payment, Parnassus starts using it to cover overhead and salaries and so on. So if Parnassus winds up having to provide an expensive service for somebody in the HMO-like chemotherapy or heart surgery-it feels like it's not getting paid for it."

"But everybody agreed up front-"

He wagged a finger. "Not the point. The point is there are other patients, whether they are city employees or not, who have chosen a more expensive provider option. For these folks, Parnassus gets real live money for the services it provides."

"But it gets real money every month from the city, anyway. Right? I'm still not seeing the difference."

"Okay, let's say a city employee enrolled in the HMO spends five days in intensive care. The city doesn't send an extra check. Parnassus gets its hundred and fifty a month and that's all. However, if a person enrolled in a preferred provider program, for example, spends the same five days in the ICU, Parnassus gets about five grand a day. So it can be argued than an HMO city employee in an ICU bed is costing Parnassus maybe as much as five grand per day."

"Per day?"

"Every day, my dear. You don't watch it pretty close, it'll add right on up. So now let's take our own Marjorie Loring, who happens to be a pretty good example of what we're talking about. She was a city employee insured through the Parnassus HMO. So if she happens to defy the odds and hangs on for six months, she's going to cost Portola what? At least a hundred grand, maybe more.

"Now if you were running Portola, would you rather have Marjorie Loring in that bed or someone else who's insured with a preferred provider program that paid a full dollar for every dollar billed, all other things being equal?"

Sam didn't have to think very long. "All other things being equal," she said, "it sounds to me like Dismas Hardy might be on to something."

26

It was getting on to midafternoon and Glitsky couldn't eat another bite of rice cake.

A little-used and semienclosed staircase ran along the Hall of Justice on the Seventh Street side, and he took it down to the ground. Out on the corner, he was waiting at the light to cross and go get some peanuts at Lou's, even if they gave him an instant heart attack that felled him at the bar. Suddenly he found himself facing his two new homicide inspectors, coming his way in the crosswalk. Fisk was dressed like a fashion model and even Bracco looked pretty sharp. "Where's the party?" he asked. "You feel like a handful of peanuts?"

Coming from their boss, this wasn't really a social request. The light changed and the three men walked.

The bar at Lou's didn't have any empty stools, so Glitsky stood while he ordered three small bags of cocktail peanuts and a pint of iced tea. Following his nonalcoholic lead, Bracco and Fisk bought cups of acidic coffee, after which they all repaired to a booth and got settled. The lieutenant sat on one side and the two inspectors on the other. Glitsky threw a bag of peanuts at each of them, tore at his own. "So what's got you two boys so duded up?"

Since the lunch with Nancy Ross and Kathy West had been Harlen's idea, Bracco thought he'd let him explain it.

He was surprised when the lieutenant seemed to approve. When the narrative ended, Glitsky was nodding. "So we now know what we've always suspected. You can't make too much money, and nobody thinks they got enough. Anything else?"

Bracco decided he needed to speak up. "Couple of things," he said. "One, it might be interesting to compare Ross's tax returns the last few years with what they've spent. Mrs. Ross might not have realized it, but she basically said they were living on more than they were making."

"So am I," Glitsky said. "Who isn't?" He chewed his ice for a moment. "So they've extended themselves on credit cards, so what? And what would that prove anyway? How's it relate to Markham?"

"If Ross was taking money from Parnassus in some way and Markham found out-"

"You mean embezzling? Something like that?"

"I don't know," Bracco admitted.

Glitsky didn't like it. "Anything obvious or proven and he would have fired him on the spot, don't you think?" He drank some more tea, frowning. "My problem with this whole line of thought," he said at last, "is that I've got to go on the assumption that whoever killed Markham in the hospital probably wasn't planning to kill him until he showed up there after the accident. That's why I like Kensing so much. He didn't just have a motive. He had several long-standing motives, where he might see the opportunity and just go, 'At last.'

"On the other hand-just hear me out-if Ross was somehow threatened by Markham to the degree that he actually planned to kill him, doesn't it make more sense to think that he would have done something proactive, like actually try to run him over, for example, rather than just wait for fate to put him in his path? What if it didn't happen? And ten out of ten times it wouldn't."

"If I may, sir?" Harlen said.

Glitsky's face relaxed a degree. "You may."

"They've worked together a long time, Ross and Markham, so there could have been the same buildup of motives that we know about with Kensing, couldn't there? The point we made this afternoon was that Ross needed his job. But something was making him want to leave Parnassus."

This wasn't too conclusive for Glitsky. "He read the writing on the wall. The place was going down. He didn't want to go with it."

"Okay." Fisk's frustration with Glitsky's objections was beginning to show. "But he couldn't get any other jobs. His wife told us he'd gone looking and couldn't get hired anywhere else. Why not? Finally, who benefits most immediately from Markham's death? Dr. Ross, who took over the top job and gets another two hundred grand a year salary, just for starters."

Glitsky upended his peanut bag, threw the last few into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully. "But we don't know that there were in fact any serious-and I mean deadly serious-problems between him and Markham. Do we?"

Downcast, the two inspectors looked at each other, then back across the table. "No, sir," Bracco said. "But it might be fun to keep looking."

"You can look all you want," Glitsky replied. "But as far as I know, the only person we've got in the room when Markham died was Kensing and the nurses who had no personal relationship with Mr. Markham at all. And that pretty severely limits the field, don't you agree? Has that changed?"

"Actually, it might have," Bracco said. "I went back up to the ICU station yesterday while Harlen was waiting for an interview downstairs." He went on to describe his successful entry into intensive care unmolested and apparently unnoticed, and when he finished, Glitsky was frowning.

"What time was this?"

"About the same time Markham died. Early afternoon."

"And what about the nurses' station?"

"One nurse was at it, sitting at the computer."

"How long were you in there?"

Bracco shrugged. "A minute, give or take. I walked around to each bed."