"You mean he had a hood? A sweatshirt with a hood?"

"Sí. That was it."

"And even with the hood, you saw his face? And it was the same face?"

After the shortest pause, Salarco nodded. "Sí. Of course. It was the same boy, I say."

Hardy believed him. In fact, it had to be Andrew returning from his walk, or from wherever he had gone. Perhaps having run away and then realizing he'd left the gun, which could be traced back to him. Looking up, Hardy caught a glimpse of Salarco's wife hovering in the doorway back to the kitchen. He might have to talk to her one day as well, but for tonight, he took a last pull from his beer, then stood up. "I want to thank you for your time. You've been very helpful."

"I am sorry about the boy, señor. Truly I am."

"Thank you," Hardy said. "I am, too."

16

It was well past nine o'clock by the time Glitsky sat down to dinner at the small table in his kitchen.

Treya had gotten good at meals that took fifteen minutes to prepare, and she waited until she heard his tread on the steps up to their duplex before she threw the halibut on to broil in the oven. When she turned it the one time, she would smear it with jalapeño jelly, which would melt, forming a fantastic glaze. The asparagus sat in a shallow covered pan with a quarter inch of boiling water. She'd finish that with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sea salt. A small, still warm, dense loaf of homemade bread-machine bread- roasted-garlic with Asiago cheese- would round out the meal, after which they'd split a plate of frozen grapes for dessert.

Glitsky had fed Rachel in her high chair and for the past few minutes had been doing magic tricks, making a quarter disappear. Now Treya put the adult plates down. "Arranged yet," he said. She'd garnished with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary. A crystal vase sat between the place mats on the small wooden table, and in it bloomed one perfect daffodil.

Glitsky put a finger on his daughter's nose, turned to his food and picked up his fork. "Do I thank you enough for doing all this?"

Treya kissed the top of his head. "Every day." She touched her baby's cheek. "You gave me her, didn't you?" She came around the table and took her seat. "Now shush and eat your fish. It's brain food."

"I'd better, then. I'm going to need it." He chewed, swallowed. "This Boscacci thing."

"At least it's not LeShawn Brodie. I checked, and you'd dropped right off the news tonight, just like it never happened."

"Fresh kill," Glitsky said. "Anyhow, you'll be glad to hear Amy Wu's almost certainly out of it."

"She was never really in, though, was she?"

"No, not really, although she could have timed her last meeting with Allan a little better. The real story, though, is that because of her, I got to give Diz a little grief."

Treya smiled. "Always a plus."

"And even more so because I swung by his office to give him his earful of righteous cop, and while I was there, I found a way to repay him for his little caper with my peanut drawer."

"I thought you weren't sure who that was."

"I wasn't, then I realized it had to be Diz. No one else is that immature."

"I can think of one other person," she said.

The corners of Glitsky's mouth rose a fraction of an inch. "Thank you," he said. "Plus, anybody at the Hall, it's too risky if I catch them. They're flayed, then fired. Diz, I get him red-handed and he says, 'Ha ha, you got me, so what?' It was him."

"Okay. So what'd you do to him?"

"First, you have to promise not to tell under penalty of death."

"That goes without saying."

"Diz or Frannie. You'll be tempted."

"I'll resist, I promise. What?"

A spark of mischief flashed in his eyes. "I stole his darts. You want to hear the best part?"

"That wasn't it? What could be better?"

"Next time I'm there, I'm going to put them back. Then steal them again. My hope is that eventually he'll go insane."

"And that would be so that you two could play together as equals?" Treya put her fork down and looked across the table, her own eyes alight. She turned to Rachel. "Do you know how lucky you are that you can't understand any of this?" she asked.

An hour later, the baby was in bed and the two of them sat in their living room with their after dinner tea. "But that poor man…" Treya was talking about Boscacci. "Do you have anything at all?"

"Well, if you count that we're fairly certain it wasn't Amy, we've got that."

"Well, yes. But we knew that this morning before you even talked to her."

"True. But now we know with more certainty," he said. "And not because she works with Diz. Because she couldn't have done it."

"So who could have?"

Glitsky pulled at the scar at his lower lip. "My best guess now is someone he fired in the last three years. Maybe one of them took it personally."

"So how many people did he let go? Allan?"

"Seventeen."

Treya whistled softly. "That's a lot."

Glitsky sat back into the couch. He reached down near his belt and probed, perhaps unconsciously, at his side. "Well, fortunately," he went on, "I've got a lot of resources for a change. I've got two inspectors from General Work for the canvassing and alibi checking, then Belou and Russell from homicide, and they'll basically be full time to find and interview the folks Allan fired. Then Marcel asked to be part of it, too, back on the street if he had to. And, of course, my own magnificent self."

"What are you going to be doing?"

Glitsky drew a sharp breath. "Well, mostly, given the lack of any forensic evidence, I'm going to be developing theories. But I'm not complaining. At least it's a homicide. Something I know how to do."

Treya put her cup down, reached over, put her hand on Glitsky's shoulder. "Is your side hurting you again? Maybe you should see a doctor."

"No."

"No to what?"

"Both."

"You won't see a doctor?"

Glitsky grunted. "I've seen enough doctors. You start in with doctors, it never ends. They looked when this started and couldn't find anything. I'm not about to let them cut on me again just to look."

"But it's still hurting you, whatever it is."

"I know what it is." He softened his tone. "I'm uptight. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and till it does or I decide it's not going to, I've got to tough it out."

"So what's going to make you decide that? Do you have any idea?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe doing something I'm good at."

"What does that mean? You're doing a great job as deputy chief. Everybody says so."

"Nobody was saying so yesterday with LeShawn."

Treya waved that off. "Those were just the media vultures, Abe. You know that. You can't take them seriously. I'm talking about people like Clarence, and Frank Batiste. The mayor. Kathy West. I hear nothing but good things and where I work, that's saying something."

A shrug. "I make my numbers. I show up on time. My brass shines. But inside I'm not like these people."

"What people?"

"Frank, Clarence, the mayor- all the people who have these meetings." He pushed at his side again. "They're politicians. Plus I've got this little secret and can't help thinking that someday somebody's going to find me out."

Treya spoke with some care. "Maybe you want to talk to somebody?"

"What do you mean, a shrink?" He barked out a black laugh. "So then word goes out that the man is cracking up? And everybody starts to check out my office furniture? Half the folks would think I really am crazy and the other half would figure it's a scam to get disability. I'd kiss my credibility good-bye forever."

"It wouldn't have to be a psychiatrist. Maybe a psychologist. Or a career counselor."

"And what's this person going to do, talk me out of the pain?" He took her hand. "Besides, I talk to you."