The sheriff turned to his passenger, no doubt waiting for the obvious question. But Oren was the judge's apprentice, and he knew better than to show any interest.

Another mile down another road, the sheriff wearied of the apathy. "It took me years to get the whole story. I went to a few police conventions down in Los Angeles. Had to get stinking drunk with cops before they'd talk to me. And I bought a lot of beer for Swahn's ex-partner, Jay Murray. The guy left the force-kicked out-so it took me a while to find him. Murray told me he called in sick the night his partner got ambushed on patrol. After another six-pack, he told me he wasn't sick at all. Interesting, huh?"

Oren could see where this story was going, but he said nothing to move it along. He only had to wait for the sheriff to fill the holes in his one-way conversation.

"This happened back in the eighties. The bad old days of the LAPD. You know-anything goes, cowboy cops. Lots of shoot-outs. They didn't wanna swap body fluids with a gay AIDS carrier. That was the rumor on William Swahn." Sheriff Babitt squinted into the light of the afternoon sun slanting through the trees.

"So Swahn's riding solo that night, and the dispatcher sends him out on a domestic dispute. Well, it's a bad area. He calls in for backup-but nobody shows. The kid goes in alone." The sheriff shrugged. "A rookie mistake. The next time Swahn called for help that night, he was hurt bad. Officer down-that should've brought out every patrol car on the planet. Not one cop came to help him." He gave his passenger a sidelong glance, but got no payoff from the younger man, who showed more interest in the road rolling by his window. "Son, I know what you're thinking."

Oren doubted that. He was wondering if any part of this story was backed up with proof, anything in the way of physical evidence or facts.

"Back in the eighties," said the sheriff, "AIDS was a death sentence. And all these years later, Swahn seems healthy enough-except for a bad limp. According to the police report, he walked in on a drug deal in progress, and took a bullet in the leg. Hardly made a blip on the evening news. The department press release left out what was done to his face. And here's the kicker-I heard that drug dealer hacked off Swahn's balls."

Not likely.

Oren had interfaced with many police departments on joint investigations where the Army had an interest. In or out of the military, drug dealers had never been prone to starting cop wars in any era. Nothing about this story rang true. Too many rumors passed for fact, and way too many police officers were involved to keep any gory details out of the newspapers. "This isn't right."

"That's what I say," said the sheriff. "And it's the cover-up that proves the crime."

Oren shook his head, though the other man probably took this gesture for shock and awe instead of disbelief.

"Here's another thing you might find interesting," said Sheriff Babitt. "William Swahn sued the LAPD, and it was settled out of court for a pile of money. I know he paid cash for his house. And I got a niece in State Revenue-she tells me Swahn gets a real nice income from his investments. But you won't find the settlement in the public record. It was handled real quiet with nondisclosure agreements. That proves the cops were in on it."

No, it did not.

However, Oren had no plans to point out flaws in logic and reason. The man beside him had won his first election with the bare minimum of requirements for the job. Apparently, the sheriff's skill set had not improved any.

"I've got no idea who outed Swahn." Cable Babitt made another turn of the wheel. "Jay Murray said it wasn't him, and I believed that much. Never occurred to him that his partner was gay. First time Murray heard mat rumor was during his interview with Internal Affairs."

Finally-a fact that could be documented. " Murray was interrogated right after the ambush?"

Oh, yeah. He said the sun was just coming up through the window of the interrogation room when the detectives lit into him. That's when they told him his partner was a gay man with the plague. Well, Swahn never mentioned a girlfriend in the year they'd been riding together, but Jay Murray thought the kid was just inept with the ladies."

"What about the dispatcher who sent him out on that bogus call?"

"Oh, she disappeared. The woman never made it home from work that night. Now I figure that's just cops being tidy. But Swahn still won his settlement. I suppose it helped that Ad Winston was his lawyer. And those two stayed tight. I know it was Ad who put him onto this house."

They had come full circle. The jeep rolled to a stop beside William Swahn's mailbox on Paulson Lane. The sheriff leaned across Oren to open the passenger door. "Go back in there, son. Get what you can. Kiss him on the mouth if that's what it takes. Just bring me something useful."

Oren kept his seat, disinclined to follow any orders from this man. "You think Swahn's a likely suspect in my brother's murder. Why?"

"You know how this works. I can't-"

"You can't even tell your own people, can you? That's why there are no copies of the files. You've got what-five, six detectives countywide? One of them should be interrogating William Swahn. But you want me to break your suspect."

The sheriff had bungled something badly, or he had stepped outside the law; one of these two things must be true. Cable Babitt needed an outsider who would not mind working in the dark, someone with something to lose-a good soldier who would ask no questions.

But Oren was not in the Army anymore.

And now he planned to finish this man off, to knock him down with a civil tone. "Oh, and that old alibi of mine-the one you're holding over my head? Screw that."

A few seconds passed before the older man appeared to understand that he was not in charge here-he never had been-and there was cause for worry.

"I need leverage." Oren climbed out of the jeep and issued his first order to the sheriff. "Find out when Swahn's ex-partner left the force. And I need to know if Jay Murray got any part of his pension. Don't call the LAPD.

I don't want rumors. Use your niece in State Revenue. She can get that off Murray 's tax records." Walking away without turning back, he barked his final order. "Call me here as soon as you've got facts!"

Oren pressed William Swahn's doorbell, but there was no sound. Evidently the loud ringer had been disconnected for the sake of peace. He knocked and then banged on the door with his fist.

The small square panel opened behind the grille. This time, the householder was the first to speak. "You've got ten seconds of my time."

"Josh Hobbs was my brother."

"I already knew that. You look like him." The panel closed. The ten seconds were gone.

Oren shouted, "My brother's bones were found today!"

He heard the click of a lock being undone, a bolt drawn. The front door opened wide, and Oren was ushered inside with the wave of a silver-handled cane.

This sunlit house was far from the cave-like hermitage he had once imagined for the old woman who had died here when he was a boy. At the far end of the vast foyer, a marble staircase tapered up to the second-floor landing, where a large window framed blue sky and treetops. On the parlor floor, the rooms had pairs of ornate wooden doors built to the scale of giants.

Oren saw only the back of William Swahn's denim shirt and jeans as his host led the way in stocking feet. The man was tall with a slender build, the iron gray hair of middle age-and that cane was no prop. He leaned heavily on it and walked with a gait slightly out of control, as if his house pitched and tossed upon a roiling sea. This stirred an old memory in Oren, but he could not connect that signature limp to a face. Perhaps this man was someone he had, once or twice, seen around town and then only from a distance.