Hardy had been facing her through all this. Now, her eyes glistening with anger, she stared at the judge, mute. Was she daring Hill to make her respond? If so, it wasn't her best idea. But Torrey, sensing the same thing and hoping to avert further crisis, put a hand on her arm and stood up. 'Of course the People reserve the right to object, your honor.'

An evil apparition, the Cadaver glared down at the prosecutors, held his expression, then at last nodded crisply. 'Of course,' he said. Left unsaid, but clearly stated nonetheless, were the words, 'Make my day.' The judge gave it a last beat, then handed the witness back to Hardy.

He turned back to Logan. If Sharron Pratt thought the last set of questions was irrelevant, she would go ballistic over what he intended to do next. But the judge had just given him free rein and if he was ever going to get it in, now was the time. 'Mr Logan, last year were you yourself involved in a traffic incident at the corner of Fifth and Market?'

The witness shifted in his seat, nervously cleared his throat. 'Yeah. Somebody cut the brakes in my car. I nearly got killed.'

'You also nearly hit two pedestrians running a red light, did you not?'

'I couldn't stop. What would you expect?'

Hardy didn't reply to that. Instead, he asked, 'When this incident occurred, were you under the influence of drugs or alcohol?'

Logan sat up self-righteously. 'Absolutely not. And nobody charged me with anything.'

But Hardy had an answer for that. 'Isn't it true that after you were arrested and booked by the police, all charges related to this accident were dismissed by the District Attorney?'

'Well, yes, that's-'

'And you're aware that Mr Torrey personally made that decision?'

'There weren't any-'

Hardy raised his voice. 'Yes or no, Mr Logan?' Notching it up again. 'Yes or no?'

'OK, but-'

Hardy jumped in again. 'That's a "yes", for the record, is that right?'

Logan hated it, but was afraid of what Hardy knew or might be able to prove. 'Yes.' He spat it out like a bitter seed.

'Thank you,' Hardy said. Having now tied Visser to Logan to Torrey on the record, Hardy was at last ready to bring it all back home. He glanced at Hill and thought he imagined an almost conspiratorial nod from the judge -surely, he thought, he must be getting tired. 'Mr Logan, did you know the victim in the case, Elaine Wager?'

'Yes I did. Professionally, not personally.'

'In other words, you knew her as another lawyer here in town?'

'Excuse me. Mr Hardy?' The judge, interrupting. 'I'm gratified to see the beginning of a line of questioning that relates to one of the principals in this case, and this might be a good time, if the people don't object,' he added pointedly, 'to call it a day and resume tomorrow. It's been a long session and I'm sure we could all use the time to reflect on the day's events. Are there any objections?' There were not. 'All right, then. Court's adjourned.'

37

Glitsky didn't wait around for Logan's testimony. As soon as Gene Visser was excused, after he heard him say on the stand that Ridley Banks had been to his office on Pier 38 on the night of his disappearance, he hightailed it out into the hallway and up to the homicide detail.

Half of his troops were in the room and looked up. They greeted him warmly as he entered. It came to him with a sense of satisfaction that his people here weren't really the most respectful of authority group in the known universe. They were a lot like him, in fact, trying to do their very dangerous jobs the right way in spite of the barriers erected by the media, the politicians, the brass. And suddenly he didn't care any longer if he was supposed to be there or not – let them try to fire him, just so long as right now nobody tried to get in his way. There was police work to be done, Elaine's murderer at last to be found. It was a sacred and very private debt, and he was going to pay it off.

'What are we looking for?' Paul Thieu asked him as he filled out the search warrants on both Visser's and Logan's offices. Hardy, who had delivered Elaine's letter to Judge Thomasino that morning, along with Jeff Elliot's Examiner article and an earful of what he surmised, had told him that he thought the judge might sign off on the warrants. They were trying to discover what had happened to Ridley Banks. If a homicide inspector now needed to take a good look at any of these offices and connect the dots to three murders, he was sure Thomasino would want to cooperate. And since Logan was now a suspect, not an innocent custodian of records, no special master was required.

'Basically,' Glitsky said, 'everything. Guns, drugs, canceled checks, evidence of struggle. Take the damn places apart. Visser may have shot Ridley where he sat and if he did there's splatter.'

Thieu looked up in a state of high excitement. From another desk in the detail, Marcel Lanier came over to join them. Glitsky nodded at him. Here was Jorge Batavia, too. Sarah Evans, listening in. Until now the unit hadn't been particularly aware of all the ramifications of Glitsky's clandestine investigation. Now it was beginning to dawn all around that this was a cop killing. Their colleague Ridley was part of this. 'We're talking the full drill here then?'

'Everybody you can round up,' Glitsky said, bringing them all in. 'And as soon as you can. The two of them will be moving as soon as court's out. Bet on it.'

'Are you coming along, Abe?' Jorge asked.

If Vincent Hardy had been there, his father definitely would have had to let him shave his head. 'I'm not here at all,' Glitsky said. 'This isn't happening.'

What was happening was that Glitsky was going to go on an errand of his own, armed with the picture of Elaine that he'd kept in his desk.

The musketeers had already accumulated notes on sixty-seven eating or resting establishments around Maiden Lane, and Glitsky either had to assume that his theory was mistaken or that they had been asking the wrong questions.

He chose the latter.

Elaine had left Treya at Rand and Jackman at five thirty to meet someone she knew for an appointment. She was walking back to her place of business when she got shot. And she wasn't walking alone. Maiden Lane was a walking street, and she was far enough down it for Glitsky, even without the condition of the body, to preclude the possibility that someone had dumped her out of a car. He stood by the side of his desk and studied the city map that he had put up as wallpaper when he first made lieutenant. The red-tipped pin was still stuck in the wall at the site of Elaine's death.

He felt like an idiot, as though he'd wasted a lot of unnecessary time sending the kids out with his clever ideas about the area surrounding where she'd been shot. Because now, reading the map, it was obvious that it hadn't been a circle at all. She hadn't been out taking a leisurely stroll. It was after midnight, and she had been coming back by the most direct route from a specific location that probably, he now realized, was more or less in a straight line defined by two coordinates: Rand and Jackman's offices on Montgomery and Bush, and the corner of Maiden Lane and Grant Avenue.

Further, if he traced what he thought were the logical streets – the ones he would have taken – he thought he could eliminate any route north of his imaginary line, and east of Grant. If Elaine had begun walking on any of the streets in those areas, it would have meant backtracking to get to Maiden and Grant, and she knew the city well. She wouldn't have done that.

It was by now well past six on a Thursday night. The lights were on dim out his door in the detail. Every inspector on duty had gone out with Thieu for the two searches. Glitsky had studied his coordinates. He knew, generally, where he was going. Now he turned out his own lights, closed his door, and sat. He'd said it before to Treya, about how weird it sounded. But he was going to give Elaine a few more minutes, see if his daughter wanted to talk to him, to tell him something.