Thieu was down by the dredge, wanting to see how it all worked. Glitsky had satisfied himself on that score years before on a body they'd pulled out of Lake Merced. Now he stood silently by the railing along the walkway above the bay, his hands in his pockets, the collar of his raincoat up around his ears. Hardy the boy scout had thought to bring an umbrella, but it had already blown itself inside out once and now wasn't working as its manufacturer had intended. He, too, was watching the dredge line, the water, silently waiting to see what they might pull up.

The quiet was in itself unnerving. But the increased noise by the dredge – they'd hooked up with something – didn't lighten up anyone's mood.

Glitsky threw a look at Hardy. It was the type of assignment where you mostly wished you would fail, and they both started moving forward, but slowly. Ridley Banks had a favorite black leather jacket, and that's what Abe saw first as it came clear of the murky green water. The scar tightened through his lips.

By the time they got to where Thieu stood, the body was hung up on the line at about the water level. They stood a moment, heads hung, sick in their hearts.

'How did you know?' Hardy asked.

Rain was dripping down Glitsky's face, although he paid it no mind. He motioned behind him. 'He left the car he used parked back over there. We knew he'd been to Visser's, but nobody knew where he'd gone from there when he left. Once I found where the car had been towed from, I realized he hadn't gone anywhere.' A look down over the railing. 'Except there.'

Hardy had a hard time taking his eyes off the body. 'I don't get it,' he said after a while. 'Visser didn't need to kill him.'

Thieu shrugged. 'So? He didn't need to kill Cullen Alsop either. Maybe he found out he liked it. Maybe Ridley told him more than he had to and he felt threatened.'

'Easy, Paul,' Glitsky said. The sight of his colleague's body had put the young sergeant on edge. 'I've got a theory,' Glitsky added. 'Anybody want to hear it?' He didn't wait. 'These three guys – Torrey, Logan, Visser -they're splitting up some good money working together, more or less as equals. Everybody's got their own part in the various scams. Torrey's using his office. Logan's scouting up the business. Visser's the muscle.'

'All right so far,' Thieu said.

Glitsky nodded. 'When Elaine came to Torrey the first time, he thought he'd convinced her to forget about blowing the whistle on him, on them all. Maybe even bragged about it to the other two. I'd bet he did.' Glitsky stopped, his eyes following the activity at the water. The crew down below were working to untangle the body from the drag line. From this distance, he couldn't make out what damage had been done by the sea and its creatures, but the body was now recognizably, undoubtedly, Ridley's. He pulled his gaze back up, tried to gather his thoughts.

'Torrey bragged to the other guys,' Hardy said, helping him out. Although he, too, was captured by the drama unfolding on the dredge.

'Yeah,' Glitsky said, 'OK. So they all knew Elaine was on to their scene. But mostly she was a threat to Torrey, on all kinds of levels. If he got exposed, they were all screwed, but he had the farthest to fall. In any event, when she turned up killed, Visser's no dummy, he knew it was Torrey.'

'How did he know that?' Thieu asked.

Glitsky blew rainwater away from his mouth. 'At the very least, because he'd given him the gun. But then they already had this perfect suspect – I'd given him to them – and Torrey had a history of working the system to all of their advantages, so Visser decided he'd wait and see what happened. Maybe it would all work out. But the other thing that really changed everything was that Visser knowing about Elaine gave him heavy leverage on Torrey.'

Thieu didn't know the players as well as his lieutenant did, and wanted to get it straight. 'Wouldn't Logan have it too?'

Glitsky shook his head. 'I doubt if Logan knew.'

Hardy added to that. 'All he would have cared about was that Elaine was out of their lives. They could keep partying. That's who he is.'

'Anyway,' Glitsky continued, 'Visser's got this leverage and Torrey makes a mistake. He brokers the deal with Cullen Alsop.'

'Why's that a mistake?' Thieu again.

'Because from Visser's point of view, Torrey got an unreliable junkie involved who's got a better than good chance to screw up an already locked-up case. Maybe Visser even knew Cullen, knew he'd renege, break on cross, something. So anyway, now the new Visser is thinking he's smarter than Torrey, who before has always been the brains. He decides he knows the best way to save them all from Torrey's stupid mistake…'

Hardy picked it up. 'Is to make sure Cullen doesn't testify.'

'So he gives him a bag of China White.' Thieu nodded in appreciation. 'I can see that.'

'I bet we'll know for sure soon enough.' Visser and Torrey had both been arrested just outside the courtroom yesterday. Now with the appearance of Ridley's body and whatever forensic evidence it might still have on it, both would be available for questioning for at least the near future. 'These rats will fall over themselves trying to save their own sorry asses by giving the other one up, you watch.'

'So Ridley spooked him?' Hardy asked.

'Total blindside, is my opinion,' Abe said. 'Caught him completely off guard. Here's Visser, he just supplied Cullen with the pure smack, and it kills him. Everything had worked perfectly, and now suddenly Ridley's at his door out of the blue, working without a partner, and he puts Visser on the griddle. Visser's an ex-cop. He knows he's made. Ridley pretends things are cool, but he's not going to go away. There's nothing else to do, so Visser does him.'

'With the Glock, you think?' Thieu asked.

Glitsky looked down over the railing again. He wiped his whole hand over his eyes. 'With something.'

EPILOGUE

In the aftermath of the Cole Burgess hearing, it became apparent that the upheaval from the Elaine Wager case was going to play a critical role in rearranging the city's political landscape for some time to come. When Judge Timothy Hill ordered both Gabe Torrey and Gene Visser remanded into custody as they sat in Department 20, it signaled the beginning of a new era of judicial activism in San Francisco as well as the end of Sharron Pratt's career.

The District Attorney, humiliated in both the public sector and in her private life, did herself even more damage, proving that, as Malraux declared long ago, character is fate. She spent nearly two weeks formulating reasons that feebly tried to explain away her own unconscionable behavior on the night of Elaine's death. Even in San Francisco, these excuses did not play. In early March, abandoned even by her closest advisers and under assault from every imaginable quarter, Sharron Pratt resigned her office and within another week had moved out of the city, reportedly to Albuquerque, where she had family. On the day she resigned, the grand jury formally indicted Gabe Torrey for the murder of Elaine Wager.

The mayor appointed Clarence Jackman – notorious workaholic hard-ass – to fill the position of District Attorney until the election in November, which suddenly loomed wide open. Jackman was of course no one's idea of a liberal, but as usual the mayor had his finger on the pulse of the city, and the appointment was greeted with near-universal praise. For his own part, Jackman was persuaded to take the job at least partially because he had a falling out with his partner, Aaron Rand, over the latter's sexual involvement with Elaine Wager soon after his firm had hired her.

One of Jackman's first acts as DA was to initiate an investigation of his own office's prior handling of Gironde's subcontractors regarding their minority hiring practices. Although he found that most were not in strict compliance with the city's guidelines, none were so egregiously non-compliant as to trigger the claims of fraud that his predecessor had so vigorously pursued. He dismissed the pending cases, then signed and sent out a couple of dozen warning notices. Within two months, the long-delayed airport construction project was at last ready to go forward. Jackman had answered his critics in his usual, no-nonsense style: 'Gironde may not be a charitable organization, but it was the lowest bidder for the project and it won the job fair and square. Now let's let 'em go to work.'