It was excellent coffee.

Jackman took a sip, nodded with satisfaction, placed the cup back on its saucer. He stole a glance at her, waited while she tasted the brew, had put her own cup down. Apparently reaching some decision, he turned slightly toward her. 'I want to ask your opinion about something if you don't mind.' He took another moment, choosing his words with care. 'About Elaine.'

Treya came forward on the couch, put her elbows on her knees, levelled her eyes at him. 'You have concerns about the case.'

'I don't know if I'd go so far as to call them concerns. If it wasn't a politically-charged death penalty, I don't know that I'd have given it another thought. But since it is…' A shrug. 'I don't know. I ask myself what I would have thought if the police hadn't so conveniently found Mr Burgess leaning over the body, if the DA hadn't already crawled so far out on her public limb. What would you have thought, Treya? You knew her better than anybody else here.'

'If what, specifically?'

'If she'd been found shot with no suspects close at hand.'

She let out a long breath, remembered her coffee, and picked up the cup to get herself a little more time, held it in front of her mouth. 'But that wasn't what happened.'

'How do we know what happened?'

She had not asked herself why the hypothetical question had been so difficult for her. Maybe it was just easier having a ready answer to a painful question – she didn't have to keep coming back to it. Now, however, it looked as though it wasn't going to go away. 'When he talked to me, Lieutenant Glitsky wanted to know the same thing – if I knew anybody who might have wanted to kill her. I told him that no one who knew her could have…'

'Is that what you really think?' Jackman leaned toward her, onto something. 'This Lieutenant Glitsky,' he pressed, 'he's not a cop playing lawyer games, is he?'

'No.'

'Yet he had a confession and still wondered about if he had the man who'd actually killed her? That sounds like doubt to me.'

Treya shrugged. 'He said he'd need evidence even if it proved to be Cole Burgess. He told me he'd plead not guilty and they'd have to convict him at trial anyway. They could expect years of appeals. So if they could put Elaine with him at a clinic or a school or something, maybe they'd have a motive, and that would help.'

'But he was really asking about other people?' Jackman suddenly got up, paced a few steps with his hands in his pockets, turned back to her. 'What I'm getting at is what that woman said at lunch in the conference room, that everybody knew Elaine had enemies. And nobody really seemed to dispute it. I knew of a few problems, so I'm guessing you must have as well.'

Treya sat back into the deep cushions. 'I suppose I must be a little like Jonas. It was hard enough getting it settled in my mind, just putting the bare fact of it someplace…' She shook her head as if to clear it. 'I don't know why you brought this up exactly, sir. What do you think I should do?'

Jackman came back to the couch, sat again at the far end of it. 'I'm not completely sure myself. It's just that no one knew Elaine better than you did, so you of all people might want to keep an open mind about who killed her. Or why.'

Suddenly Treya cocked her head. 'So you're really not certain it was Cole Burgess?'

'I'm not saying it wasn't. Just…'

She was facing him on the couch now, her eyes burning into his. 'Just that maybe it wasn't.'

He shrugged. He didn't know.

And now, suddenly, neither did she.

As a result of his meeting in Chief Rigby' s office, for the first time in nearly thirty years, Abe Glitsky wasn't working as a cop. The powers had decided to place him on administrative leave for an undisclosed period of time. So he was relieved of his command of the homicide detail. They had not asked for his badge or his gun, but he had no trouble seeing that moment in his future. They gave him an escorted half-hour to clear the personal items out of his desk and file cabinet. It only took him fourteen minutes. He'd packed all his stuff into a battered black briefcase. None of his inspectors were around to say goodbye. He had the feeling that this was not a completely random event. Someone had passed the word to his troops that it would be better if they were gone while their ex-lieutenant cleared out.

Rigby said he would be getting in touch in the next week or so, after the preliminary investigation. Until then, Abe might want to prepare some defense; and if not that, lie low.

It was nearly six o'clock. Glitsky had it on the highest authority that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the darkest hour was not just before dawn.

It was right now.

Perversely, the halogen lights over the parking lot behind the Hall of Justice had not switched themselves on. Further proof, although Glitsky didn't need it, that even the inanimate world had entered into the conspiracy against him.

Rain pelted the asphalt, the heaviest downpour he'd seen in the past couple of years.

He'd set the briefcase down next to him. Hands in his jacket pockets, he stood under the awning that covered the otherwise open and usually wind-swept corridor that led out the back door of the Hall, past the coroner's office and the entrance to the jail. His leather flight jacket was buttoned to his neck, the fur-lined collar turned up nearly to his ears. A gust of wind threw a spray of mist into his face and he backed up a step.

The effort to take his hands from his pockets and wipe his eyes seemed impossibly great.

Three or four people passed him going to their own rides – moans at the weather, shop talk, a snatch of laughter. At what? he wondered.

Unable to bring himself to move forward, he eventually turned around, picked up the briefcase, and retraced his steps halfway back to the door of the Hall. There he turned left, ran a few steps on wet concrete, and pulled at the glass door that proclaimed the offices of John Strout, Coroner for the City and County of San Francisco.

It was after hours, though, and the door was locked. The night bell was marked out of order. Glitsky almost laughed, might have even thought he was laughing, except that the sound in no way resembled laughter. The rain fell on his uncovered head, trickled down the back of his neck. He knocked hard, the doors shaking beneath his fist. Then, saving his knuckles, he turned his hand to the side and pounded hard. He was certain Strout was inside. This was the middle of the day for him. He pounded again.

Some helpful soul passing in the corridor yelled over that he thought they were closed.

'Thanks,' Glitsky replied. He waited a reasonable period of time, then pounded again at the door.

A uniformed patrolman suddenly appeared behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. 'Let's go, pal,' he said. Glitsky noticed the rain dripping from the bill of his cap. He had one hand on his nightstick and looked like it wouldn't take much in the way of temptation to induce him to use it. 'No loitering here. Building's closed up for the night. Let's move it along.'

Scowling, which didn't make him prettier, the lieutenant turned, brushed the hand away. 'Easy, cowboy,' he said. 'I'm with homicide, upstairs. Glitsky.'

The cop did a double-take and must have recognized him. He all but fell backwards, sheepish. 'Oh, excuse me. Sorry, sir. I thought you were a bum.'

Glitsky nodded. 'Join the club.'