Hardy sat up. The jolt felt almost like electricity. 'Visser? Gene Visser?'

'Yeah.'

'What about him?'

Another glance, maybe to see if Hardy was teasing him. But Paul recognized genuine intensity when he saw it, and he thought maybe Hardy's look at the moment could penetrate steel. 'You don't know any of this?'

'I know Gene Visser,' Hardy said, 'but I don't know what he's got to do with Cullen Alsop.'

Paul Thieu put his foot on the brake. 'We've got to pull over a minute,' he said. 'Have a little talk.'

34

'Dressler's Syndrome,' Abe explained. 'It's like a heart attack, only better, in the sense that it's not a heart attack.'

'A lot better,' Treya agreed. 'Way, way better.'

It was now just after six thirty at night, and they were gathered around the kitchen table back at Glitsky's place. Raney and Orel were doing homework in front of the television set in the back room, and the laugh track filtered up to the kitchen.

When Hardy had finished with Thieu, his mind reeling with the possibilities, and finally got back to his car, he made it out to St Mary's in twenty minutes only to find that Glitsky had been examined by Dr Campion, given a few tests and then, after a couple of hours, released.

Hardy had called Frannie from the hospital and she told him that she'd heard from Abe and he was all right. He'd gone home. Even though it was date night, Hardy drove straight there and found Glitsky sitting up. Dressed. Finishing dinner. Hardy wanted to punch his lights out for all the worry he'd put him through. 'I called,' Glitsky said. 'I left messages everywhere.'

He was fine. His doctor told him that there was probably some inflammation in the membrane near the area of his heart attack, that was all. Dressler's Syndrome, which mimicked the symptoms of a heart attack, was not uncommon in patients who'd had a real one. Glitsky was taking some new medication for it now and the worrisome chest pain should be completely gone in a couple of days. Meanwhile, the connections in this case had started to present themselves and a sense of urgency hung in the room. Hardy handed over Thieu's lab reports to Glitsky, saying, 'You know those chemists who used to predict that an element should exist because it fitted the theory? And then they find it? That's what I'm feeling like around this.'

'With Visser?'

'No. With Dash Logan.'

Abe and Treya exchanged looks. 'I give up,' Abe said. Tightly wound, Hardy had been standing all this time. Now he pulled a chair around and straddled it backwards. 'In one way, this ties up the whole package,' he said. 'This puts Visser with Torrey with Logan. They're all together.'

Glitsky was half reading excerpts of the lab stuff, and now he abandoned them and sat back in his chair. 'All together in what?'

Hardy, eyes alight with his enthusiasm, ran down the list of his suspicions. Torrey, Logan, and Visser constituted a triumvirate that were working together to settle cases by coercion. Certainly, they had all figured overtly in Hardy's dealings with Rich McNeil. Hardy wouldn't be at all surprised to learn, and he intended to put one of the musketeers on it tomorrow, that the private investigator who'd dug up the alleged dirt on Gina Roake's client Abby Oberlin had been Visser as well. That case was Logan's too – he was acting on behalf of Abby's brother on the will contest. And then Torrey comes up with a settlement offer on that. 'Now finally we get Visser with Cullen Alsop.'

'OK, that's Visser, but I'm missing something,' Treya said. 'How is Logan with Cullen, then?'

A smile of triumph. 'He was at Jupiter, drinking with Visser, when Cullen picked up his payment.'

'The bag of heroin?' Glitsky said.

'Exactly. This all fits, Abe. They're together in this. They've got to be.'

Glitsky the cop clucked, unconvinced. 'That old "got to be". You'd be surprised how often it doesn't. Are you saying you think one of these clowns killed Cullen?'

'Visser supplied him with uncut smack. He used it. He died. I'd call that killing him.'

'But why would they do that?' Treya asked.

'Because Torrey had fed him a false story about Elaine's murder weapon. My own belief is that Cullen never even had possession of the gun, much less gave it to Cole. But Torrey needed that fact. Then Cullen got greedy, or stupid, or they suddenly realized that as a witness, the kid was going to suck. He'd crack under any kind of vigorous cross. Maybe he'd sell them out as easily as he sold out Cole. Or maybe Torrey set up Cullen as a witness without telling Visser. And Visser vetoed the plan by helping Cullen OD. So, totally unreliable junkie, completely expendable, adios.'

Glitsky remained skeptical, to say the least. 'You're saying the Chief Assistant District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco had him killed?'

'Somebody did.'

'Lord. Creativity thrives here in the new millennium.' Glitsky's arms were crossed, the scar tight through his lips. 'And the proof of any of this is?'

Hardy acknowledged the problem with a nod. 'It's out there somewhere. We just haven't found it.'

Abe flicked the lab report. 'Well, it's not here. Not that I see. No sign that Visser was even there.'

'Except for what Falk saw.'

'Which was nothing. I asked. Falk saw Cole go to the bathroom at Jupiter and then Visser go into the same bathroom which, last time I checked, was legal.'

'But,' Treya interjected, 'then why were you going to see Visser this afternoon, Abe? You must have thought something similar.'

Glitsky answered gently. 'I wanted to ask him about Ridley, that's all.'

But Hardy couldn't let it go. 'This would be the same Ridley who told me that wherever he was going on that last night, it was on this? Those were his words, "on this". On Cullen and, therefore, on Elaine.'

'And it might have been, that last visit. But we don't know that was Visser either, do we?'

Hardy's face was set. 'It's got to be.'

'That's where we started here, Diz. Got to be, got to be. When the fact is it doesn't have to be at all. Listen,' he continued, 'it's not like I don't think it's well-argued and provocative, but I haven't even caught a whiff of one piece of evidence.'

A long silence settled, everyone in their thoughts. Finally, Treya broke it. 'I've got a question, Diz.'

Hardy looked into her face. 'Six one, one eighty-three.'

'A silly little grin coursing the features of his copper-lined face,' Glitsky added. He covered her hand on the table with his own. 'Never tell this guy you got a question. He always does that.'

'Not always,' Hardy argued. 'Sometimes I say, "I've got an answer", and then you go, "What is it?" and I say, "Babe Ruth, nineteen twenty-seven", or "The circumference divided by the diameter". Something like that.'

'It's really fun,' Abe said in a monotone. 'You'd be surprised.'

'I bet I would,' Treya replied. 'That, for example, just now, was more fun than I've had all day.'

'See what I mean?' Glitsky asked. 'It's always like that. It never ends.'

'OK,' Hardy relented. 'What's the real question?'

Treya hesitated, but she had to ask. 'Are you saying you think maybe one of these three people killed Elaine?'

And for this – finally, the crux of it – Hardy had to stop and think. 'I think while she was doing her special master work, she found something incriminating at Logan's office. Logan, drunk or coked up or both, just turned her loose on his files. Both of you told me that, remember? Anyway, I think what she found was the kind of evidence we've been talking about here, the proof that Abe says we don't have about what these guys have been doing.' He paused. 'I don't know what happened then. Maybe she threatened Torrey with exposure, or asked Logan what was going on. Or they just realized she must have seen something.'