"You were counting on an inheritance?"

"That sounds so cold-blooded. I don't know if saying we were counting on it is really accurate-we all loved Paul and wanted him to live forever-but let's face it, he was worth a fortune. That money had been sitting there as a possibility for us for so long, let's just say that it was a bit of an adjustment after he started talking about marrying Missy, thinking it wouldn't be there anymore. And now, suddenly, here it is again. This sounds so terrible, doesn't it? I never even thought about the money until this morning, really, but then once I realized…" She stopped, sighed into the receiver. "It's terrible to talk like this," she said. "I'm sorry."

Glitsky said, "It's natural enough."

But Catherine couldn't drop the topic. "It's just that there really was such a dramatic change after he started seeing her. I mean, until Missy came along, Paul used to help with all the kids' tuitions. And we'd all go to Maui for Christmas every year. All of us, the whole extended family, for a week at Napili Kai. Stuff like that. To say nothing of college coming up for all eight of the grand-kids. I really shouldn't say it's a relief, but…" Again, she trailed off.

Glitsky wanted to keep her talking. "So Missy lived with your father-in-law full-time?"

"Mostly, I think, yes. For about the last two years."

"And do you know any of her friends from before she met him?"

"No. After she met Paul, there weren't any other friends. He was her full-time job."

Glitsky made a note that he'd need to follow up on the friends of Missy D'Amiens if the investigation widened. Although for the moment it appeared that, if anything, it had narrowed down to the obvious original theory. Certainly Catherine Hanover's breezy admission of what might under other circumstances be considered a reasonable motive for murder-a large inheritance-argued against her own involvement in any foul play. He would of course verify the whereabouts of her husband and his two sisters last night, but for the moment it looked like Kathy West would remain disappointed in her benefactor and political ally.

But that moment abruptly came to an end during the next exchange.

"Can I ask you something, Inspector?"

"Sure."

"The arson inspector thought they both might have been shot. Have you found out if that's true?" "Yes. It is."

"So they were murdered?"

"Yes, ma'am. Or maybe one of them killed the other, and then himself." "Or herself."

"Maybe," Glitsky said. Although he found them compelling and consistent with his own experience, he wasn't going to get into a discussion of Inspector Becker's theories on why, in a scenario like this one, it probably wasn't the woman.

"But you think it was Paul?"

"I don't know." He was silent for a minute, then realized that the details would undoubtedly be in the paper tomorrow, possibly on the television in a couple of hours. He wouldn't be giving anything away. "The location of the woman's wound indicated that she didn't kill herself. It was up behind her head. Probably not self-inflicted." "And what about Paul's?"

Glitsky let out a breath. "About where you'd expect in a suicide. Just over the right ear."

Another short silence. Then Catherine Hanover said, "Wait a minute. The right ear?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"The medical examiner was, and he usually gets it right."

"I think maybe you ought to go back and double-check."

"Why?"

"Because-I thought everybody knew this, but-Paul had polio back in the early fifties. His right arm was paralyzed. It was dead. He couldn't use it at all."

Glitsky caught up to Kathy West as she pursued a photo op out of the newly refurbished, utilitarian, yet lovely again Ferry Building at the bay, the eastern end of Market Street. The sun, dusk-bound, had just slipped under the blanket of coastal fog that came to cover the city at its western edge at this time of day, at this time of year. In late spring and early summer, San Francisco bore a marked climatic resemblance to Newfoundland. It was still nowhere near the evening proper, although what had only moments before been a shining, sparkling, even inspiringly welcoming downtown suddenly lost its direct sunlight and turned quite cold. Now gusts of the chill early-evening breeze flung open the jackets of businessmen, rearranged the hairstyles of women. Newspapers and food wrappers swirled in the eddies of alleyways and skyscapers.

The mayor's office told Glitsky that he'd find her somewhere along Market if he missed her at the Ferry Building, but he should try there first. He had Paganucci drop him out front and walked head down, hands deep in his pockets, until he got himself out of the wind and inside. Her honor and the press entourage surrounding her were just coming out of Book Passage, where she'd "spontaneously" picked up a couple of novels, three cookbooks, a handful of musical CDs, Don Novello's latest humor and a travel guide to Italy-all of it written and /or performed by San Franciscans.

Glitsky was standing to the side, listening with some skepticism while West talked to the assembled reporters, extolling the virtues of the city, its ongoing importance as a mecca of creativity and art, as these many eclectic works so amply illustrated. A bearded man in a wheelchair removed himself from the immediate group of a dozen or so reporters and photographers and rolled over next to him.

Glitsky knew Jeff Elliot well. A fellow alumnus, along with West and himself, of the DA's kitchen cabinet, Elliot wrote the Chronicle's "CityTalk" column. He suffered from multiple sclerosis, and Glitksy knew that he had recently had to abandon his sometime use of crutches for a full-time wheelchair.

"What are you doing here?" Elliot said.

"Some business with the mayor."

"Want to talk about it? See your name in the paper?"

"It's what I live for." Glitsky almost smiled. "Maybe later, if it turns out to be anything. Don't let me keep you from getting a quote about how artist-friendly the city is. You're not going to hear too many of them."

"Or none."

"Well, the mayor just said it, so it must be true."

"If it is, it's a major scoop." Elliot looked up at him. "You know any struggling artists that actually live here?"

"I hear a couple of homeless guys are tagging every inch of the Fourth Street freeway ramp."

"I don't think she's talking about them."

"She's talking about the city supporting artists. The only way it does that is if they're homeless first and artists second."

Elliot made no response, listened to the mayor for another minute. "It must just be me," he said.

"What?"

"Finding that this city is a bit of a challenge lately to survive in, much less thrive. And I shouldn't talk. I've got a good job. What if you're trying to do art? Can you imagine?"

"No. But the mayor says we're all open arms." " 'And Brutus is an honorable man.' "

Glitsky looked down at him. "If you say so, Jeff."

"That was Shakespeare. Antony's speech after they killed Caesar."

"I thought so," Glitsky said. "I was just going to say that." He brought his attention back to the mayor. "So why are you here? What's this about? It can't be the poor, struggling artists."

"No. Actually, it's an interesting idea. This is the first of Kathy's scheduled walking press conferences. You haven't read about them?"

"Nope."

"I've written about them twice now. The 'Neighborhood Strolls'?"

"Still nope."

"You're letting me down here, Abe."

"I'll give myself twenty lashes when I get home, if I ever do. So what are they about, these strolls?"

"Well, it's going to be in several different neighborhoods in the next weeks, but today she's walking Market from here to Van Ness."

"That's a good walk. Lots of wildlife."