"About twenty blocks worth."

Glitsky lowered his voice. "Is she nuts? Here to Van Ness? That's derelict central."

"Yes, it is. I believe she knows that."

"So she wants to see people peeing and worse in public fountains? Or selling dope on the street? And she's doing this because…"

"Because she wants people to know that she shares the same concerns for public safety, cleanliness and general civility as does the majority of the public."

Glitsky shook his head. "She's barking up the wrong tree, Jeff. The voters don't care about that. They care that we're compassionate and diverse and sensitive, but I don't see much sign of caring about public cleanliness."

"Well, there you go. But Kathy's idea is that by her witness to the decay in these areas, she's-and I believe I'm quoting here-'serving notice that fixing this historically blighted corridor through the heart of the city is going to become a priority for my administration, and a boon to the city in general.' "

"And how is this going to happen again? By her walking down it?"

"That's the theory. We report on the problems she encounters, awareness goes up, people see how bad some places are and stop tolerating them."

This time, Glitsky snorted quietly. "No, no. You've got it backwards. We need to tolerate them more because we don't understand them. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.' Shakespeare again."

"Thank you, I guessed. Ah, she sees you."

Handing her shopping bag to one of her aides-she hadn't known Glitsky was going to be there, but she instinctively rose to a political moment when she saw one-she turned to the reporters, quite a decent crowd considering that there was no real story to cover. "Excuse me," she said. "I need to talk to the deputy chief."

In an instant she was at their side, greeting them both, asking Elliot if he could give them a moment. Glitsky lifted a hand in an ambiguous salute-he was either greeting Kathy or saying good-bye to Elliot. Or maybe both.

"I didn't mean to crash your party, Your Honor. If you're in the middle of something…"

"Abe. I told you this morning, it's Kathy. And no, this is fine. We can talk as we walk."

The two left the Ferry Building with the reporter contingent, including Jeff Elliot, hanging back a respectable distance. The first several blocks along Market, while congested with foot and automobile traffic, nevertheless were relatively clean and populated with people who worked downtown. It had very little of the urban blight that Kathy West was hoping to expose, so it left her free to talk with Glitsky as they walked. Hooking her hand in his arm, she set a brisk pace. "I'm surprised to see you so soon. I'm assuming this is about Paul Hanover. Do you have something?"

"Pretty much what you wanted," Glitsky said. "I've talked to John Strout and Hanover's daughter-in-law, and between them got convinced that there's very little chance he killed anybody, including himself." In a few words, he outlined what he'd discovered-the entry wound over the right ear, the other one in the back of the woman's head. "So really that's about it. He could only have shot himself by some awkward contortion that makes no sense, and she had the same problem. So it probably didn't happen that way."

"When the chief said you were good, Abe, he wasn't kidding, was he?"

"I'll take lucky over smart every time. I ran into the right people."

They had gotten down as far as Seventh Street, and now the mayor's eyes were flicking back and forth rapidly, scanning for the signs of urban decay that Glitsky knew would begin appearing any minute. But her mind hadn't left their topic. "So what happens now?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"With the investigation?"

"Well, it continues, of course. Back with Inspector Cuneo, which is where it belongs."

A few more quick steps, and then she stopped abruptly. "This would be the same Inspector Cuneo who told the press this morning that this was a murder/suicide?"

Glitsky's lips went tight for a beat before he answered. "That's what it looked like to me, too, when I first got there."

"Yes, but you didn't tell anybody about it until you had more facts, did you?"

He showed her what he hoped would pass for a smile. "I've gotten a little more used to dealing with the media than your average inspector."

"Be that as it may, Abe, the fact remains that you've made real progress in half a day, and Inspector Cuneo hasn't been any part of it."

"That's not strictly accurate. He talked to Hanover's daughter-in-law first last night…"

"But managed not to learn that Paul had a withered arm."

"He didn't know where the entry wound was, so he wouldn't have known why that mattered."

"Precisely. When he could have shown some initiative and gone to the morgue with the body. Isn't that the case?"

Glitsky could only shrug. "Maybe he should have done that."

"You would have."

This was true, but Glitsky shrugged it off again. "Well, either way," he said, "we've got a good idea that Mr. Hanover didn't do anything wrong. That's what you wanted this morning."

She fixed him with that avian intensity. "But unfortunately, that's no longer the point."

Glitsky waited.

"The point, Abe, is that we now know that Paul was murdered, don't we? And you don't think it was the girlfriend, Missy. Which means they were both murdered by someone else. And that being the case, do you think I have any confidence at all that Inspector Cuneo will be more successful catching the person who killed one of my close friends and benefactors than he was identifying the cause or manner of death in the first place? You don't have to struggle with it. The answer is no."

The gaggle of reporters following them had stopped when they did, and now out of the corner of his eye, Glitsky thought he picked up an increasing awareness among some of them, including Jeff Elliot, that something significant might be transpiring here right in front of them between the deputy chief of inspectors and the mayor. He considered that the time might be propitious to try to get some mileage out of West's insistence that the two of them were really, basically, friends. He stepped closer to her, strove for a casual tone. "He couldn't keep his job in homicide if he wasn't effective, Kathy. Lanier would have lateralled him out."

"Abe." West wasn't having it. "Help me out here. I understand a little bit about politics, and I see your concerns. If it makes it easier for you, you can let Inspector Cuneo remain on the case in some capacity, but I'd count it as a personal favor if you stayed on with it, too. Whoever killed Paul Hanover isn't going to get away with it on my watch if I can help it, and you're the best man to see that he doesn't." She reached out and put a hand on his arm, looked up into his face. "Abe. Please. For me."

Glitsky glanced at the reporters, a couple of whom had already snapped some photos. This was turning into too visible a moment, laden with intrigue and import. It had to end or it would grow and become a real event, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs. At last, coming back to her, he patted West's hand in a fraternal gesture and nodded. "All right, Kathy," he said. "Let me see what I can do."