And never more than at a moment like this one, when things weren't going according to protocol. He'd scheduled the reading of Paul Hanover's will for one o'clock, and now it was nearly two, and still no sign-not even a phone call-from Catherine Hanover. Neither had she returned any of the several calls he'd made to her home, or to her cell phone. There was nothing absolutely critical about her attendance, of course. Her husband was here representing the family and that was enough, but even with his limited sensitivity to human emotions, Town-shend sensed a tension in the group-especially between Will and his mother-that in turn made him nervous.

Now he checked his watch for the twentieth time, ran a finger under his very tight shirt collar, cleared his throat. Over an hour ago, he'd gone to his safe and removed the sealed Last Will & Testament of Paul Hanover, and placed it exactly in the center of his desk. Now he pulled the package toward him. "Well, then, if we're all in agreement…"

"Lord, Bob, we've waited long enough," Theresa said. "For some reason that I can't fathom or imagine, Catherine has decided she isn't coming. But her presence one way or the other doesn't make any difference anyway, so let's get this show on the road."

Mary, holding her silent Carlos's hand, spoke up in her timid voice. "Isn't anybody else worried about her?"

Will shot a glance across his mother at his younger sister. "I'm sure it's something with school and the kids," he said easily. "It's always school and the kids. You know that. More important than anything else."

"But you'd think this…" Aaron began.

Will cut him off. "She knows it's going to be what it's going to be. Her being here isn't going to change anything."

"Bob." Theresa, at the end ofpatience, used her most dismissive tone. "Either you open that damned folder or I'm going to take it from you and read it myself."

"Mom!" Beth said. "You don't have to be so difficult."

Theresa whirled on her elder daughter, her tone sharp and angry. "Don't you talk to me about difficult, young lady. I'm the one who knows how difficult it can be going it alone in this world. And I'm the one who wants to be sure that my grandchildren don't have to find out what that's like. That's why I'm here, and that's the only reason I'm here. I doubt if your father left me a dime." She came back front to Townshend. "Bob? Now. Please."

With a last look at Catherine's empty chair, he sighed and carefully unsealed the envelope.

"She called from here," Hardy said, "and they'd just read it."

"And he stops," Glitsky grumbled, half to himself. "You're going to make me guess?" He stood by one of the windows in Hardy's office, studying the traffic patterns-unmoving-on Sutter Street below. It was five thirty, still light out, still sunny.

"Of course not. I'll tell you." Hardy had his feet up on his desk. "If you just ask me politely, I'll tell you."

"All right." Glitsky took his hand off the window shade, half turned to face his friend. "I'm asking."

"Come on, Abe. Just say, 'Tell me about the will.' "

Glitsky threw his eyes to the ceiling, summoning all of his endurance. He sighed heavily. "Okay," he said, "tell me about the will."

Hardy shot back. "Say 'please.' "

"I don't think so." Shaking his head in disgust, Glitsky started walking over to the cherry cabinet where Hardy kept his darts. Glitsky hadn't stolen Hardy's darts in nearly six months now, and when he'd come in he'd been thinking that it was getting to be about that time again. If his friend happened to leave the room.

"If you just say 'please' "-Hardy was grinning broadly-"I promise I'll tell you."

Glitsky got to the cabinet and opened up the side doors to reveal the black, yellow, red and green "professional" dartboard within. Hardy's three custom tungsten darts were hanging in their little holders, blue flights attached. Glitsky pulled them and without a glance at Hardy walked to the dark-wood line in the light hardwood floor that had been inset seven feet, nine and one-quarter inches from the face of the board. Turning, he fired the first dart and hit a double bull's-eye, smack in the center of the board. He turned around again and put the two other darts on Hardy's desk.

"All right," Hardy said. "Bull's-eye counts as a 'please.' " He eyed the darts, looked up at Glitsky. "Hanover hadn't changed the will. Missy wasn't mentioned. All the money went to the family." "How much?"

"Well." Hardy pulled his feet offthe desk and grabbed the darts. "It's complicated, with the property and investments and various other liquidatable assets…"

"Liquidatable. Good word," Abe said.

"Thank you." Hardy was now around the desk and standing at the throw line. "But the best ballpark estimate looks like it's going to come out at something like seventeen, eighteen million." He threw the dart, then the next one in rapid succession. Two twenties. He leaned back against his desk. "Which of course isn't the best news in the world for Catherine."

"Or any of them," Glitsky said, "if they didn't all have alibis, which Cuneo says they do. Except the ex-wife, Theresa."

"Maybe it's nobody in the family. Are you getting anything on Tow/Hold?"

Glitsky shook his head. "I talked to a lot of people. Harlan Fisk, Granat again, went down to the corporate office in San Bruno. Swell group of folks. Nothing." Now he pushed himself against the back cushion and ran both hands over his buzz cut. "I know I'm a cop and ought to be glad we've got a suspect, but I don't want to think Cuneo has got this one right. Catherine doesn't feel right. Hasn't from the beginning."

"I love when you say that," Hardy said. In truth, though, he was far from sanguine. He flatly didn't believe, despite her low-key and self-effacing protestations to the contrary-"I am so scattered lately. I think all this stress must be eating my brain cells."-that Catherine had simply forgotten that the reading of the will was going to be today. She could have told him she didn't want to be in the same room as her husband, and okay, he could have possibly accepted that. But even with the distractions of a spouse's affair, a subpoena to testify before the grand jury and a police search of her house in progress, Hardy had to believe that your average person would probably remember that this was the day you found out if you were a millionaire or not. Sitting on his desk, the darts stuck in the board and forgotten, Hardy laid all of this out. "She didn't forget that today was the reading of the will, I promise you."

Glitsky, who'd settled on the first couple of inches of the couch, listened without interruption and when Hardy had finished said, "I admit it's improbable. So why would she pretend?"

"The drama of it. She didn't really need to be at the reading, did she? Her attendance wouldn't change anything. But she could make me feel her urgency, hook me into it."

"So call her on it and let her go." "I know. I know. I'm tempted. Except what if she really did forget?"

"You just made a pretty good case that that wasn't likely."

"No, not likely, but not impossible, either." Absently, he pulled the darts from the board again. "This is the kind of thing she always did to me. It used to drive me crazy, but at least it was never dull."

"Dull gets a bad rap. Give me dull anytime."

Hardy broke a smile. "That's why you went into police work, right? For the slow times."

Glitsky shrugged. "I was younger."

"So was I. I loved the mystery."

"I thought it drove you crazy."

"That, too. It was complicated. In fact, it was too complicated. It was fucking exhausting, which was why I gave it up."

"You miss it?"

"Not at all."

"But here you are, taking her on."

"Yeah." A small silence settled. At last Hardy said, "She's not stupid, Abe. There's no reason she would have given you her own motive."