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Inside the Putah Creek Community Bank, three tellers sat ready to work the windows, but there weren't any customers. A couple of other employees were huddled over a desk behind the screened work area-muffled voices that seemed to be talking gossip, not banking. Out front, a matronly-looking middle-aged woman raised her head at the entrance of Glitsky and Matt Wessin. With a nervous smile, she rose from her seat behind a shiny, empty desk.

Glitsky, in his all-weather jacket with a gun in his armpit, hung back a few steps while the chief extended his hand to the woman. Obviously, the two were acquainted-small town. "Traci," he said, "this is Deputy Chief Glitsky from San Francisco police."

"Yes, we talked a couple of days ago." More handshakes.

And Wessin went on. "He's told you, I believe, that he's

got a warrant to view the records of one of your accounts, and also the contents of a safe-deposit box linked to the same account. Do you remember a match in a 314(a) form you sent in a couple of weeks ago? Monica Breque?"

"I do. I think it's the first one we've had out of this branch, but I'm afraid I don't remember her. When I saw the name on the 314 form"-she turned to Glitsky-"and then when we talked the other day, I tried to remember something about her, but nothing came to me."

Wessin said, "Maybe one of these will help." He produced from the folder he carried several likenesses that Glitsky had brought up with him, including not only the glossy of the Chronicle photo, but also several of Hardy's snapshots from the Hanover family albums. Now Traci examined the pictures slowly, one by one. When she'd gone through them all, she shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't know her at all. And we pride ourselves on personal service, knowing our customers on sight by name."

"She might have had a bit of a French accent, if that's any help," Glitsky offered.

She stopped shaking her head. "A French accent? Now that rings a bell. And she started here last May, we said? That would have been me if it was a new account, too. I'm sorry." Traci looked back down at the pictures. "I just don't have any memory of someone who looked like this. I do remember the accent, though. Is it all right if I show these to the staff?"

Five minutes later, one of the tellers admitted that, like Traci, maybe she'd seen the woman, or someone who looked like her. If it was the same person, though, the hair was certainly different, and she doubted if she'd been wearing the same kind of tailored, high-end city clothes she fancied in the pictures. "But all the same, I'd bet it's her. Great face."

"So she still comes in here?" Glitsky asked.

"I don't know," Carla said. "I wouldn't call her a regular."

"Can you think of what was different about the hair?"

The teller closed her eyes and gave it a try. "Maybe it was short, and not so dark, but I can't really be sure." She checked the picture again. "But I've seen her. Definitely."

This was reasonably good news, but didn't get them anywhere, so Glitsky and Wessin went back to the manager's desk and got to the account records themselves. Missy, or Monique, or Monica, did not use her checking account to write checks. She had deposited a hundred dollars to open the account on May 17, and hadn't touched it since.

This gave Glitsky a sense of foreboding that he tried to ignore. "Let's take a look at the safe-deposit box," he said.

They all walked into an old-fashioned vault with a heavily reinforced door, its inner workings and tumblers open to the lobby. Traci had a set of the bank's master keys for one of the locks and she'd called in a locksmith to drill out the other one, which needed the customer's key. In short order, she was taking the box from its space in the wall. She placed it on a table in the center of the vault. It was one of the larger boxes-a foot wide, eighteen inches long, four inches in depth. It only took another few seconds to get it open.

Unwittingly, Wessin whistled under his breath.

The stacks of money-fifty- and hundred-dollar bills-was what caught the eye first, but then Glitsky noticed what looked to be a rogue bit of tissue paper stuck against one side of the box. He picked that up first and opened it in his hand. It was, of course, the ring, with the stone actually larger than he'd pictured it. Wrapping it back up rather more neatly than it had been, he put it on the table next to the box. "I guess we ought to count this next," he said.

Tuesday, two days ago, early afternoon in Jackman's office with the door closed behind him and thick, rare slabs of sunshine streaking the floor over by the windows, the wind screaming outside. Jackman is in his oversize leather chair behind his desk, his fingers templed at his mouth. Treya, on the second day of her first week back at work after Zachary's birth, stands guard with her back against the door.

Glitsky is looking on while the DA reads the 314(a) form. "I just got this thing and wanted to run it by you."

"I don't understand how this can be," Jackman says. "Didn't you tell me her Social Security number came up deceased?"

"When I checked six weeks ago, yes. But if she opened this account within a few weeks of the Hanover fire, say, or even sooner than that, the computer wouldn't have caught up with her yet."

Treya says, "She's a banker, sir. She knew it wouldn't." Glitsky adds. "She's done this before, remember. Established an identity in a new town withginned-up docs. Undoubtedly she knew they don't check names against socials. If nobody ever thought to ask, and nobody has now for ten months, she's golden. What she didn't know about were the changes since 9/11."

Jackman asks, "So what name is she using now?" "Monica Breque."

"I bet people call her Missy," Treya says. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Jackman straightens up in his chair. "We need to get her in custody. Have you talked to the Davis people? Police."

"Yes, sir, a little. And there is still a problem-I talked to the manager at the bank and got a local address that seems not to be hers. It's not fictitious. It's just not where she lives. They sent some officers around to check right away, and it was somebody else's house entirely. So we don't know where she is."

Jackman isn't too fazed by this. "It's a small town. Somebody'll know where she lives." "I'll be following up on that."

"I thought you might be." Jackman hesitates. "Abe." He talks quietly, but he's firm. "Why not have them work on the follow-up, the Davis police? Have them bring in the FBI if they want. It's a banking matter, so it's federal. And she's a protected witness. And when they find her and surround her and place her under arrest, then have them bring her down here for her trial when they're done with her. You've found her. You don't physically have to bring her in."

Glitsky is standing in the at-ease position between his wife and the DA. He wouldn't be at all surprised if they both had the same opinion of what he should do now, but he is not going to be drawn into this discussion. Instead, he nods in apparent assent. "Good point," he says.

Three hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred dollars even.

It took them nearly an hour to count it twice and be sure. Traci left the two policemen to the work. Toward the end of it, Wessin seemed to become a bit impatient, checking his watch several times, and Glitsky learned that he was to be the speaker at a Rotary event at noon. Glitsky had loosened up by now and had become nearly voluble. He told Wessin he should have known that the chief would have some public event he needed to attend-half of Glitsky's own life was administrative stupidity and public relations. Both men agreed that if people knew, they'd never want to move up through the ranks. Even so, they both understood the importance of Wessin's speaking gig and picked up their speed. When they finally finished, Wessin still had fifteen minutes.