'Because you put it there so I would see it,' he exclaimed.

'How arrogant of you!'

'Then why?' he said. 'And don't tell me Niles did it.'

West pushed away her plate and stared past him. She tried to think how to say it. Confessing feelings was as dangerous as counting money when you walked down a dark street in a bad part of town.

'Because you didn't care about me anymore.' She was out with it.

'That's because you didn't care about me first,' he argued.

'And that's because I thought you dumped me the minute we got to town and started seeing someone else without even having the courtesy to tell me.'

'Virginia, I haven't seen anybody,' Brazil said in a softer tone.

He reached out and took her hand. She had a hard time swallowing.

'And I didn't dump you,' he said.

He moved his chair next to hers and kissed her. In the bedroom he discovered the wineglasses of Mountain Dew.

Hammer wanted to dump the entire NIJ project. Her mind was a riotous crowd of dissenting, unhappy people who would not let her sleep. She thought about Bubba and how badly she had maligned him. She obsessed over how badly she had handled Leila Ehrhart and those like her.

Part of Hammer's mission was to enlighten people. She saw no evidence that she had. Part of her plan was to modernize the police department. And what happened? The entire COMSTAT telecommunications network crashed. The ATM robberies escalated to murder. There were gangs. There was Smoke.

Hammer didn't think she could ever again endure seeing Ruby Sink's house or even the block Miss Sink had lived on. Miss Sink, in her pink robe and slippers, had shuffled through Hammer's mind all night. Hammer could not get away from their last conversation on Miss Sink's sidewalk. Hammer could see the old woman in such detail it hurt her heart and pierced her with guilt.

'I'm a failure,' Hammer said to Popeye.

Popeye was under the covers, between Hammer's feet.

'I've caused harm. I should never have come here. I bet you wish you still lived in Charlotte where you had a yard, don't you?'

Her eyes filled with tears. Popeye burrowed up to her and licked her face. Hammer couldn't remember the last time she had cried. She had been so stoical when Seth had died because she believed she had to be. She had been rational about the reasons her sons did not seem to want to see her. Hammer had been courageous, innovative, community-minded. All of it so she would be too busy to be lonely, and it hadn't worked. She got up and dressed.

There was no answer at Brazil's house when Hammer called from her car phone. She tried West next and was relieved that he and West were there.

'I've got something important to say to both of you,' Hammer said over the line.

Parking in the Fan wasn't as much of a problem at this early hour, and she managed to squeeze into a space on the curb right across the street from West's town house. Hammer was numb. She did not feel present, nor did she want to be when Brazil opened the front door.

Thank you for seeing me,' Hammer said to Brazil as they walked into the living room.

'Thank you,' he replied. 'It's kind of messy.'

Hammer didn't care. She didn't even notice her surroundings, messy or not. She sat in a straight-back chair while West and Brazil sat across from her on the couch.

'Virginia, Andy,' she began, 'I'm going to resign.'

'Oh God,' West said, shocked.

'You can't,' Brazil said, sick.

'Basically,' Hammer went on, 'I've pretty much screwed up everything here. I used to be a good police officer, a good chief. Everybody hates us.'

'Not everybody,' Brazil said.

'Most of them,' said West. 'I mean, let's be honest about it.'

'Well, I guess the Charlotte connection doesn't help,' Brazil supposed.

'Or our locking up the COMSTAT network pretty much around the globe,' Hammer said.

'Or our failure to crack the ATM cases before they progressed to a horrible murder. Or a communications officer getting in a fight with a traffic cop, both of whom had just received commendations several days before.' West helped her out with the list.

Hammer folded her hands in her lap and kept them still. She did not interrupt. She did not get up and pace.

'Judy,' West said. 'Where are you going to go? Back to Charlotte?'

Hammer shook her head.

'Nowhere,' she answered. 'If I can't handle Richmond, I'm not going to be able to handle someplace else. When the horse dies, get off. I'm retiring from police work. I don't know where I'll live. It doesn't matter.'

'That reminds me,' West said. 'We need to talk about the Azalea Parade.'

'How did what she just said remind you of that?' Brazil asked.

'The horse comment. We've got mounted cops in the parade,' West said. 'And' - she looked at Hammer -'Andy and I are supposed to ride in your convertible.'

'What kind of convertible is it?' Hammer looked distracted.

'Dark blue Sebring,' Brazil said. 'Modest, not showy, although one of the big guys at Philip Morris wanted to drive you in his red Mercedes VI2 convertible.'

'Not a good idea,' Hammer muttered.

'I don't think you should be in the parade at all,' West said with conviction. 'The parade could be a possible target for Smoke. And I hate for you to be riding slow in a convertible anyway. There're a lot of kooks out there.'

Hammer got up. She really didn't care what happened to her.

'It's important,' she said dully. 'Every little thing we do to reach the community is helpful. I won't back out of a promise." 'Well, we're going to have fifty off-duty cops there in addition to the regular shifts,' West told her. 'To the public, it will appear we're there mainly for traffic control. And we're mobilizing about twenty plainclothes guys to mingle, just in case Smoke shows up or someone else decides to cause a problem.'

Bubba was thinking the same thing. He believed Chief Hammer should not be riding in an open car in the Azalea Parade, and worse, it had been in the newspaper so everybody knew it. It was possible this was where all roads met. Bubba had been called to save her from a terrible danger. Bubba also figured the Pikes somehow factored in.

At eight o'clock this morning, he was already parking in front of Green Top Sporting Goods on U.S. Route 1, some twenty minutes outside of Richmond. There was no place Bubba would rather be. The minute he walked through the door and was greeted by thousands of fishing rods and all that went with them, his pulse quickened. When he turned to the right and saw hundreds of rifles, shotguns, pistols and revolvers, he got flushed. He felt lust in a way he had never experienced with Honey.

'Hey, what'cha know.' He was enthusiastically greeted by Fig Winnick, the assistant manager.

By Virginia law, a citizen could buy one handgun every thirty days and no more. This had given rise to the tongue-in-cheek Gun-of-the-Month Club. It was a small but clever group of one hundred and eighty-nine men and sixty-two women who sent each other reminders when their thirty days, loosely interpreted as a month, were up. It was April 2.

'If only I'd come in two days ago, I could have bought a gun then and another one today,' Bubba misinterpreted, as usual.

'Wishful thinking,' Winnick told him again. 'Doesn't work that way, Bubba. And it sure as hell is too damn bad.'

'So you're saying it's not once a month,' Bubba challenged what he refused to believe.

'Not literally. But sort of. If you start with the first day of each month.'

'You know, someone stole all my guns.' Bubba browsed.

'The guys were talking about it,' Winnick sympathized.

'So all I got left's the Anaconda and I need something I can pack easier,' Bubba spoke the language.

'I got just the thing.'

Winnick lovingly opened a showcase and gently pulled out a Browning 40 S amp;W Hi-Power Mark III pistol. He handed the beauty to Bubba.