"So just to be clear on your position," Elliot said, "your view is that this gatekeeping and cost cutting, from managed care to generic drugs, is essentially consistent with your Hippocratic oath, for example. Where the emphasis is first to do no harm, then to heal."

"Basically, yes." Ross seemed pleased with this take on it, but Elliot knew he wouldn't be for long. "We're in medicine, Mr. Elliot," he continued. "The goal is maximum wellness for the most people."

"And there's no conflict between your business interests and the needs of your patients?"

"Of course there is." Ross was leaning back in his chair comfortably, his legs crossed. "But we try to minimize it. It's all a matter of degree. The company needs to sustain itself so it can continue doing its work."

"And also make a profit, let's not forget. You've got to show earnings, though-right?-to please your investors?"

Ross smiled and spread his hands in a self-deprecating way. "Well, we're not doing too well at that lately."

"So I hear." Elliot came forward in his wheelchair, spoke in a friendly tone. "Do your investors ever express displeasure with the salaries of your officers and directors?"

Ross blinked a few times, but if the question bothered him, he covered it quickly. "Not often. Our board members are skilled businesspeople. If the pay weren't competitive, they'd go elsewhere. Good help is hard to find, and when you find it, you pay top dollar for it."

"And this good help, what does it do exactly? Run the company?"

"That's right."

"And yet you're close to bankruptcy." It wasn't a question, but Elliot let it hang for a beat. "Which makes one wonder if lesser-paid help could do any worse, doesn't it?"

Fisk and Bracco may have come across as a matched pair to their fellow homicide inspectors, but they really couldn't have been much more different from each other as human beings. And this meant they were different kinds of cops, too.

When it got to be five o'clock, Harlen Fisk asked his partner if he'd drop him off at Tadich's, the city's oldest restaurant. In spite of his pregnant wife and baby boy waiting at home, he'd be meeting his aunt Kathy and several of her supporters for dinner and schmoozing well into the night. He didn't invite Bracco to join them, and there were no hard feelings either way. The fact was, Fisk was a political animal with his eye someday in the distant future on political rewards.

By contrast, Bracco was the son of a cop, but even so, until he got the promotion to homicide, he hadn't clearly understood how much his father's connection to the mayor was affecting his career, how much the regular guys resented him. And he'd never asked for special treatment-it had simply come with the territory. Political people in the department thought they could make the mayor happy by being nice to the Bracco boy, and they weren't all wrong.

But when Fisk had told him that he was thinking about going to his aunt, the city supervisor, to complain about their continued ill-treatment on the fourth floor, Bracco had talked his partner out of it. One thing he'd learned from his father was that cops didn't whine. Ever. The thing to do was talk to Glitsky, he'd said. Ask straight and deal with the answer, which was that there was probably no intentional homicide here with the hit and run, and hence nothing to look into.

Bracco believed that this was the truth. But what else was he doing with his time?

So after he dropped Harlen off downtown, he spent a few hours checking leads that they'd picked up on the car during the course of the day. He didn't expect any results, but you never knew. His experience in hit and run had taught him that most of the time, the drivers would wait until they thought nobody was looking for their car anymore. They'd park it out of sight, keep the garage door closed. After a month, they would take it to a car wash or body shop. And that would be the end of it.

But maybe this time-long odds, but possible-it would be different. They'd gotten eleven patrol call-ins during the day. These were vehicles fitting the description that were parked at the curb or in driveways around the city, reported by patrolling cops. Fisk hated this kind of legwork. Bracco, on the other hand, put in a couple of hours checking out each and every one. The impact that had thrown Markham would have left a sign even on an old, thick-skinned American car, and a quick walk around with a flashlight would tell him if he would need to come back with a warrant. But none of the cars had anything close.

Not exactly knowing why, he killed another half hour walking through the parking garage at Portola Hospital, but there wasn't one old green car. So, feeling like an idiot, he sat in his car and wrote some notes to jog his memory tomorrow-check the Rent-A-Wrecks, don't forget the call-ins to H &R from citizens interested in the reward from the supervisor's fund (ten thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction, et cetera).

Finally, on his way home after a piroshki gut-bomb he bought at a place on Nineteenth Avenue, he decided to head back up to Seacliff, to Markham's house. Start, as Glitsky said, with the family. Look at the cars parked outside. After all, he reminded himself wryly, he was the car police.

"Can I help you?"

Bracco straightened up abruptly and shone his flashlight across the hood of the white Toyota he was examining. It was the last one of what had been twenty-three cars parked on Markham's block. The beam revealed a man of above-average height, who brought a hand up against the glare, and spoke again in a harsh, strained voice. "What the hell are you doing?"

Bracco noted with alarm that he was reaching into his jacket pocket with his free hand. "Freeze. Police." It was all he could think to say. "Don't move." Bracco didn't know whether he ought to flash his badge or draw the gun from his shoulder holster. He decided on the latter and leveled it at the figure. "I'm coming around this car." His blood was racing. "Don't move one muscle," he repeated.

"I'm not moving."

"Okay, now slowly, the hand in your jacket, take it out where I can see it."

"This is ridiculous." But the man complied.

Bracco patted the jacket, reached inside and removed a cell phone, then backed away a step.

"Look, I'm a doctor," the man said. "A patient of mine who lives here died today. So I come out after paying my condolences and somebody's at my car with a flashlight. I was just going to use the cell to call the police myself."

After a moment, Bracco handed the phone back to the doctor, and put his gun back where it belonged. If he'd felt like an idiot before walking the parking lot at the hospital, now he was mortified, although he wasn't going to show it. "Could I see some identification, please?"

The man turned to look toward the house for a moment, then came back to the inspector. "I don't see…" he began. "I'm…" Finally he sighed and reached for his wallet. "My name is Dr. Eric Kensing," he said. "I was the ICU supervisor today at Portola Hospital."

"Where Mr. Markham died?"

"Right. He was my…boss, I guess. Why are the police out here now?"

Bracco found himself coming out with the truth. "I'm looking for the hit-and-run vehicle."

Kensing blew out impatiently. "Could I please have my wallet back?" He slipped it into his pocket, then suddenly asked, "You're not saying you really think somebody Tim knew hit him on purpose, then came here to visit the family?"

"No. But we'd be pretty stupid not to look, wouldn't we?"

"It sounds a little far-fetched to me, but if that's what you guys do…" He let the thought go unfinished. "Listen, are we done? I'd like to go now. My car didn't hit him. You see any sign that I hit him? You want to check again and make sure? I interrupted you in the middle of it."