But first she stopped a minute, not just to get her breath, but to try to calm herself. After an extraordinarily rocky beginning to their relationship she and Wes hadn’t had a fight in six or seven years. She’d come to believe that he was her true soul mate and shared her opinions about nearly everything, especially politics. But now, apparently not.

It shook her.

And, okay, she knew that she was among those whom most people would include among California ’s “fruits and nuts.” She certainly didn’t too often doubt the rightness of her various stances. She was in her early forties and had seen enough of the world to know that the dollar was the basic problem. The military-industrial complex. Big oil and corporate globalism. Republicans.

But here now Wes, who had registered Green and hated the right wingers as much as she did, was arguing for something that she just knew in her heart was wrong. You couldn’t just abandon these homeless people who had, after all, flocked to San Francisco precisely because of the benign political environment. That would be the worst bait-and-switch tactic she could imagine. She would have to talk to him, but after they’d both calmed down.

She crossed back to where she wouldn’t be visible to Wes or anyone else in the line as she came back down the hill. It was the kind of clear morning that people tended to expect when they visited San Francisco during the traditional summer months. Those people often left in bitter disappointment at the incessant fog, the general inclemency of the weather. But today the early sun sprayed the rooftops golden. The temperature was already in the low sixties. It was going to be a perfect day.

She got to the alley, squinting into the bright morning sun, when here was an example of exactly the thing she and Wes had been talking about-a pair of feet protruded from the backdoor area of BBW. Not wanting to awaken the poor sleeping homeless man, she gave him a wide berth and only a quick glance as she came abreast of where he slept.

But something about the attitude of the body stopped her. It didn’t seem to be lying in a natural position, the head propped up against the screen door. She couldn’t imagine such a posture would be conducive to sleep. Most of the weight seemed to be on his left shoulder, but under that the torso turned in an awkward way so that both feet pointed up, as if he were lying on his back.

Moving closer, she noticed a line of liquid tracing itself down over the concrete and pooling in the gap between the cement of the porch and the asphalt of the alley. In the bright morning sunlight, from a distance it could have been water. But another couple of steps brought her close enough to remove any doubt on that score-the glistening wet stuff was red.

Leaning over, Sam shaded her eyes against the glare and she saw the man’s face; a face she recognized, had expected to see that morning behind the counter where he always was at BBW.

Her hand, already trembling, went to her mouth.

At a few minutes past seven-thirty a sergeant inspector of homicide named Darrel Bracco double-parked on Ashbury. He unhooked his squawk box handset and draped the cord up over the rearview mirror, so that a meter person coming by might surmise that this was a police vehicle and as such shouldn’t get a parking ticket. Just to be double sure, though, he left his business card on the dashboard of his city-issue Pontiac. He knew from bitter personal experience that even these precautions might not be enough.

A crowd of perhaps sixty souls stood beyond the yellow crime-scene tape that the responding unit had strung across the mouth of the alley and again farther down. Bracco saw that the coroner’s van hadn’t yet arrived, but two black-and-white squad cars also helped to close off the entrance to the alley from the inquisitive populace.

His badge out, excusing himself as he went, he pushed his way through the mass of people and ducked under the tape. A no-nonsense guy, he met no real resistance-Bracco was forty-two years old, just under six feet tall, clean-cut, casually buffed. He nodded to the two uniformed officers who were keeping the crime scene from being violated.

Over by the body, obvious enough on the ground by the back door to one of the local establishments, another uniform with graying hair and the start of a gut, undoubtedly the lieutenant from Park Station, was standing talking with Bracco’s new partner, Debra Schiff. Debra was thirty-eight, wore her sandy hair short, and possessed a very good if tough-looking face that looked tougher without makeup. For which reason she never wore any.

Bracco flashed his badge and stuck his hand out. “How you doin’, Lieutenant? Darrel Bracco.”

“Bill Banks.”

“Nice to meet you. Thanks for holding down the fort. I miss anything fun yet?”

Schiff answered, shaking her head no. “Waiting on the techs. Story of our lives, huh? You’d think these people would have the good grace to get themselves shot during regular business hours. But here it is, first thing on a weekend. Time the techs get mounted and rolling, they might not get here till noon.” She turned to Banks. “But Darrel and I can handle things here, Lieutenant, if you want to get back to your station or go home. Your call.”

Banks clucked and shrugged. “Thanks, but if you don’t mind, I’ll just hang awhile. See where this goes a little.”

“He was just telling me he knows the guy,” Schiff said.

Banks nodded. “Everybody in the neighborhood knows him. Dylan Vogler. He managed this place.”

“And what place is that?” Bracco asked.

“The coffee shop, Bay Beans West. Takes up the whole corner.” Banks pointed. “This is the back entrance he’s up against. Also, I was just showing Inspector Schiff, see on the side wall that hole in the stucco…”

“The bullet. But, hmm…” Bracco moved over to look more closely.

“What?” Schiff said.

Bracco, his face right up against the wall, said, “No blood?”

Schiff, now over next to him, pointed down and said, “Backpack.”

“Backpack.” Bracco repeated. “That’d do it.” Then he went down into a squat.

“Darrel,” Schiff began, a warning note in her voice.

But he put out a hand. “I’m not moving him, Debra. If my eyes don’t deceive me, that holster on his belt’s got a cell phone in it.” He flipped the leather top open. “Aha!” Extracting the device from its holder, he stood back up and opened it.

“Ice?” Schiff asked.

Pushing buttons on the phone, Bracco nodded.

Banks’s gaze went from Bracco over to Schiff. “Ice?”

“ ‘In case of emergency,’ ” Schiff said. “ICE. They’re telling everybody to put that in their cell phones now. You don’t have that in yours?”

Banks shook his head. “I’m lucky if I can keep the damn thing charged.”

“Here you go.” Darrel pushed the send button and held the phone to his ear. “Hello,” he said after a brief moment, then identified himself. “I’m calling because you’re the emergency number on a cell phone in the possession of a man named…” He raised his eyebrows at Banks, a question, and got the name again from the lieutenant.

“Dylan Vogler.” Bracco paused, listened. “Yes. Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid so. Well, at the moment I’m in the alley behind his place of business. Sure. Just tell the officers who you are and they’ll let you through. No, you don’t want to bring your child. Can we send someone up to your house to get you? Okay, then. Okay. There’s no hurry, ma’am. We’ll be here.”

Closing the phone, he shrugged and let out a heavy breath. “The wife.” Then, cocking his head and checking his watch, he turned to Schiff. “Not too bad for a weekend. There’s a siren now.”

By the time the first cops had arrived, there had been no question that Dylan Vogler was completely and absolutely dead-no hint of a pulse, the skin just warm to the touch, his eyes wide open and unresponsive to light or other stimulation. Nevertheless, the first responding squad car cops got some EMTs down to pronounce him. The photographer took a couple of dozen photos, memorializing the scene, before anyone else touched the body at all.