She picked out a pair of gold and lapis cufflinks that had belonged to Seth. She fumbled with them as she put them on and remembered those times when Seth followed her around the house like Popeye, unable to manage buttons, lapels, matching socks or combinations, on those rare occasions when Seth dressed up.

It would have made sense to divide her late husband's jewelry, leather briefcases, wallets and other things male between their sons, but Hammer held on. When she wore something of Seth's, she had the eerie feeling that he wanted her to be the man he never was. He wanted her to be strong. Maybe he wanted to help her because now he could. Seth had always had a good heart. But he had spent his life at war with his compulsions and privileged past, spreading misery like the flu. He had left Hammer wealthy, relieved, pained, pissed off and as burdened with anxieties as he had been with his weight.

'Popeye, come here,' Hammer called out.

Popeye was lazy in a bar of sunlight on the kitchen floor. She had no intention of changing venues.

'Let's get in our crate, Popeye.'

Popeye regarded her owner through slitted eyes. She yawned and thought it silly that her owner always used the we word, as if Popeye wasn't smart enough to see through it. Popeye knew her owner had no intention of climbing inside that little plastic crate with Popeye any more than her owner was going to eat a heartworm pill or get a shot at the vet when the we word was used about those, either.

'Popeye.' Her owner's tone firmed up. 'I'm in a hurry. Come on. In the crate. Here's your squirrel.'

She tossed Popeye's favorite stuffed squirrel inside the crate. Popeye couldn't care less.

'All right. Here's your fuzzle.'

She tossed in the filthy lambs' wool chick that Popeye had chewed the eyes off and routinely flung into the toilet. Popeye was indifferent. Her owner walked with purpose across the kitchen and picked up Popeye. Popeye went into her Salvador Dali limply-drape-over-everything-and-play-possum manifestation. Her owner tucked Popeye into the crate and fastened shut the wire grate door.

'We need to behave better than this,' her owner said, feeding Popeye several little pieces of lung treats. 'I'll be back real soon.'

Hammer set the burglar alarm and went out to her unmarked midnight-blue Crown Victoria. She drove down East Grace, passing the back of St. John's Church and turning on 25th where Tobacco Row was now upscale apartments and Pohlig Bros still manufactured 'paper boxes of every design.' A graffiti artist had spray-painted 'Meat is Murder' and 'Eat corn' and 'Anita Hill started it' on an abandoned tobacco warehouse, and rusting fire escapes and dead vines held on to old brick shells. One could get a bargain on used tires at Cowboy Tire, and Strickland Foundry and Machine Company had refused to quit.

On the other side of Broad Street, past the coliseum, was the police department where Hammer now spent her days in an ugly precast building with a blue mosaic trim missing many of its tiles. The Richmond Police Department was dim and too small, with windowless corridors, asbestos and the stale smell of dirty people and dirty deeds.

She said good morning to cops she passed, and out of fear they returned her greeting. Hammer understood the trauma of change. She understood a distrust of any influence that came from the outside, especially if its sanction was federal. Resentment and hostility were nothing new, but never had she experienced it quite like this.

At precisely seven o'clock, she walked into the conference room. It was crowded with some thirty unenthusiastic commanders, captains, detectives and officers who followed her with stares. Computer mapping of the city projected onto a large screen showed statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft, or the big seven, during the most recent twenty-eight-day COMSTAT period and also year-to-date. Charts showed time frames and probability and days of the week when crimes occurred, and in what precincts and during what shifts.

Hammer took her seat at the head of the table between West and Brazil.

'Another ATM,' West said in a low voice in Hammer's ear.

Hammer looked sharply at her.

'We just got the call, are still at the scene.'

'Damn,' Hammer said as anger stirred. 'I want the details ASAP.'

West got up and left the room. Hammer looked around the table.

'Nice to see all of you here,' she began. 'We've got a lot to discuss this morning.' She didn't waste time as she looked around and smiled. 'We'll start with first precinct. Major Hanger? I know it's early.'

'Always is,' Hanger grumbled. 'But I know that's how they do things in New York.'

He nodded at Officer Wally Fling, Hammer's administrative assistant, who was new at working the computer-mapping software that everyone hated. Fling hit several keys and a pie chart filled the screen.

'I don't want the pie chart yet, Fling,' Hanger said.

Fling hit several more keys and another pie chart popped up, this one for fourth precinct.

'Sorry,' Fling said as he nervously tried again. 'I guess you want first precinct.'

'That would be nice. And I don't want pies.'

Hanger got one anyway, this time for second precinct. Flustered, Fling hit more keys and the department's shield flashed on screen, with its motto, Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect, or CPR, which Hammer also had borrowed from NYPD.

Several people groaned and booed. Brazil gave Hammer an I've tried to warn you look.

'Why can't we have our own logo?' asked Captain Cloud, who was a commander for the day and felt he had a right to speak.

'Yeah,' other disgruntled voices joined in.

'It makes us look like second string." 'Maybe we can get their hand-me-down uniforms, too." 'That's one of the things that's griping us, Chief.'

Two more pie charts flashed by on the screen.

'Officer Fling,' Hammer said. 'Put it back on the logo, please. Let's talk about this.'

A pin map of handgun seizures filled the screen, little yellow revolvers pointed at the problem areas of the city.

'Go, Fling!'

'Check out COMSTAT for Dummies.'

'Shit,' Fling said when he somehow ended up back at the main menu.

'Go back to your day job, Fling.'

He banged the enter key four times and an error message told him to stop it.

'All right, all right,' Hammer quieted the room. 'Captain Cloud? I want to hear what you have to say.'

'Well,' Cloud picked up where he'd left off, 'it's like the city seal, George Washington on his horse. I gotta ask you, what's George Washington got to do with Richmond? I guess we what? Borrowed that from D.C., from another big city, in other words?'

'Amen.'

'I agree totally.''I bet he never even slept here.'

'It's an embarrassment.'

'D.C., and now we're swiping ideas from New York. How bad does that make us look?' Cloud said.

'Okay,' Hammer raised her voice. 'I'm afraid there's not a thing we can do about the city seal at this time. So let's get back to our motto. Captain Cloud, remember that part of accountability is to suggest a solution when you point out a problem. Do you have a new motto in mind?'

'Well, I played around with one a little bit last night.'

Cloud had high blood pressure. His white uniform shirt was too tight around the neck, and his face was almost purple. He was center stage and sweating.

'I was thinking about what would be simple but direct, and, now don't get your hopes up that this is real creative or poetic or anything, but if you ask the question, what are we all about? I think the answer can be summed up in three words. Tough On Crime,' Cloud looked around the table. TOC, in other words, which is real easy to remember and doesn't take up any more room than CPR if we're gonna paint it on things or add it to our patches.'