“Not even that.” Griffin told him about finding it in the car, what it said, or, more particularly, didn’t say.

Strout chewed on it a moment, then nodded, deciding, going on to something else. “Might he have been gay?”

That was always a question in the city, Griffin knew. “No sign of it,” he said, glad to put the note behind them.

“No, there wasn’t,” Strout agreed. “Anyway, that’s what I find. Let’s be frank, gentlemen. Have you found anything points to a homicide here?”

Griffin and Giometti exchanged glances. “What we found,” Giometti said, “doesn’t point either way. We got a dead kid alone in a shitty place at night. A couple of random weirdnesses, like two shots,” he glanced at his partner, “maybe, maybe a note. Maybe he just got depressed, I don’t know. Maybe we need more time.”

“Everybody needs more time,” Strout said.

“On the other hand,” Griffin said, “it wasn’t a random parking lot-Cochran did deliver there. People knew who he was, but we’ve checked into that and there’s nothing evident.”

Strout cracked his knuckles. “But we do have a note, don’t we?” He sighed. “In the absence of any hard evidence to the contrary, I’m inclined to lean toward a suicide, then. But I’m a little reluctant. It’s not very tight, is it?”

Giometti spoke up. “You know if we go with suicide, the widow gets no insurance.”

“Insurance isn’t my problem,” Strout snapped. “Carl, you got something, give it to me, would you?”

Griffin thought about the chances of himself becoming lieutenant. He knew he could continue to conduct the best investigation in the history of the department and it wouldn’t mean beans. On the other hand, if Glitsky fucked up…

Face facts, he told himself. Strout was right. There was no hard evidence that the boy had been murdered. If there was, and if they busted tail for a week or a month, chances are that he and Vince would find something. If it was there. But the two of them so far had been thorough, if not inspired. Maybe somebody wanted him especially, Carl Griffin, to hump his ass for a month and come up empty. Okay, then, he thought. They want inspiration, they can hold the carrot out.

“I don’t know,” he said, “I’m a little worried about the lack of motive. Nobody we talked to had a bad word to say, much less wanted to kill him.”

Strout rose to it. “All right, then, let’s go with suicide/equivocal, see if something turns up.”

Back in their car, Giometti seemed sullen.

“What’s eating you?” Griffin asked, knowing full well what it was.

“This guy didn’t kill himself.”

“He didn’t, huh?”

“You know he didn’t.”

Griffin slammed the dashboard. “Don’t tell me what I know, Vince. I been at this a long time.” He was feeling Giometti’s look on him. He took a breath. Giometti hit the ignition. “Turn off the car,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat, closing his eyes. “I’ll tell you something, Vince. I honestly don’t know. I’m an evidence cop. You give me something to go on, and I’m on it like white on rice. But what do we got here? We’ve interviewed the wife-suspect number one if you go by the stats. She was home all night talking to the guy’s mother. Who else? Cruz, the guy who owns the lot and building? He’s with his boyfriend. Okay, maybe not, but we couldn’t break him-either of them- could we?”

Giometti nodded grudgingly.

“Polk? His foxy wife? No way. This guy Cochran was their star. It was all on him to make the business work, or keep working. Losing fight, and he took it hard. It may not be a good motive, but right now it’s our only motive. He drove out there, depressed. He started to write a note, saw the futility of that and stopped in the middle. He’d gotten this piece from somewhere and shot it once to make sure he knew how it worked. It’s sad as hell, but I can see it happening. I’ve seen it happen. A lot of times.”

Griffin was winding down. “Look,” he said, “we got five righteous homicides besides maybe this one. Maybe, probably, another gets reported this afternoon or tonight. How much time you want to waste on this one?”

“It’s not wasted if somebody killed him.”

“True. But we got nothing pointing anywhere. We get something, anything, we go back on it. It’s not like it’s closed-it’s equivocal. We haven’t given up, technically. We’re just putting it on hold in lieu of evidence. Vince, look, we’re in the collar game. You want to make it in homicide, bring in your collars. These other ones, put ’em on your desk. Check ’em every few months. Keep an open mind. But if nothing sticks out after three, four days of looking-and I mean nothing…” He shrugged.

“Cruz wouldn’t see you today?”

“Too busy today, he said.”

“Does he think you’re a cop?”

“Abe, I’d never impersonate a police officer. That’s a felony, I’m pretty sure.”

“But he might, at your first interview, have reached the conclusion that you were of the city’s finest?” Glitsky tolerantly scratched at the scar that ran between his lips.

“It’s always surprising what the mind can sometimes come up with,” Hardy said. “I guess it’s possible he thought that if he let his imagination run wild.”

Glitsky’s telephone rang. It was five o’clock, and Hardy settled back, relaxed. It had been a long day, but not without its rewards. Even Cruz refusing to see him had been instructive.

Into the phone, Abe was saying something about angles of knife wounds, heights of suspects. Hardy listened with one ear. It was real, that kind of stuff, like his problem with Eddie Cochran having been right-handed.

Glitsky hung up. As though there’d been no interruption, he continued. “So what about when Cruz realizes that you’re not a cop?”

“Why would he do that?”

Glitsky tried to sound patient. “Because, Hardy, cops get interviews. They don’t say, ‘Sorry, I’ll come back tomorrow.’ They flash their buzzer and say, ‘Look, I’m busy too.’ ”

“I never used to do that.”

“Which is not to say it’s not the proper procedure.” The inspector got up abruptly. “Want some coffee?”

Hardy shook his head. “If you got a beer?”

Glitsky reached into the drawer under the Mr. Coffee and tossed Hardy a warm sixteen-ounce can of Schlitz. “Alcohol is forbidden anywhere in this building.” He didn’t go around again behind his desk but sat against the edge of the steel file cabinet sipping at his black coffee, waiting.

Hardy pulled the tab on the can, sipped, and grimaced. “It ain’t Bass Ale.”

“Fresh, though. It’s probably only been in there about two years.”

After the first taste, though, it didn’t bother Hardy. He took another. “So what’s suicide/equivocal?”

“Suicide/equivocal means Strout-the M.E.-wants to straddle the fence.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause he’s got a rep for not being wrong.”

“But I’ve got to have it come down one way or the other.”

Glitsky stared out the window, sipping his coffee.

“Yo, Abe,” Hardy said.

“Griffin came by and said it was a bullshit verdict, should have been a righteous suicide. He said he’d recommended that to Strout.”

“So he’s not inclined to do anything else?”

Glitsky motioned to his desk. “There’s the file. He gave it to me, said I should tell my friend-that’s you, Diz-to call him if you found anything. So no, I’d say Griffin’s not gonna do much.”

“But the case is still open?”

Glitsky shrugged. “Some cases stay open. It’s a technicality.”

“It sucks.” Hardy drank half the can of beer as Glitsky continued memorizing the skyline until he finally said, “If you got anything, I’ll listen.”

“I got nada,” Hardy admitted. “Cruz told me a flat-out lie. I directly asked him if he’d known Eddie Cochran and he paused, thought about it, and said no. I wonder why. That kind of thing.”

“And he wouldn’t see you.”

“Yeah, that.”

They were silent. Outside Glitsky’s office, there were sounds of people going home. Hardy could see the traffic backing up on the Oakland Bridge. He drank some warm beer, then reached over and grabbed the file off Glitsky’s desk, began leafing through the few pages.