"Thirty-five and brain damaged from a motorcycle wreck. No priors, no incidents, clean. He worked in a bank, taught Sunday school to fourth-graders before the accident. His friends and neighbors weren't happy with Sally Gaglosta and the state court."

McMichael tried to process the information but his mind had gone dim, like a dying lightbulb. "Brain damage doesn't preclude violence. It can cause it. Can't it?"

Hector looked at him hard. "In Gaglosta's possible defense, she was from Hagville, Kentucky, foot of the Appalachians and the Alleghenies. She had one brother in prison for bank robbery, another in prison for growing dope in the hollows. One sister that just vanished. Her mom lived with a boyfriend to keep the welfare checks coming. Six kids, three fathers. Sally split when she was fifteen, moved in with an older sister in Miami."

They headed up Fourteenth and dropped back down onto Broadway, circled headquarters once, then started a second lap.

"She didn't sit right with me," Hector said quietly. "Not from the first second I saw her that night. It took me a couple of days to track all that down. I thought it was my obligation, Tom, as a partner and a friend."

"You're good at both, Hector."

Silence then, as they walked toward the headquarters doors. "Maybe it was self-defense," said Hector, unconvinced.

"Damn right," said McMichael.

More silence.

"Hey, I met a couple of flight attendants at Libertad last night. They're up for a foursome sometime but I get the blonde. I made you sound like a cross between Ricky Martin and the guy in Gladiator."

"That's me."

"Yesterday evening," said Hector, "Bland asked me about you and the nurse. Asked if you two were an item. I said beats me but the nurse isn't a suspect anyway, so who cares? I didn't say jack about anything else, and I won't unless he pulls me onto his IAD carpet. Who knows, maybe I'd still tell him to shove it."

"Don't sink for me, Hector."

"I can take care of myself. I hope you can."

"Close the door," said Bland. "Have a seat."

McMichael had barely made it into the Team Three pen when the assistant chief called him into his office.

"The spooks caught you," said Bland. He handed McMichael a large white envelope with the City of San Diego seal and address in one corner.

McMichael's heart ducked and dove, the spooks being Professional Standards Unit- the foot soldiers for IAD, cops who spy on other cops, nameless and faceless, guys you'd never make for the law, didn't even work out of the Fourteenth St. headquarters. They had more power over their fellow SDPD officers than the Constitution of the United States.

McMichael slid out the black-and-white photographs: he and Sally Rainwater standing outside Mario's with glowering Johnny, he and Sally Rainwater walking the pier hand in hand, going into the steakhouse, making out under the streetlamp and on her porch. The killers were the close-ups, apparently taken through the louvered windows of her bedroom, a truly humiliating series that ended in a picture of McMichael with his head thrown back in a grimace of pleasure. He looked like a baboon with a haircut.

"What's the idea here?" he asked.

"I don't see any ideas here at all. No rational thought, no professional standards. Explain yourself."

"I like her and we're spending time."

"You sure are. The blood was hardly dry on Pete Braga's floor when you're banging the suspect." Bland's thick bovine face cracked into something like a smile.

"She's not a suspect."

"Oh, no? The only witness, covered in blood, pointing a finger at the door? She's not a suspect?"

"We've got prints on the weapon- not hers. We've got prints on the sliding glass door- not hers. She didn't kill him."

"And she's got no idea who did?"

"That's correct."

"Who is a suspect?"

"We've got some leads but no suspect."

"Leads, fingerprints, but no suspect."

McMichael said nothing. He remembered Sally's refusal to talk about what had happened, and how she might have prevented a man's death. He remembered her sadness. But he wasn't sure what this implied. Shame? Guilt? Pain? He held Bland's stare for a beat, then looked away.

"How old are you, McMichael?"

"I'm thirty-eight."

Bland shook his head. "You're acting more like eighteen. In fact, I've got a nephew eighteen who has more sense than you. Maybe you don't want to button down this case. Maybe you like the idea that Pete Braga got his, just like he gave it to Frank McMichael back in the dark ages."

"It was nineteen fifty-two."

Bland sat back, fingers locked behind his head. "I've got some options here, McMichael. I can throw this to IAD. I can throw it to Captain Rawlings and let him deal with you. I could just punt to the chief and let him get the ulcers."

McMichael nodded. "You could stand behind a fellow officer and trust his judgment."

"That option scares me. Because if this blows up- say the nurse set the old man up, say she was in on it with one of her other boy toys- my ass blows up with it. Why would I take that risk for you?"

"No," McMichael said evenly, "you wouldn't."

Bland lifted one heavy brow. "McMichael, say I was willing. Say you're right about the nurse, and she's God's gift to the human race. This still looks bad. Appearances are part of my job. One of the many things I'm paid for is to make sure we appear proper and competent and professional. This makes you- us- appear to be the opposite. Now, do you agree with that or not?"

McMichael tried to look at it from the outside, as if he were Bland or Hector or Rawlings. It wasn't difficult. "It looks bad. And I realize I could have made a mistake."

"And what if you did?"

"I'll fire me myself."

Bland chuckled without levity. "Now we're getting somewhere. I'm going to talk to Rawlings about this. I don't know. In the meantime, try a little harder not to fuck up."

"Yes, sir."

"We're all on a team, Detective. "When you stink, I stink."

"I won't make you stink, sir. I've got to do what I think is right."

"You looked pretty right in that last picture."

McMichael didn't answer for a while. "Why did you do this?"

"Not me," said Bland. "IAD got wind of it and decided to check it out. You did the rest."

"Got wind of it how?"

Bland shook his head. "The PSU guys were tracking you because of Jimmy. Why's he talking to you but nobody else? How come you two are passing kites back and forth like a couple of gangsters? So they followed you to the pizza place, saw you and the nurse. Now you're hanging out with a near suspect in a high-profile homicide, plus this shit with Jimmy. That's weird, McMichael, no matter what you think. IAD told the spooks to run with it, see what you were doing. Guess what? You were doing her. IAD came to me with the frank photos."

"Great people to work with."

"What else could they do?"

Bland regarded McMichael with his small, unmerciful eyes. "Tell me, is she really that special, really worth all this?"

"I think so."

Special enough to take a meat cleaver to a brain-damaged patient, he thought. Bland's placid face seemed to be staring at him from the end of a long narrow tunnel.

The assistant chief sat back again, sighing. "I don't get you, McMichael. You've had a clean record here for sixteen years. Good years. Some nice citations, no complaints. Climbing the ladder. Homicide at thirty-seven. Captain Rawlings went all out for you because he thought you'd fit into Team Three. All of a sudden you're Jimmy Thigpen's soul mate and you're humping the only witness/suspect in a murder case. Just yesterday I got a complaint from Henry Grothke, saying you were harassing him at his office. Then I get another one from some ambulance driver, says you commandeered his vehicle, made him stand out in the rain. What gives with you? You bored? Tired?"