He imagined the basher, breathing hard as he grabbed a handful of sand and ran it up and down the handle of the Fish Whack'r, then hurled it into the bay. Too dark to see it land. Too windy to hear it.

Then the gloves- jamming them into the wet sand to clean them, peeling them off from the back, stuffing them down into the warm-up jacket, then deep into the trash can. You can't be stopped or seen with the gloves on. You can't be stopped or seen with the bloody jacket.

Now he's running for the car. He knows he just has to drive away, and he'll never be caught. The storm makes him think everything's going to be covered, changed, erased. He doesn't know that the storm will trick him, wash his weapon onto the shore. He doesn't know that his prints are on the latex.

McMichael's cell phone vibrated against his side and Captain Don Rawlings's voice yanked him back to reality.

"We found Courtney Gonzalez down in the desert," he said. "Shallow grave, the coyotes got some of her. Had two hundred dollars and a CDL in her coat pocket."

"Angel," said McMichael.

"She is now," said Rawlings. "Rattlesnake Gorge Road. Two miles north of Highway Eight. Sheriff's are there."

Hector drove east, fast, a gumball on top to clear the traffic and the windows cracked for the good cool air. McMichael tossed aside the map book and watched San Diego turn into La Mesa, El Cajon, Alpine, Japutul, Pine Valley. They climbed into the huge rock formations of the San Vicente Mountains, tremendous tan boulders piled precariously skyward as if dumped there by a god with leftover material.

Rattlesnake Gorge Road looped north into Anza-Borrego State Park. McMichael could see a helicopter hovering above a glint of metal far out in the desert. Hector turned onto a dirt road, breaking the tires loose with a satisfied grin, rocks popping off the undercarriage of the Crown Vic as he gunned it to outrun the dust.

There were two INS trucks, three sheriff's cruisers and an evidence van parked in a line along the right side of the road. Hector slowed well in advance and rolled in behind the van. The helicopter was fixed in the sky as if painted on.

They trudged abreast through the rocky terrain. McMichael picked his way around the cholla cacti, their needles blond and brilliant in the raw desert sun. Tan sand. Tan boulders rising against the sky. Two vultures circling high as if this was old news to them, which, McMichael realized, it was.

They stood with the other men outside a rectangle of crime scene ribbon wrapped around a spindly ocotillo and three cholla. Before them a young woman lay facedown in a shallow hole. Black hair, dark skin, black remnants of clothing stuck to her swollen body, a black leather jacket caught on one wrist but otherwise pulled completely off and inverted. One hand had been chewed off. Her left boot lay ten yards away with part of her leg still in it. Large green flies droned above her without marked enthusiasm, strangely audible within the broader sound of the chopper.

"Fuck," said Hector.

"That's eloquent," said one of the INS agents.

"Fuck you," McMichael said quietly. "How's that?"

"We're the ones who found her," said the agent. "Following some illegals through the hills."

"And we found some money and her driver's license snapped in one of the jacket pockets," said a deputy. "My watch commander is tight with Captain Rawlings, so we got the word to you fast."

McMichael looked back to the road. It was only eighty feet away and both the INS and San Diego sheriff's vehicles were parked well short of where the dumper's vehicle would likely have been parked. But the recent storm would have made it this far east, he knew, destroying any tire tracks, footprints or drag marks. Looking down at the ground around him McMichael saw no marks at all, just desert soil, cleaned by rain and baked hard again by the sun. Even the animal tracks had been washed away.

Two hours later Bob Harley and Erik Fiore had put what was left of Courtney Gonzalez into a body bag and the body bag into an SDPD Field Evidence Team van. Harley said it looked to him like the body had been there for at least two weeks, but Stiles would be able to tell better when he got her on the table. Hector had told Barbara to stay with Flagler while he worked the second fish bat- nothing to do out in the desert but watch the crime scene guys scoop up a girl who didn't deserve to die.

The INS and sheriff's were gone, leaving just McMichael and Hector standing near the shallow grave as the evidence van wobbled away down the dirt road.

"Victor?" asked McMichael. "Kill the thing you love but can't have?"

Hector shook his head. "But he can't even drive. Not supposed to drive, anyway."

"Then you try," said McMichael.

Hector walked around the grave, toed a rock, looked up at the mountains of boulders surrounding them. "There's the brothers, not willing to take a chance on Victor blabbing company secrets to the girl of his dreams. And Angel blabbing those secrets to customers, or us."

"I can buy that," said McMichael. "Or maybe she already talked. Maybe this was just payback from Auto Leather International. Basic damage control."

Hector thought about this, kicked a rock. "There's lots of creeps who prey on the working girls. Maybe Angel just got unlucky."

McMichael nodded, squinting in the ferocious sunlight. "I don't think it's a coincidence, Heck."

"No such thing," said Hector.

"Let's see what Mr. Assault and Solicitation was up to that night."

Andre Proulx was tall, lean and handsome. He was thirty-one, with an assault conviction on a prostitute in New Orleans in 1994 and a soliciting conviction in Los Angeles in '96. He was the lead chef and one-third partner in a Gaslamp restaurant called Provençal, which is where McMichael and Hector found him at three o'clock that afternoon.

He stood at a counter in his kitchen whites with a knife in one hand and a bunch of carrots in the other.

"It is not always good to see the police," he said with a wry smile. His voice was deep and clear and accented.

"It's never good to see creeps like you," said Hector, sliding his badge back into his pocket. "Put that knife down and come over here."

Proulx set the knife on the counter and tossed the carrots beside it. He was goateed and sharp-nosed, with a shaved head and a gold stud in his left ear. His face was compact and well proportioned.

"How can I help you?" he asked.

"Tell us about January second," said McMichael. "Thursday night."

"May I go to my calendar? It is in the office, over here."

Hector held out his hand and Proulx ambled through the kitchen, past the stoves and freezers, to a storage corner piled with white plastic tubs. He moved with a lanky ease, something casually superior in his walk. At the far wall he swung open a door.

The office was small and cluttered, with a steel desk and folding metal chairs, two telephones, a computer and printer. The walls had posters of the French countryside and American dragsters taped at careless angles.

Proulx went behind the desk and sat, then tapped the keyboard and stared at the monitor.

"I was working, of course," he said. "It was one of my kitchen nights. Bad weather. We served forty dinners. The scallops did not arrive and we disappointed several customers."

"When was your last seating?" asked McMichael.

"Approximately ten."

"When did they leave?" asked Hector.

Proulx looked up at them. "I think eleven-thirty."

"Then what?" asked McMichael.

"I walked over to Libertad to smoke and relax. I let the manager and crew do the scrubbing and cleaning that night. I was in the kitchen from morning on. Very tired."