Pratt’s mouth turned up a millimeter, a beaming smile for her. ‘Ah, yes. I’ve tried to work with him before.’

Glitsky noted the emphasis on the word ‘tried’ and Pratt’s use of it didn’t bode well for the Hardy camp. But he wasn’t through fighting for Frannie, not by a long shot. ‘Look.’ He summoned up a conciliatory tone. ‘Sharron. We don’t have any evidence at all that connects Ron Beaumont to this murder. We’re looking at him, sure, but by all accounts he was in fact out having coffee with Mrs Hardy when his wife was killed. Even Mr Randall doesn’t dispute that.’

But Scott wasn’t going to let Glitsky put words in his mouth. He piped right up. ‘It’s a big window of time. Actually, there’s a lot of room for doubt.’

But this wasn’t where Glitsky wanted to pick his fight, so he resisted the urge to snap back. Instead, he rolled his eyes and pressed on. ‘And if we find that Mr Beaumont fits into that window of time, we’ll probably get closer to a warrant. But that’s my point. Right now the investigation is nowhere and-’

‘Precisely why I took it over and gave it to Senior Investigator Struler here.’

Glitsky tried to ignore Randall, to direct himself to Pratt. ‘The original investigating officer died, Sharron. There wasn’t any intentional foot-dragging.’

‘I haven’t heard anyone make that accusation, lieutenant.’ Pratt smiled again, thinly. ‘But the point, my point, is that Mr Randall was conducting his own investigation due to the… unfortunate lack of progress that yours was making.’ Glitsky started to open his mouth, but she stopped him, holding up a hand. ‘And in the course of his investigation, Mr Beaumont became a suspect for the murder, and so his associates became relevant targets for interrogation.’

‘OK,’ Glitsky conceded, ‘and Frannie Hardy didn’t answer a question.’ He turned to Randall. ‘Do you have any idea how often our witnesses don’t answer questions, Scott? If we locked any percentage of them up, any percentage, one two per cent, we’d have to rent the whole city of San Bruno just for the warehouse space to hold ’em.‘

Randall wasn’t hearing it. ‘But this a murder case, Abe. We’re not looking for some shoplifter here.’

Glitsky all but exploded. ‘What do you think I’m talking about? I’m in homicide. All I see are murder cases, and I don’t get a witness in a hundred who’ll tell me what time it is if there’s not something in it for him and his dog.’ He modulated his voice again, feigning a calm rationality that fooled no one in the room. ‘What I’m getting at, Sharron, is that this may have been an over-reaction on all sides. Frannie should have been given a day or two to go home and think about what she would be comfortable-’

‘Comfortable!’ Randall’s turn to let go. ‘I don’t care if she’s comfortable. I don’t want her to be comfortable. She knows something critical to a murder case-’

‘You don’t know that!’

‘- and until she tells what that is, we’ve got a murderer walking around on the streets-’

This time it was Batavia who interrupted. ‘You’re out of your mind, Randall. You got nothing. You’re nowhere here. She’s probably just fucking the guy and doesn’t want her husband to find out. The lieutenant’s right. You got nothing on Beaumont. No motive, no means, opportunity. Forget it. Let the lady go, would you? Jesus. I got to go to the bathroom.’ And with that, he was out the door.

‘Charming gentleman,’ Pratt said.

‘Good cop,’ Glitsky responded.

Randall came forward in his folding chair. ‘I don’t care if he’s the king of England. He’s not giving me any suspects, so I develop my own and build my case. And from where I’m sitting, Frannie Hardy’s right in the middle of it.’

Glitsky caught the eye of Batavia’s partner, Tyler Coleman, gave the secret sign, and they both stood up. ‘I wish you’d think about it some more, Sharron. This is really wrong.’

She looked him right in the eye. ‘I will, Abe. I promise.’

While Glitsky and Coleman were waiting for the elevator, Batavia emerged from the hallway behind them. ‘If assholes could fly,’ he said, ‘that place would be an airport.’

Glitsky himself tried to limit his profanity to a word or two a year, but he appreciated a well-turned phrase. The scar between his lips tightened in amusement. But Coleman was still seething – implicit in everything that had just transpired in Pratt’s office was the accusation that he and his partner had booted one. ‘If there’s such a fire under this one, Abe, why didn’t we hear about it?’

The elevator door opened and they squeezed in amid the rest of the clerks, cops, lawyers, and citizens. Glitsky had at one time decided that it could be an instructive display of authority to talk in a crowded elevator, and he answered Coleman as if they were alone in his office. He also thought it wouldn’t be all bad if some spy from the airport – he hoped that Batavia’s new nickname for the DA’s office would have a long life – heard him taking Mr Scott Randall to task for his misguided enthusiasm. Maybe he’d also drop a little rumor about Scott’s ambitions that his boss wouldn’t appreciate all that much.

‘Randall wants a high-profile case, that’s all, Vince. He wants out of this low-rent office, into the big private money. This building’s not big enough for him, so due process takes a powder.’

Batavia was also immune to elevator squelch. His voice boomed in the enclosed space. ‘But he doesn’t have a goddam thing, Abe. Like I said in there.’ The doors opened and they stepped out. ‘What’s this window of time shit, anyway? Everything we’ve read or heard, the guy was dropping the kids at school, going for coffee.’

But here, though he hated it, Glitsky had to admit that technically, Randall wasn’t all wrong. He had to give Coleman and Batavia his reading that even if Frannie’s alibi was righteous, Ron Beaumont still could have killed his wife. Bree’s body hadn’t been discovered in the patio for several hours, and the coroner hadn’t been able to fix a precise time of death. ‘It could have been three hours plus or minus,’ he concluded. ‘We’re going on around eight thirty on the theory that Ron left the house a little before that and says she was still alive.’

‘The kids say it, too. How about that?’ Batavia wasn’t ready to give anything to Scott Randall.

But Glitsky knew that the homicide cop’s worst enemy was imprecision. Well, maybe second worst after jumping to conclusions, but certainly way up there. He corrected Batavia. ‘I hate to say it, Jorge, but the kids were a little vague.’

Coleman popped in. ‘Hey, it’s two days after their mom died, for Christ’s sake, and they didn’t remember what she had for breakfast. I don’t blame ’em. Hell, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast today. I don’t even know if I ate breakfast.‘

‘Donuts,’ Batavia said. ‘Remember, Lanier brought up-’

‘Guys!’ Glitsky stopped at the door to the homicide detail. ‘The point is, Ron’s not eliminated, OK?’

Batavia wasn’t letting it go. ‘The kids said the mom was there, Abe.’

Glitsky shook his head. ‘Ron prompted them. Read the one transcript Griffin got around to getting typed. Carl didn’t get the kids to talk to him with their father out of the room, and not to speak ill of the dead, but I do so wish he had. And let’s not forget that Ron has left his home and gone to parts unknown.’

‘All right. Shit.’ Batavia had a habit of dismissing himself. He was turning now on his heel, on his way to his desk.

‘Jorge!’

It was his lieutenant. He had to stop.

‘We’re not done here. This is still our case. Randall hasn’t charged anybody.’

He took a step back. ‘I thought you just said-’

Glitsky cut him off. ‘I didn’t say it was Ron. I said he wasn’t impossible. But one thing’s for sure – he’s Randall’s guy, isn’t he? I mean, the DA’s committed to Ron Beaumont now. Nobody else. You hear what I’m saying?’