In the morning, after the call from Harris at the scene of the triple, Delsa had his coffee and got ready for work.

The car they gave him to use was a dark blue Chevy Lumina with 115,000 miles on it and a Service Engine Soon light that was always on. He parked on Gratiot, a block from 1300 Beaubien, Detroit Police Headquarters for the past eighty years, the worn-out nine-story building hemmed in by high-rise wings of the Wayne County jail, the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and, a few blocks south against the sky, the Greektown Casino.

Most of Homicide was on five.

Delsa walked past Seven's squad room to the end of the hall and the office of his boss, Homicide Inspector Wendell Robinson, a cool guy, twenty-eight years with the Detroit Police. Wendell was up on the triple, he'd stopped by the scene on his way in.

"Frank, it's over by Tiger Stadium, that famous old ballpark of no use to anybody." Wendell had hung up his trench coat and now stood by his desk, still wearing his Kangol cap, this one beige. Wendell had been wearing those soft Kangols as long as he'd been here, longer than Samuel L. Jackson had been wearing his backwards. He said, "Right across a parking lot's a White Castle. You can smell those beautiful sliders with the onions fried on 'em, seven in the morning. How we doing?"

Delsa wanted to remind Wendell that he needed people. With Seven's regular lieutenant in Iraq working for army intelligence, two on furlough, one home with her new baby, his executive sergeant, Vinnie, gone to Memphis to question a witness, Squad Seven was down to three: Delsa, Richard Harris and Jackie Michaels.