Casting his eyes up for a moment, over the buildings that rose all around him, he noticed the star-studded sky. Here between the buildings it was full night. The filigreed streetlights – four of them, two on each side – glowed. The street had that glassy, wet look favored by cinematographers, although the asphalt itself was dry.

A figure separated itself from the group and began walking toward him. It was Ridley Banks. After he'd closed to within fifteen feet, he stopped – perhaps catching the 'keep away' vibe that his lieutenant projected – and waited until the two men were side by side. Glitsky's usual style was all business in any event, and today it served him particularly well.

'What've we got?' he asked tersely.

'About as clean as it gets, Abe. We got a body, a shooter, a weapon and a motive.'

'And what's that, the motive?'

They were still standing off a ways from the knot that had formed around the body. Banks kept his voice low. 'Robbery. He took her purse, the watch, a gold chain.'

Glitsky was moving forward again. He'd made it down from his duplex to the scene in only a bit more time than it had taken the techs, and now, just as he came up to the main knot surrounding the body, one of the car's searchlights strafed the lane. Reflexively, Glitsky put a hand up against the light, pressed himself forward, went down to a knee by the fallen body.

It lay on its right side, stretched out along the pavement in an attitude of sleep. It struck Glitsky that whoever had shot her had laid her down gently. He saw no blood at first glance. The face was unmarked, eyes closed.

He'd come to love that face. There'd been a picture of her in the Chronicle in the past year and he'd cut it out and stuck it in the bottom of the junk drawer of his desk. Two or three times, he'd closed and locked the door to his office, taken it out and just looked at her.