Four years of high school, three years in the Army and on the cops. He was not quite twenty-eight.

"Check her, Jim," he said.

Jimmy Tinkham was twenty-six, high school, college, a criminal justice major, and onto the Smithfield force. He was blond. His cheeks were rosy and he shaved three times a week.

He squatted beside her, the big handle of his service revolver sticking out at an odd angle. He felt her neck as Newman had done. Newman liked that. He'd been professional. Like they were.

"Dead and starting to cool," Tinkham said.

Diamond nodded. "I figured," he said. Above them on the tree branch in a row, the crows sat. Their bodies motionless, moving their heads.

"We better run it through," Tinkham said.

Diamond nodded. He took a notebook from his shirt pocket, a pencil from the same pocket. He pushed his campaign hat back on his head a bit more; the Smithfield force wore them in the summer.

"What time you find her?" he said.

Newman shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I left the health club at five. It's about four miles to here. I run ten minute miles. It must have been about twenty of six."

Diamond wrote 5:40 in his notebook. "She just the way you left her?"

"Yes."

"And you saw the man shoot her?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you intervene?"

"It was too quick. I was too far away. It was over before I knew what happened."

"And you didn't get the license number?" "469-AAG," Newman said. He hadn't consciously registered it. It surprised him. But he knew that he noticed things. He always had.

Tinkham raised his eyebrows and stuck out his lower lip.

Diamond said, "Can you give us a description?" "Of him or the car?" Newman said.

"Both. Him first."

"He was tall. Maybe six three, and skinny. No, not skinny, gaunt, but sort of strong looking, like Lincoln, you know?"