“Looks like a single gunman, from out in those bushes.”

He pointed to a dense thicket beside the church, maybe fifty yards away. “Asshole caught the kids just as they came out. Opened fire with everything he had.”

I took a breath, staring at the weeping, shell-shocked kids scattered all over the lawn. “Anybody see the guy? Somebody did, right?”

He shook his head. “Everyone hit the deck.”

Near the fallen child, a distraught black woman sobbed into the shoulder of a comforting friend. Jacobi saw my eyes fix on the dead girl.

“Name's Tasha Catchings,” he muttered. “In the fifth grade, over at St. Anne's. Good girl. Youngest kid in the choir.”

I moved in closer and knelt over the blood-soaked body. No matter how many times you do this, it's a wrenching sight. Tasha's school blouse was soaked with blood, mixed with falling rain. Just a few feet away, a rainbow-colored knapsack lay on the grass.

“She's it?” I asked incredulously. I surveyed the scene.

“She's the only one who got hit?”

Bullet holes were everywhere, splintered glass and wood.

Dozens of kids had been streaming out to the street... All those shots, and only one victim.

“Our lucky day, huh?” Jacobi snorted.

Chapter 3

PAUL CHIN, one of my Homicide crew, was interviewing a tall, handsome black man dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans on the steps of the church. I'd seen him before, on the news. I even knew his name, Aaron Winslow.

Even in shock and dismay, Winslow carried himself with a graceful bearing - a smooth face, jet-black hair cut flat on top, and a football running back's build. Everyone in San Francisco knew what he was doing for this neighborhood.

He was supposed to be a real-life hero, and I must say he looked the part.