"Charlie Bowen," Treya said. "Where do I know that name?"

"He's the father. The missing person."

"The lawyer? I knew him, Abe. He's the guy, Diz got all his files."

"Our own Diz?"

"Our own Diz." Treya gave his leg another squeeze. "Maybe Darrel ought to talk to him."

31

THE NEXT MORNING, Friday, May 4, Glitsky and Treya drove in to work together. Through the largesse of Clarence Jackman, Treya had a dedicated parking spot behind the jail that she considered perhaps the job's single greatest perk.

Yesterday's high pressure front had scoured the sky clean and banished the marine layer halfway out to the Farallones, so the sun packed an unseasonable warmth. Though there was no breeze at all, some fluke of nature had delivered a fragrant and powerful olfactory blast from the city's main flower market around the corner. Treya, getting out on the passenger side, looked over the car's hood at her husband and said, "This day is too beautiful. Do you smell that? If we were truly evolved spirits, no way would we go in to work today."

"No? What would we do instead?"

"Whatever we wanted. Dance, sing, take the ferry to Sausalito."

Glitsky met her in front of the car and took her hand as they started toward the Hall of Justice. "If we were truly evolved," he said, "we'd probably get fired. So, luckily, we're not."

"Well, maybe you're not." She ceased walking, effectively stopping them both, and sniffed the air aggressively. "But I'm at least taking one extra minute here to enjoy this."

"Smelling the roses, as it were."

"You should try it. Close your eyes a second, breathe it in."

Glitsky did as instructed, then opened his eyes. "Yep, roses," he said, "and then all that other stuff."

***

WHEN GLITSKY opened the door to homicide's reception area, he was looking at Dismas Hardy, who was dressed for work in his suit and tie and looking at his watch. "Two minutes late," Hardy said. "What kind of example is that to set for your team?"

"Treya held me up," he said. "We stopped in the parking lot to smell the flowers."

"How were they?"

"Really great. Flowerlike." Glitsky greeted the two clerks that sat at their desks and then swung open the door to the counter that divided the room, indicating that Hardy follow him in. Opening the door to his office, Glitsky asked, "Did we have an appointment?"

"No."

"I didn't think so."

"But you called me last night, if you remember, which I bet you do. I didn't get in till too late to call you back. Something about Charlie Bowen?" Hardy took one of the chairs from against the back wall and pulled it up to sit on it.

Glitsky got himself seated behind his desk. "His name got you down here first thing in the morning?"

"Not really. I've got a hearing downstairs at ten anyway." Hardy crossed a leg. "So you're going to tell me they found his body?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Let's see. You're homicide. You call me about a guy who went missing ten months ago. Call me crazy, but I figure maybe he's suddenly become a homicide."

"Nope. That's not it. Good guess, though."

"Thank you. You want me to make another one?"

"You could, or I could just tell you."

"Okay. Let's go with that."

Glitsky gave it to him in about ten sentences, at the end of which Hardy was frowning. "So your guy Bracco," he said, "wants to do what exactly?"

"Find this diary."

"Which may or may not exist?"

"Right."

"And then which may or may not have anything to do with Charlie's wife's death?"

Glitsky shrugged his shoulders. "This isn't my idea, Diz. Treya just thought you might save Bracco some running around."

"If I could, I'd be happy to. But we're talking like sixty large boxes of files, about a third of which we've already farmed out or returned to clients."

"Right. I know."

"Besides which," Hardy said, "the timing's wrong. If the wife died in February, I had the files in my office by mid-December. She couldn't have dropped the diary into any of them even if she wanted to. You want, though, I'll get one of my people to go through the boxes on everything we've got left, but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

"That's what I told Darrel."

"There you go," Hardy said, standing up. "Great minds. Oh, no, wait, that couldn't be it."

Glitsky was picking up his telephone. "Get the door on your way out, would you?"

***

HARDY HAD TAKEN up the habit of his now-deceased mentor David Freeman and, whenever the opportunity presented itself, walked the fourteen blocks between his office on Sutter Street and the Hall of Justice. Today, his morning hearing having ended sooner than expected, he was making pretty good time-not that it was a race or an opportunity for exercise or anything like that-when he got to Mission Street. There, a well-dressed, elderly woman caught his eye and moved just a bit over to get in his path. She looked into his face, beamed at him, and said, "Pardon me."

"Yes?"

"Are you all right?"

"I think so." She didn't look like it, but Hardy suddenly had no doubt that she was yet another in a city full of crazies.

"Then you ought to smile."

"Excuse me?"