Guilt

He had to chuckle. 'I assure you, this wasn't anything like any dinner I've ever had with Lydia, at home or anywhere else. In the first place, you can cook.'

'I'm not pushing anything,' she said.

'I know, not that I couldn't handle a little of that, even. But it was fun. I had a great time. I enjoyed your brother and sister and thought your friend Christina was charming and lovely and I think you are fantastic, although I'm not absolutely sure I'm going to respect you in the morning.'

She put her own glass down, took his hand from where it rested on her shoulder and placed it on her breast. 'I hope not,' she said.

'Let's go find out.'

At about the same moment that Wes Farrell was enjoying his first martini that evening, Mark and Sheila entered St Emydius church to attend Saturday-night Mass.

They walked together down the center aisle and chose a pew about ten rows from the front. There were more than fifty people in the church, a good showing. The congregation had come early to take part in the Reconciliation Service, which had for most Catholics replaced the old, often-humiliating sacrament of Confession. Now, sinners were offered an opportunity to reflect on their weakness, privately resolve to do good, and then be communally absolved of any guilt without having to confront another human being or suffer the minor indignity of a formal penance.

Today, though, before the priest had come on to the altar to begin the Reconciliation Service, Mark leaned over and whispered to Sheila that he was going to use the real confessional, which was still an option. 'I'm old fashioned,' he said. 'It does me more good.'

He didn't know what priest would be sitting in the confessional, but there was a good chance he'd know Dooher, and vice versa. All the priests at St Emydius knew him. Maybe not, though. Often a visiting priest would get the chore of Saturday Confession.

Dooher would let fate dictate it.

He nodded his head, made the sign of the cross, stood up and opened the confessional door. The familiar smell of it – dust and beeswax – filled his soul, as did the comforting darkness. Then the window that separated him and the priest was sliding open. The man recognized him immediately.

'Hello, Mark, how are you doing today?'

It was Gene Gorman, the pastor, who'd been to the house fifty times for poker, for dinner, for fundraisers, who got a bottle of Canadian Club every Christmas, who'd baptized Jason, their youngest.

Dooher paused. 'Not so good, I'm afraid,' he whispered. He let the silence gather. Then: 'I don't want to burden you, Gene.'

'That's what the sacrament's for, Mark.'

Dooher hesitated another moment. Hesitation heightened the gravity of things. 'Would you mind not using my name? Is there someone in the other stall?'

The confessionals at St Emydius, as in most Catholic churches, had three compartments – one in the middle for the priest, and one on either side of him for the repentants. This time the hesitation came from Father Gorman. Dooher heard him slide open the window on the other side, then close it. 'No, we're alone. You can begin.'

The old words, the ritual he so loved. Again he made the sign of the cross. 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

John Strout, San Francisco's coroner, was a gangly Southern gentleman of the old school. He had a prominent Adam's apple, a perennially bad case of dandruff in his wispy gray hair, poor taste in clothes, and a pronounced Dixie accent. He was also, rube or not, one the country's most respected forensics experts, and now he was taking a morning walk with Glitsky through the debris and detritus of south-of-Market San Francisco.

It was Monday morning – sunny, breezy, and cold. Strout was, of course, a medical doctor, and – after a lifetime of bad morning coffee and stale donuts – had recently been a convert to the theory that a healthy breakfast was the key to a long life and perhaps even more luxuriant hair growth. Like all good converts, he had found the truth and was going to spread the word around, goddamn it. Like it or not.

So, whenever feasible, he'd taken to briefing cops and DAs about his forensics reports over breakfast in one of the city's eateries. It never occurred to him that discussing the finer points of often-gory violent death, complete with color photographs, might not be particularly conducive to stimulating the early-morning appetite.

It did occur to Glitsky.

Strout had finished the PM on Victor Trang on the previous Friday afternoon, and Glitsky had – atypically, in Strout's experience, probably because of his troubles at home – said he'd be free to discuss the results first thing Monday morning. Let the weekend intervene. Why not?

'I'll just look at the pictures while we're walking here, if you don't mind, John.' With a show of reluctance, Strout handed over the folder, and put his now-empty hands into the pockets of his greatcoat against the chill. 'What do we have?' Abe went on. 'Any surprises?'

'Well, as a matter of fact…'

Glitsky closed the newly opened folder. 'What? I'll listen first.'

'Surprises may be too strong a word, but the deceased here got himself gutted by a pig sticker of the first order.'

'Pig sticker?'

'Knife.'

'A pig sticker is a certain kind of knife?'

Strout's expression betrayed a certain intolerance. 'Damn, you Yankees… pig sticker means knife. Genetically. Victor Trang got stabbed by a big knife, is that clearer? And not just any big knife, something like a Bowie or my own favorite guess, a bayonet. Y'all familiar with the term "bayonet"?'

Glitsky played along. 'I've heard of it. Made by the Swiss Army people, right? Whittling tool.'

'Yeah, that's it, 'cept the large version.' Strout put a hand on Glitsky's arm and stopped him as they walked. 'Open the file,' he said. The breeze gusted and they moved into the entrance of an office building, out of it. 'The photos.'

Glitsky followed instructions, flipping over glossies of the murder scene, the body as he'd found it, then as it looked from various angles stripped on the morgue table. Finally Strout put his finger on one. 'There you go. That one.'

It was a color close-up that Glitsky recognized all too soon: the wound itself, after the area had been washed – long and wider than most knife-wounds he'd been witness to.

'You see there?' Strout was saying. 'Right at the top?'

Glitsky squinted, not clear what he was supposed to be seeing. Strout moved in closer, put his finger on the area over the top of the gash. 'Right here. You see that half-moon? The little circle under it? Know what that is?'

Glitsky took a second, then guessed. 'It's an imprint from the haft of the knife.'

The coroner was pleased. 'I must say, it is a pure pleasure to work with a professional. That's exactly what it is. The perp stabbed him so hard and so far up, the haft left this little fingerprint, which is pretty damn distinctive, you ask me. Actually cut into the skin above the blade area. I wouldn't put my name on it as a definite,' – this was because he could never prove it for certain and some attorney might discredit his entire testimony if he wasn't one hundred percent positive and correct on every detail – 'but between us, this could be nothing but a bayonet.'

Strout reached inside his greatcoat and extracted a folded brown paper shopping bag. 'As a matter of fact…'

'You just happen to have one handy.'

This wasn't as unusual as it might have appeared. Strout's office contained an impressive collection of murder weapons from throughout the ages – maces, crossbows, garrotting scarves, sabers, handguns and Uzis. And, apparently, bayonets.

He withdrew it from the bag, hefted it affectionately, and handed it to Glitsky. 'I thought I'd cut my steak with this at breakfast. Make an impression on our waiter. But look.'

Abe was already looking. It was, as Strout had noted, a pig sticker of the first order. Where the blade met the handle of the knife was an oversized steel haft with a half-inch circular hole through the metal.