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hours. The ME could be more precise. The room itself was a mess, paper scattered all around—as if someone had been searching for something.
    “Who reported the murder?” Ying asked
    “The victim’s wife.”
    Toliveri was in his early fifties. He had grown up in the neighborhood, but he was a second stringer in the department. He was a good detective when he wanted to be, but he had some gripes—the main one being he wanted a promotion before he quit so he could boost his pension status. He was genial enough. Witnesses tended to trust him, at least in the early going. But he had a way of undermining the investigation. Holding back too long, then bulling forward for no apparent reason. There were times, too, when he just didn’t do what you asked.
    “These footprints,” said Ying. “They look like a woman’s shoe.”
    “The wife, like I said. She’s got blood on her dress as well.”
    “You had a chance to talk to her?”
    “She says she came home at three o’clock. But she didn’t come up here right away. Took a nap on the couch first. Then she found the body. She’s the one who tracked things up.”
    “How about the son?”
    “Gary Mancuso. He lives up the street. His mother called him after she found the body.”
    Ying felt a spear of panic. Maybe it showed on his face.
    “What’s the name again?”
    “Mancuso.”
    And he had the feeling it was all connected, it was all the same case, just a million different manifestations. A hydra. Cut off the head, and it grew a dozen more.
    “Big name in The Beach. Or used to be,” Toliveri said. He gestured toward the corpse. “That was Salvatore. Owns the warehouse down China Basin. His brother Giovanni died a few days back.”
    “I’m aware of that.”
    “The son, Salvatore’s nephew—he used to be with Homicide. He’s back in town for the old man’s funeral.”
    “I know.”
    “How do you know? You keeping tabs on the Italians these days?”
    Toliveri meant it as funny, but it didn’t come out right. Like there were things Ying couldn’t possibly know. Ying had gotten this kind of treatment before, just as he was sure Toliveri had gotten it when he worked Chinatown. There were things you couldn’t know if you were not of the blood. Things you shouldn’t know. Ying understood the attitude, even shared it to a degree, but the comment still played on his nerves.
    “I’m going to go talk to the wife,” he said.
    When he went downstairs, though, he found a man in the den with Regina Mancuso and her son. He was the family doctor, and he had Mrs. Mancuso stretched out on the daybed. It was a brightly colored piece of furniture, and there was something incongruous about the woman lying there. She wore expensive clothes but she had a peasant face, and there was that blood on her dress.
    “She’s in no condition to talk with you,” said the doctor.
    “How did you get in here?” Ying turned to Toliveri. “This place is supposed to be secure.”
    Toliveri shrugged. The answer lay in the shrug. Loose discipline. The crew didn’t pay attention to Toliveri, because everyone knew how he was. But Ying knew if there was a breach in evidence, he would get the grief.
    “Her heart—she appears to be fibrillating,” the doctor said. “From the shock, possibly. I need to get her to the hospital.”
    “I want to talk to her first.”
    The doctor shook his head. “You can talk to her later. This is a medical emergency.”
    “I’ve already taken her statement,” said Toliveri.
    Just then Ying heard the ambulance in the distance, wailing down Columbus. The mother grasped for her son.
    “I want the son with her,” the doctor said, “riding in the ambulance. It’s a matter of keeping her calm.”
    “I got the broad strokes in the preliminary,” Toliveri said. “We can catch the details later.”
    The ambulance was closer now, and the mother moaned again. Given her condition, Ying wondered how much information, if any, Toliveri had gotten. Ying