Monday, September 27, 5:02 P.M.

The day Boris Potemkin died, Los Santos Crimes Against Persons Detective Elena Jarvis was feeling particularly cheerful as she drove home in five o'clock traffic. The sky was bright blue, the temperature a comfortable eighty-eight degrees--comfortable when she considered how many hundred-degree days they'd had that summer. The mountains that rose in stark brown peaks dividing the east and west sides of the city held a fading remembrance of green from the August rains, but the air was desert-dry again. Just the way Elena liked it.

Smiling, she brushed a strand of black hair away from one high cheekbone, tucking it back into the heavy French braid lying against her neck. It had been a good day, two cases closed, lots of laughs. Leo, her partner, had rushed home from their eight-to-four shift to impregnate his wife. He'd had a call over the police radio that morning with a message from Concepcion. "I'm ovulating," was what it said--to every Los Santos cop on the road. "What am I supposed to do?" he'd complained to Elena. "Drive home for a quick one while you wait outside in the car?"

"I could hang out in your kitchen. Have a cup of coffee."

"Yeah, right. I gotta talk to that woman. She didn't have to tell the dispatcher."

"You want to be a daddy, you have to make some sacrifices," Elena had replied. Leo had a low sperm count. He and Concepcion were trying the rhythm method in reverse. Probably right about now.

In a burst of exuberance, Elena had blown the insurance money she received from the Mafia vandalism of her living room on a state-of-the-art drip irrigation system, which now rattled pleasantly in the bed of her pickup. Elena liked greenery in her yard, but the summer water bills were killing her, not to mention getting up before sunrise and out after sunset because of water rationing. With this new apparatus, designed in Israel to provide the most growing stuff for the least moisture, she could stop financing Los Santos Water Utilities. Maybe she'd dig the first trench tonight.

She turned onto her street and spotted a new Chevrolet pickup in her driveway. Frank! She'd finally caught him. She wheeled in, cutting off his escape route and sprinted around the side of the house to the back door. Open! And she'd had the doors locked, the security system armed. How did he do it? She had house and car alarms, barred windows--the whole enchilada. Well, her ex-husband was through sneaking into her house and shifting the furniture, through reparking her truck so she couldn't find it. She'd cuff him and haul his ass down to jail.

She drew her revolver from the shoulder holster under her loose linen jacket, easing the kitchen door open, whirling inside with the gun in a two-handed grip, leveled at--her mother. "Mom?"

"That's not exactly the welcome I expected," said Harmony Waite Portillo, who was sitting on a yellow and green Mexican ladderback chair, sipping tea and talking to Dimitra Potemkin, one of Elena's elderly neighbors. Dimitra occupied the fold-down seat of her walker. She was recovering from a broken hip, poor woman.

Elena smiled at her neighbor, then said to her mother, "I thought Frank was in here. He's not, is he?" She looked around. Given her ex-husband's sneaky nature, he might be lurking in the pantry among the staples and cleaning supplies.

"He left after he let me into the house and moved the loom in for me," Harmony replied.

"He has a key?" Elena scowled and holstered her revolver. "That does it. I'm getting a restraining order."

"Have a cup of tea, dear. It's very calming."

After leaning down to kiss her mother, Elena sank into a chair while Harmony poured a cup of the herbal tea she compounded herself. "It's wonderful to see you, Mom, but how come you're here?"

"I'm here to do something about your living room, Elena," said Harmony, voice crisp with disapproval.

Elena's conscience blipped. The living room had been vandalized in late May, and not only had she failed to refurnish, she'd just spent the money on pipes, hoses, and timers. She should have known that disaster area would be preying on her mother's mind. Disasters reminded Elena of her ex, which reminded her of the unidentified pickup in her driveway. "Whose truck is that out front?"

"Mine," said Harmony. "I won it at the Penitentes raffle."

"Come on! When did they start giving away trucks?"

"Last Easter."

"Well, I guess a raffle is more socially acceptable than a crucifixion," said Elena, grinning. Dimitra's mouth dropped open.

"Now, Elena, you know the Penitente Brotherhood doesn't do that anymore. Your father wouldn't allow it. In fact, he claims they never did."

Still grinning, Elena settled back in her chair. Having her mother in the kitchen was almost as good as being home in Chimayo, a small New Mexico town in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. "How are you, Dimitra?" Elena asked. "Hip giving you any trouble?"

"I'm better," said the old lady, "but Boris is dead. That's what I came to tell you."

"Oh, Dimitra, I'm so sorry." Elena put down her cup and leaned forward to clasp her neighbor's hand in sympathy. "I hadn't heard."

"No reason you should. He was fine when I left at noon--mean as ever."

"He died today?"

"I came right over when I found him."

"You mean he's--" What had seemed sad, but not unexpected, given Boris' age, was taking on a bizarre twist.

Dimitra's head bobbed, every corkscrew curl bouncing like a little aluminum Slinky. "Dead on the floor," she affirmed. "I guess God finally decided to kill him. High time too. That zloy stareek."

"You mean he's been dead while we were sitting here talking?" asked Harmony, blue eyes wide.

"Dead as an icon," Dimitra affirmed. "Not likely he's gone anywhere. I thought you'd know what to do, Elena, you being a policeman."

"How come you didn't call 911?" asked Elena.

"Oh, Boris hid my glasses again, and I can't seem to remember telephone numbers anymore."

"I'll go right over." What if old Boris were alive and in need of a doctor?

"The door's open," said Dimitra. "Was when I got home, still is. I don't know what that zloy stareek did with the key. He never lets me have one."

"I'll follow with Dimitra," Harmony offered.

Elena nodded and sprinted out the screen door, then paused and turned back. "What does that mean, Dimitra? Zoy streak?"

Dimitra thought a minute. "Mean old bastard."

"I see." Elena tried not to stare at her newly widowed neighbor. "Lock up, Mom," she called over her shoulder. How long since Dimitra Potemkin got home and found Boris? And why hadn't she mentioned his death to Harmony? Well, Dimitra had been a little odd and a lot absent-minded since she broke her hip. Poor woman, this would be a great blow to her. Or maybe not. She'd called him "the mean old bastard" twice. Elena had never realized Dimitra didn't like her husband.

Across the street and three doors down, Elena dashed up the Potemkins' cracked sidewalk, through the wooden gate and across the small, weedy courtyard. As Dimitra had said, the door was unlocked. Elena turned the knob and burst in, then stopped short. Boris was indeed on the floor. She bent for a closer look. And he was indeed dead. There was a bullet hole in his forehead.