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assume the best with dogs. One of the big dogs leapt at me, panting for attention. I scratched his chest and behind his ears. The other two inched backward warily. I looked questioningly at their gaunt, gray owner, but he made no excuses for his unsocial pets. He stepped back warily in line with the two dogs, letting his hand pass above them before he dropped it to his side. The dogs seemed to relax under the awning of his protection.
    In Berkeley there is a subculture of solitary walkers—not amiable strollers or determined striders, but loners who walk because they must. Some get out with the dawn after another fitful night; some make their way midday warning off the world with their too old, too drab, or too clashing garb; some choose the safety of night. In a city known for its nonconformity they are the community of the noncommuning. But I hadn’t been on patrol in Beat Two long enough to know if this man was one of them. Why did he seem familiar?
    “Is this Nora, Ocean, or Paul?” I asked, rubbing the big, thick-coated black dog behind the ears.
    “Nora, Ocean, and Pablo. This is Ocean.”
    “Radio dogs?”
    He didn’t reply.
    “You’ve given them radio code names,” I explained, wishing I hadn’t veered into this conversational detour.
    “Yes.” His tone wasn’t so much impatient as wary. I hoped his unease was not for fear of me finding dogs Adam through Mary in the house. Four’s the limit of the law. But if the neighbors weren’t complaining, I wasn’t asking. “Do you live here?”
    “You’re standing on my walkway.” There was no change in his pale, narrow face, no hint either of accusation or of playfulness in his voice, but something about him made me flunk that later, in the safety of solitude when he recalled that comment, it would be with a wry smile.
    I glanced up at his windows, ones that overlooked the street and the path between his house and the construction site. “I’m Detec— Officer Smith.” When he didn’t respond, I said, “And you are?”
    “Karl Pironnen.”
    Aha! One of the local papers had done an article on Sam Johnson a couple years ago. Of course, it had included the Golden State Bank demonstrations. The robbery itself had failed; the robbers, not exactly the elite of their trade, were caught before they made it to the getaway car. The cash involved had been less than the two could have earned for a week of real work. And the only casualty was Pironnen’s brother, a bystander who had died not of gunshots, but from hitting his head as he stumbled off the curb. The event had been a Mouse That Roared affair, from its inept conception and sloppy handling to the elephantine official reaction. It was that latter issue that rang a bell for Sam Johnson and catapulted him to prominence as he organized protest after protest, decrying the government’s misappropriation of time and money—an issue with which 99 percent of the populace couldn’t disagree. Classic Sam Johnson.
    When asked about the robbery, Karl Pironnen had said he’d never met Johnson. He was surprised the reporter knew his brother’s name.
    Dan. I was surprised I remembered it. I found my voice a little softer as I asked Pironnen, “Have you seen anyone near Bryn Wiley’s house tonight?”
    “Besides the naked runner and you?”
    I almost laughed before I realized that he hadn’t meant to be funny. I wouldn’t even have been surprised if he didn’t know who Bryn was. What I had here was the antithesis of Bryn Wiley, a man with no innate or acquired charm and a wish only to be left alone. “Was there anyone near Bryn’s house besides us?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “Did you hear a shot or backfire a couple of hours ago?”
    “I was out. With the dogs.”
    “What about the naked runner? Where did he go?”
    “Down the path.”
    “Into Codornices Park?”
    He shook his head. “Under the construction house.”
    “ Under it?”
    “Yes.”
    My patrol car was down the street where Howard or one of