It wasn't midnight yet but felt like the middle of the night when SFPD swarmed Pier 64 in search of a button man on the run from a fresh murder.

Up the street coming into the Public Safety Building, Inspector Prince rubbed his hands together against the chill that followed the brief rainfall and followed a handcuffed Mr. Adoni Rex into the precinct.

He guided the new widower toward his cubicle, prepared for jibes about bad police work from, well, every other officer on the force. And everyone weighed in, from the patrol officer just out of basic training and the parking enforcement officer who was only even in the office to flirt with a wavy-haired ginger Lieutenant — to the Police Commissioner, Eric Calazans, who shouted, "The husband, really?"

The problem was, Leander's interview with the husband hadn't gone well.

Directly after leaving Detective Fog's office, Leander had let his partner take an early night to the bar and promised to fill her in on anything interesting when he rolled up to the Saloon after informing the next of kin, Senator Athena Rex's husband, Adoni. Little reaction from Dianthea, whose mind seemed focused on when next she could get her drink on.

The house had been dark from the outside, one of those lilac purple Victorians that looked just like the Painted Ladies with none of the fame. When he knocked on the door, it opened in under a minute to reveal a haggard, swaying Adoni Rex with his tie loose around a bearded neck and drunk eyes.

"San Francisco Police," said Leander, and he held up his badge. It could have been a badge out of a cereal box for all Adoni inspected it. "Can I come inside?"

Adoni enveloped him in a hug like that of a drinking buddy who couldn't wait for a friend who'd just arrived to catch up. Indecipherable words invited him in, and the man led the way into the hallway. Stairs went up to the second level of the sub-divided house, and another door led to the first floor flat.

Adoni let go of his newfound friend to climb the stairs, stumbling into the open door at the top. Leander came into the surprisingly spacious apartment and closed the door behind him.

The two men stopped in a kitchen with a nice view of so many city lights on the hills, making up for the lack of stars. The apartment being uphill and the buildings next door being shorter than it revealed a vast vista. "I'll get you a beer!" were the first comprehensible words from Mr. Rex.

It was lucky Leander hadn't received official death notification training because he was reasonably confident it would be against the regulations imparted in said training to deliver the death notification to an intoxicated surviving spouse. It was probably also against the rules to accept alcohol in this situation, but he put out his hand for the opened Anchor Steam when it was passed to him.

Then Mr. Rex led the way out of the kitchen and into a small living area, a homey space that had been decorated and personalized with local art and tribal masks, a well-cared-for potted ficus tree, family photos, and earthy throw pillows. The Rexes hadn't lived in the city long, but they had made their rented house a home. Adoni fell into the deep brown leather sofa and was swallowed in immensity, but thankfully he pulled himself back into a seated position and found Leander's face with relative alertness.

More windows in the living area had equally good views of the hills surrounding them, shaped only by the lights in other people's sitting rooms. For a second, Leander just took it all in, but he didn't have long before he would lose Adoni to a stupor. So, without the training to do so, or any idea how to properly begin, Leander delivered the notification of Athena Rex's death to her husband.

There was a breathless silence. The lushly appointed living space became a void of cold nothingness, like a vacuum that proceeded a maelstrom, which Leander could feel about to erupt somehow even though Adoni's only reaction was a stiffening of the spine and a flicker of the eyes that were now clear, sharp.

The tableau broke in a rush of movement. First, the drunk man's face collapsed in on itself, agonized brows dropping, mouth falling into a painful moan. The expression was lost in the blur of Adoni standing up, swaying but moving quickly, and bounding across the small room to a locked cabinet next to the entertainment system where he somehow, by some magic, procured a key and had the cabinet open in what seemed like a split second. By the end of that second, he was pulling a unique gun out into the light of the living room; from the weapons encyclopedia in Leander's mind, he processed that it was a Husqvarna, Swedish M/40 military model, from the thin round barrel like a piece broken off a magic wand.

"Hey, stop there," said Leander, and he drew his service weapon, an issued Sig Suer, also originally a Swedish manufacturer, in the P228 (M11) compact model. "Put the gun down."

Adoni wasn't listening. With the gun limp by his side, gun arm slack, he turned toward the bookshelf on the other side of the room, his back to Leander, and pulled out a book which turned out to be one of those empty containers. In this case, it was not empty but filled with 9mm submachine gun ammo, which explained the cracks in the nickel steel slide on the Husqvarna.

That vintage weapon did not in any way look safe to fire, especially not with that ammunition. Which Adoni began to insert the bullets into the firearm's chamber. Leander moved in close to Adoni while he was loading and repeated, "Drop the weapon" and "You don't want to do this," to distract and slow down the drunk lunatic.

Most of the danger of the weapon misfiring became moot as Adoni brought it to his temple.

The second his intention became clear, Leander lowered his own piece. He closed the distance between them, securing Adoni's wrist in a steel grip with one hand and coming down with the other onto the man's elbow, sweeping the gun in an arc that pointed away from both of them — Adoni didn't manage to fire despite his complete break from reality. The Husqvarna dropped to the hardwood floor. The next second the cuffs were on.

Adoni was sobbing, "I'll — kill — him, I'll — kill — him," between gasping inhales, and none of Leander's questions evoked any different response, except at one point when Adoni denied his wife was dead altogether.

"I'm going to take you down to the station," said Leander. "Sober you up, get you some water, and we can continue this interview in the morning."

The inconsolable widower didn't seem culpable, but he would need to be questioned as a suspect after his violent reaction. It didn't help that even as the inspector led him through the aisles of police desks, he continued to mutter, not quietly enough, "I'll — kill — him, I'll — kill — him."