“Crowded, then,” I said. They didn't disagree. “A .45 goes off near a crowded area, plenty of people must have heard it. You should be able to fix time of death, at least. But you'd have to canvass the area. People living in a squatters' camp—that kind of individual—they probably wouldn't jump to help the police, would they?”

     The two officers didn't answer, and Dalzell, who now was paying attention, said quickly, “We'll have a lot more to go on when the report gets here.”

     “We are making every effort,” Dela Cruz said. “Political cases have our highest priority.”

     “You think this is political?”

     “Almost certainly.”

     This wasn't what I had expected to hear. All through the long flight I had been nursing the idea that the killer was Lito Sanchez: Lito who for years had lived outside the law, who lied and defrauded and trafficked in weapons, who would lose fifty thousand and see his sister jailed if Collins got too close.

     “Political,” I said, “I don't see how.”

     “Look at the circumstances,” Agoncillo said.

     “He's walking in a bad neighborhood late at night, somebody blows him away, that's political?”

     “Over here it is,” Dalzell said.

     “Communists,” the two officers said.

     “Communists,” said Dela Cruz again. “The NPA. New People's Army. They have guerrillas in the countryside, but they also have armed cadres in the cities. Assassination units, Sparrows. You know, because they're like birds.” His right hand made darting movements in the air. “They fly, whoop, they hit, whoop, they are gone. Many of their hits they do from a motor sidecar. Their weapon is frequently a .45 auto.”

     “Unfortunately this exact crime is very common in our country,” Agoncillo said. “Wherever the communists are established.”

     “Are they established in Negros?”