Mike Tavis had it made. Retired from LAPD Homicide he was building his charter sailing yacht business in the clear waters of Avalon Harbor. The light bruise from his holster had faded, along with preoccupation with the ugliness of big city streets. No more drug war corpses, marital fight corpses, hookers in gutters corpses. Now it was plain sailing and money coming in. Life was a spinnaker before the wind and a pension --- that is until the real killings started again, the ones that had the LAPD in knots. The guy was back. The tormented, grotesquely worked-over bodies proved that. When the phone call came asking Mike to return, he was far from ready. But how do you turn down your old partner?