Glitsky 02 - Guilt

by John Lescroart

  'Yes, sir.' He looked down. 'Catholic Youth Organization convention. Do you remember that? Did it go on late?'

  Flaherty was no longer Glitsky's friend, that was certain. But he answered civilly. 'It was at Asilomar, Sergeant, down in Pacific Grove. You know it? It's a hundred miles south of here.' He picked the book up and closed it firmly. 'And see the line here, to noon the next day. That means I spent the night.'

  In one of those amazing coincidences, Glitsky thought, just then there was a knock on the door and the Appointments Secretary opened it, stuck his head in, and told Flaherty that his two o'clock had arrived.

  Glitsky looked at his watch, closed his notebook, and stood up. The interview was over. He put out his hand and the Archbishop took it. 'Thank you, sir. You've been a big help.'

  Flaherty's grip was a vice and his eyes had gone the color of cold steel. 'You know, Sergeant, I try not to stand upon it, but most people address me, at least, as "Father". Some even say "Your Excellency".'

  Glitsky squeezed back. 'Thank you. I'll remember next time.'

  But what did it mean?

  He'd better begin to consider the possibility that there had been no meeting on Monday night. At least not with Flaherty and Dooher. So why did the two women - Lily Martin and Mrs Trang both - think there had been?

  But wait - who said the meeting had been in person in Flaherty's office? Maybe Flaherty hadn't been able to talk to Dooher until later because .. . but no, that meant Flaherty was at the least just plain lying, and at most implicated in the actual murder. And though Glitsky ran into liars every day - murderers too - he did not really believe the Archbishop was involved here. He'd just not been able to resist the urge to jack him up a little. He'd always had a problem with people who thought they spoke directly to God.

  He'd picked up a piroshki and a celery soda and sat having a late lunch in his car just off Market Street, his windows down. It was warmer outside than it had been in Flaherty's office and the air smelled sharply of coffee. One of the nearby restaurants must be roasting its own.

  He kept coming back to the meeting, or non-meeting. For now, he was going to believe that the meeting never took place. Further, he didn 't believe Flaherty had even talked to Dooher on that Monday night.

  Which did not mean that Dooher hadn't talked to Trang.

  Did it?

  Glitsky was wrestling with it, trying to piece together some rationale for Trang to have written up messages on his personal computer, purporting to have come from Dooher, if there had been none. It could have been that he was going to extraordinarily great lengths to run a false story past his mother and girlfriend - 'See, I'm just on the cusp of greatness, just about to be rich and successful. It's going to happen any day now. The other side is about to cave in. Look, here are the messages from their attorney to prove it. I'm not a nothing, as you've all believed. I'm going to make it big.'

  Was that too much of a stretch? Glitsky wasn't sure. He'd known a lot of people - perennial losers - who'd tried to fool themselves and others in similar ways. Maybe that had been Trang, trying to convince himself as well as the women in his life. And then when the settlement didn't come through after all, he'd fall back into victim mode. It hadn't been his fault. The breaks were against him, the power of the Church, the bigger players had ganged up.

  But - Glitsky brought himself up short - the truth was that there had been a substantial offer. Six hundred thousand dollars had been on the table, and Trang had turned it down. Would he have done that if he wasn't fairly sure he was going to get more?

  No. He would have taken it.

  Which meant - what?

  That the penny-ante psychological profile Glitsky had been drawing of Trang-as-loser was not valid. And if that were true, then at the very least, Trang believed something was happening with Dooher and the settlement. He hadn't made it all up. Or possibly any of it.

  So Dooher had called him. Twice on that Monday. Maybe three times.

  He wondered if he'd admit it. It didn't exactly reek of probable cause, but Glitsky knew he could find a judge to give him a warrant for Dooher's phone records based on the inconsistencies. But if Dooher hadn't called Trang from his home or office, any other call would be nearly impossible to verify - the phone company kept track of the calls you made, but didn't keep records of non-toll calls received.

  He chewed the last of his piroshki, tipped back the soda. Well, at least now he had a plausible excuse to go back and talk to Dooher, take another look at the Vietnam photograph while he was at it. Maybe casually bring up some other topics. 'Say, I was doing the crossword this morning and came across a seven-letter word, starts with "b", means infantry knife. What do you think that could be?' Subtlety was the key.

  Dooher was going to be in meetings out of the office for most of the rest of the afternoon, but if he checked in for messages, his secretary would tell him the Sergeant had called.

  So the rest of Glitsky's Wednesday afternoon was lost in paperwork. He labored over his initial report on the Tastee Burger killing. He checked the transcription of his interviews with three of the witnesses there.

  Moving along, he filled out the warrant for Dooher's business and personal phone records. Then there was the application for the Lieutenant's exam.

  A final Homicide issue involved re-booking a burglar who'd killed a seventy-year-old man last week. The elderly resident had had the bad luck to wake up and grab his .38 in the middle of the night when he'd heard the noise.

  At 5:10, completely fried with the paperwork, as he was putting on his jacket to go home, his telephone rang. 'This is Mark Dooher,' he said to himself. And it was.

  Dooher was free now, but maybe if the Sergeant just had a quick question or two, he could answer it on the phone, save him a trip. Glitsky wondered if he really needed to actually see the Vietnam photograph again. It was quitting time. He wanted to go home and be with his family. He'd worked a long day as it was. He wasn't the same cop he had been. He said some questions should do it.

  'Sure, I talked to him that day.'

  'More than once?'

  'I may have. I believe so. Why?'

  'When you and I talked last time, you didn't mention it.'

  'Did you ask about it? I'm sorry. I don't—'

  'I thought it might have occurred to you as relevant, talking to a murdered man just before he was killed.'

  No answer.

  'Do you recall what you talked about?'

  'Sure. He was asking for my strategic advice on another case he was handling. As I told you, we kind of hit it off. I think he was hoping I'd offer him a job at the firm here.'

  'You didn't discuss the settlement of your suit?'

  Another pause. 'No, not that I recall.'

  'Although he was threatening to file it the next day, ratcheting up the figures?'

  'And then we'd duke it out in court. That's how we do it, Sergeant. 'Those lines had been drawn. There wasn't anything to talk about.'

  'And he didn't seem concerned, worried, anxious?'

  'Not to me. He seemed normal.'

  'Do you remember what the other case was about, the one he wanted your advice on?'

  'Sure, it was another settlement on a personal injury. Sergeant, am I under some kind of suspicion here?'

  'The case is still open,' Glitsky said ambiguously. 'I've been trying to get a sense of what Mr Trang did in those last hours.' But may as well just come out with it. 'Did you have a bayonet as part of your gear in Vietnam?'

  So much for the subtle approach.

  'It sounds like I should contact my lawyer.'

  'Or just answer the question.'

  'Yes, I did. Did a bayonet kill Victor?'

  'We believe so. Do you still have yours?'

  'No. The Army takes it from you when they send you home.'

  'Do you mind telling me where you were last Monday night?'

  A sigh, perhaps an angry one. 'I believe I went to the driving range, then came back to the office here and worked lat
e. Sergeant Glitsky, why on earth do you think I'd consider killing a man, any man, much less Victor, whom I've told you I liked?'

  'I didn't say I did. I'm collecting all the information I can, hoping some of it leads somewhere.'

  'The implications are pretty damn infuriating.'

  'I'm sorry about that. Archbishop Flaherty thought so, too.'

  'You talked to the Archbishop? About this?'

  'He's your biggest client, isn't he?'

  'By far. So?'

  'And Trang's death means the suit gets dropped ...'

  'Trang's death means Mrs Diep gets another lawyer, Sergeant. And that's all it means.'

  17

  The earthquake that rocked the city at 5:22 the next morning wasn't as destructive as the World Series Quake of '89 - it didn't collapse any part of the BayBridge, for example, or any freeways. However, with a magnitude of 5.8 and an epicenter just a mile into the ocean northwest of the Cliff House, it was by no means a minor temblor. The eventual damage total exceeded $50 million. Seventy-seven people were injured seriously enough to seek medical help, and four people died.

  Bart was going insane. He jumped up on Farrell's bed, howling like a coyote rather than the intelligent and sensitive Boxer that Farrell knew him to be, so something must be wrong, but Wes had no idea what it could be. He cast a quick glance at the clock next to his bed. 5:19. What the hell! 'Bart, Bart! Come on, boy. It's all right. It's all right.'

  But apparently Bart knew more than his owner on this score. Wes was grabbing for the dog's collar to pull him nearer. It sounded like he was dying. Wes was thinking, I knew I shouldn't have given him that lamb bone. That's what it is - it's cut his stomach to shreds.

  He flicked on the light, holding the dog close now, murmuring to him, petting to try and calm him down. 'Please don't die. Come on, hang in there, I'll call—'

  Wham!

  It was a sharp up-and-down, similar to the Northridge quake that had done so much damage to Southern California. The experts later estimated that the shock was equal to a vertical drop of five and half feet. It was probably fortunate that Farrell had no art on his walls and very little furniture, so there wasn't much to fall or fly around.

  After one terrified bark coupled with a desperate escape maneuver involving claws and fangs that scratched Farrell's face badly, Bart got himself to a corner of the room and set up another howl.

  The lights went out. There was a second, smaller jolt, and Farrell rolled from his bed and started crawling, eventually arriving at the bedroom doorway, his hands gripping both sides of it for support should the foundations shake again.

  His hands were sticky and wet.

  Glitsky hadn't been able to sleep and didn't want to keep Flo up, so at around midnight he'd gone out to read on the couch in the living room. Taking a cue from his father Nat, a Talmud scholar, he had been immersed for weeks in Wilton Earnhardt's epic tome Gospel, a story about the missing New Testament book of Matthias. This was about as far from San Francisco crime and politics and his home life as he could get. Which was the point.

  Eventually, he'd nodded off.

  What got him up wasn't the shock but Flo screaming his name. The lamp next to him crashed to the floor. Sparks and broken pottery. One of the kids - he thought it was Jake, his middle one - was also calling him. God! Why were the other ones quiet?

  'Abe!'

  'Yo! Coming.'

  Another shake, knocking him sideways. Bare feet on broken shards. In the short hallway, he turned on the light. Another step, the bedroom, the light. Flo looked at him, eyes wide and tearful, as though he were a ghost.

  As well he might have been.

  The six or seven-hundred pound oak armoire in which they kept their hanging clothes had jumped four feet across the room and fallen, landing on Glitsky's side of the bed, where he normally would have been lying.

  Flo was up and in his arms, and Jake cried out again.

  Sheila Dooher nudged her husband. 'Earthquake,' she said, swinging her feet around, finding the floor. Louder, another push. 'Mark! Now!'

  People said you never got used to earthquakes, but Sheila had lived in the Bay Area most of her life and had experienced over twenty of them. The great majority of the time, they shook the ground or the building you were in and then stopped. And the other quakes . . . well, by the time you worked yourself up to really scared, they were over, and then you dealt with what they'd done.

  Mark opened his eyes, immediately awake in the darkness. He knew that Sheila had moved to her pre-arranged location in the doorway to the stairs - it was a drill. And he did the same to his, four steps over to the bathroom door.

  'You all right?' he heard her say.

  There was another, smaller shake. They rode it out - three seconds max -

  'Fine.'

  For Sam Duncan, living in a seventy-year-old underground apartment with brick walls, there was no time for any thought. Either Quayle was a sounder sleeper than Bart was, or he wasn't as finely attuned to the tiny movements of the earth by which animals can supposedly predict earthquakes. In any case, Quayle didn't whine, or bark, or howl preceding the event. Sam was sleeping one moment, and the next - feeling something moving, falling around her in the split second she had to react - covering her head as the wall behind her bed gave, collapsing over her.

  18

  Before Christina was awake, her father Bill had gone downtown to the bakery and come back with hot ham-and-Swiss-filled croissants, her favorite. Irene, her mother, left the steaming cup of French roast on the nightstand in her room and brushed a strand of hair back over her daughter's ear.

  She stirred.

  'Your coffee's here,' her mother said.

  Having driven down to Ojai in six hours, she'd arrived unannounced at ten-thirty last night and they'd kept the visiting short; she was tired and planning to stay through the weekend, get rested before finals next week - they'd get time to catch up in person. They'd all turned in early, around midnight.

  Late April, before noon, and she was sitting out by the pool in her bathing suit, in perfect comfort. She wondered again why she was living in San Francisco, in the wind and fog and bustle. Here it was already warm as midsummer, the pace was slow, life itself seemed to have an element of fluid grace.

  Her parents' house was on the side of one of the encircling hills at an elevation of about 400 feet, and the pool hung out, cantilevered over a deck that seemed to drop off into space.

  Far below, the town sparkled in the pristine air, a little terra-cotta jewel nestled in its verdant setting. In the distance, the TopaTopaMountains and the LosPadresNational Forest lent some drama to the view. Closer in were the avocado and orange orchards, the golf course, the orange-roofed landmarks of her own childhood; over to the right she could just spy the edge of her high school, Villanova, for good Catholic girls as she had been.

  There was the Tower at the Post Office, and in the peace of the morning she could hear Some Enchanted Evening coming up on the thermals - the Tower played show tunes on the hour.

  Her eyes continued to roam. There were the trees over LibbeyPark, downtown, where she'd gone to dozens of incredible concerts - blues, classical, jazz, rock 'n' roll - all the great LA players loved coming up here. This is where Hollywood came to drop out.

  Ojai was the Chumash Indian word for Nest, and she thought it captured the place perfectly. It was her nest, her home. She wondered, again, if she'd ever really have another one.

  Her mother was walking down from the house with some iced tea. She normally worked in her husband's brokerage house as his assistant, but decided she'd take the day off to catch up with her daughter.

  Irene Carrera had a buffed leather complexion from too much sun, and her body, toned with regular exercise, was still twenty pounds overweight. Nevertheless, in a casual way she believed herself a beautiful woman, and so nearly everyone else thought she was, too. She frosted her hair and wore gold slippers padding about out by the pool and she appeared to be as shallow as a p
etri dish. But she'd never fooled Christina.

  Now she sat in the wicker chair next to her daughter's chaise longue, put down the tray that held the pitcher and glasses, and placed coasters on either side of the table. 'You picked the right day to come down. San Francisco's had another earthquake.'

  Christina sat up straight. 'A bad one?'

  Her mother handed her a glass. 'They're saying moderately serious. Although if you ask me, they're all bad.'

  'You can ask me, too.'

  'Do you want to call anybody?'

  'No, no. They don't want you to use the phones after emergencies anyway, Mom. Besides,' she took a sip, 'there's nobody to call.'

  Her mother sat back, gestured to her daughter's left hand. 'Your father and I noticed there's no ring. We didn't want to press last night. I guess we're not going to be meeting Joe.'

  'I guess not.' A sigh. 'It was my decision. It wasn't going to work out.' Irene took a minute stalling with her iced tea - lemon, sugar, mint.

  'You gave it enough of a chance? You're sure?'

  Christina shrugged. 'Come on, Mom, you know. Over a year. It just wasn't ...' She trailed off. 'I'm not sad about it, so I don't think you should be.'

  'I'm not sad about you and Joe, hon. I worry about you, that's all. These relationships that get to ...' She took a deep breath and plunged ahead to intimacy,' that go on a year or more, then end. They must be taking their toll.'

  'I know.' Christina was nodding. 'They are.'

  'I just look at you now - and I know this is foolish, don't laugh at me - and I don't see my happy little girl. It just breaks my poor silly heart.' Christina started to stop her, but her mother touched her shoulder and continued. 'No, I know what you've been through. I do, or a little. With Brian, and the pregnancy, and now this. I do know, hon, how it must hurt, how you're trying. But it just seems to me that every time you give up, when you let it end, then part of you dies. The part that hopes, and you don't want to lose that.'

  A tear coursed down Christina's cheek. She wiped it with a finger. 'The good news is I didn't put much hope in Joe.'