The Mercy Rule

by John Lescroart

  This was jargon from Powell’s earliest days with the DA – FAT was the acronym they’d all used back then for making a watertight case. Frog’s-ass tight – FAT.

  Powell gave it another second’s thought, then nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s probably smart. But let’s tie this sucker down by Thursday, Friday at the latest.’

  He was looking directly at Soma, and the young attorney simply nodded. ‘Done,’ he said.

  He’d been the head of homicide now for nearly two years, and Glitsky felt he was growing into the job, taking bold steps to improve conditions and performance. This morning, for example, after he’d trotted down to vice again with Lanier and Evans so they could enjoy the privacy of an office with a door, he’d come back to homicide and pulled a tape measure from one of the drawers in his desk.

  After carefully measuring the size of the hole in his wall where the door should have been – in fact, used to be until it was removed one day for painting and never returned – he called a local hardware store and found that doors were not some kind of embargoed item. The salesperson to whom he’d spoken had seemed somewhat amused that Glitksy didn’t realize that doors were available on a regular basis almost anywhere.

  Upon reflection the lieutenant realized that he should have known this from his own life, but he also knew that when you worked in a bureaucracy, simple tasks had a way of becoming herculean, difficult tasks impossible. He’d filled out four requisition forms from building maintenance requesting a new door, and in two years hadn’t yet gotten even one answer.

  Eventually, he’d come to accept that a new door wasn’t ever going to appear. And then, suddenly, the bolt of inspiration had struck him this morning: he could just order his own door! Take up a collection among his inspectors. The salesperson assured him he could have the door installed by Friday – painted, fitted, hung.

  Miraculous!

  Now it was midafternoon and Lanier and Evans were back. It was Glitsky’s second meeting with them today. The first one, down behind the closed door in vice, had been to bring the lieutenant up to date with a recap of their weekend’s activities. At this confab he’d learned of the apparent fight in Sal’s apartment. He was also pleased with Evans’s discoveries about Graham Russo – the morphine, the visit to Sal’s on the day of the murder. He wasn’t so thrilled about her technical blunder with the tape recorder, but what could he do?

  That first meeting had been to prepare Glitsky for his nine o’clock with Drysdale, who’d be passing along all of his information to Dean Powell. Evidently that meeting had gone fairly well, because after lunch Drysdale had called again.

  Powell had been disposed to proceed immediately with the arrest of Graham Russo, Drysdale said, but he had convinced the attorney general that a few more days might be productive, might lock the case up FAT. He gave Glitsky some marching orders.

  And now – the second meeting – the lieutenant planned to pass these along to the troops. Gil Soma had been sent along – Drysdale probably trying to make the new kid feel part of a team.

  They were all crammed in Glitsky’s office, the lieutenant at his desk, Soma in the doorway. Evans stood at ease behind one of the chairs facing his desk. Lanier was more relaxed, propped on the corner of the desk, cracking and eating peanuts, dropping the shells in the wastebasket. Mostly.

  But first Glitsky was killing a couple of minutes, loosening up the audience, crowing in his low-key way about his proactive move regarding the door.

  He had just finished outlining his bureaucracy theory and it rang a bell with Lanier. ‘Reminds me of one time back when I walked a beat, they were having this trade show. At the Holiday Inn, I think. One of those hotels. Anyway, guys in one of the booths were just freaking out. Couldn’t get all these logos and lights and stuff to go on. So they called us cops over, right? I take a look and there’s this plug on the ground and I ask ’em, “This the plug?” and they say, “Yeah, but the union rep came by and told us not to touch it.” So I give ‘em the look, plug the sucker in, the place lights up like a Christmas tree. I give ’em my badge number, tell them if anybody asks, they didn’t touch it, have a nice day.‘

  ‘That’s perfect,’ Glitsky said. ‘Exactly what I mean. You think the door might really be in here by Friday? I don’t know what this office will feel like, it’s been so long…’

  Against the back wall Evans coughed politely. ‘Are we going back down to vice?’ she asked.

  Glitsky caught her drift. ‘Okay, you’re right, it’s probably not as fascinating to you all as it is to me.’ He straightened up in his chair. ‘No, I think we’ll stay here.’ He included the young attorney. This okay with you, Gil? There’s nothing to hide about this.‘

  The two inspectors glanced at each other. ‘About what?’ Lanier asked.

  ‘About what, Gil?’ Glitsky repeated.

  Soma was pumped up from his personal meeting with the attorney general. His tailored dark suit seemed to hang like a tent on a thin frame. Glitsky had sat down because he didn’t want to tower over Soma.

  But what the young man lacked in physique, he made up for in intensity. Nodding at the lieutenant, he began. ‘The AG likes everything you’ve both done up to now. We’ve got plenty of evidence to convict. But for the next few days he thinks a change of emphasis might be productive.’

  ‘To what?’ Lanier asked.

  ‘To everybody but Graham Russo.’

  A moment of silence. Lanier cracked a peanut. ‘But Graham did it.’

  Soma nodded. ‘I know that. But Dean Powell wants to turn over a few more rocks, that’s all. You’ve both undoubtedly noticed this one’s a political bomb. We want to head off any accusation that we’re going after Graham for politics. Show that there’s no rush to judgment.’ He altered his tone, lightening it. ‘He just wants to make sure.’

  Glitsky leaned back and his chair creaked. Lanier swung his leg and his heel kept knocking into Glitsky’s desk – bump, bump, bump. Deep and hollow sounding. ‘These interviews,’ Soma went on. ‘Do you tape all of them?’

  Lanier threw a glance at Glitsky, who was silent, sitting back, arms crossed, listening. ‘Maybe we should have gone to vice,’ Lanier said.

  Evans moved forward. The young attorney had moved more into the room and had lowered his voice. She didn’t want to miss anything. ‘Why would we need to go to vice?’ she asked.

  But her partner was a veteran cop. He knew what was coming and didn’t wait for Soma before he butted in. ‘You don’t want us to create any paper. Is that what you’re saying?’

  The young attorney nodded. ‘That would probably be more convenient.’

  ‘What are you guys talking about?’

  With a nod Soma tossed it back to Lanier. ‘Discovery.’

  ‘Okay,’ Evans said, ‘I give up. What about discovery?’

  ‘The prosecution’s got to give everything to the defense, right? Everything they get. So if we go finding alternative suspects and reasonable evidence, guess what? The defense gets to bring them all up in front of the jury, so they can make up their mind.’

  ‘Essentially,’ Soma added, ‘Mr Powell doesn’t want us to help the defense by providing them with other suspects a jury might get confused about. So you talk to these people-’

  ‘What people, though?’

  A shrug. ‘The rest of the family, where Sal got his fish, who got him the morphine if it wasn’t Graham, like that.’

  Lanier: ‘But we don’t run tape, we don’t take notes.’

  Soma: ‘Right. Basically, you tell us what you find, but you don’t create discovery.’

  ‘And as an extra special treat,’ Lanier added to Sarah, ‘you didn’t hear it here.’

  Sarah all but glared at the inscrutable Glitsky, hoping that he’d speak up. He didn’t.

  ‘But-’

  Soma stopped her. ‘Except, of course, if someone really starts to look like a suspect.’ He added hastily, ‘But if you think you’ve got something, talk to us before you write i
t up.’

  Silence.

  ‘We wouldn’t want to create false impressions…’ He trailed off lamely.

  In the small room Sarah again became aware of the bump of her partner’s heel. He cracked another peanut. She moved around and sat in the chair in front of her lieutenant’s desk. This type of discussion was all new to her, and it wasn’t settling well. Soma and Lanier must have realized it, as a glance passed between them, and Lanier took the ball.

  ‘I think Mr Soma’s just talking about the preliminary interviews, Sarah. We get anything that sets off a charge, we come back and do the soup-to-nuts version. Is that it?’

  ‘But you won’t,’ Soma said, ‘because Graham did it, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Lanier was with the program, ready to be rolling again. ‘You just want to avoid making a case for the defense. We got it.’

  Sarah wanted to make it crystal clear. ‘But we are, in fact, looking for another suspect. Isn’t that true?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Soma said. ‘If somebody jumps up at you, we put Graham on hold and go after the new guy. But there isn’t going to be any new guy. Look, Sergeant, you and your partner here found Graham out of a universe of potentials, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So he’s the man. This is just some CYA for the AG. We’re beating the bushes, backfilling, making sure we haven’t missed a bet. Any righteous evidence, I promise you, we cough it up.’ Sarah obviously still didn’t like it, and Soma moved to cut her off. ‘We’re not subverting anything here. We’re not asking you to.’

  Finally Glitsky’s chair squeaked again. He came forward, the scar white through his lips, a pulse visible at his temple. All eyes went to him. ‘I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of this,’ he whispered. He turned his wrathful gaze to Soma. ‘I don’t know how you boys do things in other jurisdictions, but this department writes up everything. That’s our job. We find what there is to find, all of it.’

  Soma had blanched. ‘I didn’t mean-’

  His voice still low and taut, Glitsky sounded meaner than he looked, and Evans thought that was a physical impossibility. ‘I know what you meant. I heard you all the way out. And I’m telling the sergeants here that they are going to do it by the book. Every time. Everybody we talk to. That covers our ass. It covers your ass. Everybody stays clean.’

  He shook his head, calming down by degrees, still at Soma. ‘Listen. What do you think happens if some defense attorney notices we haven’t interviewed anybody except the suspect? You think this might raise an eyebrow somewhere? What if they find we talked to somebody and “forgot” to tell them? Think that’s a problem? I do. I’ve seen it happen. No. Our position is that if there’s anybody else to look for, we’re looking for them. We don’t find ’em, there’s no other leads, that’s why the case is strong.‘ He met the eyes of all three of them, one at time, slowly. ’Just so we’re clear. Everybody on the same bus here?‘

  Nods all around.

  In under a minute they’d all filed out. He decided then and there: he would pay out of his own pocket if he had to for a door to close behind them.

  14

  After his inspectors had gone, Glitsky was drinking a cup of tea, filling out a requisition form for the door. That, he decided, would be his first offensive sally. Stamping URGENT in red ink on the slip, he put his tea down and was taking the slip outside to post in the building mail when he ran into Dismas Hardy in the hallway, coming down in his direction.

  ‘All right,’ Hardy said, anger all over him. ‘What did you do with them?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My toothbrushes, that’s what. Every single toothbrush in my whole house.’

  ‘What did I do with your toothbrushes?’

  ‘Right. They were there yesterday when you came over. This morning they were gone. Ruined my placid morning, upset my domestic tranquillity, which is explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. The preamble. Right up in the front there, after “We, the People.” ’

  Glitsky stood still for a moment. Then he nodded, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and went to post his requisition slip.

  When he came back into his office, his friend had settled himself down at his desk, feet up, eating peanuts.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘If I took away the peanuts, would anyone ever again come into my office?’

  Hardy gave the room a once-over. ‘I doubt it. As a popular destination it’s a little flat, don’t you think? How come nobody’s ever here anymore? You notice that? Look out there – the place is a ghost town.’

  Glitsky glanced back over his shoulder. ‘An hour ago we had to call in crowd control. I don’t know. Everybody’s out working. They come in here to write reports. Why are you here?’

  The feet came down. ‘Because through secret sources I have discovered what you already knew yesterday when you wouldn’t talk to me about Graham Russo.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘He was at his father’s place. He shot him up with morphine all the time.’

  ‘Did I know that yesterday? I don’t think I knew that, if I do, until this morning.’

  ‘You knew something, though. More than you had last week. You were convinced you had a murder.’

  Glitsky moved into the room. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Has it gone to the grand jury yet? Tell me that.’

  ‘No comment.’ Then, ‘Sal had a fight.’

  Hardy gave them a minute, then shook his head. ‘Not with Graham.’

  ‘If you say so, and you probably will at the trial.’

  Glitsky had just told him what he wanted to know: there was going to be a trial. There was no point in arguing the merits. With the combination of Graham’s presence at Sal’s and the fight, added to the lies and the money, there was a case the attorney general could prosecute, even if the district attorney would not. The lieutenant had one more remark, however. ‘Whoever did it, Diz, this was a murder. You mind if I sit in my chair?’

  Hardy got up and they did a little dance moving around each other. Glitsky looked up at him. ‘Why don’t I think you came all the way down here just to have some peanuts?’

  ‘I needed to know if you had a smoking gun before I did anything else.’

  Glitsky considered this. ‘No comment.’ He flashed his terrible smile. ‘What else brought you down to our little garden spot?’

  ‘No comment.’ Hardy smiled back. ‘Gosh, we’ve turned into some great conversationalists here in our middle years, haven’t we?’ He hesitated, about to say something else, then thought better of it. He checked his watch. ‘Lord, how time flies. Thanks for the peanuts. Later.’

  Hardy had tried to make the appointment with Sharron Pratt’s chief assistant, Claude Clark, soon after he’d hung up with Graham. His client might choose to deny it, but Hardy knew that after his admissions to Sergeant Evans, big trouble was brewing. He had a wild idea that might head it off at the pass.

  Clark already had a reputation as a trim and officious bully. In his late thirties, he sported a sandy buzz haircut, a clipped mustache with goatee, and an openly fey style that he would exaggerate around people whom he suspected of homophobia.

  He had the power now; he controlled access to the district attorney and was very effective at conveying the feeling that if you wanted to see her, then you could very politely kiss his ass. Pratt liked to pretend that she was sensitive to people, that she cared about their personal feelings, and keeping Clark near by to do her hatchet work was, she believed, good politics.

  The chief assistant dismissed Hardy’s request to meet with Pratt as ridiculous. The district attorney did not take meetings with defense attorneys on little or no notice. She might be able to set aside some time for him in several weeks if he put his request in writing.

  Thinking, It’s bad luck to diss the Diz, Hardy put on the press. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d just tell her I’d like five minutes. It’s about the Sal Russo case. It hasn’t gone away. I’ve got some information that might help her.’ />
  ‘Why don’t you just brief me and I’ll pass it along to her?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Hardy had said. ‘I’ll just call my good buddy Jeff Elliot over at the Chronicle. You know Jeff? Hell of a reporter, writes the “CityTalk” column. Gets his teeth in and never lets go. Sharron can read about it in the morning. Take care now.’

  In ten minutes he got the call. Pratt could set aside a few minutes if Hardy could be at the Hall at four o’clock, sharp.

  The DA set the rules of engagement. She reigned from her chair, protected and isolated from supplicants behind an expansive slab of polished hardwood. Claude Clark hovered by the windows. Hardy hadn’t been in this room since he’d been fired five years before by the late Christopher Locke. He had been ushered to his spot front and center.

  ‘Mr Hardy’ – she nodded – ‘nice to meet you, though of course I know you by reputation.’ Hardy doubted whether this was true, but made the appropriate face. ‘I understand you’ve got some information for me.’

  He nodded, getting right to it. ‘Yes, ma’am. Graham Russo talked to the police over the weekend. He admitted that he’d been to his father’s and that he’d injected him with morphine.’

  She sat forward. ‘He admitted he killed him?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. He admitted that he’d earlier injected him with morphine. The point is, he’s contradicted his original story again. Also, apparently there was a struggle.’

  ‘The chair?’ she asked. Then shook her head. ‘We’ve already seen that. That’s no proof of a struggle.’

  ‘They have a witness.’ He saw her eyes narrow. She was following him closely. ‘In any event, I’m convinced that they now have a case. The AG is going to make an arrest.’

  She nodded. ‘I had assumed they would. Powell wants to make some bones. He won’t win. Assisted suicide shouldn’t be charged as homicide, and every jury that gets picked in this city is going to agree with me. But what does this have to do with you? Or me?’