Dead Irish

by John T Lescroart

  But if he was honest, he had to admit there were some problems. First, he knew he could direct investigations, but he had a problem working with the other guys. Out of the fourteen homicide cops, only two worked solo, and he was one of them. He told himself that it was just the way it had happened, but in his heart he knew that he’d worked it around this way.

  He’d come up four years before when an armed-robbery suspect-J. Robert Ronka, he’d never forget-had dovetailed into a wife killer. Frazelli had admired his handling of that case and put him on another hot one as soon as he’d come on board in homicide. There had been no free partners at the time, so Frazelli had asked him if he minded going solo again until somebody’s vacation ended or somebody else quit or got promoted, leaving another solo spot to be teamed. Then he’d put Glitsky together with that guy.

  Except Abe had never pushed it, and it hadn’t happened. And now he sometimes thought that not being particularly close to anybody might hurt his career.

  But that wasn’t as serious as the other problem-the race thing. The San Francisco Police Department has two unions- one for white officers and one for nonwhite officers. And Abe would be good and goddamned if he was going to use any affirmative-action bullshit to get himself moved up. When he finally did make Captain or Chief he didn’t want even the tiniest smell of that in his background, and so far he thought he’d avoided it.

  The trouble was, some black cops resented him for rejecting the hard-fought-for rights that they’d earned. And a lot of white guys wouldn’t believe that he didn’t get special consideration because he was black, regardless of what he said or did about it. Hell, he was solo, wasn’t he?

  (The fact that the other solo guy, McFadden, was white wasn’t a comparable situation because everybody knew McFadden was just a mean sorry son of a bitch who hated everybody and their dog Spot. He wouldn’t work with his own mother, and his mother wouldn’t want to work with him.)

  A telephone rang somewhere out in the main room. Glitsky could see three of the maybe five guys who were at their desks doing paperwork. The secretaries had all disappeared. It was close to nine o’clock on a Monday night.

  Frazelli had gone home. Abe and Griffin had rank in the shop. Wearily, Abe stood, stretched, and walked to the entrance to his cubicle. Griffin, three cubicles down, poked his head out the same way. They nodded at one another warily.

  As Abe feared, it was the desk phone. One of the new guys went and picked it up, listened for a minute, then covered the mouthpiece.

  “Anybody want to see a dead guy?” he asked.

  Abe wanted to go home. He was working on four current homicides and one he’d been hounding for sixteen months. On the other hand, his plate had been fuller, and he was gunning for looie. He stepped out of his cubicle. “Want to flip for it?” he asked Griffin.

  “Where is it?” Griffin asked the new guy.

  “Candlestick.”

  “Naw. Baseball’s boring,” Griffin said.

  “Okay, I’ll take it,” Abe said, not liking it. Griffin should have gone for it too. And there seemed to be a personal edge to what he’d said. Something was going on.

  Abe didn’t like it.

  The Giants beat the Phillies, 4 to 3.

  After the last out Hardy stayed in his seat, drinking beer and waiting for what crowd there was to thin out. They stopped selling beer after the eighth inning and he’d gone back and bought three to hold him over to the end of the game. He still had one, open but untouched, in the deep pocket of his coat.

  They left the field lights on. Hardy squinted below to the place the man had fallen. They’d stopped the game back in the seventh right in the middle of what turned out to be the Giants’ game-winning rally, when they had two men on, nobody out and Will Clark coming up.

  Most of the spectators had gone. He figured by now it was just the cops, so he got up and meandered through the seats, sipping beer.

  The area was cordoned off with yellow tape. Deecks was sitting slumped, his legs hanging over the seat in the row in front of him.

  The Cougar-Rafe Cougat, Deeck’s partner-was talking to one of the techs. They were getting ready to move the body.

  Hardy felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around. “Abraham, my man,” he said. Then, the thought occurring to him, “This a murder?”

  Abe Glitsky grinned, and the scar running through his lips lightened. Fifteen years before, he and Hardy had walked a beat together. They still wrote Christmas cards.

  “You see it happen?” Abe asked.

  “No. I was watching the game.”

  “Still fascinated by crime, huh?”

  Against Hardy’s will, the sarcasm rankled slightly. “I read the sports page, sometimes the food section. I get my current events across the bar.”

  Glitsky jerked his head. “These low railings,” he said. “I mean, you see kids leaning over ’em all the time going for fouls. They ought to put up nets or something.”

  Three men lifted the body bag and were carrying it over the seats. Another group waited on the cement stairs. The gurney waited at the top of the ramp. “I’m kind of surprised you bothered to come over and check this out.”

  Hardy lifted his shoulders an inch. “Parades,” he said, “can’t get enough of ’em.” A section of seats separated them from the rest of the group. Hardy asked why Abe was here himself if it wasn’t a murder.

  Glitsky pursed his lips, thinking for a minute. “Long story,” he said finally. “Politics.”

  “You? I thought you didn’t do that.”

  Glitsky made a face. “I used to think you got political to move ahead. Now you need it to stay even.”

  Hardy sipped at his next to last cup of beer. “Gets to that point, it’s too much stress.”

  “That’s how people live, Diz,” Glitsky answered. “It’s how you stay alive.”

  Hardy took a long, deliberate drink. “Is it?”

  Glitsky’s nose flared. They had come up to the concession area, still away from the others, the gurney. “Yeah, it is. I got a wife and three kids. What am I supposed to do?”

  The vehemence took Hardy back a step. “You feel that locked in, Abe?”

  “I don’t know how I feel. I’m trying to do my job right and not lose what I got.”

  “Well, there’s your problem,” Hardy said, trying to make it lighter, “you’ve got stuff you care about.”

  The gurney went by. Deecks and the Cougar followed it, talking quietly. One of the techs came up and started saying something to Glitsky. He listened, nodded once, started walking. “But to answer your question,” he said, “no, this wasn’t a murder. The gentle victim got a little overenthusiastic near the railing. Deecks’ll write it up. End of story.”

  “So why’d you come out?”

  Glitsky sucked his teeth. “Because, like you Diz, I am enamored of all aspects of police work.” He flicked a finger at Hardy’s cup. “You spare a hit of that?”

  Hardy took the backup beer out of his pocket. “Boy Scout training. Be prepared.”

  They walked out of the park and started down Cardiac Hill, both of them sipping beer. “The politics really that bad?” Hardy asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just on the rag tonight. Tired. This call came in, I was thinking about going home.”

  “So go home now.”

  “Yeah.”

  They got to Glitsky’s green Plymouth. Hardy tipped his cup back. “You notice beer never gets warm here? It’s one of the great things about this ballpark.”

  Glitsky squinted through the fog out toward the Bay. “Nothing gets warm here.” He stood without moving, maybe waiting for some signal. “I’m gonna check in,” he said suddenly.

  Hardy eased himself up onto the car’s hood, waiting, wondering. What was Abe checking in again for after he should have been home with his wife and kids five hours ago? Hardy didn’t believe anybody had to be that much of a red hot.

  But when Glitsky came out of the car, he was smiling his tight, scar-s
tretching smile. “Serves the fucker right,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The guy who scammed this”-he motioned back to the stadium-“off on me. Two minutes after I left he got himself a righteous homicide. Ought to keep him up all night.” The smile tightened further. “You know, Diz, I think I better see how he’s doing.”

  “That smacks of cruelty, Abe.”

  “You know, I believe it does.”

  They sat in the front seat and waited while Glitsky got patched through. “Carl? Abe. What you got?”

  “What do you want to know for?”

  “I got done here. Thought you might want some help.”

  Hardy heard the voice change. “I don’t need no help, Abe.”

  “I said want, Carl. Not need.”

  There was a pause. “Okay. Sorry. No, we got it under control.”

  “What is it?”

  “White male, mid-twenties, tentative ID Cochran, Edward. Shot once in the head-”

  “Find out where it is,” Hardy said.

  “What? Hold on,” Abe said to the radio.

  “Find out where it is,” Hardy repeated. “I know an Ed Cochran. It better not be him.”

  The rookie, Giometti, was coming back from the fence that fronted the canal.

  “You all right?” Griffin asked.

  The kid tried to look brave, even smile, but it didn’t work. What he looked, even in the phony bright lights that had been set up for the techs and photographers, was ashen. His lower lip hung loosely off his mouth, as though he’d been hit and it had swollen. His eyes still had that watery look some people get after they throw up.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Griffin turned back to look at the body. “Happens to everybody. You get used to it.”

  No, he thought, that wasn’t true. You don’t ever get used to it. What you do is get so you don’t react the same way. Your stomach still wants to come up at you, you still get that dizzy, lightheaded yawing feel that you’re going to go out, but if you want to stay working as a homicide cop, what you do is move that feeling into another plane.

  You observe small things better, maybe, which keeps you from seeing the big picture that will make you sick. Or you deny altogether and make light of the gore-something the TV cops do so well. Or you just look at it, say yeah, and concentrate on your job, then go drink it off later. Griffin knew all that. Still, he put his hand on his new partner’s shoulder and repeated, “You get used to it.”

  The body lay on its side, covered now with the tarp. Giometti kneeled down next to it.

  “You don’t want to look again, though,” Griffin said.

  “I better, I think.”

  “He ain’t changed. Come on, get up. Check the Polaroids you want to get used to it.”

  Giometti took a breath, thinking about it, then straightened up without lifting the tarp. “Why’d he want to do that?”

  “What?” Griffin asked.

  “Kill himself like that, out here. Nowhere.”

  They were in a good-sized parking lot between two office buildings in China Basin. In the middle of the lot a car registered to Edward Cochran, the presumed deceased, sat waiting for the tow truck to take it down to the city lot. Griffin and Giometti had looked it over, finding nothing unusual in or about it except for its distance from the body.

  “Why do you think he killed himself?” Griffin wasn’t senior here for nothing. The boy needed some lessons.

  Giometti shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious, don’t you think? The note…?”

  “The note?” Griffin snorted. He didn’t know what it was, but calling it a suicide note was really stretching. A torn piece of paper in the front seat of the car, saying “I’m sorry, I’ve got to…” That was it. But he wasn’t in the mood to chew out his partner, the kid, so he spoke calmly, quietly. “Nothing’s obvious, Vince. That’s our job, okay? Take what looks obvious and find out the truth behind it. The best murders in the world look like something else. If they didn’t, nobody’d need us.”

  Giometti sighed. He looked at his watch. “Carl, it’s eleven-thirty. The guy’s got a gun by his hand. There was a note. I think there’s a few things we can assume here.”

  “Yeah, we can assume you want to go curl up with your wife and go goo at your new kid.” A pair of headlights turned into the lot, then another one. Photographers probably. If that was the case, it was time to go, but he wanted to make his point first.

  “Get the gun, Vince, would you?”

  Giometti walked the few steps over to their car. Other car doors were opening and closing. Griffin looked over but couldn’t see anything outside the perimeter of light.

  He opened the Zip-lock bag and stuck a pencil into the gun’s barrel, lifting it to his nose. “Okay. It’s been fired,” he said.

  “We knew that.”

  “We didn’t know it. We found it next to the stiff and we assumed it. And we won’t know for sure ’til the lab gets it. But,” Griffin sniffed it again, “it smells like it’s been fired.”

  Giometti rolled his eyes. “Are we detecting now?” he asked, looking over at the sound of footsteps. “Hey, Abe.”

  Glitsky nodded to the boy. “That the weapon?” he asked Griffin.

  “No, it’s a fucking garter snake. What are you doing here?”

  “I got a potential ID.”

  “Yeah, us too.”

  Glitsky turned. “Diz?” he said.

  Another man stepped out of the shadows. He and Glitsky walked over to the tarp. They both went down to a knee and Abe pulled up a corner of it. The guy put his hand to his eyes. Something seemed to go out of his shoulders.

  Glitsky said something, got a nod, patted the man’s back as he stood up. He walked heavily back to Griffin and Giometti. “We got a positive,” he said. “Mind if I look at the gun a minute?”

  Griffin handed it over by the pencil.

  “It’s been fired,” Giometti said.

  Glitsky, missing the joke, glanced at him blankly, then sighted down the barrel, backward, into the chambers. “Yeah, twice,” he said.

  Hardy and Glitsky sat in the Plymouth in the parking lot. The heater made a lot of noise, but didn’t do much for the temperature or the fog on the windows. The only thing left to be done in the lot was towing Ed Cochran’s car, and the tow guy was here now seeing to it.

  Glitsky rolled his window down and watched without much enthusiasm. It was better than looking at his friend. These guys had worked together, partied some, got along, but most of it was on the flip side. When part of the work got to somebody, it made Glitsky nervous.

  He glanced across at his ex-partner. Hardy was leaning against his door, arm up along the window jamb, bent at the elbow, his hand rubbing at his temples. His eyes were closed.

  The tow guy came over and asked Glitsky if there would be anything else.

  They sat in the car, hearing the sound of the tow truck dissipate into the still night. Then there was only the heater, which wasn’t doing any good anyway. Glitsky turned the engine off.

  Hardy let out a long breath, opening his eyes. “Just can’t hide, can you?” he asked. “It comes back and gets you.”

  Sometimes Hardy would say things like that. If you stuck with him, Glitsky knew, he’d get around to saying it in English. But this time Hardy said fuck it, it was nothing.

  Glitsky rolled up his window.

  “You want a lift home?”

  Hardy motioned with his head. “I got my car, Abe.”

  “Yeah, I know. Maybe you want company.”

  Hardy stared into the fogged-up windshield. “After Michael…” He stopped. He rubbed a hand over an eye. Glitsky looked away again, giving him the space. Michael had been Hardy’s son who’d died in his infancy. “Anyway, I told myself I wouldn’t feel this shit anymore.” He shook his head as though clearing it. “Who’d want to kill Eddie?” he asked.

  Glitsky just nodded. That was always the question. And it was easier talking about cases than trying to find some
reason for the deaths of people you cared about. So Glitsky followed that line. “You see him recently, this guy Eddie? He say anything?”

  “Anything like what? I saw him a couple of weeks ago, up at his place. He said a lot of things.”

  “I mean, anything to indicate troubles? Somebody pissed off at him? Maybe depressed himself?”

  Hardy looked away from the dashboard. “What are you talking about, depressed?”

  Glitsky shrugged into his coat. “Guy’s dead alone in a parking lot with a bullet in his head and a gun in his hand. Possible he did himself.”

  Hardy took it in, said, “No, it isn’t.”

  “Okay, just a thought. It’ll occur to Griffin.”

  “What? Is he two weeks on the force?” He rolled the window down and looked across the lot. “Nobody comes out a place like this to kill themselves. People take people here and kill them. Or meet here and kill them.”

  There was no moon. The fog hung still. A streetlight behind them caught the lot in its muted, garish, yellowing pool. Hardy was right, Glitsky thought. This was an execution spot.

  “Besides,” Hardy continued, “Eddie wouldn’t kill himself. He wasn’t, as they say, the type.”

  He rolled the window back up.

  “All right,” Glitsky said, “you knew him.”

  “Put it out of your mind, Abe. It flat didn’t happen.”

  “I’m not arguing.”

  But Hardy was staring into the middle distance again, unhear-ing. He abruptly jerked open the car door. “I better get going.” He turned to Abe. “I’ll probably be in touch.”

  Hardy came up to the doors where he worked and pushed his way through. Moses, who hadn’t been home, was at the bar. Six closers-four at the rail and two at one table-were passing the time until last call. Willie Nelson was singing “Stardust” on the jukebox. No one was throwing darts. Hardy stood a minute, taking it in. Home, as much as anything could be.

  “Hey, Diz.” Moses automatically started a Guinness for him.

  “What are you doing here?”