Dead Irish

by John T Lescroart

  “Alphonse Page. Of this there is little doubt.”

  They were in Hardy’s kitchen. The fog outside was thin and still, the kind that had a chance to burn off.

  “You think he killed Cochran?”

  Abe shook his head. “I am fairly certain he killed Linda Polk, that’s all. Different MO than Cochran anyway. Cut her throat.”

  “Money? What else.”

  “Well, it gets a little funny there.” Hardy waited. “Her father called it in-the same guy you told me about, huh?”

  “Short, sad, dumpy?”

  “That’s him.”

  “What was he doing at work on a Sunday?”

  “He said he was feeling guilty he hadn’t been in all week. Wanted to get a fresh start, jump on Monday, like that.”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “I know.”

  The two men nodded at each other. “So,” Glitsky continued, “there was no money around, although there was a safe in the room, closed up tight, and the victim, Linda, was lying in a pool of blood right by it.”

  “So he emptied the safe.”

  “In any event, it was empty when Polk opened it up for a look. I guess it was either him or Alphonse, maybe.”

  “What do you mean, maybe? Why else would she have been aced?”

  “Diz. The lab tells me she was filled with sperm. They also found three or four hairs in her crotch. Appear to be from a black man.”

  “Jesus, she was raped?”

  “I don’t know, but that waters down the money as the only possible motive. She’d certainly had sex just before she died, like, within an hour or two.”

  “But why did she go to the office, where the safe was? It had to have something to do with money.”

  Glitsky shrugged. “No, it didn’t. It probably in fact did, but it didn’t have to.”

  Hardy got up and paced. “Well, shit, Abe, so who’s Alphonse Page?”

  Glitsky took out a photograph he’d gotten, reluctantly, from Page’s mother when they’d gone to his house the previous night with a warrant. Hardy’s forehead creased, studying the picture, as Glitsky went on. “Polk identified his knife at the scene. Prints with blood on ’em all over the place-some even in the back at a wrapping machine.”

  Hardy threw the picture onto his table. “And there wasn’t any money?”

  “Good point,” Glitsky said, and noted something down on his pad. “Anyway, lab’s doing a run on the car, but I’m sure enough I got the warrant, put out the APB. Alphonse came home early last evening, dumped some bloody clothes in the hamper, packed a sports bag and split. So far he hasn’t come back, and I’m not expecting him. He did it.”

  “Could he have done Eddie?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t know where he was that night, but we’ll find out. After I talked to you last night I got out the file on Cochran. Read it cover to cover. ’Specially read about the car, Cochran’s. You’ll never guess.”

  “Black man’s hairs.”

  Glitsky smiled. “In the front seat. You’re a genius, Hardy. Lab’s not done with the comparison, but you want to bet they’re not Alphonse’s?”

  Hardy sat down. “You know what I think?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think we’ve got a drug deal gone bad here.”

  Glitsky rubbed the scar that ran through his lips. “Well, damn, what an incredible idea!”

  Glitsky then told him about the trace of cocaine found on Polk’s desk.

  “So did you bring him in? Polk?”

  “He was pretty incoherent after it hit him. I mean, his daughter had just been killed. He’s coming downtown this afternoon. Wanna be there?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. Cavanaugh seems to think Polk did it, you know. I mean did Eddie.”

  “I didn’t think he raped his daughter.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t raped.”

  “And who’s Cavanaugh?”

  Since it was now part of his active investigation, Glitsky wanted to get it firsthand. He and Hardy drove separately over to St. Elizabeth’s and both of them parked in the empty lot behind the rectory. Rose greeted them at the door.

  “Father’s rehearsing the graduation over to the church,” she said. “You can wait here or go on over.”

  They walked through the lifting fog. Sixty boys and girls in uniforms-gray corduroy pants and white shirts, maroon plaid dresses and white blouses-were lined up at the door of the church. Two nuns fluttered around trying to keep order.

  “They still do this? Uniforms, even?” Glitsky seemed genuinely surprised, parochial elementary schools not being his everyday turf.

  “Hey, if it works don’t fix it.” Hardy held his hands out. “Look what it did for me.”

  Glitsky, his eyes still on the line of kids, started moving again. When the last child had gone inside Glitsky and Hardy followed and sat in the sixth row in the first empty pew.

  “What are they graduating from?” Glitsky whispered, but before Hardy could say anything a bell rang by the side of the altar and Father Cavanaugh, in cassock, surplice and stole, flanked by two acolytes, appeared through a side door. He came up to the altar rail, surveying the crowd, nodding to Hardy. He brought his hands together, palms up, and at his signal the children all stood. Hardy nudged Glitsky, and they got up too. The sergeant appeared puzzled.

  “Let us pray,” Cavanaugh intoned with a deep resonance.

  “I know that guy,” Glitsky said.

  “ ’Course I was younger then, still in uniform, even before Hardy and I were teamed,” the policeman was saying.

  Rose was used to policemen not wearing the blue. Except for CHIPs and a few of those older shows, no one on TV wore a uniform anymore. This man, officer Glitsky, had very nice manners, even if he talked a little loud, but he looked scary with that scar running through his lips-nowhere near as good-looking or friendly as her favorite black policeman, Tibbs.

  “No, I think I do remember,” Father replied. Rose was pouring coffee from silver into fine china. The policeman used a lot of sugar. The other man, the one who looked a little like Renko, drank his coffee black. Father, of course, had a lump and half & half. He’d had cream until last year, when the doctor had told him to cut down on his cholesterol. Margarine instead of butter, half & half instead of cream. But he still had his eggs most mornings. “We talked about the riots at Berkeley, the police role there, if I recall.”

  Inspector Sergeant Glitsky sucked rather loudly on the coffee. Maybe it was too hot to drink yet. “You know, Father, I think we did. How do you remember that?”

  Bless the father, he had a memory.

  “It made a great impression on me at the time, Sergeant. You were the first officer I had talked to who didn’t just spout the official police line.”

  “What was that?” the other man asked. Rose wasn’t exactly eavesdropping. She had been planning on dusting this room today anyway. And she felt she should be around to pour more coffee if any of the men got low.

  Father answered. “Once the students threw or broke something, it was open season for the police. They had the right then to use whatever force was necessary to keep things under control.”

  “It was just a pissing contest,” the sergeant said. “Stupid. They should’ve just got some guys who didn’t think all those students were revolutionaries, that’s all.”

  “So who’d they get?” the other man asked.

  “Bunch of rednecks they recruited from Alabama or someplace. Deputized for the riots. You know, bust some heads and see the Berkeley chicks running around without bras on. Weren’t you around for that, Diz?”

  Dismas, that was his name. Dismas smiled halfway and said his major concern at the time had been stopping those dominoes from falling, whatever that meant, although Father and the sergeant both seemed to get it.

  “Well, your friend here, Dismas, is too modest. He was quite a force for moderation back then. It took some courage for a policeman, and a black one, to take that kind of stand.”<
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  The sergeant seemed a little embarrassed and sipped at his coffee, but not so loudly. “Mostly self-preservation, I’m afraid,” he said. “The trend of importing southern gentlemen for the police force wasn’t going to do my career any good.”

  “So what were you two guys doing together?” Dismas asked.

  Father smiled, remembering. “The activist days… sometimes I long for them again.”

  He had never really been a radical, of course. An activist, yes, but within the system. The kind of man he still was-working for the homeless now, or getting some of the businessmen in the parish to hire boys from the projects.

  “A few of us were volunteered to assist Father, that’s all. He had an idea-who knows, it might have worked-that there should be a gun drive where every unregistered piece could be turned in and the citizen would get an immediate amnesty, no questions asked.”

  Father shrugged at Dismas. “I’m afraid we were all a little naïve back then.”

  The sergeant came to Father’s defense. “It didn’t do all that bad. I was surprised we got the response we did.” He turned to his friend. “Got about a hundred and fifty weapons city-wide.”

  “One hundred and sixty-three.”

  Father and his memory. Rose was proud of it. She walked over to the pitcher and picked it up. The sergeant held out his cup for more.

  Father believed, he was saying in his humble way, that it was better to try things and fail than not try at all. They didn’t know it wouldn’t work until they tried it.

  “I know,” Sergeant Glitsky replied, “back then anything seemed possible. The times they were a-changin’.”

  Father sat back in his heavy chair, sighing. “Ah, yes, those changin’ times. Back then Reagan was governor, now…”

  All the men laughed.

  “Thanks, Rose, a little more, please. Now what brings you gentlemen to the church’s door this fine morning?”

  Darn! It was more about the Cochran boy’s death. And Father had seemed to be getting over that the last day or two. At least his appetite had returned. Perhaps the accident with Steven had forced him to turn his mind to more immediate problems, but that’s how life was, wasn’t it? One thing after another.

  She put the pitcher down and went back to her dusting. There was some talk about Dismas hearing Father’s confession, but that didn’t make any sense, then Father was talking about Eddie coming by with that problem.

  “When was that, Father?” the policeman asked. “Do you remember?”

  “Actually, he came by twice. Once, I believe it was the Wednesday before… before he died. As I mentioned to Dismas the other day, one of his co-workers had said something about not having to work for very long, that he and Mr. Polk wouldn’t need much money pretty soon. That he, Eddie, didn’t need to worry about building up the business again.”

  Father came forward now in his chair. “Eddie was a very smart kid. He put a few things together and came up with the idea that Polk was going to do something illegal-he didn’t know what. So he came by here and wanted my take on some options he’d worked out. But at that time he really didn’t know much, so he left pretty unresolved. Anyway, when I saw him the next time-”

  “And when was that?”

  Father looked out the window, trying to remember. “If I’m not mistaken, that was Sunday.”

  Rose frowned, trying to remember something. Lord! It was hard always remaining a silent fly on the wall. But then she saw Father look at her and smile. She lit up with contentment. With his memory, he was undoubtedly right, and that was the end of it.

  “In any event”-he turned back to the others-“he had kept on kind of pushing Alphonse to say specifically-”

  “Alphonse? The employee was Alphonse…” That seemed to excite the sergeant. Rose was forgetting to dust.

  “Yes, I think that was the name. Anyway, evidently Alphonse wasn’t too bright and said something about drugs.”

  “Well, excuse me, Father, but it’s not clear to me where you come in.”

  She knew this was a hard question for Father. She knew where he came in-for Eddie, for two dozen or more other people, really for anyone who asked. But how does he tell the sergeant without sounding like he’s bragging?

  “Oh, I think Eddie just wanted someone to talk to about it.”

  “About what?”

  She was getting a little annoyed at the sergeant. He didn’t have to push-Father would tell him.

  “What he should do, I guess.”

  “This is what he was telling me,” Dismas said to his friend, “at the Shamrock.”

  Father nodded sadly. “You had to know Eddie. He was”-he paused, then went on a little more quickly-“he was kind of like all of us were back in the sixties. Thought it was his business to be involved. That if he just stuck his head in and pointed in the right direction, people would see it. He would go and talk to Mr. Cruz-you know him?” Both men nodded. “And see if there might be some way to get back his business for a period of time while Army-Eddie’s company-rebuilt. Then in the meanwhile, if that happened, he thought he had a chance of talking Polk out of it”-he paused-“out of doing something wrong, something that might hurt him.”

  Now Father hung his head. “So he asked me about it, and I”- his eyes turned back to the room, pained now-“I, wizard counselor that I am, said he might as well go ahead, that he didn’t have anything to lose.”

  Silence. He didn’t need to add-nothing except his life.

  “One more thing,” Hardy was saying as he got into his car. “Last night I remembered another thing Cruz had lied to me about.”

  “Cruz? Oh yeah, Cruz.” Glitsky was late for another appointment, not at his most attentive.

  “I asked him about the scene-his parking lot-what shape it had been in. He told me it was pretty bad.”

  “And it wasn’t?”

  “No, Abe, wrong point. How could he have seen it? His boy, secretary, whatever, told me it was cleaned up by the morning.”

  Glitsky thought a moment “Maybe he saw it on the late news, ran down to check it out.”

  “Who called it in?”

  Abe rolled his eyes to the still-clearing sky, reached into his car and handed something over the roof to Hardy. “You coming down for the Polk interview? One-thirty?”

  Hardy nodded.

  “So study the report between now and then and bring it back with you.”

  Hardy took the folder.

  “But as you’re going through it, checking out Mr. Cruz, say two words to yourself every couple minutes, would you?”

  “What’re those, Abe?”

  “Alphonse Page.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  MATTHEW R. Brody, III, was the managing partner of Brody, Finkel, Wayne & Dodd. The firm had twenty-eight associates and the entire fourteenth floor of Embarcadero I.

  Brody, forty-one, stood six feet four and had lately begun using Grecian Formula on his thick head of (now) black hair. He wore a charcoal pin-striped three-piece suit, the coat of which now hung on the gilt rack inside the door to his office.

  His face still looked as young as he wished his hair did, with a wide but shallow forehead, a patrician nose, a strong chin. The only moderately distinctive thing about his looks, and it wasn’t much, was his upper lip, which was too long by a centimeter. He would have worn a mustache-did, in fact, while he was in school-but his wife had told him it made him look foreign, so he’d cut it.

  (It was one thing to shoot hoops with blacks and have a beaner roommate, she’d told him after he’d passed the bar, when she’d decided to marry him, but another altogether to look like a successful attorney.)

  Brody didn’t build the firm to its present status by taking on poorer Latino clients such as those litigating against La Hora for distribution hassles. But neither did he do it by being unfriendly or turning down clients.

  In the La Hora matter, he had gone to bat for Jaime Rodriguez because he was the cousin of his college roommate Julio Suarez, who,
in turn, just happened to run the most successful construction company in Alameda, which was currently developing a three-and-a-half-acre waterfront mall about two miles from the naval station. Coincidentally, Brody was handling the paper on that development.

  Rodriguez had been distributing La Hora in Lafayette and part of Richmond. After meeting with Brody, he had talked all of his fellow distributors, except the main guy in San Francisco, into the co-op lawsuit.

  After he’d studied the facts of the case, Brody got into it a little. It wasn’t often he ran across a real human issue. This wasn’t wills or codicils or a contract featuring an endless series of “WHEREAS” followed by a “NOW THEREFORE.”

  Of course, there wasn’t much money in it, but it wasn’t strictly pro bono either. Hell, someone had to represent these folks. He felt good about it.

  From his desk in his corner office he could see the clock on the Ferry Building. It was eleven-thirty. He was prepared for the meeting. He was always prepared, he knew, but when Judge Andy Fowler sent someone his way it was doubly important to have done his homework.

  Donna buzzed him and told him Mr. Hardy was here. He had, of course, checked back with Andy about Hardy. Used to be the son-in-law. Brody tried to recall if he’d ever met Jane’s first husband, but that had been before he was successful enough to have joined Olympic and gotten to know the judge. Still, he was ready to recognize him if he looked at all familiar.

  He didn’t. The man was a little too casually dressed for Brody’s taste. Andy had said Hardy was an attorney, and there were rules of dress within the fraternity. But then, Hardy didn’t practice law anymore, so maybe something else was going on.

  He declined coffee, tea, anything, which was good. Brody had said he’d give him an hour, but hoped it wouldn’t take that long. Interesting cases were one thing, but let’s not forget time was money. Hardy did thank him immediately for his time. Maybe he was still in the club.

  Brody shrugged and smiled. “When His Honor beckons… How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to find out, if I may, if this man Cruz might have had a motive to murder one of Sam Polk’s employees.”