The Keeper

by John Lescroart

  Hardy shrugged. “I’ve had lots of clients, Fran. But never a perfect game. Think about it. What would you rank higher, interest-wise?”

  She stared at him. “Amazing.”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about the perfect game? Or do you think we might chat for a minute about Hal and his situation?”

  “Phyllis didn’t seem to fully appreciate it, either,” he said. “That woman is a major trial. I asked Abe if he thought he could kill her and get away with it. He didn’t think so.”

  “Really, though, enough. Okay?”

  “All right.” Hardy reached for the wine bottle and emptied it into his glass. “What do you want to know about Hal?”

  “How was he?”

  “Depressed and worried. Sleep-deprived. About what you’d expect. Homicide—not Missing Persons—had just come by and interviewed him, and he got the impression they were going to charge him in Katie’s death, and he thought he might need a lawyer.”

  “Why were they going to charge him?”

  Hardy shook his head. “They weren’t quite there. But they were looking at him basically because he’s the spouse. That’s always the first stop, as you may know. I told him it was early in the game and he probably didn’t have to worry yet, but I’d get going, and I’d get Abe started just in case.”

  “Where does Abe come in?”

  “If Hal does end up arrested, I’m going to need an investigator, since Wyatt’s out of town. Better to get in early if it comes to that.”

  “Do you think it will?”

  “I don’t know. Coming to me at this stage was a bit unusual, but he seemed legitimately freaked out. Have you ever met him?”

  “No. But I feel I know him a little through Katie.”

  “What do you think?”

  “You mean, did they have such serious problems that I thought she might be in physical danger? I’d have to say no. She was just having some troubles with full-time motherhood and deciding to stay at home with the kids instead of working.”

  “What did she do when she worked?”

  “Pharmaceutical sales. She made a fortune.”

  “What’s a fortune?”

  “Two hundred, two fifty.”

  “Thousand dollars? A year? Can I get into pharmaceutical sales?”

  “I don’t think so. I think you have to be young, female, and pretty.”

  “Two out of three isn’t bad. Young and . . . well, I’m more handsome than pretty, but that ought to count.” Hardy sipped wine. “So she was making this kind of money and then just stopped? I can see why they were having problems.”

  “Diz, it wasn’t mostly about their problems with each other. You know I can’t go into detail, but it was self-esteem stuff, her place in the world, whether she was a good enough mother, like that.”

  “No talk of divorce or abuse?”

  “No.”

  Hardy blew out a heavy breath. “So nobody knows,” he said.

  “Nobody knows what?”

  “Anything.”

  11

  GLITSKY OPENED HIS eyes in the darkness, at once fully awake.

  Treya lay on her side next to him, an arm stretched out across his chest. He turned his head enough to read the time on the digital clock on his dresser: 6:14.

  He lay still another minute, then carefully lifted her hand and moved it over nearer to her. She stirred but did not awaken. Throwing off the blankets, Glitsky swung out of the bed and went into the adjoining bathroom.

  Since school started in September, he’d gotten into the habit of waking up to the alarm at six-thirty, throwing on some sweats, going into the kitchen, and assembling whatever they were having for breakfast. Afterward, he’d kiss Treya goodbye and drop the kids at school, then come home to read the paper. Eventually—say, by ten or eleven o’clock—he’d shave, shower, and throw on some old jeans and a T-shirt for hanging around the house while he read and read and then watched television and read some more.

  Today, by the time the alarm went off, he had already shaved and showered. Opening her eyes, Treya saw him standing in front of the dresser in pressed slacks, buttoning up a black dress shirt. “Where are you off to, sailor?” she asked.

  “Just getting a jump on the day, that’s all. I’ll go get the rats moving. How’s French toast sound?”

  “Perfect. You’re making?”

  “I am.”

  “If you want to save that nice shirt, put on an apron.”

  Glitsky looked over, nodded, and pointed at her. “Good call.”

  • • •

  AFTER HE LEFT the children at school, Glitsky drove downtown, parked in the Fifth and Mission garage, and walked down a block to the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle.

  In the almost-deserted basement, a heavyset, gray-bearded reporter named Jeff Elliot was sitting in his cubicle, staring at his computer. For about twenty years—far exceeding the predicted life span of a man suffering from multiple sclerosis—Elliot had been writing a column on page three called “CityTalk,” a staple of San Francisco’s media diet. When he’d started out, he was slim, clean-shaven, and baby-faced, and he got around town pretty well with the occasional help of crutches. He’d even been able to drive in his specially rigged car. Now, though the newspaper supplied him with a car and driver, he rarely strayed out in the field. His sources either phoned in their information or came to him. After all of his time on the job, his contacts in the city were second to none. If there was a story to be told, Elliot probably knew something about it.

  He and Glitsky had a lot of history. Once Glitsky had been shot making an arrest, and while he was in the emergency room and expected to die, Elliot had written an obituary column praising him as a cop and a person. Word that Abe was going to live arrived just in time to keep the column out of the paper, but it had been typeset and ready to go; Glitsky had a framed copy of it hanging in the hallway of his home.

  Now Glitsky knocked on the doorframe, and the reporter pushed himself away from his desk, turning as his wheelchair slid back. His face broke into a welcoming smile. “Look what the wind blows in. Dr. Glitsky.”

  The men shook hands, and Glitsky sat himself down on the ancient leather armchair next to the cubicle’s opening. They caught up on personal stuff—kids and wives all good, life going along—before Elliot said, “I’m thinking this is not purely a social visit. Which in itself is interesting, since, if I’m not mistaken, you’re still retired.”

  “I am, although you seem to be one of the few who know. I stopped by the Hall yesterday, and nobody seemed to realize that I’d been away. I think I could have gone back to my office and set up shop and nobody would have blinked.”

  “Devin Juhle might have been a little perplexed.”

  “Okay, him, but nobody else.”

  “So what were you doing at the Hall? Business?”

  Glitsky played it casually. “I’m doing some work for Hardy.”

  Elliot’s steel-wool eyebrows went up. “You’re going private?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Just a little freelance. I wondered if you might be able to tell me anything that isn’t in the public domain about Hal Chase or his wife.”

  Jeff squinted into the distance for a second, then came back. “The wife who’s gone missing?”

  “That’s her.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “If she is, did he kill her?”

  “Homicide seems to think so, but he says not. He came to Hardy. Diz is choosing to believe that there’s more here than meets the eye, and he thinks I’m the guy who can sleuth it out. Whatever it is.”

  “And you think I might know something?”

  “You usually do.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Elliot
closed his eyes and took a deep breath or two. “Nothing in the immediately downloadable brainpan.” Holding up a finger, he swung around in his chair. “Hal, right?” He tapped on his keyboard, waited a second or two, then nodded as the screen filled. “Okay, maybe this has nothing to do with his wife, but . . . he still works at the jail?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you talked to him about what he does there?”

  “No. I gather he’s your basic guard. What do you have?”

  “Same thing, nothing. But any time I see the words ‘San Francisco County Sheriff,’ my antennae go up. It’s not the best-run show on the planet. Maybe you’ve heard.”

  Glitsky, of course, knew the general reputation, which was not good. San Francisco was a geographical anomaly in that the physical boundaries included both an incorporated municipality—the city—and a state jurisdictional entity—the county. Thus, two law enforcement agencies—SFPD and the Sheriff’s Department—coexisted, cooperated, and sometimes overlapped, but were totally distinct entities. The chief of police was appointed by the mayor. The sheriff of San Francisco County was elected by the voters. With a visiting dignitary or demonstration or riot, the agencies might cooperate, but for the most part, they had separate jobs.

  The sheriff supervised the bailiffs who were responsible for the safety and security of the courthouses, the guards who ran the jails, and the jails themselves. The department’s only other function was eviction, which had become something of a higher-profile responsibility in recent years, when the number of home foreclosures in the city had gone through the roof. The common perception was that the eviction deputies were not always the souls of sensitivity during these difficult exercises.

  SFPD was responsible for all the other law enforcement in San Francisco, including homicides. In the case of a jail death, both agencies had jurisdiction. SFPD would handle any possible criminal implications in the death. The sheriff would run an internal investigation on how someone in custody could have died.

  “Here,” Elliot continued. “Here’s what I mean. The latest, a week and a half ago. ‘Inmate Dies Following Arrest.’ You read about this?”

  “Probably, though I don’t remember specifically. It’s common enough that I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “Most people don’t. Who cares about inmates? But look, it’s the sixth inmate death this year and the third in three months. This one was an overdose. And those six deaths don’t even count the overdoses where guys didn’t die, or serious injuries from other causes. The jail might be the most dangerous neighborhood in town.”

  “That’s what I mean by common enough.”

  Elliot leaned forward and read from the screen. “Angel Deloria. Forty-seven years old, doing ninety days on a probation violation. No apparent signs of foul play or suicide. Heroin overdose.”

  “Your point is? What’s this got to do with Hal Chase? Or his wife?”

  “Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. As I said. But if you want to scratch around Hal Chase, I could pretty much guarantee that if you talk to him about what’s going on at the jail, about the culture of the place, you’ll get a few surprises. Anything Burt Cushing’s involved in probably has dirt sticking to it someplace.”

  This abrupt segue to the sheriff himself brought Glitsky up short. “Do we know that Hal Chase knows Cushing, other than he’s his boss’s boss, or something like that?”

  “No.” Elliot sighed and pushed back his wheelchair again. “It’s probably wishful thinking on my part.”

  “What is?”

  “Thinking your guy Chase might be the way to get inside over there, to find out what’s really happening.”

  “And ‘over there’ is where?”

  “The Sheriff’s Department. I figure there’s got to be a crack in the armor someplace, but three or four years now, I’ve been waiting and watching and hoping—you should see my files—and nothing ever seems to develop into a real story, which in my soul I believe is a big one. Have you met our good sheriff personally?”

  “Couple of times at law enforcement events. If I remember, he gravitated toward the political side. I never had a conversation with him.”

  “Probably just as well. He’s one of those guys, if his lips are moving, he’s lying. Anyway, I was thinking that if you’ve got a legitimate reason to talk to your guy Chase, he might say something about how things are going, in a general way, at the jail and environs. If he did that, and you thought it smelled funny, maybe you could relay some of that back to me.”

  Glitsky sat back and crossed his legs. “What are you looking for?”

  Elliot pointed at his computer. “Let me show you something. These files I’ve been keeping.” A few keyboard strokes, and he leaned in to read his screen. “Here’s last October. Another inmate, Alanos Tussaint, died of blunt force trauma to the head, suffered when he evidently slipped and fell in a holding cell at the jail. In a jail full of people, nobody noticed him on the ground, unconscious, for an hour. Mr. Tussaint’s death was investigated and apparently found to be accidental, since there was no follow-up story of any kind, and believe me, I looked.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Well, trauma to the head . . . what would you have been looking for?”

  “You think he was beaten?”

  Elliot shrugged. “Another inmate talked to the SFPD and said some guards were involved. Later, he retracted that accusation. And nothing ever came of it. No prosecutions, no nothing. You want another one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay.” A few more keystrokes. “Back to August, three heroin ODs in one night, which leads to the question, ‘Where are these guys getting super-pure and therefore deadly black tar heroin if they are already locked up in jail?’ Do you think it’s remotely possible that guards could be smuggling drugs into the population? And if that’s the case, can the sheriff really be unaware of it?”

  “You think Cushing’s part of all this?”

  “The short answer is absolutely. Though he runs a very tight ship and nobody’s leaking. And that’s just stuff around the jail, not even counting the irregularities and problems with the evictions he’s in charge of.”

  “You want to get him,” Glitsky said.

  “I think he’s a corrupt despot and a menace, Abe. But he’s got loyal people, I’ll give him that. Loyal as only fear can make you. And as you well know, the code of silence among the guards makes the Mafia look like a gossipy quilting bee.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Glitsky said. “But interesting and provocative as all this is, we’ve come a long way from Hal Chase and his missing wife.”

  Elliot broke a chagrined smile. “I know. Sorry. I got wound up. It’s just I hear about any little tenuous connection to Cushing, and I start thinking this might be the big break I’ve been looking for.”

  “I’ll keep an open mind, but except for here, I haven’t heard a whisper about Cushing in any of this. If anything pops, I’ll let you know.”

  “You da man, Abe,” Elliot said. “And hey, welcome back.”

  12

  HAL CHASE EASED himself into the comfortable chair that faced the sheriff’s desk. As always in the presence of his boss, he was somewhat nervous, and more so now because he had no idea why he’d been summoned. Adam Foster, the boss’s chief deputy and a hard-ass of the first order, hadn’t given him any hints to ease his mind while he’d waited in the outside office, although he came up with a few possibilities.

  Hal had had several interruptions in his workday yesterday, including: extra time off at lunch when he’d gone over and called on Dismas Hardy; the earlier interview with the Homicide people; Abe Glitsky’s appearance before his shift was technically finished. Burt Cushing wasn’t a big fan of flexibility in work scheduling. You were supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, and by God, that’s where he wanted you to be. To keep a jail full of animals at
bay, you had to keep order, and a key element of order was punctuality. You were where your comrades expected you to be so that you could be counted on—for backup, for protection, for the power of numbers, and for simple safety.

  A relatively short, squat, powerful fireplug of a man, Cushing made up for his stature with an oversize personality. Hal found it difficult to read Cushing’s face and, until he knew why he was here, hardly dared to look at it. But he knew its features well: pitted pale cheeks, closely set dark eyes under a low brooding forehead, a brush-cut marine haircut, a cauliflower nose over a thin-lipped mouth that somehow managed to convey warmth with a frequent smile. Hal had heard the voice rumble in anger, had heard it command attention with a low-volume order. But today, when it came, the voice was solicitous and sincere. “How are you holding up, son?” he asked.

  “Trying, sir.”

  “Those Homicide people giving you a bad time?”

  Hal nodded. “Pretty much. They think I killed her.”

  “Pardon me for putting it baldly, but do they know she’s dead?”

  “I don’t think so. Someone would have told me.”

  “I guess that’s true. I pray she’s not.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Cushing paused, then lowered his voice. “She’s a terrific person. You know that? A wonderful person.”

  Hal straightened in his chair. “I wasn’t sure you’d have remembered her, sir. It’s been a couple of years.”

  “Yes, well. She’s not the kind of person anyone is likely to forget. Even if she hadn’t . . .” He stopped and took another tack. “I sometimes feel she saved my daughter’s life. That may be an exaggeration, but not much of one.”

  Hal remembered it well. Cushing’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Kayla, had been suffering for months from severe acne, her lovely face starting to scar, perhaps permanently. Kayla had gone to at least three dermatologists and taken several different drugs, all to no avail, when Hal had overheard a conversation between a couple of his sergeants about the sheriff’s extreme distress at this seemingly hopeless situation. Hal had suggested a new anti-acne drug that his wife was very enthusiastic about.