The Keeper

by John Lescroart

  “Get back with her from what?” JaMorris asked.

  “Well”—Patti looked quizzically from one inspector to the other—“from us.” He had made up his mind that we weren’t going to be together anymore, so there was no reason he had to do anything drastic about Katie. Isn’t that pretty much what I said yesterday?”

  Abby could stand it no longer. “Patti. Who did you talk to yesterday?”

  Patti was looking at JaMorris. “It wasn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “I thought it was you. You said you’d be by this morning, and then when you guys showed up here . . .” She stood up. “Just a minute.” She left the room and came back after a moment with a small notebook. “You’re not Abe Glitsky?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m JaMorris Monroe. Abe Glitsky used to be head of Homicide. You’re saying you talked to him yesterday? About Hal? And Katie’s disappearance?”

  She nodded. “I told Hal we should tell the truth about us, that hiding it would just make us look bad. So he told Inspector Glitsky, and he called me last night . . .”

  “Glitsky called you last night?” JaMorris asked.

  Patti nodded. “Yes. He asked if he could come by and talk a little this morning, so when you showed up . . . I mean, you said you were inspectors . . . I just thought . . .” Clearly flustered, she sat down on the edge of her couch. “So who are you guys if you’re not working with Glitsky?”

  Abby had her ID out. “We’re inspectors with the Homicide Department, Patti. We’re investigating Katie’s disappearance. We came to see you because Daniel Dunne, Katie’s brother, told us that you and Hal were probably in a relationship.”

  “I just told you about that. But wait a minute. Who is Glitsky, then?”

  “He’s retired,” JaMorris said. “You say he’s working with Hal?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Abby raised her eyebrows—a question—at her partner, who could only shrug.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  • • •

  “I CAN’T SAY it was my finest hour.” Glitsky sat in Hardy’s office, trying to look relaxed in one of the comfortable chairs by the Sutter Street windows. But he drummed his fingers on the chair’s arm and hadn’t touched the tea that Hardy had poured for him.

  “You had every right to be there,” Hardy said. “You were a private citizen paying a call on another private citizen, with whom you had a scheduled appointment. Nothing about that is remotely illegal.”

  “True enough, but everybody knew I was really investigating Katie’s disappearance, and possibly impersonating a law officer in the bargain.”

  “Did you state or imply to Ms. Orosco that you were a cop?”

  “Not in so many words, but she must have gotten the general idea somehow.”

  “Again, not your problem, and you broke no law.”

  “I’m not worried about breaking a law. Nobody cares if I’m breaking a law. What they’re going to care about is that I’m sniffing around and maybe obstructing what’s starting to look like a righteous homicide investigation. I hated that kind of stuff back in the day. I still do, if I think about it.”

  “Well,” Hardy said. “It was only a matter of time.”

  “Thanks. That’s heartening.”

  “You’re welcome.” Hardy stood by the windows, looking down at the traffic. Finally, he turned back to Abe. “What’s she like, the other woman? Worth killing for?”

  “You know I’ve only got eyes for Treya, so my opinion can’t be relied on. But I think most normal males would find her irresistible in the extreme.”

  Hardy raised his eyebrows. “In the extreme?”

  “At least.”

  “So the answer to ‘worth killing for’ would be yes.”

  “If anybody is.”

  “And yet Hal broke up with her.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Now I’m hearing reservations from you.”

  Glitsky crossed one leg over the other. “You know when I said she was ‘irresistible in the extreme’? I lied. She’s about two or three times that. If Foley and Monroe hadn’t been there, and in spite of my only having eyes for Treya, I don’t know if I would have been able to talk to her without babbling.”

  “I’d like to see you babble.”

  “Many people would, but few get the chance. Patti Orosco would have gotten a large dose of full-blown babble. Really, she’s so beautiful, it’s silly—no other word for it. Oh, and she’s worth ten million dollars, too. Did I mention that?”

  “How did it come up in casual conversation?”

  “Hal mentioned it to me last night. To prepare me, I suppose.”

  “For?”

  “For the whole package. He told me that when I met her, I would have a hard time believing he’d let her go. He was right, but he wanted me to know what I was walking into.”

  Hardy said, “You know what this is starting to remind me of? When he first came in to meet me. Homicide had only just had their first talk with him, but he wanted to prepare me for when they turned up the heat, so I’d be ready.”

  “There are similarities,” Glitsky said. “Strategically.”

  “I wish I knew what they meant.”

  “Maybe it’s the way Hal handles things. Of course, he tries to leave me with the impression that he knows nothing about Katie’s disappearance, and if I’m forewarned about all the stuff that makes him look bad, suddenly, I’m not surprised. Therefore, I don’t jump to conclusions.” Glitsky shifted in his chair. “I’m assuming you still want my basic mind-set to be that he didn’t do it.”

  Hardy allowed himself the germ of a grin. “Until you find a bit of evidence that says he did.”

  “I haven’t. But on that, I’ve been trying to imagine other scenarios and have come up with a couple.”

  “Hit me.”

  Glitsky reached for his tea, took a sip, and made a face. “This stuff is cold.”

  “Think of it as iced tea that’s gotten warm. What are your scenarios?”

  After a rundown of his visit to the Golden Gate Bridge that morning to check on the feasibility of Katie’s suicide—in an hour of tapes, fast-forwarded, there hadn’t been any sign of a woman sneaking onto the bridge behind an unsuspecting bicyclist on the night in question—Glitsky concluded, “So that took the idea of her suicide, which I think was slim to begin with, pretty much out of the running.”

  “You really think she might have killed herself?”

  “Maybe. If she found out about Hal and Patti, if life at home with the kids was hell . . .” He shrugged. “I can’t rule it out entirely. People have been known to get creative, doing themselves in. She might have walked into the ocean and swum till the current got her. Did Frannie say she was depressed?”

  “No. We haven’t talked about their sessions, Abe. Privilege.”

  “My favorite. Would she talk to me?”

  Hardy didn’t have to think about his reply. “Not unless they find her body, and even then maybe not. You’re welcome to try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Is that all you had with alternative scenarios, possible suicide?”

  “Actually, no. Next was checking the lovely Patti Orosco’s alibi, which is the primary reason I’d gone by to meet her.”

  Hardy nodded in appreciation. “Isn’t it fun to force your brain out of its ruts? If you’d gone on the assumption that it was Hal, you never would have met Patti, not to mention suspect her of murder. What was she doing on the night in question?”

  “She went to the movies by herself. She thinks it was the seven-fifteen showing. Life of Pi. She loved it. And no, she did not keep her ticket stub. She also called Katie the day before—covering the phone records that will surely be discovered—and while that gave a plausible excuse why she couldn’t make the Thanksgiving dinner, it also would have allow
ed her to find out, if she didn’t already know, exactly when Hal would be leaving to pick up his brother at the airport.”

  Leaning against his desk, Hardy crossed his arms and let out a small sigh. “You think they were in it together?

  Glitsky replied, “I’m under orders not to think it was Hal, remember. Patti didn’t need him to be part of it, and if she can avoid suspicion, she comes out smelling like a rose, the sexy rich best friend who stood by Hal in his moment of torment and need. But one thing is certain: Both of their lives are immeasurably better if Katie is out of the picture.”

  “You really like them for it,” Hardy said.

  Glitsky’s mouth ticked up a quarter of an inch. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t warming to the idea.”

  23

  HAL DIDN’T WANT to call his stepmother and beg her to return, not after last night, when he’d essentially kicked her out, saying he could handle the kids on his own. In truth, it had not been only Katie who’d had problems with Ruth, not only Katie who’d wanted to limit the time their children spent in the company of their daddy’s stepmother. Ruth was nothing like the maternal, quintessentially grandmotherish Carli Dunne, Katie’s mother. Ruth was younger and prettier but far more demanding, and at times she seemed unstable. But then Ruth Chase had had a much harder life than Carli Dunne could have imagined.

  Hal’s birth mother, Eileen, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage when he was nine years old. Within a year, his father, Pete—like Hal, a San Francisco deputy sheriff—had fallen under Ruth’s spell. She was twenty-five years old then and beautiful. She, too, had lost her first spouse. Widow Ruth and widower Pete had bonded over their shared grief, among other things. Warren had come along a couple years later. But Hal remembered only a few happy family years before tragedy struck again. On a cold and foggy Saturday afternoon, Pete had accidentally killed himself with a lethal cocktail of prescription insomnia medication and alcohol.

  Between Pete’s pension and the private life insurance they’d taken out—their previous marriages had taught them both the value of such a policy—the Chases had enough to get by, but for Hal, life with his stepmother after his father’s death was never the same as it had been before. Hal was, after all, the stepson, not the real son, the way Warren was, and he felt the difference keenly. Ruth favored Warren in almost every way, even as the younger son gradually developed into a rather unremarkable slacker of a teenager and a socially awkward young adult.

  For a time after he’d left home, Hal had largely dropped out of Ruth’s and Warren’s lives. He’d visit on some holidays and call to check in from time to time, but he lived independently. It never occurred to him that anything he did even mattered to Ruth.

  But when he got involved with Katie, things took a turn. Katie came from such a tightly knit family that she couldn’t accept Hal’s estrangement from Ruth and Warren. Family was family, she told him. It was the most important thing. And so they’d reached out, and by the time they got married, Ruth was in a low-key but very real way back in his everyday life.

  The sad truth was that this wasn’t always pleasant. Ruth drank too much, and apart from the deaths of two husbands, she had other demons that plagued her. One of her uncles had abused her when she was a child; there had been some unpleasantness with one of her high school teachers. Also, because her two men had died, she had been denied the love and security of a normal home life, which she said was all she’d ever wanted. Although she tried to show her nicest side to Hal and Katie, a fundamentally bitter nature seemed always ready to assert itself.

  This was a serious but not insurmountable problem until Ellen was born, when Ruth decided that she needed to play an active role in the rearing of her grandchild. Ruth took to stopping by while Katie was at work, often finding fault with the nanny, and passing along her suggestions for improving Ellen’s life in a steady stream of well-meaning but intrusive suggestions that neither Katie nor Hal particularly agreed with. After Will was born and Katie started staying home, the gatekeeper in her could no longer coexist with her mother-in-law. Katie had very strong ideas about how to raise her children. It was now her full-time job, and she was going to do it her way, which was the right way. Ruth was welcome to come over, as long as she didn’t try to interfere with Katie’s absolute authority on all things related to her kids.

  Inevitably, the visits became fewer.

  Last week, the Thanksgiving invitations to Ruth and Warren had represented an effort to reach out and reconcile with Hal’s side of the family after he and Katie realized that Ruth hadn’t come by—by invitation or otherwise—in over three months. Katie and Hal didn’t feel a lot of affection for Ruth or Warren, but they were still family, and mending a fence by asking them over for Thanksgiving had been the right and good thing to do.

  But in the here and now, Hal was going a little nuts with his kids. He had forgotten how much planning and patience and simple energy they took. Will had gotten up for good at six-thirty this morning after the random three A.M. wake-up, when he’d needed to be calmed down and rocked back to sleep.

  Hal was somewhat ashamed to realize that he didn’t know where Will’s diapers were kept anymore, and when he found them, he was shocked to find that Katie had graduated him out of cloth and into Pampers. He finally got them both dressed and at the kitchen table for breakfast; he needed Ellen’s help because he didn’t know what food they both liked and could eat. He pushed a stroller and held Ellen’s hand as they walked down to the nearby playground, but he hadn’t dressed either of them warmly enough, so they came home almost immediately, after which he put a video on the tube and got them settled in front of it. Checking the time, he could not believe that it wasn’t yet nine o’clock. What were they all supposed to do for the rest of the day? And the day after that?

  Leaving them in front of the TV, he walked back into the kitchen and saw the accumulated dishes from last night and this morning. A wave of fatigue washed over him, nearly knocking him over.

  He gripped the edges on either side of the sink. His heavy head felt as though it hung by the thinnest of threads. He heard Barney the dinosaur singing, and he brought his hands up, covering his face. A minute ticked away and he did not move an inch.

  Now, somehow, it was two o’clock. He’d gotten both of them fed lunch and then down for naps, although who knew how long they would sleep? He honestly felt that he might not survive if he didn’t get a nap himself.

  He lay on his bed, his mind racing. Maybe he should call Carli. Either she or one of Katie’s sisters could come by and help out for a while. He knew they were suspicious of him, but maybe if he spent a little more time with them, that would pass. But in all, it seemed like too much work at a time when he felt he had almost no energy. Patti occurred to him, though he rejected that idea almost as soon as it appeared. Seeing her even once yesterday—never mind the attraction, which was, if anything, stronger than ever—had been risky enough. If they were seen together in public, it could only be bad. It was already bad enough.

  Realizing that sleep wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, he swore at himself, then sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. What was he being so stubborn about? He should just call Ruth, and she would be here in no time. They could talk about logistics, maybe try to find a new nanny, some solutions for the long term. He picked up the phone by his bed and punched in her number.

  “Of course,” she told him with no hint of recrimination. “I’ll be right over.”

  “You’re great. Thank you.”

  “I’m not great. I’m your mother. This is what mothers do.”

  24

  WES FARRELL BELIEVED that the hierarchy imposed by the desk and the prearranged seating in front of it was the enemy of communication. So after his election, he’d furnished his office with some library tables against the walls, to which he’d added a couple of distressed tan leather sofas and six or eight folding chairs that found their
resting places in various permutations, depending on who and how many guests were visiting. Adding to the relaxed tone was a dartboard by the door, a Nerf basketball net hanging off the bookshelves, a chessboard—with a game in progress—on one of the coffee tables, four baseball bats piled in a corner, and an ancient poster of Che Guevara tacked to the wall.

  Fancy it was not.

  This afternoon Wes had a couple of guests; he started off, trying to put them at ease, by ceremoniously unveiling today’s T-shirt, which read “Indifferent to the whole apathy thing.” Now, sitting on one of the library tables, he was buttoning up his dress shirt.

  It wasn’t a good sign that neither of his two guests broke a smile. Frank Dobbins, his chief investigator, sat back comfortably enough on one of the couches, but he was clearly marking time until Wes got down to the purpose of the meeting.

  The second visitor, a DA investigator named Tom Scerbo, perched on the very front edge of one of the folding chairs. Scerbo, in his early thirties, wore a wary expression. He had never been summoned to Farrell’s office, and clearly, in spite of the initial banter and the T-shirt moment they’d all shared, there was tension in the room, and now a small silence. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to rush anybody, but are we all here because I’m in trouble?”

  “Why? Do you think you should be?” Farrell asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Good. You’re not, then,” Farrell said. “But I did want to let you know in person that we’re going to be taking another look at Alanos Tussaint.”

  His wariness increasing, Scerbo cocked his head. “What about him? There wasn’t any case.”

  “Really? My understanding is that there was and then it disappeared.”

  “Right. Leaving us with nothing.”

  “Maybe. But I believe we may have something there to pursue, if we go about it a little differently.” Farrell continued, matter-of-fact. “Bottom line is that we’ve got big problems at the jail with guards and excessive force, among a host of other issues, and I believe that Burt Cushing’s in the middle of all of them. If that’s so, this office should be building a case against him and these guys, not giving them a free pass over there. What do you think?”