The Keeper

by John Lescroart

  “So,” Abby told him, “if I’m right, and we can find that out in about a minute online, we’ve got two wives we’ve never talked to who might be feeling stressed-out about now. Tussaint is back in the news big-time. If it were my husband and I knew he was covering up a murder, I’d be getting damn close to a breakdown.”

  “Okay, but even so,” Glitsky said, “wives can’t be made to testify against their husbands, so what does it get us?”

  “Leverage,” Abby said. “We’re not talking about testifying in a trial, just finding out what actually happened, going back to the alibis and saying your wife’s got a different story. Look at what Katie Chase did when she found out.”

  “We don’t know for sure that she did anything,” Glitsky said.

  “We’re pretty sure,” JaMorris countered. “Sure enough, anyway.”

  Glitsky, noncommittal, simply shrugged.

  “All I’m saying,” Abby continued, “is that one of these wives, or both of them, might be living in fear that their husbands are going to get found out. We let ’em know we’re close, anything could happen.”

  Glitsky said, “Let’s find out first if we’ve got these wives. If we do, I agree it’s worth talking to them. What do we have to lose?”

  50

  AS IT TURNED out, it took them nearly a half hour to get their answers, but worth it because the answers were the right ones. Whether or not Abby’s analysis of what it meant was correct, her theory was solid. Of the seven guards who had formed the backbone of Adam Foster’s alibis, four of them—all the poker guys—were single. The other three—Chick Davis, Andy Biehl, and Hal Chase—were now or, in Hal’s case, had been married. Given their first glimmer of hope, the inspectors divided up the spoils, with Abby and JaMorris on their way to interview Betsy Davis in the Mission and Glitsky taking Allison Biehl out in the Sunset. They elected not to make appointments with the wives; if either or both were at work or otherwise unavailable, they’d wait until the end of the workday and try again.

  Surprise, everyone agreed, would give them a very powerful advantage.

  The high-pressure ridge that had kept the sky clear and the temperature low for the past couple of weeks had shifted, and as Glitsky crossed Van Ness on Geary, he saw a looming bank of fog piling up out in the Avenues. By the time he hit Arguello, he was in the soup. Slowing down, headlights on, he fairly hummed with adrenaline, gripping the steering wheel as he crept his way out to Nineteenth Avenue. After turning south through Golden Gate Park, he continued down to Quintara, took a right past the Sunset Reservoir, and finally pulled up to a nice side-by-side duplex with a tiny lawn and an Audi A5 in the driveway. He checked his watch and saw that it was 2:45.

  Glitsky parked at the curb and climbed a small stoop to the right-hand door. A vacuum cleaner moaned inside. He rang the doorbell. The noise ceased and footsteps sounded and a female voice came through the door. “Yes? Who is it?”

  Glitsky had positioned himself directly in front of the fish-eye. As a large black man with a scar through his lips, he was used to the default reception of mistrust or even fear. He wore a consciously neutral expression and held up his new badge near his face so that she could see it. “My name is Abe Glitsky, and I’m with the DA Investigations office.”

  “Just a second.” She turned the dead bolt and quickly opened the door as far as the chain would allow. She spoke through the crack. “Is Andy all right?”

  “Andy’s fine.”

  She put a hand over her heart. “Oh my God. You scared me to death. You’re sure he’s okay?”

  “As far as I know. There’s no reason to think he isn’t. I’m sorry if I frightened you. I should have called first.”

  “No. That’s all right. Now that you’re here, it’s fine.” She let out a heavy sigh, patted her chest again, and swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but could I take a look at your ID again?”

  “Of course.” Abe held his wallet and badge out at her eye level. “Feel free to take the number and call the DA downtown if you’d like. That’s Wes Farrell’s number, his office. I agree, you can’t be too careful.”

  “Do you mind? I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Not at all. Take your time.”

  She closed the door and threw the dead bolt again. Abe tried to summon all the patience he could muster, which, after the tortuous slow drive out, wasn’t much. Taking small solace from the knowledge that jail guards were not encouraged to use the telephone at work, he hoped she would call the number he’d given her and not her husband. But this, he knew, was out of his control. He turned and watched the fog drift in front of him, sometimes thick enough to obscure the line of dwellings across the street.

  He checked his watch again: 2:48. The slowest three minutes, Glitsky thought, in human history.

  The dead bolt, the chain, and the door swung open. She handed him back his ID, a smile on her face. “I just spoke to your wife.”

  “She’s the DA’s secretary.” The sides of his own mouth lifted. “It’s the family business.”

  “After all that, what can I do for you? I’m sorry to be paranoid, but if I didn’t check and Andy . . . Well, never mind. You’re probably the same way.”

  “I probably am.”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “It might be more comfortable. Thank you.”

  “I’ve got to warn you, I’ve got a baby taking a nap in the back, and if she wakes up, I’ll have to get her.”

  “That’s fine,” Glitsky said. “I’ve raised a few myself. I get it.”

  Mrs. Biehl stepped back, opening the door all the way. He followed her into a small, very neat living room.

  “Please,” she said, gesturing to the couch. “Have a seat.”

  She was a petite brunette in her mid-twenties. She wore jeans and ballet slippers and a 49ers T-shirt tucked in, showing no sign of having recently borne a child. Sitting down across from him, her well-mannered preamble out of the way, she drew a deep breath—the first sign of true nerves, which Glitsky was happy to see—and gave him an obviously forced smile.

  Glitsky took out a small pocket tape recorder that he showed to her with an apologetic look. “Do you mind if I tape our conversation?”

  A moment’s hesitation. “What’s this about?” She pointed at the recorder. “Is that really necessary?”

  “It keeps the record straight.”

  “This is official, then?”

  Glitsky temporized. “I wouldn’t want to misquote you.”

  “No, you wouldn’t want to do that.” She paused. “You need to tell me what this is about.”

  “It’s relatively routine. We’re following up on an investigation into an incident that happened at the jail a couple of months ago. Your husband may have mentioned something about getting sent on a transportation detail bringing some inmates down to San Bruno with Adam Foster—the chief deputy—and a few of the other guards.”

  Mrs. Biehl’s mouth formed a small O. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. She inclined her head an inch or two. “Okay?”

  “There has been some discrepancy about the details of this assignment, so we’ve reopened the investigation. As it turns out, the incident at the jail is quite a serious matter: actually, the murder of a man named Alanos Tussaint.”

  “A murder? They’re calling that a murder now?”

  “You’re familiar with the incident?”

  Quickly, she shook her head. “Just rumors,” she said.

  “Well, Mrs. Biehl, further investigation suggests that Mr. Tussaint might have died as a result of an assault at the jail.”

  “What does this have to do with Andy?”

  “That’s unclear at the moment. You might have read something about this in the paper already. We’re just trying to make sure all the information we have is accurate, especially now that the press is asking questions. In
any event, as you may know, your husband has already said that he was with Sergeant Foster at San Bruno when this happened at the Bryant Street jail.”

  “If Andy says he was with Sergeant Foster, then that’s where he was. I’m sure of that.”

  “He never discussed the incident with you?”

  She pulled herself up straight and stared at him, not venturing a word.

  “Mrs. Biehl?”

  Another hesitation, then finally, “No.”

  “Never?”

  This time she shook her head. “No.” She was not a convincing liar, especially when she added with an air of petulance, “Why would he feel like he had to tell me about it? He was transporting an inmate. They transport inmates all the time.”

  “That’s true,” Glitsky said, “but they also keep records of who is assigned to them.”

  This was a wild shot across her bow, but it somehow found its mark and snapped her head back. She cast her eyes from Glitsky to the front door, then around the suddenly claustrophobic room.

  Glitsky read the signs and decided to turn up the press. “Do you know Hal Chase?”

  “I know who he is, yes.”

  “Do you know that he was supposedly on that detail with your husband?”

  “Not supposedly. He was with my husband.”

  “Was he? Have you and Andy talked about him the past couple of days?”

  “He’s in jail now. Which means he’ll say anything.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Everybody knows that.”

  “Okay, but why would he change his statement?”

  “To help you build a case against Adam Foster. Then he goes into Witness Protection and they drop the charges that he killed his wife.”

  “Excuse me,” Glitsky said. “If you think that’s what’s going on with Hal Chase, it sounds to me like you have discussed that San Bruno assignment with your husband, when earlier you told me you hadn’t. So which is it? You talked about it or you didn’t?”

  “Okay. All right. It might have come up somehow.”

  “Somehow? In what context?”

  By now her overt hostility was vying with her nerves. She looked again at the corners of the room, her mouth puckered in a tight kiss.

  “Mrs. Biehl?”

  “Hal Chase is making it all up!”

  “Is he? All right. Then what about Chick Davis? He’s not in jail, like Hal is. So what’s Chick’s motive? Is he making it all up, too?” Glitsky had nothing on Chick Davis except the name, but that was no longer the point. He had Allison Biehl on the run, and he needed to bring her to ground by any means necessary. “Now we’ve got your husband all by himself out there, lying to protect Foster and Burt Cushing, when all the other rats are jumping ship.” Having already told one whopper, he decided to swing for the fences. “Let me put my cards on the table. We’ve already talked to your husband. If you can corroborate what he’s told us, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor. But it has to be now, before there’s any chance that the two of you could get together and decide on your story. What did he tell you about Alanos Tussaint? Did your husband kill him, or was he just part of the alibi?”

  Allison Biehl had her fists clenched against her stomach.

  Glitsky had one more hunch and decided to play it. “I noticed the new car out there in your driveway, Mrs. Biehl. The Audi. That’s a fine machine for somebody on a jail guard’s salary, even more so if it’s your second car. You know we’ve got auditors who get involved in a prosecution like this one. We know what’s going on in the jail. We know there was money involved, and we know it led to this killing.”

  She raised her head, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “I knew it would come to this,” she said. “Andy didn’t kill anybody. Andy wouldn’t ever kill anybody. I told him when it started happening to some of the other guys that it was only going to be a matter of time. It’s not like they give you the chance to say no, you know? They tell you what you have to do, and then you just do it and hope it’s something easy, like Andy got. There’s no option. You do it or you’re fired. You do it and take the payoffs. That’s how it all works. It wasn’t like this was Andy’s idea or anything. They just picked him and then he was part of it. He really had no choice, no choice at all.”

  51

  OUTSIDE THE BIEHL home, Glitsky called Dismas Hardy, who, as it turned out, was nearby. He had just arrived at the bar he co-owned, the Little Shamrock, where he was going to bartend from four to seven, as he liked to do from time to time. Hardy was interested and happy to hear about Glitsky’s afternoon, but the details would have to wait; he was already jamming behind the bar. Maybe Abe could embellish the story when he showed up in person.

  Either Hardy had lied or the crowd packing the bar had mysteriously disappeared by the time Glitsky grabbed one of the open stools down by the beer spigots and ordered an iced tea. After Glitsky gave him the broad-strokes account of his interview with Allison Biehl, Hardy took a sip from his beer and gave Abe a look of mild distress.

  “What?” Glitsky asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Seems like something.”

  “No.” Hardy sipped again, swallowed. “Nothing.”

  Glitsky shook his head, perplexed. “I don’t get it. This is the second time today I tell you great news, and both times you’re . . .”

  “Surly, discontented, unhappy?”

  “Yeah. That’s a good start.”

  “And you have no idea why?”

  “You’re jealous ’cause I got all the answers first?”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then how about you tell me what it is.”

  Hardy put down his beer, placed his palms on the bar between them, and leaned over. “I’m really glad you got the break, Abe. That’s great news. But I’m just a little concerned. Let’s just do a logic game for a minute and pretend that your theory about Katie Chase is right. Because of what she heard about Foster’s alibi from Hal, she got perceived as a threat by somebody in the Sheriff’s Department—Cushing or Foster, it doesn’t matter. And their solution was to kill her. Doesn’t that pretty well capture the highlights?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Okay. Tell me, then. In what way was Katie’s situation before she got killed any different from the one you just put Allison Biehl in? At least, once you put the word out that she knows Foster’s alibi is worthless, what will be the difference? Why won’t she be in danger? Or her husband, for that matter? Just as an exercise in logic, mind you.”

  “Nobody’s going to kill her, Diz.”

  “No? Why not, exactly? Because this time nobody will find out who’s the weak link?”

  “Among other reasons.”

  “Really? Well, this just in, as I hardly need to tell you, you can know who did something till you’re blue in the face, and unless you’ve got some proof to take them down at trial, you got nothing. And these guys, Cushing and Foster and the rest of them, they’re not dumb. They’ve got this control-your-witnesses thing down to an art form. How many deaths in the jail last year alone, and every one investigated by the SFPD, every one, Abe, and no charges? Who knows how long all of this has been going on?”

  “But after today, we know it’s going on. It’s not just a theory.”

  Hardy pitched a glance at the ceiling. “There’s never been any doubt that it’s going on. It’s never been just a theory.”

  “And now people are talking about it. And soon will be talking even more.”

  “Swell. How is this supposed to help us prepare a case against any of them? With inadmissible hearsay from the wife of a witness who may or may not talk? No. The truth is that now they see you coming from a million miles away. And there is still no evidence. Even if Foster’s alibi on Tussaint falls apart, so what? It doesn’t mean he killed him. Nobody saw Foster kill him except Lut
her Jones, and he’s not talking, not ever, regardless of what you’ve done.”

  Glitsky cupped his hands around his glass. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said in a level tone, “but wasn’t it you who said—it was yesterday, I believe—that nobody would come after Hal because the coincidence factor would be too great? Why doesn’t that apply to Allison Biehl, too?”

  “Okay.” Hardy held up his hands. “Perhaps in my syllogistic zeal, I exaggerated about Allison. Perhaps she will be in no danger. Because she isn’t a threat to anybody. Her husband sticks with his perjury about the alibi—and he will, because why wouldn’t he?—and then Allison says you threatened or coerced or tricked her or something, and all of a sudden we’re back at square one. Except everybody is warned about everything. How do you not see this?”

  “I see it, Diz. But I see it playing out differently.”

  “You do? How’s that?”

  “I keep the pressure on, and something gives. It’s already happened today, since ‘CityTalk.’ And now Allison. The logjam is breaking up.”

  Hardy blew out a long breath in frustration. “It might be. People might be getting nervous, but that’s only going to make them more careful, not more reckless. Besides which, you know that the more you accuse without a show of proof—and I mean any proof—the less credibility you’ll have. You give us another cockeyed theory, and people roll their eyes. Until finally, Wes has to bow to public pressure and lay you off because you’re obsessed and you’ve stopped acting the way an inspector needs to.”

  “I am obsessed.” Abe lowered his voice. “These guys are getting away with murder, Diz. Multiple murders. And I’m not supposed to break this nut open any way I can?”

  “I hate to say it, but that’s right. You’re not just supposed to break it any way you can. You’ve got to break it the way you’re supposed to, so a case can stick. Otherwise it’s wasted effort. If anything, it’ll help them, not us.”

  “So what about your client?”

  “What about him?”

  “Do you think he killed Katie?”