The First Law dh-8

by John Lescroart

  "Thank you, your honor."

  "This one looks pretty solid," Cuneo added. He handed the warrant across to the judge.

  Thomasino looked it over carefully. These may have been good cops, but the decision to violate a citizen's residence by allowing a legal search was never a casual one, and Thomasino took it very seriously indeed. When he'd finished reading, he looked up. "So this man, Holiday, how does he fit exactly? I'm not sure I see it."

  Cuneo took point. "We believe he was with the other two men-the victims this morning in the apartment where we found the gun-during the Silverman robbery and murder. Plus, we've confirmed that the same gun was used to kill a security guard two days ago, Matt Creed."

  "But these men were not shot? This morning?"

  "No, sir. Somebody had cut their throats," Russell said.

  "And you think it was this Holiday?"

  "Yes, your honor." Cuneo, exuding urgency, came forward in a kind of a crouch. "We didn't get a positive match on the slugs for Silverman and Creed until this morning and based on them, we were planning to arrest Terry and Wills, except they went dead on us."

  "But not Holiday? Why not?"

  Russell shifted in his seat. "He's a bartender. He was working when Creed got shot, so we think that Creed was just the two of them, Terry and Wills."

  "Maybe Holiday didn't even know they were planning on killing him," Cuneo added. "He might have felt they were getting too trigger-happy and were a risk. Which is why Holiday decided he had to kill them."

  "But," Russell said, "it's probable he did know about Creed. That they all decided."

  "And why would they do that?" Thomasino asked.

  Cuneo straightened up, the tag team continuing. "Because Creed had identified all of them as the guys who'd killed Silverman. So they figure he can't testify if he's dead."

  Russell jumped back in. "And me and Dan repeating what Creed told us would be hearsay and inadmissible anyway, isn't that right?"

  A faint trace of smile tugged at the judge's mouth. "The rules about hearsay have fooled better men than me. But you're saying you had an ID on Holiday? Then why isn't he in jail already?"

  "The ID was in the dark at fifty feet, your honor," Russell said. "The DA wouldn't have charged it if that's all it was."

  "We needed physical evidence tying him to Silverman," Cuneo added. "And we didn't get any until this morning, when we got plenty."

  Thomasino stroked his chin, pulled at his ear, rubbed his neck. Something about all this still bothered him. "I see you've got a lot for these two dead men, although it's a little late now. I'm still not sure I see the connection to Holiday so clearly."

  Cuneo had started tapping his thighs in agitation. "Your honor, he killed them both last night. The other dead man, Creed, put Holiday with them both during the Silverman robbery and murder. I'm a hundred percent certain we'll find evidence we can use at his place tying him to four murders. This man needs to be off the street."

  "But you need probable cause for a search warrant. You gentlemen know this. And I'm not sure you've got anything yet that rises to that standard."

  "Your honor." Russell reached over and touched his partner's arm, stopping the agitation. Playing counterpoint to Cuneo's intensity, he leaned back in his chair, crossed a leg over his knee, "I personally heard Matt Creed positively identify the three men who robbed and killed Mr. Silverman as Clint Terry, Randy Wills and John Holiday." He pointed to the form in Thomasino's hand. "As the affidavit indicates, we found bills with Mr. Silverman's distinctive mark at Wills's and Terry's apartment. We will be searching for similar bills at Mr. Holiday's. We know they were together."

  Chewing the inside of his cheek, the judge sat with it for another moment. Finally, he narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "Inspector Russell, you heard this Mr. Creed's identification with your own ears?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Inspector Cuneo? Same question."

  "Yes, your honor."

  Thomasino nodded. "All right. Perhaps the warrant application just isn't as clear as it needs to be. I want you to handwrite that right here, initial and date it, each of you. I'm calling that good enough for me." He came all the way forward and placed the warrant on the small table between them. The pen's scratch was the only sound in the room.

  Holiday called Michelle at her apartment from the Ark. She had a restaurant review for a place on Chestnut Street and they'd been planning to go there together for lunch, but now that wasn't going to happen. He told her that Clint still hadn't shown up and he was going to have to pull a double shift. He'd see her tonight, late, after he got off. He wondered, since the restaurant was near his own duplex, if she'd mind swinging by his place for a clean shirt or two and some underwear. He might be pulling back-to-backs at the bar and he could be with her sooner tonight if she could save him the long walk or bus ride home. He'd lost the last car he'd owned at a poker game, then found he didn't need a car for his normal life, anyway, since he lived all of it within such a relatively small radius. Most days he walked to work-Chestnut to Taylor or Mason, then all the way down to O'Farrell wasn't even two miles and the hills gave him some badly needed exercise.

  So after lunch, sometime between 2:00 and 3:00, Michelle found herself climbing the stairs to his flat. He'd lived in the same upper duplex on Casa Street in the Marina for over fifteen years, had bought it with Emma, lived there with her for their three years together. In a fit of fiscal probity during Emma's pregnancy, the young couple had actually bought mortgage insurance and because of that, after her death, the place was now paid off. It still had ghosts for him, evidently, and he spent as little time there as possible, although he had told her that he recognized the necessity of holding on to it. He could never afford to rent a similar, or even a far less desirable, place. It was just something he possessed, like his bar. Part of his life.

  There had been three newspapers in the little area at the foot of the stairs, and Michelle was carrying them as she got to the upper landing and noticed that his door was open. She pushed at it gingerly and it gave another few inches. Inside, she heard unmistakable sounds of movement and male voices.

  "Hello!" she sang out. "Is anybody home?"

  The voices ceased. Footsteps approached. The door opened all the way. A well-dressed, clean-cut black man stood in front of her, scowling. "Can I help you?"

  "Is John home?" she asked. "Who are you?"

  The man pulled out his wallet and showed her his identification. Another man, this one white, appeared in the hall behind him. "Inspector Lincoln Russell. My partner, Dan Cuneo. We're with homicide."

  "Homicide?" She backed away a step. "Is John okay?"

  "That would be John Holiday? Yes, ma'am, as far as we know."

  "All right, but then what are you doing here?"

  "We're searching his apartment." Inspector Russell reached into his coat pocket and produced a piece of paper. "We have a warrant."

  The other man came forward. "While we're getting to know each other, can I please see some identification?"

  "From me?"

  "Yes, ma'am. If you don't mind."

  It didn't seem to her that it was a request she could refuse. Flustered, going for her purse, she dropped the newspapers around the welcome mat. Finally, she fished around and brought out her driver's license, which she handed to Russell, since he was nearest to her. He glanced at it, showed it to his partner, then gave it back to her and said, "All right, Ms. Maier, you mind telling us why you're here?"

  Michelle was thinking as fast as she could, showing them nothing. "I've been trying to get in touch with John and he's not answering his phone, so I thought I'd come by and leave a message on his door. I'm going away for a couple of days and he always watches my cats." She knew she was blurting and realized at the same time that this might not be a bad thing. "He's really good with cats. He never forgets. Anyway, so when I got here I thought I'd pick up his papers when I saw them all down there, and then the door was open a little, so I… well, you kno
w." She stammered to a halt. "I'm sorry to have interrupted you," she said.

  The black inspector turned to his partner, came back to her. "You don't know where Mr. Holiday is?"

  "No. That's why I came by, to see if…" She gave them both her most plaintive look. "Is he in trouble?"

  Cuneo came forward a step. "You might want to find somebody else for your cats. If he comes by, we'll see he gets the papers."

  It was a dismissal. She couldn't believe it, but as long as she stayed cool, they were letting her just go away. "Okay, then." She forced herself to wait another moment, then raised her hand tentatively, as though wondering if it would be appropriate to wave. "Sorry to have bothered you. 'Bye."

  "So… what?" Gerson said. The three of them were in his office, sitting around in something like a circle. The door was closed. "You left his copy of the warrant taped to the front door? Inside?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I don't want any technical error to screw this up."

  "No, sir," Cuneo said. "Neither do we. It was a righteous search, by the book."

  "And where was all this? Just lying out?"

  He was referring to the three baggies the inspectors had brought in with them-their winning streak growing to truly absurd proportions. In Holiday's bathroom, one of the drawers under the sink didn't appear to be as deep as the counter over it. Upon pulling it out, Russell discovered a battered, old dull red leather pouch stuffed to near bursting with over $3,700 in mixed bills, each one marked with a red dot in the upper right-hand corner. As if that weren't enough, at almost the same instant, Cuneo-in the bedroom-let out a yelp when he opened a cigar box on a shelf in the back corner of the closet. It rattled when he picked it up, and he found that it contained seven rings, five of them women's engagement rings with large diamonds, two of them for men. One of the men's rings was truly distinctive, inset with what looked to the inspectors to be a huge and brilliant star sapphire. Two of the rings, including the sapphire, still had the tiny price tag attached with a small length of thin white string. The price tags also had red dots on them-Silverman's.

  Cuneo nodded. "We talked about it on the way in," he said. "If I were more cynical, I wouldn't believe this could have fallen together so perfectly all by itself."

  "You are more cynical, Dan," his partner said. He turned to Gerson. "It wasn't just lying out, sir. Holiday had it hidden. Just not well enough."

  "Don't get me wrong," Cuneo said. "I'm not complaining. I'll take it. Makes up for all the times nothing works. It's just so weird. I'm tempted to go buy a lottery ticket."

  Gerson nodded. "And Thomasino signed off on the search?"

  "Yes, sir," Russell said.

  "Okay, so what I suggest you do is go back to him right away…"

  "He's at trial," Cuneo said.

  "Interrupt his honor," Gerson replied. "He won't mind, I promise. Print yourselves out an arrest warrant and show him what his wisdom allowed you to discover. You'll make his day. You have any idea where Mr. Holiday is at the present time?"

  "Dan called the Ark, sir, from the phone at his place as soon as we found this stuff. When a male voice answered, we hung up. We figure he can't have a clue we've made this kind of progress. Enough to arrest him. And it's got to be him working there now. His other bartender's dead."

  "Good point. All right. So after the judge signs your warrant, you're going down to pick him up? You want some backup?"

  Cuneo answered. "We can handle it, sir. He won't give us any trouble."

  Gerson considered for a beat. "Okay, but by the book."

  "Every time, sir," Russell said, nodding in agreement. "Every time."

  "Glitsky. Payroll."

  It rankled every time.

  "Lieutenant? Barry Gerson again."

  "Yes, sir." No emphasis. "What can I do for you?"

  "Well, first I wanted to apologize for going so territorial on you the other day. I can't blame you for being interested in Silverman. Your father knew him. Of course you're interested. I was out of line."

  "Thank you. What's second?"

  The brusqueness of the reply slowed Gerson for a second, but then he recovered. "Second is I thought you'd want to know that Cuneo and Russell have been doing some incredible work these last couple of days. I believe they've gotten to the bottom of this thing with Silverman. At least they've got plenty that you can pass on to your father."

  Suddenly the flat tone left Glitsky's voice. "I'm listening."

  Gerson gave him the rundown on the evidence that so unambiguously pointed to Terry, Wills and Holiday-the gun in Terry's drawer, so clearly and demonstrably both the Silverman and Creed murder weapon. But also the red-dotted bills from both the Jones Street apartment and from Holiday's duplex in the marina. Although the lab hadn't finished its analysis of the gunk yet, Gerson threw in for good measure the shoes found in Terry's apartment and their probable relation to the Creed killing. The pawnshop jewelry articles in Holiday's closet. The case was solved, soup to nuts.

  When Gerson finished, Glitsky exhaled heavily. "So that's it?"

  "That's it."

  "And Holiday killed the other two. Last night, was it?"

  "Looks like. There's really no other option. Thomasino gave Cuneo and Russell a warrant in about five seconds. They've gone on down now to pick him up."

  Glitsky spent a second or two adjusting to this new reality. The fundamental rule of his thirty years of life as a cop was that evidence talked, and in this case it positively screamed. He had been completely wrong, and his meddling had possibly even inconvenienced the good inspectors working the case. Maybe, he thought bitterly, payroll was where he belonged after all. He'd obviously lost his edge. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Then I'm the one who should be apologizing, Lieutenant. If Wade Panos put your guys on the trail that led here, I must have pegged him wrong."

  "That's not an issue for me, Abe." Glitsky noted the first name, a far cry from the "lieutenant" he'd started with. "You thought you were doing me a favor."

  "I really did."

  "I believe you. Some of these rent-a-cops… well, you know. They're not all righteous, we can go that far. But Panos had something real this time. We're lucky he felt cooperative. Anyway, if you've got something I need to hear in the future, my door's open. You put in a lot of years at this desk. I'd be an idiot if I didn't take advantage of that."

  "Thanks, Barry. I appreciate it. But it's your gig now. I'm out of it."

  "Maybe. But I'm reserving the right to come to you if something stumps me. Deal?"

  "Deal."

  When they hung up, Glitsky sat unmoving, turned away from his desk, staring out the window into the bright afternoon. He heard the wind whistling around his corner of the building. A deep sigh escaped. In spite of the kissy-face words, the hard truth settled over him like a shroud-in the real world, Glitsky would probably never set foot in homicide again. No one was even going to have to try to keep him out. The thing was done, a fait accompli.

  It was the termination of all those years.

  After a minute, he swiveled his chair, stood up and went over to the printing room to see how the paychecks were coming along. They were due out tomorrow morning. That was the priority now, the sum total of his professional importance-making sure those checks got out on time.

  15

  Holiday got Michelle's frantic call to the Ark during the afternoon lull. He had one customer, a fifty-something dot-com bankrupt named Wayne, and he shooed him out pleading illness. He was going to have to close up. After he'd locked the door behind Wayne, he took all the money from the cash register, walked to the back room, and unlocked the bottom left drawer of his desk. The drawer contained a Walther PPK. 380 automatic wrapped in a greasy old T-shirt and a quarter box of ammunition that was at least six years old, and possibly more than that. Holiday had bought the gun when he'd first opened his pharmacy fifteen years ago-he had no memory of when he'd last taken it to the range, or bought any ammunition. In all his years in business, he
'd never had occasion to take it out, even to brandish.

  But he believed with all his heart that he had a reason now. He cranked a round into the chamber and snapped the safety off. He tucked the gun into his belt and the bullets into the pocket of his three-quarter-length leather coat. Letting himself out the back door of the Ark, he double-locked it up and started walking. He arrived at Michelle's an hour later.

  Now they had been holed up inside for about another hour. It turned out, when Michelle accidentally saw the gun, that she wasn't much a fan of firearms. There had never been a gun in her parents' house when she was growing up. She wasn't going to tolerate one now. She had wanted to warn John about the police, but had never considered what it might really mean, who this man she'd been seeing really was.

  When he showed up with a loaded gun, it more than worried her. It made her feel as though he'd duped her somehow.

  So she'd told him no gun, he didn't need it here, she wouldn't have it in her apartment. If he was intent on keeping the gun, he had to leave. In the end, she reluctantly agreed to a wimpy compromise-he would unload it and put the gun and the ammunition out of sight in one of the bedroom drawers. She agreed not because she wanted to, she realized, but because suddenly some part of her was afraid of him.

  She'd been attracted to him at the beginning-and consistently since-because she'd chosen to ignore all the outward signs that he might finally, at heart, not be the man he pretended to be. Now she was forced to consider that he might, in fact, be a true criminal. The seedy bar, the nomadic lifestyle, ex-convict associates, heavy drinking, even his own drug arrest. He had explained away all of those dark and telling realities with a lighthearted and eloquent insouciance, and she'd wanted to believe him in large part because of the powerful chemistry between them.

  Clearly he had a sensitive side. He'd apparently endured great pain and loneliness after the loss of his wife and child. He was smart as a whip. He could be very funny. He was a great lover. She had convinced herself that most of the time he simply chose to hide his essential goodness from the world because people would take advantage of it. The same way she handled her physical beauty. This was something she could relate to, a defensive coloration.