Glitsky loved it on television where the buzzer sounded and the lieutenant said 'yes?' and the receptionist – usually a twenty-something knockout in full makeup and no uniform – informed him that the mayor or the district attorney or Mr Flocksmith was there for an appointment, at which the lieutenant, sighing, said, 'Keep him on ice for a mo, Marcia, then send him in.' He really loved it.
Chris Locke was in the doorway, through it, and standing in front of Glitsky's desk, knuckles down on it, hovering, before the lieutenant had a chance to look up.
'I'd like a few words with you, Abe, you got a minute.'
'Come on in, Chris. Make yourself at home.'
Locke was alone, which was unusual. Glitsky wondered if he had gone home and gotten any sleep. He was dressed in his coat and tie as he had been in the middle of the night.
Glitsky started to lean back in his chair, to look up at the district attorney. It occurred to him, though, that Locke enjoyed putting people in this position, so instead he stood – Locke was a big man but Glitsky had an inch on him. 'Coffee, Chris? Tea?'
Locke wasn't buying the hospitality. 'Abe, I'm confused.'
'So am I, Chris. All the time. But I've stopped worrying about it.'
Locke took his knuckles off the desk. He was, Glitsky thought, one of those people who didn't like to stand unpropped, and no sooner had he straightened up than he half-turned and rested his hind quarters on the front of the desk.
Glitsky went into his best at-ease, hands clasped behind his back.
'I always thought we got along' – Locke began – 'and then this crap you drop last night about Jerohm Reese. I take it you didn't agree with my decision to let him go, even though he had no chance in hell of turning into a conviction.'
'Perhaps.'
'What does that mean?'
'It's a seven-letter word that means "maybe," Chris. I thought letting Jerohm go, after we went to the trouble of finding him, then arresting and booking him and all, seemed a little, well, precipitous.'
Locke picked a piece of Scotch tape off the roll on the desk, working it between his fingers. 'This is really about the lieutenant thing, isn't it?'
He was referring to the test the city gave, and which Glitsky had taken a year ago, to determine eligibility for promotion to lieutenant. While the candidates had waited for the results Locke had invited Glitsky up to his office and said he was going to use his pull to get him bumped to lieutenant even if he failed the test. He had gone on to explain that 'people of color' were discriminated against by the testing process, that Glitsky was a good cop and deserved the promotion even if his grades didn't measure up.
Glitsky had felt insulted by the assumption that he wouldn't pass (he got a ninety-seven, second highest among the candidates). Also, he didn't like the obvious politics of it – a mixture of backass affirmative action and loading up the police department with lieutenants for whom the DA had done 'favors.'
'A little of that, Chris,' Glitsky was saying. 'But mostly just plain old Jerohm Reese. And now, of course, the rest of it.' Glitsky raised his head, indicating the world outside.
Rolling the tape between his fingers, Locke sighed. 'Anything about Reese going to help us now?'
'You mean like arrest him again? I doubt it. But I thought it would help last night if we got some understanding of what might have started this whole thing.'
'What started this whole thing, Abe, was lynching Arthur Wade. And what's going to end it is finding the guy that led that mob.'
'You really think so?'
'Yeah, I do, Abe. Other people do, too.'
Glitsky took a breath, letting it out slowly. New to his so-called leadership role, he was still mostly a street cop in his heart – a protector of victims, a collector of evidence, the man who made the arrests. All of his training and experience was in enforcing laws and policies, not in making or interpreting them. But now, as head of a department, he caught a whiff of a change and it didn't smell too good. 'Well, as I mentioned last night, Chris, we're investigating it.'
Locke stepped closer and leaned over the desk. 'I don't know if that's going to do it, Abe. If that's going to be enough.'
13
Shea's hand was on the telephone.
He had pulled up a couple of the blinds so he could have a sense of what was happening outside. The television stayed on.
He had decided that there was really only one thing to do – call the police and turn himself in, tell them what had really happened. The longer he let this thing grow of its own accord, the more this crazy interpretation was going to be accepted as reality. He had to stop it now. He picked up the receiver.
The face of Philip Mohandas suddenly filled the television screen. Mohandas was the leader of the African Nation movement and the embodiment of the voice of African-American separatism. Shea had written an entire chapter of his thesis – Segregation to Integration and Back Again – on Mohandas and now the face on the screen caught all his attention. Like the mayor had earlier, Mohandas was speaking outdoors, live, in what looked like one of San Francisco 's projects. They punched up his voice in mid-soundbite.
'… we don't believe that the white man's government don't know who led the mob that murdered Arthur Wade. We don't accept their lies. We don't believe that there's any commitment to punish the guilty, because the truth is that the white man's law don't punish the white man. If we want justice, we're going to have to make it. If we want our streets back we're going to have to take them!'
The gleaming face turned. Mohandas seemed to have an understanding of where the camera was. 'You're out there,' he said, pointing at Shea through the television, 'we know you are. And we are going to find you. And you are going to pay.'
As the picture cut away from Mohandas, Shea again saw the photograph of himself on the screen in a blurry close-up. Then the camera pulled back and the anchors chattered away, explaining what Shea needed no explanation for. His face was the centerpiece of a wanted poster, offering a reward of one hundred thousand dollars.
Suddenly the voices of the anchors came back into Shea's consciousness. '… denial that this is, in effect, a contract on the man's life, isn't that right, Karen?'
'That's true, Mark, but the talk here in the streets is that the money is being offered for the man's death. Even if somebody gets to him after he's been arrested, even if he's already in jail.'
Shea put the telephone back down in its cradle. Calling the police and giving himself up had just turned into a bad idea.
Melanie Sinclair had never done anything wrong until she'd met Kevin Shea, and now it seemed that everything she did turned out badly. The last thing she had wanted to do was get him mad at her again, accuse him of anything, put him on the defensive. That, she had come to believe, was how she had lost him.
But then on television she had seen what he'd done last night, or what it looked like. She couldn't believe it, that wasn't Kevin. But what was she supposed to think?
Before she had met Kevin Shea, Melanie had always done the right thing. She had gotten 'A's all the way through school. She kept her shoes neatly arranged in her closet underneath her color-coded hangers, on which hung, in order, dresses, skirts, slacks, blouses, coats, sweaters, vests. She combed her hair a hundred strokes every night, smiled easily without putting it on, was a genuine asset to any organization she decided to join. She loved both her parents and her younger brother and sister and they felt the same about her.
Up until now, at age twenty-one, she had experienced only one serious wrinkle in the otherwise smooth fabric of her life, and that had been Kevin Shea, who was not all, but quite a lot of what she tried not to be.
It should have worked out. Kevin was the right age for her, unattached, with an aura of sophistication that implied experience. Whatever his flaws – none of them too serious – she could help him with them and thereby insure his appreciation and love. Plus, to tell the truth, she had been very much physically attracted to him. She knew that that was important.
/> Just how important she couldn't be sure, since she was still a virgin. She had decided that Kevin Shea was going to be the man to deflower her and then marry her. Melanie Sinclair truly believed in the old-time values and virtues.
And for a few months it had worked. Melanie had good genes, shining auburn hair, nice breasts, shapely legs. She was considered a catch and she was honest enough to know it. She had picked Kevin Shea to be caught by. And then, five months after their first date, two months after they had been making love, three weeks ago, he had said goodbye.
Just like that.
He was sorry, he didn't love her and didn't want to change. He didn't want to stop drinking, for example. Or laughing out loud. In fact, he had said maybe she should consider changing – lightening up a bit. People should try for excellence, he said, not perfection because perfection, after all, was impossible, whereas excellence was occasionally attainable. Something to shoot for.
Well, to hell with him! That had been her original reaction. It was a phony distinction anyway.
But she hurt. God, how she still hurt!
And now she'd gone and made it worse. Calling him that way… she'd just thought there might have been something she could do.
She hadn't been able to keep that judgmental tone out of her voice. Why did she do that? She loved him. She knew he hadn't done what they were saying, but she was only trying to play a little devil's advocate, get him to understand the seriousness of it. Except, of course, he would know, she didn't have to tell him. He could figure things out on his own. But Melanie – dumb, dumb Melanie – she just couldn't leave well alone. And now she'd gone and lost him…
Kevin hadn't liked Cindy either. Cindy Taylor, her best friend. That had been another big problem.
'She's fooling you,' he had told her. 'She's using you, Mel, and you're carrying her. You watch, she's jealous, she's using you.'
(That was another thing – he called her Mel. No one had ever called her Mel and she kept correcting him about that too until he broke up with her.)
'How is she using me?'
'She's holding you back so that she can be the wild one, the exciting one. Not that she's exactly Madonna herself.' He'd even told her that Cindy had come on to him, which couldn't be true, because Cindy had told her that she didn't even think much of Kevin. Although, come to think of it, Cindy had been the one to notice him at school, to get her interested.
Well… no matter now, that was over. And Cindy, for better or worse, was still her best friend, and she had to talk to somebody… The tears wouldn't stop. She was going crazy.
'My God, that is Kevin.' The call had awakened Cindy too, but Cindy was used to it. 'What are you going to do?'
'I don't know. I called him. He was…' She was going to say hungover but held it back.
'What did he say?'
'I didn't let him say much. I just asked him why.'
'And what did he say?'
'He didn't say anything.'
'He didn't even deny it?'
Melanie had put that down to shock, but the fact was that he hadn't. 'No.'
'I knew he was capable of something like this.' The way she said it made Melanie feel uncomfortable, the effect Kevin seemed to have on her. It was too strong a reaction somehow. But she couldn't think about that now.
Dead air. Melanie could hear Cindy's television. 'They're saying anyone who can identify him should notify the police,' Cindy finally said.
'Well, I'm not going to do that.'
'I don't know, Melanie.'
'Cindy, come on. This is Kevin we're talking about. Whatever it looks like, he didn't-'
'It sure does look like it, though, doesn't it? If he did, the police should-'
'He didn't! I know he didn't.'
'I don't know that.'
'Cindy!' Calling her had been a mistake, too. Everything she did nowadays was turning out wrong. 'Cindy, come on, don't you do anything, either, okay?'
Silence.
Then, calling on every reserve of calm she had: 'Just promise me you won't do anything, would you? Promise?'
A long pause. Then: 'I'll try.'
14
'Kevin Shea. And he was home as of about an hour ago. The snitch supplied the address, too.'
Glitsky didn't much like this emphasis on one man. After all, it had been a mob, and even if this one guy had been the leader – and it did look that way – he wasn't the only guilty party. There were somewhere between twenty and sixty people somewhere in the city who'd had a hand in this. Glitsky had sent out a team to go and persuade Jamie O'Toole, for example, the bartender of the Cavern, to drop down to the Hall before noon for a few questions. He also craved an audience with Paul Westberg, the photographer, whose identity he had only just learned.
'But now there was nothing to do but move on this Kevin Shea. Glitsky gave the order to dispatch a black-and-white to the address they had been given. Then, thinking about it, he made two more decisions: to send second and third cars as backups to Shea's place, and to stroll over to his chief's office and get the latest version of how things stood, bureaucracy-wise.
'To tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I don't know how to react to it. It's the least of my worries at the moment.'
Chief Dan Rigby sat in his leather chair behind his desk. Glitsky had been a department head for less than a year and the two men had never met socially. Nevertheless, when the lieutenant had come calling the chief had admitted him right away. Now Glitsky stood on the Iranian rugs and looked across the shining expanse of mahogany desk that separated him from his boss. He wondered, briefly, if Rigby's desk would fit into his whole office, and decided it might but it would make walking around a bit of a chore.
'I'm just saying that, technically, sir, we don't have much in the way of evidence if we're going to charge-'
'What about that picture?' Rigby gave Glitsky a hopeful look, knowing as well as his lieutenant that normally a photograph such as Westberg 's would have to pass a battery of tests for authenticity before it could go before a grand jury or any finder of fact as admissible evidence.
Glitsky stood impassively, as though considering the chief's words. 'Yes, sir,' he said at last, finessing the question. 'But to charge someone with murder before the grand jury has had a chance-'
'I'm hearing, lieutenant, that we need something, almost anything, and right away if we're going to have any hope of containing this thing.'
'Mr Locke came by my office this morning and that was pretty much the message he delivered, so I've heard it, too, but frankly, it makes me nervous. That's why I came here to talk to you. I don't exactly know how to handle it-'
'What's to handle? We arrest the guy, book him, give him to Locke. Everybody takes a deep breath, maybe the streets settle down. Do you have any doubts about this man, what's his name, Shea?'
'No, sir, but that's not my point. I'm saying we don't have a usual case to make an arrest on. We could take a lot of flak on it. In normal times we wouldn't go near this yet.'
'These aren't normal times.'
'No, sir, they're not. But I'd like an eyewitness all the same. Something to make the arrest more… defensible.'
'Well, you've got that.'
Glitsky waited.
'The photographer, he's downstairs on three getting questioned right now.'
'By the DA? How'd that happen?' They both knew this was way outside the realm of procedure, that normally the police interrogated everyone associated with a crime and the district attorney pretty much stayed out of it at least until there was enough to present a case to the grand jury.
'Locke told me, as a courtesy, that they were talking to him. As a courtesy,' Rigby repeated. 'They're building their case on Shea.'
'Before they knew who he was?'
"They decided who he was, Abe.'
'Who did? Locke?'
Rigby nodded. 'Locke. The mayor. The senator.'
'The senator?'
'Loretta Wager, in the flesh. She flew in here this morning
. I gather she's sold this idea to the mayor – offer up Shea, although you didn't hear it here. Focus it on him, then deliver him, restore the faith of the black community and even the score. Let justice take its course. And now you say we've got him, right? Shea?'
'I sent some cars to go pick him up. We'll worry about a warrant later.'
'Okay, then, we've done our job.'
Glitsky bit his lip, surprised at the length of time the chief had given him, and the confidence he'd shared. 'What if it doesn't work?'he said.
'What, our job?'
'No. What if we get Shea and the place still keeps erupting?'
'Loretta Wager says it won't. The mayor's betting it won't. And Chris Locke's betting his job on it.'
If wasn't exactly an answer but perhaps there wasn't one. Glitsky nodded. 'I'd like to go talk to the photographer.'
'He's downstairs. Help yourself.'
After he got the picture developed in his darkroom and ran it down to the KPIX studios, Paul Westberg had not been able to talk himself into going back home. There was no way he would get back to sleep.
They had offered him five hundred dollars for his picture and all rights, but he had studied the scenario that had developed around the Rodney King videotapes – every photographer's dream – and had fantasized about some similar piece of good fortune happening to him, planning how he would handle it. And now it had happened. He had held out for twenty-five hundred dollars, retaining world rights to the shot.
Fielding the calls in the middle of the night in the studio basement, he'd then sold licenses to air the picture on CNN, Fox and the major networks for their news shows only. In the past sixteen hours he had grossed some twenty-four thousand dollars. He had three agents and a couple of lawyers sniffing around and he hadn't even been home yet. They'd found him.
A Certain Justice Page 5