A Certain Justice

by John T Lescroart

  'What I'm saying is that I think we've got a bigger problem than you're acknowledging,' Rigby told her. 'How the hell are you going to get him out of here if you do pick him up? You have any idea what's going on out here? Where is he anyway? We need more people here. Jesus Christ.'

  The other FBI agents and the city policemen were warily circling each other in the lobby, which was also now backfilling with residents of the building. Saturday morning, everybody home and wide awake.

  Simms and Rigby – the knot of authority – had to move just outside the lobby doors, into the well of the courtyard.

  'He's my prisoner,' Simms said. 'Let that be my problem.'

  Rigby wasn't having that. 'It's in my city. Like it or not, it's my problem. What's happening right here' – he motioned out in front of them – 'is my problem. I'm not having another lynching in one week. We try to take Kevin Shea out through this, that's what we're going to have.'

  Simms caught sight of something over the crowd. 'Who the hell's that? Somebody's on top of my car!'

  Rigby turned. Philip Mohandas had a bullhorn in his hands, trying to get the crowd's attention. 'Get that lunatic in here!' Rigby barked at one of his men. Then, to Florio: 'Be nice, invite him in here if you have to.'

  Then something else. Another noise, a further disturbance off to the left, one of the troops running up. 'Sir,' he said to Florio, 'there's a policeman here – no uniform – who says he's got a U.S. senator-'

  But before he could finish, the crowd had been pushed aside and the line had given enough to let Glitsky and Loretta Wager through.

  Simms took the field telephone from her hip. She nodded, looked up at the fourth floor, said 'hold on' into the phone, spoke to Rigby. 'They're lifting the shades. My man could take them out.'

  They were all assembled at the fountain in the center of the courtyard – Rigby, Simms, Mohandas and his assistants, Florio, Glitsky and Loretta Wager.

  Rigby gaped in disbelief at the senator, at his lieutenant holding her arm. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

  'I'm here to arrest Kevin Shea,' Glitsky said.

  'Like hell you are,' Simms broke in. 'He's mine.'

  'You're on leave, Glitsky. Maybe you didn't get my message…'

  'What's happening?' Farrell tried the shade again. 'I don't know. They're all down there at the fountain. Glitsky's made it – he's got Senator Loretta Wager with him.'

  'Then why doesn't he come up here? Why don't we go down?'

  'Going down is not a very good idea, Kevin. I think we better let them come up.'

  The chant had ceased, at least in the forefront of the crowd. There was a restless milling, an awareness that something was happening – being decided in the center of the courtyard – and it was spreading backward into the mass.

  Pulsing, waiting.

  One of the uniformed cops came up to the group, then left on a run, crossing outside the line of troops, disappearing. In fitful starts, the chant would begin again, pick up, fade.

  Glitsky, alone, peeled off from the group gathered at the fountain, walking slowly, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He entered the building and made his way past the federal agents and policemen and disgruntled and curious citizens that now crowded the lobby.

  There were four flights and except for the first – where some of the apartment dwellers had clustered – all of them were deserted. He walked at a steady pace, turning the corners, his hands on the bannister, twelve steps a flight, then walked the dingy rug to the end of the hallway and rang the bell.

  The door opened. He had his badge on but his weapon was not drawn. 'Mr Farrell, how are you? You got a client you'd like to surrender to me?'

  'Is this really going to work?' Farrell said, stepping back.

  Nodding more confidently than he felt, Glitsky walked to the window and raised the shade, the signal they were waiting for down below.

  Melanie and Kevin were standing together, arms around each other. 'Are you ready for this?'

  He nodded.

  'I'm with you,' she said, a whisper now.

  'I'm with you. Whatever happens, however this comes out. You got that?'

  'I got it.'

  Farrell was leading Glitsky over to them, talking logistics, the law, the deal. Then it was time.

  'Kevin Shea,' Glitsky said, 'I am placing you under arrest for the murder…'

  73

  Loretta Wager stood on the steps of the fountain, bullhorn in hand, facing the crowd.

  Mohandas had not liked it (Allicey Tobain had hated it), but the senator had prevailed with the argument that the march was all about apprehending Kevin Shea anyway, wasn't it? So Mohandas had succeeded – the march had succeeded. They all had what they wanted. And if he didn't introduce Loretta, if they didn't somehow get this thing defused, what then? Another riot, more violence? Who would that benefit?

  She had cut Mohandas out of the group – three steps away – for long enough to get it said – did he want to be on the short list for administering the Hunter's Point Shelter, or did he not? If he did not come across right now, he could forget she had ever mentioned it.

  One last thing Loretta wanted – and this was a good time to bring it up because the chief of police was right here… Mohandas must clarify that the original one hundred thousand dollar reward was not for the death of Kevin Shea – they'd all heard that rumor on the streets and it was false. It was for information leading to his arrest – that was all.

  That was all.

  'My brothers and sisters,' she began, looking up as the shade was lifted. 'Kevin Shea has been arrested.'

  A roar, an outpouring of relief and anger and frustration bouncing off the U-shaped structure behind her, echoing through the courtyard back on itself, multiplying in a crescendo of noise that rolled on, picked up, rolled on again.

  'My brothers and sisters,' she said again, and at last the wave of sound broke, flattened, became still. She raised her voice. 'No one has fought harder than myself to see this moment. No one has kept this issue on the table more faithfully than Philip Mohandas.' Another round of applause. 'And it has come to pass.'

  She paused, then pushed on.' But this is not the end of the story for us. Nor is it for Kevin Shea.'

  'Kill him!' someone yelled out. 'Lynch him!' And a chant – 'Kill Kevin Shea, kill Kevin Shea…'

  'No!' The bullhorn amplified it again. 'No!'

  Gradually the crowd went silent.

  'We've got Kevin Shea. Hear me. We've got him.' They were listening. 'Philip Mohandas is here. I am here, and we are with you. Your interests are our interests. It is not the San Francisco police that have apprehended Kevin Shea. It is not the FBI. It is us. All of us…'

  A roar went up. More 'kill him, kill him,' but something else, and Loretta rode it. 'And now I'm asking you, I plead with you, you've got to believe us. We're going to see justice done.' She raised her voice, pointing over the crowd. 'But justice is not going to be served by another lynching today.'

  A hesitant chorus, a murmur of 'amen amen amen.' Then silence in front of her, until abruptly someone yelled, 'Not Kevin Shea, he's got to die!' A reverberation, the sentiment spreading, and then wearing itself low.

  Loretta looked down at Rigby, Mohandas, Simms. They couldn't help her. This had been her suggestion (they thought) – the only way to pull it off, and she had to do it. 'No one' - she raised her voice – 'no one hates more than I do the bigotry and the hatred that Kevin Shea stands for.' Now, more quietly: 'But I'm telling you that it is over here. We have him. Philip Mohandas and I are walking out of here with Kevin Shea and taking him downtown. He is our prisoner. I promise you that neither of us will rest until justice has been done. You all have my most solemn word.'

  '… I don't believe this, ladies and gentlemen, Senator Wager has gone back into the building with Philip Mohandas, and now they are coming out surrounding, yes, I think I can see clearly – it is! It is Kevin Shea! A handcuffed Kevin Shea – an unidentified black man – perhaps a police
officer – is on one side, Philip Mohandas on the other. Senator Loretta Wager is leading them out. Behind Shea is Chief Rigby. With them is a young woman – that must be Melanie Sinclair – and another unidentified man – a white man – in a business suit. The crowd, ladies and gentlemen, is silent as the grave.

  'They're moving now through the courtyard, across the fountain area where the senator just gave her powerful speech. They appear to be – yes, there's a black-and-white police car at the curb, the crowd is all over it, nearly swarming over it. The situation is highly volatile, as this reporter sees it. They're approaching the line of National Guard troops. You hear the anger, the outbursts of rage at Kevin Shea, but so far the crowd is… the troops are letting them through now. They're in the crowd. There is nothing between them and the fury we've been witnessing here all morning, especially the last half hour.

  'Now they're actually making way for Kevin Shea and the rest of them. They've gotten to the police car, the back door is open, the senator – Senator Wager – is inside the car now. Now Shea. Mohandas. The car is starting to move now, slowly, its flashers on. The crowd is making way, slowly giving way. Amazing. I believe they're actually going to get through…'

  74

  There were two cars. The police car with Wager, Shea, Mohandas and Glitsky, and Simms's FBI vehicle with herself, Rigby, Melanie, Farrell. The lobby and front steps of the Hall of Justice were jammed by the time they arrived – to Loretta it looked as though they had gathered every television camera in the western hemisphere, all the newspapers and magazines, radio stringers, off-duty cops, staff members, transients and regular citizens. But it was not a mob anymore. It was a crowd.

  Behind them, back at the park, they were getting the word that the people who had attended the rally were dispersing. Loretta felt vindicated. She had been right. They had needed the symbol of Kevin Shea. The embers might still be smoldering to flame again later, but at least there was a sense that, for now, the crisis had passed.

  Loretta thought it was the strangest ride she'd ever taken. Sitting there right next to Kevin Shea, she was startled when he had turned to her and thanked her for her involvement, her courage. He was innocent, he told her. He had tried to hold Arthur Wade up, not pull him down…

  Even Mohandas, by the time they reached the Hall, seemed responsive at least to Shea's open nature. For all Shea had been through, he was remarkably gracious, with a kind of nervous humor, no trace of surliness. It certainly didn't seem to bother him to be tightly wedged between two black people. He seemed, in fact, glad to be there.

  They didn't book him on the sixth floor but brought him immediately to Alan Reston's office, which no longer bore any sign of his predecessor. Reston, of course, had followed the drama at the park on television and was waiting for them when they arrived. So was Elaine Wager.

  A discussion led by Wes Farrell and largely corroborated by Lieutenant Glitsky finally brought the flawed evidentiary package out into the open. Rigby wanted to know more about the investigation into the other suspects – O'Toole, Mullen, McKay, Devlin. They waited while Carl Griffin and Ridley Banks came down and did their little song and dance.

  After all of that, however, Reston still wasn't inclined to an outright dismissal of the charges on Shea, not this soon and not on his lawyer's arguments. He dismissed Mohandas and the homicide inspectors, thanking them all for their cooperation, and then, behind his closed doors, announced to Loretta, Elaine, Glitsky and Rigby his decision to move Shea when night came to an undisclosed location and keep him under guard until they could get the evidence in front of a judge.

  It was one-twenty when the bailiffs came down and led Shea upstairs to his solitary cell.

  Glitsky had not left Loretta's side. She had watched him for any sign, any reaction when Elaine had come into Reston's office, but he had only nodded – a professional conducting business. Seeing them together, now, father and daughter – she realized it was the first time that all three of them had ever been together in the same room. A reunion. No, a union. A closure of some kind.

  She requested a short conference alone with Glitsky in Reston's office. When the door had closed behind all the others, she turned to him. 'All right, Abe,' she said. 'I got Kevin Shea for you. That was the deal.'

  Glitsky stood leaning against Reston's desk, five feet from her. Maybe Loretta had been in Washington too long and just didn't understand that in Glitsky's world everything didn't come down to a deal. He had been careful about what he'd told her – that once Kevin Shea had been arrested they could talk about the possibility of a deal, which they were doing now.

  His hands were in his pockets, his face a stone. He couldn't let himself remember what had happened between them – or forget what she had done. He walked by her, across the room to Reston's door. Opening it, he looked back at Loretta and shook his head. 'Loretta, we never had a deal,' he said.

  In the hallway just outside the DA's office Elaine was waiting, wanting to talk about what they had done, where it would go from here, oblivious to what had gone on inside.

  Glitsky, trapped by convention and gutted by tension, couldn't get himself away. He was still there with Elaine when Loretta opened the DA's door. Seeing them, she put on a public face, then – for her daughter – a smile. She came up to them, her eyes glistening. 'I just needed another minute,' she said. 'All this happening…'

  Elaine asked Glitsky if he wanted to join them for lunch, try to start the healing.

  Glitsky said no. He had to go upstairs to finish up some work. Rigby had told him he could pick up papers on his desk but still wasn't to consider himself back on active duty. They would review the administrative leave and the reasons for it on Tuesday. Rigby didn't much care what the reasons were – whether they were good or bad. Glitsky had disobeyed his orders. That was enough. Glitsky even tended to agree with him.

  'I'm seeing your mother tonight,' he told Elaine. Turning, he said to Loretta, 'Eight o'clock?'

  Suddenly he leaned down, held her for the shortest instant against him, his hand behind her neck. 'It's your decision,' he whispered into her ear. Then, straightening up, smiling his non-smile, pointing a casual finger. 'Eight o'clock, then. Sharp.'

  Sharp.

  Elaine was going to be all right, her mother decided. Her zeal to prosecute Kevin Shea was not going to be the end of her career, not with Alan Reston there to run the screen for her. She might not even need Reston. She was stronger than her mother gave her credit for. She was looking ahead, moving on. She realized Chris Locke and herself would have gone nowhere. Maybe it had been for the best – although now, of course, it hurt. It would hurt for a while. She knew that.

  But that, Loretta thought, was the point – Elaine had some perspective on it already. She'd survive. Her daughter would not break. She must never break, she was her mother's daughter.

  They had finally gotten away from the cameras and madness and driven together out of the city, north to the Marin coast. It was so peaceful up there. They'd had the whole afternoon together, mother and daughter, something neither of them had had the time for in years. A quiet lunch at some little out-of-the-way place. No one bothered them, knew who they were or cared.

  On a rise of the winding road back to San Francisco, they had pulled over and looked at the famous view, south over the bridge and the city. For the first time in days, there was no smoke. Elaine had dropped her off at home at five-fifteen.

  Sharp.

  It's your decision.

  The wind had died down. She walked out onto the balcony – outside the library – that looked back over the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was low but the evening had remained warm.

  She was wearing a shimmering purplish sheath over black pants. Pearl earrings. She had made reservations at Stars, and of course even at this last minute there would be a seat for the senator. Would she like a screen set up, some additional privacy? Jeremiah himself would be in – might he stop by and offer her a little cadeau? He was a big fan of hers.

&n
bsp; There were the formalities to attend to. She had finished the letter to the president, thanking him profusely for his humanitarian gesture regarding Hunter's Point and forwarding her strong recommendation that he consider Philip Mohandas as the administrator for the area's program. A deal was a deal.

  She dictated five short letters on administrative and committee issues onto her micro-cassette and sealed and franked the envelope addressed to her office in Washington. It was on the small table next to the bench in the foyer where she would remember to put it in the mail.

  It's your decision.

  Her mind turned to the election, to her senate seat. Actually, there was a lot of irony there, she thought. The way Glitsky had arranged it, she had come out a hero in spite of her earlier stridency, her earlier calls for near-vigilantism. No one except Abe really had a take on what she'd done behind the scenes. She had miscalculated, but luck had been with her. Her reputation was going to survive pretty much intact.

  Of course, there would be some, perhaps quite a lot of political flak she'd have to endure. She'd come out too strongly and too soon on Kevin Shea, before she had all the facts. People – the public, allies and enemies as well – would question her judgment, but she didn't think on balance it would hurt her chances. The Hunter's Point coup was going to get her a half-million black votes, which she thought would more than compensate for the loss of her moderate whites.

  Shivering, though it wasn't cold, she let herself back through the French doors. The sun was casting prisms of light onto the hardwood. It was a beautiful house. She should spend more time here. Someone should appreciate all of this, all she had…