Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A

by John Lescroart

  The telephone rang. 'Homicide, Glitsky.'

  'Ashland, Hardy.'

  The lieutenant pushed his chair back, put his feet on the desk. His best friend, Dismas Hardy, was calling him back from Oregon. 'I liked your message,' the voice continued.

  Glitsky's entire message had been: 'Hardy, call me.'

  'My favorite part was when you did that falsetto part from "Duke of Earl." A lot of old guys like you can't go that high anymore. I thought you were great.'

  Glitsky reached for his cup of tea and sipped. 'You picked a good weekend to go away,' he said. 'How are things there?'

  'In Ashland? Pretty good. The Tempest was awesome. The pinot noir's good, too. Oregon's nice. Frannie sends her love.'

  'You know that the world as we know it is ending down here?'

  'I've heard rumors. It hasn't all gotten here yet.' Then, more seriously, 'How are you doing?'

  'I get some time, I'll ask myself. You'll be the first to know. You hear about Locke?'

  'I wondered if that was the silver lining we hear so much about.' Hardy and Locke had been professional enemies. Locke had fired him from the District Attorney's office, and then Hardy had gone on to embarrass Locke by presenting successful defenses in a couple of high-profile murder cases that Locke had been prosecuting. So there was no love lost between them. 'I'd be lying if I said the news broke my heart, but I didn't want the man dead, Abe. That's too close to home.'

  'I know, Diz. The thought had occurred to me. I sent the kids away with my dad.'

  'It's that bad?'

  'I guess as long as we don't run out of water we'll survive. It feels like half the city's on fire. I'm trying to put 'em all out.'

  'You need some help? I mean personally. You okay?'

  'I'm hangin' in. I've had better weeks.'

  'You let me know. Leave one of your scintillating messages. We'd come home if we had to.'

  'It's not getting to that.'

  'All right, but if it does...'

  'I hear you. Thanks. Kiss your wife for me.'

  'Okay. Where?'

  Glitsky found himself chuckling and didn't want to give Hardy the satisfaction, so he hung up.

  During the past forty hours Chief Rigby's office had taken on the flavor of a war room. A couple of tables had been moved in and pushed together, and on top of them had been taped a large map of San Francisco. A half dozen staffers were moving around, pushing and pulling pins in various locations, answering the several ringing telephones.

  Outside the windows there was a drift of smoke to the south through what Glitsky knew to be a cold-blowing, thin haze of eye-burning smog. The afternoon sun broke through intermittently. Summertime, and the living was easy . . .

  Rigby was standing behind his desk in serious conversation with Alan Reston, a man Glitsky knew slightly as a Sacramento politician with a formidable ambition. The deputy state attorney general had chaperoned Abe the couple of times he had gone up to the state capitol to talk to the legislature on some crime bill or other. Polished and well-spoken, he was about Glitsky's size and five years or more his junior. Now he was here in Rigby's office in a suit and tie. Glitsky had no idea what that meant, but he had been summoned here for a few minutes after he had gotten off the telephone with Dismas Hardy, and when he was summoned by Rigby he came.

  Glitsky knocked at the open door, came around the double tables and over to his chief's desk. 'Sir?' he said. Then, to Reston, 'Alan.'

  'Abe, good,' Rigby said. Reston barely nodded, which Abe thought was a little strange, but these were tense times. People weren't themselves. 'Let's go on outside a minute where we can talk.'

  They paraded out in silence into the hallway, Rigby leading the way, Reston bringing up the rear, past a couple of doors to a deserted interview room. Without preamble Rigby was turned around facing Glitsky: 'This is more in the nature of a friendly discussion than a reprimand, at least at this stage. I want you to understand that, Abe.'

  Glitsky swallowed. Friendly discussions that began this way weren't typically his favorite. Reston had moved up, and Rigby included him in his gaze. 'I believe you know Mr Reston, our new District Attorney.'

  'Sure, but I didn't know ...' He put out his hand. 'Congratulations, Alan.' The handshake was perfunctory. Glitsky turned back to Rigby. 'Is something wrong? What's this all about?'

  'This is about the television news,' Rigby replied. 'Specifically, you being on it.'

  'But I wasn't—'

  The chief stopped him with a hand. 'Listen. I know. We saw it. We heard you. I've ordered a tape if you'd like to see it. You know we've got a community-relations person, Abe. Someone who gets paid to do this.'

  'I'm still not sure I know what I did.'

  Rigby told him. 'You went public questioning our investigation, which is complete. The man's been indicted.'

  He took a moment to digest that. 'With respect, sir, some reporter stuck a microphone in my face and I think I said maybe twenty words.'

  'Eighteen too many,' Reston said.

  'The District Attorney is correct,' Rigby said, and Glitsky noticed the formal tone. Rigby, too, was being played here. Jobs must be at stake, including his own, the one he had worked his life to get to. Okay, then, if they wanted to do it that way. 'The correct response,' Rigby went on, 'is "no comment." '

  'I' believe that was what I said.' But Glitsky knew the truth – if you were accused like this, it was no-win. The more you denied that you'd done something wrong, the more it proved you had.

  And Reston picked it up. 'I know this comes across like we're a couple of hardasses, Lieutenant.' In Sacramento, Glitsky had always been Abe, Reston had always been Alan. Now, clearly, things had changed. 'But there has been a great deal of effort expended on a lot of fronts trying to create a... a consistent direction in controlling this situation. We don't want to confuse and stir up things more than they already are.'

  'I'm not confused,' Glitsky said. 'I must be ignorant of some basic facts about the evidence we've got – '

  'Facts aren't at issue right now,' Rigby said.

  'That's what I keep hearing. But I'd be interested to find out the District Attorney's position on that when he takes Kevin Shea to trial.'

  'By then we'll have all the facts ...'

  Glitsky wasn't going to escalate this. He needed his job, and he also felt he was doing it right. 'Let's hope they're the right ones,' he said mildly.

  Reston seemed sure enough. Maybe he didn't want to fight either. Not yet. 'They will be,' he said.

  His message delivered, Rigby had other business to attend to. 'Just so it's clear, Abe. This whole thing is on a higher level than you or me. The public needs a ...'

  Glitsky helped him out. 'A spin?'

  'Exactly. A spin.'

  Reston smiled, and it seemed genuine enough. He put out his hand again, and this time it was firm. 'I knew you'd understand, Abe. We just can't afford to mess with this. Shea is the villain here. We don't want to muddy the waters. Right now he is the best solution to this crisis. He did it. We get him ... he is guilty ... and the city can move on, start the healing process.'

  His face straight Glitsky looked to his chief, then to the new district attorney. 'You got it,' he said to both of them. 'No problem.'

  Next to John Strout in the chill air of the forensics lab, Glitsky was shivering. The body of the late Christopher Locke lay, mostly under a blanket, on a gurney in front of them, his head protruding. Strout put a gloved hand under it and raised it a couple of inches. 'Back here,' he said.

  Glitsky forced himself to look. It was a small hole, clean and round, behind and a little under Locke's left ear. It might have been invisible had not Strout shaved the surrounding hair. He focused on the spot alone, trying not to see the face, trying not to recognize in it anyone he'd known, talked to, shared jokes with, even if he hadn't been all that fond of the man. He wasn't entirely successful.

  'Anything funny?' he asked. 'Anything you didn't expect?'

  Strout shrugged.
'Not really. Why?'

  'No reason. Force of habit. Maybe I'm just getting in the mood for something funny.'

  'Yeah, I know what you mean.' Strout let the head down gently but did not pull the blanket right up. Instead, turning it all the way to one side, so that the hole was up, he leaned over it. 'Powder burns about what you'd expect, maybe a little heavy – '

  'Glass?' At Strout's questioning look, Glitsky clarified it. 'From the car window? Shards around the wound?'

  The doctor shook his head. 'Shatterproof. It's a city-issue car. I wouldn't expect many, although the microscopic ought to be done any hour now, tell us for sure. You getting at something?'

  Glitsky set himself back, flat on his feet. 'You know, John, I'm not getting at a damn thing. I don't know what I'm doing, just pulling at every straw I come across, see if maybe it's attached to something. Tell you the truth, I think I'm overworked lately. And seeing people I know dead doesn't seem to help any.'

  Strout straightened up, pulled the sheet up over Locke's face. ' Y'all are sure gettin' that way,' he drawled. 'You think it's a little cold in here?'

  He started leading the way out to his office, a large square room lined with bookshelves and well stocked with a variety of ancient and medieval instruments of torture displayed under glass. He stopped on the way to his desk to blow the dust off a spiked mace that graced a pedestal to the right of it. 'One of the DAs was by this morning, handlin' the Arthur Wade thing. Poor girl was a mess.'

  'Elaine Wager?'

  Strout nodded. 'Started goin' into cause of death – asphyxiation – that whole thing, and she goes 'bout as white as her genes will allow.' He allowed himself a small grin. 'Manner of speakin', of course.'

  Glitsky nodded. 'You find any knife wounds on Arthur Wade?'

  Strout, by now seated behind his desk, took a moment. 'Knife wounds? No. Rope burns, lacerations, cuts and scrapes, but nothing like a clean cut.' He raised his eyes. 'More straws?'

  'Yep.'

  'You don't mind a little advice, Abe? Little prescription for some peace of mind?'

  'Yep.'

  The coroner folded his hands. 'Keep pullin' at 'em,' he said. 'You just never know.'

  'Homicide, Glitsky.'

  'Lieutenant Glitsky, this is Wes Farrell. I'm an attorney.'

  'Sure, Mr Farrell, I know who you are. How can I help you?'

  'I'd like to talk to you about Kevin Shea.'

  Glitsky was halfway out of his chair, snapping his fingers, trying to get someone's attention outside in the homicide detail so they could pick up a phone, maybe run a tape, at least be a second party. He couldn't see anyone through his open doors at the moment, although he was sure someone had been at one of the desks when he'd gotten back from Strout's.

  But no one was appearing. He sat back down.

  'Are you representing Shea?'

  'I think I know where he is.' A pause. The voice was slurred, as though Farrell had maybe been drinking. Glitsky looked at the clock on the wall. No, that was unlikely – it wasn't yet three o'clock. Still...

  The voice continued. '... and I'm in contact with him. He's very much afraid and would like some assurances before he turns himself in. He wants his story heard.'

  'All right, then, Mr Farrell. I want to hear it.'

  'Where can I meet you?'

  'Where are you? You want to come down to the Hall?'

  Another long pause. Glitsky heard some discussion over a covered mouthpiece – Shea was right with him. My kingdom for a tapped phone, he was thinking.

  'Lieutenant?'

  'I'm here.'

  'I'd prefer if we could meet personally, alone, you and me.'

  'Is Shea going to be with you?'

  'No. I'm coming alone. It would just be me.'

  If it would put him in touch with Kevin Shea, Glitsky would meet Farrell naked at the top of Coit Tower. 'You know Lou the Greek's, across the street, downstairs place?'

  Farrell was definitely slurring. Maybe the guy had a speech defect. 'Lou the Greeksh? Ushed to get my mail there.'

  'Say an hour?'

  'One hour.'

  'Mr Farrell?'

  'Yeah?'

  'Drive carefully, would you.'

  Glitsky moved the police and forensics reports around on his desk. He had been a long time in the business and thought he'd developed a pretty good sense of the moment in a case when the dynamic changed, when you felt you were maybe finally getting to the end of something. He had that feeling now.

  He realized that in a certain way Rigby and Reston had done him a favor by reminding him that his role was, after all, specific and limited – he was to bring in a suspect in a murder case. That was all. Find him and bring him in, like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive. (Glitsky's all-time favorite moment in movie history – Richard Kimble, the fugitive, at the end of the tunnel on the lip of a mile-high waterfall, says to Tommy Lee Jones, 'I'm innocent,' and Jones – beyond cool – goes 'I don't care.')

  That would be Glitsky now. Leave the big picture out of it. Collect evidence as it came in and, if things changed, be flexible. But for now the job was to get Kevin Shea into a cell here in the Hall.

  He still wasn't completely confident that Loretta's theory would hold, that bringing Shea into custody would throw any oil onto these roiling waters, but on the off-chance it did, wouldn't that be a nice bonus?

  Meanwhile, he would go by the book with Wes Farrell. He would play fair, keep it to himself and meet him alone. A deal was a deal, and he was reasonably certain that Farrell, even if he wasn't sober, was not trying to pull anything. It had sounded legitimate. Farrell was a lawyer protecting his client, and that wasn't necessarily at odds with Glitsky's job. At least, not yet.

  He didn't blame Shea for getting a lawyer. Three hundred thousand dollars was ample motivation for someone to cause him serious mayhem. And Glitsky wasn't forgetting the not-so-hidden hundred-thousand dollar message that Philip Mohandas had delivered – kill him if you have to. Shea must know, and Glitsky thought he was right, that it would be child's play to concoct some story of attempted escape or self-defense that would work as a justification for taking out Kevin Shea.

  So it would work out, maybe by tonight. The boys would be gone out of harm's way in Monterey with his father. The city would creak its way back to business as usual, and Abe Glitsky might look forward to a weekend alone catching up on some much-needed sleep. Maybe other things, too.

  He lifted the phone, punched some numbers. She answered on the second ring. From her tone she was relieved to hear from him, as though she expected he wouldn't ever call her again.

  She would be going back down to City Hall, to her office. Did he have the number there? She couldn't just stay in her house any longer. She had flown out here to San Francisco to make a difference, and even if she was devastated by what had happened with Chris Locke, she had to get back to work – people needed her. She had to try to use what influence she had, meet with people on every side of it, find some workable solutions, play peacemaker.

  Would Abe make a point, please, to look in on Elaine? She hadn't been able to contact her all day and was getting sick with worry.

  He let her go on, admiring her strength. A powerful woman with an important agenda. It was heady, but somehow natural, that he would be her connection, she his lifeline.

  It would help if she knew how close it was to being over. She would be able to assure people that Shea would soon be in custody. He was meeting Shea's attorney at Lou the Greek's, and they would be arranging the details of his surrender. It ought to be done within a few hours, a day at most.

  She told him that that was wonderful news.

  If Abe got a chance after that, later, would he be able to stop by her office before he went home? Even a few minutes would be okay. She didn't know what to do with all this, these feelings about the two of them, what was happening. She really needed to talk to him. She needed him.

  43

  Art Drysdale had been about to make his way over to
give Elaine Wager the rest of the week off when he got the news about Alan Reston's promotion to DA. Through connections at one of the television stations he had gotten early wind of Elaine's latest bout of unpredictability and had decided not that she was under too much stress – hell, everybody was under too much stress – but that she wasn 't handling hers properly.

  Daughter of a senator or not, she was going to take some time off and think about what she was supposed to be doing here. First she arrests Jerohm Reese. Then she spouts to the media about Kevin Shea, apparently sounding very much the official spokesperson for the DA's office, which she was not. Next, she might... but that, Drysdale thought, was the point – there was no telling what she might do next. He didn't want her around so they could all find out.

  But then had come the call from the mayor's office. Not surprising in itself – after all, the DA's job was a political position and Drysdale was primarily an administrator – nevertheless the speed of turnover and person selected for the job were both unsettling.

  So Drysdale had sat a few minutes, juggling baseballs, awaiting the arrival of his new superior. Then abruptly he had stood and gone down anyway to his original destination, Elaine Wager's cubicle. The door had been closed and he had knocked, then opened it, finding her sitting on the floor in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest. When she looked up, her face was streaked and ghostly.

  Drysdale had gone down to the bathroom and brought back a handful of wet papertowels. By the time he got back Elaine was up off the floor, sitting in the chair behind her desk. He sat in silence at the next desk to her while she wiped her face, blew her nose, got herself together. She said she was sorry. He understood. It was all right. A couple of words. A few more.