The Fall

by John Lescroart

  “It depends on what you mean by ‘immediately.’ I delivered it immediately after the autopsy.”

  “Again, Sergeant, why did you wait?”

  “Because I was there to observe the autopsy. We don’t stop in the middle and bring some items of evidence to the lab. We wait until it’s done and bring it all at once. Also, the evidence was air-conditioned in the morgue, and I thought Dr. Strout might find something else during the autopsy that might have to go to the lab, so I figured I’d save myself a trip.”

  “So you stayed in the vicinity until the medical examiner had performed the autopsy on Ms. Paulson, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when he’d finished, you then took the evidence stored in plastic and drove it down to the police lab in Hunters Point, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Rebecca retreated a few steps to the defense table, where Allie, sitting next to Greg, opened a folder and handed her a sheet of paper. She brought it up to the recorder and had it entered as Defense Exhibit C, then returned to her witness and held it out for him. “Sergeant Faro, do you recognize the form you are now holding, Defense C?”

  “I do. It’s a copy of the sign-in form for the evidence I submitted to the lab on the night after Anlya Paulson’s death.”

  “According to this document, Sergeant, what was the time of this sign-in?”

  “Seven-sixteen P.M.”

  “Seven-sixteen. Or roughly twelve hours after this evidence was placed in a plastic bag, is that right?”

  “It looks like it, yes.”

  “After you signed it in at the lab, did you request that it then be repackaged in a paper container until such time as the contents could be analyzed?”

  “No, I didn’t. I thought they’d get right to it.”

  “But they didn’t, did they?”

  “I don’t know about that. I just know I delivered it.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” she said. “No further questions.”

  31

  REBECCA, ALLIE, AND Greg were locked in an attorney visiting room in the jail. They were sharing Chinese food from take-out cartons, chopsticks and plastic forks, and bottled water. “Why haven’t we been doing this all along?” Greg asked. “This is almost like being out of jail. Not exactly, mind you, but close enough. How’d you get this room?”

  “I told the judge that after this morning’s events, we needed the time to talk strategy,” Rebecca said.

  “If that’s all it takes, we should do it every day.”

  “Okay, Greg, as long as you don’t try to take us hostage and break out of here, we might get a shot at it.”

  “I’ll try to restrain myself. Although that would be more the action of someone who actually did violent stuff, wouldn’t it? As opposed to me, who never has.”

  “You’re right,” Rebecca said. “I apologize for the implication.”

  “Apology accepted. And while we’re at it, I’m sorry, too. About out there. I don’t know what happened to me. I’m really sorry, Beck. I just lost it.”

  “So I’m not fired after all?”

  Allie reached over the pitted desk where they all sat and grabbed a carton of lo mein. “I’m glad you guys can joke about it.”

  “We’d better be able to,” Rebecca said. “It’s a little tense out there.”

  “Especially for them. Especially after what you did to Faro,” Greg said.

  “And what was that?” Rebecca asked.

  “Killed him. I was watching the jury, and you could see the doubt creeping up on them about the integrity of the DNA. As I’ve always said.”

  “I wasn’t really talking about that part of the morning,” Allie said. “I’m talking about the motions. Honor Wilson’s stuff. What is this ‘under submission’ bullshit? How could Bakhtiari even consider not letting the jury hear that?”

  Rebecca shook her head, resigned. “We always knew it would be a tough sell.”

  “That is just so wrong, though.” Allie turned to Greg. “I mean, is there anybody out there—I’m talking Bakhtiari or even Braden—who’s heard about Honor saying it was her boyfriend and, in his heart, doesn’t believe you’re innocent? Innocent as in you just didn’t do it.”

  “I’d like to hope so,” Greg said, “since I am. I think my parents are pretty relieved, for example.”

  Allie objected. “But they never really thought—”

  Greg stopped her. “Maybe they didn’t want to think it, Al, but I promise you the idea was somewhere in the back of their minds. You don’t get arrested and go all the way to trial if there isn’t—”

  “But we know they manufactured that,” Allie protested, her eyes taking on a shine of emotion. “That ought to be pretty obvious by now, don’t you think? All that stupid Liam Goodman stuff, needing to charge somebody before they had all the facts. The judge wouldn’t let that in, either. It’s like this horrible travesty happening in slow motion right in front of our eyes, and nobody can do anything about it.” A single tear overflowed and ran down her cheek.

  “Hey. Hey.” Greg stood up, came around the desk, and draped an arm over Allie’s shoulder, leaning down and giving her a hug. “It’s okay. I’m the one they’ve got in here, and I’m holding up reasonably well. And look at what Rebecca’s doing, taking their case apart. It’s going to be all right. I really believe that.”

  “At least if he keeps out the tape,” Allie said, “we know we’ll get a mistrial. We’ll get a chance to prove it was really Royce Utlee.”

  Rebecca shot her a warning look, but not in time.

  Greg pushed himself back from the table and slapped a flat palm down hard, the noise reverberating in the tiny room. His voice was unyielding. “There’s not going to be any goddamn mistrial.”

  “Right, right, we’ve covered that.” Rebecca put her hand on her client’s arm, calming him. “We don’t need to go over it again. Really. No mistrial. I get it.”

  “I don’t mean to be a hard-ass,” Greg said, “but that option is just not on the table. Claro?”

  “Clear,” Rebecca said. “Crystal-clear.”

  Greg looked from one woman to the other, his anger evaporating as quickly as it had come on. “You guys are the best,” he said. “I am so lucky.”

  32

  AT A LITTLE after one o’clock, and armed with the address supplied by Wyatt Hunt, Waverly and Yamashiro rang the bell on the outside door of the Utlee/Wilson apartment on Turk Street. When nobody answered, Waverly rang the other five bells, and in twenty seconds they got buzzed inside. The first door on the left was partially ajar, and they knocked, waited, knocked again, then pushed the door completely open and took a step inside, identifying themselves as police, turning on the dim overhead light.

  Directly in front of them, the rug bore fresh blackened stains and splotches of what could only be blood. Yamashiro put in a call to the CSI unit—this was certainly a crime scene and in all probability a murder scene.

  Meanwhile, Waverly walked back outside, through the pile of crap they’d negotiated on the front porch, and around the corner where, because it had been the only spot on the block, he’d illegally parked their car by a fire hydrant. Opening the trunk, he grabbed a roll of yellow crime scene tape for the apartment’s front door; realizing he’d probably be there for a while, he decided to go around to the driver’s side and put one of his business cards on the dash, on the off chance that a parking enforcement cop would see it and refrain from giving the car a ticket.

  Straightening up, closing and locking the car door, he cricked his back, by habit looking up and down the street. The day was cool with a gusty breeze and high cloud cover. A junk heap of a car took the corner he’d just come around, and its young-looking African-American driver gave Waverly a hostile glare before continuing down the street, perhaps looking—like the rest of San Francisco—for a place to park.

  Waverly shrugged off the bad vibe. A middle-aged white guy in a coat and tie in this neighborhood was probably a cop, aut
omatically suspect, and in any event not usually welcome. But by the time he’d gotten back to the apartment’s cluttered entryway, thirty seconds later, some instinct slowed him down and he looked again at the street. This time he saw nothing suspicious. In fact, nothing moving. Nevertheless, when he got back inside, he said, “What’s the word with CSI?”

  “On their way.”

  He held up the crime scene tape. “Let’s wait on this.” He turned left toward the street-facing windows and said, “I’m going to hang out up here for a minute, keep an eye on the street.”

  “You see something?”

  “I don’t know. More felt it.”

  The tone of his voice stopped Yamashiro’s sure-to-be-witty reply in its tracks. They’d been cops and partners long enough to trust the sixth sense when it kicked in. Avoiding the bloodstains on the floor as best he could, Yamashiro came up and stood next to his partner, who’d opened the blinds a fraction of an inch.

  After perhaps two minutes, a woman emerged from her duplex directly across the street. She descended the steps and crossed the sidewalk. Pointing her keys at a beat-up brown Ford Taurus, she stepped up to it, opened its door, and slid in behind the wheel, then started the engine and pulled away.

  “What?” Yamashiro said.

  “Nothing.” Waverly pulled down a bit farther on the blinds in front of his eyes. Then he squinted down. “Here you go.” The car with the angry black driver pulled up in front of the open space and began to back in. Waverly nodded once, as if to himself. “Let’s go!” Turning on his heel, he headed for the front door, knowing he didn’t have to ask Yamashiro twice.

  Out in the street in front of the apartment, the two men split up, with Waverly coming around the front of the parked car and Yamashiro the back.

  His wallet out to show his badge, Waverly got to the driver’s door just as the man opened it and, seeing the badge, checking the rearview mirror, and seeing Yamashiro back there, just as quickly slammed it shut again. The locks all clicked shut, and when he hit the ignition, the engine sprang to life.

  Waverly reached over and tapped the windshield hard with his shield.

  The car didn’t budge.

  Yamashiro came up around the passenger side. He reached inside his coat and took his Glock out of his shoulder holster, leaning over so that the driver could get a good look at it, pointed directly at his face.

  For an eternity or twenty seconds, whichever came first, nobody moved. Finally, the driver reached forward and killed the engine. The locks clicked again, came up in the window wells. Waverly took the opportunity to grab at the driver’s door handle, yanking it open. “Hands on the steering wheel,” he said. “Right now. Leave ’em there till I say you can move them. Right there. Ten and two.”

  The man gave him an out-from-under gaze. “Hey, man. Whatchu hassling me for? I ain’t done nothing.”

  Waverly smoothly dropped his wallet into his back pocket and, with the same hand, came up and inside his jacket to his shoulder holster, from which he extracted his own gun. “I show you my badge,” he asked, “you lock up and start your engine?”

  The man shrugged. He sported a do-rag over his Afro, an assortment of chains around his neck, a black T-shirt under a worn black leather jacket.

  “What’s your name?” Waverly asked.

  “Royce.”

  “Royce Utlee?”

  He shrugged again. “Might be.”

  Waverly nodded at Yamashiro, who, still on the passenger side of the car, came a step closer to the front. “Make the call,” Waverly said, and both of them knew what he meant. They wanted backup here and right now. Yamashiro reholstered his weapon and unclipped his cell phone from his belt, started punching some numbers.

  “All right, Royce Might Be Utlee. You’re under arrest for the murder of Honor Wilson. Get out of the car. Hands still up. Slow.”

  Utlee went to move, then sat back with a disdainful grin. “Yo, man,” he said. “Seat belt.”

  “All right,” Waverly said. “Slow.”

  Lowering his right hand, Utlee reached down behind him, unfastened the seat belt with a click. And then his hand was up in front of him, crossing over, and it held a gun that Waverly never saw as Utlee fired twice in quick succession, the first shot hitting Waverly in the shoulder, spinning him backward, his own gun flying off onto the sidewalk behind him.

  The second shot was a complete miss. But Utlee didn’t wait around to find out. Instead, he broke from the front seat, half-turned, taking another shot at Yamashiro, missing again in his haste, and started running.

  Yamashiro, his phone at his ear when the three-second sequence began, immediately dropped it to the ground and reached for his gun. He jumped forward to rest his shooting hand on the roof of the car and squeezed three shots off at the fleeing murderer, who stumbled and then got to the corner and rounded it, disappearing.

  “Shit shit shit! Eric!” Yamashiro yelled. “Eric!”

  “I’m all right.” His partner lay on his side, kicking at the pavement to get back to his gun. “Get him get him get him!”

  “I hit him, I think,” Yamashiro said. “But he’s gone.”

  “Get him!”

  Yamashiro broke into a run, his gun in his hand. Getting to where Utlee had turned, he stopped, breathing hard, taking cover from the corner building, looking around up the street. No sign of Utlee, of anybody. On the sidewalk in front of him, he saw several large drops of blood, but to go up the street after him all alone would be suicide.

  Turning back, he saw his partner lying flat on the sidewalk, and he knew where he had to be and headed back there.

  33

  AFTER LUNCH WITH his client, Hardy had called Glitsky and asked him what he was doing with this Friday afternoon yawning emptily ahead of him.

  “I’m contemplating the unfairness of life.”

  “Always a fruitful endeavor. What brought this about?”

  “You know about Posey last night, right? Of course you do, and if you say it was awesome, I’ll kill you.”

  “It was sure at least pretty good. When’s the last time that happened, four homers in one game?”

  “Josh Hamilton, 2012, with the Rangers. I looked it up.”

  “Good for you, and now I know it, too. I bet I could win money with a fact like that. But how does Buster Posey figure into your thoughts on the unfairness of life?”

  “I bet against him.”

  “What? When? Last night?”

  “At the game with Wes. When he only had two.”

  “Only two’s a good start.”

  “Yeah, but still a long way to go to get four.”

  “And why would you bet Wes on this?”

  “He was giving five to one. How could I miss? I mean, had Posey ever done it before? No. What were the odds? So I took the bet.”

  “For how much?”

  “Fifty.”

  Hardy whistled. “If I were you, I’d be contemplating the unfairness of life. That and where I was going to get the extra two-fifty that I’d lost.”

  “It wasn’t a stupid bet. It was, in fact, a smart bet. It just didn’t come up.”

  “Yep,” Hardy said. “That sure is unfair. I feel bad for you.”

  “I feel bad for myself. It’s all I’ve been thinking about all day. How these things happen to me.”

  “What do you mean, these things? What things?”

  “You know. Bad stuff. Here’s Buster Posey, whom I would normally love to see hit four home runs in one game, and the night he does it, I happen to be sitting next to Wes, and he happens to want to bet on it, and get this, I make the smart bet, and I still lose. So ask me if I’m happy about Posey’s four homers.”

  “I already know the answer.”

  “Well, there you go. It’s like I’m cursed somehow. I’m not kidding. Truly cursed. Voodoo. Maybe Santería. Actually, literally, cursed.”

  “Don’t get too wound up over it, Abe. You might have another heart attack.”

  “See? That’s
what I mean. I’m in basically good health, and next thing you know, I get a heart attack.”

  “Six or seven years ago, let’s remember.”

  “What’s your point? It doesn’t count?”

  “Dude, you didn’t die. Some people would call that lucky, not cursed.”

  “They’d be wrong. Or getting shot, how about that? And all the complications from that. Plus—and while I’m on this, I’ve got to tell you—I pull up to the tollbooth on the bridge . . .”

  “What bridge?”

  “Any bridge, it doesn’t matter. My point is that every time I get behind the guy who doesn’t have the right change or stalls his car. I mean it, this is an automatic.”

  “You ought to bet that it happens.”

  “No, because then it wouldn’t. And let’s not even talk about cell phones cutting out in the middle of every call.”

  “I wish this one would.”

  “Stick with me. It’ll happen.” After a beat or two of silence, Glitsky spoke in a different tone. “Okay, that’s out of my system. What’d you call me about?”

  “Damned if I remember. Oh yeah, I suddenly had the afternoon free and thought we could do something fun.”

  “I thought you were at the trial.”

  “Not today. I had some actual billable hours with a client, so I let one of my paralegals go in my place.”

  “Okay, what’s your fun idea?”

  “I think you’ll like it,” Hardy said.

  •  •  •

  LIAM GOODMAN HAD led his two dozen shock troops into the courtroom for the beginning of the trial, but once he’d established his own place in that firmament, he went back to his day job. All eleven of the city’s supervisors, as well as the mayor, worked out of their offices in City Hall, which was about as far removed from the rough-and-tumble ambience and architecture of the Bryant Street Hall of Justice as was possible to imagine.

  The beaux arts City Hall was a magnificent structure, inside and out. Its exterior was done in Madera County granite; its dome, modeled on Mansart’s baroque dome of Les Invalides in Paris, was the fifth largest in the world, forty-two feet taller than the dome of the U.S. Capitol. The enormous rotunda, its walls faced with Indiana sandstone and finished with marble from Alabama, Colorado, Vermont, and Italy, was a favorite setting for weddings; hundreds of couples a year tied the knot there. Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married in the rotunda.