by The Hearing
It being San Francisco, of course there were already several groups of demonstrators hanging around—any excuse for a party. They were just starting to get organized. On the periphery of the crowd, Hardy could see placards for and against the death penalty. In the park across the street, he could make out where earnest groups had set up tables giving out literature on drug abuse awareness programs, the Nation of Islam, homeless advocates, gun control lobbyists and their opponents.
A mime, dressed as a World War I doughboy, had sprayed himself head to toe in bronze paint and gotten himself up on the pillar by the cathedral’s door. He didn’t move a muscle, a living statue with his rifle trained down on the crowd.
Three of the local news vans had scored some primo reserved parking nearby, and teams with their reporters and cameras were unloading and shooting, getting some B-roll local color.
A limo slowly pulled up through the congestion and stopped behind several others. As the mayor emerged from behind the tinted windows, one of the news crews recognized him and yelled something about it. Around Hardy and Glitsky, the crowd seemed to become more dense, pressing into itself. It no longer seemed cold.
“Lieutenant?”
Glitsky turned around, nodding matter-of-factly. “How you doing, Ridley?”
The young cop shifted uncomfortably. “Not too good, I guess.” Tongue-tied.
It wasn’t much Glitsky’s nature to give anything away, but he’d considered himself in some ways the boy’s mentor in the years since he’d come up to homicide, so he cut him some slack, making conversation, indicating Hardy. “You know my friend?”
Banks said sure, nodded again, didn’t offer a handshake, though. He kept his attention on Abe. “I thought you’d be here,” he said awkwardly.
“Looks like you were right.” Glitsky could throw him a bone, but he wasn’t about to spoon-feed him. If Ridley wanted to say something, he’d have to figure out how.
It took him a minute. “The thing is,” he began, “okay, I’m not blaming anybody else. It was completely my fault, but you should know that Torrey sandbagged me.”
No response. None.
The sergeant continued. “When the arraignment got over, we were standing around outside in the hallway afterward, you know, talking about it, all of us pretty pissed off, mostly at . . . uh . . .” He made a gesture.
“Let me guess,” Hardy put in. “That would have been me.”
Banks seemed grateful for the help. “Yeah. So anyway . . . I knew you had problems with the tape, I knew you and Hardy here, you went back. So Torrey is all bitching and moaning about how’d Hardy know so much about everything so soon? And I just blurted out that I wouldn’t be surprised if you showed him the tape.”
“Sometimes blurting out is a strategic error.”
Banks looked directly at Hardy. “Yeah, but in court you made it pretty clear you’d seen it.” Back to Glitsky. “Torrey didn’t seem to remember that, but I did. So I figured it had to be you, Abe.”
Glitsky finally was moved to speak. “Deduction’s a great tool.” It didn’t come out as a compliment.
Ridley kept on. “But I didn’t think he’d . . . I mean, I didn’t know it was going to go this way. That wasn’t why I brought up the tape, to get at you. I know we disagreed about it, you and me, and I didn’t want you to think . . . What it was, was we were just all talking, wondering out loud, and I guess I got caught up in it . . .” The rambling narrative wound down. Ridley looked as though he’d been having a miserable few days worrying about all this.
Glitsky couldn’t say that the boy’s malaise bothered him too much—maybe Ridley would pick up a useful lesson about politics that would serve him well in his dotage. But in the here and now, the sergeant had messed up his lieutenant’s life pretty good. Now he was saying he hadn’t meant to do it. Which helped exactly zero. Glitsky removed his sunglasses and folded his arms over his chest. His voice, when he spoke, had a resigned quality to it, the anger all leached out. “Well, I guess we both got caught up in it then, didn’t we, Rid?”
After a moment, Banks realized that this was about all he was going to get from Glitsky in the way of absolution. He took in a breath, let it out heavily. “So what are you going to do now?”
“I’m waiting until somebody in Rigby’s office decides something.” A shrug, a glance at Hardy. “Meanwhile, I’m exploring some other career opportunities.”
“He’s thinking of opening a chop house.” Hardy, poker-faced.
“Not really?” Banks asked.
“It could happen,” Glitsky replied, equally deadpan. “You never know.”
The church bells began to peal, cutting off the riff. It was a quarter to ten, still fifteen minutes until the service, but at the signal, the crowd shifted, began to move.
Ridley wasn’t ready for that, yet. He still wanted some more resolution. “Anyway, Abe, listen, if there’s anything I can do . . .”
Glitsky raised a hand, a farewell. He was going inside now. “Rid, listen, it’s done. Don’t worry about it.” He turned for the cathedral, leaving Banks out where he’d found them.
Hardy hustled a step or two and fell in beside him. “You know what I can’t believe?” he asked.
“What’s that?”
“My brother-in-law doesn’t think you have a sense of humor.”
Glitsky threw him a sideways glance. “He’s not paying close enough attention.”
It was the day that Treya was supposed to begin on the Grayson project for Mr. Jackman, but he and Mr. Rand had closed down the firm for the morning so that all of Elaine’s coworkers could attend the memorial. Treya had arrived early to pay her own private respects.
She found Grace to be an odd sort of cathedral. With its classic lines, stained glass and cavernous open space, in some ways it almost seemed to fit the medieval mold—an imposing edifice calculated to reflect the majesty and glory of God. But this church, for the past twenty years or so, had also been the locus of compassion, support and empathy for the victims of AIDS. And now the heartbreaking quilts hanging over her seemed to fill all the open space, humanizing the cold stone. In a tragic way, yes, but Treya found it strangely comforting.
She felt it strongly—this was no longer the home of some harsh and angry deity, but a true community center, with an almost palpable sense of forgiveness, acceptance, serenity. Outside the large crowd might be milling uneasily, but in here there was only peace.
She’d wandered about inside for a while and finally seated herself in the sixth row on the right—she had no need to claim any pride of place.
People had begun filing in, talking quietly among themselves. It was no surprise to see a lot of her colleagues, if she wanted to use that word, from the firm. It was even less of one that they held mostly to their cliques. None of them sat in her row.
Clarence Jackman tapped her on the shoulder, said hello, introduced her to his wife Moira, a regal matron in black. Treya recognized some of the students from Hastings who had been to Rand & Jackman for the post-arraignment gathering last week. The mayor, arm in arm with the district attorney. Then her chief assistant, Torrey, the prosecutor at the arraignment, someone who was actually trying to do the right thing, to bring Elaine’s killer to justice.
The volume steadily increased, echoing in the open space, and Treya turned in her pew to catch a glimpse of the incoming flow. She had to catch her breath as, almost directly behind her, she recognized Abe Glitsky and—she had a hard time even believing the gall of it—the lawyer, Hardy, who’d been in the courtroom representing Elaine’s killer.
The lieutenant seemed as disconcerted to see her as she was to see him. He put out a hand, stopping Hardy, then nodded. Now abreast of her, he halted. “Is this pew reserved?”
In somber and measured strides, Gabriel Torrey walked up the center aisle and slowly mounted the lectern to the left of the altar at the front of the cathedral. The dying strains of the string quartet’s powerful arrangement of “Amazing Grace” still seemed t
o hang in the air. The chief assistant district attorney wore a charcoal Armani suit, a white shirt with a black silk tie. His left lapel sported a little red AIDS ribbon, his right a tiny red rose.
For a short while, he gathered himself. When he was ready, he raised his head and looked out over the enormous congregation—more than five hundred souls were seated in the pews and standing behind them and to both sides, filling in all the space to the far walls.
After adjusting the microphone, he spoke with a quiet, even intimate familiarity, his voice firm and evenly pitched. “This is a remembrance,” he began.
Midway through the service, she couldn’t take it anymore. Suddenly, she stood, walked the length of the pew away from Glitsky and strode toward the back door of the cathedral. Outside, the cold sunlight glare stopped her, and she stood on the steps, blinking, drawing gulps of air.
“Are you all right?”
She turned, knowing who it was. He’d followed her out. Her hand went to her neck, her hair. She started down the steps before her eyes had adjusted, stumbled. He was right with her and caught her by the arm, preventing her from falling. As soon as she recovered and realized he was still holding her, she all but shook off his hand. Immediately, he let go and stepped back. “Are you all right?” he repeated.
“I’m fine. Fine.” She straightened up. “I don’t need your help.”
“No. It’s just that you . . . I thought you might faint.”
“I don’t faint. I’ve never fainted in my life.” Shaking her head, she spun for a moment back toward the cathedral’s doors, then took another step away from them, toward the park. Getting away. Finally, her breath hitched, and she focused on him. “I can’t believe you came here. I think it’s appalling.”
He backed away a step.
But she wasn’t through yet. “And your friend, that’s a great touch. Elaine’s killer’s lawyer. What’s that all about, him being here? This is supposed to be for her friends, for the people who miss her, not for . . . not for somebody like him. And you.” Having said her piece, she was done. “Good-bye, Lieutenant.” She started down the steps again.
Glitsky didn’t know what he was doing. Not exactly. He certainly hadn’t planned to move into her row in the church, to sit next to her.
To follow her out.
Now she was telling him good-bye again, dismissing him, and he was following after her. “Ms. Ghent. Please.”
After a few steps, she slowed and came to a stop. Her shoulders heaved in a deep sigh, and when she turned to face him, he noticed that her nostrils had flared in anger or frustration or both. Hipshot, she crossed her arms. “What?”
“I’m going to need to look at Elaine’s files.”
He really didn’t know what he was doing now. There was no way on earth he could look through Elaine’s files. He was on administrative leave. He couldn’t get a warrant. It was ridiculous even to suggest. But suddenly he knew what he had to do. The police—his own police department—weren’t going to look. It was going to come to him to lock down this case. And Elaine’s files were the best place to begin.
“Haven’t we been through this? Didn’t I just see Cole Burgess arraigned the other day for her murder?” She took a breath. “Look, I know those files and he’s not in them, okay? She didn’t know him.”
“I’m not saying she did.”
“So what are you saying?”
He realized that he’d been seeing her face since the last time he’d been with her. Now he raised his eyes, looking out behind her. He had to take off the gloves and he didn’t want to see the effect it would have on her features. “The first thing is I’m wondering why you’re so hostile.”
Now he did meet her eyes. A cold, empty stare came back at him.
He ignored it. “Normally, somebody’s so hostile to the police, we wonder why that might be.”
Her reaction, if she had one at all, seemed to be a greater depth of loathing. If Glitsky thought intimidation would affect her, he was dead wrong. She set her jaw, narrowed her eyes in disparagement. “What’s the second thing?”
“The second thing . . .” He wrestled with it internally. “The second thing is I’m not absolutely, positively beyond any doubt sure that we have the bastard that killed Elaine. And I’ve got to be sure of that.”
“And get, what do you call it, the collar? Another feather in your cap.”
Surprised at this direction, he shook his head. “I don’t care about that.” Another short pause. “I cared about Elaine.”
This time she snapped back at him. “And that’s why you’re here at this memorial, aren’t you? Because you care. Because you were her friend.” She was in a high fury, her eyes threatening to spill over. “And that’s why you brought your friend with you I suppose. Because you both care so much. Well, let me tell you something. It’s pretty damn transparent and it makes me sick.”
“What is? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your pretending to be close to Elaine so maybe witnesses will talk to you.”
Glitsky was rocked by her vehemence. He held his hands out, supplicating. “I don’t even have any witnesses. And even if I did, why would I do that? I couldn’t care less if witnesses like me. You never get a witness who likes you. And who cares? They talk if you can make them.” He didn’t realize it consciously, but the habits of twenty years were kicking in. He was a cop. This was turning into an interrogation. “What I want to know,” he said, “is why you don’t want to talk to me. You were Elaine’s friend, coworker, maybe confidante. And yet you don’t want to help me make sure about who killed her. I wonder about that.”
She challenged him with her expression, spoke into his face. “I don’t believe you. How about that? I don’t believe anything you say. You didn’t care about her then, and you don’t now.” She moved forward, almost close enough to kiss him. “She knew,” she whispered hoarsely. “About you. Don’t you understand? Her own father, her real father. And you never acknowledged her, never even tried.”
Glitsky’s mouth opened to defend himself. But there was no defense and no words came.
Treya kept at him. “And she didn’t dare approach you. Big, tough, hard-ass homicide lieutenant with the big sign saying ‘Keep away. Everybody keep away.’ And you’re trying to tell me you cared? Well, excuse me, but I was there, I saw how much you cared. How much it hurt her. How you broke her heart.”
Glitsky was a stone embedded in the pavement. Behind them, the doors opened and the strains of the string quartet floated out. A lone trumpet played a mournful solo, piercing the morning air. Finally, Glitsky turned as the first mourners appeared.
There was a tingling sensation in his face and then, on its heels, a great, almost unendurable pressure in his chest. He turned back to Treya Ghent, the beautiful outrage, the righteous indignation.
He opened his mouth again, and again no words came. His own heart felt as though it was exploding. Pain shot out through his limbs and he felt himself falling, crumbling.
He felt the cold of the day come up at him. He had a vision of an almost purple sky, of a noise like a rushing wind, of Treya Ghent somehow reaching for him just as he’d caught her minutes earlier.
And then it was dark.
15
It was dark.
Hardy rubbed his hand over his eyes and realized that night had fallen outside while he’d been sitting at his desk. He looked at his watch—9:15. Had he called Frannie to tell her he was missing dinner? Said good night to the kids? He didn’t even remember.
Oh yes, he did now. Frannie knew what he was going through and he could stay down and catch up as long as he needed. Things at home were under control—the kids had already finished homework and were on their way to bed. Tomorrow would arrive bright and early. Maybe it wouldn’t kill him if he wanted to put something off, come home? But it was his call. No pressure.
He stood up and put his hands on the small of his back, did a half turn in each direction trying to get the cri
ck out. Coming around his desk, he flicked on the room lights by the door to his office. He’d been reading in the pool of light created by the green banker’s lamp on his desk, studying the first of the discovery documents in the Cole Burgess case—pictures of the crime scene, the arresting officers’ reports, autopsy, interrogation transcript with Ridley Banks.
Outside in the hallway, he stood a minute listening for other signs of life in the building.
Nothing.
He walked down the half-dark stairs until he could get a view of David Freeman’s office. The door was closed and no hint of light came from under it, so apparently even the old man had gone home for the night.
The laggard, he thought. Imagine Freeman going home before ten o’clock. Whatever for? He had no life outside the law. But Hardy wished he had been there, wished he could talk to him. He stayed for a long moment on the stair, then walked the rest of the way down, into Freeman’s unlocked office. If Phyllis could only see him now, he thought. But it gave him no real solace.
He went to the wet bar and poured himself three inches of Scotch, then went back to the door with his glass and took a last look at the room. “Lazy slug,” he muttered aloud.
Back upstairs in his office, his drink on his desk, he pulled three darts from the board and paced off the distance to the tape line he’d put down at the eight-foot mark. Throwing easily, willing his mind to go empty, he hit the “20,” “19” and “18” on the first round. He noticed, but just barely, and went to the board to retrieve the round, then went back around his desk, swallowed a mouthful of his drink and picked up the telephone again, punched in the hospital’s number. “Intensive care nurses’ station,” he said.
Glitsky was still incommunicado. As of now, it wasn’t certain he would ever again be otherwise. He was under heavy sedation.
The call got bounced to the nurses’ station, where they filled him in on more of the nothing that had changed in the two hours since he’d called last time. There was no one else at the hospital that Hardy could talk to. Glitsky’s father and son had gone home. His condition was listed as guarded.