Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (27 page)

It was very close, as Westberg had said, and he had been right, too, that the likeness of Kevin Shea was a little better in the picture everybody had seen. It was obvious why he had gone with the one and not the other.

But there was something strange about the second one. She picked up the file folder, dug for the first picture, and held them side by side. She was struck by one detail – in the second photo Arthur Wade was clearly holding the knife that, in the other picture, was in Kevin Shea's hand.

Well, so what?

Lots of people – professionals even – carried small knives in their pockets. She herself had a penknife in her purse.

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine the moment, the threatening crowd, Shea in the center of it, deciding – now that Arthur was hanging and helpless – that he would take a stab at him as well, put a knife in his ribs, and Arthur had somehow managed to see it, to reach down with one hand, grab for it, a last moment of struggle, captured here in Westberg's photo.

Or another explanation – weaker but, she considered, still possible. Arthur had somehow managed to pull a knife of his own before they had lifted him from the ground, realizing he'd have to try to cut the rope. It would be his last chance to survive. And then Shea, reaching up, had grabbed it from him, wresting it away. It didn't change any of the basic facts of what had happened – fact, it made the picture clearer.

But something else.

And it came on her in a wave of revulsion that nearly doubled her over, then straightened her back up with rage. There was Kevin Shea, grimacing with the efforts to pull down on her old classmate, setting off the chain of events that had killed Chris Locke, her boss, her lover ...

It was intolerable that this man – this bigoted southern schoolboy – was still at large. Her mother was right – so were the supervisors, the mayor, even Philip Mohandas. One man was responsible for all this. It may have been a mob, but this
one man
had led it. This
one man
had driven the city to its knees – and he had to be taken. He had to be taken now. The madness wouldn't stop until he was. He had to be found.

Elaine pushed out from her desk. She had to make people see this, she had to make them hate Shea for what he'd done the way she hated him.

There were procedures and there were levels of hierarchy, but she also knew who she was. She could go outside channels, direct to the people. Art Drysdale might reprimand her but the reprimand would have no teeth. No one would dare to touch her.

The city provided the media with two rooms – one for print and one for radio and television – on the third floor of the Hall of Justice, both of them just outside the frosted doors that led down the hallway to the District Attorney's office. Both of these were now full to overflowing, with tables set up in the hall – coffee containers, donuts, half-eaten sandwiches.

Over the past days Elaine and most of the other assistant district attorneys had avoided this hallway in an effort to skirt the schools of piranha journalists who had been in a perpetual feeding frenzy over any scraps that fell into their waters. She had ascended and descended by any of the several internal stairways that connected the floors of the Hall.

Now, her anger high and clear and overlaying the exhaustion in her face, she was hip-deep in the main hall, laying a trail of chum.

'I don't believe this.'

'I do,' Wes Farrell replied. He had not moved. He looked typically slob-like in his khaki shorts and his 'On Strike From Major League Bull—' T-shirt, bare feet up on a milk crate, another can of beer in his hand, Bart's head in his lap.

They were all fixed on Elaine Wager's live interview. 'This is how they do it. Get it on the tube, it becomes fact.'

'How do they find out all this stuff?' Kevin whispered. Talking in his normal voice was painful. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was getting weaker rather than improving. His left arm had a constant throb, and at every breath his ribs pinched at him. When he had gotten up, the consensus had been that what he needed was a hot bath. He'd taken one but it had seemed to make everything hurt even worse.

He was drinking coffee. 'What is she talking about, "unstable"? "Despondent over the death of his brother?" "Liable to do anything?" Where does all this
come
from?'

Melanie was — force of habit – cleaning up in the room behind the men. She had already washed two loads of dishes and now was stacking the piles of newspapers, arranging the paperbacks in the brick-and-board bookcase in alphabetical order by author – she stopped moving for a moment.

'Cindy,' she said. Then, to Wes: 'One of Kevin's earlier conquests that didn't work out so well.' But then she quickly softened it, coming up behind Kevin, planting a kiss on the top of his head. 'A lesson for us all.'

On the tube, Elaine – indignant – was answering another question. 'Well, the fact that he's gone this long without contacting the authorities argues compellingly that he has no reasonable defense. This office is proceeding on the assumption that he is dangerous ...'

Slumped, Kevin said, 'Yeah, a major threat.'

'... and I urge any citizen who thinks they have seen Mr Shea to get in touch with the police or the District Attorney's office immediately.'

Farrell was shaking his head. 'Ah, the temperate voice of reason...'

'I've got to go in,' Kevin said.

'You've got to go in to
that
? Are you listening to this, Kevin? To what's happening out there?' Wes shook his head, finished his beer, number three. 'We need to have ourselves a talk, you and me.'

The image on the screen had changed, and Farrell pointed his remote and turned up the sound. A man with a forbidding countenance was standing on the steps outside the Hall of Justice, collar up against the wind, obviously not enjoying the camera or the microphones in his face.

The male voice-over was explaining that '. .. Lieutenant Abraham Glitsky, the chief of the homicide detail, apparently doesn't share Ms Wager's certitude.'

And then Glitsky, terse: 'We continue to gather evidence. We're trying to get to the truth. That's all the comment I can give you.'

Glitsky was trying to get by but the reporter was in front of him again. 'What about Kevin Shea, Lieutenant? Shouldn't he be your focus? With the mayor's increased reward and the—?'

The camera closed in, and Glitsky said: 'Shea's a suspect. We want to question him, get his story. The end.'

'His story? But Ms Wager says ..."

'Ms Wager is doing her job and I'm doing mine – collecting evidence.'

'But don't you have evidence?'

'No comment.'

'What about the picture?'

Glitsky appeared to consider his question. 'Pictures are open to interpretation. Now if you'll let me .. .' Pushing the microphone away, he brushed by the reporter through the Hall's swinging doors.

At the cut to the commercial Wes Farrell turned off the television. Scratching Bart's ears, he twirled his empty beer can on the arm of the futon and cursed.

'What?'

He turned to Kevin. 'Glitsky.' He gestured toward the TV. 'That guy – '

'What about him? You know him'

'We've done some business.'

Melanie came around in front of him. 'So why does that bother you? He sounded to me like he wasn't sure ...'

'You got it. That's what he sounded like.'

Kevin sat up. 'So what's the matter with that?'

'The matter with that,' Wes replied, straightening up, 'is it means we got a chance. We go to him, we might even get a listen.'

'You mean you'll...?' Melanie glanced at Kevin and he raised a hand, slowing her down.

The room went silent. Wes twirled his beer can some more.

'Does that mean you'll help?' Melanie asked.

Wes looked at Kevin. 'Kevin, if it comes out you had
any
part in this, I'll kill you. I will personally kill you. I will hunt you down and kill you like a rabid animal, except slowly and painfully. Am I making myself clear?'

'I didn't,' Kevin said.

Wes swore yet again, shook his head, tried his empty beer can. 'You better not have.'

Glitsky was studying the second photograph, asking some questions on his own. The homicide detail was empty. Blessed peace. There was a note from Carl Griffin that he had gone down to interview a potential knife-wound victim. Good. Glitsky didn't have an alternative explanation yet for the cuts and bandages. But they were there and something had caused them. Perhaps it had been a knife. His father's friend Rachel had mentioned a knife. There was a knife in both pictures. Until he knew what had gone on with the knife he wouldn't have the whole picture, couldn't know for sure what had happened. So knowing would help. Knowledge always helped. No word yet from Banks or Lanier.

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.'