Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (7 page)

Melanie Sinclair had never done anything wrong until she'd met Kevin Shea, and now it seemed that
everything
she did turned out badly. The last thing she had wanted to do was get him mad at her again, accuse him of anything, put him on the defensive. That, she had come to believe, was how she had lost him.

But then on television she had seen what he'd done last night, or what it looked like. She couldn't believe it, that wasn't Kevin. But what was she supposed to think?

Before she had met Kevin Shea, Melanie had always done the right thing. She had gotten 'A's all the way through school. She kept her shoes neatly arranged in her closet underneath her color-coded hangers, on which hung, in order, dresses, skirts, slacks, blouses, coats, sweaters, vests. She combed her hair a hundred strokes every night, smiled easily without putting it on, was a genuine asset to any organization she decided to join. She loved both her parents and her younger brother and sister and they felt the same about her.

Up until now, at age twenty-one, she had experienced only one serious wrinkle in the otherwise smooth fabric of her life, and that had been Kevin Shea, who was not all, but quite a lot of what she tried not to be.

It should have worked out. Kevin was the right age for her, unattached, with an aura of sophistication that implied experience. Whatever his flaws – none of them
too
serious – she could help him with them and thereby insure his appreciation and love.
Plus
, to tell the truth, she had been very much physically attracted to him. She knew that that was important.

Just how important she couldn't be sure, since she was still a virgin. She had decided that Kevin Shea was going to be the man to deflower her and then marry her. Melanie Sinclair truly believed in the old-time values and virtues.

And for a few months it had worked. Melanie had good genes, shining auburn hair, nice breasts, shapely legs. She was considered a catch and she was honest enough to know it. She had picked Kevin Shea to be caught by. And then, five months after their first date, two months after they had been making love, three weeks ago, he had said goodbye.

Just like that.

He was sorry, he didn't love her and didn't want to change. He didn't want to stop drinking, for example. Or laughing out loud. In fact, he had said maybe
she
should consider changing – lightening up a bit. People should try for excellence, he said, not perfection because perfection, after all, was impossible, whereas excellence was occasionally attainable. Something to shoot for.

Well, to hell with him! That had been her original reaction. It was a phony distinction anyway.

But she hurt. God, how she still hurt!

And now she'd gone and made it worse. Calling him that way ... she'd just thought there might have been something she could do.

She hadn't been able to keep that judgmental tone out of her voice. Why did she
do
that? She loved him. She
knew
he hadn't done what they were saying, but she was only trying to play a little devil's advocate, get him to understand the
seriousness
of it. Except, of course, he would know, she didn't have to tell him. He could figure things out on his own. But Melanie – dumb, dumb Melanie – she just couldn't leave well alone. And now she'd gone and lost him ...

Kevin hadn't liked Cindy either. Cindy Taylor, her best friend. That had been another big problem.

'She's fooling you,' he had told her. 'She's using you, Mel, and you're carrying her. You watch, she's jealous, she's using you.'

(That was another thing – he called her Mel. No one had ever called her Mel and she kept correcting him about that too until he broke up with her.)

'How is she using me?'

'She's holding
you
back so that she can be the wild one, the exciting one. Not that she's exactly Madonna herself.' He'd even told her that Cindy had come on to him, which couldn't be true, because Cindy had told her that she didn't even think much of Kevin. Although, come to think of it, Cindy
had
been the one to notice him at school, to get her interested.

Well... no matter now, that was over. And Cindy, for better or worse, was still her best friend, and she had to talk to somebody ... The tears wouldn't stop. She was going crazy.

'My God, that
is
Kevin.' The call had awakened Cindy too, but Cindy was used to it. 'What are you going to do?'

'I don't know. I called him. He was ...' She was going to say hungover but held it back.

'What did he say?'

'I didn't let him say much. I just asked him why.'

'And what did he say?'

'He didn't say anything.'

'He didn't even deny it?'

Melanie had put that down to shock, but the fact was that he hadn't. 'No.'

'I
knew
he was capable of something like this.' The way she said it made Melanie feel uncomfortable, the effect Kevin seemed to have on her. It was too strong a reaction somehow. But she couldn't think about that now.

Dead air. Melanie could hear Cindy's television. 'They're saying anyone who can identify him should notify the police,' Cindy finally said.

'Well, I'm not going to do that.'

'I don't know, Melanie.'

'Cindy, come
on
. This is Kevin we're talking about. Whatever it looks like, he didn't—'

'It sure does look like it, though, doesn't it? If he did, the police should—'

'He didn't! I know he didn't.'

'I don't know that.'

'Cindy!' Calling her had been a mistake, too. Everything she did nowadays was turning out wrong. 'Cindy, come on, don't
you
do anything, either, okay?'

Silence.

Then, calling on every reserve of calm she had: 'Just promise me you won't do anything, would you?
Promise
?'

A long pause. Then: 'I'll try.'

'Kevin Shea. And he was home as of about an hour ago. The snitch supplied the address, too.'

Glitsky didn't much like this emphasis on one man. After all, it had been a mob, and even if this one guy had been the leader – and it did look that way – he wasn't the only guilty party. There were somewhere between twenty and sixty people somewhere in the city who'd had a hand in this. Glitsky had sent out a team to go and persuade Jamie O'Toole, for example, the bartender of the Cavern, to drop down to the Hall before noon for a few questions. He also craved an audience with Paul Westberg, the photographer, whose identity he had only just learned.

'But now there was nothing to do but move on this Kevin Shea. Glitsky gave the order to dispatch a black-and-white to the address they had been given. Then, thinking about it, he made two more decisions: to send second and third cars as backups to Shea's place, and to stroll over to his chief's office and get the latest version of how things stood, bureaucracy-wise.

'To tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I don't know how to react to it. It's the least of my worries at the moment.'

Chief Dan Rigby sat in his leather chair behind his desk. Glitsky had been a department head for less than a year and the two men had never met socially. Nevertheless, when the lieutenant had come calling the chief had admitted him right away. Now Glitsky stood on the Iranian rugs and looked across the shining expanse of mahogany desk that separated him from his boss. He wondered, briefly, if Rigby's desk would fit into his whole office, and decided it might but it would make walking around a bit of a chore.

'I'm just saying that, technically, sir, we don't have much in the way of evidence if we're going to charge—'

'What about that picture?' Rigby gave Glitsky a hopeful look, knowing as well as his lieutenant that normally a photograph such as Westberg 's would have to pass a battery of tests for authenticity before it could go before a grand jury or any finder of fact as admissible evidence.

Glitsky stood impassively, as though considering the chief's words. 'Yes, sir,' he said at last, finessing the question. 'But to charge someone with murder before the grand jury has had a chance—'

'I'm hearing, lieutenant, that we need something, almost anything, and right away if we're going to have any hope of containing this thing.'

'Mr Locke came by my office this morning and that was pretty much the message he delivered, so I've heard it, too, but frankly, it makes me nervous. That's why I came here to talk to you. I don't exactly know how to handle it—'

'What's to handle? We arrest the guy, book him, give him to Locke. Everybody takes a deep breath, maybe the streets settle down. Do you have any doubts about this man, what's his name, Shea?'

'No, sir, but that's not my point. I'm saying we don't have a usual case to make an arrest on. We could take a lot of flak on it. In normal times we wouldn't go near this yet.'

'These aren't normal times.'

'No, sir, they're not. But I'd like an eyewitness all the same. Something to make the arrest more ... defensible.'

'Well, you've got that.'

Glitsky waited.

'The photographer, he's downstairs on three getting questioned right now.'

'By the DA? How'd that happen?' They both knew this was way outside the realm of procedure, that normally the police interrogated everyone associated with a crime and the district attorney pretty much stayed out of it at least until there was enough to present a case to the grand jury.

'Locke told me, as a courtesy, that they were talking to him. As a courtesy,' Rigby repeated. 'They're building their case on Shea.'

'Before they knew who he was?'

"They
decided
who he was, Abe.'

'Who did? Locke?'

Rigby nodded. 'Locke. The mayor. The senator.'

'The senator?'

'Loretta Wager, in the flesh. She flew in here this morning. I gather she's sold this idea to the mayor – offer up Shea, although you didn't hear it here. Focus it on him, then deliver him, restore the faith of the black community and even the score. Let justice take its course. And now you say we've got him, right? Shea?'

'I sent some cars to go pick him up. We'll worry about a warrant later.'

'Okay, then, we've done our job.'

Glitsky bit his lip, surprised at the length of time the chief had given him, and the confidence he'd shared. 'What if it doesn't work?'he said.

'What, our job?'

'No. What if we get Shea and the place still keeps erupting?'

'Loretta Wager says it won't. The mayor's betting it won't. And Chris Locke's betting his job on it.'

If wasn't exactly an answer but perhaps there wasn't one. Glitsky nodded. 'I'd like to go talk to the photographer.'

'He's downstairs. Help yourself.'

After he got the picture developed in his darkroom and ran it down to the KPIX studios, Paul Westberg had not been able to talk himself into going back home. There was no way he would get back to sleep.

They had offered him five hundred dollars for his picture and all rights, but he had studied the scenario that had developed around the Rodney King videotapes – every photographer's dream – and had fantasized about some similar piece of good fortune happening to him, planning how he would handle it. And now it had happened. He had held out for twenty-five hundred dollars, retaining world rights to the shot.

Fielding the calls in the middle of the night in the studio basement, he'd then sold licenses to air the picture on CNN, Fox and the major networks for their news shows only. In the past sixteen hours he had grossed some twenty-four thousand dollars. He had three agents and a couple of lawyers sniffing around and he hadn't even been home yet. They'd found him.

What he hadn't counted on was the police. He was, after all, not only a photographer, but a witness. He was the only one who couldn't deny that he'd seen it all. He'd
been
there – the downside to fame and glory.

The two officers had been polite but firm. He was going to go downtown with them for questioning. Sure, he could take his own car. They'd follow him.

They hadn't taken him to the police station upstairs but through the district attorney's corridors on the third floor of the Hall of Justice and for twenty minutes left him sitting alone, sweating, in a small room unguarded and abandoned. He had stopped feeling on the cusp of untold good fortune. In fact, he had become vaguely fearful – his mouth sour and his eyes bagged and he wanted to go home and crawl into his bed.

Finally the heavy wooden door creaked open and a beautiful young black woman wearing a business suit had been standing in front of him, smiling, and identifying herself as Assistant District Attorney Wager. After assuring him that he wasn't a suspect in the lynching, she asked if he wanted a lawyer present anyway. He had sipped at the excellent coffee (she had brought him a fresh cup), and said no, what did he need a lawyer for? He hadn't done anything illegal or wrong.

She proceeded to walk him through the events of the previous night, and she had helped him reconstruct the truth as he remembered it, how he had been walking down the other side of Geary Street, heard the commotion, looked over and thought it might be news. Finally, getting to the moment of the picture, how the crowd had been yelling 'pull on him, pull, pull!' and the guy had been doing just that. No, there was no doubt about it. Sure, he'd testify to it. He
saw
it. That was what had happened.