The First Law (15 page)

Creed had run into Randy Wills a few times in the Ark, but he didn’t know him except to nod at. Terry, on the other hand, was a pretty good guy who, back when they’d still been clients in the beat, had often given Creed a free coffee or a Coke when he’d stopped in. In reality, he hadn’t seen enough of the two forward runners in his chase last week to say for sure whether or not they were two-headed Martians. And as to the shooter? Sure, he’d seemed like a pretty good-size guy, but again, running away at seventy-five feet in the dark and wearing a heavy coat against the weather, he could have been anybody. Hell, he could have been a she.

But now Creed worried that he might have helped direct the homicide cops to some innocent people. More, because it had been so nonspecific, he didn’t know how to undo what he might have done.

Suddenly, he found himself standing inside the Ark. It was Monday night, slow as death, two patrons at the bar, and the huge, really hulking form of Clint Terry stood behind it, right up by him, by the front door. Suddenly, forcefully, it struck him that the shooter surely couldn’t have been
that
big. Creed would have retained that as a positive memory rather than a vague sense.

“Hey, Matt. Checking up on us? You cold?”

“It’s not warm, Clint.”

“I’ve got some go-cups. You want one? Two sugars and cream, right?”

“That’d be good, thanks. Everything okay in here?”

“Good.” A pause. “Roy was in here the other night with a couple of inspectors from homicide.”

“Yeah, they told me. The Silverman thing, huh?”

“That’s what he said. I was working here, though, just at that time. You might remember.”

“I never crossed over, Clint. Never looked in. Sorry.”

“Yeah, well, it probably don’t matter. The cops haven’t been back, but listen, from now on, you want to poke your head in here when you pass, the coffee’s on me.”

The cup did warm him up, but neither Clint’s hospitality nor the steaming brew made him feel much better. By the time he got to Ellis, he’d pretty much decided he would have to talk to Russell and Cuneo, back off from his earlier stance. And this might be his opportunity now. The lights were on at Silverman’s.

When abreast of the door, Creed saw an old man sitting on a chair by the counter, an old woman standing in the center aisle facing the shelves, writing on a clipboard. For a few seconds, he watched them. They appeared relaxed if somewhat subdued, and were having some kind of conversation between the woman’s notes. When Creed knocked on the glass, it startled both of them, but then they noticed the uniform and the woman came to the door and unlocked it.

“Can I help you?” she asked. To Creed, she looked to be in her late sixties, early seventies. Her face was sharp-featured, birdlike under her wispy white hair. He would be surprised if she weighed more than a hundred pounds. But there wasn’t anything frail or timid about her. Her eyes—no glasses—narrowed down critically at him.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Creed said.

“How would you be able to help me? You’re with WGP, aren’t you?” She peered closely at the name tag over his pocket. “Well, Mr. Creed, I’m Sadie Silverman, Sam’s wife. We’re not with the beat anymore.”

“Yes, ma’am, I realize that. I just saw the light and . . .” He came to an end, shrugged.

Suddenly the man was up with both of them. He put a hand on Sadie’s shoulder, pulled the door open, and motioned Creed inside. “I’m Nat Glitsky,” he said, extending his hand. “A friend of the family. We thought it would be smart to take an inventory. Were you here the night it happened?” He closed the door, threw the deadbolt.

“Yes, sir. I was the . . .” Again, he stopped. “I discovered the body,” he said.

“Do you know if the police took anything?”

“No. I don’t think so. From the shelves, you mean?”

“They haven’t told me anything,” Sadie snapped. “I can’t get anybody to call me back. I just came down here with Nat and opened up myself.”

Nat laid a hand on the woman’s arm. “All they told Sadie was that Sam had been killed in a robbery attempt. Three men, apparently. Did you see them?”

Creed temporized. “From a distance. One of them shot at me twice. I chased them but couldn’t catch up.”

“So if you’d come by just a couple of minutes earlier . . .” Sadie let out a heavy breath. “What about these robbers, these
killers
? Why did they pick
here
? Why was it Sam who . . .”

A small tremor began in her jaw, and Nat put an arm over her shoulders. “It’s all right, Sadie; it’s all right.” He walked her back to the chair he’d been sitting in by the jewelry case, sat her down, then turned and came halfway back down the center aisle, to where Creed was now standing. “It would be nice to know if anybody’s interested in what happened here,” he said. “That’s all. Is anybody looking for who did this?”

“They’re looking. The inspectors came by and interviewed me on Friday night.”

“And what did you tell them? What did you know?”

“Pretty much what I told you. Three guys. At least one of them with a gun. Mr. Panos thought they probably got away with Mr. Silverman’s bank deposit. This old leather pouch he was supposed to be carrying.”

“That’s what it was,” Sadie said. “Thursday was his deposit night.”

“Who’s Mr. Panos?” Nat asked.

“My boss,” Creed said.

Sadie had recovered enough to stand up again. “He owns the security patrol we used to pay. But he raised his rates last summer and we had to drop it.”

But Nat wore a confused expression. “Wait a minute. If this guy Panos didn’t do security here anymore, why was he here on Thursday?”

“Because I was,” Creed said. “The cops asked him the same question. Also, he and Sam knew each other.” He turned to Sadie. “He was really upset about this, ma’am. He told the inspectors he’d give them any help he could, and I know he was working with them as of Friday”—he included Nat—“when they interviewed me.”

“How do you know that?” Nat asked.

“His brother, Roy—that’s Mr. Panos’s brother—was with them, interviewing suspects.”

“So they have suspects, after all?” Sadie asked.

Creed made a pained face. “They were looking at a few guys who’d been at a poker game. Apparently one of them lost a lot of money the night before, and the thought was he might have come back to get it. Mr. Panos had given the inspectors a list of who’d been there, and that’s where they started.”

A sharp rapping on the front door made them all turn. A dark, menacing hatchet face scowled through the glass, and Creed reached for his gun. Nat, though, put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “It’s my son,” he said.

“What are you doing here, Dad?” The intimidating black man took up a lot of room in the cramped aisle. He turned impatiently to Creed and held up a badge. “I’m Glitsky, SFPD. Who are you?”

“I’m assistant patrol special Matt Creed, sir.”

But Glitsky had already whirled. “Nat, you shouldn’t be here.”

The old man was unbowed. “Sadie wanted . . .” He stopped. “We thought it would be a good idea to do an inventory. Nobody’s gotten back to her, and she has the key, so we thought we’d let ourselves in, find out what they took. Find out
something
at least, Abraham, since nobody seems to want to tell us anything.”

“I got that much from your message.” Shaking his head disgustedly, Glitsky looked around. He walked to the entrance to the back room, glanced down at the brownish stain on the floor, then threw a cursory glance over the jewelry case. Then he was back at his father. “I told you I’d talk to Gerson as soon as I could, Dad, find out what I could. He wasn’t in today.”

He took a deep breath, focused on Sadie. “Mrs. Silverman,” he said, “I know it’s very hard to wait to learn anything when at the same time you’re trying to deal with your grief. My heart goes out to you, but it would be better if my father wasn’t here right now. Nat will tell you, I did this homicide stuff for sixteen years—not just did it, I
ran the detail
—so believe me, I know. When the police know something, they will tell you. And I really can’t have my father involved in this case in any way.”

When Creed realized that he had been in the room with
Lieutenant
Glitsky, formerly head of homicide, he decided that even if it delayed him for a few stops in his rounds, he was going to talk to him after his father and Mrs. Silverman had been sent on their way. Even a low-level connection with someone of Glitsky’s rank and experience might translate to a letter of recommendation, or something, later on. He might also get some advice on how to approach Cuneo and Russell about his perhaps-squirrelly identification of Clint Terry.

So as Glitsky left with his father and Silverman’s wife, Creed trailed along behind, invisible, while the trio walked down the street and across it into the underground level of the Macy’s parking lot.

Hanging back by an overhang until Mrs. Silverman’s car had driven away, Creed tried to time his moment. In his best mood, Glitsky didn’t exactly invite an easy familiarity, and now—standing with his hands on his hips, looking after the taillights of the Lexus—he positively simmered over a low flame of anger, frustration, maybe fatigue. After a minute, he brought a hand to his forehead and squeezed at his temples.

“Are you all right, sir?”

The return to professional mode was immediate and impressive. “I’m fine, Mr. Creed. I didn’t realize you were still with us.”

“Yes, sir.”

Glitsky was walking and Creed fell into step next to him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you back there at the shop. I was upset with my father. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Thanks.” It seemed to be a chance at an opening. They’d come to the mouth of the garage, up on the street level again. “Crime scene stayed till about four in the morning.”

Glitsky stopped and faced him. Between the garage and streetlights, they stood in a pool of visibility. “How do you know that? You stay around, too?”

“I came back after my shift.” Creed shrugged. “I’m taking crim courses in school. I’d been the first person on the scene and nobody seemed to mind if I stayed. I wanted to see how it worked in real life.”

“And how was that?”

“I thought they were pretty thorough, from what I know, which isn’t much.”

Glitsky put his hands into his jacket pockets. Several seconds passed. “So what happened that you got there first? Did you get a call?”

“No. Really it was just mostly a coincidence. I was on the block, right over there”—he pointed to a spot across the street—“when the alarm went off at Silverman’s. I saw some guys running out the door. So I yelled after them to stop, and one of them shot at me. Twice.”

Glitsky’s mouth moved, an impulse to smile. “And missed, I see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re lucky.” His eyes went to the shop. “Though maybe not so much from that distance. But either way, you don’t want to get shot.”

“It’s never been in my plan.”

“Yeah. Well, it was never in mine either. It just goes to show you.”

Creed couldn’t stop himself. “You got shot?”

It was the wrong question. The lieutenant’s face closed up. “Nothing to brag about,” he said, clipping the words.

Glitsky was wrestling with himself. He’d only come downtown—fifteen minutes after he’d arrived home—to keep his father from getting him into more trouble. He hadn’t even had dinner yet, and knew that Treya would be waiting for him. Rachel was still feverish, and in some low-level but constant way he was worried about that, too. Certainly, he didn’t want to stay in any kind of private conversation with this young rent-a-cop, even if he did seem bright, interested and idealistic. These were not traits Glitsky normally associated with Panos’s crew, especially since he’d been reviewing the police reports on behalf of Hardy and his pending lawsuit. He’d had innumerable dealings with WGP on his own as well, and few of them had been pleasant.

On the other hand, this boy had been the first person on the scene, had actually been a witness to the crime in progress. Undoubtedly, he had been interviewed by the case inspectors, and Glitsky had no reason to believe that they were less than adequate. He didn’t know Cuneo and Russell at all. They’d been brought up in Gerson’s watch and might, for all he knew, be the most competent and committed policemen in San Francisco, although most of his recent experience in the department argued against that.

“Nothing to brag about,” he said, and realized that he sounded too harsh. “But . . . so you actually saw these guys?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I saw three figures running away from me in the dark. I couldn’t identify any of them to save my life.”

“That happens. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” The open face of the young man took on a troubled look, and Glitsky said “What?”

Creed blew out heavily, a deep sigh. He seemed suddenly ashamed of himself. “Except maybe I was trying too hard to be helpful.”

“Helpful’s generally good, son. What’s the problem?”

A shrug. “I might have given your guys some bad information.”

Glitsky had seen enough confessions to know when somebody wanted to talk. He leaned against a parking meter, crossed his arms, met Creed’s eyes, waited.

“I had told them—your inspectors—that the person who’d shot at me seemed like he was kind of big. So then they came back the next day and said they were looking at this other guy who works in the neighborhood, a bartender over at the Ark, do I know him? Do I think it could have been him? And I’m thinking, I don’t know what I’m thinking, to tell you the truth, probably just wanting to be important, you know? So I give them the impression that, yeah, maybe it was this guy. I mean, I say it could have been, and then I told the inspectors he’s got these two friends he hangs with . . .” The recitation ground down to a stop.

“And now you don’t think it was?”

Creed shook his head miserably. “I really don’t know. I went by there tonight—the Ark—and he was behind the bar. I mean, it
could
have been him, I suppose, maybe, but I was a lot stronger than that when I talked with the inspectors. It was like I gave them the impression that I could positively ID him.”