The Hearing (17 page)

Jackman came back to the couch, sat again at the far end of it. “I’m not completely sure myself. It’s just that no one knew Elaine better than you did, so you of all people might want to keep an open mind about who killed her. Or why.”

Suddenly Treya cocked her head. “So you’re really not certain it was Cole Burgess?”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t. Just . . .”

She was facing him on the couch now, her eyes burning into his. “Just that maybe it wasn’t.”

He shrugged. He didn’t know.

And now, suddenly, neither did she.

As a result of his meeting in Chief Rigby’s office, for the first time in nearly thirty years, Abe Glitsky wasn’t working as a cop. The powers had decided to place him on administrative leave for an undisclosed period of time. So he was relieved of his command of the homicide detail. They had not asked for his badge or his gun, but he had no trouble seeing that moment in his future. They gave him an escorted half hour to clear the personal items out of his desk and file cabinet. It only took him fourteen minutes. He’d packed all his stuff into a battered black briefcase. None of his inspectors were around to say good-bye. He had the feeling that this was not a completely random event. Someone had passed the word to his troops that it would be better if they were gone while their ex-lieutenant cleared out.

Rigby said he would be getting in touch in the next week or so, after the preliminary investigation. Until then, Abe might want to prepare some defense; and if not that, lie low.

It was nearly six o’clock. Glitsky had it on the highest authority that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the darkest hour was not just before dawn.

It was right now.

Perversely, the halogen lights over the parking lot behind the Hall of Justice had not switched themselves on. Further proof, although Glitsky didn’t need it, that even the inanimate world had entered into the conspiracy against him.

Rain pelted the asphalt, the heaviest downpour he’d seen in the past couple of years.

He’d set the briefcase down next to him. Hands in his jacket pockets, he stood under the awning that covered the otherwise open and usually windswept corridor that led out the back door of the Hall, past the coroner’s office and the entrance to the jail. His leather flight jacket was buttoned to his neck, the fur-lined collar turned up nearly to his ears. A gust of wind threw a spray of mist into his face and he backed up a step.

The effort to take his hands from his pockets and wipe his eyes seemed impossibly great.

Three or four people passed him going to their own rides—moans at the weather, shoptalk, a snatch of laughter. At what? he wondered.

Unable to bring himself to move forward, he eventually turned around, picked up the briefcase and retraced his steps halfway back to the door of the Hall. There he turned left, ran a few steps on wet concrete and pulled at the glass door that proclaimed the offices of John Strout, coroner for the city and county of San Francisco.

It was after hours, though, and the door was locked. The night bell was marked out of order. Glitsky almost laughed, might have even thought he was laughing, except that the sound in no way resembled laughter. The rain fell on his uncovered head, trickled down the back of his neck. He knocked hard, the doors shaking beneath his fist. Then, saving his knuckles, he turned his hand to the side and pounded hard. He was certain Strout was inside. This was the middle of the day for him. He pounded again.

Some helpful soul passing in the corridor yelled over that he thought they were closed.

“Thanks,” Glitsky replied. He waited a reasonable period of time, then pounded again at the door.

A uniformed patrolman suddenly appeared behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, pal,” he said. Glitsky noticed the rain dripping from the bill of his cap. He had one hand on his nightstick and looked like it wouldn’t take much in the way of temptation to induce him to use it. “No loitering here. Building’s closed up for the night. Let’s move it along.”

Scowling, which didn’t make him prettier, the lieutenant turned, brushed the hand away. “Easy, cowboy,” he said. “I’m with homicide, upstairs. Glitsky.”

The cop did a double take and must have recognized him. He all but fell backwards, sheepish. “Oh, excuse me. Sorry, sir. I thought you were a bum.”

Glitsky nodded. “Join the club.”

“H
e’d be the perfect bartender.”

Not that Glitsky had applied for the job, or ever would, but Hardy thought his friend might profit from a spell working behind the bar at the Little Shamrock—give him something to do while he waited out his suspension, keep him from going stir-crazy, polish up those people skills that cops kept getting lectured about.

He was in the driver’s seat, stopped at a red light, trying to sell the notion to his brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, who not incidentally was the majority partner in the bar—three fourths to Hardy’s quarter.

McGuire looked across the seat at Hardy as though he were a Martian. In fact, the two men had been in each other’s lives for nearly thirty years, since they’d platooned together in Vietnam, where Hardy had saved Moses’ life. Later, when Hardy’s first marriage and life had fallen apart after the death of his son Michael, McGuire had returned the favor by giving Hardy sanctuary—a bartending job at the Shamrock that he’d kept for nearly a decade. So the two guys were connected, but Hardy’s suggestion—even in jest—that Abe Glitsky work behind their bar was still too much to abide. “Perfect? In what way perfect?”

“Honest . . .”

“Hey, there’s an idea. We could call him Honest Abe. I bet he’d love that.”

“I’m serious. He’d work hard, show up on time, take no abuse from customers . . .”

“Because he’d have driven away all the customers?”

“Why would he drive away customers?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Could it be because he’s scary, intimidating, unfriendly . . .”

“Abe?”

“We are talking about Abe Glitsky, aren’t we? The guy we’re on the way to pick up? Black, mean-looking, scar through his lips, never drinks, never smiles? Him?”

Moses, atypically, was dressed in a somber brown suit with a black shirt and black tie. Not so atypically, he was having a morning tipple—one of the airplane-issued one-shot bottles of Lagavulin that he was carrying around with him in the pocket of his suit coat. He was drinking early because he’d declared it more or less a holiday—he wasn’t opening the bar today. He’d assigned the shift to one of the regular night guys because of the memorial service.

Not that he had known Elaine Wager. But his wife Susan, a cellist with the symphony, had been hired with several other musicians to play at the service and he wanted to hear her. The acoustics of the cavernous Grace Cathedral were legendary—Art Garfunkel had once sung his vocals for an album there, just him and a microphone and the vibrations off the old stones. Terrific stuff. When he’d heard that his brother-in-law was going to the service, too, it cinched it for him. They could make it a road trip, a very short one, true—only thirty blocks or so—but McGuire made it a point to take his fun when he could get it.

The car moved through the intersection. “He’s a good guy, Mose.”

McGuire was clean-shaven this month. He hadn’t been in a fight since before Christmas. The last broken nose had somehow set straight, and with his salt-and-pepper hair combed back, he looked almost dashing, albeit twenty years older than his chronological age. “I know he’s a good guy,” he said. “Often I’ll say to myself, ‘That Abe Glitsky, what a good guy.’ But that doesn’t mean he’d be a good bartender. You know why?”

“Tell me.”

“Because bartenders, in theory, should have personalities.”

Hardy threw a glare across the seat. “Abe’s got a personality.”

“Okay, let me rephrase it. Bartenders should have
good
personalities. Warm, inviting, even charming, much like myself.” He savored a mouthful of Scotch. “Even you, on a good day in your youth, from time to time would achieve the lower rung of charming. But Glitsky? I don’t think so. No.”

Hardy turned the car onto Lake, pulled to a stop at a once-in-a-decade curbside opening almost directly in front of Glitsky’s duplex. It was nine-thirty on a bright, cold and sunny Monday morning, one week after Elaine’s murder. Hardy let himself out of the car, then leaned back in, an afterthought. “I don’t think we need to bring it up, okay?”

“I’ll be my usual sensitive self,” McGuire assured him, and tipped up the tiny bottle.

In spite of his promise to be sensitive, McGuire started providing hot job tips almost as soon as Glitsky got into the car. He’d already opined that maybe Abe could find work selling real estate, setting up web pages on the Internet; he could open a chop house—with all the great gourmet restaurants in the city, the place was crying out for a good old-fashioned chop house.

Glitsky, in the backseat, dangerously calm, started rattling them off. “Alfred’s, John’s, Jack’s, Little Joe’s . . .”

“Okay, then, okay, forget the chop house. How about maybe private investigator for Diz.” It went on and on. Maybe it wasn’t too late for Abe to go back to school, become a doctor or lawyer or something. An accountant? Was Abe good with numbers?

Like McGuire, Glitsky was in a business suit—although he rarely saw the need for it, the lieutenant could dress when he wanted to. Adjusting the knot on his electric blue tie, he squinted out the back window, then reached into an inside pocket, removed some sunglasses, put them on.

McGuire happened to catch the move. “I like it,” he said. “Very Samuel Jackson.” He was twisting the cap on his third little bottle. A thought struck him and he stopped, snapping his fingers. “Hey, maybe acting . . .”

Hardy glanced sideways, wishing his brother-in-law would shut up, but he was shooting more Scotch, oblivious. Until suddenly—Hardy didn’t even see it—Glitsky was leaning over the front seat, his gun in his hand, up against McGuire’s head. His voice rasped, but the tone was one of exquisite calm. “I’m going to blow your fuckin’ head off,” he said.

McGuire swore violently, pulled himself away, banging his head against the passenger window, dropping his Scotch. His face was a mask of terror. Hardy was startled, too, slamming on the brakes, tires squealing. He swerved right. “Jesus, Abe . . . !”

But, quick as he’d come forward, Glitsky was leaning back into his seat, getting comfortable, replacing the gun in his shoulder holster. In the rearview, Hardy saw the scar burning white in his lips. Glitsky was actually smiling enough to show a few teeth, which was almost unheard of. “Acting,” he said, nodding. “I think I could do that. I had you guys for a minute there, didn’t I?”

The rest of the way downtown, McGuire didn’t say a word.

Parking on a normal day was bad enough, but Elaine’s memorial service drew a substantial crowd. Hardy couldn’t find anyplace within five blocks. Since Grace Cathedral is at the summit of Nob Hill, they had a long walk, all of it steeply up. When they rounded the last corner and came in sight of the church’s steps, they stopped, and McGuire took the opportunity to tell them he wanted to go inside early, make sure he got a spot where he could see his wife.

Glitsky and Hardy hung back. Hardy didn’t think it was because they needed to catch their breaths. “That was a nice little moment back there. Subtle. Though I did almost crash the car.”

“I knew you wouldn’t. I wasn’t worried about it.” Glitsky’s mouth lifted a quarter inch.

“Well,” Hardy said, “that made one of us.” Hardy felt as though he wanted to say a little more about it, but realized that the subject had been thoroughly covered. All issues resolved, messages delivered.

They stood together awhile in silence. Glitsky got out his sunglasses again. Put them on, perhaps against the glare of all the people he recognized from his work. Police brass were showing up in significant numbers.

“You sure you want to do this?” Hardy asked.

There was no trace of a smile now. “I’ve
got
to do this.”

This was what he’d told Hardy over the weekend. He hadn’t been there for his daughter’s birth, or in her life. He was damn well going to be here for this. And this was the only reason Hardy had decided to come—moral support for his pal, who in the wake of recent events could certainly use some. Now, though, catching some sense of the mood of the place, Hardy wondered if it would turn out to be a good idea after all. “Yeah, but you don’t have to be seen here with me.”

Glitsky shrugged.

“I mean, you and me together . . .”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I’ll try to keep my hands off you, I promise.”

There was no impetus to move inside. In the open area by the cathedral’s main entrance, people continued arriving on foot, got let out of cars and taxis. Singles, couples, small groups. It was twenty minutes until the service was scheduled to begin and already the forecourt was packed.

A snatch of narration carried from somewhere. “. . . expecting close to five hundred mourners from every walk of the city’s public life, this charismatic young woman’s tragic death has fired the imaginations of . . .”

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?”