The Rule of Law

by John Lescroart

  He nodded. “I know. I never saw this coming, I swear to God. Though maybe I should have. But, Jesus Christ, the guy wasted no time, did he?”

  “Not a minute.”

  “And Lapeer just asked him ‘How high?’ when he told her to jump?” Ike asked.

  “Not exactly,” Juhle said. “He made his pitch to the mayor. She answers to him and takes it to me.”

  “You’d think she might stand up for her team,” Beth said. “And by ‘team,’ I mean us troops slogging it out in the trenches, including you. I mean, what is wrong with this picture? We did the job they pay us for and got the bad guy here, didn’t we?”

  “That’s how I read it.” Juhle dredged up a small smile. “Obviously, she and you and I don’t share the same idea of who her team is. Or what the job is, exactly.”

  “But taking you out,” Beth said, “that’s just wrong. If anyone should be taking the fall here, it ought to be us.”

  “Well, I appreciate the sentiment but, hey, the burden of command, right? I should have reined you in, apparently.”

  “This just completely sucks,” Ike said.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Juhle replied, “but the reason I asked you to meet me down here is to let you know how the wind is really blowing. You’ll probably be hearing some idiocy about why they’re putting me on leave, how I’ve lost control of the detail, yada yada. But I wanted you to know so you’d get it straight from the horse’s mouth—so you’d know that these guys, particularly Jameson, are dead serious. You piss him off even a little and it’s at your own peril. And you two guys are way in his sights. That’s why they’re getting rid of me: because I couldn’t control you the way I should have.”

  “But we . . .” Beth began.

  He stopped her, raising his hand palm up. “No, listen up. The reason you need to know all this, like yesterday, is that obviously they’re watching whatever it is you guys are doing. I wasn’t completely kidding when I asked if anybody’d followed you down here. All the stuff we talked about this morning—going to the state AG or the FBI—I’m not sure that’s the wisest course of action you could take. And, Beth, your original idea to go out and talk to people again who you’d already interrogated—needless to say, that’s a complete nonstarter. If Jameson catches even a whiff of you sniffing around the Peter Ash case . . .” He ran out of steam.

  “So you’re saying we just drop it?”

  Juhle nodded. “That’s what I’m saying, yeah. The case has already been gathering dust for the better part of three years anyway. Give it a rest and leave it alone. And even then I can’t say that you guys aren’t in a whole heap of trouble already.”

  “So what do you want us to do, Dev?” Ike asked.

  “If I were you, I’d lie low and let things simmer down a little for a while. It’s not like there aren’t other homicides on the whiteboard. Work those cases. Don’t give them any excuse to come after you.”

  Beth harrumphed. “Or even notice us.”

  “Or even that, Beth. Right.”

  “So he wins. Jameson.”

  “This round. Maybe he does.”

  “And while we’re on it,” Beth continued, “let’s not forget he won the last round, too.”

  Juhle shrugged. “He’s got the hammer,” he said. “What are you gonna do?”

  Beth met Juhle’s eyes.

  “I know,” he said. “It galls the shit out of me, too. And a hell of a lot of good that does me, doesn’t it? I’m just trying to contain the damage to both of you. Although, frankly, it might be too late for that. But at least you might have a chance.”

  “I don’t know if I want one under these conditions,” Beth said.

  “Well, that’s your decision. But at least it would be you making it and not them forcing you out. At least promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “You mean the lying-low part? Sure,” Beth said, “I’ll think about it. So will Ike, I’m sure. Won’t you, Ike?”

  “Absolutely. As long as it takes.”

  Beth took a beat, met Juhle’s eyes again. “There you go,” she said.

  “Meanwhile,” Ike asked, “any idea who’s taking your place in the detail?”

  “Not a clue. But whoever it is, he or she will have been prepped about you two.”

  “What a swell work environment,” Beth said.

  Juhle made a face. “Sorry about that, but that’s what it is.”

  “I think we got the picture,” Ike said. “So what are you going to do next?”

  “I don’t know. Take a month or two off. Wyatt Hunt—the guy who owns this place—he’s got a PI outfit in town and he’s been pushing me to come and work for him. So I might take him up on that.”

  “We are really sorry, Dev,” Beth said. “This is just so not right.”

  Juhle shrugged. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  29

  MARCEL LANIER WAS the homicide inspector—actually the acting lieutenant of Homicide at the time—who had investigated and written up the interview he had with Abe Glitsky in the immediate aftermath of the Dockside Massacre. After a lengthy career with the SFPD, he finally retired with the rank of deputy chief. Now seventy-eight years old, much of his working life had been spent in and around the Homicide Detail, and there probably wasn’t a better-qualified or more credible witness to be found in the city. Chet Greene remembered him vaguely as a straight-shooting, humorless, and intimidating senior officer, but that had been a long time ago, and now, at first glance, he struck Chet, surprisingly, as much more sprightly and even charming, with bright blue eyes and a ready smile, clean-shaven, the hair on his head full and white. Bouquets of capillaries bloomed across his cheeks and over his nose.

  He lived four floors up with his wife, Diane, in an apartment on Gough at California. There was a nice view to the west from the corner living room. They kept the temperature in the mid-70s and Chet had his jacket folded over the arm of his chair. The three of them chatted in the kitchen while the older man poured some Diet Cokes into glasses with ice, and when they finally sat down with the view, Diane disappeared.

  Chet sipped at his drink. “So, Chief,” he began, “thanks for agreeing to talk to me on such short notice.”

  The old man chuckled. “It’s not like the dance card was exactly overbooked for the afternoon, son. I’m delighted to talk to another cop almost any time, even a DA investigator. I figure that’s close enough. Anyway, if you don’t stop me, I’ll go on and on. And you said it was an old case, and it probably wasn’t a too-successful one if we’re here talking about it after all these years.”

  “Well, neither successful nor unsuccessful, really. Nobody went to jail over it. I’m just trying to understand a few details about why that was, since it was evidently a real mess.”

  “As you know, we’ve had our share of real messes without arresting anybody. I used to hate those damn things. Probably still would. You know somebody’s out there and you just can’t make the case. Used to drive me crazy. I’ll bet, by the way, I’ll remember the one you want to talk about.”

  “How about the Dockside Massacre?”

  “Yes.” Lanier’s face broke into a smile. “One of my favorites,” he said. “Although you’re right: no arrests. But it was a monster of a case. We worked it for a month or two. But I think we came away pretty convinced that we got it all right.”

  “How was that? The Russian angle?”

  “Russia, dope, cash, diamonds, you name it. Do you remember when they had their own helicopter to bring the gems up from the airport to their showroom? Pretty amazing time.” His eyes actually seemed to twinkle. “That’s how they all got away, the shooters. On the chopper. Then a charter plane to Moscow. At least, that’s what we finally got to. And all of them presumably with diplomatic immunity, too, even if we could have identified them and put them on the spot. Which we never could do. So what happened? Did you get a new lead?”

  “Not really. More like a couple of questions which may or may not
be related.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Abe Glitsky.”

  Chet thought it was as if someone had turned down the light shining behind his eyes. “What about him?”

  “Well, I’ve been going over the file, and you interrogated him in connection with the death of Lieutenant Gerson. It’s not exactly clear to me why that was. Was he somehow involved with these Russians who were out on the pier? Or anybody else around the shooting?”

  “The short answer is no. There was never any proof of that. And you’re right, I went and talked to him myself.”

  “Were you guys friends?”

  Lanier cocked his head to one side, the light from his eyes now completely gone. He put his drink down on a coaster on the coffee table between them. The intimidating man he’d once been suddenly had reappeared. “Are you accusing me of some kind of cover-up here?”

  “No, sir. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I just haven’t been able to understand why Glitsky was in the file at all if he wasn’t some kind of suspect or person of interest.”

  “It’s a little convoluted, but the bottom line was that he was investigating the Panos brothers in connection with this Russian diamond situation, and one of the brothers turned out to be a victim in the shoot-out. Evidently these guys resented Glitsky’s closing in on them and threatened him. He never denied that.

  “There was also speculation that some of their henchmen had mugged a lawyer and a friend of Abe’s named David Freeman. So there was certainly some bad blood, but I never for a second thought Glitsky played any role in the shoot-out itself. He was a cop, for Christ’s sake, like you and me, son. He didn’t go outside the box to kill anybody, I promise you. But since he’d come up as a possible participant in the shoot-out, being thorough and following the book, I had to verify his alibi, which is what I did. And it checked out. When the shoot-out was happening, he was with Freeman’s girlfriend picking out his funeral clothes.”

  “Gina Roake.”

  “That’s right. Roake and he had the same story. And there was really no great suspicion of either of them. I just checked them off my list.”

  “Even though Gerson’s death opened the door for Glitsky to get back to head of Homicide?”

  A visible wave of fatigue passed over Lanier’s features. “Actually, the person who took over as immediate head of Homicide after Barry died . . . that was me. And I didn’t kill him to get his job. Abe came up to Homicide after I got promoted to deputy chief. And if you don’t mind my saying so, Inspector, if you think you’ll find Abe Glitsky involved in that shoot-out, you are seriously barking up the wrong tree.

  “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment coming up soon, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to let yourself out.”

  • • •

  THOROUGHLY DEMORALIZED BY the turn in the meeting with Lanier, Chet almost called it an early day. This was hardly the way to impress his boss, and even less so the way to uncover new and critical evidence in an old murder case. One thing he could say for sure was that so far the two people he’d called on, Gina Roake and Marcel Lanier, were more than a little sensitive about what may or may not have happened and who had been at the shoot-out. If the two of them had been just a bit more relaxed and answered his questions equably, he would probably now be closer to thinking that there was, in fact, nothing there.

  But neither of them had been even remotely sanguine, relaxed, or ultimately cooperative. Instead, both had basically overreacted.

  Why?

  The easy answer was that his questions made them nervous and remained, after all this time, a source of acute discomfort. With no physical evidence of any kind, Chet simply couldn’t shake the conviction that this was because there was no statute of limitations for murder. Both of these people either knew or suspected something, but they didn’t want to tell him what it was. Still, it was out there. He knew it was.

  He was just going to have to keep looking.

  • • •

  BAYSHORE AUTOTOW IN Hunters Point owned the towing concession in San Francisco, a hugely lucrative venture for the company itself and the city that hired it. Situated on a large corner section of godforsaken land jutting out into the bay, just across from the parking lot at Candlestick Point, the actual headquarters building was low-slung, dingy white, prefabricated, and surrounded by its own enormous parking lot that was currently, this late in the afternoon, nearly filled with cars that had been towed, augmented with a healthy representation of the trucks that had towed them.

  Chet Greene had dredged the name Dan Cuneo up from his memory bank because he distinctly remembered the animosity between Cuneo and Glitsky as a simmering issue from his own time in Homicide. As the details came back to him, he also had a vague recollection of a trial where Cuneo got slandered for making sexual advances toward the woman who was eventually charged with homicide. Try as he might, he could not specifically remember who the woman’s defense attorney had been in that case, but he wouldn’t be surprised if . . .

  “Dismas fucking Hardy is who it was, the son of a bitch.”

  Cuneo hadn’t mellowed much with age, although he had put on twenty pounds or so, all on his stomach. He wore a plain blue tie, a white short-sleeved dress shirt, and brown slacks. His sports coat was draped over his chair.

  Now he was head of security for Bayshore Autotow, ensconced in a huge corner office with a nice view of the water, the Bay Bridge, and Treasure Island. The gig was possibly not as strenuous as it could have been, judging from the full drum kit that took up the back quarter of his office.

  Cuneo had greeted Chet enthusiastically as a former brother-in-arms and they reminisced about the old days for fully fifteen minutes before Chet had felt comfortable enough to broach the name Glitsky and the question of who the defense counsel had been in his last case, eliciting Cuneo’s explosive response.

  “Those two guys, I tell you . . .” Leaving his exact meaning ambiguous.

  “What about them?”

  “What about them was that they were in cahoots setting me up. Which all turned out for the best, since I wound up here; but if this job hadn’t come up right when it did, who knows where I’d be today? Doing home security most likely; maybe if I was lucky, Patrol Special.”

  Cuneo’s random mention of the Patrol Specials sent a small electric jolt up Chet’s backbone, since three of the victims at the Dockside Massacre had been employed as this special brand of rent-a-cop.

  Chet knew that, anachronistic as it was, the Patrol Special program was still alive and well in San Francisco. Back in its vigilante heyday in the late 1800s, the city’s fathers had realized that the regular police department could not adequately handle the law enforcement needs of the community, and so it had created a hundred privately owned jurisdictions—Patrol Special districts, limit three per owner—where businesses and neighborhoods could buy their own protection and security. Perhaps, even more unbelievably, Patrol Special officers wore uniforms that, except for a small arm patch, were exactly the same as the regular SFPD uniforms. They could carry guns and make arrests, too.

  Chet had always thought that, even though officially sanctioned by the city, the Patrol Special program was essentially an opportunity for shakedowns and corruption.

  And now Dan Cuneo had casually brought it up in the general context of Abe Glitsky and Dismas Hardy. “So if you don’t mind my asking,” Chet said, “did you know why these two guys were down on you?”

  Cuneo sat back in his chair, his mouth set, a faraway look in his eyes. Under the desk, his foot started to tap as though he were playing a kick drum. Bringing his focus back to Chet, he took a breath, stopped the foot tapping, and came forward, putting his hands together and locking them on the surface of his desk. “How much do you remember about the Dockside Massacre?”

  It was Chet’s turn to be blown back in his chair. “You’re not going to believe this, but that’s what I’m here about today. I remember you had some issues with
Glitsky.”

  Cuneo nodded. “Well, the short answer is that’s why they had to get me out of the detail. Lanier and those other clowns, in my opinion, they’d covered up the murder of Barry Gerson and wanted to get Glitsky back up to Homicide . . .”

  “I just talked to Lanier before I came here.”

  Cuneo let out a bitter little laugh. “Ha. And how was he?”

  “Pretty unresponsive. He didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “No shit. I bet not. He drank every drop of the Kool-Aid and never believed Glitsky was any part of it. Or Dismas Hardy, for that matter.”

  “But you did?”

  Cuneo let out a long breath. “You want to know the truth? I don’t really like talking about this anymore, either. It gives me a headache. Do you mind telling me why you’re investigating this again right now?”

  “My boss—the DA?—is interested. Dismas Hardy and Wes Farrell are both stirring up some shit, maybe even trying to get him impeached or otherwise removed from office. Jameson wants to take them out of the game before they get too far down that path, and I think he’s smart to be thinking about it.”

  Cuneo let out another sigh. “I’m assuming you’ve heard about the Russian mafia version of what went down.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “All right, but maybe you want to put this in your pipe and smoke it. These are the plain, undisputed facts. Look who we know was at the pier that afternoon: Barry Gerson, three Patrol Specials named Nick Sephia, Julio Rez, and Roy Panos, and a murder suspect named John Holiday. And well, look at this, this guy’s lawyer is Dismas Hardy. What the hell does John Holiday have to do with the Russian mafia? Zero, that’s what. But what he does have to do with is the murder he’s charged with, of an old pawnshop owner named Sam Silverman, who was a Patrol Special client. You following this?”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Okay, so that’s the real reason Holiday’s at the pier. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Russian mafia, my ass. Holiday’s being hounded by the Patrol Specials . . .”

  “So he goes down to the pier, where he knows these guys want to bring him in or maybe kill him? Just being the devil’s advocate here, but how does this make sense?”