The Ophelia Cut

by John Lescroart

  Glitsky brought his gaze back down to Treya’s boss. “Really?” he asked. “Grape leaf potstickers? Could that be right?”

  His wife, skeptical, squinted up at the board. “Is that what it says?”

  Wes Farrell turned around to check it out. “That’s what it looks like to me. Could grape leaf potstickers possibly be any good? I mean, Chui has worked some miracles before, I grant you, but this one might be a stretch.”

  “Well,” Glitsky replied, “if we’re staying for lunch, it’s not like we’ll get to choose, will we?”

  He was referring to the fact—understood by all the regular customers—that Lou the Greek’s had carved a successful niche by serving only one dish, the Special, every day. You ate the Special or you didn’t eat at Lou’s. Which would have been fine if Lou’s wife, Chui, made anything resembling standard lunch fare—burgers, fries, sandwiches, hot dogs, salads. But not at Lou’s. Instead, Chui found her daily inspiration in the commingling of cuisines from both her and her husband’s native lands—China and Greece, respectively. So you’d get Kung Pao pita pockets or sweet-and-sour lamb kebabs, or something equally creative, though not always equally tasty.

  And now the ever affable Lou himself was at their table, cutting off their discussion on the merits of the Special, which, according to Lou, was never less than great.

  “How is it today, Lou?” Farrell asked, half to hear his reply.

  “Great. Your basic dolmas, except healthier. Pork and ginger with soy and garlic filling instead of rice. Really delicious. So”—he pointed down at them—“three?”

  “Sounds good,” Treya said. “Three.” As Lou was moving along to the next order, she added, “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” Glitsky asked.

  “Work.”

  Following her gaze, Glitsky saw two of his inspectors, Paul Brady and Lee Sher, standing just inside the doorway, craning their necks to see through the crowded room. “Looks like,” Glitsky said as he placed his napkin down on the table and stepped out of the booth to wave them over.

  SHER WAS A no-nonsense woman of around forty who played down what could have been very good looks—cropped yet glistening black hair, no makeup, a trim and athletic figure. When she slid in next to Farrell and across from Glitsky, she wasted little time with preamble. “Sorry to interrupt your lunch, but the call out to the Marina this morning—”

  “The cleaning woman?” Glitsky had been in the office when the 911 call was routed to Homicide. The victim’s housecleaner had let herself in at a few minutes past eight and gotten the bad surprise.

  “Yeah, well, the victim’s turned out to be a semipublic person, so the news is likely to go large in the media, and we thought you’d like to know.” She dipped her head toward Farrell. “You, too, sir, of course.”

  “Semipublic?” Glitsky asked.

  Next to Glitsky, Brady nodded. He was ten years older than his partner, and his blond hair was starting to go gray, but that was his only visible concession to age. He nodded, picking up his partner’s slack. “Liam Goodman’s chief of staff. Kid by the name of Rick Jessup.”

  “A kid?” Glitsky asked.

  “Twenty-seven. Supposedly a bit of a rising star, or was.”

  “Any sign it was political?”

  “Not yet,” Sher said. “Not much of anything yet.”

  “Definitely a homicide?”

  The inspectors nodded in unison. “No doubt,” Sher said. “Blunt-force head trauma.”

  “And lots of it,” Brady added. “Somebody beat him with something hard and kept at it until he was completely dead.”

  “Do you have the murder weapon?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Suspects?”

  “No.”

  “Forced entry?”

  “No.”

  “All right.” Glitsky scratched at his jaw. “Rick Jessup. Why do I know that name? Treya? Wes? Does it sound familiar to either of you?”

  “No,” Farrell said, “but I get the feeling it’s going to start to pretty soon.”

  “You can bet on that, sir,” Sher said. “Every TV van in the city was there by the time we left.”

  “When did this happen?” Glitsky asked.

  Brady said, “Signs point to last night. The upstairs neighbor heard what she thought was a fight of some kind down in Jessup’s place, though she couldn’t be sure. Just some bumps, she said, and didn’t know what to make of them. She volunteered that it wasn’t uncommon to hear noises when Mr. Jessup had female guests. When the maid came in this morning, the lights were on, the paper was on the doorstep, coffee hadn’t been made.”

  “In any event—” Sher began, then looked a question at Brady and stopped.

  “No, you go ahead,” Brady said. Then, to Glitsky, “This is the good part. She likes to do the good part.”

  “There’s a good part?”

  Sher nodded. “Reasonably. What Paul’s saying is it would be nice if it turned out it was last night, because right after the ruckus, that same upstairs neighbor heard the door slam downstairs, and then she happened to look out the window and see a guy leaving the building.”

  Glitsky’s mouth turned up a quarter of an inch, for him a full-blooded smile. “You’re telling me she saw the killer?”

  “She saw somebody. If it was the killer, and if it happened last night, then maybe.”

  “Lee doesn’t want to jump to conclusions,” Brady said.

  “I hear that,” Glitsky said.

  “We haven’t canvassed around yet,” Sher said, “but with what we’ve got so far, the basic description, we’re hoping somebody else might have seen something.”

  Treya, caught up in it, leaned around her husband. “What did he look like, this guy?”

  “If it was last night,” Sher reminded everyone, “and if it was this guy.”

  “Okay,” Treya said. “Let’s say yes to both.”

  Sher threw a questioning glance at Glitsky and, getting a quick nod of approval, went ahead. “She was looking down on him. After he left the building, he turned around and looked right up at her. He looked dazed. Anyway, she couldn’t be sure about the height. She guessed about average, and the same for weight. She didn’t think much of it. She’s not sure she could recognize the guy in a photo spread or lineup. But it was definitely a white male—jeans, hiking boots, black and orange Giants jacket.”

  “Hair?” Glitsky asked.

  Brady took over. “Darkish. Maybe some gray. Definitely not bald. And you’ll love this: he was carrying something like a baton or a club of some kind.”

  Glitsky made a face. “A club?”

  “That’s what Susan said.”

  “The neighbor,” Sher clarified. “Susan Antaramian. She called it a club.”

  RICK JESSUP’S APARTMENT faced east on Mallorca Way, a street only a few blocks long that meandered through the upscale low-rise neighborhood just north of Chestnut Street. Susan Antaramian had told the inspectors that the suspect had turned right, or approximately south, after leaving the building, so Brady and Sher each took one side of the street and began knocking on doors.

  Brady had worked his way into the second block without success when he ran into an elderly man—bent over, white-haired, in running shorts and a T-shirt—who was walking a little white Pekingese, who in turn was taking care of business in the gutter as the man waited patiently.

  “Excuse me,” Brady said, holding out his badge, introducing himself, and asking the man if he lived nearby.

  “Right around the corner. I’m Fred Dyer, lived here thirty-five years. This is about as far as Cosmo can handle. I used to take him all the way down to Crissy, throw a Frisbee for hours, but as you can see, those days are behind him. Behind me, too, I guess. What’d you say you wanted to know?”

  “I don’t know if you heard about it, sir, but there was an incident in the neighborhood last night.” Brady motioned behind him. “Down the block there a ways. We’re asking people who live around here if they might have seen anythi
ng unusual just as it was getting dark.”

  “Unusual, like how?” Then, looking down, “Thatta boy, Cosmo. Good boy.” Dyer produced a plastic bag and leaned down to pick up after his dog. “Regular as clockwork,” he said. “Wish I could say the same for me. What do you mean by unusual?”

  “Out of the ordinary. Something maybe didn’t seem to fit. Or struck you as odd. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Were you out walking at that time?”

  “I probably was. Let me think. I like to take Cosmo out before it gets dark but when it’s getting close, so he can make it through the night.”

  “So you walked him by here last night? This same route?”

  The man had his eyes half-shut, dredging for the memory. “Yep,” he said at last. “It was last night for sure. I know ’cause I had roast chicken. Sunday’s chicken night, and I remember I fed him the skin, like I always do. He loves the skin, but only after I’m done with my dinner, and then we gotta get right outside pretty quick, if you know what I mean. They always tell you not to feed ’em human scraps, but I figure at his age, what difference is it going to make?”

  “Right,” Brady said.

  Fred Dyer’s head canted to one side, then straightened. “You know,” he said, “there was a guy who passed us, brushed by, really. I nodded and said hi, like I always do, but he just kept going, as I say, in a hurry. The reason he stays with me a little is he was carrying like a . . . I’m not sure what I’d call it. Kind of a heavy stick. Anyway, it was smooth, like a walking stick, except if it was, it was broke off. Which seemed a little weird, like he’d picked up a heavy stick or part of a tree limb and was carrying it around with him.”

  Brady kept any trace of excitement out of his voice. “This man,” he said, “do you remember, what did he look like?”

  “About average, I’d say. A white guy, forty or fifty, maybe. Wearing a Giants jacket, I think. Dark hair, maybe.”

  “Did you get a good look at his face?”

  Mr. Dyer shook his head. “I can’t say as I did. He was just a guy in a hurry passing on the sidewalk. Except for the shined-up stick. You think this could be something?”

  “I don’t have any idea. I’d like to talk to him, that’s all, whoever he is. You didn’t know him as a neighborhood guy or anything like that? You’d never seen him?”

  “Not that I remember, and I’d know if he lived around here. At least to nod at.”

  “Could you ID him if you saw him again?”

  Dyer hesitated. “Maybe.”

  “Did you see where he went after he passed you?”

  “No. I’m sorry, he was just a guy walking down the street. I didn’t pay all that much attention.”

  “Of course.” Brady removed a business card from his wallet and handed it over. “Listen, Mr. Dyer, you’ve been a big help. Would you mind letting me have your contact information if we’d like to get back to you and talk a little more about this?”

  “Sure. That’d be fine. It’s not like my days are all that full. If I didn’t have Cosmo, I don’t know what I’d do with my time.”

  “We appreciate it. And if you remember any details, anything about his face, his clothes, anything at all, my numbers are on that card. Day or night.”

  BY ABOUT THE same time, Lee Sher had made it down almost to the end of Mallorca where it abutted Chestnut, knocking on doors, mostly listening to bells chime or the echo of her knock in empty living units—duplexes, apartment buildings, the occasional stand-alone home.

  She stood in a recessed vestibule with two doors. She had only three more doorways to go on Mallorca before she would have to cross the street and head back to the other side until she met up with Brady. She pushed the bell, and a black woman of perhaps thirty showed up behind the half-glass door on her left that led to an upstairs duplex. The name on the mailbox was Anantha Douglas. Seeing Sher, she opened the door a crack and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not buying anything. You people have got to stop ringing doorbells and pestering everybody.”

  “I’m not selling anything.” Holding up her badge, Sher introduced herself and said, “I’m an inspector with the police department, and we’re canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone might have seen anything suspicious last night.”

  The woman opened the door a bit farther. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were . . . Is this about the guy who was killed around here last night?”

  “Down at the other end of the street. A possible suspect may have come down this far, walking away from the crime scene.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Sher pretended to ignore the question. “Did you see anyone unusual outside last night?”

  The woman straightened up, her eyes unfocused as she brought her hands up to cover her mouth, then lowered them to her chin. “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God. He had just killed somebody?”

  “We don’t know that. We’d just like to talk to him. I take it you saw someone?”

  “He was right in front of this building. I was going out to meet a friend for coffee at the corner, and just as I came out the door, I was running late, and I should know that the way these doors are set back a little, you can’t see either way up the sidewalk, but I busted out anyway and he must have been just about hugging the building and I walked right into him. I mean, pretty hard.”

  “Did you fall down?”

  “No. Neither of us did, but . . .” She shook herself at the memory. “So I’m all like ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I should watch where I’m going,’ and he’s standing there. I mean, he’s stopped, like he can’t believe what happened. And I look at him, and his eyes are all kind of crazy. He’s staring at me, and then I see a club in his hand, and for a second it’s like he’s going to bring it up and hit me with it, but then I back up a couple of steps and ask if he’s sure he’s okay, and he gets himself under control, like he’s been holding his breath almost, and nods and says he’s sorry, and he runs his other hand down the side of his face.”

  “So you definitely saw his face.”

  “Oh, yeah. I looked right at him.”

  Sher got a description from the witness, then asked her, “Do you think you could recognize him if you saw him again in a photo spread or a lineup?”

  “I’m pretty sure I could.”

  “Would you be willing to work with a police artist to get close to a likeness?”

  The woman considered and shook her head. “Maybe. I could probably pick him out of a lineup, if you needed that. If I saw him again, I mean, in real life. If that would help.”

  “It might, if we get to that. Thank you, Anantha. You are Anantha Douglas?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But you know, there was something else about his face.”

  “What was that?”

  “At first I thought he was old, like an old man. But then he looked surprisingly young, like he wasn’t old but he’d been through some stuff, you know?”

  “How young would you guess?”

  “Maybe forty, but not too much older, if that. I could be wrong. I just thought I should say.”

  “No. You’re right. Anything is important. Can you tell me about the club?”

  “Like what?”

  “Did it look like commercially made sporting equipment, or a walking stick, or what? What color was it?”

  “Darkish brown. Maybe a foot and a half long. And kind of shiny but gnarly.”

  “Gnarly how?”

  “It was, I don’t know, like a branch off a tree that somebody sawed off and sanded until it was smooth. It had like a knot at the end. Also, it looked old.”

  “Old?”

  Anantha nodded. “Like smoothed out with people holding it.”

  Sher huffed out a little laugh. “I see why you keep calling it a club. It sounds like it was a club.”

  “It looked like a club. Like a caveman club, you know?”

  “All right. So then what?”

  “Then I kind of backed away more and started up toward Chestnut.”

  �
�The same way this man was headed when you ran into him?”

  Anantha bobbed her head. “But he waited. I think me running into him must have freaked him out somehow. When I got to the corner, I took a quick look back, and he was still standing where I’d left him. He saw me look back and actually raised his hand and kind of waved at me, like ‘good luck’ or something, and then he crossed over and got in his car.”

  “He was parked here?”

  “Yeah.” As though it had just occurred to her, and perhaps it had, Anantha opened her apartment door all the way. She excused herself around Sher and came all the way into the vestibule, where she stood and pointed across the street. “That first metered spot on the other side.”

  Sher was barely able to conceal her excitement at this gold mine of a witness. “Anantha. May I call you Anantha?”

  The young woman flashed a perfect set of teeth. “That’s my name.”

  “Well, I’m Lee.” She kept her voice uninflected. “Did you happen to notice what kind of car it was?”

  “Small, maybe light blue? A sedan, not an SUV kind of thing. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a Honda Civic, which I only know because that’s what I drive. But it might have been any small regular car.”

  SHER AND BRADY were having coffee at an outside table in balmy sunlight close to Anantha’s place, directly in a line with Mallorca as it abutted Chestnut.

  “So,” Sher was saying, “he parked all the way up here, walked back there, clubbed Rick Jessup to death, then strolled back along the street in broad daylight, carrying the murder weapon, which must have been covered with blood.”

  “Unless he washed it at Jessup’s place.”

  “Maybe that, but still. If you’re looking to make a getaway after you kill somebody, why do you park a few blocks away?”

  Brady grinned. “How about if you don’t want to get a ticket or get towed, which, if you’re planning to commit a murder, you really don’t?”

  “You’re saying it’s a parking issue? Again?”

  “You laugh, but you wait. You’ll see. Parking figures prominently in more crimes than the average person can imagine.”

  “So you’ve said. About a thousand times.”

  “Universal truth bears repeating.”