Now Chiurco only needed another step and he’d be outside and free, but the damned bailiff woman was holding on to his leg, so he reached down, got an arm around her neck, and pulled her up against him, holding her there, waving his gun threateningly around at the room at anyone who dared raise his or her head.
But to get the door he had no choice. He needed either to release his hostage or lower his weapon.
He couldn’t let go of the hostage, though. She would attack him again.
He had to let down the gun.
Which gave Glitsky, fifteen feet away, and waiting for just such an opportunity, one and only one clear shot.
It was all he needed.
39
CityTalk
By Jeffrey Elliot
City officials are still trying to piece together how security procedures in the Hall of Justice could have gone so awry as to allow the series of events that last Friday resulted in the deaths of four people, including two law enforcement personnel and City Supervisor Harlen Fisk, and the wounding of another man in one of the city’s courtrooms.
This reporter was present during the events that transpired and can relate that even before court was called into session that morning, a palpable tension reigned in Department 25, the courtroom of Judge Marian Braun, scene of the murder trial of Maya Townshend. Both Mayor Kathryn West, Mrs. Townshend’s aunt, and Fisk, her brother, were present in evident support of the defendant, and the attendant media presence as well as rumors of surprise, last-minute witnesses for the defense had packed the gallery.
Mrs. Townshend had been charged with the murders of Dylan Vogler, the manager of the Bay Beans West coffee shop that she owns, and another past associate of hers, Levon Preslee. The trial to date had focused upon evidence of Mrs. Townshend’s apparent motive for these murders, and experts had opined that it was particularly light on physical evidence implicating the defendant. So when defense attorney Dismas Hardy’s first witness, a fingerprint specialist at the police laboratory, identified one of Hardy’s own investigating team, Craig Chiurco, as having been present at the scene of Preslee’s murder, and perhaps having left a partial fingerprint on the bullet casing at the Vogler murder scene, the gallery grew tense with anticipation of what was to come.
It didn’t have long to wait, as Mr. Hardy briefly questioned one other witness who established Mr. Chiurco’s earlier and previously undisclosed relationship to both Vogler and Preslee, then called Mr. Chiurco. Apparently, not knowing what was taking place in court, he had been waiting outside in the hallway to take the stand. Mr. Hardy’s questions, and Mr. Chiurco’s responses, grew increasingly heated as Hardy tried to tie his associate to these crimes.
In the end, with Chiurco invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Mr. Hardy accused him point-blank of these murders, and pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. It took Judge Braun several minutes to restore order. Rather than having her bailiffs hold Chiurco for the police, Braun ordered him to consult an attorney and keep himself available for further examination if necessary. At that, the judge and the two lead attorneys left the room to confer in Judge Braun’s chambers, leaving Chiurco unguarded on the witness stand.
A few moments later the folly of Braun’s decision became apparent as Chiurco rose from the stand and started to make his way through the crowd that by now blocked the aisle of the gallery. He had nearly made it to the back door when Lieutenant Glitsky, chief of the city’s homicide department, called out and ordered one of the courtroom bailiffs, Linda Yang, to restrain Chiurco. But the desperate witness—now suddenly revealed as a murder suspect—struggled with the bailiff and managed not only to disarm her but to gain possession of her service weapon and to fire it into the ceiling.
As members of the gallery dropped to the floor or took shelter behind their chairs, homicide sergeant inspector Debra Schiff, who’d been seated at the prosecution table, fired a shot at Chiurco, which he returned, fatally wounding her. In the next few seconds another bailiff, Rolfe Hagen, fired at Chiurco again from inside the bar rail, and in response to that, Chiurco got off a flurry of shots that killed both Supervisor Fisk and bailiff Hagen before Lieutenant Glitsky saw an opening and fired one shot into Chiurco’s chest, killing him. Glitsky has been placed on the automatic administrative leave that follows any officer-involved shooting.
But the violence that could and did erupt with such tragic results even in a guarded courtroom leaves officials pondering a host of questions: Shouldn’t courtroom bailiffs in San Francisco be armed, as they are in every other jurisdiction in California? Or, on the other hand, should guns, even in the hands of police personnel, ever be allowed in courtrooms at all? Is there an adequate number of bailiffs in San Francisco courtrooms? Was Judge Braun negligent in affording a potential murder suspect the opportunity to escape and/or take hostages?
Above all, how was an innocent woman arrested and brought to trial for two murders in a San Francisco courtroom, based on an investigation that could be described, at best, as incompetent, and at worst, as grotesquely negligent?
The evidence of Maya Townshend’s innocence was right in front of the police and the prosecution during this entire investigation. Yet they chose to ignore it in what the unkind might describe as the pursuit of a political vendetta. In this reporter’s opinion it is a travesty that this case was ever allowed to be brought to trial at all.
40
“Actually,” Glitsky said, “I’m enjoying the time off. Getting quality time with my little rat here.” Zachary, the rat in question, still wore his helmet but otherwise looked and acted as healthy as any normal kid as he played with his sister in the sandbox in Glitsky’s backyard. “Rebonding.”
“Don’t kid yourself. You never unbonded.”
“Maybe not, but it felt like it. Unbonded from the world.”
“Yeah, well . . .” They sat on the top step, their usual spot, looking down over the backyard and the greenery of the Presidio beyond. “You came back just in time, so I wouldn’t beat myself up over it.”
“I won’t. I thought I told you. I’m done with beating myself up.”
Hardy threw him a sideways glance. “If that’s true, how will I recognize you? You’ll find something else to beat yourself up over, you watch. It’s just who you are. Screwed up, but probably worth saving. Marginally. In the long run.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But, in fact,” Hardy added, “not that I don’t have anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon, but you did call.”
“I did.”
“And you’re going to make me guess again?”
“If you want, or I could just tell you what we found at Chiurco’s.”
“You mean besides blood spatter on what . . . his shoes?”
“Shoes, check.”
“And a Glock .40 hexagonal-barrel semi?”
“Nope, but three live rounds and a cleaning kit that would fit that gun. Besides those?”
“I give up. No, wait. Weed.”
“You’re good. You want to guess how much?”
“Nope. I quit when I’m ahead. Weed is good enough. But what else?”
“You’re going to like it. You want another few seconds?”
“Okay.” A companionable silence settled for the better part of a minute, until finally Hardy said, “What else?”
“Newspaper clippings. Old ones.”
“Julio Gomez.”
“Right.”
“I could have got that if I’d have thought a little more.”
“Just like you got Chiurco knowing Preslee.”
“No. I should have seen that long before I did. I mean, Wyatt told me all about Dylan not being on Google until recently, so how could Craig have found Levon? The answer was that he couldn’t have. No way, no how. Especially when I realized that they’d gone to trial separately. So he must have known Levon before. And I even knew Craig had been at USF and knew Dylan and was on his weed list. I mean, flags everywhere and I
couldn’t see them.”
“Yeah,” Glitsky said, “you’re a little slow. It’s amazing you keep getting clients.”
“I marvel at it myself. Still, though”—Hardy let out a sigh—“what a fiasco at the end there.”
“I hear you. Though that’s one of the things I’m not going to beat myself up over. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Probably smart. You had no choice.”
“Really. None.”
“I know. I believe you. You just wonder sometimes how things get to where they are. I mean, why did Maya even get charged? And because of that Harlen’s dead? And Schiff? And even Ruiz. To say nothing of Chiurco and those poor bailiffs. What’s that about? All those victims.”
“And everybody still goes on calling it a victimless crime, don’t they?”
“It’s the crime part,” Hardy said. “Take away the crime, make the stuff legal . . .” He looked at his friend. “But you being a cop and all, I don’t suppose that’s going to be your issue, is it?”
“Good guess.” Glitsky chewed at his cheek. “But as to how things got to where they did, part of that, you want to be honest, was me. Bailing on the job. Worrying about Zack.”
“That would have been a very small part. But I’m proud to see you’re already back on the road to beating yourself up.” Hardy glanced at his watch. “You made it about forty-five seconds, a new record, I think.”
“No. I know it was mostly Schiff, and God knows she paid for it.”
“What about Bracco? You talk to him?”
“Not since right after.”
“How is he?”
Glitsky let out a breath. “Talk about beating yourself up. He said he knew he should have stepped up, said something, but he wanted to be loyal to his partner.”
“Cops and loyalty, huh?”
“Don’t I know? I just hope he can talk himself into staying on, but I’m not betting on it. On the other hand, Treya had some fun news the other night you might not have heard about.”
“She’s pregnant again.”
Glitsky gave him the bad eye. “Don’t even kid. Think DA’s office.”
“Clarence is stepping down and she’s taking over.”
“Incorrect. Think Paul Stier.”
“The Big Ugly?”
Glitsky nodded. “The big, now-between-jobs ugly. At least until he can hook on with Glass or somebody.”
“I don’t know. I think Mr. Glass might be having his own problems lately. Having taken on the mayor, stirring up all this shit, and really coming up with squat. Rumors abound. And speaking of which, the word is that you’re back in the saddle next week.”
“Might be. Might not.”
“Let me guess. You’re not beating yourself up over it?”
Glitsky nodded. “Close enough.”
Tamara Dade knew that Craig Chiurco’s shell-shocked and disbelieving parents had taken his ashes and scattered them under the Golden Gate Bridge. She hadn’t wanted to intrude on them in their own hours of grief; and besides, she did not come close to forgetting that she and Craig had broken up. A serious and, she had felt, irrevocable breakup. So she wasn’t with the family and didn’t want to be.
But she had her own grieving to deal with.
Now, four days after the memorial service, she found herself at the pier behind the Ferry Building, waiting in line again for the boat to Sausalito. She hadn’t come in to work, nor had she called, since the day of the shootings. Instead, four days ago she’d started to come out here after her mostly sleepless and crying nights, and she’d ride across the bay, sit alone on the Sausalito jetty and watch the water, then take the ferry back by about noon. She’d then repeat the round trip in the afternoon, getting back to the city after darkness had descended.
Today was bleak, windy, and bitter cold. As the ferry left the protection of the shore, whitecaps piled up and flung their foam across the open front deck. This was where Tamara had taken to standing, but on this day, even with her raincoat, it was too wet, too miserable. She turned and went back inside, bought a hot chocolate, and found a seat at one of the bolted-in tables by a window, where she could look out and . . .
What?
Imagine what life would have been like with Craig? Wonder why they had never progressed to a committed relationship? Try to understand what he’d done, and why? And what, simply, had happened in the courtroom?
None of it made any sense to her. She found it nearly impossible to get her mind around the stark reality that he’d murdered Dylan Vogler and Levon Preslee, and apparently another liquor store clerk years ago. That he had been able to live with letting Maya Townshend get all the way to trial.
Who had he been all this time, and how had she not seen it?
She didn’t have any answers. Except that it would be a long while before she would trust her romantic instincts, or even her fundamental human instincts, again. Maybe forever, she thought. She stared out into the windswept, gray-green, white-capped chop.
“Is this seat taken?”
The familiar voice startled her and she turned her head quickly to verify the presence of her boss, Wyatt Hunt. After doing so she turned back to the window and her shoulders rose and fell as she blew out a long breath. “How’d you find me?”
“I’m a private eye, Tam. Finding people is what I do. If you don’t want me to sit down, I’ll go find another spot.”
She turned back to him. “No. It’s fine. You can sit here.” Then, when he had, “I don’t know if I can come back to work.”
“Okay. That’s not why I’m here. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Her lips turned up fractionally and she let out a dry, one-note, half-laugh half-sob. “I don’t know what that means, all right. Not anymore. I can’t believe Craig’s gone. Even more, maybe, I can’t believe what Craig was.”
Hunt nodded. “I’ve been having some issues with it myself.”
“So were we both just blind?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. Although, how were we going to know? What did he show us that could have tipped us off?”
“I don’t know. But I keep thinking I should have known. I should have seen something. I mean, I knew he was confused, and he had his bad moments, but he was almost always nice to me. To everyone, really.”
“You never threatened him. Thank God.”
She let out another deep sigh. “So he really did do it? I mean Vogler and Preslee.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, Tam.”
Turning away from him, she looked out the window at the churning bay and, at the farthest extent of vision, the spectral shape of Alcatraz, the old deserted prison with its decrepit buildings. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do, Wyatt. About work, I mean.”
“How about if you don’t have to decide for a while?”
“Even still. I don’t know. It’s like the world is all different. Maybe I should be in a different field, around different people.”
“Maybe you should.”
“You wouldn’t hate me?”
He put his hand over hers. “There’s nothing you could do that could make me hate you, Tam. You’ve got to know that.”
She turned back to him and tried to smile. “I don’t feel like I know anything anymore, Wyatt. I feel like he stole my innocence or something. I just keep waiting for a break in these clouds, but I’m not sure there’s going to be one.”
“Except that there always has been before.”
“No,” she said. “The clouds have never before been this thick. And I really hate him for that.”
Hunt patted her hand. “Time,” he said.
She attempted another wan smile. “God, I hope so.”
On the third Friday after the last day of Maya’s trial, the phone buzzed at Hardy’s elbow in his office, and he punched the button to speak to Phyllis. “Yo.” Taking a moment’s immature pleasure from his receptionist’s exasperated sigh—senior attorneys do not answer the phone informally, since tha
t causes a disruption in the force—he checked that it was indeed four-thirty and again stole Phyllis’s thunder when he added, “Send the Townshends right in.”
It was both of them, holding hands, Maya looking so radiant and lovely that he might have passed her on the street and not recognized her. Her hair and her cheeks glowed. She’d lost the weight she’d gained on the jail food, as well as the cellblock pallor. Joel, for his part, wore a sense of comfort, a confidence, and an easy smile that Hardy hadn’t noticed before.
Not that there’d been much to smile about over the past six or seven months, but something in the couple’s body language toward each other spoke of a renewed connection, an ease, a true rapport. No longer rich, successful husband and subservient, stay-at-home wife, but true partners now. A lot to grab from a first impression, but Hardy decided to believe it was true.
The occasion—final payment for his legal services—could have been handled by a check in the mail, but they’d wanted to come down and deliver it in person, and he was grateful for the opportunity to see them again, in this setting, with their ordeal behind them. So he offered coffee and condolences about Harlen, both of which they accepted, and they made small talk, until they were all settled in the formal seating area closest to Hardy’s desk.
At which time Joel reached into his inside pocket and proffered an envelope embossed with his corporation’s logo.
“Feel free to open it now, if you’d like,” Maya said.
“That’s all right.” Hardy broke a small grin. “I trust it’s pretty close.”
“Maybe not.” Maya, with an impish smile of her own, made it sound like a dare.
So Hardy shrugged, opened the flap, pulled out the check, and looked up with some surprise. “This is, um . . . I don’t remember the last time I got tongue-tied.”
Hardy 13 - Plague of Secrets, A Page 38
