The Second Chair

by John Lescroart

  On the other hand, he didn’t want to send a no-confidence message to one of his bright young lights. He himself had carved his own niche in San Francisco’s legal world by being somewhat of a loose cannon, taking risks beyond those which, he knew, any responsible boss would have approved. He strongly believed in the advice of Admiral Nelson, “Always go right at ’em.” Ask permission later. That’s what victorious sea captains—and winners in general—always did.

  Didn’t they?

  Hardy gave his associate a last, ambiguous look that mingled worry and hope, and she responded with a quick bob of her head. “Don’t worry, sir. It’ll happen.”

  “I tell you what, Wu,” he said. “I’m sure hoping you’re right.”

  Hardy parked on Bryant Street across from the Hall of Justice. Traffic was light and curb space, so precious during the workday, was everywhere. Behind him, the sun was going down with a gaudy splash. The usual sunset gale had started up off the Bay and it whistled by the windows of his car, throwing pages of newspapers, candy wrappers, random grit and other debris through the long shadows in front of him.

  He checked his watch. Glitsky was ten minutes late.

  Hardy had paged him, their signal, before he’d left his office. He wasn’t thrilled at having to wait. It gave him too much time to think about what Wu had done. He pushed the knob in his dash, turned up the latest Fleetwood Mac, who’d somehow managed to lift themselves off the oldies heap and get back in the game again.

  Wu’s situation? It would play the way it played.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Glitsky opened the door and slid into the seat beside him.

  Lost in the music, Hardy hadn’t seen him leave the Hall or approach the car. Now he found himself mildly surprised by the sight of his friend in full uniform. In the nearly dozen years during which Glitsky had been the lieutenant in charge of the homicide detail, he hadn’t often worn his blues, preferring instead the more informal look of khaki slacks, usually a shirt and tie, and almost invariably a flight jacket, faux fur collar and all.

  Now Glitsky was the picture of proper police protocol. He wore the uniform, his shield and decorations, gunbelt and gun. He held his hat in his lap at the moment, and the rest of him and his gear seemed to take up more space than he had when he dressed more like a civilian. Hardy thought it interesting that even the face looked more at home and, ironically, less threatening, with the uniform under it. Law officers were supposed to look authoritative and tough, and Glitsky, with his hatchet nose, cropped graying hair and the distinctive scar that ran through both lips, looked like a working cop, not like a scary citizen.

  Now the working cop, fixing his seat belt, shot a look across the seat, saw Hardy’s eyes on him and said, “What?”

  Hardy turned the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, started rolling. “Just admiring the fancy figure you cut in your uniform. I can’t seem to get used to it. You catch the peanut thief?”

  “He wasn’t a thief. He just changed the drawers.”

  “Somebody goofing with you.”

  “Maybe,” Glitsky said, “knowing I’m such a big fan of practical jokes.”

  “You are? And to think that all this while I understood you favored the death penalty for practical jokes.”

  “I do.” Glitsky squirmed in his seat, getting himself arranged. “These seats are too small for normal people, you know that?”

  “Wouldn’t one have to have a nodding acquaintance with normal to make that statement? And if so, how could you?”

  Glitsky sat, not exactly squirming, but shifting in his seat. After a bit, he seemed to be probing with his right hand into the left side of his torso. He took in a big breath and released it, looking ahead, quiet, frowning.

  “You okay, Abe?”

  Glitsky sucked in a breath again, settled into his seat. In another minute, he sighed heavily. “My guts,” he said.

  They drove another block or two in silence. “Me, I keep waking up.” Hardy spoke without any preamble. “It’s not like I don’t go to sleep. After I drink myself into oblivion, I do, but then a couple of times every week I have these dreams, always different but always with the same theme, like somebody’s closing in on me and I’ve got to shoot them, but there’s no bullets in the gun, or the knife disintegrates in my hand, or the cage they’re in, the bars melt, and then they rush me and I wake up.”

  “I don’t dream at all,” Glitsky said. “But my guts hurt.”

  Another block and they hit a light. “You ever think about seeing somebody? Maybe talk about it?”

  “Nobody can talk about it.” His tone made it clear: this was Glitsky’s last word on the subject.

  The subject, of course, was the shoot-out.

  Since then, each of the four survivors were suffering, dealing in their own respective ways with the psychic toll of what they’d had to do. Gina Roake, who’d been engaged to Freeman when he died, spent most of her time exercising in martial arts or shooting at the range. Her earlier and lifelong passion for defense work had all but dissipated and she came into work only sporadically. She had completed a few hundred pages of a legal thriller that, she said, was going to expose the rottenness of the whole system.

  Hardy’s brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, previously a heavy but controlled social drinker, had descended into a deep fog of alcohol. He wasn’t yet drinking in the mornings, but Hardy hadn’t seen him close to sober in eight months. He’d gained thirty pounds. He hadn’t shaved or trimmed his beard and his hair hung down to his shoulders. He and Susan were having problems in their marriage.

  Hardy knew all about his own dreams, his problems with motivation, his feelings about the system he worked in, the cynical machinations he orchestrated nearly daily, the bibulous lunches, then dinners, then late nights. He figured his problems, too, would pass. In some ways the shaken foundations of his life seemed all of a piece with the world in general, the terrorism and war and madness that were now part of the daily fabric and that, for him at least, hadn’t existed since he’d been in Vietnam, and that since those long ago days, he’d naively allowed himself to believe would never exist again.

  And now Abe and his guts. “Nobody can talk about it,” Glitsky repeated.

  “I heard you the first time,” Hardy said. Then. “You worried somebody’s going to find out someday?”

  “You’re not?”

  “It crosses my mind from time to time.”

  “It’s eating me up from inside.” As though to prove it, Glitsky pushed again at his side. “Especially since my promotion.”

  They drove. Hardy said, “What does Treya say?”

  “Nothing.” Then: “I don’t talk about it. Nothing’s wrong. She doesn’t need to worry about it. I’ll get over it.” Glitsky stared out the side window while pushing his right hand into his guts, just above his gunbelt. “I don’t understand this,” he said. “When Bruce Willis shoots somebody, they roll the credits and everybody’s fine.”

  Hardy dropped Glitsky a few blocks beyond his own house, at the corner of Lake and Twenty-first. The deputy chief walked, counting ten houses up to the address. He stopped and noted the location of the garage to the side and a little behind the two-story, stand-alone stucco house. Then he continued on the sidewalk and turned up the polished riverstone path that bisected a neat lawn. Up three steps to an unlit brick and stucco porch, he stood on the landing and waited for a moment, listening. Through the glass at eye level in the door, he saw lights in the back of the house, some shadows dancing on the walls.

  He turned back and checked the street. Like Glitsky’s own block, it dead-ended at the southern edge of the Presidio. From what he had heard and read about the murder of Elizabeth Cary, it had been just about at this time of day, a week ago tomorrow. Still not exactly full night. Witnesses certainly could have seen something. Especially if they ran to a window, as someone must have after hearing the enormous boom of a .9mm handgun. But no one had reported seeing anyone.

  Glitsky pushed at the doorbell.
The sound echoed in the house and a dog barked.

  A dog? Glitsky hadn’t realized there was a dog, and didn’t know if it meant anything. Still, he wished he’d read it someplace, in one of the reports. For a moment, apprehension swept over him, the feeling that he wasn’t prepared enough for this interview, that he shouldn’t be here. His role in the gunfight last year had forfeited his right to be here, to be a cop at all.

  It was just like he felt every day, at his regular job—deputy chief of investigations. He didn’t deserve to be where he was.

  But then a figure was visible through the glass down the hallway. Glitsky put aside his own angst and stood straight, arranging his face to show sympathy. If the man he was about to interview was not a cold-blooded wife killer, then he was himself a victim who’d recently lost his life companion to violence.

  The door opened. “Yes?”

  Cary came as advertised—he looked at least sixty, was thirty or more pounds overweight and sported a thinning tonsure around a shiny dome of a head. He wore rimless bifocals, a white shirt and solid dark tie, loosened at the neck. Glitsky knew that the man had worked as the head accountant of a medium-sized engineering firm located in Embarcadero Two for the past seventeen years. From the look of him, he didn’t get out of the office much.

  “Mr. Cary? I’m Deputy Chief Glitsky. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time?”

  “Of course,” he said with a weary resignation. Then added, “Sorry,” for no apparent reason. He reached over, flicked a switch, and suddenly there was light in the living room and over the porch. “Come on in.”

  Glitsky stepped over into the house, followed Cary a few steps over to a couch, where they sat. The dog was a light brown, medium-sized mutt with a lot of Lab in him, and he gave Glitsky’s legs the once-over. “If you’re not okay with dogs, Ranger can go.”

  “Dogs are fine.” Glitsky gave him a little scratch behind his ears. Satisfied after a second or two, Ranger went over next to Cary and sat against the couch. His master began to pet him absently. Glitsky suddenly became aware of the smell of pizza just as Cary said, “We were having some dinner, but I wasn’t hungry anyway. Do you need to see the kids, too? They’re back in the kitchen.”

  “Maybe after a while. We’ll see.” Glitsky cleared his throat. “First, I wanted to say how sorry I am about your loss. You have my deepest sympathy.”

  Cary managed to nod.

  “Secondly, I know that we, the police, haven’t made much progress yet, but I wanted to assure you that we have no intention of letting up on the investigation. He is out there and we still have every hope of finding him.”

  “You’re assuming it was a man, then?”

  “No. I didn’t mean to give that impression. Is there some reason you think it might have been a woman?”

  Cary lifted his head and shook it. “No. I was just reacting to what you said. I have no idea in the world who it could have been.” He sighed, scratched at Ranger’s head. “I’m so tired of saying that, but it’s true. You had to know Elizabeth. She had no enemies. Really. I mean, nobody’s perfect, but she was a cheerful, sweet . . .” He stopped, blinked a couple of times, finally completed the thought: “A cheerful, sweet woman.”

  “We keep hearing that from all reports, sir. And Inspector Belou tells me that the two of you were getting along as well. No conflicts.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

  Cary shrugged, then sighed. There wasn’t a trace of defensiveness about him. “We were a team,” he said. “That’s how we always talked about one another. I don’t know what else I can say. We may have had an argument in the past year or so, but if we did, I don’t even remember what it was about. We were a team,” he repeated. “We just lived a normal life.”

  Glitsky’s original conception of this interview had been that he would start out slow and gradually grill the husband hard on his movements on the night of the murder, and maybe find a hole in the story he’d given to Inspectors Belou and Russell. But now, in the small room, seeing the man in such obvious, all-inclusive pain, he found himself unable to get warm to the idea that Cary was a killer. “I know the inspectors have gone over this with you, sir, but in the past few days, I wonder if something else might have occurred to you—some disagreement your wife might have had with, I don’t know, a neighbor, one of your relatives, somebody from your children’s school. Maybe even something from a long time ago that you didn’t remember in the first days of shock and grief? That you originally didn’t see as having any possible connection.”

  Cary looked down at his dog, stopped petting him and sat back on the couch. He took off his glasses, rubbed them on his pants leg, put them back on. “No,” he said, and shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, I’m sure.” But he went on. “This really isn’t possible, I don’t think, but Elizabeth does have . . . I mean she did . . . I mean he’s still alive.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “One of her brothers. She’s got three of them, but one of them, Ted, is crazy. He lives down south at Lake Elsinore. He didn’t make the funeral.”

  “And he’s, what? Institutionalized?”

  “No. He’s not clinically crazy, I don’t think. Just not completely right, you know what I mean?”

  “Why don’t you tell me.” Glitsky had a small notepad out. “Ted. Last name?”

  “Reed. R-E-E-D.”

  “Okay. And how is he crazy?”

  “I shouldn’t say crazy. That’s just how we always refer to him. He was born premature and always had lots of learning problems. His IQ’s probably about eighty-five. He’s sad more than anything, really. I haven’t seen him in, I don’t know, five years or more. But Elizabeth tried to stay in touch on his birthday and Christmas, like that. That’s the way she was, she wasn’t going to abandon her brother.” He sighed. “Anyway, I know she talked to him at Christmas because she made the kids say hi to their Uncle Ted.”

  “He yelled at us, too.”

  Glitsky looked up in surprise. Ranger ran over to the tall, gangly boy of about fourteen, hands in his pockets, who had appeared in the hallway. Cary stood up. “Scott . . .” He turned. “Inspector, this is my oldest, Scott. He’s sorry that he was eavesdropping. Scott, Inspector . . . I’m sorry.”

  “Glitsky.” On his feet, shaking the boy’s hand.

  A good solid grip. The boy even made eye contact. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  Cary raised his voice. “You other kids back there, too?”

  In a second, the two younger sisters were in the room. Both of them had been crying. Cary introduced them, too, Patricia and Carlene, then apologized to Glitsky again.

  He waved it off and looked at the son. “So you were saying, Scott, that your Uncle Ted yelled at you on this phone call?”

  “Yes, sir. I finally had to hang up on him.”

  “What was he yelling about?”

  Scott glanced at his father, got a nod and went ahead. “All the presents I got.”

  “What about them?”

  “Well, he asked what I’d got for Christmas and I started to tell him and go down the list, like, you know, and suddenly he’s all ‘Your mother’s got that kind of money?’ Really yelling at me. Like if Mom’s got all that money, she could send some to him instead of spoiling us . . .” He turned to his father. “You think it might have been him, Dad?”

  “No, I don’t know. I can’t imagine . . .” Cary to Glitsky now: “That’s just the way he is. He thinks because we have a little money, we . . . He just doesn’t understand. But he’s really harmless, I think. Just a little crazy.”

  “He’s a jerk,” the son said. “A total jerk.”

  Cary’s face relaxed into something like a smile for the first time. “I can’t really argue with that. Even Elizabeth thought he was a pain in the ass. And she liked everybody.”

  “And he didn’t come to the funeral?” Glitsky asked.

  “Thank God,” Scott said.

  “No,” Cary
answered. “Nobody could reach him.”

  “So he might not have been down at Lake Elsinore?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if the other brothers have reached him yet.”

  “I bet he did it, the son of a bitch.”

  “Scott! That’s enough. All right.” The rebuke’s tone wasn’t harsh, but it was firm, and effective. The boy still fumed, but in silence. Cary turned to Glitsky. “I’ve got an address and a phone number down there I can give you, but I’d be very surprised.”

  Glitsky shrugged. “You never know. It’s worth following up.”

  “I’ll go get it.”

  As Cary went out to the hallway, Glitsky faced the children. “Do any of you guys have any ideas of who might have wanted to hurt your mother?”

  The two young girls started crying again, quietly. Ranger started whimpering around them and Scott, repeating over again that he bet it was Uncle Ted, went over to join in the comforting. Glitsky’s own emotions began to roil, and incredibly moved, he had to look away for a moment.

  Then Cary was back with Ted’s numbers on a yellow Post-it. He absently handed it to Glitsky as he gathered his children around him, telling them to go back into the kitchen and finish dinner, then do the dishes and get going on their homework. He’d be in to help in a minute.

  When they’d gone, Glitsky said, “You’ve done well with them. They’re good kids.”

  “All Elizabeth,” he said. “I’m only here for decoration.” He sighed. “I notice the girls were crying again. Did something happen?”

  “I asked if they had any idea of anyone who might have wanted to hurt their mother.”

  Cary’s shoulders sagged. “That’s just it. No one could have wanted to hurt her.” He seemed to be searching for a way to express it more compellingly. “I mean, she couldn’t abide anything even remotely violent, so what reason could anyone have to do this to her? She refused to be in the same room with me when I watched Law & Order because she said it reminded her too much of a murder trial she had to sit on a long time ago before I even knew her. That’s how she was. So how could someone hurt a person like her? It makes no sense . . .”