The Keeper

by John Lescroart

  “I do. Of course I do.”

  That same parody of a smile. “Otherwise”—Foster stood up, prompting Hal to do the same—“you need anything up here, we’re going to take care of you. You’re one of us, Hal, and we’re not going to forget, so long as you don’t forget, either. And that’s not likely, is it?”

  “No. Not gonna happen.”

  The smile brightened. Foster punched Hal’s shoulder. “We good?”

  “Good.”

  Foster took a last look around the cell, lowered his voice. “Anything, just let somebody know, and we’ll make it happen. You hear me?”

  “Loud and clear, Adam. Loud and clear.”

  36

  DISMAS HARDY SWUNG by Glitsky’s on the way to work. Catching Abe in an apron over his nice slacks and shirt, Hardy followed him around to the kitchen and said, “I know people who would pay good money to see you this way. It’s fetching.”

  “I’m making spaghetti sauce. You wear an apron or you get all splattered with tomato. Speaking of which, you want to stand back. Garlic pops, too.” Glitsky stirred at the stove.

  “Smells like fish,” Hardy said.

  “Anchovies. Secret ingredient. Garlic, onions, a can of anchovies with its oil. Can’t miss.”

  “A whole can?”

  “Sometimes two. You can’t use too much. It disappears when you cook it.”

  “Where to?”

  “Where to what?”

  “Where to does it disappear?”

  “I don’t know. It just goes away. Take a look. No sign of it already.”

  Hardy leaned over and looked into the pot. “Wow,” he said. “Magic.”

  Glitsky agreed. “It is. Even more magical is that there’s no fish taste in the sauce.”

  “How does that work?”

  “No one knows. It just turns into something else.”

  “Transmogrifies,” Hardy said.

  “That’s what I meant to say, transmogrifies. Transmogrifying anchovies. Dave Barry would say that’s a good name for a rock band.”

  Hardy shook his head. “Too many syllables. I don’t think there’s ever been an eight-syllable band name. Although come to think of it, the Fabulous Thunderbirds has seven.”

  “I never heard of them.”

  “They were real. Maybe still are. I don’t know. The Trailer Park Troubadours. Nope, that’s still seven.”

  “Are they real, too?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How come I never heard of them, either?”

  “Because unlike your best friend, you don’t have your finger on the pulse of musical culture. Hey, how about Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Reeves and Taylor?” Hardy counted on his fingers. “That’s ten syllables!”

  “Hallelujah!” Glitsky said with modulated enthusiasm. “A new record.” He finished cutting up an onion and scooped it up and into the pot, gave everything another stir. “Except who are Reeves and Taylor?”

  “They were in the band. Second album.”

  “How do you know this stuff?”

  “I remember everything,” Hardy said. “It’s a curse. Like too good a sense of smell, which Frannie has. She can smell a dead mouse behind the trash compactor from fifty feet. Anchovies even if they’ve transmogrified. Also if I’ve had onions for lunch.”

  “Curses abound,” Glitsky said. “Maybe we should talk about the curse of not killing your wife and people thinking you did.”

  “We will, but finish your sauce first. Do you have anything in this kitchen as retro as coffee and something to brew it in?”

  • • •

  HARDY SIPPED AND put the cup down on the coffee table. He had his yellow legal pad on his lap. “What I’ve been trying to get some traction on is this whole question of evidence. I know the grand jury can and often does indict a ham sandwich, but the evidence is so light here that I can barely see where they’re coming from.”

  “They’re coming from motive.”

  “Motive is good,” Hardy said. “But it’s not evidence.”

  Glitsky persisted. “True, but there’s a lot of motive. A surfeit, as you might say.”

  “Even a surfeit should not suffice. And that,” Hardy went on, “is why I want to talk to you about the things we do have that we can talk about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, for example, the murder weapon.”

  “We don’t have the murder weapon.”

  “Okay, but what do we know about it?”

  “Caliber. Thirty-eight.”

  “Anything else?”

  Glitsky considered a moment. “Revolver.”

  “Does that do anything for you?”

  “Not much. Though it can’t be the same as Hal’s duty weapon, which is a forty automatic. And there’s no record he’s ever had another gun.”

  Both men knew that although California law required everyone purchasing a gun to fill out paperwork regardless of whether it was bought from a dealer or a private party, that hadn’t always been the case. There were thousands of handguns for which there was a record of the first purchaser from a dealer, but the weapon had changed hands between private individuals up to a dozen times since the original purchase and was, in effect, untraceable.

  “So the theory,” Hardy said, “must be that he got the murder weapon a long time ago from a private party or he bought it on the street.”

  “So what?”

  Hardy shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know, goddammit.” He reached for his coffee.

  “Strout says the shooter might have been shorter than Mr. Chase.”

  Hardy swallowed. “What?”

  “With all the caveats you’d expect. But I think he really believes it.”

  Hardy chewed on that. “Maybe I can build a whole defense on negative evidence,” he said. “Hal was too tall. Missing Persons didn’t check him for GSR.” Gunshot residue. “Granted, they wouldn’t have had any reason at the time, but the fact is, they didn’t. And if Hal made up his alibi, wouldn’t he have come up with a stronger one? Plus, why would he admit to his affair with Patti? Could he have been so stupid as to buy all this life insurance and think he could get away with murder?” He looked across at Glitsky. “Anything on Katie’s affair?”

  “Nothing. She was nothing if not discreet.” Glitsky ran down the lack of results from yesterday’s search. “If anything,” he concluded, “from the phone records, anyway, I came away feeling they were connected at the hip—Hal and Katie. They were talking seven, eight, ten times a day after their daughter was born. A couple of first-time parents working it out together.”

  Hardy cogitated, hand to his chin. “Okay,” he said. “Back to evidence. You find anything reasonable on anybody else? How about Patti?”

  Glitsky shrugged. “Possible motive, of course, but here we go again. On the other hand, she probably knew pretty close to exactly what time Hal was leaving for the airport. She walks in and startles Katie, who cuts herself. Or maybe, even though she’s looking at a gun, there’s a tussle, and Katie gets nicked with her knife. Doesn’t matter. Patti walks her outside—”

  “And two blocks uphill in the dark?”

  “Puts her in her trunk,” Glitsky said, “at gunpoint. Drives her to the spot.”

  Hardy’s eyes lit up briefly. “There you go. What kind of car does she have? Could you finagle a way to have her open her trunk? Katie’s hand might still have been bleeding.”

  “I could try. But if you want to talk long shots . . .”

  “That’s where we’re at, Abe. At this point, I’d take anything. How tall is Patti?”

  Glitsky shrugged. “Normal, I’d say. Five-five, five-six. You see her and you’re not thinking how tall she is.”

  “I barely got a look at the funeral,” Hardy said. “I need to spend more time with thi
s woman.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” Glitsky replied. “She is some kind of distracting, let me tell you. The other problem, from our perspective, is that she’s about it as far as active alternative suspects are concerned. And if she actually did do it all by herself, we’re looking at close to the perfect crime. Plus . . .”

  “What?”

  “I hate to say it, but she’s got to know that if she kills Katie to get Hal all to herself, there’s the little flaw that in all probability, Hal’s going to be the prime suspect and find himself where he is now, in jail, going to trial. And maybe never getting out. So what’s that get her?”

  “Maybe she thought he’d have an alibi, or that his alibi would hold up.”

  “Wouldn’t you think, if she was contemplating murder, she would have made sure? This is also the reason I don’t believe they were in it together. They would have at the very least alibied each other, don’t you think?”

  “Unless it was just her and she wasn’t doing it to get him back as her lover, but to punish him for dumping her.” Hardy tipped up his coffee cup. “As always, we’re back to no evidence.”

  “That ought to be good news for your client.”

  “That’s the theory. Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel like that.”

  37

  ABBY AND JAMORRIS, with an indicted and arrested suspect, had been doing some grunt police work, interviewing Hal’s neighbors. They had all been interviewed before by Missing Persons, but this time the two inspectors had a different agenda. They were focused on narrowing down the time Hal had left to go to the airport on that Wednesday night. If they could expand that window and prove that he’d had more time to commit the murder, it would be all to the good.

  But their strategy backfired. Ray and Jeannette Rice, a middle-aged couple who lived three houses downhill from the Chases, had been taking a walk around the block on the night before Thanksgiving. They not only saw Hal exit his front door sometime very close to seven-thirty to go to his car parked in the driveway, they wished him a happy Thanksgiving, and he wished them the same. No, he hadn’t been in any particular hurry. No, he hadn’t seemed upset, had in fact volunteered that he was off to the airport to pick up his brother. He invited them to come by the next day for a cocktail.

  Lieutenant Devin Juhle, head of Homicide, sitting behind the desk in his office, frowned. “The truth may set you free, but first it will make you miserable. Hal never mentioned this to Missing Persons?”

  “It’s not in the record if he did,” JaMorris replied.

  “And Hal never brought it up on his own?” Juhle asked. “He should have, since it helps him.”

  “Other things on his mind,” Abby said.

  Juhle sat back in his chair. “Naturally, you taped your interview with these Rices? They’re sure it was close to seven-thirty?”

  JaMorris said, “It would be better if he’d left around six or even before, but given that his kids had to be asleep first, we always figured that what Chase told us about when he left was close enough to the truth.”

  “He leaves the house at seven-thirty, and then what?” Juhle asked.

  Abby took it up. “Drives around the block once or twice, pulls back into his driveway. Plenty of time.”

  Juhle chewed at his cheek.

  “That’s always been pretty much the timetable,” JaMorris said. “It doesn’t really hurt us.”

  “I’m not so much concerned about the time,” Juhle replied, “although it’s a bit of an issue. I’m worried about Mr. Chase wishing them a happy Thanksgiving and inviting them over for drinks if he’s already got this plot to kill his wife in motion.”

  “He’s a con man,” Abby said. “Scott Peterson all over again.”

  Juhle still didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything he could do. “Well,” he said. “Get it typed up and run it by me when you get the transcript. I’ll see how bad the damage is. Meanwhile, anything new on Glitsky?”

  Abby nodded. “He was at the funeral on Monday, went over to Chase’s afterward.”

  “What’s he doing in this?”

  Abby and JaMorris exchanged a glance, and Abby said, “He’s working for Chase. Looking for the other dude.” This unknown and unnamed person, they all knew, was the linchpin of the oft-favored SODDI defense: “Some other dude did it.” Quite frequently, that other dude didn’t exist, but juries could still be persuaded that he did.

  “Is he impeding your investigation?”

  “No,” JaMorris said. “There isn’t any other dude.”

  “Good point. But he’s going to try to muddy the waters, isn’t he?”

  Abby said, “Dismas Hardy will, that’s for sure.”

  “Abe’s a good cop,” Juhle said, “and I just hate to see him over on the dark side. Maybe I ought to give him a call.”

  JaMorris looked at Abby. She looked back at her partner. “Couldn’t hurt,” they said in unison.

  • • •

  MARIA T. SOLIS-MARTINEZ GOT the call from Luther Jones at around six o’clock. She contemplated having him pulled out of the jail immediately for the follow-up interview. She had already made plans, just in case, to have him housed in the Santa Clara county jail under an assumed name as soon as he decided to cooperate. It was clear from her phone conversation that Luther was coming on board and, as they had hoped, claimed to have even more information than he had let on initially.

  They would need to get his new statement on tape and be ready to follow up immediately on anything he gave them. But her main job was to get him safely out of the jail and into some kind of living situation where he could remain anonymous and protected. So it was a matter of logistics, getting Luther sprung more or less surreptitiously from the jail and settled into his new home. She didn’t want to go near him again until she had her own guys ready to get him down to Santa Clara and be sure that Santa Clara would take him once they arrived.

  Maria was a little uncomfortable with the delay. She knew that jail phone calls were taped, and Luther hadn’t been entirely discreet on the phone. In the end, it was more important that the move go smoothly. A few hours’ delay seemed inevitable, but she could live with it.

  What she didn’t know was that, within twenty minutes of the call, Chief Deputy Adam Foster was fully aware that Luther Jones had made a connection with somebody in law enforcement, probably in the DA’s office. With one call to his contact at the phone company, he quickly got the name and billing address to the number that Luther had called. He didn’t know how much this woman knew in addition to what was in the phone call, but even that was too much.

  • • •

  AS THE LIEUTENANT who coordinated the efforts of the Homicide detail, Devin Juhle knew that your most important task was to protect your people. You backed them up in their investigations. Where possible, you eliminated obstacles, whether political, administrative, or personal. You also tried to keep them from error, which Juhle felt he had done in the Chase matter by counseling Abby and JaMorris to proceed methodically, in light of the dearth of physical evidence against Hal. Though Juhle thought Hal Chase probably had killed Katie, he wasn’t inclined to pressure his troops to make an arrest with insufficient evidence if the political climate became such that the grand jury could get involved and issue an indictment first, which is what had happened.

  In terms of Gliksky’s friendship with Dismas Hardy and his involvement in the Hal Chase matter, Juhle had more respect and empathy for him than he let on to his inspectors, which was why he had tolerated his presence up to this point. After all, both men had “San Francisco Police Person of the Year” on their résumés. Beyond that, Glitsky had been shot in the line of duty, so by Juhle’s reckoning, he automatically deserved—and got—all the slack Juhle could conjure up. There was also the simple fact that Glitsky, as the lieutenant when Juhle was an inspector, had several times walked a very fine line about
Juhle’s own informal partnership (and friendship) with another mostly defense guy, Wyatt Hunt, a private investigator.

  To the objective eye, Juhle might have seemed more than once to be working at cross-purposes with regard to his duties as a Homicide inspector. His arguments to Glitsky had always been that he was just trying to get to the truth of things, that Hunt had convinced him to look for alternatives to the man or woman they had arrested. He was making sure that the Homicide detail got it right so they wouldn’t be embarrassed.

  Now it looked like Glitsky was doing essentially the same thing. And it was Juhle’s job—protecting his people—to sound out his old boss on his direction and his progress. He’d put it off long enough. He got the number out of his Rolodex, then pulled the phone on his desk over in front of him. Lifting the receiver, he paused for a second or two, then punched in the numbers.

  “Glitsky.”

  “Abe, it’s Devin Juhle.”

  A dry chuckle. “I was wondering when you were going to call. How are you?”

  “Fine. We’ve got Hal Chase in jail, as you know. You mind if I ask you what you’re doing around that?”

  “Trying to find out who killed Katie.”

  “Not Hal, huh?”

  “No. I don’t think so. But listen, I’ll be easy to convince otherwise if you’ve got some evidence I’m not aware of.”

  “I hear you’re working with Hardy. He’ll have everything the DA’s got as soon as he asks for it.”

  “Well, that’s the DA.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m assuming Abby and Jambo are still looking.”

  “They’re in the field, yes. Talking to people. Tightening up the case.”

  A pause. “From where I’m sitting, Dev, it needs considerable tightening.”

  “No comment. As you know, the grand jury made that call. Do you know anything I don’t that you want to talk about?”

  “You called me, Dev. If I had something that freed Hal, you’d know about it already.”

  “Anything else?”