“That’s a pretty wide-open question. The good news from our perspective is that I’ve got nothing on Hal. The bad news is that I’m pretty much the same with anyone else. Hardy and I were talking about evidence this morning, and it’s a barren landscape out there.”
“So what are you working on?”
“You want the truth, Dev, I’m down to the dregs. There’s a rumor that Katie had an affair a couple of years ago. Had you heard about that?”
“That’s what her brother said. He mentioned it to my guys.”
“Did he know who it was with?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t pursue it as any kind of lead. It didn’t connect much to Hal that we know of. Plus, this was, as you say, two years ago. You think it’s really got something to do with now?”
“I don’t have any idea. All I know is it’s an unanswered question. Otherwise, all I’ve got is Patti Orosco, and she just doesn’t sing for me.”
“Maybe that’s because Hal did it.”
“Well, either him,” Glitsky said, “or somebody else.”
38
IT WAS A small thing, but Glitsky now understood from Juhle’s information that Katie’s brother was apparently the only person besides Frannie Hardy who might know something about Katie’s affair. And though Juhle was likely correct that pursuing the identity of Katie’s former lover would prove to be a dead end, it was the sole option that presented itself.
Glitsky called the number Hardy’s office had provided, identified himself ambiguously as an investigator, and midway through Wednesday afternoon, found himself sitting across from Daniel Dunne in the man’s impressive office.
Katie’s brother got right down to it. “Why do you look familiar to me?”
“I was at your sister’s funeral.”
“Hal’s side.”
“Of the church, yes. I’m still investigating her murder.”
“That’s what you said on the phone. Even though you’ve arrested him? I don’t have any doubt, I’ll tell you that.”
Because he did not want to identify himself as a police officer, Glitsky kept his response general. “It would be helpful if there were more physical evidence. Being a lawyer, you probably know that a grand jury has a lower standard of proof than a trial jury. They can indict, but before the court can convict, more will be needed. You told the other inspectors that Hal and Katie were having problems with their relationship. I wondered if you could enlarge on that a bit.”
“You mean Patti Orosco?”
“Not so much,” Glitsky said. “She and Hal both say that he’d broken up with her.”
“Well, what’s he going to say? Of course they’re not going to admit anything. But you notice she was at the funeral? They’re still together, you watch. They’re just biding their time.”
Glitsky wasn’t going to fight him. He said, “Nevertheless, one of the things you mentioned to the other inspectors was that your sister also had an affair.”
Daniel’s brow clouded. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might be able to tell me. If Hal found out, especially recently, it might have played a role in driving him to do what he did. Did your sister tell you anything about that, maybe mentioning it to Hal?”
“No. I don’t see her doing that.”
“All right. Do you know who this person was? Her lover.”
“I don’t see why that would matter. But no, I don’t.”
“It would matter because anyone who had been intimate with your sister might still have a connection with her. For the trial, it would be better if we knew all the players so we don’t get surprised. Katie never mentioned who it was?”
“I don’t think so. Actually, I’m sure she never did. But you know, I don’t see what this is going to get you, Inspector. Honestly. She made a mistake. She felt awful about it and put it behind her. Whoever it was—her lover, I mean—I have a hard time seeing him coming back into the picture after all this time so he could kill her. Does that make any sense to you at all? Really?”
39
BUNDLED UP AGAINST the wind and the chill off the bay, Burt Cushing and Adam Foster walked along the Embarcadero, where there was no chance of being bugged. Foster was the taller of the two by at least six inches, but in their body language, there was no question who was in command—Burt Cushing—and he was shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. “No,” he said. “No no no.”
“I don’t see what alternative we have, sir.”
“There are always alternatives, especially in light of the heat we’ve attracted over the past few weeks. We can’t afford any more attention at the jail until some of this has blown over. The deniability just won’t be there.”
“So what do we do about Luther Jones?”
“Frankly, I’m more worried about Hal Chase.”
Adam Foster waved that off. “I talked to him last night. He’s a good soldier.”
“He may be, but he’s not under fire yet.”
“Hal’s not going to talk.”
“Hal already did talk, didn’t he? To Katie.”
“Katie’s not saying much, either, is she? But Luther is. Or will. Unless we step in.”
Cushing walked on a few steps. “It can’t be at the jail, Adam. That’s what I’m saying. The jail is off-limits.”
“All right. It doesn’t have to be at the jail. There are other alternatives. I’m asking for some direction here, sir. Luther Jones called this woman. Something is going to happen, and soon, if we don’t stop it.”
“I’m worried about Wes Farrell. I hear from our people over there that he’s starting to feel like he’s got to do something.”
“Farrell’s a clown,” Foster said.
“He may be,” Cushing agreed, “but I hear that, for whatever reason, he’s gotten behind this thing—Luther and this woman. We got too much connection to the jail, and the plain fact is now we’re on the radar. Which means even a clown like Farrell can’t ignore it anymore.”
“So what do you propose we do? We’ve got to do something. And sooner rather than later.”
“I hear you, Adam. Do you think I don’t understand that? What I’m saying, my main point, is that whatever it is, it can’t get back to anything at the jail.”
“All right,” Foster said evenly, checking his temper. “You know there’s never been a problem getting it done, whatever it is, wherever it is. Just tell me how you want it to happen, and that’s what will go down.”
“I know that.” Cushing put a hand on Foster’s sleeve. “I’m not doubting you. And I think I’m beginning to see a way something could work.”
Foster gave him a solemn nod. “Just give me the word.”
Cushing nodded back. “All right,” he said. “Bear with me here for a minute, but this is how I see it . . .”
• • •
ON THEIR WAY back from dinner at Farallon on date night, a Wednesday-evening tradition over the better part of their marriage, Dismas and Frannie turned in to a cul-de-sac north of Lake, and Frannie said, “I don’t believe it. There’s never a spot this close.”
Hardy pulled into the parking space that yawned open directly in front of the Glitskys’ duplex. “The power of positive thinking,” he said. “I imagined a spot right here, and lo.”
She gave him a look. “Lo yourself.”
They were expected. Glitsky had called while they were eating, and when Hardy had called back as they’d left the restaurant, it turned out that Abe wanted to run a few things by Frannie as well as Diz.
“. . . so I thought it made sense to ask you, too, Fran.” Glitsky had pulled a kitchen chair into the adjoining living room and now straddled it backward. “Did she ever give you a name, a description, anything on this guy?”
Frannie sat next to Dismas on the love seat. In the past
few months, Treya had taken up knitting—knitting?—and she sat on her rocking chair across the room, her needles clicking away, though she didn’t appear to be paying attention to them.
“She barely admitted the basic fact of it,” Frannie said. “She couldn’t believe she’d done something so out of character.”
Hardy canted forward slightly. “Not that I don’t appreciate your dedication, Abe, but even if you find out who this guy is, so what?”
“I know. That’s the song I’ve been hearing all day. Daniel Dunne asked me the same thing. Devin Juhle, too.”
Hardy’s eyebrows went up. “You talked to Devin Juhle?”
“Sure. We’re old pals, after all. He called me.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know what we knew. So I told him. Nothing. No, correct that. I told him about the affair, but it wasn’t news to him. He’d already heard it from Daniel Dunne.”
“How did Daniel get it?” Frannie asked.
“Katie told him. Evidently, they were close.” Glitsky shrugged. “He didn’t know who it was, either.”
“Not to break into another chorus of the same old song, but say you find out who it was, then what?” Hardy asked.
“Then I go talk to him, at least. The lover. See what he’s been up to lately. Maybe he’ll want to talk about Katie and tell us something we don’t know. Maybe it’s somewhat suspicious that he’s heard about her death and hasn’t come forward.”
Hardy nodded appreciatively. “I like the way you’re starting to think. Defense mode.”
Glitsky shrugged. “I’m just still assuming it’s not Hal. On your very clear instructions. And if it’s not Hal, the real killer is out there, and that’s who I’m trying to find. If I wind up helping with Hal’s defense, that’s incidental.”
Hardy held up a palm. “No, really,” he said. “I’m convinced.”
Treya stopped moving the needles and looked up. “So, the guy, if he’s married or prominent, and Katie was thinking about exposing him to Hal, as Frannie says . . .”
“That’s a motive,” Glitsky said.
“Everybody’s got a motive,” Hardy replied. “We need somebody with a gun.”
“Yeah, but there’s something about this guy, or the affair,” Glitsky persisted. “Something that’s nagging at me, that didn’t fit.”
“Such as?” Frannie asked.
“If I knew that”—Glitsky gave her a tepid smile—“then I’d know what it was.”
“Maybe something on her computer?” Frannie suggested.
“Nothing I recognized,” Glitsky said. “Mostly pictures of kids and other moms and her sisters and their kids. I’m pretty sure our timing was off on that, anyway.”
“Timing on what?” Hardy asked.
Glitsky told him about Frannie’s theory that Katie had started coming to counseling somewhere near the time that the affair had begun, about three months after the birth of the couple’s first child. Glitsky had reached the opinion that the affair must have begun much later.
“Why do you say that?” Hardy asked.
“Because while I was there, I also checked their phone records, and three months after Ellen was born, Katie was talking to Hal on the phone ten times a day.”
Frannie sat back into the love seat, her face a bit scrunched up in confusion. “When was this?” she asked. “These calls to Hal.”
Glitsky pondered a moment. “Early 2010. January, February, somewhere in there. When she started seeing you.”
“And she was talking to Hal ten times a day?”
“Unless she knew somebody else at the jail.”
“I don’t know about that,” Frannie said. “But I’d be shocked to hear that she was talking to Hal. That was one of the main reasons she started seeing me. She and Hal couldn’t communicate. She felt guilty and worthless all the time; he was mad and frustrated about Ellen and money. They’d pretty much given up trying.”
“Maybe that was later, too,” Glitsky said. “All I know is that in January and February—you can check it out—she was calling him at the jail every hour.”
“Or”—Treya came out with it first—“she was calling her lover at the jail.”
40
MARIA T. SOLIS-MARTINEZ already loved her new job. She also knew that even though she was hardworking, diligent, and smart, she was extremely lucky to have it, simply because in today’s world, professional jobs with good pay and pension plans were incredibly hard to come by.
For a Hispanic single woman, she felt, this was especially true. It wasn’t just the men’s network that permeated the workforce. In her everyday life, even working out of her apartment in the Mission District, she always made it a point to dress professionally when she went out, and she was not unaware of the nasty looks and derogatory comments she got from her own people, both legal and undocumented. Not to all, but to far too many of them, she was a sellout, a traitor, even a snob. When, really, all she wanted to do was live a normal American life someday—own a nice apartment (or even a house!), get married to a good man, have children, and pursue a career that rewarded her brains and satisfied her ambitions.
Given all that and the fact that she was now on track, she felt she had to work harder than everybody else, put in longer hours, keep her nose clean, and it would all come about. She had worked hard as a cop in L.A. and would work hard as a DA investigator. It was a good life, and now that she’d managed to come to the attention of the district attorney himself, she was positioned for the next step in her steady advancement, whatever that would be.
Frank Dobbins had given her some paperwork jobs that she could do on her computer at home while she waited for Luther Jones’s phone call on the special assignment. She was currently working four cases: a murder case from six years ago, reopened due to new DNA evidence; the mysterious disappearance of $248,000 over the past two years from the city attorney’s general fund; a fraudulent environmental reporting claim against a large commercial construction company supposedly clearing a site by Candlestick Park for a proposed development project; and Luther Jones. Tomorrow morning, she was going to bring in Luther and hit a home run in her first big-league at bat.
Career aside, she loved where she lived. Even though she’d put in twelve hours of work today, by the time she shut down her computer at close to nine o’clock, her heart lifted as she walked out her front door into the fragrant evening. The afternoon wind had abated to a fitful breeze, and the smells—coffee, salt water, rotting flowers, gasoline—made her feel alive, part of something important and even beautiful.
It didn’t take her five minutes to get to Hog & Rocks, a great restaurant two blocks down the street from her home. She lucked into a seat at the bar and ordered one of their signature Manhattans and then chose, from the “ham and oysters” menu, six Hog Island Sweetwaters and some outrageously great Iberian ham.
A handsome thirtysomething hipster in a plaid jacket hit on her a little bit. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and she contemplated the possibilities for a few minutes. After all, it wasn’t every day that she ran across a straight guy in San Francisco who evinced interest in her, but—a plaid coat, really?—she politely steered the conversation around to her (nonexistent) boyfriend, whom she’d be leaving to meet any minute.
Another Manhattan later, she paid her bill and picked her way out through the milling indoor crowd. On the sidewalk at the front door, the last knot of diners awaited their turn. This was, she thought, why you lived in the city. Ten o’clock, and life still buzzing all around you. The place wouldn’t shut down until well after midnight, and though she wasn’t in the mood to take advantage of the nightlife now, it was wonderful to know that it was there almost anytime the mood struck.
Two blocks up, she stopped to fish out her keys at the door that opened into her apartment’s lobby. She’d just gotten them out of her purse when a guy who
must have been walking behind her came to a stop a couple of steps back.
“Maria?”
The breeze had faded away, and the night had become still. There was plenty of light from the lobby and the streetlamps. She could hear salsa music from another bar a block back and around the corner, where she’d passed a group of partiers. Even with her police training and a well-tuned awareness of the specific dangers for a woman walking alone at night, she was relaxed after the Manhattans and lulled by the nearby foot traffic. It never occurred to her to be afraid.
She turned around.
The second good-looking guy of the night. Maybe, she thought, she should take the hint and see where it went. She smiled at him. “Yes? Do I know you?”
Too late, she saw his hand start up. She may have registered the flash of metal reflecting some of the ambient light for the half second it took for the gun to be in her face.
She never heard the shot.
41
IN THE ATTORNEY’S visiting room at the jail, Hal Chase slid down in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. It was a few minutes after nine A.M. He was, of course, in his orange jumpsuit. He hadn’t shaved yet, and his stubble was dark. His hair looked like he’d combed it with a towel. Having slept poorly, he squinted at Hardy through bloodshot eyes. His voice was phlegmy and weary, not much more than a whisper. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“I’m asking if you and Katie talked a lot when you were at work.”
“When?”
“Any time.”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“I’m collecting information,” Hardy said. “Let’s go with that for now.”
“I don’t know what you mean by a lot. Once or twice a day? Lunchtime?”
“More than that.”
Hal closed his eyes. Hardy saw his chest rise and fall. When he opened them, he said, “No.”
“There wasn’t a period of time when you had to talk a lot? Maybe right after you had your first child?”
Hal shook his head. “We’re not encouraged to take or make private calls at work. To get to a phone, you have to come off the tier. If it’s incoming, a deputy has to get you and cover your station while you’re on the phone. If it’s outgoing, you’ve got to find a deputy. Either way, it’s a major disturbance. I might have called her, or she might have called me, a couple of times with emergencies, or what seemed like emergencies. Ellen once swallowed a good part of a bottle of Tylenol. Katie called me then, and I met her at the hospital.”
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