The First Law dh-8

by John Lescroart

  The little speech didn't seem to help much, but Cuneo got the feeling that nothing would. Mrs. Silverman sighed deeply. "I just wanted to make sure that the wrong man didn't suffer for what Sam's killer had done."

  "I wouldn't worry about that. We've got the right man. The money proves that without any question, wouldn't you say?"

  "I suppose."

  Unambiguous as it was to Cuneo, somehow Mrs. Silverman seemed doubtful. "You don't seem too convinced."

  "No, I… it's just that I had a thought that it might have been-what's the word?-planted there."

  "Planted? By who?"

  "Someone who could have gotten into the shop."

  "Which brings us back to the key, doesn't it?" he asked gently.

  "Yes, I suppose it does. But then I think Wade Panos and his people might still have one, really are more likely to have one than this man Holiday, don't you think? From when they patrolled for us?"

  Cuneo, suddenly, was all attention and focus. On the drive out, he had tried to dredge up from his memory all he could recall of Mrs. Silverman. Her name had stuck with him, and not just because she was a victim's spouse. He finally had remembered the name from Gerson's story about Abe Glitsky. Now when he heard the name Panos again, the connection came back to him. Glitsky's earlier use of Mrs. Silverman as a wedge to get back into homicide. Glitsky helping out some lawyers in their lawsuit against Panos. Beyond that, John Holiday out beating the streets for witnesses and plaintiffs in that same lawsuit.

  Holiday and Glitsky. And by extension the lawyer, too. Hardy, the guy Blanca had told them about yesterday. All of them, co-conspirators.

  And now Glitsky hitting a new low, using this grieving old woman to float the idea that the ring had been "planted," a word she hardly knew. Cuneo smiled and kept his tone as pleasant as he could. "Mrs. Silverman," he said, "I wouldn't torture myself with all these dark imaginings, if I were you. Are you still talking to Lieutenant Glitsky about this case?"

  "Just last night," she said. "His father, Nat, was Sam's best friend. I called him when I remembered about the ring. He told me to get in touch with you."

  I'll bet he did, Cuneo thought. After he'd coached you about your testimony. But to her, he simply nodded. "Well, that was smart of him. But if you ask him, he'll tell you the same thing. We're so used to TV and movies nowadays, we sometimes feel there's always got to be some unlikely twist, like somebody planting evidence. In the real world, most things are just what they look like." He came forward in his chair, lowered his voice to a near whisper. "If it eases your mind at all, whenever and however he got the ring, John Holiday probably wasn't the one who shot your husband. But he was there, doing the robbery, getting his poker money back, when Clint Terry lost his head and panicked and shot Sam. All the evidence supports that, ma'am. That's what we've got."

  Pumped up with adrenaline, Cuneo walked up the dark driveway to the refurbished garage that Liz rented just off Silver Avenue. Around at the side door, he saw candlelight flickering on the walls through the window. He knocked once, lightly, and a bulb came on over the door. "Who is it?"

  "Liz. It's Dan Cuneo."

  "Dan who?"

  But then another light came on in the window and the door opened. She stood there smiling at him. Barefoot, she wore a green terry cloth bathrobe. Her hair wasn't yet completely dry and framed her pretty face in a black halo of curls. She had a glass of wine in her hand. He became aware of the thump of a jazzy bass line, caught a heady whiff of a musky perfume and, unmistakably, marijuana. "Did you get to arrest him?" she asked.

  An hour later, Cuneo was as relaxed as he could ever remember feeling.

  The bed was a mattress on the floor and he lay naked flat on his back upon it, one arm thrown back over his head, the other around the shoulders of his new lover. The music she'd had on when he got there had ended and now the apartment was silent. More incredibly to him, his own head was silent. Liz had pulled up the blanket and now lay pressed up against him, her left hand resting flat against his belly, her leg thrown over both of his. The candle cast the room in an amber glow.

  "So somebody ought to tell Wade and Roy to watch out," he said. "These guys are serious. I mean, Glitsky's up there in the department. He's also tight with Clarence Jackman, the District Attorney. His wife, get this, is even Jackman's personal secretary."

  "And they're all in this together?"

  "My boss didn't know how high up it went. He didn't want to think it went to Jackman, but it might. But there's no doubt a conspiracy here."

  "Trying to frame Wade?"

  "That's what it looks like. Glitsky had this poor old lady prepped like you couldn't believe. Didn't Wade still have a key to Sam's place? I doubt she even knew what she was saying, but Glitsky sure as hell knew what he was feeding her."

  Liz came up on an elbow and the blanket slipped down to reveal the arc of her breast. "I haven't heard Glitsky's name before around this. Although I know Dismas Hardy, of course, and David Freeman. They've been out to get us for most of the past year now. I don't know why. Wade's the nicest man. Secretary's Day last year he took me to Masa's. It must have cost him three hundred dollars. And flowers every day that week."

  "You don't have to sell me. He basically did my job for me on this one."

  "You're being modest."

  "I don't know about that. But I do know Wade had better be careful. This Glitsky is a very serious man. Wade's got to be clear on that."

  "I'll sit him down and make him listen. Except what can he do, really? That's the problem with being a good guy. You can't stop anybody until they do something to you first."

  "So maybe somebody will do something."

  "To Wade? I don't want that, either."

  "No. I mean stop Glitsky. The DA or somebody might step in."

  "I can't believe he's with the police and he's so bad."

  "I know," Cuneo said. "It's a problem."

  21

  Motor running and heat on, Paul Thieu's car was parked across the street from Glitsky's duplex on Monday morning. When he and Treya came down their steps at a little after 7:30, Thieu turned off the engine, opened the door, and got out. Glitsky stopped, said something to his wife, and left her on the sidewalk while he crossed over.

  "You could have come up and knocked, Paul," he said. "We would have let you in."

  Thieu said, "I thought it would be better if we didn't talk at the Hall."

  Thieu wasn't yet thirty-five years old, and Glitsky suddenly realized that except for Marcel Lanier, he was now the oldest inspector in homicide. He recalled when he'd pulled Thieu out of Missing Persons six years ago to translate as he'd interviewed the Vietnamese mother of another murder victim. Then, as now, the face had been grave-if the man had a flaw, he was too serious. This morning, he exuded gravity.

  "I was going to be driving in with Treya," Glitsky said.

  "I could take you, drop you off a block down."

  It wasn't really a request. Glitsky had years and rank on Thieu, but neither played much of a role in their connection. Thieu's brains commanded respect, and Glitsky simply nodded, then walked over to Treya to give her the news.

  She didn't exactly embrace it. "Unless I'm mistaken," she said, "Paul's still in homicide." Then, "You didn't sneak out and call him, did you?"

  He tried a feeble joke. "Maybe it's about his overtime."

  "Maybe it's about Sam Silverman."

  Last night, Nat had called with a recap of the interview Sadie had had with Cuneo. Not that the inspector's theory was any less defensible than Glitsky's. Certainly it was possible that Holiday had reentered the store with a key and then stolen the ring on another day. But at the very least, Glitsky thought Cuneo should have been open to the possibility that someone-not necessarily Panos but necessarily Silverman's killers-had planted the ring at Holiday's. It made him wonder. Somehow homicide and Panos kept seeing facts-even ambiguous or incriminating facts-in the same light.

  When he'd been in homicide, he'd never had t
hat experience with the Patrol Special.

  It still wasn't his job, but with the attack on Hardy, it was at least his business. Treya, even, had come to agree with that.

  She kissed him good-bye and said she'd be around if he wanted to have lunch. He watched her walking away for a few steps, then put his hands in his flight jacket pockets and crossed the street.

  "I've been wrestling with guilt," Thieu began after they were rolling.

  "Who's winning?"

  "I guess the guilt. I'm here." He threw a quick look across the seat at his old boss. "You know anything about this double in the 'Loin?" Wills and Terry.

  Glitsky chuckled. "Treya just called it."

  "What?"

  "Silverman."

  Thieu took that in, nodding as though it confirmed something he'd been thinking. "I didn't draw Silverman. It wasn't ever my case. You know Cuneo and Russell?"

  "Not personally."

  Thieu shrugged. "Well, they got Silverman. Few nights later, I pull this kid Creed, who was the main witness for Silverman."

  "I heard," Glitsky said.

  "You know about this?"

  "Some." He looked over, qualified it. "What I read in the papers."

  Stopped at a red light, Thieu tried to find a clue in Glitsky's expression. Apparently, there wasn't one. "All right, I'll cut to the chase. Creed and these two poor schmucks in the 'Loin, suddenly they're connected because Creed had ID'd them for Silverman. Then a gun's at their place, ballistics confirms it killed both Silverman and Creed, everybody's happy, right?"

  "I know I am," Glitsky said.

  "Except there's a third guy Creed named."

  "John Holiday."

  The trace of a smile lifted Thieu's mouth. "But you're not following the case."

  Glitsky shook his head, straight-faced. "Hardly at all."

  "Then maybe you wouldn't know they pulled a warrant for him."

  "I did hear something about that."

  "Okay, here's where the guilt comes in. None of these are my cases. Gerson yanked two of them out from under me after I'd already worked the scenes."

  "Let me guess," Glitsky said. "You're conflicted about telling them they screwed up."

  Another red light had stopped them. Thieu turned to his mentor. "Worse. I want them to screw up."

  Glitsky sat with it a minute. "What'd they miss?" he asked.

  It wasn't a long laundry list, but it was compelling enough. Thieu told Glitsky that when it had become obvious that Holiday, by default, was going to become the prime suspect in all the murders, Thieu had gone by the place he worked and, to his own satisfaction, verified that he had a reasonably good and, more importantly, verifiable alibi for the time of his bartender's-Terry's-death. Thieu had questioned dozens of killers and witnesses in his six years in homicide, and was all but positive that if the arrest warrant hadn't been hustled through so quickly, Holiday would have supplied the names of his customers who would have eliminated him as a suspect at least in the deaths of Wills and Terry.

  Beyond that, Thieu said, it flew in the face of reason that this grotesque and sexually tinged double murder had been a result of thieves falling out among themselves. There was also too much of Silverman's money lying around-if it was about the robbery, Holiday would have known it was there somewhere and at least searched for it. Then taken it.

  In Thieu's opinion, and he'd given it a lot of thought, only two scenarios worked here. One was Faro's: this was a pickup gone bad. The other was his own: that whoever killed these guys was some kind of psycho who enjoyed it all right, but whose true motive was to implicate the only suspect left alive, Holiday. Who, unfortunately for the actual bad guys, had an alibi. The whole thing screamed overkill. It was far too neat a package. The dope, the money, the gun, the shoes.

  "Oh, and while we're on the shoes." Thieu had been talking for five minutes and now suddenly paused for a breath. "You read about the gunk? All well and good. Nice Italian shoes, size thirteen. But guess what? Terry wore a thirteen, all right, but the Italian thirteen is at least a half size smaller than our thirteen. No way he wears those shoes. They weren't his. Especially when every other pair in the closet was crappy. Six pairs of sneakers, some Birkenstocks, flip-flops, one lace-up wingtip. Anybody who looked would see which pair didn't belong there."

  "But they didn't look. And you didn't tell them."

  "Another source of my guilt. I figured if they're going to be on the case, they can work it. So the closet's got all these junk shoes, and then this Italian braided beauty with the gunk on it, and half a size too small." Thieu shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense. You want my opinion, somebody knew what we'd be looking for and planted this stuff."

  Glitsky kept his face impassive. "Funny you should use that word," he said, and gave Thieu the gist of Sadie Silverman's testimony, Cuneo's interpretation.

  After Thieu heard it out, he sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "I've got to tell the lieutenant about these clowns, Abe. I've got to. Except then…" He didn't have to say it. Cops didn't fink on other cops. Gerson might appreciate the news, but Thieu would forever be tainted in some way, out of the club more than he already was by virtue of his race, brains, physical size. "It'd be sweeter if Gerson found it out by himself."

  It wouldn't only be sweeter, Glitsky knew, but it would save the good Inspector Thieu from the sure-to-be-thorny explanation of why he hadn't told Cuneo and Russell everything that he'd discovered and theorized instead of leaving them to find out for themselves. Thieu felt guilty about it, and Glitsky empathized with where he was coming from. But the fact was that he should have felt guilty. He hadn't done the right thing.

  They pulled up to the curb a couple of blocks before they reached the Hall. Glitsky had his hand on the door handle, but paused a last second. "Look, Paul. I happen to know Holiday's lawyer. He'd be motivated to verify some of those alibi names. Maybe he could talk one of them into volunteering to come in. Tell his story."

  "You know," Thieu said, "it's not that I care about this John Holiday. I sure as hell don't want to help his defense if it needs it. But I don't believe he did Wills and Terry." He wiped his eyes as though banishing the image. "I screwed up, too, didn't I?"

  "It's a big club, Paul. Welcome to it. At least you feel bad about it."

  "Maybe not bad enough to tell Gerson."

  "Well, the plain fact is that he done you wrong, too." He opened the door, got out, and leaned back in. "Give it a day or two. I'll call Holiday's lawyer. Make something happen."

  Holiday's lawyer felt a hundred years old. The bruise on his back had blossomed into a dinnerplate-size black-and-blue mark that woke him up whenever he shifted in bed over the entire weekend. The whole left hand continued to throb.

  Glitsky called. On and on about Sadie, Cuneo, Holiday, the planted or not-planted ring. And of course, the client never got in touch.

  Sunday night he'd taken a Vicodin left over from somewhere, then drunk two scotches with his brother-in-law before dinner. Two bottles of red wine with Moses after. Up too late, near midnight, Moses at his most passionate and most drunk, pressing for retaliation against Panos and his people now Before they could strike at Hardy again. Hardy halfway-more than halfway-into it. Really, really pissed off. Embarrassingly so, he supposed. Foolishly. Frannie supervising the kids' homework far in the back of the house where maybe it wouldn't sound so awful. Susan finally packing Moses up and driving him home.

  Both women angry with their men. Frustrated, exhausted, afraid.

  Out of bed, badly hung over-dying-at 5:30, and no chance of going back to sleep, not with the back, the head, the hand. For the first time in months, he couldn't even be bothered with the newspaper. Out of the house before anyone else was up, he stopped at St. Francis to check on David, who perhaps on his deathbed looked just like Hardy felt. An hour in the office produced a cup of coffee and fourteen minutes of disjointed dictation. He was never going to drink alcohol again.

  Getting nothing done, he went ba
ck down to his car, which was parked under the building. Paranoid, he knelt and looked under the chassis, not really knowing what he was looking for. Moses's warnings kept replaying in his brain-the brother-in-law had not been mellow at all about Hardy getting shot at. He got into the driver's seat, stopped himself, then pulled the lever to open the hood, got all the way out and around the front again, and lifted it. "Motor," he said aloud. Disgusted with himself.

  At the Hall of Justice, Hector Blanca was busy; he'd be a while. Hardy waited in the outer office while time passed. A half hour. Forty-five minutes. He asked at the desk again, was told that it might still be a few minutes.

  An hour.

  The secretary finally suggested he come back another time. Sergeant Blanca really wasn't going to be able to spare any time this morning. "Well, I wonder if you'll be able to help me, then." He heard himself, the clipped and impatient tone guaranteed in any bureaucracy to produce glassy-eyed, unfeeling incomprehension, if not outright hostility. He reined himself in, fooling no one, however. "Listen. Someone shot at me last Friday-shot at me!-and I was hoping to find out if Sergeant Blanca or anybody else had made any progress finding out who it might have been."

  The secretary shook his head. "Did you make out a report? Well then, as soon as we have something, the sergeant will let you know."

  He walked back down a long hallway to the main lobby, where the day had now progressed enough to where the familiar vulgar din reigned, maybe even louder than usual. The traffic court line stretched from the ticket window, out past the elevator banks, over to the coffee kiosk, where he waited in another line to place his order. A baby was crying up front while, closer to him, a couple of five-year-olds chased each other, screaming. In the entrance to the courtroom hallway, a man in a frock and collar was lecturing a group of fifteen or twenty people in Spanish. A shaggy young man, barefoot, fell into line behind him and hit him up for some spare change. Reaching into his pockets, he found some coins and dropped them into the man's dirty, outstretched hand.