The First Law dh-8

by John Lescroart

  Lanier smiled. "No trees there. No initials, either."

  "How can I put this, Marcel? That's because I wasn't there."

  Glitsky had crossed a leg and leaned back on the couch, his arm around his wife. It was close to eight o'clock, and the family, including grandfather, had finished dinner about twenty minutes before. Because Inspector Lanier had come by, Nat offered to baby-sit Rachel in her playpen while he did the dishes, and they could all hear him singing songs from Fiddler on the Roof to keep her entertained. Now Lanier sat across from them in the living room with a Diet Coke.

  Lanier made an apologetic face. "I've got to ask, Abe. Panos didn't actually say you were, he said he thought you might have been. Then when I found you hadn't been at work…"

  "Sure, of course, no offense. I'd ask the same thing." Glitsky came forward. "Look, I'm not making any secret of it, Marcel. Panos isn't a friend of mine. I told you about him when? A week ago? So you could warn Barry. Not that it did him any good."

  "But you weren't at work."

  "That's right. And I wasn't sick either. So where was I?"

  "Right. That's the question."

  "What time, more or less?"

  "Two-ish."

  Glitsky remembered right away. "I was at David Freeman's apartment with Gina Roake. You know Freeman?"

  "Sure."

  "Well, you may not have heard, but he died today, too. Around noon. Roake wanted to get some of Freeman's clothes picked out for the funeral and I thought she could use the company. She was a mess, Marcel. Anyway, Freeman had this one suit, but it had gotten ruined and she'd forgotten… anyway, long afternoon. Sorry, but she'll vouch for it. Unless Panos thinks she was there, too. Out at the pier, I mean."

  "Maybe she brought a howitzer," Treya added with scorn. "Was there any sign of a howitzer shell out there, Marcel?"

  "Easy," Glitsky said to his wife. "It's just the job."

  "I hate it," Treya said, and stood up abruptly. "Sorry, Marcel. I'm a little impatient lately." She went into the kitchen.

  "Roake will back me up, Marcel. I was there. If she's not at her office," Glitsky said, "R-O-A-K-E, try Freeman's. They'll know where to find her. Dismas Hardy probably will have her number, too."

  Lanier scribbled on his pad, let some air out. "Okay, one more, Abe, if you don't mind. If you were working with Hardy, how'd you get connected with Roake?"

  Glitsky sat back again, relaxed. "She came by to check with Freeman's office, which is where Hardy works. He and I were just about finished, and Roake needed some help at Freeman's. So I went with her. Good Samaritan."

  "And what were you doing at Hardy's in the first place?"

  "It's why I took the two days off. We were both trying to get somebody interested in investigating these same guys who got killed today."

  "Why?"

  "Because somebody had threatened us, and Hardy thought he knew who it was." The plan they'd all agreed upon-Hardy, Glitsky, McGuire, Roake-was to keep as close to the truth as possible during all the interrogations that were likely to follow. "So did I."

  "So who'd you try to get interested? Management and Control?" This was the department, formerly called Internal Affairs, that investigated police misconduct.

  "No. Let's just say Hardy went to some judges and I went to another law enforcement agency."

  "Outside the department? You're saying you went to the FBI?"

  "I went to another agency," Glitsky repeated. "It's moot anyway, Marcel. The point was I was doing some work at Hardy's office because it could have been embarrassing at the Hall." Glitsky held up his hands, palms out, all innocence. "Look, you know about Gerson calling me off Silverman right after I talked to you?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Well, I didn't stay all the way out." He leaned back again, matter of fact. "Sam Silverman's widow is a friend of mine. She had a question and asked me. I forwarded it on to Cuneo and Russell. Then Paul Thieu had a bit of a moral dilemma about some evidence and he came to me about it."

  "And you talked to him?"

  "Briefly."

  "You think any of this had to do with his death?"

  "I think it's possible. I don't think he killed himself."

  "Then who killed him?"

  "I don't know, Marcel. I wish I did know."

  Lanier grimaced. "An objective observer might say you were involved at this point, Abe."

  "I never said I wasn't. After my family got threatened, I got proactive. You would have, too."

  "All right. That's what Panos said today. You were trying to take these boys down. The same ones who got shot."

  "And I wanted to take out Barry Gerson, too?" Glitsky allowed a trace of asperity. "And I wanted to do all of this with the help of John Holiday, who was wanted for murder? Are you saying you believe I could have been part of that, Marcel?" He leaned back, softened his tone. "I was trying to find a way to do this kosher." He sighed. "All right. I might as well tell you. You know Bill Schuyler, FBI? Talk to him."

  "So what was Hardy doing?"

  "Hardy thought these guys were trying to frame Holiday. He was calling judges. You can ask around on that, too. Look, Marcel, I don't know what got Barry down there to the pier, or Holiday for that matter, but these guys are bad people. I'm not surprised they got themselves killed. But if you think I was there or had anything to do with it…" He let the words hang in the room.

  Marcel put down his empty glass and sighed heavily. "If you weren't there, you weren't there, Abe. I've just got to touch all the bases. Tell your wife I'm sorry I upset her, would you? And you, too."

  When Lanier got to the door, Glitsky held it for him, stopped him for a second. "So, Panos aside, Marcel, how many people are they saying were down there?"

  Lanier's eyes were drawn with fatigue. "CSFs saying at least six, maybe as many as ten. Lots of hardware, different calibers, but people might have been doubled up. At least one shotgun. Could have been seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array." He shrugged wearily. "You ask me, Abe, nobody's got a clue."

  "That was Norma," Hardy said, "from the office."

  Frannie was at the dining room table, studying. She looked up. "How is she?"

  "Okay, considering."

  She put the book down. "What?"

  "She just got a call from Lieutenant Lanier, homicide. One of the associates was working late and gave him her home number. He wanted to know where I'd been all afternoon. She'd never had anyone from the police call and ask her that before. She hoped it was okay with me that she just went ahead and told them without checking with me first. I told her sure, why not? She gave him Phyllis's number, too. Wanted to know what it was all about."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "That I had no idea."

  Frannie pushed her chair back, brushed a rogue hair from her forehead. She rested her hand over her heart. "And what did she tell him? Lanier."

  "That I'd been in my office."

  "The whole afternoon?"

  "Until a little after three. Working."

  Hardy had changed out of the Kevlar in the truck and asked McGuire, on his way to Ghirardelli Square and the Municipal Pier where he was going to ditch the guns and, if he could, the vests, to drop him back at Sutter Street. He had come in through the garage, up the inside elevator all the way to the third floor. In his office, he changed into the business suit he kept hanging in his closet. Then-it had been just three o'clock-he'd walked back by the staircase into the lobby, carrying his old clothes, hiking boots and all, in a laundry bag that he'd dropped at St. Vincent de Paul on the way home. In the lobby, he'd said hello to Phyllis and shared a moment of commiseration. After that, he looked in on Norma and said he wasn't able to concentrate at all after the news about David. He been trying for a couple of hours to do some simple admin stuff but he really couldn't work at all and was going home. Maybe she should do the same. Tomorrow they could start picking up the pieces if they could. She'd gotten up and hugged him again. He'd nearly passed out from the pain where the bu
llet had smashed into the vest, but she probably thought the tears were for Freeman. And in some sense, maybe they were.

  "She was positive. I was there all day. She hoped that was the right thing to say."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "That it was the truth. How could it be wrong?"

  Overtime was being had by all.

  At 10:30, Lanier was out at his desk in the detail. He might have just been named the provisional and nominal head of the unit, but he wasn't going into Gerson's office for a good long while, even if it got announced officially. Cuneo and Russell both wore hangdog looks as they sat there, and Lanier couldn't say he blamed them. Something about their investigations must have gotten seriously out of whack early on, and now in the wake of today's slaughter they both seemed lost and confused.

  Cuneo had it all going tonight, playing the whole invisible drum kit-snare and kick drum, riding the high hat, the occasional crash of cymbal. Lanier wondered what track he was using in his brain, because part of him obviously had no idea that any of this percussion was going on. "What I can't figure out is why Thieu would have even thought to look at Holiday's. I mean, what did he know that we didn't know?"

  "The question is, Dan, what do we know now?"

  "About what?"

  "About the fingerprints at Holiday's house, for example. What do they mean? Were these guys friends, or what?"

  "They played poker together at Silverman's," Cuneo said. "But otherwise, did they hang out together? No, I'd say not."

  "But they'd both been to Holiday's place."

  "I doubt it." Cuneo was upping the tempo. "No. I can't see that."

  "Wait a minute, Dan, wait a minute," Lanier said. "I wasn't asking if they'd been to Holiday's. We know they went there. The prints were there. The question is why."

  "Maybe they played poker there, too, once or twice."

  "But why, if they weren't friends?" Lanier focused on each of them in turn. "I don't know anything more than you do, okay? In fact, I know way less on these cases. I'm asking you both to think why these fingerprints might have been enough to get Paul killed, if somebody killed him. What they might mean."

  Blanks, until Cuneo suddenly stopped all his frenetic movement. It was like a vacuum in the room. When he first spoke, it was almost inaudible.

  "What's that, Dan?" Lanier asked.

  Cuneo looked up, let out a long sigh. "It means they did plant the evidence," he said. "It's like Mrs. Silverman thought… if they did plant…" He stopped again, stared across Lanier's desk.

  "If they did plant what, Dan?" Marcel said.

  "The evidence at Holiday's," Cuneo said. He gripped his temples and squeezed so that his ringers went white. "Man oh man oh man."

  Michelle sat in the big chair by her picture window that afforded no view of the black night outside. The reading light glared next to her and reflected the room back at her, her own pitiful image in the glass of the window. She'd cocooned herself into a comforter that offered little comfort, huddled into as small a position as she could get herself. Next to her on the light table there was an untouched glass of white wine and an envelope. In her hand, she held what had been the contents of the envelope, two pages of her own personal stationery-no letterhead, no border, just five-by-seven heavy rag, not quite white, bits of pulp throughout.

  She'd been sitting, empty now, unmoving, for the twenty minutes since she'd finished reading the letter for the second time, and now her eyes had cleared enough to read it yet again.

  Dear Michelle: (she read)

  As you know better than anyone, it's been my tendency to want to come across as the world's most easygoing guy. It keeps the expectations low, both mine for myself, and my friends' for me. I don't ever promise anything other than perhaps a good time in the here and now, and since I don't pretend to have any depth or seriousness, no one can be disappointed in me when I don't deliver, when I flake out, when I get drunk or loaded and do any one of the many stupid and embarrassing things that have cost me friends and self-esteem.

  When I think back on the time that I was married to Emma, especially the few months after we had Jolie, I sometimes wonder what happened to the person I was then. Where suddenly for that short time it was okay to feel like things mattered.

  Like everything mattered, in fact.

  It was strange, but I found I actually wanted Em and Jolie to have expectations for me, to want the best out of me. When before I'd always run from that, telling myself that I was just a clown, deep as a dinner plate. Maybe also, though, because I was afraid that if I tried to be more, I'd fail. It's a true fact that if you don't try, you can never fail. Foolproof.

  But a funny thing happened. I found out with my girls that the more I acknowledged how much I cared about them, the better my life became. I started trying all the time in a hundred different ways and stunned myself by succeeding. I was faithful, for example, and wanted to be. Suddenly I didn't need women on the side as a backup position if Em dumped me because I didn't deserve her. Or if she cheated on me. I just knew that wouldn't happen, ever. I believed in all of us, pathetic though that may sound. Some of my core bedrock had shifted and settled and now I could take down my guard and breathe. And enjoy.

  I don't know what it was about my hardwiring that had made me fear commitment so much before that, but gradually the life I was living with them became the only thing I really wanted. Me and Em and Jolie. The whole world.

  Which of course ended.

  And then what a massively gullible fool I'd been, huh? To believe in all that? To think it could last? Talk about pathetic. Talk about stupid.

  Well, none of that was ever going to happen to me again, ever. The goal was get a nice buzz, keep it going, risk your money and your job and everything else because then you really could fail completely. You could get to zero hope, rock bottom, which was pure freedom. And none of it mattered anyway, right? Take every single opportunity for physical pleasure and make sure it was purely physical, nothing more. Happiness was a moment and that was all it was. Any thought that a life could take on a shape and be fulfilling was out of the question.

  So why am I writing this now?

  Because something has shifted inside me again. Knowing you has changed me. Once and for all, I really feel as though I've laid those awful ghosts to rest. I don't know where you and I are going exactly, but I wanted you to know that suddenly I want you to have expectations of me; I want to find my best self, and be that person. I want to try and try and keep trying even if sometimes I do fail. It's all in the trying.

  Does this make any sense?

  Now, this afternoon, there's something else I've got to do. Another commitment, a matter of honor if that's not too overblown a word. It seems all of a piece, somehow. Expectations and responsibilities. And suddenly I'm okay with them. I even welcome them.

  If you're reading this, I didn't come back. This time, it's because I can't, not because I didn't try. But whatever happens to me, I want you to know that life is good and that I left this apartment today as happy and filled with hope for the future as I have ever been in my life.

  I love you with all my heart.

  Epilogue

  32

  In late November, a high-pressure front settled in off the coast, and the last three days set records for the cold, with highs in the low forties. Newscasters were saying that with the wind chill it was equivalent to the mid-twenties.

  Vincent Hardy was the first one up on the holiday morning. They'd used the living room fireplace the past few nights, and all he had to do was crumple up yesterday's Chronicle and blow on the embers to get a flame. By the time his father came downstairs at a little after eight, three oak logs crackled. Vincent sat Indian style on the floor four feet or so in front of the blaze, staring into it.

  His father, barefoot, wore jeans and an old gray sweatshirt. He had his coffee in a mug and put it on the floor when he sat down.

  "Good fire. Nice job."

  "Thanks."

  "Hap
py Thanksgiving."

  Silence.

  "The Beck sleeping?"

  "I think so."

  "On the floor in your room again?"

  "Yeah." Then, "It's okay. I don't mind."

  "No. I know. You're a good guy."

  Hardy picked up his mug, stared at the flames. Vincent moved over a few inches. Hardy put an arm around him, drew him in for a minute.

  "She's just afraid, you know. She keeps seeing that picture… ."

  "How about you?" Hardy asked.

  He felt his son's shoulders lift, then drop. "I don't think about it."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah."

  With a sharp crack, the fire spit, flared, settled. Hardy stole a sideways glance at his boy. His hands were clasped. He appeared mesmerized by the fire.

  " 'Cause if you do," Hardy finally said, "if you're worried about anything…"

  Vincent shuddered, then shook himself away, was suddenly on his feet. "I just don't think about it! Okay?"

  "Okay, Vin. Okay."

  His son looked down at him, eyes threatening to tear. He started to walk away, out of the room.

  Hardy stood, turning after him. "Hey, Vin! Wait. Don't go running away, please. It's okay. C'mere. It's all right." Vincent stopped and turned to him. "Come on back over here. Please. Give your old man a hug."

  The boy sighed deeply, eventually came forward. He was soon going to be fourteen years old. His dad still had a foot of height on him. When he got close enough, Hardy reached out and put an arm around his shoulders, quickly kissed the top of his head. "It's okay," he said, one last time.

  Then he let go of his son and walked out the door and over the frost on the lawn to get the morning paper.

  Dinner was the classic turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and brussels sprouts. Treya brought her famous marshmallow candied yams, green beans with almonds; Susan her spinach salad with mandarin oranges; Abe some macaroons for those who didn't like pumpkin pie. Even Nat chipped in with creamed onions, a surprise hit. They'd extended the table out with all its leaves so that it took up the whole dining room and half the living room and could accommodate fifteen people.