Guilt

by John Lescroart

  'Well, Chris Locke is going to ask, Abe, and I'd be a whole lot more comfortable if I had something to tell him.'

  'Amanda's got two possible theories.'

  'Which are?'

  'This thing with Sheila's drinking. We've heard some talk – both from neighbors and from some of Dooher's partners, that she got silly when she was out in public. She might have pushed it too far, become an embarrassment.'

  'I don't think so,' Drysdale said flatly.

  'The other one is money.'

  'Money is always good. What kind of money?'

  'A million six. Insurance.'

  'The wife had a million six? Now we're talking.'

  'Well, they both had it.'

  'The same amount on each other? Why?'

  'I gather when Dooher reorganized his firm a couple of years ago, things got pretty lean. They were living on their savings, deferring his salary, the whole thing. Dooher thought he'd turn it around eventually, and he did, but if he died halfway through, Sheila was pretty exposed, so they started to buy some term on him just in case, and then she evidently wanted to protect him if she died in the middle of it.'

  'So, bottom line, Dooher's getting it?'

  'Yep.'

  Drysdale stretched his neck, looked around the now near-empty bar. 'All right,' he said, slipping out of the booth. 'It could be tighter, but I think we've got enough. I'll tell Amanda that if we need it we're going to go with the insurance.'

  Drysdale waited until the end of the day. He was going to be reporting to Chris Locke anyway on a host of other matters, and while he didn't for a moment dream that he'd simply slip this one through, he thought he would package it to appear within the realm of normal business.

  Hah.

  'As you might imagine, Art, I've already gotten a call on this, warning me to expect just such a moment. The Archbishop is not going to be pleased. He is convinced there is some kind of vendetta going on against Dooher.'

  'I don't think so, Chris. I think he killed his wife for a million six in insurance money.'

  'And why did he kill Trang? Jesus Christ, Art, people don't just become homicidal maniacs one morning out of the blue for no reason at all.'

  Drysdale was suddenly happy – in the midst of this reaming – that he'd earlier decided not to mention as part of his argument the Chas Brown story. Instead, he stuck to the question at hand. 'He killed Trang because Trang pissed him off – hey, I'm not saying it's the best reason I've ever heard – but it worked. He got away with that so he got cocky, decided he could do the same with his wife and collect big time.'

  'Why does he want to collect big time? Does he need the money? Is his business failing?'

  Since Drysdale knew that, if anything, the contrary was true, he thought it would be wiser to shift gears, get on to the evidence. The point is, this time we've got witnesses, we got fingerprints on the murder weapon. We have one good citizen who saw Dooher's car near his house when he said he was at the driving range. Chris, we've got a case. We've got a righteous Murder One.'

  But Locke was still frowning, his head swinging slowly back and forth, side to side. 'And Glitsky's the investigator again? How'd he get on this?'

  'I don't know, Chris, but he's-'

  'He's got a damn conflict of interest, if you ask my opinion. Even if he's not out to get this guy, for whatever reason, it looks like he is, which is just as bad.' Locke didn't want to add, although they both understood, that Glitsky, who for statistical purposes within the bureaucracy was considered black, was someone Locke couldn't afford politically to alienate or even, to a great degree, to criticize. As a show of solidarity, Locke had even attended Flo's funeral a few weeks before.

  'Well, I'm afraid that's water under the bridge now, Chris. Glitsky's the Inspector of record.'

  Locke stood still for a moment, then swore and slammed his hand down on his desk. He walked over to the windows and stood staring out, his hands clasped behind his back. Without turning, he spoke conversationally. 'I really, really don't want to charge anybody, much less an influential lawyer, with a murder he didn't commit.'

  'No, sir. Neither do I.'

  Now Locke did turn. 'What do you think, Art?'

  Commitment time. Drysdale spoke right up. 'I think Glitsky's right, though it may be a bitch to prove.'

  'You don't think there's anything to him being out to get Dooher, planting evidence, anything like that? Or his wife's death has-'

  But Drysdale was emphatic. 'Not a chance.'

  Back out to the window. 'All right, I'm going to give you my decision and you're not going to like it, but here it is. We go for the indictment on killing his wife, but not on Victor Trang. From what you say, we're not going to prove Trang.'

  'Well, sir, there is the consistent M.O., with wiping the blade…'

  'Forget it. It's not going to happen. So we go with one count, Murder One, no specials.' This meant special circumstances murder-killing a police officer, multiple murders, murder for profit, and other especially heinous crimes.

  'But we've got specials at least two ways.'

  'No.' Locke was emphatic. 'I am supporting my staff on the one charge that it has any chance of proving. But personally, I must tell you, Art, I am not convinced. It smells funny to me, but I can't not charge it, can I?'

  'I don't think so, no.'

  'All right. Then go get the indictment, but I want you to ride this case like white on rice – it starts to go sideways, I want to know about it yesterday, all right?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'And one other thing. I want you to ask for a quarter million dollars' bail.'

  'What?' Drysdale was stunned. This was unheard of. Murder suspects did not get out on bail, or if they did, it was for millions. A quarter million dollars' bail meant that Mark Dooher could put up his ten percent bond on one of his credit cards and be out of jail before he was in. In effect, he would never be arrested.

  'You heard me, Art. This particular man is innocent until he's proven guilty, and I want him treated innocent. Do you understand?'

  'But this bail, sir. The precedent alone…'

  'This is an unprecedented case. If Amanda Jenkins wants it and you think it's a winner, I'll go along because I respect you, Art. But we'll do it my way. And that's the end of it.'

  'But-'

  He held up a warning hand. 'No buts! That's the end of it!'

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Glitsky liked this woman. The appointment was scheduled for his home at 7:30 and that was the exact moment she rang the doorbell. Glitsky generally believed that cleanliness was next to godliness, but punctuality was next. Rita was starting off on the right foot.

  He'd been surprised, at first, by her nationality, since he'd expected Rita Schultz to be somehow vaguely Germanic. But she was a hefty and healthy-looking Hispanic woman. Her great-grandfather, she explained, had come over to Mexico with the Emperor Maximilian's troops, then stayed. She was thirty-three years old and her English was accented but at least as grammatical as most of what Glitsky heard on television.

  She had been working for six years for the same couple – the references were glowing. The couple were having their third child, and the woman had decided that she was going to take an extended leave from her job in advertising and stay home with her new baby and the other two, so they wouldn't need a nanny anymore. But it did mean that Rita could not start for Glitsky until after the baby was born. It was due any day.

  He thought that for Rita Schultz it would be worth the wait.

  The light had faded long ago and Christina was sitting alone in her office at McCabe & Roth. The room was small, stark and utilitarian, with a desk, a computer terminal, a bookshelf, a gun-metal legal file. With her door open, she could look out across the open reception area and catch a glimpse of the Oakland Bay Bridge, but she had no windows of her own. The walls in her office had been bare when she'd moved in, but she'd tacked up a couple of posters to lessen the claustrophobic feel. On her desk she had a picture of
her parents smiling at her from the pool deck in Ojai.

  She heard a noise somewhere on the floor and glanced up from the brief she was writing. Seeing her parents in the picture, smiling and carefree in the bright sunlight, she felt a pang and looked at her watch.

  9:35.

  What the hell was she doing with her life?

  She stretched and stood, thinking she'd go see what other lunatic was burning the oil the way she was. At her door, she paused – it was Mark's office, the light on now. He hadn't been back into work yet. She crossed the reception area.

  The sense of disappointment when it wasn't Mark brought her up short.

  She hadn't really been consciously aware that she was waiting to see him, wanting to see him again. She'd been biding her time until he could face coming back into work, and then, thinking it must be him in his office this late at night, her heart had quickened.

  But it wasn't him. Another man was standing by the wraparound windows, looking out at the mezmerizing view. She knocked on the open door. 'Wes?'

  Farrell turned, smiled weakly. She couldn't help but notice how drawn and tired he seemed.' C 'est moi. I thought everybody would have gone home by now.'

  She took a step into the room. 'Can I help you?'

  'I don't think so.' He held up a key by way of explanation. 'Mark asked if I'd stop by on my way home and pick up his in-box. He must be thinking about coming back to work.' Wes moved over to Dooher's desk, picked up his briefcase and opened it. 'What are you still doing here?'

  Christina shrugged. 'Brownie points, I guess. I wanted to finish my brief by the morning. How is Mark doing?'

  Farrell raised his eyes. 'He's lying pretty low. I haven't seen him since the funeral. We've done some phone.' He finished stowing Dooher's papers in his briefcase, snapped shut the lid. 'He'll be all right, Christina. He's pretty tough.'

  'I don't know if tough helps at a time like this.'

  'Well,' he smiled ruefully, 'it doesn't hurt.' Lifting the briefcase, he came around the desk, over next to Christina. He gestured her out, turned off the lights in Dooher's office, closed the door and locked it.

  'Wes, are you worried?'

  'About what?'

  'Mark. The police. Sam said-'

  He turned to her and his shoulders sagged. 'I don't want to talk about Sam. And I don't know what's going on with the police, to tell you the truth. I don't think Mark does either. So far they've left him alone. Maybe that's a good sign.'

  'You don't sound very confident.'

  'I don't think I am.'

  'But if he wasn't there…'

  'I know. But if you're predisposed to see something, you'd be amazed how often you'll see it. I think the police got stuck on the Trang murder and suddenly Mark went from being an upstanding businessman to potential suspect. And once you're a potential suspect, well, you know this. It's a lot easier to accuse somebody a second time.'

  'But not if he wasn't even there!'

  'Maybe. But all they've got to do is have somebody at the driving range say they couldn't swear he stayed there all night, and then they walk around the neighborhood asking everybody if they saw Mark Dooher or somebody who looked like him, or his car, or a car that looked like his car. And somebody will have seen something, or thought they did, and that's all they'll need.

  'Even Sam… no. I've got to get going.'

  He started toward the elevator.

  'What about Sam? Wes!'

  He made it another couple of steps before the spring gave out and he stopped.

  'What happened with Sam?'

  He turned around. 'Actually, Sam is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.'

  After he hired Rita and she left, Glitsky was back in his kitchen, rattling around, when his beeper went off. He called the number and learned that Paul Thieu was still working, had beeped him from a pay phone not ten blocks away.

  Glitsky had sent him out on what appeared to be another wild-goose chase, and for the second time in two days Thieu had discovered something. Glitsky gave him his home address and told him to come on up.

  No sooner had he opened the door when Thieu enthused: 'Dr Peter Harris. I realized going over to his place that I couldn't ask – he wouldn't know -about any missing surgical gloves, they're not any kind of a controlled item. But the blood, he's sure of. He even thinks he knows precisely whose blood it was, though we'll never be able to prove it.'

  'And why is that, Paul?'

  'Because the man is dead and cremated. He's gone.'

  It had been Glitsky's idea to question Dooher's physician to see whether any vials of blood had gone missing in the past month or so. He reasoned that Dooher had to have gotten it somewhere, and his own doctor's office seemed the most likely spot. So he'd told Thieu that the place to start would be Sheila's female doctor, whom they already knew. It might not be much of a stretch to suppose that the family physician – Mark's doctor – would be somewhere on Sheila's documentation or records.

  'Did you have to mention Dooher?' The police were keeping the EDTA angle out of the news for the time being, so it would be better if no names were used.

  Thieu's face, already animated, lit up ever further. 'No. He didn't even ask. I showed him my ID and told him we were talking to a lot of doctors, doing a kind of informal survey on how often blood got lost from their offices or labs.'

  'You made this up?'

  'Yeah. I told him that with our new DNA tracking and all, we were seeing more and more criminals contaminating crime scenes with – we thought -stolen blood, to throw us off. So we were trying to track the sources of it.'

  'And he bought this?'

  Thieu broke a grin. 'I have an honest face. Anyway, he said it almost never happens, especially since AIDS. Blood is a high-security item. But it turns out his lab did lose this one vial last month. The doc was really upset because the patient was an old guy with bad veins who pitched a fit over having his blood taken at all, and then they had to do it again.'

  'And he is Mark's doctor, Harris?'

  'I couldn't help but notice Dooher's name in the Rolodex on his receptionist's desk. So unless it's a coincidence…'

  Glitsky still hadn't closed the door or invited Thieu in, but neither of them seemed to notice. 'Okay, let's get a subpoena tomorrow for Harris's records and find out the last time Dooher saw him.'

  'Do we need to do that? If we're letting the cat out of the bag about the EDTA, why don't I just call him back and ask him? If you want to invite me in?'

  In ten minutes they knew. Dooher had gone for his yearly physical a couple of weeks ago. Dr Harris would doublecheck on the exact date in the morning, and also when the blood was reported missing. But he thought the two dates were in the same general time span.

  Wes Farrell delivered Dooher's in-box and his friend asked if he'd like to come in and talk about things. Now, in the turreted library, Wes crossed one leg over the other, sinking back into the soft leather. 'I've got to ask you, Mark. I've been wrestling with it all day. Sam and I broke up over it, and I'd kind of like that to have not been for nothing.'

  'You two broke up over whether or not I slept with somebody in college?'

  'Not slept with, Mark. Raped.'

  'I don't believe this.' He began pacing, fingers to his temples. 'What's next? Where are they digging this up? What did Sam say the woman's name was?'

  'Price, I think.'

  He stopped pacing and took a breath. 'I have never heard of anybody named Price. I never dated anybody named Price. I swear on Sheila's grave. And PS, old buddy, I've never raped anybody either. It's not my style. Jesus Christ. Sam believes I did this? Where did this Price woman come from?'

  'I don't know. She walked into the Center and said you'd raped her.'

  'When, exactly, did I rape her?'

  'In college sometime. You were out drinking and she brought you back to her room -I don't know.'

  Suddenly Dooher snapped his fingers. 'Diane? Lord, Diane Taylor. Of course, of course.'

 
'You do know her?'

  'No, I'm not sure.' An ottoman was handy and Dooher sat heavily on it. 'I don't know any Diane Price, Wes, but I did go out a couple of times with a Diane Taylor. If it's Diane Taylor… let's hope it's not Diane Taylor.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because Diane Taylor is an unbalanced person, Wes. She's done every drug in America twenty times over. She slept with every single other guy I knew at Stanford.'

  'Including you?'

  'Including me, before I even met Sheila. And with her full consent, I assure you.' He moved the ottoman forward, lowered his voice. 'Wes, you know more than anybody. The couple of times I screwed up on Sheila, didn't I come crying to you? But this wasn't a screw up. This – if it was Diane Taylor – was getting laid a couple of times before I developed any taste in women. Jesus, she's now saying I raped her!

  'Evidently. And ruined her life in the bargain.'

  Dooher hung his head and shook it. Raising his eyes, he met his friend's gaze. 'It's just a black lie, Wes. I don't know what I can tell you. I didn't do anything like that. I wouldn't.'

  'I know,' Farrell said. 'I didn't think so, but I had to ask, all right?'

  A long, frustrated sigh. 'Okay. But this gets old, especially at this particular juncture in my life, you know what I'm saying? I'm not having my best week.'

  'No. I'd imagine not. Me, neither, actually.'

  Dooher's voice softened. 'I'm sorry about your girlfriend. I feel if it hadn't been for me…'

  'No, it's not you, Mark. It was her. It was me.'

  'So go back and tell her you're sorry. Leave me out of it. I can get another lawyer whose life I won't ruin.'

  'You're not ruining my life, and I am your lawyer.'

  'Just so you're sure.'

  'I'm sure. I'm sure you didn't do any of this.'

  'That's good to hear, because I didn't.'

  'Well, then, here's to the old-fashioned idea of friends standing by each other. And to hell with the rest of 'em.'

  'Amen to that,' Dooher said, 'and thank you.'

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE