Guilt

by John Lescroart

  'Shut up, O.J.,' Jacob said. 'He's doing what he's got to do, that's all. He's a cop. It's not the same.'

  'What's not, Jake?'

  'The rules.'

  Nat didn't like hearing that. 'Your dad's not breaking any rules, Jake. He's got the same rules as everybody else.'

  Isaac snorted. 'You read the newspaper, Grandpa? You watch any television?'

  'Yeah, I've seen it.'

  'Well?'

  'Well, what?'

  'Well, what do you think?'

  'I think this man Dooher killed his wife and he's got a smart attorney. Your dad arrested him because he thought he did that. You know he didn't take any blood from the hospital.'

  Isaac looked down, unconvinced. Jacob spoke up. 'It doesn't really matter, Grandpa. Everybody thinks he did.'

  'Not everybody,' Nat said. 'I don't. You boys shouldn't. Anybody starts telling that stuff to you, you tell them they're full of baloney.'

  'But why do they keep saying it?' O.J. wanted to know.

  'Because people don't know your father. And people do know, or they like to believe, that there are cops out there who do bad things, who cheat and lie and plant evidence so they'll win their cases. But that's not your father. You guys gotta believe in your old man. He's going through a hard time right now, just like you all are. You got to help him get through it.'

  But Isaac was shaking his head, disagreeing. 'Why? He doesn't help us with anything. He's gone in the morning, gone at nights, gone on the weekends. Work work work, and he dumps us off on Rita. He just doesn't want to be with us. It's obvious. We remind him of Mom.'

  'If he did,' Jake added, 'he'd be here.'

  O.J. was having a hard time holding back tears. 'I just wish Mom would come back. Then we wouldn't even need Dad. Then it would be all right.'

  Nat reached out a hand and put it over his youngest grandson's. 'You do need your dad, O.J. Your Mom really isn't coming back.'

  'I know,' he said. 'Everybody always says that.' His voice was breaking. 'I just wish she would, though.'

  'I don't think we do need Dad, Grandpa,' Isaac said. 'I mean, look right here. Where's Dad now? Who cares? We're taking care of each other. Quit crying, O.J.'

  'I'm not crying.'

  'Leave him alone, Isaac.' Jacob pushed at his older brother. 'He can cry if he wants to.'

  'I'm not crying, you guys!'

  'Shh! Shh! It's okay.' Nat smiled at the customers around them who were looking over at the disturbance. 'Let's try to keep restaurant voices, all right? Oh, and look, here comes your dad now.'

  Eleven o'clock, Glitsky's kitchen.

  'Abraham, they need you.'

  'Everybody needs me, Dad. I'm sick to death of people needing me. I don't have anything to give them.'

  'Just some time. That's all they need. Some of your time.'

  'I don't have any time. Don't you understand that? Every minute of my days and nights…'

  'But this is your own blood. You signed on for this.'

  'Not this way I didn't!'

  'Any way, Abraham. They didn't ask to be here either, not like this.'

  Glitsky stopped pacing and lowered himself on to the ottoman which filled the centre of the small room. His dad leaned against the refrigerator. The two men's voices were low and harsh. They didn't want to wake Rita, sleeping in the dim light of the Christmas tree in the next room.

  'You know what went on in this trial today, Dad? To me? You have any idea?'

  'Of course.' Nat touched his brow. 'You think I've got Swiss cheese up here? But you know what's going to happen in the next couple of months here, Abraham, you don't start paying attention? You're going to lose these boys. Now which is more important?'

  'I'm not going to lose them.'

  Nat shook his head. 'Were you listening tonight? They're losing sight of you, son. They read about you in the newspaper, they hear bad stories on the tube. How do they know what to think?'

  'They know,' Glitsky said. 'They've got level heads. They know me.'

  'This, Abraham, is malarkey. They don't know anymore, not for sure. Jacob tonight said you don't have the same rules as everybody else. Is that your message? Is that what you want to teach them?'

  'He doesn't think that.'

  'He said it. You gonna say he didn't mean it? It sounded like he meant it. He needed some answer for his friends saying you broke the rules, so that's what he came up with. You're allowed to – because you're a cop.'

  Glitsky hung his heavy head. After a minute, he raised it again. 'Lord, Dad, I'm tired. When's this Dooher madness going to end? I keep thinking if I could just find more evidence, something that's not ambiguous… because otherwise, he's gonna walk. We're going to lose.'

  Nat pulled a kitchen chair up in front of his son. 'So then he walks, Abraham. It's not the end of the world. It's one bad man, that's all.'

  'But it will look like me, don't you see? It will look like all the accusations against me are true.'

  'Which they're not. The people you work with, they know that.'

  Glitsky barked a short, humorless laugh. 'That's a beautiful theory, Dad, it really is. But the truth is this could be the end of my credibility.'

  'First, you won't lose your job, Abraham. Even if you do, you'll do something else.'

  'But I'm a cop, Dad. That's what I do, it's what I am.'

  Nat shook his head. 'Before you're a cop, you're a father. After you stop being a cop, you're a father. Your boys, especially now, they need a father.This is your main job. The rest,' he shrugged, 'nobody knows the rest.'

  There was a rush to winning, no doubt about it.

  Wes was still at the bar at the Yacht Club, pounding some more Yuletide cheer. Mark had prodded him into coming along. The public appearance would be important, he'd said, especially for after the trial.

  Yesterday, after Wes had continued his onslaught against the prosecution, taking apart Emil Balian on the stand, the television news had picked up on him, on the 'brilliant' defense he was conducting. This morning's Chronicle headline had read: Key Prosecution Witness Founders in Dooher Case. The pundits were unanimously calling for a quick verdict of Not Guilty, and Wes was enjoying the celebrity.

  Suddenly the world seemed to understand that Wes Farrell was in fact the champion of the underdog and a tiger of a defense lawyer. After five months of tedious trial preparation, hours upon days spent studying transcripts and analyzing evidence in his dingy office or his dirty apartment, after the breakup with Sam and the doubts about his friend, now at last he was getting some recognition for who he was, for what he did – the sweet, sweet, sweet nectar of success that had eluded him for so long.

  It was nearly one o'clock and the party was basically over. The staff was folding up tables behind him. The band was breaking down. Wes was alone at the bar just enjoying the living hell out of his sixth or seventh drink, thinking that maybe it had all been worth it, after all.

  Christina and Mark had taken the limo home, and he'd need to get a cab later, but that was all right. He wasn't quite ready to call it quits yet.

  Mark – his old pal – had been right about coming down for this party. Mark and Christina might have opened a few eyes when they walked in, but it was he, Wes Farrell, who'd been the sensation. Everybody had read the paper today, watched the news over the past nights. Front page, thank you. Yes, it appeared he was winning, winning, winning. Kicking ass, taking names.

  Jocko, behind the bar, had become his close personal friend. Imagine, Wes Farrell the working-class guy here all buddy buddy with the bartender at the St Francis Yacht Club. In his wallet, Farrell had at least half a dozen business cards of people he should call, who might know some people who'd need his services. Where had he been hiding, they all wanted to know.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and the Archbishop of San Francisco was asking Wes if they could have a nightcap together. Wes was finally, after a lifetime of mediocrity, moving into Dooher's circle. God, it was intoxicating!

  And certai
nly one more drink, with Jim Flaherty, wouldn't hurt – a little more of that Oban single malt. They touched their glasses together. 'Great party, Your Excellency. I hope you raised a million dollars.'

  'Three hundred and ten thousand in pledges,' he said. 'A new record. This is such a generous city.' Flaherty savored his drink. 'It looks like you had a pretty fair night yourself. I saw you holding court in here most of the evening. You're going to get Mark off, aren't you?'

  'It looks like it. I don't want to jinx it, but we've certainly got them on the run.'

  The Archbishop sighed. 'How did it even get to this?'

  Farrell looked sideways at him. 'It's bad luck to make enemies in the police department. Glitsky's a bad cop.'

  'Who just got promoted.'

  Again, a sidelong glance. What was Flaherty getting at? He couldn't figure it exactly, so he shrugged. 'He's black. It's his turn.' Then, on a hunch, the new Farrell blurted it right out. 'You having doubts?'

  'About Mark? Never. It's just the accusations. You can't help but have them affect your view a little, can you?'

  'No, I don't think so. I've had a few myself – doubts – tell the truth. You wonder how many other cases, witnesses show up out of the woodwork who say they saw something, or heard it, or smelled it. What is it, power of suggestion?'

  'I think it must be.' The Archbishop sipped his drink.

  'Your Excellency,' Farrell said quietly. 'You're not getting cold feet about testifying for us, are you?'

  'No, of course not.'

  'Good, because I don't know if we're going to need you, but if we do, I wouldn't like to open the door and then have it close on us.'

  'No, I understand.'

  They both stared out through the rain-pocked glass. Faintly, they heard the wind as it pushed the cypresses nearly to the ground.

  'Lousy night out there, isn't it?' Flaherty said. Then, 'You know, when this is over and Mark is found Not Guilty, we ought to try to make this up to him somehow. First he loses his wife, which is horrible enough, then the burden of this trial. He's been through the wringer. I don't know how he's surviving.'

  'Well, Mark's a survivor.'

  'Plus, he's in love again, I think.'

  Farrell sipped his drink and nodded. 'You noticed,' he said laconically. 'Though I suppose if you've got to be in love with somebody, she'd do.'

  'Although the timing could be better, couldn't it?'

  Farrell agreed that it could. Sitting together at the bar, each harboring his thoughts, the two men sipped at their drinks. The ship's bell behind the bar chimed once, and Jocko said it was last call.

  'No, I'm good,' Farrell said, and asked the bartender to call him a taxi.

  Bill Carrera wasn't sleeping. His daughter's visit the previous weekend had brought to a head the fear that he had been living with since finding out she'd joined up with Dooher's defense team.

  So now, downstairs, looking out over the few remaining lights that remained on at this hour in Ojai, he sat in his deep wingchair, the one he called his Thinking Chair. In spite of the fact that Bill was the kind of man who named things – his Bronco was Trigger, for example; his tennis racket was Slam – he was not without intelligence or insight.

  And he was worried sick about Christina.

  The light came on in the hallway and after a minute he felt a hand on his shoulder, Irene saying, 'You should have just got me up. How long have you been down here?' She came around and sat on the arm of the chair.

  'Forty-five minutes, an hour.'

  He was suddenly aware of the ticking of the grandfather clock, and then his wife said, 'She wouldn't be with him if she thought he did it, Bill.'

  'I'm not worried about whether she thinks he did it. I'm worried about if he did it.'

  'I think we have to trust her judgment on this.'

  'Like with Brian? With Joe Avery?'

  'Come on, Bill, don't start that. They were different.'

  'But not so very different, were they? I wonder if we've failed her somehow, that she can't-' He stopped.

  'It's not her. She hasn't met the right man.'

  'And Mark Dooher's the right man? God help us.'

  'Bill! We haven't even met him…'

  'But he's on trial for killing his wife, hon! I'm sorry, they don't usually get to there unless…'

  'Usually.'

  He took a breath and let it out. 'Jesus. So what are we supposed to do?'

  Irene draped her arm over his head. 'Stand by her, I think, don't you? Hope she finally gets happy. Hope he's found Not Guilty.'

  'But that's just the law. How do you ever really believe it after all this?'

  'I don't know if you do. But if he's found Not Guilty, we've got to support them. Don't you think that?'

  'I don't know. I don't understand why her life changed, how it got so complicated and sad. It just breaks my heart.'

  'Mine, too.' She sighed. 'Which is why we've got to be with her, Bill. If it's right, if finally this Mark Dooher can make her happy.'

  But he was shaking his head. 'People don't make other people happy. People make themselves happy. That's what I'm worried about.'

  She tugged at his hair gently. 'You make me happy.'

  'No, you were happy when I met you, and we get along. We're lucky. Christina's got to decide that it's up to her. She's still thinking it's all centered, one way or another, around some man. And it's not.'

  'It is for me,' Irene said. 'It really is. Maybe I'm not a highly evolved life form, but I believe choice of mate is relatively important in the scheme of things. And that's why I'm going to embrace them if it all works out, and do everything I can to see that it does. And you should, too.'

  CHAPTER FOURTY

  On Wednesday afternoon, Amanda Jenkins rested for the prosecution, having never really recovered – or established – her momentum. She had called all of her witnesses.

  The maintenance man at the San Francisco Golf Club had shown the jury the cyclone fence by the end of the parking lot. It had a large hole in it.

  Jenkins had trotted out Paul Thieu and the Taraval cops and the next-door neighbor, Frances Matsun, who (it turned out) had never gotten along with Mark Dooher very well, and who hadn't actually seen him screw the lightbulb from on to off at all.

  On cross-examination, Farrell clarified it – Dooher had reached up, fooled with it, done something. It looked like he might have unscrewed it.

  Jenkins tried not to show it, but it was clear to Glitsky that she'd been beaten down by the relentless barrages that Farrell had launched against her witnesses. She was still trying to believe that the blood alone would be enough to convict and, further, that Emil Balian had convincingly put Dooher near the scene. It was a brave front: Jenkins pretending that the jury would come back with a Guilty verdict, especially if they got to call Diane Price on rebuttal, if they could get her to paint the picture of a very different Mark Dooher. Glitsky admired her for not crumbling in public, but she was getting killed and everybody knew it.

  Certainly, the newspapers and television had reached their verdict. This morning, driving to work, Glitsky had heard his name on the radio while he'd been channel-surfing, and had forced himself to listen to his friendly local conservative radio talk jock who opined that the decision to bring Mark Dooher to trial at all on such shoddy evidence was an example of affirmative action's failure in the halls of the city. Glitsky, a black, and Jenkins, a woman, had been promoted beyond their levels of competency, and let's hear from you callers out there who think we ought to put an end to this nonsense and get back to hiring and promoting on merit alone.

  The current had shifted.

  Nevertheless, the morning began with a set-back for the defense. As soon as Jenkins had finished her case-in-chief, Wes Farrell had filed a motion for directed verdict of acquittal, which asked the Judge to find that no reasonable juror could convict on the evidence presented by the prosecution.

  This motion was routinely filed by the defense when the prosecution rested, a
nd was almost never granted. If the Judge did rule favorably on this motion, he would dismiss the case, and Mark Dooher would be free. Thomasino opened by denying the motion, and Jenkins whispered to Glitsky, 'The blood.' He nodded, non-committal.

  Farrell, having elected to give an opening statement in rebuttal to Jenkins's at the outset of the trial, stood and told Thomasino that the defense was ready to present its case and would like to start by calling the defendant, Mark Dooher.

  This was a calculated gamble, but it showed the level of Farrell's confidence. The defendant had the absolute right not to testify, but a sympathetic demeanor and good story could go a long way toward humanizing a defendant, and this was to the good.

  Also, after Dooher's outburst on the first day, he'd worn a mask, careful to show no emotion. Quietly paying attention to every word and nuance, he would occasionally confer with his two attorneys when some point struck him. He was interested and unbowed, though not yet a person to the jurors.

  Dooher leaned over to Christina and whispered, 'Wish me luck,' then placed a fraternal hand on Farrell's shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and walked around his attorney. He approached the witness box in long strides. To all appearances, he was confident, even eager – finally – to tell his story.

  Farrell came forward to the center of the courtroom and walked him through the familiar territory of the early afternoon, the hors d'oeuvre, the champagne, and so on.

  'And after Sheila said she was going upstairs for a nap, what did you do then?'

  Dooher looked toward the jury for a minute. He didn't want to include them too often – it would appear insincere, as though he was playing for them. But he knew it wouldn't hurt – for it was only natural to acknowledge their presence. 'I moped around the house for a while, then I decided to go to the driving range. So I went out to my car…'

  'Just a minute, Mark. You went out to your car. But before that, at the back door, do you remember what you did?'

  'I don't remember anything specific, no.'

  'And yet we've heard Mrs Matsun testify that you stopped and did something with the electric light above the door. Do you remember doing that?'