The Vig
Page 34
Juhle caught the sixth toss not in the webbing but in the palm of the mitt. He never mentioned to a living soul and never would that on top of ruining his shoulder through his own stupidity on that cold and misty March day, he also allowed Malinoff’s major-league fastball to break two bones in his catching hand.
Since then, Juhle had been having confidence issues. He found it hard to convince himself that he was among the most brilliant homicide inspectors on the planet when at the same time he considered himself a certified idiot for going at it with Malinoff.
It was Tuesday morning, May 31, nine fifteen. June, just a day away, is synonymous with fog in San Francisco, and today Juhle couldn’t see the elevated freeway sixty yards to his left out the window. Awaiting the arrival of his partner, he was at his desk in the crowded, cramped, and yet wide-open room without interior walls that was the homicide detail on the fourth floor of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice. He was sipping his third cup of coffee this morning, his right arm and still untreated opposite hand—damned if he was going to let anybody know—both throbbing in spite of six hundred milligrams of Motrin every four hours for the past ten days. He turned to the second page of the transcription of a witness’s testimony in one of his cases that he was checking against the tape and suddenly took off his headphones, stood up, and made his way past the shoulder-high, battered green-and-gray metal files that served as room dividers, and stopped at the door of his lieutenant, Marcel Lanier, who looked up from his own paperwork.
“What’s up, Dev?”
“We gotta do something about the quality of people they hire, Marcel.”
Lanier, only fifty-some and yet still a hundred years with the department, scratched around his mouth. “That’s a song I’ve been singing for years. What kind of people this time?”
For an answer, Juhle handed him the printout he’d been reading. “You’ll see it,” he said.
Five seconds into his reading, Lanier barked out a one-note toneless laugh, then read aloud. “‘And what is your relationship with Ms. Dorset?”’
Juhle nodded. “That’s it. You don’t see a relationship like that every day.”
“He was her power mower?”
“Must have been, since it’s right there in black and white.”
“Her power mower?”
“Yeah, except maybe instead of power mower, what he actually said was that he was her ‘paramour.”’ Juhle leaned against the doorpost. “And this is, like, mistake ten on one page, Marcel, not counting the big chunks that she has marked ‘unintelligible’ on the transcript, but that I can hear perfectly on the tape. Do they give an IQ test before we start paying these people? Of course, I’ve got to correct the transcript, anyway, but now it’s going to take me two days instead of an hour. It’d be quicker to write the whole goddamn thing out in longhand.”
Shiu floated up behind Juhle into the space left in the doorway. “What’s going to take two days?”
Lanier ignored both the arrival and the question. His phone rang and he picked it up. “Homicide, Lanier.” Frowning, suddenly all serious, he pulled over his yellow pad and started jotting. “Okay, got it. We’re moving.” Looking up at his two inspectors, he said into the phone, “Juhle and Shiu.” When he hung up, there was no sign that he’d ever laughed or thought anything in the world had been funny ever. “Either of you already signed out on a car?”
The inspectors shared a glance. “No, sir. Paperwork day,” Juhle said.
“Not anymore it isn’t. Grab a ride in a black-and-white downstairs,” he said, “and have ‘em light it up out to Clay at”—he shot a quick look at his notes—“Lyon. Don’t pass go, guys. I’ll get word to the techs. I want a presence there yesterday. Somebody just killed a federal judge.”
Available in January 2007 in Hardcover
DUTTON
New York Times besteller
John Lescroart
Nothing but the Truth
0-451-20285-6
San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy wants to know why his wife is willing to go to jail to protect another man. He’s looking for the truth—but not quite sure he wants to find it…
The Hearing
0-451-20489-1
Hardy’s best friend, Lieutenant Abe Glitsky, has been keeping a secret. Hardy never knew that Abe had a daughter—until she was shot dead. But there is more to this murder—much more. And as both Hardy and Glitsky risk their lives to uncover the truth, others are working hard to stop them.
Hard Evidence
0-451-20646-0
When the bullet-ridden body of a Silicon Valley billionaire washes up on shore, Hardy finds himself the prosecutor in San Francisco’s murder trial of the century…
Available wherever books are sold or
at penguin.com
B165
New York Times besteller
John Lescroart
The Oath
0-451-20764-5
When HMO executive Tim Markham is hit by a car during a morning jog through his exclusive San Francisco neighborhood, he has the bad luck to be transported to one of his own hospitals … and winds up dead in his ICU bed. But in spite of the rumors about his company’s substandard care, this death appears to be a case of malice, not of malpractice—especially after Markham’s entire family is gunned down in their home.
The First Law
0-451-21022-0
Stunned within the corridors of power while trying to defend a local bar owner, Lt. Abe Glitsky and Dismas Hardy must protect themselves as they step cautiously into a world where the only law is survival.
The Second Chair
0-451-21141-3
In this novel featuring Dismas Hardy, John Lescroart skillfully and subtly weaves together a story of a privileged youth on trial for murder, and an entire city on the brink of panic, taking this popular series to new heights of stylish suspense.
Available wherever books are sold or
at penguin.com
S167
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JOHN LESCROART, the
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