Bracco turned his head. "You don't have to stay. I'll just tell him you had someplace to go. You can take the car. I'll get home somehow. You've got a family, Harlen. So does he. He'll understand."
"He didn't seem all that understanding this morning."
This was true. Glitsky had come to Harlen's desk first thing and loudly offered to transfer him to any other department immediately if he didn't want to be in homicide anymore. Homicide inspectors didn't cut out early. Did Inspector Fisk understand?
Although now, Fisk thought, it wasn't early. It was nine damn o'clock. "He's not expecting us, Darrel, I don't care what he told you. He left work early and pissed off and now he's out for the night, maybe the weekend."
"So go." Darrel took the keys from the ignition and flipped them into his partner's lap. "But I'm staying."
Fisk slammed his hand on the outside of the door. "I can't go alone, is my point. If we both go, okay, we say we tried. But if it's just me and you're still here "
Bracco still had a lot of his Dr Pepper left, and he put the straw to his mouth. When he took it out, he swallowed and said, "He told me to report every day. In person."
"Yeah? Well, he's not here, if you haven't noticed. He wasn't in the detail when we checked in. He doesn't expect you to hunt him down to report. He obviously forgot all about us."
A shrug. "Maybe."
But Fisk continued to rave. "What if he died, then what? Would you go report at his gravesite? There's exceptions to things, you know."
"This is the first day, Harlen. You don't make exceptions on the first day you're doing something. That makes them the rule." He looked up in his rearview mirror, saw some headlights turn into the street. "Here comes somebody."
Fisk turned all the way around in his seat. "It's not him."
"Five bucks says it is."
"You're on."
* * *
Furious at what he had taken to be Jackman's and Ash's usurpation of his arrest prerogative, as well as Hardy's scheming lawyer games at his expense, Glitsky hadn't been in the mood for any more work today. They could all go to hell.
By the time he got home, he'd decided to take the whole weekend off as well. He pitched his beeper and cell phone into the dresser next to his bed, then saw Orel's note reminding him that he and Raney had both left directly after school with their snowboard club for one last chance to maim themselves before the summer. So no kids for the weekend. He really was taking it off.
When Treya got home, he asked her if she was up for a night on the town. He didn't have to ask twice. They went to a Moroccan place on Balboa, where they sat on the floor and ate with their fingers, washing everything down with sweet, hot tea that the waiter poured from the height of his waist down to the cups on the floor, never spilling a drop. Good theater.
The night was so beautiful that they decided to walk to Ocean Beach. On the way back, something about their hips remaining in contact made them decide to head back home.
A free spot at the curb just four driveways from their place had them both thinking it was their lucky night, all the stars aligning to give them some privacy and peace. Glitsky's arm was over Treya's shoulder, hers around his waist.
"Don't look now," Treya said. Two men had just stepped out of their car and were walking toward them. She whispered, "Let's hope they're punks thinking about mugging us. We can kill them quick and get inside."
"They're punks, all right," Glitsky answered sotto voce. Then, a little louder, "Gentlemen. Out for an evening stroll?"
"You said to report every day, sir," Bracco explained.
"If this isn't a good time " Fisk made it clear he didn't think it was, either.
"No, this is a great time, Harlen."
"A great time," Treya agreed, nodding at Fisk. "A terrific time."
Glitsky touched her arm. "I don't believe either of you know my wife. Treya. Inspectors Fisk and Bracco."
"Enchante
´," she said in a passable French accent. Her smile possibly appeared sincere. "I've heard so much about you both."
* * *
On the one hand, Glitsky was marginally happy that Darrel Bracco took him so literally. On the other, he didn't want his men getting into the habit of dropping by his place. But now it was a done deal. His romantic night with his wife continued as she sat next to him on the couch. Bracco and Fisk were on chairs they'd carried from the small, small kitchen.
"This is Parnassus then?" she asked sweetly. "Does anybody mind if I stay?"
There were no objections.
Bracco had placed his little notepad out on the coffee table in front of him. He regularly checked his notes. "We began at the hospital, first thing. Did you know Kensing was late for work Tuesday morning? An hour late."
"No," Glitsky said. "I don't know anything about what Kensing did that day. But why do you think that's worth mentioning, if he was?"
"The car," Fisk replied. "Where was he at the time of the accident?"
"The original accident?" Glitsky asked. "With Markham?"
"Are you still considering that part of the murder?" Treya asked. "I thought once they found the potassium, you pretty much ruled that out."
Actually, Glitsky had given it short shrift from the outset, and still did. But he realized that these guys had a bias and didn't want to dampen their newfound enthusiasm. "We're keeping an open mind on all theories at this point," he told her in their secret code. He came back to the inspectors. "So did you ask Kensing where he'd been?"
"No, sir," Bracco replied. "We haven't talked to him again ourselves, but last night he never mentioned it when you were questioning him. It seems like it might have crossed his mind."
"He told people that morning that he'd had car trouble."
Cars again. Glitsky nodded, noncommittal, but privately convinced that they could bark under this tree forever and it wouldn't get them a thing. "How about after Markham got to the ER? What was it like there? Busy? What?"
Bracco was ready with his answer. "Actually, it was a pretty slow morning. They had a kid who needed stitches in his head and a lady who'd fallen down and broken her hip. But they had already been brought into the back when the ambulance pulled up."
"The back?" Glitsky asked.
"Yeah. There's a waiting area when you first come in; then when they see you, they take you back to this big open room with lots of portable beds and a medical stationwhere the nurses and doctors hang out, in the middle. That's where they brought Markham as soon as he got there, then into surgery, which is down the hall a ways."
"There's a half-dozen surgery rooms on that floor," Fisk added. "Every one of them has a supply of potassium and other emergency drugs."
"There's also potassium at the station near the portable beds."
"Okay." This was nice, but Glitsky had already deduced that there must have been some potassium around someplace. As before, these two inspectors had no doubt gathered a lot of information. Their problem was in recognizing which of it was useful. If he wanted to get it, he realized he'd have to ask the right questions. "When they let Markham in, was his wife with him?"
They looked at each other, as if for confirmation. "Yeah. Outside and then while they prepped the operating room for surgery. Maybe ten minutes."
"Then what? When he went to the operating room?"
Another shared look, and Bracco answered. "She was in the waiting room when he got out; then she moved up to ICU's waiting room."
"Okay," Glitsky said. "But was she alone by the central nurses' station by the portable beds at any time? Is what I'm getting at." There was no way, he realized, that they would have pursued that question, so he went right to another. "How was she taking it? Did anybody say?"
Fisk took the lead. "I talked to both of the nurses that had been there"
"How many are on the shift usually?" Glitsky interrupted.
"Two at night, which is ten to six. Then four during the day."
"So there were four on duty? Where were the other tw
o?"
Bracco came to his partner's rescue. "With the other two patients, sir. Because one of the ER docs had been late that day, they were short a doc at the start of the shift. They'd prepped one of the other ORs for the hip, and one nurse was waiting for the surgeon with the lady there. The other one stayed with the kid and his mom and the doc sewing his head."
"Okay." Glitsky thought he had the picture finally. Two doctors, four nurses, three patients, two visitors. He turned to Fisk. "So you talked to Markham's nurses about how the wife seemed? Male or female, by the way? The nurses?"
"Both women," Fisk replied. "And yes, sir, I asked them both how she was." Glitsky was still waiting.
Treya read her husband's impatience and asked nicely, "And how was that, Inspector?"
"Distraught," Fisk answered. "Very upset. Almost unable to talk."
"They both said that?"
"Yes, sir. They agreed completely."
"Crying?"
"Yes, sir. I asked that specifically. She was crying quietly on and off."
Glitsky fell silent. Bracco had been listening intently to this exchange, and consulting his notes, decided to put in his own two cents' worth. "I talked to one of the nurses, too, sir, a Debra Muller. She walked with Mrs. Markham when they were bringing Markham into the OR and then back to the waiting room, where sheMullerspent a few minutes holding her hand. Anyway, Muller, the word she used was 'shell-shocked.' Mrs. Markham kept repeating things like, 'They can't let him die. They won't let him die, will they?'"
Glitsky was thinking a couple of things: first, that of course Mrs. Markham could have been a good actress, but this didn't sound like a woman who was planning to kill her husband in the next couple of hours. Second, if Nurse Muller had accompanied her from the portable bed area to the surgery and back, then she hadn't been alone to pick up a vial of potassium from the medical station in the center of the room. But he wanted to be sure on that score. "So she didn't wait in the portable bed area?"
"No, sir. Outside in the waiting room, and then upstairs by the ICU."
"All right," Glitsky said. "Let's move along. How long was Markham in the OR?"
Fisk cast a grateful eye over to Bracco, who'd taken not only good notes, but some of the right ones. "A little under two hours," Darrel said, then volunteered some more. "And by the time he'd come out and gotten admitted to the ICU, some of the Parnassus executive staff were there. Malachi Ross, the medical director. Also Markham's secretary, a guy named Brendan Driscoll, who evidently got in a bit of a discussion with Dr. Kensing."
"About what?"
"Access to his boss."
"Markham? He was unconscious, right? Did he ever regain consciousness?"
"No, sir."
"Then why did he want to see him? This Driscoll."
"Nobody seems to know." Bracco's disappointment over his failure to find out was apparent. "But he did get in, though."
Glitsky leaned forward. "Driscoll? Was in the ICU? For how long?"
"Again," Bracco answered, "nobody knows for sure. But when Kensing found him in there"
"You're telling me he was alone?"
"Yes, sir. Evidently. And when Kensing found him in there, he went batshit and kicked his ass out."
Glitsky replied with an exaggerated calm. "I don't believe 'to go batshit' is a legitimate verb, Darrel. You're saying Kensing and Driscoll had an argument?"
"Short, but fairly violent. Kensing physically threw him out."
"Of the ICU? Of the hospital?"
"No. Just the unit. Intensive care. But Driscoll was still around when Markham died."
"People remember him?"
"Yep. He lost it entirely. Just sobbing like a baby."
"Okay. And what was your source for this later stuff? Did the OR nurses come up?"
"No," Fisk replied. "There's another nurses' station outside the ICU."
"I've got the names," Bracco added. "There are at least twelve regular ICU nurses, three shifts, two a shift, but they run two weeks on, then two off. It's pretty intense, evidently."
"Hence the name," Treya commented dryly.
Glitsky squeezed her hand. He went on. "But you're telling me that even with all that help, sometimes the ICU is empty, right? Except for the patients?"
"Right." Bracco was off his notes and on memory again. "Everybody's on monitors for heartbeat and blood pressure and kidney function and who knows what else. The doctors and nurses go in regularly, but it's not like there's a nurse there in the station all day. They've got other jobskeeping up supplies, paperwork, taking breaks."
Glitsky considered that. "Can they see anyone who goes in or comes out of the ICU from their station?"
"Sure, if they're at it. It's right there."
"So who came in and went out?"
Bracco turned a page or two of his notepad and read, "Besides Kensing, two other doctors, Cohn and Waltrip. Then both nursesI've got their names somewhere back"
"That's all right. Go ahead."
"Then Driscoll, Ross, three members of the family of another patient in there. They were there for morning visiting hours. I could get their names."
"Maybe later, Darrel, if we need them. What time did Markham die, did you get that?"
Again, Bracco was ready. "Twelve forty-five, give or take."
"So Markham was in the ICU maybe four hours?"
"That's about right. Maybe a little less."
Another thought occurred. "Ross went in, too? Why was that?"
"I don't know," Bracco said.
"But he's a doctor, you know," Fisk added. "He's got the run of the place. He was in there with Kensing right after they got him up from OR."
After a moment of silence, Glitsky finally nodded. "Okay. That it?"
Bracco flipped a page or two, then lifted his head and looked across at Glitsky and Treya. He brought his head back up and nodded. "For today, sir." Then he added, "I'm sorry we interrupted your night for you."
"Don't be silly," Treya said quickly, standing up. Then wagged a finger at them, joking. "Just don't do it again."
Glitsky took her lead and was on his feet. "Working late's part of the job." He had meant it sincerely as a simple statement of fact, but as soon as the words were out, he realized from Fisk's expression he took it as another Glitsky reminder of his failings as a cop.
Which wasn't fair. These two inexperienced inspectors had finally done some investigative work. They'd stayed late to make their report to him. They were trying hard. They had worked a long day. Glitsky knew that a kind word to them wouldn't kill him. He tried to put some enthusiasm into his voice. "That's a good day's work, guys. Really. Keep at it," he said. "One thing, though. Tomorrow morning, make sure you get your tapes into transcription ASAP. I want to get all this into the record."
The two men froze, threw a concerned glance at each other.
Glitsky read it right. "You did tape all these interviews, didn't you?"
* * *
Hardy remembered to buy the flowers. Beautiful bouquets, too, both of them. Baby pink roses for his daughter, the Spring Extravaganza for his wife. They were next to him on the passenger seat of his car even as he drove around looking for a parking place in his neighborhood. He didn't think there was much chance that Frannie and the Beck would appreciate them much just now, since they were probably both asleep.
It was ten minutes until midnight.
He'd left Strout's office in high spirits. The warm night, the fragrant air, a true sense of accomplishment. He'd cut a great deal for his client with Jackman, convinced the medical examiner to autopsy James Lector as soon as he cleared the way for it with his family. He called Frannie on his cell phone and told her he didn't think that would take more than an hour, and then he'd be home. Maybe on the way he could also pick up some fresh salmon and they'd have the first barbecue of the season.
And back at his office the good luck had held. Lector's death notice was in yesterday's Chronicle, and it named the next of kin, who were listed i
n the phone book. Hardy called the eldest son, Clark, reached him at his home on Arguello, halfway out to Hardy's own. He made an appointment for when he got there. Perhaps most astoundingly, he only had one message on his answering machinePico with the sad news that Francis the shark finally hadn't made it. He just thought Hardy would want to know.
But even Pico's disappointing news couldn't bring him down. In fact, he was half tempted to call him back at the Steinhart and invite him and his family over at the last minute for the salmon barbecue, cheer them all right up. Then he remembered that he'd done pretty much the same thing with Moses and Susan the night before, and he reconsidered. Maybe it should just be his family, together, for tonight.
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