by The Hearing
“You’re breaking my heart,” Abe said. Then, back to Falk. “So what happened?”
But he couldn’t get right to it. Lou came by for their orders, recommending the special, which today was a dish called Yeanling Clay Bowl. Thieu looked up at him. “Yeanling? What’s a yeanling?”
“I don’t know,” Lou admitted. “It’s got rice noodles with lamb and some kind of sauce. Really good, though. I’ll put you down for three of them, okay?”
Glitsky saw they had consensus. “Okay, three bowls,” he said.
“It doesn’t come in a bowl,” Lou explained. “That’s just the name of it. Yeanling Clay Bowl. From back where they originally made it someplace. My wife could tell you all about it, but she’s busy right now.”
“I got an idea, Lou,” Glitsky said.
“What?”
A tight smile. “Go make her busier, okay?”
Lou got the message and disappeared. Abe looked at Falk. “You were trying to talk to somebody in homicide.”
“Right. So after a day, nobody’s called me back and I ask around and Banks is still missing. So I decide I’ll go down to the Hall in person and see what’s the problem.”
“The problem,” Thieu interjected, “is that nobody’s in charge. Sorry, go ahead.”
“So I go in and there’s Paul and I start to talk to him a little about this . . .”
“. . . and I take it upstairs, the chief’s office himself, and what do they tell me?” Thieu’s voice had thickened in outrage. “That Banks is a missing person. He’s not a homicide. Go back downstairs and do my job. If it turns out he’s dead, then I can worry about it. Can you believe these guys? So anyway, Abe, this is about when I remember you’d called me about Rid, wanting to reach him at home. I figured maybe you’d know something.”
Falk picked up. “Then they’re talking about Ridley on the news. What he’s working on, about him being the main witness in this Elaine Wager case, and this OD is part of that, too.”
“That’s true,” Glitsky said. “So what was he on to, you think?”
Falk finally had a clear field to run on, and he took off. The operation that narcotics had been running out of Jupiter, Cullen Alsop’s appearance at the bar, Falk and Banks bopping Damien together, Gene Visser the ex-cop possibly being a source of heroin. “That’s what Banks really sparked to. If Visser had been there in the flophouse with the kid.”
“Then what?” Glitsky asked.
“I don’t know,” Falk replied. “But if this kid was a snitch . . . the thing about being dead is it’s a lot harder to change your story.”
“A lot harder,” Thieu agreed.
“But you can’t testify either, so what good’s the snitch to begin with?” Glitsky was chomping more ice now, thinking. When he swallowed it, he spoke. “I got a question, Jan. You hear on TV that this is part of the Wager thing. You know the hearing’s going on right now. How come you don’t go to the D.A.?”
Falk almost spit his tea across the table. “You know how many times me and my guys are putting something together for like a year, wrapped up nice and tight? Righteous busts, dealers in the slammer, good shit. Then two weeks later it’s all over. The case has mysteriously fallen apart. Or it’s not charged. Or some fucking thing. My dealers are sprung and I’m made on the street and gotta start over someplace else. And half the time my snitches have been exposed and I’m on the line for that.” He drank iced tea, calmed down slightly. “It’s got so . . . you know what I do now? I go direct to the A.G.”—the state attorney general. “If they don’t want it, I’ve even been known to turn cases over to our generous brothers at the FB-One, even though they’ll find some way I get no credit for the goddamn bust. But no way do I go to the D.A. No way!”
“That’s who got the lieutenant busted,” Thieu offered.
Falk broke a conspiratorial smile. “I think I heard something about that. I think I even heard you might be working on the other side.”
“That’s a vicious and ugly rumor,” Glitsky said. “But if it’s true, I got a friend you might want to talk to. Get on the same bus.”
“And run over Pratt and Torrey? Where do I sign up?”
Glitsky nodded. “I think you just did.”
“Here you are, gentlemen. Three Yeanling Clay Bowls.”
Falk took Thieu’s plate and passed it across. Then grabbed his own. “I hope it’s rare,” he said to Lou. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s well-done yeanling.”
This, Glitsky thought, was police work. Finally. This was how it was going to get done.
Astoundingly, no one had issued him a subpoena for the hearing—Torrey because he would be at best a hostile witness and had nothing to add that might help the prosecution case; Hardy because he simply figured Glitsky would be there anyway. He could call him as a witness at his pleasure.
When Glitsky left Falk and Thieu and got back into Department 20, the hearing had already resumed for the afternoon. From the little he heard, he gathered that the lawyers were yakking about how much of the videotape they were going to have to watch. As usual, it didn’t appear they were going to get to an agreement anytime soon.
He tapped Treya on the shoulder and motioned that she should accompany him. She took his hand in the hallway, and they walked through the lobby and all the way outside to the steps of the Hall—the day still warm, without any breeze.
“God.” She inhaled with pleasure, her face up to the sun. “You know what this reminds me of? I had a teacher—Mrs. Barile—in junior high in lovely Daly City, where we’d get a day like this about every seventeen years, and I remember one time we did. For just one period, English, this time of day, right after lunch, Mrs. Barile, she took us all outside and we sat on the grass and she read out loud to us. The shirt scene from Gatsby. You know that one? Where Daisy cries? Anyway . . .” Treya suddenly looked embarrassed. “Sorry. I just had that same feeling again. That’s not what you wanted.”
“Actually, it’s pretty close to exactly what I wanted.” Glitsky felt he could have listened to her all day. They could stand here on the steps of the Hall of Justice and she could tell him all the good feelings she’d ever felt in her life. For the first time in half a decade, he was feeling them himself—a wash of something other than duty, persistence, cold honor. He still didn’t trust them entirely, couldn’t talk about them. But they were there. Warmth, hope, the future.
He wanted it too badly, and this, he believed, would guarantee that it would never last. So he returned to what he could live with, his comfort zone. “But it’s not why I called you out from in there.” He told her he was going to go try and have a talk with somebody, so he wouldn’t be around if Hardy decided he was going to call him as a witness.
“This is from your meeting at lunch?”
He nodded, almost smiling. “I’m happy to report that the unit seems to be falling apart in my absence. Nobody’s covering any bases except Paul Thieu and he’s on my side. He’s getting me copies of the lab stuff and crime scene report on Cullen Alsop. Meanwhile, there’s this ex-cop that Ridley thinks might be involved somehow.”
“You saw Ridley Banks? He’s okay?”
This erased any sort of animation from Abe’s face. “No. He told this to a guy in narcotics, and Thieu put us together.”
“So who is this person? Did Ridley go see him?”
“No one knows, Trey.”
“But he might have been the appointment he told Diz about.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
Treya took a half step backwards, crossed her arms over her chest. She spoke with a slow precision. “That would have been the last time anybody heard from him.”
“That’s right.” He knew what she was thinking. It was one of the fundamental moments. You got involved with a policeman, you accepted an elevated level of risk. Some people couldn’t do it. Some people found out too late. But sooner or later, it always had to be dealt with.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
Another pause. “Maybe your friend Paul Thieu could go with you.”
“Then nobody’s watching the shop at all. Besides, I haven’t even located him yet.” He touched her arm lightly. “Trey, this is what I do. It’s okay. How’d it go with your lunch?”
A shine had risen in her eyes. She spoke again with exaggerated care. “Please don’t change the subject, Abe. What if this man killed Ridley?”
“Then he’d be a complete fool to try anything with me, wouldn’t he? The first thing I’ll do is tell him everybody knows where I went. I even logged it in.”
“And that will protect you?”
“Well,” he said, “you know, protection, the whole concept. There’s really no such . . .” He stopped, his eyes suddenly filled with a kind of panic.
“What?”
“Nothing. I think maybe my yeanling didn’t agree with me.” He took a heavy breath.
“Abe? Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said automatically. “Just a little . . .” Another breath. His hand went to his chest. “I think I’d better sit down.”
In the courtroom, Judge Hill was about to rule on the admissibility of the confession. Hardy had been arguing that they should watch all six hours of interrogation on videotape. He wanted to get to the coercion issue now, before trial.
Torrey objected. “Your honor, the movies are full of wonderful performances by people who are apparently drunk or high on drugs. We can watch Mr. Burgess on tape all day long and still never get to anything approaching proof that he was in fact under the influence of anything. He was never tested for drunkenness. Perhaps, as you say, he was in the early stages of heroin withdrawal . . .”
Hardy chimed in. “And as such, your honor, would have said anything, he would have done anything . . .”
Hill used his gavel. “Don’t interrupt the bench again, counselor. I’ve read your arguments in motion form. Just because defendant perhaps had motivation to lie does not demonstrate that he did in fact lie. If you have nothing new to add, I’m standing on my ruling. You can take it up again if this hearing results in a trial.”
The bad blood between Hardy and Hill was so thick that Freeman felt compelled to intervene. “Your honor, if I may approach.”
Hill sighed in frustration. This argument had already been going on for more than a half hour. He’d made his ruling. And suddenly now the old lion was coming out of his cave. “All right, Mr. Freeman.”
David stood up slowly. As protocol demanded, all four attorneys made their way to the front. “Your honor,” Freeman began, “as you know, we have prepared a brief outlining internal inconsistencies within the alleged confession itself.”
“As you say, counselor, I know that. I have read it.”
“Then, your honor, with all respect, we’d like to object further to the confession on foundational grounds. Who can say if this is a complete, unaltered copy of the tape unless Inspector Banks will testify?”
“Your honor!” Pratt and Torrey, in unison.
Hill held up a peremptory hand and glared at them. “Mr. Freeman, the defense has just been arguing for the better part of an hour that the court should sit through six hours of the defendant’s videotaped testimony on the coercion issue. Now you’re saying we shouldn’t see any of it? Am I getting this right?”
Freeman’s calm was unnerving. “Even if it weren’t so fatally flawed,” he said, “the officer who took the confession isn’t available to swear to the tape’s authenticity and completeness.”
The prosecution fumed and sputtered. Other officers, including several homicide inspectors, had been around and even in and out of the interrogation room. They could say the tape was accurate. The tape looked full and complete. It was self-authenticating. A technician could say the tape was unedited. Behind them bubbled a cauldron of static. For a second, it seemed that everyone in the courtroom was speaking at once. Then Hill’s gavel—bam, bam—cracked through it all like a gunshot and created an equally deafening silence. Hill had had enough. He glowered at all the attorneys, out over them to the crowd beyond the rail. He spoke brusquely. “The court will take a half-hour recess to consider these and other matters.”
Without another word, he stood and left the room.
“Diz!” Jeff Elliot was wheeling himself furiously up the hallway.
Hardy had his hand on the door to the rest room and stopped. “What?”
“Did you hear that siren before that last argument?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“I did. I went out and checked. It was Abe.”
“What was Abe?” Though of course he knew. Uttering an oath of despair, he broke for the lobby at a run.
33
Glitsky wasn’t on anybody’s witness list. He wasn’t part of the hearing. He wasn’t a member of Hardy’s immediate family. So Hill would not excuse Hardy for the afternoon.
Aside from that, the session picked up more or less where it left off. After a series of suitable disclaimers, most notably that he was not ruling on the claim of police coercion, and that he most specifically was not ruling the tape inadmissible if the case went to trial, Hill announced that they would not in fact be viewing the videotape. Freeman’s argument had merit, he said, and he didn’t want to get into an open-ended discussion on the form and content of the tape. And if he didn’t admit the tape for lack of foundation, he wouldn’t have to deal with the coercion/intoxication issue either. He had plenty of other evidence to hold Burgess over for trial.
Torrey and Pratt kept at it for ten minutes, and finally settled for the court’s unspoken but unmistakably clear intention to hold the defendant to answer without the tape. All in all, Hardy wasn’t sure that Freeman had done their client a service by getting the judge to leave out the tape. Now, from the hearing’s point of view, nothing in the record contradicted or even mitigated the force of the circumstantial evidence. And they didn’t have the tape issue for appeal. Hill had come to his decision to keep things moving along here. Up to now, the evidence presented was plenty to send Cole to trial.
But Hardy was finding it difficult to keep his mind on the hearing, and he had to trust Freeman’s instincts. He knew nothing about Glitsky, not even where they’d taken him. He didn’t know where he’d gone for lunch, whom he’d met. He didn’t know where Treya was, although he assumed she had gone with him in the ambulance.
Jeff Elliot was going to find out about Abe. He’d know soon enough. He had to put it out of his mind.
There was no time. The prosecution had rested. Hill’s latest mistreatment had him in high dudgeon, a whiteout of a rage. He didn’t trust himself to speak. But right now he had to begin the presentation of his affirmative defense. Right now he had to call his first witness.
He was looking at the notes in front of him and heard himself croak out the first name he read: Sergeant Billie Oh, who’d supervised the crime scene unit in Maiden Lane. As she came up through the bar rail and took the oath, Hardy couldn’t muster his thoughts to remember what he’d intended to ask her.
He was still seated at his table. Everyone was waiting.
“Mr. Hardy?” The Cadaver appeared all out of patience himself—if he’d had any to begin with.
“Sorry, your honor.” He was on his feet, moving toward the bench, the witness. Words were coming out of his mouth. “Sergeant Oh. Can you describe for the court, please, the position of Elaine Wager’s body when you came upon the scene of her death.”
The prosecution immediately and vociferously objected. The defense could only present evidence that went to an affirmative defense or contradicted the prosecution case. This was not a deposition, they argued. How could this possibly show that the defendant was not guilty?
Hill had cut Hardy as deeply as he was going to, however. The confession was out, the defendant was going to trial, and Hill wasn’t inclined to risk any assignment of error. Hardy could do his damnedest within any reasonable or unreasonable limits. It wou
ldn’t matter. Hill overruled all the objections.
Ms. Oh was a precise and careful witness, and briefly recounted her facts and impressions without inflection or comment. This was what she saw; this was how it was. When she’d finished, Hardy had recovered enough of his bearings at least to be able to begin. “Was Ms. Wager wearing hosiery, Sergeant?”
“Yes, she was. Black nylons.”
“And what was the condition of these nylons?”
Oh thought for a moment. “They were in good condition. Damp where they touched the pavement as the body lay there and of course in the crotch where she’d lost her urine.”
“Was there any damage to the fabric itself?”
“No.”
“No runs in the nylon? No threads coming loose?”
“No.”
“They were in very good condition?”
“Yes.”
“Sergeant Oh,” Hardy continued. “Did it occur to you that the victim fell heavily after she was shot?”
“As opposed to what?”
“To being, for example, let down easily by her assailant?”
“Objection. Calls for a conclusion.”
“Sustained. Another line, please, Mr. Hardy.”
He was racking his brain for anything else. He certainly hadn’t gotten any rhythm established with Sergeant Oh, and now couldn’t remember why, in fact, he’d wanted to call her at all. He believed that whoever had shot Elaine had laid her down, and that this once had seemed incompatible with the rough treatment she’d received when Cole had taken her jewelry. But now that distinction seemed tenuous at best, frivolous at worst.
He walked back to his table, consulted his notes, hoped David would come to his rescue with some suggestion, anything. But the old man simply shrugged. Win some, lose some.
Hardy turned around. “Thank you, Sergeant.” To Torrey’s table: “Your witness.”
The prosecutor stood up and walked to the witness box, taking his time, but Hardy didn’t have the sense he was stalling. Certainly, as soon as he stopped walking, he asked his question. “Sergeant Oh, from the position of Ms. Wager’s body, as well as the state of her hosiery, would you rule out the possibility that her assailant had forced her to kneel down before he executed her in cold blood?”
