Glitsky 02 - Guilt (25 page)

He'd backhanded his son, Mark Jr, across the face for throwing his bat in a Babe Ruth League game. That, Wes thought, was Mark's worst moment. But at the time Mark had been working eighty hours a week trying single-handedly to save his ailing firm. And he'd tried to turn even that incident, bad as it was, into something positive – treating it as a type of wake-up call. He was working too hard, ignoring what was really important. His family, his spiritual values.

In some way, these peccadilloes reassured Wes about his friend's character. Mark would be the last to say he was perfect. Of course he had sinned – he was human. He'd done things he was ashamed of. But these were why, to Wes's mind, he was balanced. He wasn't wound so tightly holding in every tiny impulse to evil that he would one day need to explode.

So he tried to figure out what it was; why the sudden rush from so many quarters to slander and vilify Mark Dooher.

Jealousy was one thing. Mark was wealthy, powerful, and up until a couple of months ago, lucky. He was exactly the kind of person that lesser people loved to see destroyed.

Then the Trang business, politically motivated and unfounded as it was, had put a hole in Mark's bubble of invincibility. And Wes knew that an enduring truism of life was that accusations bred more accusations.

And now – finally – the dominant bull was injured, limping. This was the time to take him down, when it could be done. Everybody was abandoning Mark. People were lining up to take shots at him when he was least able to defend himself.

Well, Wes wasn't anybody's hero, and he couldn't stop anybody from taking aim and firing, but he could stand in front of his friend and try to defend him until he was strong again.

Trang's murder. This woman's rape story. The enemies were assembling and he didn't have to think too hard to figure out what was coming next. They were going to charge him with Sheila's murder.

And Wes knew he would be the last line of defense. And for once – whatever they might dig up and however it spun – he knew it wouldn't be true.

Wes was going to defend him.

A week later, Paul Thieu got his first real break in the case.

It was not without some trepidation that he guided his city-issue Plymouth off the freeway at the Menlo Park exit, forty miles down the peninsula south of the city, and negotiated the narrow entrance to the parking lot by the Veterans Administration building. The short drive between the freeway and the VA reminded him of 6th Street between Mission and Bryant in San Francisco, the most dangerous walking blocks on the map.

Though the climate down here was infinitely more benign, the small town thoroughfare itself was a no man's land of Reagan's enduring legacy, the mentally impaired homeless. The cops called these people 'eight hundreds' and their social workers called them 'fifty-one fifties' after the Welfare & Institutions code sections that defined them, but by any name, they were tragic. Derelicts, drug addicts, bag people.

Thieu saw them every day in the city, but here within a long spit of Silicon Valley, where the sun always shone and the real estate glittered, he found all this evidence of poverty and despair especially dispiriting.

He was also keenly aware of his Vietnamese nationality. Men in old Army uniforms – singly or in small groups – loitered here and there on the main street and under the trees that provided the shade for the parking lot. Thieu didn't have to guess which war they were veterans of.

And time might have passed, he knew, but in the brains of some of these guys, it still might be 1968.

He opened the car door into what was, by San Francisco standards, blazing heat. It was not yet noon and already in the mid-eighties. Thieu was wearing an ivory linen suit and decided he could leave his raincoat on the passenger seat where he'd thrown it. It was misting heavily in San Francisco, forty miles away. The temperature was in the fifties.

A couple of guys in old fatigues nudged each other as he passed them on the way to the imposing doors, but he smiled and said hello and was past them and through the doors before they had moved two steps.

The place had that old institutional-building feel and smell. A wide entryway with linoleum floors made every sound inside echo. To his left, a waist-high counter separated the government workers from the veterans, who were for the most part queued up waiting for their numbers to be called. Across from the counter, a shiny, light-green wall sported wood-framed photographs of all the Presidents since Eisenhower, as well as a decent assortment of Admirals and Generals (including another one of Eisenhower in uniform). At the end of the entryway, a large paned window let in a lot of light.

Thieu stood a minute, getting his bearings, reading from the Building Directory in its glass bulletin board. Gradually, he became aware that the noise had ceased behind him.

Deciding to ignore it, he found the room number for his appointment and moved out directly.

'Hey!'

Somebody was calling after him, but he came to the big window, hung a left, and took the stairs two at a time.

They had been lucky, locating Chas Brown here at the south peninsula VA detox. Neither Thieu nor Glitsky had really known where Brown might lead them, but Glitsky was directing this investigation and he'd sent Thieu down to conduct the interview.

Last Thursday and Friday, he'd run around trying to get a handle on either a Chas Brown or a Michael Lindley, the two other survivors of Mark Dooher's platoon in Vietnam. Their names had been provided, during the Trang investigation, by Dooher himself.

Now, Glitsky smelled blood. He told Thieu that they simply had to find out everything they could about Dooher, from whatever source. Glitsky was working St Francis Wood, talking to the neighbors, working the pawnshops in the adjoining neighborhoods, still looking against hope for the bayonet, the clothes Dooher was wearing,
something.

And Thieu, with his background, started out to find yet another missing person.

Chas Brown wasn't a total burn-out case. True, in his faded jeans and flannel shirt, with his long, unwashed graying hair and beard, he didn't look like anyone who worked for a living, blue or white collar. But his eyes were clear, his handshake firm.

He showed up at his counsellor's office on time, promptly at noon, exhibiting no signs of prejudice toward Thieu. After a couple of minutes, Thieu offered to take him to lunch. There was a terrific pizza place not far away named Frankie, Johnny & Luigi Too.

Brown looked like he wouldn't turn food down – he weighed about a hundred fifty pounds. He was nearly six feet tall.

Thieu also thought he'd get franker answers if he was away from his counsellor.

So now they were sitting at a table outside under the green and white umbrellas, sharing a large pizza, of which Thieu wouldn't be able to eat more than one enormous piece. Fully loaded with pepperoni, sausage, olives, mushrooms, peppers, double cheese and anchovies, one slice weighed in at nearly a pound.

Judging from how he started it, Thieu guessed Chas would finish the entire large pitcher of Budweiser he'd ordered. He was already on his third glass. Thieu was having iced tea.

The two men weren't yet friends, but the beer wasn't exactly making Chas taciturn. The pocket tape recorder was rolling and they'd already covered
Thieu's
background, verifying that he was too young to have fought in Vietnam. His father hadn't been in uniform, either, though he'd been anti-Communist all the way. A capitalist in the silk trade in Saigon, the elder Mr Thieu had to leave when the city was abandoned by the U.S. So Thieu and Chas were on the same side.

'That's when my name changed.' Brown had a lot of nervous energy. Tics and scratches, eyes moving all the time. But he was talking clearly, if a little rushed. Maybe the beer would eventually mellow him out. 'Before I got in country I was Charles, Charlie Brown. When I was a kid, I would have done
anything
not to be named Charlie Brown, so of course it stuck like glue. Then I get to Nam and Dooher says there's no Charlie in his platoon, I'm Chas. So I'm Chas. I thought it was a good omen at the time. I thought Dooher was a good guy. Shows you what I knew.'

Thieu didn't want to stop him, and remained silent as Brown downed another deep slug of beer, the eyes going blank a moment. Another drink, more emptiness. Blink, the lights went back on, led to the abrupt segue. 'Tried to be my friend, y'know, after.'

'After what?'

The eyes came back, then darted away. 'You know.'

'I don't know.'

'About the dope, all that. I thought that was what you came down here for.'

In fact, Thieu's main avenue of inquiry was going to be about the ease of smuggling bayonets and rifles out of the country when your hitch was up. Instead, a bonus, Chas Brown was heading in a different direction.

'What dope?' Suddenly, Brown's expression closed up. Was Thieu trying to sandbag him in some way? The open camaraderie – the ruse of drinking together, having lunch – faded. The change in Brown was palpable. Suddenly Thieu was the heat and that wouldn't help his investigation, so he moved into damage control mode. 'I'm not interested in dope, Chas. I'm interested in a murder.'

'Well, yeah.' Meaningless, unforthcoming.

Thieu pressed it. 'Look, Chas, it's none of my business what drugs you're taking, or took. I want you to understand that. Here,' he pointed at the tape recorder on the table between them, 'I'm saying it on this tape. It's on the record. This has nothing to do with you except insofar as you know something about Mark Dooher. Did he take drugs, was that it?'

Brown moved out of the blazing sun, into the shadow of the table's umbrella. He wiped his high forehead and took a long pull of beer. 'Everybody took drugs,' he said. 'Everybody.' He scratched at his neck.

'Dooher
bought
our drugs. He was the connection.'

'Mark Dooher was selling marijuana?'

Brown laughed. 'Marijuana? Look at me, you think I'm strung out on marijuana? You think thirty years down the line, my brain's fried on some doob?' He shook his head, amazed at Thieu's world view. 'We're talking shit here, china white, skag.' Thieu digested this. 'Horse, man. Heroin.'

'You're saying Mark Dooher sold you heroin?'

A continual nod. 'That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Not just me. The whole platoon. Got his own stash free and sold to his guys. Did us a favor, lowest price in Nam.'

Thieu sat back, rocked by this information.

But Brown was going on unbidden. 'And you know, if you look at it the way it really was, Dooher's the one who let it all happen. It was his job to keep us straight. Instead, he kept us wired.'

Thieu leaned forward. 'Let what happen?'

Brown wasn't good with direct questions. They seemed to spook him. He leaned back, found himself out of the umbrella's shadow, his face in the sun, and that moved him forward again. 'You don't know about this, why did you want to see me?'

'I wanted to see if the guys in your platoon – Dooher specifically -smuggled out their weapons. If you knew if Dooher had.'

'Why?'

Though it had nothing to do with Sheila Dooher, which was his case, Thieu ran with what he had. 'We think Dooher used a bayonet to kill somebody, that's why.'

Brown's face cracked – a broken smile. Thieu had just verified something for him. 'Yeah,' he said.

'Yeah what?'

'That's how he did Nguyen, too.'

Thieu was learning about the art of interrogation with this man. Don't ask directly. Just keep him talking. 'Nguyen?'

'His source – Andre Nguyen. Had a little shop just outside Saigon, pretended to sell groceries.' Thieu must have looked confused. Brown put his beer mug down, brought his face in close, eye to eye. 'Come
on,
man! The guy he killed.'

The story came out. There had been no ambush with a platoon of stoned soldiers. Nguyen had sold Dooher a load of bad heroin, or maybe it was extra-good heroin. In any event, Dooher sold it to his troops and it overdosed all but two of them.

'And this never got reported?'

Again, an expression that told Thieu that his world and Brown's operated on different planes. 'Dooher covered it. He wasn't part of it. We – me and Lindley – we weren't part of it. We all alibied each other. We were out on patrol, the guys left back at camp had this bad load of shit, and it killed them.'

'And the authorities believed you?'

Brown nodded. 'Enough, but that wasn't really the end of it.' A slug of beer. 'Problem is, Dooher knows it's his fault. And we know it's his fault. So now he like wants to be friends, afterwards. Make sure Lindley and me, we got no hard feelings.'

'How'd he try to be your friend?'

'You know, pulled us – me and Lindley – some cherry R and R in Hawaii. He had a knack of getting what he wanted. He thought he'd show us a good time, make up for the other, some bullshit like that. Lindley wouldn't do it.'

'Why not?' It was a direct question and Brown hesitated again, but Thieu couldn't stop himself. 'Chas, why didn't Lindley want to go out with Dooher?'

'He thought he was going to kill us.'

'Why?'

'Why? 'Cause we knew he'd fucked up, that's why. We could ruin him if we told. We were the only witnesses left and we were pretty bitter.'

'At Dooher?'

Brown shrugged. 'At the whole thing, man. You get tight over there with your guys. You're like twenty years old and then, wham, they're all dead but you. It makes you bitter.'

Thieu believed it. 'But you went out with Dooher? In Hawaii?'

Chas nodded. 'I just didn't see it. He wasn't going to kill nobody. Lindley was just paranoid. I thought.'

'Now you don't think he was?'

'Well, he didn't try to kill me. There's the proof of that.'

The eyes seemed to go empty again, but Thieu saw something in them that Chas Brown was trying to keep hidden. Chas grabbed for the crutch of his beer glass, but Thieu surprised himself, reaching out, grabbing his wrist, stopping him.

'What?' he asked.

'I always thought, later, that if Lindley had come along, he might have. Killed us both, I mean. When I showed up at his hotel alone, it was like he freaked out, goes all quiet on me, like, "What the fuck? I ask my guys out for a good time, on me, and they stand me up. What kind of bullshit is that?'"

'So what did happen? That night?'

'Nothing. We got drunk. Well, tell the truth, first time in my life, somebody got drunker than me. I was, I guess, still a little scared what he might do.' Brown's ravaged face creased into a little-boy smile. 'I poured out a lot of good rum that night. Still breaks my heart to think about it.'

'I bet it does.' Thieu found the thread again. 'And so, after that, you became friends?'

'Not hardly.'

'Why not?'

'Cause he was an officer.' This time he got the beer to his mouth. 'No, not that. I thought he was pathetic, I guess. That's why.'

'Pathetic?'

A nod. 'You ever have somebody push on you too hard they want to be friends so bad?'

'And Dooher wanted to be your friend?'

It was all coming back now, and Brown's head swung from side to side. 'No, no, no. He wanted to be
forgiven,
that's all he wanted. I mean as long as we were alive, and he wasn't going to kill us, then he wanted us to
understand
how
bad he felt, how he had proved it, how he'd made fucking amends.'

'How did he do that?'

'Shit, I shouldn't be telling you this. You're a cop.'

'I am a cop. So what?'

Thieu's hand was still locked around his wrist, and suddenly Brown became aware of it; he moved it, raised the beer to his mouth. Drained it. Took a deep breath. 'So he killed Nguyen, the guy who sold us the shag. Went to his store and gutted him with his bayonet, wiped the fucking blade clean on his pajamas. Told me all about it, man to man, how he'd taken this great risk and all to get the guy who'd been responsible for everybody's o.d. So I'd forgive him, see what a hero he was. Can you believe that?'

'My Lord.' Glitsky, sitting on the table in one of the interrogation rooms on the 4th floor, the door closed behind him, flicked off the tape recorder.