Glitsky 02 - Guilt (28 page)

The conference room at McCabe & Roth had seen more somber moments, but not since the downsizing layoffs. And this may have been worse than any of those.

It was five o'clock on this Monday evening, one day shy of two weeks from the day of Sheila's death. Mark Dooher waited until the room was full before having Janey page him and tell him it was time.

Dooher lingered one last moment outside the room, aware of the muted tones within These people were worried. He had returned to work the previous Wednesday, enduring the sympathy of his partners and staff, taking individual meetings with key people for the rest of the week, reassuring one and all that life would go on, he was fine, the firm's client base was solid.

And then Sunday's
Chronicle
broke the story with the front-page headline –
Local Lawyer Suspected in Wife's Murder.

'Sources at the Hall of Justice have confirmed that the Grand Jury is considering an indictment on a prominent San Francisco attorney, Mark Dooher, for the murder of his wife, Sheila.'
The long article went on to include all the other details that the unnamed 'sources' provided – the other allegations, from the rape of Diane Price to the murders of Victor Trang ten weeks earlier and Andre Nguyen in Vietnam.

Dooher and Farrell had spent all of the morning denying everything. They had held a press conference in Wes's office. Yes, they were planning on suing the
Chronicle
and the police department. No, he had never raped anybody. He'd never killed anyone in Vietnam or anywhere else. This was a carefully orchestrated character assassination… political overtones… despondent, desperate Police Inspector… blah blah blah.

They'd hit all the high notes, and the media had gone into its fandango. All the local stations were carrying it by the noon broadcasts, radio talk-shows picked it up. The office had gotten calls from
Newsweek
and
Time
and
USA Today.
Clearly, it was going to turn into a circus.

He opened the conference-room door and all noise ceased. He went to the chair at the head of the table and stood a moment, meeting the eyes of his people one by one. He came to Christina and gave her an almost imperceptible extra nod. Finally, he cleared his throat.

At his earlier request, Janey had placed a copy of the
Sunday Chronicle
in a folder at his place. Dooher picked up the folder, opened it, and withdrew the paper, holding it up so that the headline fairly screamed. He, by contrast, spoke with great control, quietly. 'I did not do any of this,' he said. 'I will fight these charges until the day I die.'

No one said a word.

He scanned the room again, the sea of faces staring back at him, rapt. The current of tension was palpable, underscored by the barely audible sibilance of heavy breathing. Janey and three of the other women in the room were crying.

He continued: 'I wanted to meet with all of you, face to face, and tell you this. I want to sit here and answer any questions you might have. We're a room full of lawyers and you'll notice I don't have my lawyer present in here – he's sitting in my office, waiting until we're finished. I don't have anything to hide.' He glanced a last time at the newspaper, then put it back in its folder. Sitting down, he clasped his hands in front of him on the table. 'I am at your complete disposal.'

Glitsky and Thieu, armed with their warrant, stood in the empty reception area for a couple of seconds, wondering where everyone was. That odd, red evening light seemed to shimmer in the moted air and the place appeared absolutely deserted.

'This is spooky,' Thieu whispered.

'Dooher's office,' Glitsky said. 'I know where it is.'

They walked the long hallway through the center of the building, offices to either side, all of them empty, the light blessedly shaded in the interstices between them.

The area opened up again in front of Dooher's office – Janey's area, the view again, the light. Glitsky knocked on Dooher's door and sensed the movement inside. He put his hand on his gun and the door opened on Wes Farrell.

'We've been expecting you,' he said.

Still with his staff in the conference room, Dooher looked over and stood when the door opened. 'Excuse me,' he said to the silent table in front of him. He came outside to meet them, closing the door behind him. 'You're making a terrible mistake, Sergeant,' he said.

'You have the right to remain silent,' Glitsky began, while Thieu – more or less gently – took Dooher's arm and placed a handcuff over one wrist, turning it behind his back.

'Is that necessary?'

The door opened again and Thieu put out a hand against it. 'Just a minute, please. Police.'

But the door got pushed open anyway. Roughly.

'Sergeant Glitsky!'

Glitsky stopped his recital. He remembered her now, no problem. Stunning in the sepia light, her color high, eyes flashing. 'Ms Carerra,' he said. 'I'm sorry, can I ask you to please wait back inside?'

'No, you can't! This is outrageous!'

Farrell stepped forward. 'Christina…'

She jerked her arm away, faced off on them all. 'What's the matter with you, Sergeant? Can't you see what you're putting this good man through? Look at him. He didn't do anything. Goddamnit,
look at him,
would you?'

But Glitsky was looking at her.

'Christina, it's all right,' Dooher said.

Thieu had snicked the other cuff on Dooher and now he was advancing on Christina. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to get back in there, ma' am. Right now.'

Glitsky said, 'Paul, it's okay.'

'It's
not
okay!' Christina's hands were clenched. Tears of anger were beginning to gleam in her eyes.'This isn't right. Why are you doing this?'

'Christina,' Dooher repeated. Softly, almost like a lover. 'They can't prove it. It's all right.' Then, to Wes, gently, 'Take care of her, would you?'

Christina looked pleadingly at Dooher. He met her eyes. She started to reach a hand up, but Wes Farrell took it. Some profound energy, unmistakable, flowed between them.

Glitsky saw it, and suddenly knew that the very slim chance that he might in fact be wrong had disappeared. They had inadvertently given him the last piece, the elusive key to the whole puzzle – a motive.

The Dooher case had enthralled much of the public and captivated the media, not only because of the bizarre set of facts in the case itself, but because it had so deeply polarized the already Balkan-like factions that made up San Francisco.

Wes Farrell had carefully manipulated the coverage, accusing Glitsky of using Dooher as a pawn in his own campaign for advancement within the police department. There was simply no case against Dooher. It was all political.

Glitsky, abetted by activist feminist prosecutor Amanda Jenkins, was simply trying to make his bones by pushing a high-profile case in front of Police Chief Dan Rigby, who was a rubber stamp for the liberal Mayor Conrad Aiken. At the same time, Glitsky was counting on the support of District Attorney Chris Locke, a black liberal supported by two gay supervisors.

On Dooher's side, he had the Archbishop of San Francisco, most of the city's legal community, a host of independent angry white males, including some very vocal radio personalities.

Dooher was white and male. Stories appeared in which people who had known him (and whom he'd fired) recounted his insensitive remarks about his own lesbian daughter. There were no gay attorneys in the firm he ran. He
must
be homophobic. No women had made partner in his firm, either. He was on record as being anti-abortion.

In short, Mark Dooher's public defense was that he was a modern-day Dreyfuss –
exactly
the kind of scapegoat an ambitious liberal zealot like Glitsky would need to bolster his reputation and advance his career. The Sergeant had taken the Lieutenant's exam and, in what was widely viewed (and roundly criticized in certain circles) as another liberal end run to enhance his prestige as a prosecution witness, he had been promoted to Head of Homicide.

Outside Judge Oscar Thomasino's courtroom on the 3rd floor of the Hall of Justice, things were heating up.

Building security had erected a makeshift sawhorse chute through which spectators at the trial would have to pass before they entered the courtroom. At the double doors, a metal detector further slowed ingress. (The metal detector at the front entrance to the Hall had been known to miss the occasional weapon, and Thomasino didn't want to take chances in his courtroom.)

So on this cold and clear Monday morning, the ninth day of December, the hallway outside Department 26 was a microcosm of the city, and it was all but unbridled bedlam.

There had already been a mini-riot between the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who supported Dooher, and the Vietnam Veterans of America, who believed Chas Brown. Seven people had to be restrained by the building cops, and two were removed from the hallway and arrested.

But that hadn't ended it. Their blood up, a couple of hippies from the VVA group waded into a contingent of Vietnamese activists who were there protesting the fact that Dooher wasn't being charged with the Trang or Nguyen murders, both of which had received enormous media attention.

It didn't help that the chute was funneling everyone into the same place.

Inside the courtroom, it wasn't much calmer. The hard wooden theatre-style fold-up seats and all the standing-room area in and around them, were crammed with print and network reporters jockeying for space. Women's rights activists wanted Diane Price's story to be heard. Pro-choice and pro-life advocates sniped at each other across the central aisle. The veterans who'd made it inside weren't getting along much better than they had in the hallway.

And this was merely for the pre-trial motion phase, before jury selection had even begun. Attorneys for both sides went before the Judge and talked about the evidence they would be presenting, about what would be allowed, what barred.

Normally, this was not a public, 'sexy' part of a trial. It was often a lot of legalese and mumbo-jumbo. But if any of the political and social issues that surrounded this trial were going to be part of it, today was when everyone was going to find out.

The Judge hadn't yet entered the courtroom, but the court reporter was at her machine in front of the Bench, the clerk sat with his computer printouts off to the side, and the three bailiffs stood at ease in their uniforms.

At the defense table, Mark Dooher was a study in careful control. He and his attorneys had come into the Hall of Justice and then into the courtroom through the back door to avoid having to confront either the reporters or the crowds demonstrating in the hallways outside. Now Dooher sat, somber and subdued, his hands folded in front of him on the table.

On his right was Wes Farrell, who'd lost his ten extra pounds and abandoned his former air of slovenliness; with his maroon tie and charcoal-gray Brooks Brothers suit, he was every inch the successful lawyer.

On the other side of the defendant sat Christina Carrera, by some accounts the 'other woman' for whom Dooher had killed his wife. This theory seemed to suffer under the burden of inspection – the two had been hounded by reporters nearly constantly for months now and they had spent little or no personal time together. They'd never been caught out at any private tryst. They denied any personal involvement with each other beyond a mutual friendship, respect, and commitment to proving Dooher not guilty.

Christina had only passed her Bar exam two weeks before but, at Dooher's request, had been on his defense team from the beginning. Over Farrell's strenuous objections.

Dooher had sprung the idea on him as they were leaving the Hall of Justice after posting bail. Farrell had laid a hand on his friend's sleeve. 'Let me get this straight. You want Christina Carrera, who hasn't even passed the Bar, to be my second chair in your
murder
trial?'

'She'll have passed the Bar by the time we go to trial.'

'Okay, so even then, that's your plan?'

'That's it.'

Farrell nodded, appearing to give it serious thought. 'How can I phrase my response so that it's both powerful and unambiguous and yet subtle and sensitive? Ahh, the words are coming to me: are you out of your fucking mind?'

'Not at all, Wes. It's a terrific idea.'

'It's the worst idea I've ever heard. The very worst.'

Dooher started walking, forcing Wes to tag along down off the steps of the Hall, along Bryant. 'No, listen…'

'I can't listen, Mark. It doesn't bear discussion.'

But Dooher was going on. 'We both agree We've got political issues on our hands here, right? Here we are, two old white guys, the very image of what San Francisco hates, what any representative jury is going to hate…'

'It doesn't hate-'

'No, hear me out. And at the prosecution table, we've got a woman DA and a black cop, representing the forces of justice. We need, to steal their own thunder, diversity.'

'Okay, so we'll get a second who doesn't look like us, but not her. I've already heard talk about the two of you-'

Dooher stopped walking. 'There is
nothing
to that. Nothing.'

'I didn't say there was, Mark. I'm telling you what I've heard other people saying.'

'Well, then, all the better. Get the rumors out of the closet. Put her on the team and we'll all be under a microscope for months, and they won't find a damn thing 'cause there isn't anything. She is very bright, you know. Law review, top of her class.'

'Bright, schmight, Mark, she's not even a
lawyer.'

'We've covered that. She will be. She's got passion and brains and she'll work her ass off for you at a fraction of what you'd have to pay somebody else.'

'You mean what you
'd
have to pay someone else. You're telling me money's the issue?'

'No. That's incidental. I'll save a few bucks, but I want her with us. She's pretty as hell, men on the jury are going to want to be on her side.'

Farrell was shaking his head. 'Men on the jury will be jealous of you and women will be intimidated by her.'

'Not true.'

'You want to risk your life on that?'

Dooher seemed to consider that notion. 'I'm a risk-taker, Wes. My gut tells me I'm right in this case. I've lived my life believing what my gut tells me. So yeah, I guess I'd risk my life on this. That's who I am, and I've done pretty well with it, don't you think?'

Wes caught the unspoken message: Better than you have, old buddy old pal.

But this was a terrible idea. Wes couldn't make himself just roll over and accept it, though he could see where this discussion was going to lead. 'What if I can't work with her? What if we don't get along?'

'Why wouldn't you get along? Two professionals, one cause you both believe in? What's not to get along?' Then a sop to Farrell's ego. 'You'll be the man, Wes. She takes orders from you. And she'll jump at the opportunity, then through hoops if you ask her to.'

They were walking again. It was a blustery mid-afternoon and cars packed all of Bryant's four lanes; traffic lined up for the five o'clock commute across the Bay Bridge had halted. Horns and swearing.

'Why do you want her, Mark? Really?'

'I just told you.'

Farrell shook his head. 'No, I mean personally. I'm asking this as your friend, not your attorney, okay? You' ve
got
to see how badly this could play. Don't you?'

'Yeah,' he finally admitted. 'We've said there's a risk. I think it's worth taking.'

'But why?'

Dooher walked on for a few more steps, then put an arm around Farrell's shoulder. 'I guess the same reason I want you. I just don't feel comfortable with a hired gun.' He pulled Farrell closer to him. 'She's got faith, Wes. She believes in me.'

On the prosecution side of the courtroom, Amanda Jenkins had abandoned her trademark mini-skirt for a conservative dark blue suit. She'd let the frost grow out of her hair and now wore it shoulder-length, curled under. Next to her, helping her arrange her papers at this moment, was Lieutenant Abe Glitsky.

Glitsky had tried to put the madness of all of this out of his life over the past months – he'd had enough on his mind with his children and his new job. Batiste's prediction had come true and Glitsky had been promoted within his unit, and now he was running Homicide. The paper could say whatever it wanted about the politics of his promotion, but he knew he'd been Batiste's first choice as his successor, and he'd scored second-highest among applicants for Lieutenant. He'd earned it.

The way he saw it, Mark Dooher was unfinished business from his days as a Sergeant. He had investigated the case, assembled the evidence, and delivered it to the District Attorney. It was his case until Dooher got sentenced.

So as the DA had requested, as the investigating officer, Glitsky sat inside the rail, at the prosecution table next to Amanda Jenkins, wearing the dark suit he'd bought for Flo's funeral and hadn't worn since.

Almost seven months ago.

He was going to be there every day for the duration of the Dooher trial. California Evidence Code Section 777(c) provided that the DA could appoint an 'officer or employee' to be present at the trial, and prosecutors liked the investigating officer to be there for any number of reasons – to prepare other witnesses for what they might expect, to bounce theories and strategies off another professional, to have someone to talk to during recesses, to watch the Judge and the jury. If a juror fell asleep during testimony, for example, he'd tell Jenkins that perhaps she should go over it a second time.

But mostly he was there as a second set of ears, to hear what a witness actually said, as opposed to what everyone – except the jury – expected and therefore heard. There was a huge difference, and that's what Abe was listening for.

'All rise. Department 26 of the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco, is now in session, Judge Oscar Thomasino presiding.'

Farrell stood, pulled at his tie and cleared his throat – his nerves were frayed nearly to breaking. He had been in courtrooms hundreds of times, but nothing came close to the electricity surrounding this case. And now, finally, after all the preparation, it was beginning.

Thomasino, in his black robe, ascended to the Bench. Sitting, he adjusted his robe, arranged some papers, took a sip of water, whispered something to his court reporter, who smiled. Knowing that it was undoubtedly a ritual pleasantry, Farrell still wondered what the Judge had said – if it was about any of them. Thomasino raised his bushy eyebrows to include the courtroom. Everyone was getting seated again, shuffling around, and the 'Good morning' Thomasino perfunctorily uttered went largely unheeded.

It didn't seem to bother the Judge. He turned to the court clerk, tapped his gavel once as though checking to see that it still worked, and nodded to the clerk. 'Call the case.'

The clerk stood. 'Superior Court number 159317,
The People of the State of California versus Mark Francis Dooher.
Counsel state their appearances for the record.'

Farrell looked at his client to his left, then further down the table to Christina, his second chair. A thumbs up, a practiced smile for her confidence, for his client's. He felt little of that confidence himself, concerned his weakness in accepting Christina as second chair would fatally harm the defense.

Christina looked good – hell, she always looked good – and she certainly was game to fight this battle for as long as it took. Farrell even had to admit she was a substantial and resourceful person with a damn good legal mind.

But so what? In spite of that, in spite of her gung-ho attitude and good humor, he wished she could simply disappear.

Because she was in love with their client, goddamn it.

Wes believed that there was nothing yet between them, but he never doubted that there would be, and privately that shook him.

This was the unspoken motive. Farrell had no indication that Amanda Jenkins was planning to bring it up during the trial – but it was the only argument for Dooher's guilt that Farrell couldn't refute.

This one question lay buried under the rational arguments in the very pit of his being. There had been nights when it rose ghoulish and woke him in a sweat.

But the time for reflection had passed.

Thomasino, all business, ostentatiously opened his folder, read for a nanosecond, and was now skewering both attorneys' tables. 'Ms Jenkins,' he began, 'Mr Farrell. Before we call the first jury panel, we've got a four-oh-two to rule on.'