The Fall (11 page)

“And do what?” Glitsky asked.

“Out him as a
person of interest. I don’t care what his lawyer says, the bottom line is he lied giving his statement. Most people will admit that lying raises questions about a person’s basic innocence. Even if Ms. Hardy tries to explain the lies away, lying is something guilty people do. So yeah, evidence or not, he’s a person of interest. He gets his defenses up, who knows what he might do. Or her, if she’s inexperienced. And it also, perhaps, gets Liam Goodman off our ass, at least for the weekend. No objection, Abe?”

Glitsky shrugged. “Sounds like a plan to me. The goal’s still to get the bad guy, right? If The Beck is going into defense work, she has to get used to defending guilty people, and now’s as good a time as any. So”—he clapped his hands—“how are we going to divide this thing up?”

•  •  •

G
LITSKY HAD DINNER
with his family—Treya, eight-year-old Rachel, and five-year-old Zachary—and by eight o’clock he was back at the Hall of Justice, sitting in front of a computer monitor. The camera angle for the surveillance video in the bowels of the tunnel was from high above and captured the steps leading from Bush Street to the landing halfway down, then followed the steps in the opposite direction the rest of the way down to the sidewalk inside the tunnel.

The panoramic lens captured both the up and the down sets of steps and most of the landing, although the homeless man sleeping against the wall wasn’t really visible—and then only his back—until he stood up, gathered his stuff, and walked back up to Bush. Since there was no message to the contrary from the department that had pulled the CD from the camera, Glitsky assumed that the time signature in the screen’s lower right corner was correct.

Glitsky moved the image to begin at ten-thirty and watched for five full minutes before he went back to fast-forwarding because of the lack of activity. In the hour’s worth of video that he watched, only seven people—including the homeless guy, at about the halfway point—used the steps, all of them except the homeless man coming down from Bush Street.

Besides the residence-challenged individual—whom Glitsky assumed was the as-yet-unnamed witness—the first two people coming down from Bush were women. The first one was Asian and appeared to be
middle-aged or older, in a long dark coat. The second one, four minutes later, at 10:41, was a white female in her twenties, in jeans and a black jacket. Hands in her pockets, she hesitated slightly as she approached the landing, probably noticing the sleeping homeless man. Then she continued down. To Glitsky, it was probable that Anlya was still alive at this moment, and possibly hadn’t even started the argument that would end in her death, just above and out of the camera’s range.

At 11:04, a white man in a trench coat over what looked to be a suit—he was wearing a tie—descended the stairs in a hurry, almost at a run. He slowed to a full stop at the turnaround, perhaps surprised by the presence of the homeless man there, and Glitsky imagined that this was probably seconds or at most a minute or two after Anlya had hit the street below. This might, he thought, be her killer, coming down to make sure she was dead.

Glitsky stopped the playback and went frame by frame, trying to get a good glimpse of the man’s face. But as he descended, he kept his gaze lowered, eyes on the steps, then down at the homeless guy.

Try as he might, Glitsky couldn’t make out any particular features. The man had a full head of dark hair that he wore fashionably long, just over his ears. He was the approximate height and build of Greg Treadway. Beyond that, he could have been anybody.

Almost immediately after, at 11:05, the homeless man stood up and appeared at the bottom of the picture, although since he trudged up the stairs and therefore away from the camera, his face was never visible, either. At 11:11, a couple—two of the witnesses who’d talked to the police that night?—also in a hurry, as though coming down to look at something specific, entered and then exited the picture. Four minutes later—an eternity!—the next pedestrian appeared on the stairway, a heavyset black man in a kind of a peacoat. He came halfway down, got to the landing, then stopped and seemed to examine the stairway ahead before continuing the rest of the way down.

Finally, at 11:15, a San Francisco patrolman in uniform showed up on the screen. He, too, paused at the landing before heading down the rest of the way.

Much to his frustration, Glitsky was all but certain that he had been watching what was happening during the exact minutes when Anlya and
her assailant argued and she was thrown to her death. That reality was
right here
, just outside the vision of the camera. With the exception of the couple who may have been the ones who stayed around to answer police questions about what they’d seen and heard, Glitsky knew that getting a positive identification of any of these people would probably be an impossible task, since all of them had appeared only briefly, turned the corner, then walked down facing away from the camera. None of them had appeared startled, or looked up, or given any indication they were aware that anything unusual had just happened.

•  •  •

T
HE
B
ECK WAS
spending that same Friday night out with her client. They were sitting across the table from each other in a booth at a pizza place on Clement, and she had assured him that there would be no bill for her time or services. Because she knew that her father—no joke—would surely disapprove of her decision, she felt uncomfortable about this.

But she also felt like it might be her best chance to get to know more, not just about her client but about some of the background of the general situation. Greg had been filling her in for the past ten minutes on the basic story of Max and Anlya when another name came up and she interrupted him. “Who, again,” she asked, “is Leon?”

“I don’t know if I’ve mentioned him yet,” Greg said. “Leon Copes. Anlya’s mother’s live-in boyfriend for a while. A truly bad guy, nothing but trouble, especially for Anlya. He raped her while he was living with them.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. She was like fourteen at the time, or the first time.”

“There was more than one time? And he was still living with them?”

“I know. It was bad. Eventually, Sharla threw him out, but he scared everybody enough that they never pressed charges. They were just relieved to have him gone.”

“There’s a lovely story. So where is he now?”

“Last I heard, Napa State Hospital.”

This was an unexpected answer. Though it was filled with people who’d been arrested, Napa wasn’t a jail but a secure holding institution for people who’d been found incompetent to face trial.

“What did he do to get in there?” Rebecca asked.

“Got in a
bar fight and killed a guy, then got found incompetent.”

Sometimes confused by laymen with a ruling of insanity, legal incompetence was an entirely different concept: It applied when a defendant could not participate in a trial because of a mental disorder or developmental disability, as a result of which the defendant was not able to understand the nature of the criminal proceedings or assist counsel in the conduct of a defense.

“And when was this?”

Greg chewed pizza. “After he moved out but while the kids were still with Sharla, maybe a year and a half before they were removed from her custody.”

“So—what?—three years ago?”

“That sounds about right. Why?”

“I’d have to check to make sure of the law on this, but I think there’s a maximum of three years you can be held if you’re Thirteen Sixty-eight.”

“Thirteen Sixty-eight?”

“Sorry. Legalese. That’s the penal code section when you’re incompetent to stand trial.”

“After three years, then what?”

“They either let you go or, if you’re a complete batshit loonball and you meet certain criteria, you can be institutionalized longer, under what I think they call a Murphy Conservatorship, but don’t quote me on it. Two years out of law school and the details are already fuzzy. It’s one of the reasons I don’t feel right charging you for tonight. But once I get back up to speed and know most of these answers for sure, watch out.”

“I’ll consider myself warned. But I still don’t get your point about Leon.”

“Well, if it’s been three years, my question is whether he’s still at Napa, if maybe they’ve let him out.”

“Could they let him out and not bring him to trial? I mean, he was charged with killing somebody. They wouldn’t just declare him competent and then not have a trial, would they?”

She put her beer glass down. “Good point. You’re right. He’d either be Murphy’d or found fit for trial. Either way he’s still in custody somewhere.”

“And that matters because . . . ?”

She brushed a lock of hair back off her forehead. “Only that if he were out, he would definitely be a threat to Anlya, wouldn’t he? If she accused him of raping her . . . Except that’s moot if he’s still in custody and charged with murder.” She picked up her beer glass and drank. “Are you good if we keep going a little more?”

“Sure, but I do have a question.”

“Hit me.”

“If you believe I’m innocent, and I am, why do we need to keep going over any of this?”

Rebecca put her glass down and straightened up. “It’s not a question of whether I think you’re innocent. You’re my client, and my job is to protect you. That doesn’t mean I think you’re guilty.”

His expression went decidedly cold. “Well, thanks all the hell for that.”

She shook off his objection. “Hey! Listen up, Greg. Until I’m convinced that you’re no longer on Homicide’s radar, I feel obligated to know as much as I can about all of this stuff, okay? Anlya, her family, the other players in her life. And you’re right—all of that might not matter. None of it might matter. But what if it turned out that part of it did, and I just wasn’t aware or missed it? Or didn’t think to ask about it?”

“But I’m not—”

Holding up her hand, she stopped him. “The other thing is that I screwed up with you last night. I had lots of time before Waverly showed up to give you a primer on what to do when you’re innocent and you talk to the police, the main thing being tell the whole truth, no matter what. Because if you tell them up front, the worse they do is go, ‘Hm, that’s a little weird, but he knew it was, too, and even though it made him come across as squirrelly, he told us.’ But I didn’t do that. And now you’re paying for it, and that’s my fault.”

“You’re being a little hard on yourself. You weren’t my lawyer at the time.”

“It doesn’t matter. I screwed up, and you’re still not in the clear here, don’t kid yourself.”

He shook his head. “I’m not worried.”

“Good for you. You don’t have to be. I do. Until they get themselves another suspect, anyway. You still might not see it, but this is all dead serious,
and until it goes away, I’m the only one standing between you and at least a very bad few months. Really.”

“Okay. I give up. You’re right, and I should take this more seriously. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She blew out some of her pent-up adrenaline. “How did they wind up in foster care in the first place? I mean the actual event that got CPS involved?”

“Long story short is that Sharla had a new boyfriend—after Leon—who’d gotten hold of some ecstasy, and they were partying loud enough that somebody called the police. By the time the cops arrived, the partying had turned into a fight. Anlya and Max had locked themselves in their mom’s bedroom to be out of harm’s way, and when the cops found them there, they called CPS.”

“Is that boyfriend still in the picture?”

“No. But there’s probably another new one in the wings. You hate to say it about anybody, but Sharla’s pretty much a lost cause. Max won’t even go see her anymore.”

“What about him? Max?”

Greg shrugged. “What do you want me to say? He’s a great kid. Smart and somehow motivated in spite of everything he’s been through. Ripped up over this, though. I was planning to hang with him tomorrow, not that I’ll be able to do much, if anything. I mean, twins, you know. Together from birth.”

“They were close?”

“Very.”

“Was she like him?”

“In what way?”

“Motivated and smart?”

“Not exactly.” He rotated his beer mug. “She was intelligent enough but much more idealistic and dreamy than Max, who’s got some good street smarts. She wasn’t that way—maybe, ironically, because of the bad stuff she’d been through. She just wasn’t going to let that defeat her. Everything was going to work out all right for her. Her grades were good. She was going to get into college. All of that.” He let out a sigh. “Except not, as it turns out.”

“But,” Rebecca pushed, “she was having some other problem in her
life. Something was bothering her. I mean, besides the unrequited crush on you.”

Greg’s face closed down tight. “I wish to hell people would stop talking about that. There wasn’t anything to it. It was a stupid teenage thing, and it makes me look like I was part of it. Which I wasn’t.”

“You don’t feel like you led her on?”

He leveled his gaze at her. “To be honest, that question really pisses me off. Are you trying to get a rise out of me? You just did it.”

Rebecca, startled at the vehemence, pushed herself all the way back in her chair.

The angry moment gave way. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . .” He blew out heavily. “All our jokes about date nights and secret places where we’d meet up, our places. They weren’t really anything, although in retrospect, I can see I screwed up.” Another sigh. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Rebecca swallowed, grabbed at her own breath. “So what else, besides you, might have been bothering her?”

He shook his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s something going on in the home. Estrogen overload. There was a crisis going on with somebody there every week or so. I can’t imagine anything so serious that it might have played a role in her death. You want to know what I think happened?”

“I’d love to hear that.”

“I don’t think it was personal. Somebody saw a woman walking alone late at night, an easy target. He mugged her, grabbed her purse, she fought back, he threw her over.” He waited.