The Keeper (23 page)

51

O
UTSIDE THE
B
IEHL
home, Glitsky called Dismas Hardy, who, as it turned out, was nearby. He had just arrived at the bar he co-owned, the Little Shamrock, where he was going to bartend from four to seven, as he liked to do from time to time. Hardy was interested and happy to hear about Glitsky's afternoon, but the details would have to wait; he was already jamming behind the bar. Maybe Abe could embellish the story when he showed up in person.

Either Hardy had lied or the crowd packing the bar had mysteriously disappeared by the time Glitsky grabbed one of the open stools down by the beer spigots and ordered an iced tea. After Glitsky gave him the broad-strokes account of his interview with Allison Biehl, Hardy took a sip from his beer and gave Abe a look of mild distress.

“What?” Glitsky asked.

“Nothing.”

“Seems like something.”

“No.” Hardy sipped again, swallowed. “Nothing.”

Glitsky shook his head, perplexed. “I don't get it. This is the second time today I tell you great news, and both times you're . . .”

“Surly, discontented, unhappy?”

“Yeah. That's a good start.”

“And you have no idea why?”

“You're jealous 'cause I got all the answers first?”

“That's not it.”

“Then how about you tell me what it is.”

Hardy put down his beer, placed his palms on the bar between them, and leaned over. “I'm really glad you got the break, Abe. That's great news. But I'm just a little concerned. Let's just do a logic game for a minute and pretend that your theory about Katie Chase is right. Because of what she heard about Foster's alibi from Hal, she got perceived as a threat by somebody in the Sheriff's Department—Cushing or Foster, it doesn't matter. And their solution was to kill her. Doesn't that pretty well capture the highlights?”

“Close enough.”

“Okay. Tell me, then. In what way was Katie's situation before she got killed any different from the one you just put Allison Biehl in? At least, once you put the word out that she knows Foster's alibi is worthless, what will be the difference? Why won't she be in danger? Or her husband, for that matter? Just as an exercise in logic, mind you.”

“Nobody's going to kill her, Diz.”

“No? Why not, exactly? Because this time nobody will find out who's the weak link?”

“Among other reasons.”

“Really? Well, this just in, as I hardly need to tell you, you can know who did something till you're blue in the face, and unless you've got some proof to take them down at trial, you got nothing. And these guys, Cushing and Foster and the rest of them, they're not dumb. They've got this control-your-witnesses thing down to an art form. How many deaths in the jail last year alone, and every one investigated by the SFPD, every one, Abe, and no charges? Who knows how long all of this has been going on?”

“But after today, we know it's going on. It's not just a theory.”

Hardy pitched a glance at the ceiling. “There's never been any doubt that it's going on. It's never been just a theory.”

“And now people are talking about it. And soon will be talking even more.”

“Swell. How is this supposed to help us prepare a case against any of them? With inadmissible hearsay from the wife of a witness who may or may not talk? No. The truth is that now they see you coming from a million miles away. And there is still no evidence. Even if Foster's alibi on Tussaint falls apart, so what? It doesn't mean he killed him. Nobody saw Foster kill him except Luther Jones, and he's not talking, not ever, regardless of what you've done.”

Glitsky cupped his hands around his glass. “Correct me if I'm wrong,” he said in a level tone, “but wasn't it you who said—it was yesterday, I believe—that nobody would come after Hal because the coincidence factor would be too great? Why doesn't that apply to Allison Biehl, too?”

“Okay.” Hardy held up his hands. “Perhaps in my syllogistic zeal, I exaggerated about Allison. Perhaps she will be in no danger. Because she isn't a threat to anybody. Her husband sticks with his perjury about the alibi—and he will, because why wouldn't he?—and then Allison says you threatened or coerced or tricked her or something, and all of a sudden we're back at square one. Except everybody is warned about everything. How do you not see this?”

“I see it, Diz. But I see it playing out differently.”

“You do? How's that?”

“I keep the pressure on, and something gives. It's already happened today, since ‘CityTalk.' And now Allison. The logjam is breaking up.”

Hardy blew out a long breath in frustration. “It might be. People might be getting nervous, but that's only going to make them more careful, not more reckless. Besides which, you know that the more you accuse without a show of proof—and I mean any proof—the less credibility you'll have. You give us another cockeyed theory, and people roll their eyes. Until finally, Wes has to bow to public pressure and lay you off because you're obsessed and you've stopped acting the way an inspector needs to.”

“I am obsessed.” Abe lowered his voice. “These guys are getting away with murder, Diz. Multiple murders. And I'm not supposed to break this nut open any way I can?”

“I hate to say it, but that's right. You're not just supposed to break it any way you can. You've got to break it the way you're supposed to, so a case can stick. Otherwise it's wasted effort. If anything, it'll help them, not us.”

“So what about your client?”

“What about him?”

“Do you think he killed Katie?”

Hardy needed a moment to consider his answer. He suddenly remembered his beer. When he put it back down, he said, “The grand jury found enough to indict him, Abe. Even if most of what you think about Cushing and Foster is true, he's as good as any other suspect. Or, rather, because there's no physical evidence against him, as bad.”

“Do you think he did it, Diz?”

“It's got nothing to do with what I think.”

“Sure, but still. Simple question, yes or no.”

At last Hardy nodded, barely whispering. “No.”

“And I'm not supposed to do everything I can to get him off? Isn't that what you asked me to do, and what I'm doing now with Farrell?”

“You said it yourself. You're obsessed. What you need to do is find evidence. Nothing else. No more theories, no hearsay, just admissible evidence.”

Glitsky found his temper flaring. “What do you think I got?”

Hardy shook his head. “Never admissible. Not in a million years.”

“Diz. It's the first time we got a look at the truth here.”

“Oh, and what's that? That Foster killed Tussaint?”

“And Maria, and Luther, and maybe Katie Chase, too.”

“We don't know any of that. All we think we might know is that ­Foster's alibi might not hold up. That's a lot of maybe.”

“It's a wedge. It's the first one.”

“Yeah, if you could prove it. Can you do that? Because until you can . . .”

“I'm working from truth here, Diz. I know the truth.”

“Spare me the truth, Abe. Get me something I can use.”

In a cold fury, Glitsky stared across the bar at his friend. “You know what,” he said in a clipped tone, “I don't need to talk about this anymore. I'm doing what I'm doing, I'm doing it my way, and I'm getting results. And I'm gonna keep doing it.” He pushed his tea over to the bar's gutter and stood up. “Have yourself a nice day.”

He walked out the front door.

52

T
HE LAST PERSON
on the planet whom Abe wanted to see—except possibly Dismas Hardy or Wes Farrell—was Ruth Chase, but she had called him that morning, congratulating him on the ‘CityTalk' column, and she called again just as he was starting his car to drive back downtown.

In his foul mood, he was tempted not to answer at all, but his sense of duty kicked in and he picked up. She hated to bother him, she said, but felt she needed some reassurance. She was worried about her son, ­languishing in jail. She was alone in Hal's house, watching the two ­children, a task for which Glitsky knew she was at best ill suited.

Admitting that he was around the corner and could spare a few ­minutes—and berating himself for his softheartedness as soon as he said it—he agreed to drop by and bring her up to date; they'd had a little bit of a breakthrough. As an unexpected bonus, he realized while driving up Stanyan, Ruth would probably see something positive in it, in contrast to Hardy's negative reaction. Small consolation.

In any event, five minutes after he left the Little Shamrock, he pulled up in front of Hal's home. Ruth greeted him at the front door like a ­long-lost friend and, after inviting him in, immediately began effusing again over that morning's ‘CityTalk.' “It was amazing how you pulled all of those strings together. I don't see how anybody reading that could have any doubt about what's going on with the sheriff and his people downtown.”

“I don't think people doubt it so much as they're stumped on how to go about proving any of it,” Abe said.

“Wouldn't you think that once you know who you're looking at, you can focus your attention better on that one person and maybe find your proof? I know once Hal got arrested, they showed up with all kinds of warrants and Crime Scene and Forensics people. It was a circus my first couple of days here. Of course they didn't find anything, but that's because Hal's innocent. If he'd actually done it, they would have found something. After the column, that's how they ought to be treating the sheriff, wouldn't you think?”

“I couldn't agree more.”

“So why aren't they?”

“Because on what we've got so far, no judge is going to sign a warrant, and you need a warrant. That's the bottleneck. You've got to have something to start with, not just a theory but something tangible. And that's been elusive, to say the least. Although I think today we may have seen the first hole in that particular dike.”

“That's wonderful news!”

“It is. But as I say, even with probable cause, Cushing's got a ton of political clout. He and the mayor are allies, if not real friends, and so are half or more of the supervisors, probably. Anybody who goes after him—Wes Farrell, for example—is sticking his neck way out.” Suddenly Glitsky glanced around the room. “I just noticed. Where are the kids?”

“They're fine,” she said. “They're upstairs taking a nap.” She looked over at the stairway, nodded, and sighed. “Do you mind if we sit down? Can I get you a drink? I'm going to have a little wine. It's been a long day.”

“I'm good,” Glitsky said. “I've just come from a bar. Any more tea and I'd float away. But you go ahead.”

She went into the kitchen. Glitsky lowered himself onto the couch and heard her open the refrigerator. In another moment she appeared with a glass of white wine. Crossing over to the reading chair, she sat. “I don't know whether it's me getting old or what, but the energy of those kids, especially Ellie . . . it's unbelievable. I don't remember my own boys being so exhausting, but I suppose I should have expected a few ­difficulties—not to speak ill of the dead, but given the way their mother was.”

“How was that?”

“I think she and Hal were always in denial about it, but it was pretty clear to me and anybody who paid attention that she . . . Katie, I mean . . . had some issues with her mental health. You know she was in counseling?”

“I understood that was mostly about her marriage, not mental illness.”

Ruth shrugged. “I suppose it was, to some extent, but it was also ­obvious that she wasn't completely right mentally.”

“In what way?”

“I don't know the technical terms. Maybe bipolar, manic-depressive, whatever they call it nowadays, or ADHD. And I see much the same thing in Ellie. Whatever name you want to use, I'd call it hyperactivity, and she obviously got it from her mother.” Ruth shook her head and sipped at her wine. “But that's under control. The children are doing as well as can be expected with their father in jail, and Warren—you met Warren—is coming back this weekend to help out some more. We'll get through this, especially if we can keep those damn busybody Dunnes away.” She drank again. “But you mentioned that you'd had some kind of breakthrough. Did you mean in Hal's case? Can you tell me what it is?”

Still stinging from his argument with Hardy, Abe nevertheless realized that he didn't want to volunteer too much to Ruth Chase. Though a little bit of an enthusiastic reception over what he considered a major accomplishment in the investigation wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. So, carefully avoiding too much detail, he told her they had found a witness who would help Hal.

Ruth was a rapt and willing audience, a far cry from Hardy. And Glitsky knew that, even in the truncated version, it was a good story. “The bottom line,” he concluded, “is Foster's alibi for the Tussaint murder may not hold. That's not proof that he killed him, but it's a good start. If I can get this in front of a judge, it might be enough to get a warrant. And as you say, once we start looking closely at any particular person, the odds go way up that we'll find something.”

Sitting straight up on the front few inches of her chair, Ruth said, “All that sounds great, but I don't understand something.”

“What's that?”

“It sounds to me, from what you learned today, that Foster must have killed this other man, Tussaint.”

“I think he did, yes. But at the moment we don't have any witnesses saying they saw him do it. We don't have a murder weapon or a motive. We know where Foster wasn't that day—San Bruno—but we don't know where he was; if, for example, he was anywhere near Tussaint in the jail. There's no case to speak of.”

“But he did kill him. Nobody doubts he did it, do they?”

Glitsky shook his head. “I don't. Not seriously.”

“And he also killed this Maria woman?”

“Not so certain. Likely, maybe, but with no proof it was Foster, it might just as easily have been one of the other guards. Or none of them. Or a robber, even.”

“You don't think it was any of those?”

“No.”

“You think it was Foster.”

Abe nodded. “I do. And I also think he's the guy doing the really dirty work.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because why would he and Cushing want anybody else involved? If it's only the two of them, they're cold-blooded, efficient, and keep their own secrets. It's a closed shop, and since it's been working for the past six years, why mess with it now?”

“So it's both of them?”

“That's my call.”

“Which means this man Foster shot Katie, too, doesn't it? It has to mean that.”

“Let's just say it would be consistent with what I think we already know.”

This got Ruth pumped up enough to stand. “Well, Inspector, some judge has to be made to see this! Don't you think? Or the DA. Don't you work for the DA now? Didn't that column say you did? You work for Mr. Farrell, the very man who's charging Hal.”

“Technically, yes, but . . .”

“If Mr. Farrell knew everything that you've been telling me, he'd never be able to keep Hal in jail, would he? He'd have to let him go. There wouldn't be any way they could convict him.”

“Possibly not,” Glitsky said. “But we have no admissible evidence. At the moment, Hal is a suspect”—he held up his hand as Ruth opened her mouth to object—“as likely as Foster or anybody else. Much as there wasn't enough to arrest him, there's even less on someone else. We have to be patient and hope we can build a case. If it's any consolation, we're a step closer than we've been.”

Something went out of her shoulders. “If you want to know the truth, Mr. Glitsky, that's not much consolation. I'm going to check on the kids and pour myself another glass of wine.”

Glitsky watched her walk up the stairs. Slim yet curvy, she wasn't his idea of your average grandmother. He sat back on the couch. Outside, dusk gathered along with the fog at the windows. He wanted to be on his way and swore at himself for coming here with his ego-driven need to pass along his supposedly good news on her son's case. He realized that he should have waited until he had a result of some kind. Hal was still in jail, charged with murder, and Abe should have known that there would be precious little comfort for a mother dealing with those conditions for her son. He waited for her to come down, hoping he could find a way to spin his conclusions another half turn and leave on a more positive note.

When she reappeared, she gave him a quick thumbs-up with an indication toward the kids' bedroom, then grabbed her wineglass on the way back into the kitchen. Returning to her chair, she drank off some of the wine and said, “It's just Hal. I don't know how he's going to take all this. I mean, Katie first, then him getting arrested for killing her, and now, say what you will, he's one of the guys who lied to cover for Sergeant Foster. Don't you think some people, they get to a point where their life goes so far wrong that they can never get it back?”

Glitsky knew what she meant; to some extent, he thought the same thing. But he said to her, “Hal seems like a pretty strong guy to me.”

“He is, but . . .” She sat back with a sigh and lifted her glass, took a drink, put it back down. “You know,” she said, “I think it all goes back to his father's suicide.”

“I thought that was ruled an accident.”

“It was, but . . .” She took a deep breath and nodded. “The story we told Hal, everybody told him, was that it was an accident. I think Hal always knew it that wasn't true, or guessed it. Losing your dad is bad enough, but to lose him that way, you'd always feel like you'd been abandoned, wouldn't you?” Her next deep breath seemed to catch in her throat. “I don't know that he's ever really gotten over it, and now he's . . . Look where he is.”

Ruth stared with an empty gaze across the room. She blinked once, twice, a third time, and to Glitsky's surprise, tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. “I'm just so afraid that these kinds of things—these tragedies—run in families, and they defeat people completely. And even though Hal is innocent, there's not going to be anything he's going to be able to do about it. But I know he didn't kill Katie. And we can't let this travesty continue. Someone has to stop this Foster person. And the sheriff.”

“I believe that's going to happen, Ruth. It just may take a little more time.” Abe leaned forward. “Are you all right? Is there somebody you can call to be with you here tonight?”

“That's all right,” she said. She wiped the tears away from each cheek. “I'm a big girl. And Warren will be here tomorrow. We'll be fine.”