The Keeper (28 page)

59

D
UE TO THE
sense of urgency surrounding the ballistics test on the past Sunday morning, Len Faro had spent a good deal of time at the police lab in Hunters Point. Aside from being the snappiest dresser on the police force—today he was in about five grand worth of Brioni—he was punctilious about his evidence, especially the chain of evidence. In a perfect world—the one he tried to inhabit—once he took an item into custody, it remained under his constant guard, either in his personal possession or, eventually and more likely, in the city's evidence locker, until he needed to produce it again at trial. That way, when he was called to testify at court—and he always was—he could swear under oath that every item introduced as an exhibit had been under his personal and uninterrupted control from the moment it had been discovered until its appearance in the courtroom. On the flip side, anything that did not meet these criteria would not be admitted. So no one was planting any bogus evidence on his watch, thank you.

It made Faro nervous enough for regular police officers, even those under his direct command, to have access to this stuff; today, with someone like Abe Glitsky, with whom he had a long and cordial history but who no longer worked for the Police Department, he had his defenses on full alert. Not that he really thought Glitsky might plant or remove anything, but why take the chance?

So when Abe had stopped by to ask permission to review the evidence in the Chase and Foster matters, Faro had volunteered to drive him down—he had some stuff on a new case to drop off, anyway—and together they could see what Abe needed or thought he needed to see.

Now they sat at a large table in an air-conditioned room adjacent to the evidence locker. Both of them wore latex gloves. On the table were two medium cardboard boxes, and in front of the men was a good-sized pile of Ziploc bags of various sizes. Everything taken from the car and from the body of Adam Foster.

Glitsky's first close look had been at the gun, followed by the slugs. He also examined the blown-up copies of photographs of the ballistics test, which, to his experienced eye, made the report's conclusion unambiguous. The same weapon had fired both bullets. Foster's fingerprints were the only ones on the weapon, and their positioning was absolutely consistent with the theory that he'd fired the gun himself. Further, Glitsky's understanding about gunshot residue turned out to be correct—Faro told him that they'd checked Foster's hands first thing, and there was plenty of the stuff on his right hand to verify that he'd been holding the gun and pulled the trigger.

Though he wasn't certain what, if anything, it might mean, Glitsky brought up Jeff Elliot's question about the pencil and paper; Faro and his techs had found neither in the car. The car was pretty darn spotless inside and out. Glitsky remembered the showroom shine he'd noticed and picked up a Baggie containing a business-card-sized bit of cardboard with the words “$1 Discount Off Your Next Carwash—Cable Car ­Washers. Good until . . .” An ink stamp had printed out the date “December 21.”

“Where did this come from?” Glitsky asked.

Faro glanced at the card. “That little covered cubbyhole between the front seats.”

“Anything else in it? Coins, CDs, anything?”

“They'd be here if they were.”

“I know, Len, just making sure.”

“There is,” Faro added, picking up another Baggie, “this little trash bag. Same carwash.” He read the logo. “ ‘A clean car lasts longer.' I'm not sure of the veracity of that statement.”

“Sounds like false advertising to me. Somebody ought to sue 'em.” Abe stared at the card for a few more seconds. “Do we know when he got the wash?”

“Actually, we do. It was Saturday.”

“How'd you get that?”

Faro wasn't entirely successful hiding the pleasure of his accomplishment. “I called them yesterday and asked them about that date. You get a week between washes if you want to save a buck. December twenty-first is next Saturday. So he got his wash on the fourteenth. Saturday.”

“Nice work.” Glitsky sat back. “So the guy gets his car washed when he's planning to go kill himself?”

Faro shrugged. “It could have been his Saturday routine. Wake up, get the car washed, save a buck. He didn't think about it.”

Glitsky felt he had something and didn't want to let it go. “Okay, but I'll tell you what he did think about. He thought about getting dressed up.”

Faro, who dressed to the nines every day, clearly hadn't viewed Foster's outfit as out of the ordinary. Glitsky realized that it quite possibly meant something important.

“What are you getting at?” Faro asked.

Up to now, Glitsky had kept the reason for his interest in looking at the evidence under wraps. The last thing he wanted was to let the rumor mill get wind of the idea that Foster might not have killed himself. And until he found something that verified his suspicions, he preferred, if possible, to keep them to himself.

That was becoming less feasible by the second. “I'm getting at wondering why Foster gets himself all dolled up if he's planning to shoot himself in the head.”

“You think he was all dolled up?”

Glitsky's mouth twitched up in a quick smile. “Maybe not by your standards, Len, but the rest of the world, yeah. He was going out on the town. Until somebody stopped him.”

Faro blinked in surprise. “You're saying you don't think he killed himself?”

“I'm thinking it more and more every minute.”

Obviously taken with the idea, Faro reached over and went through another small pile of Baggies. Lifting one of them, he held it up. It contained a condom. “That might explain this, too,” he said. “Front pants pocket. And you want to hear something else? I talked to Strout yesterday. I didn't think anything other than it was a little unusual, but now . . .”

“What?”

“He had just shaved his balls.”

“Just?”

“That day. Saturday.”

This slowed Abe down to a dead stop, and he sat motionless until he remembered to breathe. “So he washes his car, shaves his balls, gets all dressed up, drives out to the Presidio, and shoots himself? How many ways does this not fit?”

Faro had no answer and turned his palms up. He didn't know.

Glitsky reached out for another of the Baggies, the one that held the alleged suicide note. He turned it over, checked the back, flipped it again. “This was in his coat pocket, you said?”

“Yep. Front left outside. “

“How'd you find it so soon?”

“I saw the perforated top sticking out. Grabbed it with my tweezers.”

Glitsky flipped it another time, sighed, put it down in front of him. “What else we got?”

Faro threw a glance across the table. “Cell phone,” he said.

“Now we're talking.” Glitsky was pulling the Ziploc toward him. Removing the cell phone, he pushed the button to bring up the screen, and nothing happened. “It's dead.”

“Perfect,” Faro said. “I think I've got my charger out in my car. You want to take five while I go grab it?”

“More than anything. And wait another twenty or so while it charges, if it does after all this downtime. I love technology.”

“Everybody does. We can use the extra time to think.”

“My favorite.” What other option did he have? “Go,” he said.

As the door closed behind Faro, Glitsky stood up, stretched, walked out in the hall, found the restroom, and used it. When he got back to the table in the little room, he absently started going through the pile of Ziploc bags—the bullet, the gun, the condom, the carwash discount stub, what must have been Foster's set of keys.

Abe paused to count the keys, see if one of them jumped out at him as possibly significant, but he couldn't identify anything. Frustrated, he leaned against the hard back of his chair and cast an evil eye at the door. Where was Len? He checked his watch. He'd been gone eight minutes, not that Abe was counting.

Coming forward, he reached for the Baggie that held the alleged suicide note, checking it again. Nothing had changed, of course. He turned it over, looked at the blank side, sat back again, closed his eyes.

Time stopped.

He heard the door and opened his eyes, saw Faro shaking his head. “Sorry it took so long, but no luck. I must have left it back at the office. Maybe one of the guys here has one we can borrow.” He got no reaction, Glitsky sitting slumped with no expression. “Abe?”

Glitsky had the sense that he'd somehow been away for a long time. Coming back into the present with Faro, he fought off a keen and ­disturbing sense of disorientation.

“Are you all right?” Faro asked.

“I think so.” Abe let out a breath that he felt like he'd been holding, getting his bearings caught up to where he found himself. Shaking his head as though to clear out the cobwebs, he picked up the Baggie with the notepad page, held it out, and said, “Tell me again how you found this thing.” When Faro finished identically repeating the story he'd told before, Glitsky sat with it a minute and then asked, “How far was it in the pocket?”

“Pretty much all the way. I just happened to notice the ragged top where it had been torn off.”

“And the rest of the paper?” Glitsky glanced at it again, no creases. “It doesn't look like it got bent over or scrunched up.”

“No. He just slipped it in the pocket.”

“All the way down?”

“I think I just said that. What are you getting at?”

“When did he put it in the pocket?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if he killed himself, he probably wrote this note someplace besides the car, maybe at his home, right? Since there was no pencil or the rest of the notepad in the car. Good so far?”

“Okay.”

“On the other hand, if he was murdered after somebody made him write the note at gunpoint in the car, then what?”

“Then,” Faro replied, “the next thing is the murderer tells him to put it in his pocket so we'd find it, just before he shoots him.”

“Right. What if the murderer didn't do that last part, wait for Foster to slide it into his pocket? What if it was a pretty uptight moment, as it must have been, and the exact second Foster finished writing, his killer popped him?”

“Okay. What would that get us?”

Glitsky put the Baggie down as if it had become radioactive. “Foster's writing the note. The notepad's on his lap. He finishes, and the gunshot splashes blood all over the driver's-side window. It also has to leave a mist of blood all over the body, to say nothing about the GSR, which is all over the place, too.”

“Right. So?”

“So”—Glitsky gingerly picked up the Baggie again—“if this thing was in Foster's lap when he got shot, it's going to have blood and GSR all over it. If it was a suicide and all the way down in his pocket before the shot, it won't.” Abe was on his feet and moving. “Let's go find us a tech and find out which it was.”

60

“Y
OU THINK THAT'S
conclusive?” Hardy asked. Glitsky sat across from him in his office, where Faro had dropped him on the way back downtown.

“I don't see a flaw in it.”

“Don't get me wrong, I think it's good, but let me play devil's advocate here for a minute.”

“An hour, more likely. But go right ahead.”

“Take the GSR first. As we know, it's notoriously transferrable. If it was on Foster's coat by the front pocket, when Faro took out the slip of paper, it could have picked up the stuff from whatever cloth it rubbed against. Probably would have, in fact.”

“You're making my argument for, not yours against, Diz. As it turns out, the paper didn't have just trace amounts of GSR. It was loaded with the stuff. And if anything, putting the paper in the pocket would have transferred some of it to the coat's fabric, taken it off the paper. Therefore, it wasn't in the pocket at the time of the shot. Couldn't have been. It was in his lap or in his hands or on the seat. It's a sure bet that after the shot, Foster being dead and all, he didn't put it in his pocket. Same with the blood.”

“Lots of blood?”

“Plenty. Invisible till we tested it at the lab, then everywhere. DNA is probably going to tell us it's Foster's blood, but so what? So the paper wasn't in his pocket when he got shot. It went in afterward. As you would say, conclusively. And that can only mean one thing.”

Hardy rolled his chair back, put his feet on his desk, templed his hands at his mouth. “You're thinking Cushing.”

Glitsky nodded. “You'll like this. Cushing called Foster on his cell phone about twenty minutes after I left his house on Saturday.”

“You think that's when they set up the appointment?”

“I don't know, but I'd guess so. The timing certainly works.”

“What was the hurry? I mean, why Saturday night?”

“Because I'd just finished drawing the picture for Cushing at his house. So if he could get rid of Foster quick, before an investigation by us or the FBI got any further, then he could spin the story that everything was Foster's doing, exactly what he did. It's kind of elegant, you must admit. Make your decision, act on it. Done deal.”

“If all this is true, Abe, he is one dangerous guy.”

“I think we already knew that. And believe me, I'm going on that ­assumption.”

“So what's your next step?”

“I've already made it. You know Foley and Monroe?”

Hardy nodded.

“I thought it would be worthwhile to spread the love among a few of us, so Cushing doesn't get the idea that this is just me and all he's got to do is arrange another accident. This is still Katie's homicide, too. So I'm letting the Homicide guys interview Cushing without giving away that we know Foster was a murder, so maybe his guard's down. We sweat him on the affair with Katie, find out—just curious—where he might have been on the night before Thanksgiving, what he says he was doing last Saturday night. Just grunt work on the details, which I don't want any part of. Assuming that it all works out, we shoot for a warrant to take his world apart.”

“Good luck with that. You've got a judge who will sign off on it?”

“We'll find one. I think they'll get enough.”

“Well, let's hope.” Hardy swung his legs down. “Let me ask you something. What got you thinking Foster wasn't a suicide? I thought that was a slam dunk.”

“You've hit upon my favorite part,” Glitsky said, and launched into a recital of the elements around Foster's death that didn't make sense if he was planning to take his own life that night—getting the car washed, shaving his pubic area, dressing nicely, the condom.

When he'd finished, Hardy said, “So Foster was planning to hook up with somebody after his meet with Cushing?”

“That's what it looks like.”

“You know who it was?”

“No idea. Looks like he was setting up a date with more or less a stranger for that night, but the main thing we needed from his phone was verification that Cushing had called him Saturday afternoon. Which is what we got.”

“You didn't check all the numbers?”

Abe showed some impatience. “Twenty-four hours in a day, Diz. We had what we wanted out of the phone. I needed to get Abby and Jambo moving.”

Hardy held up a hand. “Easy, Tonto. No criticism implied or stated. I'm sure it makes no difference. After all, whoever it was, it looks like he stood her up.”

“Yes, it does. And now I've got one for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Faro and I were talking about this and couldn't agree. If you're us, do you go public with Foster being a murder and not a suicide?”

Hardy thought for a moment. “I don't think so.”

“Great minds,” Glitsky said. “That was my call.”

“Although,” Hardy went on, “since Cushing's your target, I'm guessing he'll figure it out pretty quick. About the time your Homicide colleagues show up.”

“True, but he might be lulled for a few minutes first and make a mistake.”

“On the other hand, if he knows the murder he's committed has been exposed for what it is, he might panic and make a mistake. In either case,” Hardy concluded, “handle with care.”

“That's my plan.”

“I mean it, Abe. I really mean it.”

“Me, too.”

•  •  •

B
ACK AT THE
Hall of Justice, Glitsky checked in with his boss, figuring at the very least that Wes Farrell deserved an update. When Farrell heard Glitsky's conclusion that Foster's death had not been a suicide, he stopped in the middle of his Nerf ball shot. “You are shitting me.”

“No, sir. I don't think any other explanation is possible.”

“And it's Cushing.”

“He's a good bet. He's the only bet at the moment.”

Farrell rubbed his cheek with the Nerf ball. “Who else knows about this?”

Glitsky cocked his head, rattled off the names: “Len Faro, Abby Foley and JaMorris Monroe, I assume Devin Juhle, Diz, Treya, and now you.”

Farrell broke a wan smile. “It's good of you to include me on the list.”

“Well, it was—”

But Farrell stopped him. “Doesn't matter, Abe. It's done. What's Homicide doing?”

“I think they were going to talk to the sheriff.”

“You think they've done it yet?” Farrell checked his wristwatch. “You've got their numbers? Call them and stop them if you can.” He strode by Glitsky and opened his office door. “Treya, if you please. Immediately.” She nearly bolted out of her desk chair, came into the room, and shot a fast worried look at her husband as Farrell closed the door and whirled around.

“Abe,” he said, “make that call. Treya, get Len Faro on the phone right now. Use the one on my desk. The message is that nobody's going to say one word to anyone else about Adam Foster. He's still deader than hell, and dead by his own hand.” He was punching his own phone, then speaking into it. “Hello, Phyllis, this is your old friend Wes Farrell. I need to speak to Mr. Hardy as fast as you can get him on the phone. It's important.”

Over the next five minutes, Abe, Treya, and Farrell got ahold of ­everyone who knew about the new theory, and each of them delivered the message that one and all were to put a lid on it. No one was to tell anyone else, and if they'd already done so . . .

No one had. Abby and JaMorris were coming back from an interview in another case and hadn't set off to go and double-team the sheriff. Juhle hadn't heard from his two inspectors, so he knew nothing about it. Faro hadn't mentioned a thing to anyone; nor had Hardy.

Satisfied that he had the basic news contained, Farrell at last leaned back against one of the library tables. “Okay,” he said, “thanks to both of you for jumping in on those calls, but here's what's going down next around all this. As you might remember, I've already lost one of my investigators over this case. Besides that, after bowing to public pressure and other more subtle incentives, I've already persuaded the grand jury to issue one indictment for the murder of Katie Chase. That one didn't turn out so well, did it? And I'll be good and goddamned if I'm going to be coerced or hurried into another one.

“All we've got here is conjecture.” He held a finger up, cutting off Abe's attempt to register an objection. “Conjecture that we're dealing with a murder here and not a suicide. I admit, the whole idea that somebody killed Foster and also Katie Chase is exciting and provocative. Maybe even true, who knows? But the main thing is, we're not going off half-cocked this time on any one suspect, even if our good Sheriff Cushing leads the pack. I mean it. We're not doing that. We're not letting the killer know that we even think there is a killer out there, much less who we think it is.

“Instead, I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place, and that is invite in the FBI. They'll be so happy to launch a covert operation, maybe put a few agents secretly in the jail, whatever they want to do, including a little more sophisticated lab testing on the one piece of paper you're basing all this on. If they agree with your opinion, Abe, then they can subpoena everything they need—financials, phones, computer files, you name it—and nobody will have to know they're even around until they've got something strong enough to make a case, and then guess what? They make a righteous arrest. If it's one of the jail killings, it's a federal case. If not, it's ours. Meanwhile, I'm not going to put anybody else in harm's way. Especially if it does turn out to be Cushing, which, don't get me wrong, is what I think, too. He is one devious and cold-blooded motherfucker, and I'd like nothing better than to take him down, but this time we're going by the book. Agreed?”

“I still think—” Glitsky started.

Farrell slammed a flat palm down on the table. “I said, ‘Agreed?' Are you going to make me fire you before you've even put in a full week? Is that what you want?”

“No, sir.”

“All right, then, let's do it my way this time. How's that sound?”

•  •  •

T
RUTH BE TOLD,
it didn't sound too good to Abe, but he didn't think it was a fortuitous time to argue. In his opinion, the positive evidence that was all over the small sheet of notebook paper did not leave room for conjecture at all. In Hardy's words, it was conclusive. There was no possible way that Adam Foster had killed himself. This also meant that the same person who had murdered Katie Chase had killed him.

Abe felt he was this close.

“Even so,” Treya said, “you've got to let it go. At least for now. You've come up with this last crucial bit that changes everything, and Wes recognizes that, but . . .”

“But he won't let me close the deal.”

“He doesn't want you to get killed, Abe. How about that?”

“I'm not going to get killed.” He lowered his voice. “That ship has sailed. Killing one cop more won't change anything.”

“Famous last words.”

“No, they're not. This is when I can get him. I can taste it.”

The phone on her desk rang. Reaching over, she picked it up. “District Attorney's office, how can I help you? . . . Hello, Lieutenant . . . Yes, he's still here. I'm talking to him just now, as a matter of fact . . . Sure, just a second.” Handing Abe the phone, she said, “Devin Juhle.”

The Homicide chief said it was important. The summons was also a fine excuse to end the conversation with Treya, which wasn't really going Abe's way. He told her they could resume later but stopped short of telling her that he would let the whole thing go.

Though he understood that Wes was concerned for the safety of ­everyone involved, Abe planned to let none of it go. He couldn't shake the feeling that with the smallest push on his part, Cushing would make a mistake and the whole enterprise would come tumbling down. But he might have to go underground to make that happen.

Five minutes later, he knocked on his old office door on the fifth floor. The door was open, as usual, and somewhat to his surprise, Abby and JaMorris sat on the folding chairs in front of Juhle's large desk, both wearing a bit of the attitude of scolded schoolchildren. “Abe,” Juhle said as he waved him in. “Thanks for coming on up. You mind getting the door?”

Glitsky pushed it closed and said, “What's up?”

Juhle scratched at the wood on the top of his desk. “Abby and Jambo and I have just been discussing this thing we're not supposed to talk about.” He chuckled. “Which I guess right there is saying something.”

“I think, among ourselves, it's not much of a problem,” Glitsky said.

“In this case,” Juhle replied, “I expect we'll be glad we did. Last I heard about this was Monday, with that column in the paper, Adam ­Foster killing himself, and Sheriff Cushing going on about how shocked he was that anything illegal had ever gone on at his jail. You all remember that?”

Nods all around.

“I thought you would. It turns out that Foster's gun is the same one that killed Katie Chase, and I'm thinking, like everybody else, ‘Good, we got the bastard.' Or he got himself, but either way, it's three one-eighty-sevens”—the Penal Code section for murder—“off the books. At this point, I'm not thinking too much about the details. Obviously, the guy killed the Chase woman, then himself. What more was there to think about? Everybody with me so far?”

Abby Foley cleared her throat and spoke up. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then I get this call from Wes Farrell a few minutes ago telling me to hold on, Foster wasn't a suicide after all. Abe's done some yeoman police work, and all of a sudden it's looking like a murder. And if it's one, it's pretty much got to be two: Foster and Chase. Then Farrell tells me the main suspect—although we're not going to talk about it—is Burt Cushing. So I go, ‘Okay, I'll keep it to myself,' and then hang up. I know something's nagging at me, but I can't exactly put my finger on it, and since we've just been told we're not doing anything about these two cases for a while, I put it aside”—he now spoke directly to Abe—“figuring I'd catch up with these two when they checked in. Which I did.”