The Keeper (3 page)

6

N
OT THAT IT
was a tough decision, given his options, but by the time Glitsky left Hardy at the Sutter Street office, he'd made up his mind to look into the Katie Chase disappearance.

Having ridden the Muni downtown, he was on foot and took the ­opportunity to get some exercise and walk over to the Hall of Justice. At the metal detector by the front door, an officer he didn't know greeted him by name and former rank and waved him through. Apparently, though it had been several months, word of his retirement hadn't reached everyone in the building.

Glitsky turned left and walked down the long hallway on the main floor. Aside from housing the offices of the district attorney and the county sheriff, the Superior Court and its attendant departments, the Homicide detail, and one wing of the jail, the monolithic seven-story Hall of Justice was also home to Southern Station and the administrative hub of the city's Police Department. Glitsky strolled into Missing Persons as if he owned the place, picked his way through the desks in the main room, nodded at a few familiar faces, and finally knocked on the open door to Lyle Wiedeman's office.

Trim and ridiculously handsome, the affable Wiedeman was alone at his desk, glasses on, studying a file. At Abe's knock, he looked up and broke a smile. “Lieutenant,” he said, rising and extending his hand. “Been awhile.”

“It has.”

“What brings you down to our little piece of paradise? Grab a chair.”

“I'm just getting my feet wet in the freelancing waters. If I spend another day at home alone, I'll become a full-fledged menace. A lawyer I know offered me some part-time work, and I took it.”

“I hear you,” Wiedeman said. “I'm down to my last three months myself. I've got no clue what I'll do day to day. My son suggested I set up the old Lionel train set down in the basement. I shot him.”

“Good for you.”

“So who's the lawyer?”

“Dismas Hardy.”

“He's got you trying to locate a witness?”

“Not so much that,” Glitsky said. “Katie Chase.”

Wiedeman's eyes lost a couple of degrees of warmth. “Her husband was here not two hours ago. Doesn't think we're doing enough, which is how I'd play it myself.”

“You think he's playing it?”

“If he doesn't confess, it's pretty much his only move. The captains had a meeting and passed it upstairs to Homicide. That takes me out of it. Nothing personal.”

“No, of course not. I just thought you might have formed an opinion.”

Wiedeman shifted in his chair. “Let's say I didn't fight the decision.”

“So you think she's dead?”

“Think, schmink. Her blood was in the kitchen. She was seeing a marriage counselor. She hasn't used a credit card or phone in four days, going on five. She didn't leave her babies at home and just walk out, and there's been no ransom contact.” Wiedeman settled back in his chair, speaking with more resignation than passion. “It might not be the husband, okay, but he looks like as good a bet as any, and it's a slam dunk somebody has killed her.”

“I imagine you said this to Hal.”

“Pretty much word for word.”

“How'd he take it?”

“It seemed to take the piss right out of him, to tell you the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he came in here ready to do battle with somebody because Homicide thought he was a suspect. If it was an act, it was a good one.”

“What?”

“Well, he came across as nowhere near ready to believe his wife is dead. He maintained that she's just missing and we should be concentrating on finding her. But after I laid out the facts, like I just did with you, he saw the situation for what it was. It wasn't even about him. It was about her being not just gone but really dead. Somebody, therefore, must have killed her. If he's one of the suspects, that's too bad, but can he blame us for thinking it? I asked him, was there any other scenario he'd like to offer where she might be alive?”

“Did he have one?”

“No. He was on the verge of tears, but you and I both know that he wouldn't be the first killer to shed real tears in remorse over what he'd done.”

•  •  •

G
LITSKY HADN'T BEEN
in the building since the previous April, when his job had ended. Now he took the elevator up a couple of floors and walked down another long hallway, this one empty. His footsteps echoed under the dim fluorescent glow until he came to a floor-to-ceiling glass partition whose double doors opened to the lobby of the district attorney's offices. Past those doors, he turned left and walked over to the reception window, where he told the clerk he had an appointment with Treya Glitsky. In a flagrant dereliction of protocol, the clerk said, “Sure, Abe,” and buzzed him right through.

His wife's door was open; she was at her computer, in profile, concentrating. Out in the hall, Glitsky hung back a couple of steps and, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, spent a few seconds watching her.

Treya was a big woman who carried not an ounce of fat. Her father and mother were both African-American, but one of her great-­grandmothers had been Japanese, and her face carried a hint of an Asiatic cast—slightly exotic, classically structured, with a sudden and startling beauty. In ­repose, or when immersed in her work, as she was now, she projected a serenity that hit Glitsky like a drug.

After eleven years of marriage, he was still utterly smitten.

Moving up to the door, Glitsky knocked. Her fingers stopped over the keyboard as she turned, her eyes lighting up. Just as quickly, her face clouded and her eyebrows came together in concern. “Are the kids—?”

Glitsky held up a hand. “Everybody's fine. I just thought I'd drop by and say hi. Believe it or not, I was in the neighborhood.”

Treya stood, came around her desk, and gave him a quick hug. “Not that this isn't a nice surprise, but what in the world are you doing in this godforsaken neck of the woods?” After he gave her the short version, she frowned and said, “Dismas really needs you to do this?”

“I think there was a bit of charity involved. Plus, Wyatt Hunt is out of town.”

“What about Wyatt's staff? Don't they find missing people all the time?”

“I think so. But for whatever reason, Diz asked me.” She gave him a look that was ambiguous enough to force him to ask, “What? Not a good idea?”

“You're a big boy. You can decide that for yourself. Evidently, you ­already have.”

“But what?”

She drew a breath. “But I was just getting used to the fact that you weren't going to be living anymore in the regular company of murderers. Or people who know murderers. Or witnesses to murder. Any one of whom, I need hardly tell you, might be a murderer himself. Or herself. I didn't think you'd really miss being around those people.”

“I'm not missing those people. We don't even know there was a murder yet, Trey. Diz wants me to try to find where the wife has gotten to.”

“If it turns out she was killed, then what? You'll identify the murderer, right?”

“It may not go that far. If she turns up dead, as far as I know, the job's over.”

“Unless you're on to something that might clear Diz's client.”

“Maybe that. If he even gets charged.”

“In other words, you'd be at cross-purposes with Homicide.”

“Again, not necessarily, although it's possible, I suppose.” Glitsky backed away a step. “Call me clairvoyant,” he said, “but I'm sensing you don't want me to do this. In which case, I won't. I'll call Diz right now and bail. He'll find somebody else, if he really needs the work done.”

“Of course he needs the work done. He's got a client. The client needs his help. Diz didn't ask you to help him because he felt sorry for you.”

“You weren't there. I was pretty pathetic.”

“You asked him for work?”

“Well, no. But he picked up that I was maybe slightly bored from day to day.”

Treya touched his face. “Or, just sayin', he knows you're a world-class investigator and he really could use your help.”

Glitsky broke a smile. “Okay, maybe a little of that. And you know, warts and all, I always loved the work.”

“The work, yes; the job, you might remember, not always.”

“More often than not, though. At least I felt I was doing something important. Instead of like now, when I'm waiting around for the next major life milestone after retirement, which I'm told tends to be death.”

I
F
A
BE THOUGHT
Treya was unhappy with his decision to look into Katie Chase's disappearance—and she was—he didn't want to even casually run his freelancing by the personnel of the Homicide detail. If he wound up covering some of the same investigative ground as the inspectors assigned to the case, they'd find out soon enough and could deal with it as they saw fit. Glitsky didn't want to have another discussion—or ­argument—before he'd even begun.

So instead of going up another two floors, he went downstairs and out the back door, then into the admitting lobby of the jail, a separate oval building that adjoined the main rectangular edifice of the hall. The deputy behind the counter—his name tag read
CREELEY
—greeted him cordially and with no sign that he'd gotten the memo about Glitsky's retirement. “Lieutenant,” Creeley said, “what can I do for you?”

“I wonder if I could have a word with Hal Chase. Is he still on duty?”

“He's Mr. Popularity today, isn't he?” Creeley checked his watch. “Shifts change over in about fifteen, if you want to wait. I'll get word to him.”

Glitsky thanked the deputy, decided to take a walk around the back parking lot to stretch his legs, and returned to the admitting desk to find Hal Chase—name tags were a wonderful invention—by the counter, his face a mask of worry.

Glitsky introduced himself without a handshake, and Chase barely whispered, “So you found her?”

“Why do you say that?”

Chase's temper flared. “Because you're Abe Glitsky out of Homicide, and you wouldn't be hassling me again after I told your inspectors to pound sand this morning unless you knew Katie was actually dead.”

“Easy,” Glitsky said. “I'm not hassling you. I don't know if your wife is dead. I'm not in Homicide anymore. I'm working with Dismas Hardy.” As he watched the gears shift in Chase's head, Abe explained, “I retired six months ago. The word doesn't seem to have gotten out too well.”

Hal's shoulders fell with relief. “I heard your name and I thought . . .”

“I get it. But really, I'm retired. Hardy told me you wanted somebody working on finding your wife, not finding evidence that you killed her. It looks like I'm your man.”

Chase nodded, then another thought seemed to strike. “Is Hardy paying you? Because I'm tapped out after the retainer I gave him.”

“That's covered. Hardy can afford it.” Glitsky shrugged. “The guy's a little unorthodox, but for a lawyer, he's actually got a heart. Plus, he seems to be about the only one who's inclined to give you a chance.”

“That I didn't kill her, you mean.”

“Yep.”

“How about you?”

“I've got an open mind. With your permission, I'd like to get ahold of some facts and see where they lead. I'm not going on any assumptions. I was just over in Missing Persons and got their opinion, which you already know.”

“Katie's dead.”

“Right. But I'm not starting there. I hope your wife is still alive. I'm going to assume that. If there are other possibilities that might have driven her to leave, or somebody to have taken her, I want to find out what they were. You want to help me with that?”

“I want to find her, whatever it takes.”

“That's a good answer. Are you on your way home now?”

“That was my plan.”

“If you don't mind, I'll ride out with you.”

7

“T
ELL ME ABOUT
the night,” Glitsky said as Hal pulled his Subaru out into traffic. “Wednesday, wasn't it?”

Though Hal's sideways look telegraphed what Glitsky read as ­impatience, he sighed in resignation and started in. “There wasn't any drama before. It was just a regular night, except with me going down to pick up Warren. My brother. Half brother. He was coming up from L.A. for the holiday.”

“What did you have for dinner?”

“What does that matter?”

“I'm not sure it does,” Glitsky said, “but when I was at Missing Persons, the lieutenant said there was blood in the kitchen. I just wonder if your wife was cutting something you were going to be eating.”

“I don't remember that. I don't think it happened before I left. I saw the blood when I got back, of course, and left it where it was. It wasn't like a flood of it. A few drops on the counter by the sink, a couple more on the floor. I don't think the blood means anything. We had spaghetti and salad, so she might have been slicing tomatoes or bread and cut herself by accident.”

“And she didn't wipe it up?”

“I don't know. Maybe one of the kids started crying. In which case, she would have dropped everything and come running.”

Glitsky noted the change of tone, the first negative thing about Katie that he'd heard out of Hal, namely that she might be a little fanatical about her duties as a mother. Maybe this was part of why she'd been ­seeing Frannie Hardy.

“Okay,” Glitsky said. “Let's leave the blood. Tell me about the kids. Two, right?”

“Will and Ellen. What about them?”

“They must have been asleep when Katie went missing.”

“That's my assumption. We put them down early when we can. Our goal is seven o'clock, so we can get a little time as adults. Wednesday, they were both in bed when I left, and still sleeping when we got back.”

“Where are they now?”

“At the house. My stepmother, Ruth, is staying with them. Warren's here, too. They're holding down the fort.”

Glitsky sat back and watched the city roll by for a few blocks. The sun was low in the sky in front of them, but the day remained cold, clear, and windless as they made their way across Arguello and down into the Avenues. “So you left for the airport when?” he asked.

“Seven-thirty or so. The Homicide cops don't know why I left so early for an eight-fifty pickup, but hey, the day before Thanksgiving, I thought I'd be late, even leaving when I did.”

“And then what?”

“Then I picked up Warren—”

“Before that. Did you park at the airport and wait?”

“No. When I saw there wasn't any traffic, I checked my cell for flight information and found out it would be another hour before he got in—”

“You could have done that before you left.”

“Right. I know that. Should have, in fact. But I didn't. I didn't think of it. To tell you the truth, I was looking forward to getting out of the house and having some company around to lighten things up. Katie and I had a lot we weren't talking about. Anyway, when I realized Warren was going to be late, I stopped by the Hungry Hunter down in South City and had a beer and watched ESPN.”

“Did you talk to anybody?”

“I sat at the bar and ordered from the bartender. I paid cash, and I'm not a regular. We didn't have any conversation. He might remember me, but I don't know why he would. The place was jumping. I was one guy out of a barful. Even if he could ID me positively, there's most of an hour unaccounted for. I realize that as alibis go, this one isn't much, but that's what I did.”

Glitsky looked across at Hal. It occurred to him that, if anything, the weakness of the alibi spoke to its plausibility. If Hal were going to construct a story, he would have made sure the bartender remembered him. He would have established the time of his arrival at the bar. He would have made it seem impossible that he could have killed his wife. And he hadn't done any of those things. “So,” Glitsky said, “then you picked up your brother?”

“That's the whole story, Lieutenant.”

“Abe,” Glitsky said. “I'm not a cop, and I'm on your side, remember. Okay, so then you get home. When you drive up, do you notice anything suspicious?”

“Nothing. I know Katie's car is in the garage, so I pull into the driveway. The light outside the front door is on, and so are some inside lights, like they were when I left. So Warren grabs his stuff and we go in the front door and first I think Katie must be in with the kids, so we wait a couple of minutes, staying quiet so we don't wake anybody up, then I go into the kids' room and she's not there. It's totally bizarre. I mean, you come home and your kids are sleeping and your wife is gone. It takes a while to kick in.”

“What did you do?”

“Whatever I could think of. I tried her cell. No answer. Tried again. Texted her. And the whole time I'm with Warren, just stumped. It doesn't seem real. I mean, where is she? Is this some kind of sick joke? There's no way she's not there. Finally, I go back upstairs. I go out in the backyard. I check the garage, and her car's there. I leave Warren at the house in case the kids wake up, and I go knock on the neighbors' doors, see if anybody's seen anything. It starts to sink in. I mean, really.” He turned to face Glitsky. “You know?”

“I can't imagine.”

“I didn't kill her. I truly did not.”

After a pause, Glitsky asked, “You think she might have just up and left? I mean, left the kids upstairs sleeping?”

Hal drove in silence for most of a block before he shook his head. “Never,” he said. “Never ever ever ever.” Letting out a sigh, he went on. “Here's the thing, Lieutenant. Having kids has been incredibly tough on her. At the same time, they're the most important things in her life. That's probably why raising them has been so hard. She cares so goddamn much about every part of it. If she was giving up so much of the rest of her life, she was going to be the absolute best at it. And they in turn were going to be perfect children. And then she felt guilty about how much she ­resented what they'd done to her life, how much of it they were taking up, and she hated herself for that. It was complicated, to say the least. But would she have walked out on them? Honestly, I can't imagine it.”

“All right. What about you and her? Did you have problems?”

Hal shrugged. “Who doesn't?”

“Maybe they were more serious than you thought.”

“No, I thought they were serious. We don't have enough money, she's too protective of the kids, I'm not sensitive enough with them, I yell, she doesn't. She doesn't like my job or the people I work with. We were getting pretty bad at just talking to each other, and that wasn't good. So, yeah, some problems. But that's the thing. We never had any kind of physical fight. I never hurt her. I never would hurt her. And really, what I said, she wouldn't leave the kids.

“That was one of her main things. We couldn't even get a babysitter and go out on a date. Even with Ruth living half a mile away, ready to watch them at any time. But Ruth wasn't good enough. Nobody else was good enough. Bottom line, she didn't leave the kids sleeping and walk out of the house under her own power. Somebody took her and forced her.” He looked over again at Glitsky. “You're not saying much.”

“Nothing very comforting is springing to mind.”