John Lescroart - The First Law

The cops finally made it to an open spot at the rail.

Terry swiped at the bar with his towel, threw down some coasters. As always, when he spoke to law officers, his stomach fluttered high up under his ribs, but he ignored that as best he could and offered up a smile. "Hey, Roy. Help you gentlemen?"

The badges, the flat no-nonsense faces, one black and one white. Homicide inspectors. Then the black guy saying, "We're looking for John Holiday. You know where he is?"

"No, sir. I haven't seen him. He hasn't been in today."

"When's the last time you saw him?" the white guy asked. He'd picked up his coaster, holding it in one hand and flicking it with the fingers of the other.

"Yesterday, I think. He opened up. What's this about?"

Roy Panos moved forward, put his elbows on the bar. "Let's see if you can guess, Clint. We'll make it a quiz. What do you think homicide inspectors would be interested in?"

Terry wiped his hands on his towel, shifted his eyes up and down the bar. He had maybe a dozen drinkers for the twenty stools, and none of them looked ready for a refill.

"You nervous, Clint?" The white guy again, still flicking the damn coaster. He seemed pretty high-strung, maybe nervous himself.

"No." He wiped his bar rag across the gutter. "It's just I'm working…"

"That was the other thing," the black guy said. "We were hoping you could give us a minute, maybe go to the office. You got a room in the back here I assume?"

"Yeah, but as I said." He motioned ambiguously around him. "I mean, look."

The white guy sighed heavily and finally put the coaster back down. "So you won't talk to us?"

Terry wasn't too successful keeping the fear and worry out of his voice. "I'm not saying that. I'm talking to you right now. Tell me what it is you want to know."

"He wants to help, Dan," the black cop said. "We can tell his parole officer he wants to cooperate."

"That's an intelligent response," the cop named Dan replied in a cheery and suddenly frightening tone. "And especially coming from an ex-convict. It gives me confidence that the prisons are doing a good job after all." His eyes never left his partner. "Ask him where he was last night."

"Last night? I was here. The whole night, six to two."

"And I didn't even ask him yet," the black guy said. "See? He's just volunteering everything. Mr. Cooperation."

"Yeah," Dan said, "but you notice he happened to know what hours we'd be asking about?" He came back to Terry. "What about that, Clint?"

"I don't know what you're saying. You asked where I was last night and I told you. I was here."

"So then you couldn't have been up at Silverman's pawnshop?" Dan flashed some teeth at him. "Did you hear about that?"

Terry felt sweat breaking on his forehead. "Yeah. Sure. But I heard that was like a gang."

"No. Just three guys," Dan smiled across at him. "But let me get this straight. You didn't know what we wanted to talk about when we came in here tonight. Even hearing we were from homicide? But you knew about Silverman?"

"I just didn't put that together," Terry said. "And that couldn't have been John." He shook his head, wiped down the gutter again. "John wouldn't have done anything like that."

"That would be the same John Holiday who got arrested last year?" Dan asked.

"That was different," Terry said. "And he got off on that. Besides, that wasn't violent. John wouldn't do anything violent."

"Actually," the black cop said, "it's interesting you brought up Holiday again and mentioned violence, because as it turns out we don't think he was the shooter. He just thought up the idea, is what we hear. Kind of like a white-collar idea that went south."

"Yeah," Dan agreed, jumping right in, giving Terry no time to process this stuff as it came out. "In fact, our best witness was one of Roy's partners here, walking his beat last night. What's his name again, Roy?"

Panos appeared to be enjoying every minute. "Matt Creed. You remember Matt, don't you, Clint?"

He nodded.

"This place used to be one of the beat's clients," Roy explained.

Dan nodded, apparently fascinated with the history lesson. "Well," he said, "Matt says no question it was the big guy of the three who shot Silverman. He was the last one out, the big guy. Big like a football player."

Terry put his hands on the gutter for support. His legs were going to give out under him. "I was here," he said.

"I love a consistent story," Dan announced happily to his two companions. "He's said the same thing three times now, you guys notice that? No deviation at all. Always a sign a guy's telling the truth." Suddenly, he started whistling the theme song from Bridge on the River Kwai. He stopped in midphrase. "Who worked till six?"

One of the customers slammed his glass down on the bar. "Bartend! You sleepin' down there? I need another drink!"

Terry worked the orders for the next few minutes, finally made it back to where the cops sat. They hadn't budged.

"You know, on second thought, I could use a glass of water," Dan said. Then, as Terry was filling it. "So who worked till six last night?"

"Didn't I say that? I told you John opened up."

"So he was here with you when you changed shifts?"

"For a few minutes, yeah. But he had a date."

"A date? With who?"

"I don't know. You've got to ask him that."

"I will when I meet him." Dan drank some water, did another bar or two of River Kwai. He'd taken over the interview now, moved it into high gear. "So was Randy here, too?"

Terry gave Roy a bad look. "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing. Just that you and Randy were an item. You're together a lot."

"That's right."

"You seem a little defensive."

"I'm not defensive. Randy's got nothing to do with this."

"With what?"

"What we're talking about here. Silverman."

"I didn't say anything about Silverman. I asked if Randy was here last night."

"He's got nothing to do with it."

"As opposed to you and Holiday?"

"No. I didn't mean that." Terry ran his whole hand through his hair. "But listen, whatever… it's not Randy."

"But he was here?" Again, the young white guy came quickly forward, pouncing. "Don't be dumb, Clint. If he was here, he's your alibi. Think about it."

"I already told you he was here."

"As a matter of fact, no you didn't. But now you do say he was?"

Terry nodded. "We were alone here after John left for, I don't know, an hour or two. It was a slow night."

As quickly as he'd come forward, Dan leaned back, smiled triumphantly, spread his arms out. "There! Beautiful! That's all we wanted. You, Randy and Holiday here together at six o'clock last night. That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

"He lives with you, doesn't he? Randy?" The black cop got back in the game. "Is he there now, do you know? Maybe you could give us the address?"

When they came out of the Ark, the two inspectors stopped and stood on the sidewalk in front of the place. Roy Panos had gone to the bathroom, and they were waiting for him to finish up and come outside. "I like this guy Roy," Cuneo said. "His brother was right. He knows the players."

Russell cocked his head back toward the bar. "You think Terry was part of it?"

"I'll tell you one thing-Roy thinks he was."

"That would be pretty easy, wouldn't it? The first guy we talk to?"

Cuneo shrugged. "I've heard it happens."

"Not to us generally."

A grin. "Maybe not yet. First time for everything, right?" The bar door swung open. "Hey, Roy, that went pretty well. Thanks."

"My pleasure. I've got to tell you, it was awesome watching you guys work. Another minute, he would have been crying."

"He did seem a little nervous," Cuneo said.

"I would have been, too."

"Why's that, Roy? You think he did it?" Russell asked. "Terry?"