John Lescroart - The First Law

Thieu got the results at a little before 3:30 and figured he could make it back uptown easily, even with traffic, and get the news to Gerson before the lieutenant went home for the day. First he wanted to share the news and tell Glitsky, though, so he stopped by the fifth floor, only to discover that his old mentor had called in sick-astounding. Certainly Thieu had never known him to do it when he was in homicide. He had his home phone number, however, and closing the door behind him-no one seemed to be minding the store in Glitsky's absence-he borrowed the phone on the desk to make the call. "Abe? What's the matter? You don't sound so good."

"No. I'm fine, Paul. Maybe coming down the flu or something, that's all. What's going on?"

"What's going on is I got the results on the fingerprints and you were right. Hardy was right. Sephia and Rez were all over Holiday's place. And I have them on tape denying ever being there."

Glitsky sounded weary beyond imagining. Even this terrific news of Thieu's didn't seem to cheer him in the least. "That's great, Paul." He sounded as though he were almost bored by it. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Lieutenant, are you all right?"

"I don't know." A long pause. "I may not be in for a few days after all. So I assume you'll be talking to Gerson?"

"Sure, showing him the results. It's naked eye stuff, almost. Gerson was my next stop. I'm in your office now."

"Well, you want to do me one last favor?"

"Sure. Anything."

"I want you to leave Hardy and me completely out of it."

"I can't do that, Lieutenant. You were the ones who had the idea. If we get these guys from this evidence, people here, I mean in the department, have got to know it was you."

Glitsky's voice suddenly became far more familiar to Thieu-terse, biting, brooking no resistance. "Paul, I want you to hear me good. People have not got to know it was me. Or Hardy, for that matter. In fact, it's critical-critical, do you understand?-that it look like we had nothing to do with it. Nothing!"

"But…"

"No buts. If you get this into the system now with Gerson, you'll be the hero and you deserve to be the hero. You did all the work."

"I don't care about being the hero, Abe. I don't want to hog your credit."

"Forget my credit. I've already got way too much profile around this case as it is. You've got enough now, with this, that from here on out it's by the numbers. With any kind of hustle, these guys should be under a lot of heat. I don't want them to come back on us. So no me, no Hardy. Just good police work did these guys in. And that's all that did it, okay?"

"Okay." Thieu didn't like it. "If it were me, though, I'd at least want to remind the people who'd accused me, make them eat a little crow."

"I don't care about that. I really don't. I'm payroll, remember?" A silence, then, "You still don't get it, do you?"

"No, sir. I'm sorry, but I don't."

"All right. I guessed you've earned the real reason." Suddenly, Glitsky's tone changed again. It became nearly intimate, quietly intense. "They've threatened my family, Paul, my daughter. Same with Hardy, his kids. It's what you'd call a credible threat. So I don't want them to think we did this. In fact, I want them to think we didn't. After they're in prison for life plus a hundred, maybe then we can go back and gently remind some people on our side that we might have had something to say. But as far as the public needs to know, I'm done. Hardy's done. We were done before you even started thinking about fingerprints. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Just get this to Gerson direct. Don't go through Cuneo and Russell."

"That was my plan."

"It's a good one. You've still got time today, I see. Go."

Thieu looked out Glitsky's one window. The sun had just set, but he might just get lucky and find Gerson still at the job.

"I'm gone," he said.

Behind Gerson's closed door, Thieu had been sitting now for over twenty minutes and still couldn't believe he was hearing this. The lieutenant had, at first, been reasonably enthusiastic, listening to Thieu's explanation of how his earlier suspicions at the Terry/Wills scene-the shoe, the plethora of convenient evidence-combined with the suspicion of planted evidence at Holiday's…

"What suspicion of planted evidence? Have you been talking to Glitsky?"

"Lieutenant Glitsky? No, sir. I haven't talked to anybody. This is just me."

"Just you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who got these prints for you?"

"That was Len Faro, but he was just dusting. He had no idea what it was all about. And nobody at all knows about this taped statement. Not a soul."

Gerson let out a heavy breath. "All right. So. Where did you hear about this so-called planted evidence?"

Thieu fidgeted in his chair. "Remember, sir? From Sadie Silverman's statement. Dan Cuneo didn't believe it, but I thought…"

"Nobody believed it, Sergeant. Nobody suspected planted evidence at Holiday's." He shook his head in profound displeasure. "But go on, you were saying."

And he did go on, but instead of Gerson's approval, Thieu sensed a growing impatience and even anger. "The point is, sir," he concluded, "that in fact these fingerprints from Sephia and Rez do prove that they were there, at Holiday's. And they flatly deny it. So they could only have been there to plant the incriminating evidence."

Gerson crossed one leg over the other, leaned an elbow back against his computer table. "I'm trying to see where you get this, Sergeant. I really am. And maybe I am slightly blinded by my anger at the fact that you took it upon yourself to go investigate these cases that I'd assigned to other inspectors. But"-he held up a hand-"of course if you did find a smoking gun, it would be a different matter. More easily overlooked anyway."

"But with respect, sir, this is pretty much a smoking gun."

"Maybe that's what I'm having trouble seeing. You have statements from both Sephia and Rez that they hadn't been in the Terry/Wills apartment, but you don't have their fingerprints from that scene."

"I didn't really expect there would be, sir. They went there to kill these guys and either wiped the place down or, more likely, wore gloves.

"But the fact remains, no prints where they said they'd never been. I fail to understand how this can be compelling to you."

"What's compelling is that their prints were at Holiday's, where they also deny ever being. They didn't know I was going to ask that until the tape was already on, so they told a stupid lie."

Gerson drew a large and histrionic breath. "Sergeant, these men played poker together at least several times in the past year. They may have had some kind of falling out recently-I don't know about that-but they certainly shared each other's company, quite possibly at Mr. Holiday's house. So now they simply admit that they lied to you. They say they knew Holiday was a murder suspect and didn't want to be more closely associated with him." Gerson already had the tape in its case under a paperweight on his computer table.

"But sir, the bare fact…" Thieu paused. "You have to admit this looks a lot like something fishy, at the very least. Sephia and Rez should be thoroughly interrogated. In my opinion," he added.

Finally the lieutenant seemed to break through some barrier. He leaned back, let out a long exhalation. "You might be right," he said. "I don't know why I'm righting you so hard on this. Everything you're saying makes sense. It's just that this case has been nothing but a headache from day one." Gerson's hand, in fact, went to his head. He sighed again. "I've got to use the can a minute. Be right back."

Thieu came forward, his elbows on his knees, his head tucked. He had of course considered the objections that Gerson had made. Nothing was simple. Okay, so what's new? The point was, Thieu thought, that any conscientious cop would see enough questions for Sephia and Rez to at the very least jump all over them and move them up to the realm of legitimate suspects in the multiple slayings. If only to avoid the embarrassment and hassle of falsely arresting John Holiday when there were obviously so many other possible interpretations of the evidence.