John Lescroart - Dead Irish

“But why did she go to the office, where the safe was? It had to have something to do with money.”

Glitsky shrugged. “No, it didn’t. It probably in fact did, but it didn’t have to.”

Hardy got up and paced. “Well, shit, Abe, so who’s Alphonse Page?”

Glitsky took out a photograph he’d gotten, reluctantly, from Page’s mother when they’d gone to his house the previous night with a warrant. Hardy’s forehead creased, studying the picture, as Glitsky went on. “Polk identified his knife at the scene. Prints with blood on ’em all over the place-some even in the back at a wrapping machine.”

Hardy threw the picture onto his table. “And there wasn’t any money?”

“Good point,” Glitsky said, and noted something down on his pad. “Anyway, lab’s doing a run on the car, but I’m sure enough I got the warrant, put out the APB. Alphonse came home early last evening, dumped some bloody clothes in the hamper, packed a sports bag and split. So far he hasn’t come back, and I’m not expecting him. He did it.”

“Could he have done Eddie?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know where he was that night, but we’ll find out. After I talked to you last night I got out the file on Cochran. Read it cover to cover. ’Specially read about the car, Cochran’s. You’ll never guess.”

“Black man’s hairs.”

Glitsky smiled. “In the front seat. You’re a genius, Hardy. Lab’s not done with the comparison, but you want to bet they’re not Alphonse’s?”

Hardy sat down. “You know what I think?”

“What do you think?”

“I think we’ve got a drug deal gone bad here.”

Glitsky rubbed the scar that ran through his lips. “Well, damn, what an incredible idea!”

Glitsky then told him about the trace of cocaine found on Polk’s desk.

“So did you bring him in? Polk?”

“He was pretty incoherent after it hit him. I mean, his daughter had just been killed. He’s coming downtown this afternoon. Wanna be there?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. Cavanaugh seems to think Polk did it, you know. I mean did Eddie.”

“I didn’t think he raped his daughter.”

“Maybe she wasn’t raped.”

“And who’s Cavanaugh?”

Since it was now part of his active investigation, Glitsky wanted to get it firsthand. He and Hardy drove separately over to St. Elizabeth’s and both of them parked in the empty lot behind the rectory. Rose greeted them at the door.

“Father’s rehearsing the graduation over to the church,” she said. “You can wait here or go on over.”

They walked through the lifting fog. Sixty boys and girls in uniforms-gray corduroy pants and white shirts, maroon plaid dresses and white blouses-were lined up at the door of the church. Two nuns fluttered around trying to keep order.

“They still do this? Uniforms, even?” Glitsky seemed genuinely surprised, parochial elementary schools not being his everyday turf.

“Hey, if it works don’t fix it.” Hardy held his hands out. “Look what it did for me.”

Glitsky, his eyes still on the line of kids, started moving again. When the last child had gone inside Glitsky and Hardy followed and sat in the sixth row in the first empty pew.

“What are they graduating from?” Glitsky whispered, but before Hardy could say anything a bell rang by the side of the altar and Father Cavanaugh, in cassock, surplice and stole, flanked by two acolytes, appeared through a side door. He came up to the altar rail, surveying the crowd, nodding to Hardy. He brought his hands together, palms up, and at his signal the children all stood. Hardy nudged Glitsky, and they got up too. The sergeant appeared puzzled.

“Let us pray,” Cavanaugh intoned with a deep resonance.

“I know that guy,” Glitsky said.

“ ’Course I was younger then, still in uniform, even before Hardy and I were teamed,” the policeman was saying.

Rose was used to policemen not wearing the blue. Except for CHIPs and a few of those older shows, no one on TV wore a uniform anymore. This man, officer Glitsky, had very nice manners, even if he talked a little loud, but he looked scary with that scar running through his lips-nowhere near as good-looking or friendly as her favorite black policeman, Tibbs.

“No, I think I do remember,” Father replied. Rose was pouring coffee from silver into fine china. The policeman used a lot of sugar. The other man, the one who looked a little like Renko, drank his coffee black. Father, of course, had a lump and half & half. He’d had cream until last year, when the doctor had told him to cut down on his cholesterol. Margarine instead of butter, half & half instead of cream. But he still had his eggs most mornings. “We talked about the riots at Berkeley, the police role there, if I recall.”

Inspector Sergeant Glitsky sucked rather loudly on the coffee. Maybe it was too hot to drink yet. “You know, Father, I think we did. How do you remember that?”

Bless the father, he had a memory.

“It made a great impression on me at the time, Sergeant. You were the first officer I had talked to who didn’t just spout the official police line.”

“What was that?” the other man asked. Rose wasn’t exactly eavesdropping. She had been planning on dusting this room today anyway. And she felt she should be around to pour more coffee if any of the men got low.

Father answered. “Once the students threw or broke something, it was open season for the police. They had the right then to use whatever force was necessary to keep things under control.”

“It was just a pissing contest,” the sergeant said. “Stupid. They should’ve just got some guys who didn’t think all those students were revolutionaries, that’s all.”

“So who’d they get?” the other man asked.

“Bunch of rednecks they recruited from Alabama or someplace. Deputized for the riots. You know, bust some heads and see the Berkeley chicks running around without bras on. Weren’t you around for that, Diz?”

Dismas, that was his name. Dismas smiled halfway and said his major concern at the time had been stopping those dominoes from falling, whatever that meant, although Father and the sergeant both seemed to get it.

“Well, your friend here, Dismas, is too modest. He was quite a force for moderation back then. It took some courage for a policeman, and a black one, to take that kind of stand.”

The sergeant seemed a little embarrassed and sipped at his coffee, but not so loudly. “Mostly self-preservation, I’m afraid,” he said. “The trend of importing southern gentlemen for the police force wasn’t going to do my career any good.”

“So what were you two guys doing together?” Dismas asked.

Father smiled, remembering. “The activist days… sometimes I long for them again.”

He had never really been a radical, of course. An activist, yes, but within the system. The kind of man he still was-working for the homeless now, or getting some of the businessmen in the parish to hire boys from the projects.

“A few of us were volunteered to assist Father, that’s all. He had an idea-who knows, it might have worked-that there should be a gun drive where every unregistered piece could be turned in and the citizen would get an immediate amnesty, no questions asked.”

Father shrugged at Dismas. “I’m afraid we were all a little naïve back then.”

The sergeant came to Father’s defense. “It didn’t do all that bad. I was surprised we got the response we did.” He turned to his friend. “Got about a hundred and fifty weapons city-wide.”

“One hundred and sixty-three.”

Father and his memory. Rose was proud of it. She walked over to the pitcher and picked it up. The sergeant held out his cup for more.