John Lescroart: Nothing But The Truth

‘And how long have you held that position?’

‘Five years.’

‘And before that?’

‘Your honor.’ Scott Randall was on his feet. ‘We all know Lieutenant Glitsky.’

‘Is that an objection, counsellor?’ Objections, like so much else in a court of law, were part of the orchestrated ballet of justice, and had to be based on deviations from the evidence code. Telling the court that everyone knew Abe Glitsky didn’t fall anywhere near that category. But, more, Braun’s response reaffirmed Hardy’s belief that Scott Randall no longer had any kind of friend on the bench. ‘But Mr Hardy,’ she added, ‘let’s move it along.’

‘I’m trying to make the court aware of Lieutenant Glitsky’s credentials, your honor.’

‘All right, but briefly, please.’

It took less than two minutes. Five years lieutenant of homicide, twelve years a homicide inspector, steady rise through the ranks from street cop, through vice, robbery, white collar. Four departmental citations, one medal for valor.

People could always turn bad, of course, but Hardy wanted to show Braun that if someone predicted the next one to do so would be Glitsky, it would be a pretty wild – and bad – guess.

Braun had told him to keep it brief, and that was his intention with Glitsky – put him on the stand, establish him as a good and honest cop, and then see if Randall rose to the bait and tried to take him apart, discrediting himself in the process. ‘That’s all for this witness,’ he said. ‘Cross?’

The young prosecutor couldn’t wait. ‘Yes, I’d say so.’ Randall strode up to the witness box and positioned himself squarely in front of Glitsky. ‘In your position as head of homicide, lieutenant, were you originally involved with the investigation into the murder of Bree Beaumont?’

‘Not in a hands-on way. Only in an administrative capacity.’

Comfortable after years of practice in the witness seat, Glitsky quickly took the opening Randall had provided and outlined his job description – he had a staff of inspectors who reported to him and who worked in coordination with a crime scene investigations unit, forensic specialists, lab technicians, and the city and country coroner to gather and collate evidence on homicides in this jurisdiction.

None of this had anything to do with Ron or Bree Beaumont, and Hardy could never have introduced a word of it during his direct question Glitsky. But he’d counted on the fact that Randall had an ax to grind. The young prosecutor wanted to prove to Braun that his unorthodox and even extra-legal tactics had been justified all along because the head of homicide was corrupt. Hardy could have objected all day and been sustained, but he was happy to let Randall hang himself.

‘And when your staff assembles this evidence, lieutenant, and determines that there has in fact been a crime and they’ve identified a suspect, what do they do next?’

‘We go to the DA, who decides if they want to charge the individual, and what the exact charge will be. First-degree murder, manslaughter, that kind of thing.’

‘And how long does it take, roughly, from the commission of a homicide until you make this submission to the DA?’

‘It varies widely. A couple of days to a couple of years.’

‘OK.’ Randall was covering ground familiar to every professional in the courtroom, but obviously he felt he was making his case to Braun. Now he became specific. ‘In the case of Bree Beaumont, it’s been over a month. Can you tell the court why that is?’

‘The original inspector assigned to the case, Carl Griffin, was shot to death five days after Bree was killed. That slowed things down somewhat.’

A ripple of nervous laughter spread through the courtroom. Randall seemed oblivious to it and Braun let it pass.

‘And at that point, did you get personally involved in the investigation?’

‘No, I did not.’

‘Did you interrogate witnesses?’

‘No.’

‘Did you have occasion to talk to the victim’s husband, Ron Beaumont?’

‘No.’

‘But isn’t it a fact, lieutenant, that this morning you escorted Mr Beaumont and Mr Hardy to this courtroom?’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

‘But you say you had never before met or talked to Mr Beaumont?’

‘No.’

‘I remind you, lieutenant, you are under oath.’

A small lifting of the mouth. ‘I understand that. The answer’s still no.’

The questions went on rapidly, without interruption, as Randall walked Glitsky through the steps of his eventual personal involvement in the case. The proximity of Griffin’s murder scene to the residences of Bree and the other suspects, and finally to Canetta and the ballistics test proving that both men had been shot with the same gun.

Hardy picked up no sense of impatience from the judge. Finally, Randall got to where he’d been heading all along. ‘Now, lieutenant, after you had determined that Sergeants Griffin and Canetta had been killed with the same gun, did you immediately turn this information over to the district attorney?’

‘No, I did not.’

‘Can you tell the court why that was?’

Glitsky turned up to face Marian Braun. ‘It is standard procedure to withhold information from the media so that potential suspects will not be privy to incriminating evidence we might have against them. That way, if they tell us something that hasn’t been released… I think this is probably pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

‘But this wasn’t the media, lieutenant. This was the district attorney’s office, with which you are supposed to cooperate. Why didn’t you tell them?’

‘Two reasons. One, we’ve had a lot of trouble with leaks.’ Everyone in the building knew this was a constant problem, although every department accused every other one of being the source of them. ‘Second, a little more prosaically, I wasn’t sure of any of this until last night. If I didn’t have this hearing this morning, I might have brought the information to the DA already.’

Hardy couldn’t believe that Randall still thought he was scoring points. But evidently he did, and now moved on to another area where Glitsky had allegedly failed in his duties. ‘Lieutenant, do you know a Sergeant Timms?’

‘Yes. He’s a crime scene specialist.’

‘Did he work with you on the cars of Sergeants Griffin and Canetta?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you tell him about your suspicions that the two deaths of these policemen might have been related?’

‘Of course. I’m the one who asked him to check ballistics on the slugs.’

‘And did you tell him not to mention this suspected connection to anyone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why was that?’

‘It was premature. I didn’t know if it was true. You have one person killing two policemen, it stirs up the force. I thought maybe we could avoid that if it turned out not to be true.’

Randall threw his hands up theatrically. ‘But it did turn out to be true? Isn’t that the case?’

‘Yes it did.’

‘And both men were investigating the death of Bree Beaumont?’

‘Yes.’

Hardy was just thinking it was going to be too easy when Randall finally hit a nerve. ‘Lieutenant, did Sergeant Canetta work in the homicide detail? Was he a homicide inspector?’

Glitsky threw a neutral look at the defense table, and returned to the prosecutor. ‘No. He worked out of Central Station.’

‘Central Station? Perhaps you can tell the court how he came to be working on a murder case?’

‘He was connected to the case through one of the witnesses we’d interviewed.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Jim Pierce, a vice president for Caloco oil. Mr Pierce used to be Bree Beaumont’s employer, and he’d also employed Sergeant Canetta for security at some conventions and so on.’