John Lescroart - A Plague of Secrets

“She could have done it anytime that night.”

“So the husband knew about it?”

“Had to.”

Glitsky looked over at Bracco. “Darrel?”

No hesitation. “If she did it, and she did, Abe, then that’s what happened.”

While a part of him admired the loyalty of his troops to one another, Glitsky felt his stomach roil at this absurd display of professional obstinacy. He was all but certain from his earlier discussions that Bracco thought that they could’ve tightened up the case before the arrest, and that Schiff had acted precipitously, but Darrel wasn’t going to contradict his partner in front of his lieutenant, and that was all there was to it.

Never mind that their convictions flew in the face of the first law of criminal investigation-facts must flow from demonstrable evidence, and not the other way round, where the evidence is massaged or explained to fit a set of predetermined perceptions.

Now, knowing he was defeated in his primary objective-to get his inspectors to admit that they might be wrong, and might want to spend some of their time looking for who had really killed Levon Preslee-Glitsky let out a breath, gave up on his tea, and leaned back in his chair. “All right,” he said. “But I think you’ll have to admit it’s possible that the jury’s going to have a hard time with Levon. Can we go with that?”

“You know as well as me, Abe,” Schiff replied. “San Francisco juries have a hard time with guilt, period.”

“All too true,” Glitsky said. “And all the more reason to make sure we give the DA everything he needs every single time.”

“He’s got plenty here, Abe,” Schiff said. “She’s going down for Vogler. Even in San Francisco.”

“All right, fine, I believe you, and I hope you’re right. And you’re both confident you’ve built the strongest case you could on Vogler?”

Darrel was the first to pipe up. “Yes, sir.”

“Debra?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, then.” Glitsky pulled a small stapled stack-five or six pages-of computerized printouts over in front of him and flipped it open to the middle. “Then I’ve just got one last quick question for both of you. Who is Lee or Lori Buford or Bradford?”

The two inspectors traded glances with one another.

“Nobody,” Schiff said.

“Nobody,” Glitsky repeated. “But I see here a Post-it in the file with our case number on it and that name or one like it.”

Schiff, her own blood high by now, wasn’t hiding her anger. “You’re riding this one a little hard, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”

“I’m in charge of this detail, Sergeant, and in my opinion, this case we gave the DA is about halfway down the tubes because we just didn’t quite have enough evidence when we made the arrest-correction, when you made the arrest. And you want my opinion, we’re still a damn sight light on Vogler. And if this nobody happens in fact to be somebody you guys in your zeal to arrest just plain forgot to include in your write-ups or reports and who might actually help the DA get a conviction on this Townshend woman, then it’s my job to point that out to you. Either of you got a problem with that? ’Cause if you do, we can take it upstairs and have a discussion with the chief. How’s that sound?”

Bracco, jaw set, a flush in his face, said, “Lori Bradford. An old woman out in the Haight.”

“A senile old woman out in the Haight,” Schiff corrected him.

“You didn’t take notes when you talked to her?”

After a minute Bracco said, “No. We decided she wasn’t credible, Abe. There was nothing worth putting in the file.”

Glitsky knew that though strictly against regulations, this was not an uncommon practice. Although inspectors were supposed to memorialize every interaction with witnesses or potential witnesses, either by tape or notes, in practice it often became the call of individual inspectors to include or exclude testimony, for whatever reason or for no real reason, from their reports. It was clear to Glitsky-if only because he was certain that Bracco knew better, but also because of the look of pain on Bracco’s face-that Schiff had drawn the short straw to write up the report on Lori Bradford’s interview and had decided for reasons of her own to leave it out.

Keeping his voice under control, Glitsky finished the last of his tea. “Nevertheless,” he said, “if either of you two remember, I’d be interested in hearing what she might have told you.”

Before the decisionreally had a chance to sink in, a smiling and confident Big Ugly Stier, never looking bigger nor uglier to Hardy, rose at his table and-no doubt seeking to undo some of the damage Hardy had done with Schiff yesterday-called Cheryl Biehl to the stand.

Paul Stier had discovered Biehl, née Zolotny, in much the same way that Wyatt Hunt had, by chasing down Maya’s college connections in the hope that someone who knew her both then and in the present could shed some light on the blackmail question, and hence on Maya’s purported motive for the killings. Now the former cheerleader, conservatively dressed in a tan business suit, clearly uncomfortable in the role of prosecution witness, shifted as she sat waiting for Stier to begin.

“Mrs. Biehl, how long have you known the defendant?”

“About fourteen years now.”

“And where did you meet?”

“At USF, freshman year. We were both cheerleaders.”

“And have you kept up on your friendship?”

“Yes. Until she got arrested, we usually had lunch together every couple of months or so.”

“Mrs. Biehl, did you also know the victims in this case, Dylan Vogler and Levon Preslee?”

“Yes.”

“And to your personal knowledge, did Defendant also know both of these victims when you were all in college?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever witness Defendant using marijuana with either or both of these men?”

Biehl cast an apologetic glance across to Maya and nodded to Stier. “Yes, I did.”

“And did you ever witness Defendant, either alone or with one or both of the victims, selling or distributing marijuana?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Would you characterize this as a more or less common occurrence?”

“For a while, when we were in school, yes. They were the main connection if you wanted to buy pot among our friends.”

“All three of them?”

“Yes.”

“All right, Mrs. Biehl. Moving ahead several years, in the lunches that you and Defendant had together, did she ever mention either Mr. Vogler or Mr. Preslee?”

“Yes. She mentioned both of them, Dylan quite frequently, since she still worked with him.”

“But she mentioned Levon Preslee too?”

“Right. But not really recently.”

“Do you remember the last time she mentioned Mr. Preslee?”

“About eight years ago, just after he got out of jail.”

“And by jail, Mrs. Biehl, don’t you really mean state prison?”

“Yes. Right. I thought prison and jail were the same, I guess. But, yes, it was just after he got out of prison.”

“And what were Defendant’s comments on Mr. Preslee at that time?”

“Just that he’d gotten in touch with her through Dylan. He wanted her to fix him up with a job or something.”

“What was her reaction to this request?”

“It really frustrated her.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because she said so. She said she was never going to get out from under these guys.”

“She was never going to get out from under these guys. Did she offer any explanation of what she meant by get out from under ?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Biehl. Now, turning to Dylan Vogler, he was her manager at Bay Beans West, was he not?”