John Lescroart: A Plague of Secrets

Bracco poked his head into the opening. “Lordy Lordy,” he said.

The attic space the size of the house’s footprint was filled with plants in various stages of growth, from just-germinated little shoots in cardboard egg cartons to full-blown, six-foot-high plants in raised planter boxes. The air was rich with the resinous scent of marijuana.

Bracco got through the opening and straightened up next to his partner, taking it all in. They shared a wondering glance and, at last, Bracco let out a breath. “Wow.”

“You said it,” Schiff replied. “How much is this worth?”

“Ten grand a pound, right? Or close.” He turned around and peered across the space and into the recesses in the far corners. “And he’s got a jungle of it up here.”

Walking over to one of the closer tall plants, he reached out and picked one of the heavy and sticky buds, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, then smelling his hand. “Not that I ever inhaled any of this stuff, Debra, of course, and not to get too technical, but my limited experience tells me that this is some righteously good shit.”

First thing Monday morningBracco knocked on Lieutenant Glitsky’s door on the fifth floor of San Francisco ’s Hall of Justice.

“It’s open.”

Bracco turned the knob, gave the door a push. “Actually, it wasn’t.”

Glitsky, a large-boned man with a prominent hatchet of a nose, an ancient scar between his lips, and a graying Afro, sat in semidarkness-room lights off, blinds closed up. Glitsky’s elbows rested on his bare desk, his hands covering his mouth. Even with half of his intimidating facial arsenal covered up, Glitsky’s eyes alone could do the trick-they gleamed like glowing coals, the window to his mind, announcing to anyone paying attention that it was scary in there.

Today those eyes stopped Bracco in his tracks. “You all right, Abe?”

Glitsky didn’t move a muscle, still speaking from behind his hands. “I’m fine. How can I help you, Darrel?”

“Can I come in?”

“You already are in.”

Bracco stood holding the doorknob. “If this isn’t a good time…”

“I said it’s fine. Get the lights if you want.”

“Yes, sir.” He reached over and the room lit up.

Glitsky didn’t stir. Finally, his eyes moved and met Bracco’s. “Anytime,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

The office featured a couple of folding chairs set up in front of Glitsky’s desk, a few more leaning against the wall under the Active Homicide board. Bracco took the nearest open one and sat on it, pulling a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. “Well, sir,” he began, “I don’t know how much you’ve heard about it yet, but we had a shooting out in the Haight Saturday morning.”

“Vogler.”

“Right. Me and Debra pulled it and here I am out there at seven-thirty or so and there’s no place to park so I double up out on Ashbury-”

“And you got tagged.”

“Yes, sir. Again.” He came forward in his chair and placed the parking ticket on the desk. “The thing is, somebody’s gotta talk to them and make them cut this shit out.”

Glitsky lowered his hands, his mouth expressing distaste.

Bracco, who’d mentored under Glitsky in his first weeks of homicide duty, knew his lieutenant’s disdain for profanity as well as anyone, and he shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

Glitsky’s shoulders rose and fell. “How many does this make?”

“For me? Like six or seven this year. Others guys might have more. I figured I had to talk to you about it.”

Glitsky linked his fingers on the desk in front of him. “You think this is important?”

“Yes, sir. I do. Enough is enough.”

Glitsky nodded. “And what would you have me do?”

“Well, number one, get these tickets erased. I’m out trying to do my job and I have to stop and fill in this totally bogus form. That’s just wrong, Abe. So I thought maybe you could talk to somebody in traffic and just make it a rule that they can’t tag us like this. Tell ’em that pretty soon it’s going to cut into the time we need for our sensitivity training. That ought to do the job.”

“Good idea, Darrel. They’re always asking me how I can improve their operation, and now I’ll have something to tell them.” Glitsky scratched at his jawline. “Or, alternatively, of course, you can fill in the form. Or go to traffic yourself and make friends with whoever’s running the place now, plead your case. That might work.”

Not giving in, Bracco said, “I thought if it came from higher up…”

“Tell you what, Darrel, I’ll mention the issue at the next chief’s meeting, which is in about two hours. I’m sure they’ll give it all the time it deserves. Meanwhile”-Glitsky pointed at the citation-“you hold on to that particular ticket. Call a reporter, maybe Jeff Elliot, have him come down and pitch him a ‘CityTalk’ column.” Suddenly, the lieutenant pushed himself back from his desk and stood up. “I don’t have you yet on the board.”

Coming around, he went to the Active Homicide whiteboard and wrote the name VOGLER in the victims’ column, then BRACCO/ SCHIFF under inspectors. Finishing, he took a step back over to his desk and rested a haunch on the corner of it. “So where are you on that?”

“Couple of steps beyond nowhere, but only that.” Bracco filled Glitsky in on some of the basics: the lack of signs of struggle, the backpack full of marijuana, the apparent murder weapon in the alley. “Because of the dope we got a warrant and searched his house on Saturday afternoon. And guess what? The guy had a full hydroponic pot garden in his attic.” Bracco waited for a reaction, a nod, something to acknowledge this discovery. But Glitsky was just staring over his head, his bloodshot eyes vacant and glassy.

“Abe?”

“Yeah.” Coming back. “What?”

“An attic full of pot plants.”

“Good,” Glitsky said.

“Yeah, we thought so. To say nothing of the computer records. The guy kept pretty good records on his clients and the wife, common-law, Jansey, didn’t think to delete them before we got there.”

“So she knew.” Glitsky’s gaze drifted back up to the ceiling.

Bracco nodded. “Well, yeah. Meanwhile, she, the girlfriend, Jansey, moved out with the kid, back in with her parents, about six months ago for a while.”

“Why was that?”

“Just working things out with the relationship, if you believe her, which Debra doesn’t.” Again, since he wasn’t getting anything resembling normal feedback from Glitsky, Bracco waited. After several seconds he went on reporting. “He beat her up. Sir?”

“Beat her up. Yeah. Go on.”

“And because of the weed still there in the backpack, we’re leaning toward some other motive besides that, maybe personal. Maybe like she got tired of getting hit. Jansey.”

Glitsky nodded wearily. “Alibi?”

“That’s another thing. They’ve got a boarder living in a room behind their garage. Young guy, med student at UCSF. Robert Tripp. Says he was with her. The kitchen drain was clogged up. He was helping her.”

“Okay.”

“Well, okay, except we’re talking about six-thirty on a Saturday morning.”

“Pretty early,” Glitsky said.

“That’s what we thought. Meanwhile, Vogler, the vic, worked all day six days a week.”

“So Jansey and Tripp are hooked up?”

“Not impossible by a long shot.”

“So what’s next?”

“We talk to him, see if the alibi story holds up. If not, I go back and hit Jansey pretty hard. But on the chance that it’s the weed in some way, Debra’s got the list of clients she’s working through.”

“He kept a list?”