John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

'To tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I don't know how to react to it. It's the least of my worries at the moment.'

Chief Dan Rigby sat in his leather chair behind his desk. Glitsky had been a department head for less than a year and the two men had never met socially. Nevertheless, when the lieutenant had come calling the chief had admitted him right away. Now Glitsky stood on the Iranian rugs and looked across the shining expanse of mahogany desk that separated him from his boss. He wondered, briefly, if Rigby's desk would fit into his whole office, and decided it might but it would make walking around a bit of a chore.

'I'm just saying that, technically, sir, we don't have much in the way of evidence if we're going to charge-'

'What about that picture?' Rigby gave Glitsky a hopeful look, knowing as well as his lieutenant that normally a photograph such as Westberg 's would have to pass a battery of tests for authenticity before it could go before a grand jury or any finder of fact as admissible evidence.

Glitsky stood impassively, as though considering the chief's words. 'Yes, sir,' he said at last, finessing the question. 'But to charge someone with murder before the grand jury has had a chance-'

'I'm hearing, lieutenant, that we need something, almost anything, and right away if we're going to have any hope of containing this thing.'

'Mr Locke came by my office this morning and that was pretty much the message he delivered, so I've heard it, too, but frankly, it makes me nervous. That's why I came here to talk to you. I don't exactly know how to handle it-'

'What's to handle? We arrest the guy, book him, give him to Locke. Everybody takes a deep breath, maybe the streets settle down. Do you have any doubts about this man, what's his name, Shea?'

'No, sir, but that's not my point. I'm saying we don't have a usual case to make an arrest on. We could take a lot of flak on it. In normal times we wouldn't go near this yet.'

'These aren't normal times.'

'No, sir, they're not. But I'd like an eyewitness all the same. Something to make the arrest more… defensible.'

'Well, you've got that.'

Glitsky waited.

'The photographer, he's downstairs on three getting questioned right now.'

'By the DA? How'd that happen?' They both knew this was way outside the realm of procedure, that normally the police interrogated everyone associated with a crime and the district attorney pretty much stayed out of it at least until there was enough to present a case to the grand jury.

'Locke told me, as a courtesy, that they were talking to him. As a courtesy,' Rigby repeated. 'They're building their case on Shea.'

'Before they knew who he was?'

"They decided who he was, Abe.'

'Who did? Locke?'

Rigby nodded. 'Locke. The mayor. The senator.'

'The senator?'

'Loretta Wager, in the flesh. She flew in here this morning. I gather she's sold this idea to the mayor – offer up Shea, although you didn't hear it here. Focus it on him, then deliver him, restore the faith of the black community and even the score. Let justice take its course. And now you say we've got him, right? Shea?'

'I sent some cars to go pick him up. We'll worry about a warrant later.'

'Okay, then, we've done our job.'

Glitsky bit his lip, surprised at the length of time the chief had given him, and the confidence he'd shared. 'What if it doesn't work?'he said.

'What, our job?'

'No. What if we get Shea and the place still keeps erupting?'

'Loretta Wager says it won't. The mayor's betting it won't. And Chris Locke's betting his job on it.'

If wasn't exactly an answer but perhaps there wasn't one. Glitsky nodded. 'I'd like to go talk to the photographer.'

'He's downstairs. Help yourself.'

After he got the picture developed in his darkroom and ran it down to the KPIX studios, Paul Westberg had not been able to talk himself into going back home. There was no way he would get back to sleep.

They had offered him five hundred dollars for his picture and all rights, but he had studied the scenario that had developed around the Rodney King videotapes – every photographer's dream – and had fantasized about some similar piece of good fortune happening to him, planning how he would handle it. And now it had happened. He had held out for twenty-five hundred dollars, retaining world rights to the shot.

Fielding the calls in the middle of the night in the studio basement, he'd then sold licenses to air the picture on CNN, Fox and the major networks for their news shows only. In the past sixteen hours he had grossed some twenty-four thousand dollars. He had three agents and a couple of lawyers sniffing around and he hadn't even been home yet. They'd found him.

What he hadn't counted on was the police. He was, after all, not only a photographer, but a witness. He was the only one who couldn't deny that he'd seen it all. He'd been there – the downside to fame and glory.

The two officers had been polite but firm. He was going to go downtown with them for questioning. Sure, he could take his own car. They'd follow him.

They hadn't taken him to the police station upstairs but through the district attorney's corridors on the third floor of the Hall of Justice and for twenty minutes left him sitting alone, sweating, in a small room unguarded and abandoned. He had stopped feeling on the cusp of untold good fortune. In fact, he had become vaguely fearful – his mouth sour and his eyes bagged and he wanted to go home and crawl into his bed.

Finally the heavy wooden door creaked open and a beautiful young black woman wearing a business suit had been standing in front of him, smiling, and identifying herself as Assistant District Attorney Wager. After assuring him that he wasn't a suspect in the lynching, she asked if he wanted a lawyer present anyway. He had sipped at the excellent coffee (she had brought him a fresh cup), and said no, what did he need a lawyer for? He hadn't done anything illegal or wrong.

She proceeded to walk him through the events of the previous night, and she had helped him reconstruct the truth as he remembered it, how he had been walking down the other side of Geary Street, heard the commotion, looked over and thought it might be news. Finally, getting to the moment of the picture, how the crowd had been yelling 'pull on him, pull, pull!' and the guy had been doing just that. No, there was no doubt about it. Sure, he'd testify to it. He saw it. That was what had happened.

And then the hawk-faced black man with the flight jacket and scar through his lips, breaking into the room and scaring the shit out of him, taking over from the lovely assistant district attorney. Ms Wager had been cool about it, composed, but still struck him as somebody caught doing something wrong.

The man, Lieutenant Glitsky, he said, the head honcho of the homicide detail, suggested they go upstairs to continue the interview. Convinced that he hadn't much of a choice in the matter, Westberg had gone along with him.

'This is Lieutenant Inspector Abraham Glitsky, star number 1144. I am currently at an interview room in the Hall of Justice, 880 Bryant Street, in San Francisco. With me is a gentleman identifying himself as Paul Westberg, a freelance photojournalist, Caucasian male, born March 4, 1971. This interview is pursuant to an investigation of case number 950867731. Today's date is June 29, Wednesday, at 0825 hours on the AM.'

Glitsky was going to do it by the book, as a regular interview conducted in the course of a murder investigation. He sat across from Westberg at a small pitted wooden table, a tape recorder switched on between them. After walking through the standard battery of questions, again going over the basics of what Westberg claimed he had seen the night before, they got down to the crux of it: