John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

When the door opened on the third floor, Elaine nudged Glitsky. 'My office.' He'd thought they were headed up to homicide on the fourth, but Elaine was making the call and he tagged along behind her.

Her room was the standard cubicle used by the assistant district attorneys – two desks, as many ancient file cabinets as would fit, a coffee maker, two grimy windows with Charming View of Freeway Overpass #4. Elaine waited at the door for Glitsky to pass her, then closed it behind them.

Glitsky parked his rear on Elaine's office mate's desk. Whoever normally sat at that desk wasn't there now. Elaine turned, slumping slightly, and, to ease the tension, Abe found himself asking if she'd had as much fun on the elevator coming up as he had.

Elaine gave him a weak smile. Like him, she was exhausted and the fatigue was showing. 'This is so unreal,' she said. ' San Francisco just doesn't have this kind of problem.'

'You know how many unions we've got? The PD? I'll tell you. Three. We've got one for white cops, one for women cops, one for black cops. Even as we speak, the gay cops are lobbying for another one.'

'But you all work together, I mean like we do, you and me. People get along, do their work, right?'

'Generally. Things spill over.'

'But not like this.'

'It's a logical enough extension. People stop being just people first, well…' Glitsky shrugged, standing up, stretching his back. 'But you didn't look me up to talk about this.'

Elaine sighed. For an instant Glitsky saw her mother in her eyes, something almost more familiar in her expression, in the shape of her face. He rubbed his own eyes while she agreed with him – she hadn't looked him up to talk about the general situation. She paused, considering. 'Can this be off the record?'

'What's to be on it?'

Glitsky was vaguely aware of his reputation as a hardass. He supposed it wasn't totally undeserved since he tended to make a point of being straight with people. At least he didn't sugarcoat or dissemble, and with the right look on his hatchet face, he knew he could tell someone that he loved and cherished them and come across as abrupt and cold. It had happened with Flo.

But Elaine had thicker skin than he'd supposed. She gave him a look, the start of another smile, this one with a few more watts, and he finally nodded. 'Okay, sure. Off the record. What?'

'My mother…'She stopped. 'Well, no, not… not her. I don't want to bring her into this.' She bit her lip, looking beyond Glitsky out through the windows.

'Isn't she already?'

'Not exactly. That's not what I want to talk about. What I guess I mean is this whole thing.'

Glitsky nodded again. 'It's unusual, I'll give you that.'

'It's my career,' she said.

'It could be. You're right.'

'I've got to know if there's no case.'

'Elaine, you're making the case,' he told her.

'I know. I'm supposed to be. I'm assembling the facts.'

Silence.

'I just want to keep the door open between us.'

Glitsky took in a breath and walked over to the windows. The fog was thin and he could see some spires of smoke still rising across the Bay in Oakland and, he supposed, Richmond. Suddenly, seeing Elaine's direction here, he felt his anger stir again – it seemed to be on a steady slow simmer, ready to boil at any time.

He turned to face her. 'You know, Elaine, you're a charming person and I think you're probably also trying to do the right thing here, but I really hate getting bullshitted and especially today I don't have much stomach for it.'

Her eyes went wide. 'But I'm not-'

'You're covering your ass, Elaine, and okay, we'll leave it off the record, but my door has always been open. We don't have to make special arrangements to keep doors open.'

'This isn't a special arrangement.'

'No? Funny, then, that here we are in a locked room and off the record.'

'I just didn't want to be interrupted. I didn't want Chris…'

Glitsky pointed a finger. 'Now we're getting somewhere. You didn't want Chris…?'

'But he's my boss. He gives me my assignments.'

'So do them. But don't come around me playing both sides. Either you're on his agenda – maybe your mother's, too, I don't know about that – or you're being a righteous DA. Whichever one you pick is your call.'

'I don't want to make a mistake, Abe. I can't .'

Glitsky's scar stretched white through his lips. 'I wouldn't worry about it. I make them all the time. But I'll tell you one thing that makes life easier.'

'What's that?'

'Do things in order. There's a way it's supposed to get done so everybody's time doesn't get wasted.' Glitsky turned the doorknob, then stopped. 'You know, for what it's worth, I got no bleeding heart for Kevin Shea. I'm just more comfortable doing things by the book. You go different, you see too many bad guys walk when the smoke clears.'

'You do think he's it, then?' This seemed to hearten her.

Glitsky, risking a charge of assault, sexual harassment and general political incorrectness, reached out a hand and rested it for a moment on Elaine's shoulder. 'I'm not trying to get him off. What I want is what you want – a righteous case on him. And my door's always open. Period.'

'Is anybody with you?'

'Kevin, is that you? Can you talk a little louder?'

'Yes, it's me, and no, I can't. Can you hear me?'

'Enough, I guess. Where are you? Are you all right?'

'I asked is anybody with you?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Kevin…'

'Because I need some help, Melanie. I need serious help, and I don't need Cindy Taylor or anybody else – damn.'

'What?'

He whispered even lower. 'There's a guy upstairs. He's moving around again. I just heard the door close.'

'What?'

'Wait. Just hold on. I can't talk. Just a minute.'

He heard the steps approach again, saw the faint shadow of feet under the doorway. The good neighbor upstairs was a model citizen, no doubt about it, keeping an eye on the empty apartments when people went on vacation. There was another knock on the door. 'Hey, anybody in there?'

In the phone, Melanie's voice. 'Kevin?'

He didn't let out a breath. Melanie would either hang up or not. He'd told her to wait. Maybe she would.

Finally, after maybe two minutes, the shadows under the door disappeared, and he heard the retreating steps. He waited another ten seconds, made sure, whispered into the phone. 'You still there?'

'Yes. Kevin, what's happening?'

'Can you come get me?'

A pause. 'Sure. Where are you?'

A problem. He didn't know where he was. There were a couple of magazines on the table in front of the couch and he risked rising and walking a couple of steps. The tiny noises he made – a spring giving in the chair, a squeaky floorboard – might as well have been bombs going off. He read the address off one of the magazines. ' One forty-eight Collins Street, number three. You know where that is?'

'No.'

Great.

'Western Addition. A block or two south of California. You might have to go around. There's some National Guard…'

'All right, I got it. I'll find you.' It surprised him. She was being all business. No panic in her voice. Who was this Melanie? She repeated the address.

There was another knocking now, urgent, behind him. Kevin turned, holding the phone. There, seven feet away from him, looking in through the ground-floor window, was, he presumed, the good neighbor from upstairs, still pounding on the window, yelling.

'Mel!' Thank God, she hadn't yet hung up. 'Forget Plan A. Don't move. Stay home 'til I call you. And don't call anybody.'

'Kevin, what's…?'

'Just stay home and wait, Mel. They found me again.'

He wondered where the cold had come from. It was the one thing about San Francisco he just hadn't been able to assimilate, how one minute it could be beautiful, sunny, clear, and ten minutes later, or three blocks away, you were freezing. Now, suddenly, it was in the fifties, the wind whipping wisps of fog through the depressing rows of apartment buildings.