John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

If it would put him in touch with Kevin Shea, Glitsky would meet Farrell naked at the top of Coit Tower. 'You know Lou the Greek's, across the street, downstairs place?'

Farrell was definitely slurring. Maybe the guy had a speech defect. 'Lou the Greeksh? Ushed to get my mail there.'

'Say an hour?'

'One hour.'

'Mr Farrell?'

'Yeah?'

'Drive carefully, would you.'

Glitsky moved the police and forensics reports around on his desk. He had been a long time in the business and thought he'd developed a pretty good sense of the moment in a case when the dynamic changed, when you felt you were maybe finally getting to the end of something. He had that feeling now.

He realized that in a certain way Rigby and Reston had done him a favor by reminding him that his role was, after all, specific and limited – he was to bring in a suspect in a murder case. That was all. Find him and bring him in, like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive . (Glitsky's all-time favorite moment in movie history – Richard Kimble, the fugitive, at the end of the tunnel on the lip of a mile-high waterfall, says to Tommy Lee Jones, 'I'm innocent,' and Jones – beyond cool – goes 'I don't care.')

That would be Glitsky now. Leave the big picture out of it. Collect evidence as it came in and, if things changed, be flexible. But for now the job was to get Kevin Shea into a cell here in the Hall.

He still wasn't completely confident that Loretta's theory would hold, that bringing Shea into custody would throw any oil onto these roiling waters, but on the off-chance it did, wouldn't that be a nice bonus?

Meanwhile, he would go by the book with Wes Farrell. He would play fair, keep it to himself and meet him alone. A deal was a deal, and he was reasonably certain that Farrell, even if he wasn't sober, was not trying to pull anything. It had sounded legitimate. Farrell was a lawyer protecting his client, and that wasn't necessarily at odds with Glitsky's job. At least, not yet.

He didn't blame Shea for getting a lawyer. Three hundred thousand dollars was ample motivation for someone to cause him serious mayhem. And Glitsky wasn't forgetting the not-so-hidden hundred-thousand dollar message that Philip Mohandas had delivered – kill him if you have to. Shea must know, and Glitsky thought he was right, that it would be child's play to concoct some story of attempted escape or self-defense that would work as a justification for taking out Kevin Shea.

So it would work out, maybe by tonight. The boys would be gone out of harm's way in Monterey with his father. The city would creak its way back to business as usual, and Abe Glitsky might look forward to a weekend alone catching up on some much-needed sleep. Maybe other things, too.

He lifted the phone, punched some numbers. She answered on the second ring. From her tone she was relieved to hear from him, as though she expected he wouldn't ever call her again.

She would be going back down to City Hall, to her office. Did he have the number there? She couldn't just stay in her house any longer. She had flown out here to San Francisco to make a difference, and even if she was devastated by what had happened with Chris Locke, she had to get back to work – people needed her. She had to try to use what influence she had, meet with people on every side of it, find some workable solutions, play peacemaker.

Would Abe make a point, please, to look in on Elaine? She hadn't been able to contact her all day and was getting sick with worry.

He let her go on, admiring her strength. A powerful woman with an important agenda. It was heady, but somehow natural, that he would be her connection, she his lifeline.

It would help if she knew how close it was to being over. She would be able to assure people that Shea would soon be in custody. He was meeting Shea's attorney at Lou the Greek's, and they would be arranging the details of his surrender. It ought to be done within a few hours, a day at most.

She told him that that was wonderful news.

If Abe got a chance after that, later, would he be able to stop by her office before he went home? Even a few minutes would be okay. She didn't know what to do with all this, these feelings about the two of them, what was happening. She really needed to talk to him. She needed him.

Art Drysdale had been about to make his way over to give Elaine Wager the rest of the week off when he got the news about Alan Reston's promotion to DA. Through connections at one of the television stations he had gotten early wind of Elaine's latest bout of unpredictability and had decided not that she was under too much stress – hell, everybody was under too much stress – but that she wasn 't handling hers properly.

Daughter of a senator or not, she was going to take some time off and think about what she was supposed to be doing here. First she arrests Jerohm Reese. Then she spouts to the media about Kevin Shea, apparently sounding very much the official spokesperson for the DA's office, which she was not. Next, she might… but that, Drysdale thought, was the point – there was no telling what she might do next. He didn't want her around so they could all find out.

But then had come the call from the mayor's office. Not surprising in itself – after all, the DA's job was a political position and Drysdale was primarily an administrator – nevertheless the speed of turnover and person selected for the job were both unsettling.

So Drysdale had sat a few minutes, juggling baseballs, awaiting the arrival of his new superior. Then abruptly he had stood and gone down anyway to his original destination, Elaine Wager's cubicle. The door had been closed and he had knocked, then opened it, finding her sitting on the floor in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest. When she looked up, her face was streaked and ghostly.

Drysdale had gone down to the bathroom and brought back a handful of wet papertowels. By the time he got back Elaine was up off the floor, sitting in the chair behind her desk. He sat in silence at the next desk to her while she wiped her face, blew her nose, got herself together. She said she was sorry. He understood. It was all right. A couple of words. A few more.

A half hour later, when Glitsky knocked at the door, they were still talking quietly, sitting at the two desks as though they shared the cubicle and were working. Drysdale stood and walked the six feet around the desk to the door, opening it a few inches. Seeing who it was, he turned and gestured a question to Elaine, who nodded, let him in. The lieutenant was wearing a jacket, as though he were going out somewhere, and he had some file folders in his hands.

'If I'm interrupting…' His eyes went to Elaine.

'Come on in, Abe. Pull a chair.' Drysdale closed the door behind them.

'They're looking all over for you, Art. I think you've been paged a dozen times in the last half hour.'

'Yes, I imagine they have. I seem to have taken a powder.'

'You heard, then, about Reston?'

Elaine came to life. 'Alan Reston? What about him?'

Drysdale looked over at her. Their discussion had evolved into a personal one and he hadn't gotten around to the new office hierarchy. 'Oh, that's right, I-'

'You know him?' Glitsky interrupted.

She nodded. 'He's a…he's one of Mom's people. His daddy's rich…'

'He's also,' Drysdale said, 'your new boss.'

That stopped her for a beat. 'What do you mean?'

They played a few rounds of 'what do you mean?' until things became clearer, after which Glitsky looked at his watch and said he had an appointment, but Loretta was worried about her, would Elaine give her a call? She was down at City Hall.

Elaine nodded.

Glitsky said, 'I also wanted to apologize to you.'

'What for?'