John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

He stood a moment, looking west out her windows. The day was clear and bright, the Pacific glittering in the distance. 'Have you heard from your mother?' Glitsky didn't turn around. The clarity of it all out there held his attention. He needed some clarity.

'Yesterday. We were… why, is she all right?'

'I think she's all right. Did you see her last night?'

'No, not since the afternoon. Abe, what's this about?'

Now he turned. 'I'm afraid it's still about Kevin Shea. And I suppose before we go on I'd better tell you something else.' As he brought her abreast of the change in his own situation, he was relieved to find her at least still listening. You never knew – the bureaucracy was its own environment, and if he wasn't part of it anymore he would cease to exist to most people still in it, but Elaine wasn't one of them – she kept with him.

When he finished she said, 'But I'm not clear what this has to do with Mom. We should call her.' She was reaching for the telephone on the bar.

Glitsky crossed the room quickly, pushed the button down, took the receiver from her hand. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'Not yet.'

'Why not?'

He took a breath. This was the moment. 'Because I think she's probably part of it.'

'What? What are you talking about?' She was off the stool now, on her feet.

Glitsky kept his voice low. 'Your mother was the only person who knew I was meeting with Wes Farrell, Shea's lawyer. The only one, Elaine, the only possibility. She must have told Alan Reston about it and he had a DA investigator follow Farrell home with a warrant.'

'And? I'm supposed to think that means something?'

'Then last night-'

'No! I don't care what you say. That just isn't my mother! My mother isn't part of anything! How dare you?'

The reaction. He knew he'd hit a nerve – Elaine had possibly reached the same conclusion on her own and didn't want to – couldn't? – admit it to herself. She had moved away and now moved back at him. But then the fight abruptly went out of her. All at once her shoulders sagged. Backing up, she let herself down into one of the leather chairs.

Glitsky went on quietly. 'Right at the beginning you told her I was soft on her Shea theory. She kept me close so she could watch me, Elaine. So she could blow the whistle on me if I got in the way. And that's what she's done.'

He saw her swallow, sigh, nod – in agreement, in weariness. 'She did it to you, too, didn't she?'

'Mom gets what she wants, Abe. That's Mom.'

'And what did she want from you?'

Still looking for the words that might excuse or at least explain her mother, Elaine said, 'It would have been good for me, too, Abe. I mean, for my career. This was going to be one of the biggest murder cases of the decade – maybe as big as OJ – and I couldn't lose. Nobody could lose it, at least no reasonably competent DA, which I am. It would have set me up.' She looked up at him. 'It wasn't like it was all just for her.'

'Some of it was, though, huh?'

Elaine shrugged. 'Some, maybe. That was always the way. Mom got something, but she delivered for you, too.'

'Not for me,' Abe said, 'not this time.' He came and sat on the ottoman, pulled it away a bit. 'But this isn't about me. At least not much anymore. Maybe not even you, except I think a little more than me. It's your case and it's gone sideways, Elaine. Your mom knows it – I told her last night. She called Reston, all right, but not to call him off.'

'But she wouldn't-'

'I think she would.'

'Would what?'

'I think you know exactly what, Elaine.' Glitsky met her eyes and knew he had to go further. Being cryptic wasn't going to cut it. 'I think your mother is going to let something happen to Kevin Shea. You said almost the same thing yourself yesterday.'

But this, suddenly, was too much for her. It was, after all, her mother. 'She would not go that far, Abe. That's not my mom. I'd need some proof about all this.' She matched his own gaze. That's what we do , isn't it? Isn't that what you've been saying? Well, okay, my mom maybe could be part of some of this. Maybe that's who she is. But I need a lot more than you getting put on leave, more than the case going sideways.'

'I'll tell you some facts, Elaine. Leave your mother out of it if you want.'

She sat back down.

By now it was all too familiar to Abe – the knife wounds, Lithuanian Rachel and Colin Devlin, the interpretation of Kevin Shea as hero and victim. And then, even to Glitsky as he spoke, the last cog falling in. He remembered Hardy's comment about clients speaking for themselves, that they lied once too often, how that one lie was the tip-off that there were more. But the one 'lie' on Kevin's videotape – that the police had betrayed him – turned out not to be. At the time, Glitsky simply hadn't known about it. He told her: 'Everything Shea said on the tape is true.'

Elaine was shaking her head. 'I don't understand what she could possibly get out of all this, assuming what you say is true. Why would she…'

'She's got her man in the DA's office, she's got Philip Mohandas and his people thinking she's on their side, she's even got the president of the United States-'

'Get real, Abe, that's just-'

He held up a hand, stopping her, and told her about Hunter's Point. It had an effect. Elaine became silent, taking it in.

'We're talking a hundred thousand votes, Elaine, minimum. We're talking another term, more influence, more power, maybe even the vice-presidency, if Kevin Shea is innocent, if there's even a serious perception that he's innocent.'

'It wouldn't all go away. Not just over that.'

'Yes it would. You think about it.'

Elaine could do the figuring. If Shea was guilty, then Loretta Wager was the crusading personification of justice who had the guts and vision to put her outrage to use in the service of her people. But if he was not, if he were innocent and she'd led the rush to judgment, she became a strident harpy, a bigot herself seeking only a white scapegoat. To satisfy the gaping maw of her own ambition.

'She can't let him be innocent, Elaine – she's invested too much in his guilt. She doesn't have a choice…'

Elaine sat there. 'But what if it came out after…'

Glitsky was shaking his head. 'How would it do that?'

'Well, you , for example. You could-'

'No, I'm a discredited police inspector who didn't follow orders. My credibility is shot as it is. I pull anything like this and it only gets worse.'

'Okay, then, Wes Farrell…'

'Shea's own attorney? I don't think so. And I don't think you're it either – not after the fact, if something does happen with Shea, not if you don't have any hard proof that Shea didn't do it.'

'I could find-'

Glitsky was shaking his head. 'No you couldn't. You can't prove a negative, which is the bitch about getting accused in the first place. I think it's why we're supposed to prove people did do something, not didn't , although normally I don't go around preaching for the presumption of innocence. But it does have its place.'

Glitsky stood and walked back to the windows, to the blessed clarity. 'And that leaves nobody to argue for Kevin Shea, not after he's dead. Can you think of anybody else? I can't. This has been well thought out. Reston, the FBI, getting rid of me… and after Shea is gone and it's over, the whole thing gets – pardon the phrase – whitewashed. And it's going to work unless we do something now.'

Elaine sat back in her chair. 'And what do you propose, without destroying my mother?'

'I want to bring Kevin Shea in to you. You're still the DA of record on the case, right?'

'I think so.' Then, at his sharp glance, 'Sure. Yes.'