John Lescroart - Guilt

'It's beautiful,' Dooher said, 'but twenty-nine years is going to count.'

'Damn.'

They had their three games of squash. Dooher won two, letting Wes take the second, 11-9, before creaming him 11- 3 in the third. When they'd been younger, both had been roughly equal as athletes; they had, in fact, remained a double-play threat through high school. But in the past few years, and especially in the six months since Farrell had been living alone, Wes had put on about ten pounds and, no surprise, it slowed him down.

They walked together down to the Hall of Justice, where Wes was having a meeting with Art Drysdale, the Chief Assistant District Attorney, about a client of his, Levon Copes, who'd been charged in a rape/murder.

Farrell had originally thought the case had a chance to go to trial and, since the defendant was a middle-aged white guy who owned an apartment building, he had money to pay his lawyer. The initial retainer had been $45,000, the check had cleared, and Wes had hoped, if he played it right, that the trial could carry him financially for a couple of years, even with Lydia chipping away at whatever she could.

Since his client's arrest, though, he'd read the discovery – the prosecution's evidence – and concluded that there must have been some mistake. There wasn't nearly enough, in his opinion, to go to trial at all, much less get a conviction. So Wes was going to try to talk Drysdale into dropping the charges altogether. It would be extremely unusual in a case like this, but, he thought, possible.

His success would be the best possible news for his client, if not financially for Wes. But he had no choice. He was a lawyer; if he could get his client off, he had to do it.

Dooher had listened sympathetically to all of this, then left Farrell at the Hall of Justice.

Now he was walking alone uptown the ten or so blocks to his office. The weather continued damnably Irish. The banshee was howling off the Bay only a few blocks to the east, the cloud cover occasionally dipped low enough to become fog, and the soft drizzle ate into his bones.

Dooher was wearing a light business suit and no overcoat, but he didn't feel the cold. For the first time since she'd left her resume, he was seeing Christina again. In fifteen minutes.

The engagement ring infuriated him.

The fucking chintzy little fifteen-hundred-dollar, quarter-carat trinket – he wanted to rip it off her finger, stomp it under his foot, slap her silly for accepting the stupid thing.

But he wasn't going to do that. He was going to smile and say, 'It's really nice, Christina. I'm happy for both of you. Congratulations.'

They were in a cafeteria down Market Street from McCabe & Roth. She'd left a message asking to meet him, and for her own reasons didn't want it to be in the office. She thought it might be awkward. She seemed embarrassed at the explanation, her head tilted to one side, not meeting his gaze. 'I just thought that after our talk, after… everything you did for me…'

'I didn't do anything.'

'Well, I certainly wouldn't have applied without you, and now with me and Joe…' She twisted at the ring, gave Dooher a hopeful look. 'Anyway, now that we are engaged, there wouldn't be much point in going on with the application process, and I thought it would only be fair to come and tell you in person.'

Dooher fiddled with his own coffee cup. 'You know, Christina, not to get too technical, but the rule regarding personal relationships isn't exactly written in stone. It's devised more to discourage the associates. We've had two or three couples in the past.'

He'd fired them, but he left that unsaid.

Forcing his easy smile, though his stomach churned, he risked reaching over and touching her hand lightly. 'But again, I'm giving away the house secrets.'

Her remarkable green eyes sparkled briefly. 'They're safe with me. I'll take them to my grave.'

'It's the only reason I tell you.'

'And I appreciate it.'

Their eyes met and held for an instant. Then Christina shrugged and the smile faded.

'The point is,' he persisted, 'that if it's not a problem for you and Joe personally, I don't think it would stand in the way of you coming aboard, if that's still what you'd like to do.' Not only didn't he think it, he was the managing partner and it was a certainty. He'd see to it. But he was tiptoeing here, afraid to push too hard and scare her away.

'I don't know,' she said.

'What don't you know?'

'Just…' Twisting the ring, round and round. 'Just if I'd want to start with the rules being bent. I'd want to be like everybody else.'

Dooher's chuckle was real. 'Believe me, once the work starts getting given out, you'll feel just like one of the gang. Do you have any other offers yet?'

'No.'

'Well, I'm just saying I wouldn't withdraw yet, on the theory that it's always a good idea to keep your options open until they get closed for you.'

'I know that, in general, but…' A silence, then her eyes lit again, a feeble flame. 'Damn you, Mark.' The face lighting now. 'This was supposed to be easy.'

He sat back in his chair. 'I'm trying to make it easy.'

Shaking her head. 'No, I mean just letting this whole thing go, but then here you are, Mr Reasonable…'

'I'm not trying to stop you from letting it go, if that's what you want. I just want you to be dealing from the facts.'

She seemed to jump in her chair. 'Ahh! Don't say that word!'

'What word?'

'Facts. God, spare me from the facts.'

A little came out about Joe, and Dooher told her, lightly, she'd better get used to it if she was going to marry him. 'When's the happy day, by the way?'

She shook her head, not exactly the picture of hopeful expectation. 'It's not final yet. We thought we ought to wait about a year.'

Dooher let out the breath he realized he'd been suppressing since he'd first seen the ring. A year? Plenty of time.

The world could change in a year.

On the third floor of the Hall of Justice, a gray-blue block of concrete and glass at 7th and Bryant, Chief Assistant District Attorney Art Drysdale was having a discussion with an assistant district attorney named Amanda Jenkins and Sergeant Abe Glitsky regarding a murder case: People v. Levon Copes.

Copes had a tattoo which did not, as it turned out, read Wendy, but, more prosaically, Levon.

Unfortunately for the cause of justice, Levon's arrest had come about after Glitsky had interviewed several residents of the building he owned and lived in (and where Tania Willows, his victim, had resided as well). He learned that Levon's tattoo was no secret – Copes talked about it all the time.

So Glitsky had a pretty good idea of the identity of Tania's killer from the beginning of his investigation. Finding other damning evidence hadn't been too hard. Fibers in Tania's bed that matched with clothes in Copes's closet; the same type of rope that had strangled Tania was in the building's basement, to which Copes had the only key; his hairs were in her bed.

So Glitsky had gone to the DA's office with his evidence. Normally Art Drysdale would have reviewed this and assigned a prosecutor. But Drysdale had been on vacation.

Which left Les McCann to handle administrative matters. McCann, a retired-on-duty drunk with seniority, had assigned the case to Amanda Jenkins, who was on record as saying that sex criminals were worse than murderers. In the Hall, it was common currency that she was perhaps not the soul of objectivity when it came to analyzing evidence in cases like Copes.

She had reviewed the file. She'd had a talk with Abe Glitsky. He told her about the tattoo, which had clinched the fact of Copes's guilt for her. Armed with that knowledge, she had gotten Les McCann's approval to go to the Grand Jury and seek an indictment, and Copes had been arrested.