John Lescroart - Guilt

'I thought it might have occurred to you as relevant, talking to a murdered man just before he was killed.'

No answer.

'Do you recall what you talked about?'

'Sure. He was asking for my strategic advice on another case he was handling. As I told you, we kind of hit it off. I think he was hoping I'd offer him a job at the firm here.'

'You didn't discuss the settlement of your suit?'

Another pause. 'No, not that I recall.'

'Although he was threatening to file it the next day, ratcheting up the figures?'

'And then we'd duke it out in court. That's how we do it, Sergeant. 'Those lines had been drawn. There wasn't anything to talk about.'

'And he didn't seem concerned, worried, anxious?'

'Not to me. He seemed normal.'

'Do you remember what the other case was about, the one he wanted your advice on?'

'Sure, it was another settlement on a personal injury. Sergeant, am I under some kind of suspicion here?'

'The case is still open,' Glitsky said ambiguously. 'I've been trying to get a sense of what Mr Trang did in those last hours.' But may as well just come out with it. 'Did you have a bayonet as part of your gear in Vietnam?'

So much for the subtle approach.

'It sounds like I should contact my lawyer.'

'Or just answer the question.'

'Yes, I did. Did a bayonet kill Victor?'

'We believe so. Do you still have yours?'

'No. The Army takes it from you when they send you home.'

'Do you mind telling me where you were last Monday night?'

A sigh, perhaps an angry one. 'I believe I went to the driving range, then came back to the office here and worked late. Sergeant Glitsky, why on earth do you think I'd consider killing a man, any man, much less Victor, whom I've told you I liked?'

'I didn't say I did. I'm collecting all the information I can, hoping some of it leads somewhere.'

'The implications are pretty damn infuriating.'

'I'm sorry about that. Archbishop Flaherty thought so, too.'

'You talked to the Archbishop? About this?'

'He's your biggest client, isn't he?'

'By far. So?'

'And Trang's death means the suit gets dropped…'

'Trang's death means Mrs Diep gets another lawyer, Sergeant. And that's all it means.'

The earthquake that rocked the city at 5:22 the next morning wasn't as destructive as the World Series Quake of '89 – it didn't collapse any part of the Bay Bridge, for example, or any freeways. However, with a magnitude of 5.8 and an epicenter just a mile into the ocean northwest of the Cliff House, it was by no means a minor temblor. The eventual damage total exceeded $50 million. Seventy-seven people were injured seriously enough to seek medical help, and four people died.

Bart was going insane. He jumped up on Farrell's bed, howling like a coyote rather than the intelligent and sensitive Boxer that Farrell knew him to be, so something must be wrong, but Wes had no idea what it could be. He cast a quick glance at the clock next to his bed. 5:19. What the hell! 'Bart, Bart! Come on, boy. It's all right. It's all right.'

But apparently Bart knew more than his owner on this score. Wes was grabbing for the dog's collar to pull him nearer. It sounded like he was dying. Wes was thinking, I knew I shouldn't have given him that lamb bone. That's what it is – it's cut his stomach to shreds.

He flicked on the light, holding the dog close now, murmuring to him, petting to try and calm him down. 'Please don't die. Come on, hang in there, I'll call-'

Wham!

It was a sharp up-and-down, similar to the Northridge quake that had done so much damage to Southern California. The experts later estimated that the shock was equal to a vertical drop of five and half feet. It was probably fortunate that Farrell had no art on his walls and very little furniture, so there wasn't much to fall or fly around.

After one terrified bark coupled with a desperate escape maneuver involving claws and fangs that scratched Farrell's face badly, Bart got himself to a corner of the room and set up another howl.

The lights went out. There was a second, smaller jolt, and Farrell rolled from his bed and started crawling, eventually arriving at the bedroom doorway, his hands gripping both sides of it for support should the foundations shake again.

His hands were sticky and wet.

Glitsky hadn't been able to sleep and didn't want to keep Flo up, so at around midnight he'd gone out to read on the couch in the living room. Taking a cue from his father Nat, a Talmud scholar, he had been immersed for weeks in Wilton Earnhardt's epic tome Gospel, a story about the missing New Testament book of Matthias. This was about as far from San Francisco crime and politics and his home life as he could get. Which was the point.

Eventually, he'd nodded off.

What got him up wasn't the shock but Flo screaming his name. The lamp next to him crashed to the floor. Sparks and broken pottery. One of the kids – he thought it was Jake, his middle one – was also calling him. God! Why were the other ones quiet?

'Abe!'

'Yo! Coming.'

Another shake, knocking him sideways. Bare feet on broken shards. In the short hallway, he turned on the light. Another step, the bedroom, the light. Flo looked at him, eyes wide and tearful, as though he were a ghost.

As well he might have been.

The six or seven-hundred pound oak armoire in which they kept their hanging clothes had jumped four feet across the room and fallen, landing on Glitsky's side of the bed, where he normally would have been lying.

Flo was up and in his arms, and Jake cried out again.

Sheila Dooher nudged her husband. 'Earthquake,' she said, swinging her feet around, finding the floor. Louder, another push. 'Mark! Now!'

People said you never got used to earthquakes, but Sheila had lived in the Bay Area most of her life and had experienced over twenty of them. The great majority of the time, they shook the ground or the building you were in and then stopped. And the other quakes… well, by the time you worked yourself up to really scared, they were over, and then you dealt with what they'd done.

Mark opened his eyes, immediately awake in the darkness. He knew that Sheila had moved to her pre-arranged location in the doorway to the stairs – it was a drill. And he did the same to his, four steps over to the bathroom door.

'You all right?' he heard her say.

There was another, smaller shake. They rode it out – three seconds max -

'Fine.'

For Sam Duncan, living in a seventy-year-old underground apartment with brick walls, there was no time for any thought. Either Quayle was a sounder sleeper than Bart was, or he wasn't as finely attuned to the tiny movements of the earth by which animals can supposedly predict earthquakes. In any case, Quayle didn't whine, or bark, or howl preceding the event. Sam was sleeping one moment, and the next – feeling something moving, falling around her in the split second she had to react – covering her head as the wall behind her bed gave, collapsing over her.

Before Christina was awake, her father Bill had gone downtown to the bakery and come back with hot ham-and-Swiss-filled croissants, her favorite. Irene, her mother, left the steaming cup of French roast on the nightstand in her room and brushed a strand of hair back over her daughter's ear.

She stirred.

'Your coffee's here,' her mother said.

Having driven down to Ojai in six hours, she'd arrived unannounced at ten-thirty last night and they'd kept the visiting short; she was tired and planning to stay through the weekend, get rested before finals next week – they'd get time to catch up in person. They'd all turned in early, around midnight.