John Lescroart - Guilt

'I'll keep that in mind, Art. But in the meanwhile,' he stood up, 'if we're hassling this guy, whatever reason, I want the word out it's to stop. We get righteous evidence or we let it go. We in accord here?'

'That's the way we always do it, Chris.'

Locke was at the door. 'I know that. I don't want to criticize a good cop who's having problems, Art, but Flaherty seems to know that we've got no matching hairs or fibers or fingerprints, no blood, no bayonet. And no motive. Am I right?'

'Yep.'

'All right.'

Drysdale stared at the door for a moment after it closed behind the DA. Then he picked up his baseballs again. Locke, he thought, had his own gift: the man knew how to deliver a message.

Glitsky's fears about his wife were well founded. After three days of whirlwind house-cleaning following the earthquake, she had faked feeling better on Sunday morning. When Glitsky had left to continue serving his search warrant, she had gone back to bed.

She sent all three boys out to the movies, with instructions not to return until dinnertime. Flo knew that her nurse, and Abe's father Nat, would be back on Monday. She thought she'd be fine until then. She didn't want to burden anybody, which is all she did anymore.

But this morning she hadn't been able to get out of bed. The nurse was in with her. Abe had put off going to work and now he and Nat sat in the living-room armchairs in the same attitude – hunched over, elbows on their knees.

'She's got to do what she's got to do, Abraham. Maybe all the cleaning, it did her some good. For her soul.'

Glitsky didn't have it in him to argue anymore. It had been a thoroughly dispiriting weekend. Hours of work and nothing to show for it. There had been no sign of Mark Dooher's bayonet. The lab would be coming in with microscopic results over the next few days, but Glitsky held out little hope of finding anything. Dooher had lots of suits in his closet at home, ten pairs of shoes, and all of them were pristine. It had been basically the same story at his office – fewer clothes, but everything spotless. His files gave no indication of any meeting with Trang. He kept his golf clubs in the trunk.

And in pursuit of those meager pickings, Abe hadn't been there for Flo, and now his father was talking about her soul. Well, he no longer cared about her soul. He cared about her body – that it wasn't causing her pain, if it could somehow stop betraying her. Even, God forgive him, that it let her rest for good. 'Maybe you're right, Dad. Maybe it helped her soul.'

'But you don't think so?'

He shrugged. 'It doesn't matter. She did it. It wore her out. Now she's worse.'

'But for those couple of days, she was better.'

There was nothing Glitsky wanted to say. He might feel like howling at the moon, but he didn't want to yell at his dad, who was cursed with the need to find meaning in life, an explanation for the randomness of experience.

The telephone rang and he made some hopeless gesture to Nat, got up, and went to the kitchen to answer it.

It was Frank Batiste. Locke's message had made its way through the system, and he heard it, said, 'Thanks,' and hung up.

'Who was that?' His father was standing in the hallway between the kitchen and his bedroom.

Glitsky stared ahead. 'Work.'

'If it's important, you can go in. I'll be here. Flo-'

'No,' Glitsky said. 'Just a case closing, that's all.'

On Tuesday, June 7, about six weeks after Abe Glitsky was told to forget about Mark Dooher and Victor Trang, he got a call at his home. It was 11:14 by the clock next to his new bed. He had gotten home an hour before, turned on and off the television, made a cup of tea, opened a book. Finally, he had gone in to his bedroom to lie down.

The house was empty now, except for him. The boys were staying at a friend's until Glitsky could finish the interview process for the nanny/ housekeeper he was going to hire.

In the first five days after Flo's death, he'd talked to two pleasant-enough young women, and both interviews had been disasters. Glitsky knew he had been to blame – he probably wouldn't have hired himself under these conditions. He should give himself a week or two to come to grips with his desolation, his anger, his despair.

He was fighting to keep desperation out of the picture, too, reminding himself that there really was no hurry; it had only been a few days. He'd find someone.

The new bed was a double. He and Flo had had a queen, but the first night after she was gone he found he couldn't make himself get into it. He knew he would keep turning as he tried to sleep and be newly surprised to find her side empty time after time. So that first night he'd slept, or tried to, on the couch in the living room. The next day he'd called the Salvation Army and they'd come and then the bed was gone. But even the smaller one felt enormous.

He was still in his clothes, one hand over his eyes, squinting at the digital clock. He reached for the telephone.

'Glitsky.'

'Abe, this is Frank Batiste. I know you're on leave and you can say no, but they got me at home and asked, and I thought you'd want to decide for yourself. We just got a nine one one from a frantic husband in St Francis Wood. His wife's been stabbed. She's dead.'

'Okay.'

'The caller was Mark Dooher. The woman's his wife.'

His feet were over the edge of the bed, on to the floor. 'Send a squad car by. I'll hitch a ride with it.'

Glitsky didn't hear Batiste start to ask if he was sure, he didn't have to… he'd already hung up.

He remembered the house more vividly than he would have thought. He saw a lot of homes in his job and they tended to blur together. But this one was distinctive with its tiled front courtyard behind the low stucco fence, the turret in the front, the semi-enclosed entrance, the broad sweeping lawn with its fifty-year-old magnolia tree which was in bloom, scenting the clear, still-warm air.

Glitsky stood a minute surveying the front of the house, now all lit up. Someone was moving in the turret, but he couldn't see through the blinds. The coroner's van hadn't yet arrived, but there was an ambulance in the driveway. Three other black and white squad cars from the early responding officers were parked on the street. The yellow crime-scene tape had been hung over a wide perimeter around the driveway and across the lawn. Within it, a couple of uniforms were standing guard, talking.

Glitsky had to remind himself that this was St Francis Wood, and that police response time here was measured in minutes, not hours as was often the case in less tony neighborhoods.

He was directed to the driveway and saw three other men standing in front of the ambulance. The two in uniform would be the Lieutenant and the Sergeant from the district station, which was Taraval. The third saw Glitsky and started walking down toward him. It was Paul Thieu.

On Glitsky's recommendation, Thieu had recently been detailed full-time to the death department, and he'd been in the office at the Hall pulling long hours when the eight-oh-two – a coroner's case – had been patched through from emergency services. Thieu had called Batiste, which was why Abe was here.

Glitsky met him halfway. Further up the drive, he noticed the pool of light under an open side door. 'Where's Dooher?'

'Library downstairs, over in that turret area. Couple of guys are with him.' Thieu had quickly improved in the chatter department. He'd also learned how to answer questions. 'Okay. I guess he'll wait.'

They approached the Taraval station people – Lieutenant Armanino and Sergeant Dorney – and Thieu introduced Glitsky around. Armanino was taking pains to explain to the downtown Homicide Inspectors that the guys from his station had secured the place well. The woman upstairs was, in fact, dead. She'd been obviously and thoroughly dead when they got here. So the paramedics hadn't moved the body or touched anything.