John Lescroart: The Oath

"I guess we're moving into the abuse realm."

Glitsky nodded. "That would be fair to say."

At a little after nine o'clock, Glitsky sat behind his desk in his small office on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice. The door was closed. His two new men-Harlen Fisk and Darrel Bracco-had so far been called out on injury hit and runs about ten times in their two months here, and in theory they should have been rolling already on this morning's accident involving Tim Markham. But this time, they were seeking their lieutenant's guidance before they moved.

Glitsky blamed neither Fisk nor Bracco for being upset with the conditions they'd endured to date in the detail, but until this morning, he couldn't say he'd lost any sleep thinking about it. They were political appointees and they deserved what they got in their brief stops up the promotion ladder, hopscotching over other inspectors who were smarter, more qualified, and worked harder.

Harlen Fisk was the nephew of City Supervisor Kathy West. He went about six three, two fifty, and was self-effacing almost to the point of meekness. Darrel Bracco was trim, crisp, clean, ex-army, the terrier to Fisk's Saint Bernard. His political juice was a little more obscure than his partner's, but just as potent. His father, Angelo Bracco, had worn a uniform for thirty years, and now was Mayor Washington 's personal driver-Bracco would have the mayor's ear whenever he wanted.

So these men could just as easily have gone whining to their supporters and Glitsky could right at this moment be getting a formal reprimand from Chief Rigby, who'd heard from the mayor and a supervisor that he was running his detail in an unprofessional manner. But they hadn't gone over his head. Instead, they were both here in his office, coming to him with their problem. The situation gave him pause and inclined him to listen to what they were saying, if not with sympathy, then at least with some respect for their position.

Bracco was standing at attention, and Glitsky had been talking for a while now, reprising many of the salient points of his earlier discussion with Dismas Hardy. "That's why our office here in homicide is on the fourth floor," he concluded, "with the lovely view of the roof of the medical examiner's office, whereas hit and run has a back door that opens into the alley where the waste from the jail's kitchen comes. Murderers are bad people. Hit-and-run drivers have made an unfortunate life choice. There's a difference."

Bracco sighed. "So there's no real job here, is there?"

Glitsky came forward in his chair, brought his hands together on the desk before him. "I'm sorry, but that's how it is."

The young man's face clouded over. "So then why were we brought onboard?"

This called for a careful response. "I understand both of you know some people. Maybe they don't really understand some technical matters."

Fisk was frowning. "What about the man who was hit this morning, Markham?"

"What about him?" Glitsky asked.

"He wasn't dead at the scene, but if he does die, then what?"

"Then, as I understand it, you get the case from H and R."

"And do what with it?" Bracco asked.

"Try to find the driver? I don't know." Glitsky-nothing he could do-spread his palms, shrugged. "Look, guys," he said, "maybe I could talk to the chief and see if he can arrange some kind of move. You both might want to think about transferring to gangs or robbery or someplace. Do some good work on some real cases, work your way back up to here, where you'll get some real murders, which this is not."

Bracco, still in the at-ease position, wanted to know his assignment. "In the meanwhile, we're here. What do you want us to do, sir? On this morning's accident?"

The entire situation was stupid, but in Glitsky's experience, stupidity was about the most common result of political solutions. Maybe these boys would learn some lesson. "You want my advice? Go out there yourselves. Look a little harder than H and R would. Maybe you'll find something they missed."

They weren't happy about it, but Bracco and Fisk thoroughly canvassed the immediate neighborhood. Although they found no witnesses to the event itself, they did not come up completely empty-handed.

At very near to the time of the accident, a forty-fiveyear-old stockbroker named John Bandolino had come out of his house on Seacliff just west around the corner from Twenty-sixth to pick up his newspaper. He was on his way back inside when suddenly he heard a car with a bad muffler accelerate rapidly, then squeal around the corner. Since this was normally a serene neighborhood, Bandolino ran back down to the street to see if he could identify the troublemaker who was making so much noise so early in the morning. But the car was by then too far away to read the license plate. It was green, though, probably American made. Not a new car, certainly.

The other corroborating witnesses on the car were George and Ruth Callihan Brown, both retired and on their way to their regular Tuesday breakfast with some friends. They had just turned off Seacliff onto Twenty-sixth, George driving, when Ruth saw Markham lying sprawled in the garbage up ahead. After the initial shock, both of them realized that some kind of a medium-size green car had passed them in the other lane as they were coming up. They both turned to see it disappear around the corner, heard the muffler noise, the acceleration. But they didn't even think to pursue it- Markham was unconscious, and bleeding where he lay. They had their cell phone and he needed an ambulance.

The crime scene reconstruction expert had trouble pinpointing the exact location on Twenty-sixth where Markham had been struck. The force of the impact had evidently thrown him some distance through the air, and there were no skid marks to indicate that the driver had slammed on the brakes in panic, or, indeed, applied the brakes at all.

Lunchtime, and Lou the Greek's was hopping. Without any plan or marketing campaign, and in apparent defiance of common sense or good taste, Lou's had carved its unlikely niche and had remained an institution for a generation. Maybe it was the location, directly across the street from the Hall of Justice, but there wasn't any shortage of other bars and restaurants in the neighborhood, and none of them did as well or had hung on as long as the Greek's. People from all walks of life just seemed to feel comfortable there, in spite of some fairly obvious drawbacks if one chose to view the place critically.

The entrance was through a frankly urine-stained bail bondsman's corridor, which led to an unlit stairway-six steps to a set of leatherette double doors. The floor of the restaurant was five feet below ground level, so it was dark even on the brightest day and never smelled particularly, or even remotely, appealing. A row of small windows along one wall was set at eye level indoors, though at ground level out. This afforded the only meager natural light. Unfortunately, it also provided a shoe's-eye view of the alley outside, which was always lined with garbage Dumpsters and other assorted urban debris, and often the cardboard lean-tos and other artifacts of the homeless who slept there. The walls had originally been done in a bordello-style maroon-and-gold velveteen wallpaper, but now were essentially black.

The bar opened at 6:00 for the alcohol crowd, and did a booming if quiet business for a couple of hours. There'd be a lull when the workday began across the street, but at 11:00 the kitchen opened and the place would fill up fast. Every day Lou's wife, Chui, would recombine an endless variety of Chinese and Greek ingredients for her daily special, which was the only item on the menu. Lou (or one of the morning drinkers) would give it a name like Kung-Pao Chicken Pita or Yeanling Happy Family, and customers couldn't seem to get enough. Given the quality of the food (no one would call it cuisine) and the choices available, Lou's popularity as a lunch spot was a continuing mystery even for those who frequently ate there themselves.