John Lescroart - The Oath

It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done, but Treya told him if that were the case, they had to stop seeing each other. She wasn't going to use the issue in a power play to get or keep him. If parenthood wasn't something he wanted to go through again, she understood completely. He was still a fine man and she loved him, but she knew who she was, what she wanted.

For some time Glitsky had lived with her decision, and his own. Then one day he woke up and realized that he had changed his mind. Her presence in his life was more important than anything else. He could not lose her-nothing could make that happen.

But now that once-distant someday had arrived, and Treya was biting her lip with the tension of whether or not her husband would accept the reality. "I don't think children have as good a chance if they're raised in a home where the parents aren't comfortable and happy, so I think we really ought to keep that going at least until the baby's out of the house and on its own. Don't you?" Trying to smile, she gripped his hand tightly in both of hers and met his eyes. "I was going to tell you last night when we got home, but then your inspectors were there, and by the time they left it was so late…" Her tremulous voice wound down to a stop.

He stared back at her for a long beat, his expression softening by degrees into something akin to wonder. "Why do you think it took us so long?" He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed them. "It sure wasn't for lack of trying."

Four hours later, Glitsky was sitting on his kitchen counter, trying to maintain a professional tone when he felt like screaming. He was talking on the wall phone to one of the deputy sheriffs from San Francisco General Hospital. The deputy had called homicide about this lady who'd been arrested and brought to the hospital earlier in the day with a broken ankle and a concussion. She couldn't seem to stop talking about her husband being the murderer in the family, so why was she the one who was in jail? The deputy figured that if anything about this woman involved murder, he ought to bring it to somebody's attention. But when he'd called homicide, nobody had any idea what he was talking about, so they gave him Glitsky's home number.

"What do you mean, they arrested her? They didn't arrest him ?"

"The husband? No, sir. Not that I can tell. They didn't bring him here, but maybe he wasn't hurt." When healthy people got arrested in the city, they went to the jail behind the Hall of Justice. If they needed medical care of any kind, SFGH had a guarded lockup wing, and that's where her arresting officers had taken Ann Kensing.

In ten minutes, Glitsky had tracked down the home numbers for both of these guys, and one of them-Officer Rick Page-had the bad luck to answer the phone. Even over the wire and without benefit of his terrible face, Glitsky's tone of voice, rank, and position conspired to reduce the young cop to a state of panic. He ran his words together staccato fashion, repeating half of what he was trying to say. "It was, it was a nine-one-one DD, domestic disturbance. When we got there, we got there and the woman was on the ground, surrounded by her kids. Her children."

"And the man?"

"Well, he, he was bleeding from his face, pretty bad where she cut, cut him."

"Cut him? With what, a knife?"

"No. Fingernails. Scratched, I meant scratched him, not cut. On his face. He was up some outside stairs when we got to the scene. Me and Jerry-my partner?-we pulled up and both drew down on him."

"On him?"

"Yes, sir."

"But then you arrested her ? Even though she was the one more badly hurt, is that right? How did that happen?" Glitsky's anger and frustration were still fresh, but he had calmed enough to realize that he wasn't getting what he needed from Officer Page. He toned his voice down a notch or two. "You can slow down a little, Officer. Just tell me what happened."

"Yes, sir. First, he's-the guy, Kensing-we checked back with the dispatcher when he told us and it was true, he's the one who called in the nine-one-one. He was locked out of his house and was worried his wife was going to hurt his kids. He said he needed help."

"I'll bet." Glitsky was thinking that Ann Kensing was smart to lock him out. "But you got there and what?"

"Well, the first thing, she was on the ground, on the sidewalk at the bottom of the stoop. There were steps, you know, going up to the house. The husband was still at the top, just standing there. Three kids were down with her, screaming bloody murder. We didn't know-it could have gone any way from that situation, sir. So we both pulled our pieces and approached the suspect, who at that time we thought was the guy."

"And how was he?"

"Cooperative, scared. He wanted to go and see how his wife was, but we had him freeze. He had his hands up and didn't move a muscle, which was good. From what we see so far, we're taking him downtown at that point."

"Okay," Glitsky said. "What changed that?"

After a short hesitation, Page started again. "The main thing was, I talked to him. The first thing he said, I mean he's reaching for the sky and bleeding like a pig out of his face, and the first thing he does is thank me for getting there so fast."

"He thanked you?"

"Yes, sir, which makes it like the first time I've ever had that in a DD. You know what I'm saying?"

Glitsky did know. Usually, by the time the police got involved in a domestic dispute, the gentler social amenities, especially extended to the cops coming to break up the fight, weren't in the equation anymore. "Go on."

"Anyway. So Jerry was with the wife, trying to get the kids to calm down. He, the guy, Kensing, asked if he could sit down on the step and I said no way, turn around, the normal drill and go to cuff him. At which point, one of the kids, the boy, he starts coming up the stairs and he's going, 'What are you doin' to my dad? Leave my dad alone. It wasn't him. It was Mom.'"

"The kid's saying that?"

"Yeah. And Kensing's cool. He's going, 'It's all right, Terry.' The kid. 'He doesn't know what happened.' Meaning me, you know. But I'm not letting the kid get near him." This, of course, was standard procedure because irate parents-especially fathers-who see jail time in their immediate future have been known to take their own children hostage in an effort to avoid it. "So I get in front of him and call for Jerry, who's gone back to the unit to put in a call for the paramedics. By this time, the wife's sitting up, holding the two girls. There's some citizens-neighbors-coming out to look. Time to put up my piece, which I do."

"Okay."

"Okay, so it's all slowing down. Kensing's cuffed and he asks can he turn around, slow, and I let him, and he tells his kid just stay put, don't worry, it's all going to work out. He tells me, calm as can be, that he's a doctor. He can help his wife. But I'm getting a funny feeling right about now anyway."

"About what?"

"About it's mostly always the guy, you know, sir. Doing damage."

"I know."

"But this guy. He's almost relaxed. Nowhere near the usual rage. He says she just slipped and I'm goin', 'Sure she did,' but he says, 'Look,' and nods down to this mark on the landing, where it's pretty obvious at least somebody slipped. A wet newspaper. And the kid goes, 'It's true. I saw her. She just slipped. He didn't touch her.'

"So I'm thinking, Shit, now what? I mean, we get to a DD and somebody's going downtown, right? I mean, usually the guy, but no way are we leaving without one of them. It's a real drag coming back two hours after everything was patched up fine with the lovebirds, except then one of them shoots the other one. You know what I mean?"

"I hear you," Glitsky said.