Guilt

'And Dooher wanted to be your friend?'

It was all coming back now, and Brown's head swung from side to side. 'No, no, no. He wanted to be forgiven, that's all he wanted. I mean as long as we were alive, and he wasn't going to kill us, then he wanted us to understand how bad he felt, how he had proved it, how he'd made fucking amends.'

'How did he do that?'

'Shit, I shouldn't be telling you this. You're a cop.'

'I am a cop. So what?'

Thieu's hand was still locked around his wrist, and suddenly Brown became aware of it; he moved it, raised the beer to his mouth. Drained it. Took a deep breath. 'So he killed Nguyen, the guy who sold us the shag. Went to his store and gutted him with his bayonet, wiped the fucking blade clean on his pajamas. Told me all about it, man to man, how he'd taken this great risk and all to get the guy who'd been responsible for everybody's o.d. So I'd forgive him, see what a hero he was. Can you believe that?'

'My Lord.' Glitsky, sitting on the table in one of the interrogation rooms on the 4th floor, the door closed behind him, flicked off the tape recorder.

'That's what I thought,' Thieu said, 'except I didn't use exactly those words.'

'He wiped his bayonet on the guy's pajamas!'

'That was my favorite part, too. Do you think this is enough to play for Drysdale?'

'I think we're getting there. You know, you came barging in with this, you didn't hear the other news.'

'What's that?'

'We got the blood lab report in today. You know what EDTA is?' Glitsky consulted his notes.

'Sure. Ethylene Diamine Tetra-Acetic Acid.' Glitsky's mouth hung open. 'My sister's a nurse,' Thieu explained. 'I used to test her on stuff. But what about it, the EDTA?'

Glitsky was still shaking his head. 'You think – well, most people think -when you give blood, they take it out, put it in a vial, spin it down or whatever, do their tests, right?'

'Right.'

'Right. But often they need to add an anti-coagulant to the blood to keep it from clotting, and that, my son, is EDTA. Actually, that's not precisely right. They don't add it to the blood. It comes in the vials. They've got purple stoppers on the top.'

'So?'

'So the blood all over Sheila Dooher's bed, supposedly left there by the perp when he was cut in the struggle, was loaded with EDTA.'

'Which means?'

'Which means that Dooher got his hands on some blood – maybe at his doctor's, maybe the same place he got the surgical glove, I don't know. He thought he'd leave a bunch on the bed, send our slow-witted selves off in search of a man with A-positive blood, which couldn't be him. But, sadly for him, the vial he picked up wasn't pure.'

Thieu tsked. 'And how could he have known?'

Glitsky stood up. 'Of such questions are tragedies made.'

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

At 10:15 on Tuesday morning, Glitsky, Thieu, Amanda Jenkins, and Frank Batiste were all jammed in front of Art Drysdale's desk. The door was closed behind them.

Art was sitting back in his chair, getting an angle on them. 'It's awful swell having you all stop by at once. If I'd a' known you was comin', I'd have baked a cake. Any of you know that song? No?'

Glitsky was thinking that he bet Thieu knew it, but didn't want to draw attention to himself. The other guests looked around at each other, and it was Amanda Jenkins who spoke up. 'We want to talk about Mark Dooher, Art.'

'Okay. What about him?'

'He killed his wife,' Glitsky said.

'All right. What's the problem? I don't need a committee to tell me that.'

Since Glitsky had the ball, he decided to keep rolling it. 'The problem,' he said, 'is that he also killed Victor Trang, and Frank here tells me that Mr Locke may have had a hand in shutting down that investigation. And if he's got some kind of political tie with Dooher…'

Drysdale held up a palm. 'Whoa. Stop right there. Chris Locke didn't stop any investigation, period. Chris Locke does not obstruct justice, and we're not going to talk about that here. Everybody understand that?'

Everyone nodded.

Drysdale pointed at the Head of Homicide. 'Frank, did I tell you to drop the Trang investigation?'

Batiste swallowed. 'You did say that unless we got some real evidence pretty soon, we ought to move along.'

'And did we get some real evidence? Physical evidence that would withstand the rigors of a jury trial?'

'No.'

'Okay. So much for the old news. Now what's this about his wife – Sheila, right?'

Glitsky took over again. 'I'd like to just run the whole thing down – it's a little complicated – and you tell me how you think it looks.'

'Excuse me, Abe.' Drysdale's gaze went to Jenkins. 'Amanda, you've heard this already?'

'Yes, sir. But you remember I heard Levon Copes, too, and you and I came to different conclusions.'

'This is like Copes?'

Glitsky butted in. 'It's one of those times – like Copes – where we know the perp, yeah. We know that first.'

Drysdale was shaking his head, his lips tight. 'And you know how uncomfortable that makes me?'

'Which is why we're here seeking your counsel and advice.'

Drysdale laughed out in the small room. 'Beautiful,' he said. 'Let the record reflect that I am truly snowed by this display of sincerity and trust.' He leaned forward, elbows on his desk. 'All right, tell me all about it. If I like it, we'll ask my wife. If she likes it, we'll go to the Grand Jury. I promise.'

Later, around 11:30, Drysdale poked his head into Homicide on the 4th floor, saw Glitsky at his desk, and walked over.

'I just called Lou's,' he said, referring to Lou the Greek's, 'and today's special is Kung Pao Chicken Greek Pizza.' Lou's wife was Chinese and the menu at the place often featured interesting culinary marriages such as this. 'I ordered a medium, enough for two, and it's going to be ready in,' Drysdale checked his watch, 'precisely seven minutes.'

'Sounds delicious,' Glitsky said, getting up, 'but I'm really only going because I want to see how they do it. I make that stuff at home, it almost never turns out.'

They were in a booth along a wall in the back of the darkened restaurant. The table was below street level. The wood-slatted windows began at their eyes, and outside the view of the alley included two garbage dumpsters, the barred back door of a bail bondsman's office, rainbows of graffiti on every surface.

At the big meeting in his small office, Drysdale had listened attentively and said he wanted to review the reports, but tentatively wasn't going to object to proceeding with the Grand Jury indictment on Mark Dooher.

But he and Glitsky had a bit of a longer personal history, which was why they were having lunch now.

Lou the Greek himself was hovering at the table, wondering how today's masterpiece was being received. 'It's good,' Drysdale was saying, 'but -you want my honest opinion, Lou? – I'd leave off the goat cheese.'

Lou was in his fifties and he'd lived underground in a cop bar for twenty-five years, so he looked closer to a hundred. But his eyes still sparkled in a long, lugubrious face. 'But the goat cheese is what makes it Greek.'

'Why does it have to be Greek?' Glitsky asked. 'How about just plain old Kung Pao Chicken pizza like everybody else makes?'

'You've had this before?' Lou asked. It bothered him. This was San Francisco, a major restaurant town, and Lou featured his wife's cuisine as cutting edge, which, in fact, it was. Not particularly good, but nobody else made anything like it.

'Lou, they got this at the Round Table, just without the goat cheese.'

The Greek turned to Drysdale. 'He's putting me on.'