The Second Chair

Now the working cop, fixing his seat belt, shot a look across the seat, saw Hardy's eyes on him and said, "What?"

Hardy turned the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, started rolling. "Just admiring the fancy figure you cut in your uniform. I can't seem to get used to it. You catch the peanut thief?"

"He wasn't a thief. He just changed the drawers."

"Somebody goofing with you."

"Maybe," Glitsky said, "knowing I'm such a big fan of practical jokes."

"You are? And to think that all this while I understood you favored the death penalty for practical jokes."

"I do." Glitsky squirmed in his seat, getting himself arranged. "These seats are too small for normal people, you know that?"

"Wouldn't one have to have a nodding acquaintance with normal to make that statement? And if so, how could you?"

Glitsky sat, not exactly squirming, but shifting in his seat. After a bit, he seemed to be probing with his right hand into the left side of his torso. He took in a big breath and released it, looking ahead, quiet, frowning.

"You okay, Abe?"

Glitsky sucked in a breath again, settled into his seat. In another minute, he sighed heavily. "My guts," he said.

They drove another block or two in silence. "Me, I keep waking up." Hardy spoke without any preamble. "It's not like I don't go to sleep. After I drink myself into oblivion, I do, but then a couple of times every week I have these dreams, always different but always with the same theme, like somebody's closing in on me and I've got to shoot them, but there's no bullets in the gun, or the knife disintegrates in my hand, or the cage they're in, the bars melt, and then they rush me and I wake up."

"I don't dream at all," Glitsky said. "But my guts hurt."

Another block and they hit a light. "You ever think about seeing somebody? Maybe talk about it?"

"Nobody can talk about it." His tone made it clear: this was Glitsky's last word on the subject.

The subject, of course, was the shoot-out.

Since then, each of the four survivors were suffering, dealing in their own respective ways with the psychic toll of what they'd had to do. Gina Roake, who'd been engaged to Freeman when he died, spent most of her time exercising in martial arts or shooting at the range. Her earlier and lifelong passion for defense work had all but dissipated and she came into work only sporadically. She had completed a few hundred pages of a legal thriller that, she said, was going to expose the rotte

Hardy's brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, previously a heavy but controlled social drinker, had descended into a deep fog of alcohol. He wasn't yet drinking in the mornings, but Hardy hadn't seen him close to sober in eight months. He'd gained thirty pounds. He hadn't shaved or trimmed his beard and his hair hung down to his shoulders. He and Susan were having problems in their marriage.

Hardy knew all about his own dreams, his problems with motivation, his feelings about the system he worked in, the cynical machinations he orchestrated nearly daily, the bibulous lunches, then di

And now Abe and his guts. "Nobody can talk about it," Glitsky repeated.

"I heard you the first time," Hardy said. Then. "You worried somebody's going to find out someday?"

"You're not?"

"It crosses my mind from time to time."

"It's eating me up from inside." As though to prove it, Glitsky pushed again at his side. "Especially since my promotion."

They drove. Hardy said, "What does Treya say?"

"Nothing." Then: "I don't talk about it. Nothing's wrong. She doesn't need to worry about it. I'll get over it." Glitsky stared out the side window while pushing his right hand into his guts, just above his gunbelt. "I don't understand this," he said. "When Bruce Willis shoots somebody, they roll the credits and everybody's fine."

Hardy dropped Glitsky a few blocks beyond his own house, at the corner of Lake and Twenty-first. The deputy chief walked, counting ten houses up to the address. He stopped and noted the location of the garage to the side and a little behind the two-story, stand-alone stucco house. Then he continued on the sidewalk and turned up the polished riverstone path that bisected a neat lawn. Up three steps to an unlit brick and stucco porch, he stood on the landing and waited for a moment, listening. Through the glass at eye level in the door, he saw lights in the back of the house, some shadows dancing on the walls.

He turned back and checked the street. Like Glitsky's own block, it dead-ended at the southern edge of the Presidio. From what he had heard and read about the murder of Elizabeth Cary, it had been just about at this time of day, a week ago tomorrow. Still not exactly full night. Witnesses certainly could have seen something. Especially if they ran to a window, as someone must have after hearing the enormous boom of a.9mm handgun. But no one had reported seeing anyone.

Glitsky pushed at the doorbell. The sound echoed in the house and a dog barked.

A dog? Glitsky hadn't realized there was a dog, and didn't know if it meant anything. Still, he wished he'd read it someplace, in one of the reports. For a moment, apprehension swept over him, the feeling that he wasn't prepared enough for this interview, that he shouldn't be here. His role in the gunfight last year had forfeited his right to be here, to be a cop at all.

It was just like he felt every day, at his regular job- deputy chief of investigations. He didn't deserve to be where he was.

But then a figure was visible through the glass down the hallway. Glitsky put aside his own angst and stood straight, arranging his face to show sympathy. If the man he was about to interview was not a cold-blooded wife killer, then he was himself a victim who'd recently lost his life companion to violence.

The door opened. "Yes?"

Cary came as advertised- he looked at least sixty, was thirty or more pounds overweight and sported a thi

"Mr. Cary? I'm Deputy Chief Glitsky. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time?"

"Of course," he said with a weary resignation. Then added, "Sorry," for no apparent reason. He reached over, flicked a switch, and suddenly there was light in the living room and over the porch. "Come on in."

Glitsky stepped over into the house, followed Cary a few steps over to a couch, where they sat. The dog was a light brown, medium-sized mutt with a lot of Lab in him, and he gave Glitsky's legs the once-over. "If you're not okay with dogs, Ranger can go."

"Dogs are fine." Glitsky gave him a little scratch behind his ears. Satisfied after a second or two, Ranger went over next to Cary and sat against the couch. His master began to pet him absently. Glitsky suddenly became aware of the smell of pizza just as Cary said, "We were having some di

"Maybe after a while. We'll see." Glitsky cleared his throat. "First, I wanted to say how sorry I am about your loss. You have my deepest sympathy."

Cary managed to nod.