The Second Chair

Paganucci dropped him behind the Coroner's Office. Glitsky came into the Hall through the back door. Taking the stairs two at a time for his only exercise of the day, rather than the elevators where someone would want to talk to him about something, he breezed through the outer office unmolested.

In the office adjacent to his own, the deputy chief of administration, Bryce Jake Longoria, a white-haired, soft-spoken patrician, was in uniform sitting at his desk, working at his computer. Glitsky stopped in the doorway until Longoria looked up, smiled, gestured at his monitor. "Just trying to get some real work done, squeeze it in during lunchtime."

"I hear you. I'd try the same strategy if I had enough time to boot up my computer, which I don't." Glitsky took a step into the room. "But I do have a quick question for you if you can spare a minute."

"One. Shoot."

"Say you know the name of somebody who served on a jury fifteen, maybe twenty years ago. Do you know if there's any database you could access to identify the case?"

Longoria pondered a moment. "You don't know the date, or the name of the defendant?"

"No. Just that it was a murder trial, and they found the guy guilty."

A dry chuckle. "Well, if it was during the Pratt administration, you could just go and manually look up every one. There couldn't have been more than three or four, maybe less."

"Unfortunately, I think it was way back before her. Maybe late seven-ties, early eighties."

Longoria clucked. "The Golden Years." He took another moment, then shook his head. "They may still have the physical records downstairs"- the cavernous basement of the Hall, larger than a Costco, that held many millions of documents, shelf after shelf after shelf, floor to twelve-foot ceiling, from cases stretching back to the city's earlier days-"but first you'd have to find them by going through every one individually."

"That's the other thing," Glitsky said, "it might not have been here. In San Francisco."

"Well, tell you what, I'd find that out first. If you had the case number, the defendant, maybe even the judge…"

Glitsky pursed his lips. "I know, but I don't."

"Well, then I'd say if it was a local case, it might be doable, but it'll take you most of a couple of years if you do it yourself. It would have to be pretty important, and if it was, I'd assign a good-sized team to it. Still, it wouldn't be quick."

"I don't know why it would be important. At the moment, it's just a question."

But Longoria had been a cop all of his life. He knew that any given question could turn into something critical, so he gave it some more time and passed on another thought. "Here's a real long shot, but maybe if your juror was foreman, he might have gotten his name in the paper. You could check. Other than that…" He shrugged. "Sorry."

"Not a big deal," Glitsky said. "Thanks." Closing the door to his own office, Glitsky went behind his desk and sat down. He had eleven messages on his answering machine, six on his Palm Pilot.

His press conference began in fifteen minutes. Its purpose was for him to explain why the police decision to allow a suspect in a gang-related multiple murder to leave the state had been the proper one. When they'd made the decision, Glitsky had had no doubt. LeShawn Brodie, considered armed and dangerous, had already taken his seat on the Greyhound bus to Salt Lake when they'd received the tip on his whereabouts. Rather than storm the crowded bus and possibly provoke a hostage crisis, Batiste, Glitsky and Lanier had decided to alert Nevada and Utah authorities to follow the bus in unmarked cars and have officers pick the suspect up after he got off, either in Salt Lake or en route. As it happened, LeShawn got out to stretch his legs and play a few slots in Elko, and authorities picked him up without incident. But it was now an extradition case, and Glitsky would be explaining all about it to the press.

Having put on dozens of these shows by now, he could imagine the questions already, and none of them improved his humor. Did Glitsky mean to say that the police knowingly allowed a dangerous criminal to ride for several hours with unsuspecting citizens? Did they have any assurance at all that LeShawn wouldn't take hostages as soon as he'd come aboard? Couldn't they have simply used a team of plainclothes cops and arrested him here, avoiding all the extradition hassles? Why did they let him get on the bus in the first place? Why couldn't they have used tear gas? Or a sniper with tranquilizer darts? Or beamed him directly to a jail cell?

Glitsky opened his middle drawer and popped three antacids. Pressing at the side of his stomach, he checked his watch again. He still had twelve minutes. He hadn't eaten a bite since his bagel at six-fifteen. He opened his peanut drawer, restored to its original position, and pulled out a small handful of shells, placed them on his desk.

The phone rang and, thoughtlessly, he picked it up. His secretary told him to hold for the Chief, and in two seconds Frank Batiste's tightly controlled voice was on the line. "Abe, I need you up here right away. The shit's going to hit the fan."

"What's up?"

"LeShawn. He's escaped."

When Clarence Jackman had first been elevated to the office of district attorney, he came from managing a private law firm and was relatively inexperienced in city politics. In fact, this was one of the reasons the mayor tapped him for the job- Jackman was a proven, results-oriented administrator, and this as opposed to an agenda-driven zealot was what the office required. In his early months, the DA had bridged the gap in his hands-on knowledge by convening an informal kitchen cabinet every Tuesday to get and keep him current on issues he might not otherwise have considered, the political implications of which he might not otherwise have been aware.

Now, gearing up for his first general election later in the year, Jackman had called together many of the original group again to feel out their respective interests in participating in his campaign. He had pretty much decided he would be a

The group assembled at the large, round table at the back of Lou the Greek's, a bar/restaurant across the street from the Hall of Justice, were all well acquainted. Dismas Hardy sat between Jeff Elliot, the wheelchair-mobile reporter for the Chronicle, and Allan Boscacci, relatively new to the group but apparently here to stay. Abe Glitsky's wife Treya, who had been with Jackman in his old firm and now worked as his personal secretary, sat on the other side of Boscacci to the DA's left. Glitsky would have been welcome, but obviously his work had kept him. Some of the old players were missing- David Freeman had passed away and Gina Roake had simply lost interest- and they'd been replaced by a couple of city supervisors, the young, ambitious, cheerily overweight Harlan Fisk and his aunt, a birdlike spinster named Kathy West.

But now the business part of the meeting, such as it was, had come to an end. No surprise- Jackman had assurances of undying support from everyone. Hardy was going to host his fund-raising kickoff party- they thought that for the best buzz and food they'd have it at Moose's- in about six weeks. Fisk and West would begin calling in favors, wheeling and dealing as necessary, to try to get at least a majority coalition of support from the usually divided Board of Supervisors. Boscacci, a political animal himself, was going to hire and oversee the eventual campaign manager, and fu