A Certain Justice

57

Glitsky was home for lunch. He was never home for lunch on a workday but he had spent the rest of the morning assigning cases, following up with his inspectors who weren't working Kevin Shea in one way or another, checking over some other autopsies, scheduling courtroom appearances, liaising (an FBI word if ever there was one) with Special Agent Margot Simms on the 'progress' of the Kevin Shea investigation. The FBI had decided that this was a civil-rights case and that the federal government had at least parallel jurisdiction in the matter. They didn't need to be invited to investigate by the local police anyway, no more than they would if they were looking into the murders of civil-rights workers in the deep South. Now, on their own authority, they were on hand, and Chief Rigby seemed inclined to let them take whatever glory the case might provide, or whatever heat. Special Agent Simms was more than happy with this arrangement, although she hadn't been much interested in knife wounds, Jamie O'Toole, photographic inspections, the Mullen/McKay cousins, Rachel from eastern Europe, any of that.

What did interest Simms was the personality profile that depicted Kevin Shea as armed and very dangerous. Glitsky thought this had probably originated from Elaine Wager's outburst to the media, then been goosed up by FBI staff researchers who knew what they were looking for, and hence often found evidence of it, even when the data wasn 't particularly compelling.

Knowing the FBI and their propensity to shoot first, Glitsky had tried to set Simms straight on that notion. But she clearly didn't want to hear it – this was the kind of high-visibility case a young female agent needed if she wanted to get really equal and make her own bones among the men who hadn't been afraid to use firepower when the situation had called for it. If they needed them – she wasn't telling Glitsky they would, but if they did – she had two weapons specialists, including a marksman, at her disposal.

Next she wanted to know what Glitsky thought of Wes Farrell, was he their best bet to make contact with Shea – maybe a federal tap on his phone line? Special Agent Simms was 'co

Glitsky had said he thought it was possible that Shea and Farrell would telephonically co

He had really just been spi

Banks had not appeared at the office – not unusual in itself, he was a field inspector – but the no-show left intact the mystery of the Mo-Mo House note, which was the next item of those Glitsky had centered on his desk. Perhaps whatever that was about had nothing to do with Kevin Shea, and therefore Glitsky could officially pursue it. (When Wes Farrell hadn't answered his phone he had to shelve even his informal hunt for Shea. He had no trail to follow. Maybe Special Agent Simms would put him onto one.)

And he knew that Loretta was at one of the burials and would be neither at home nor her office until the early afternoon, at least. He kept telling himself that he wanted to talk to her so soon, now, again, for business reasons. He could even wait if he had to – it wasn't that he needed to talk to her for anything personal. Whatever they had to decide about each other would develop in its own time… Finally, he had given up on trying to appear busy and had driven home.

Now he was watching a pan filled with ca

He was still worrying the question of talking to Loretta about all of this; he had been in the bureaucracy long enough to know that going over your supervisor's head was the quickest and most thorough way to threaten your position and reputation. But he'd put enough of the pixels together to be getting a fairly clear image of what was happening, and he realized that the solution to the problem might well lie with Loretta Wager. It was all, as Strother Martin had observed to Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, 'a failure to communicate.'

Glitsky would have to go to Loretta, who was undoubtedly unaware that Alan Reston, in his zeal to please his powerful benefactor, was abusing his new-found power, the authority of his office, to undermine the interests of justice. Reston (Glitsky reasoned) was going on the assumption that Shea had to continue to look guilty – if he wasn't guilty it would make Loretta look bad… Glitsky didn't think Loretta gave a good goddamn about that, she didn't want the guy railroaded. But Reston's position was that he didn't want to deal, just now, with anything that appeared to weaken the DA's case against Shea.

It was typical – short-sighted but common enough that it didn't even mildly shock him. Reston, the new guy, wanted to deliver his first major case to the person who had managed his appointment. He would be a hero. It would make Loretta a hero too. Everybody wins. And to a career prosecutor like Reston, it was an article of faith that Shea, like every other defendant on the planet, was certainly guilty of something.

Reston figured he was protecting Loretta, and from the DA's perspective, Glitsky wasn't. Therefore Glitsky was the enemy. For the time being, anyway. Nothing personal in it – he'd even warned Glitsky to keep a low profile to avoid it coming to this. But it had.

Glitsky reminded himself that Loretta didn't know anything about Farrell's information, about Rachel's statement (Shea lifting Wade up, not pulling him down), Colin Devlin, Jamie O'Toole starting to weaken – about any of the reasons Glitsky had now arrived at for a formidable state of doubt regarding Shea's guilt on any level. He and Loretta hadn't spent last night – or any of their time – rapping down the intricacies of Kevin Shea's case. There had been more immediate issues.

But now it had gone too far. He was going to have to bring it up with her, go over Rigby's head, over Reston's. Special Agent Simms, with her sharpshooter, had finally put it over the top for him. He was going to have to talk to Loretta, open those lines of communication between her and Reston, get people back to thinking about how they ought to do their jobs. Pretty basic stuff, not unreasonable.

But what he still couldn't understand was why Farrell hadn't even tried to call him yet. That made no sense unless Shea had gotten some cold feet, which was not, after all, so far-fetched. As far as Farrell knew, Glitsky's offer of a deal still held – that at least Shea would get a listen. In fact, Reston's refusal through Elaine to offer any protection to Kevin had changed all that – the message was that he wasn't going to listen privately to anything Wes Farrell or Kevin Shea had to say. No, Reston was committed – his position was Shea was guilty and that was that.

Now Glitsky had no deal to offer in exchange for Kevin Shea coming in, but Farrell wouldn't yet know that. So why hadn't he called?

He stuck his index finger into the small pan, stirred. Almost ready, and the doorbell rang.

A strip of gauze covered the narrow glass window beside the front door, and he moved it to one side. No one was out on the landing. He opened the door.

'If I were a trained assassin you'd be dead right now. Why are you crying?' His friend Dismas Hardy had pressed himself against the house on the stairway, stepping out when the door had opened.

'I'm not crying, I was cutting onions. I thought you were in Ashland.'

'Rumor had it that Hamlet could be missed this year. I'd just spent a week in the wilderness, camping with a three-year-old and a five-year-old. We got worried about the house with all these fires you mentioned when we talked. Seemed like a good time to come home.'