A Certain Justice

A brief break while Rigby got his anger under control. Glitsky had the impression Rigby wasn't alone, wherever he was.

'Now, in view of this, effective immediately, I am putting you on administrative leave, as soon as you hear this message. I've left another message just like this one at your office. Paper covering it is on the way. If you want to grieve this decision, you know the cha

After his adrenaline had dissipated itself into his bloodstream, he made himself sit in his lounger in the front room, and there it didn't take him long, maybe five minutes, before he figured out that all of Rigby's information – and none of it was false, although the offer of immunity for Shea was an exaggeration – got conveyed to Wes Farrell during the phone call from Hardy's house. Therefore, Farrell's phone was being tapped. The FBI was on the case – wiretaps were one of its common tools. And Farrell would lead them to Shea as soon as Shea-

Bolting straight up in the chair, Glitsky ran back to the hall closet and pulled on his flight jacket. Down the stairway and into his car, he was at the nearest gas station to his house – four blocks away – within five minutes. At the public booth he pushed some numbers.

The groggy voice answered – it was nearly eleven-thirty – Glitsky said into the receiver: There's a tap on your phone. Don't call Shea and don't let him call you.' He hung up.

He tried Loretta, each of the three numbers he had. None answered.

If Reston was at City Hall with Rigby he would have gotten the message Loretta had left for him, wouldn't he? And if so, then why wouldn't she have called him immediately, as she'd promised – sworn – she would? It nagged at him. And where was Loretta now?

The other question had come to him driving home. And the more he thought about it the more important it became. Maybe it was the only question.

The last person he could call, he knew, was Hardy.

Back home now, it was after midnight. He still wore his jacket. He didn't know – he might be going out.

A mumbled midnight hello.

'Hardy.'

'Abe? What time is it?'

'Why wouldn't Wes Farrell talk to me yesterday?'

'What?'

He repeated the question.

'Because he thought you'd had him followed to his home.' Glitsky then heard: 'It's Abe, honey. Yeah. He's okay, I think.'

'Why did he think that?' Glitsky asked.

Hardy ran the facts for him – Sergeant Stoner, the DA investigator, the warrant.

Now Glitsky was truly stumped. 'I didn't send Stoner, Diz.'

'That's what I told Farrell. I told him Reston must have. That's why Farrell changed his mind, said he'd talk to you.'

'They're tapping his phone.'

'Whose? Farrell's?'

'Yeah.'

'Why? Never mind, I know why.'

How could Reston have sent Stoner? How could Stoner have known who Farrell even was to know to follow him? And pick him up from where, Lou the Greek's. No one had known of Glitsky's meeting with Farrell, not a soul except the two of them. Glitsky had kept it to himself.

It made no sense. None of it made sense.

Then, like a tinkling bell, came the thought – he'd mentioned it to no one except Loretta Wager.

He had told Loretta, told her he was going to be closing up the Kevin Shea matter, was meeting Shea's attorney at the bar across the street, they could expect the whole thing to be over in a day at the most.

But Loretta wasn't…

What she was, though, was Alan Reston's ally in this. She could have called Reston, told him about the meeting, directed Stoner to Farrell and brought Shea in before all the evidence about his i

Or was that ridiculous?

But she was his lover, his…

His what?

And where was she? What the hell was going on?

Saturday, July 2

65

The sound of the wind woke him. His watch read six-eighteen.

The television was still on in the boys' bedroom, where he had gone to watch the late news. This morning there was another talking head saying something about the Hunter's Point Naval Reservation, about Senator Loretta Wager and the President.

He sat up. Something was happening with the decommissioned navy base, and whatever it was – the details weren't all in yet – it was a major coup for Loretta.

They must have gotten something wrong. If she had been in the middle of these kinds of negotiations… She had never mentioned anything about it. He stood up abruptly and smacked the power button on the set, shutting the damn thing off.

He hadn't pla

He walked to the bathroom, then the kitchen, put the water on to boil, walked to the east-facing window over the sink and pushed it open.

Smoke. The air looked clear – the sky was a cerulean, Maxfield Parrish blue – but he smelled smoke.

In his bedroom he checked his message machine. He realized that he'd known, without having to verify it, that Loretta hadn't called. Last night – his immobility, the drift off to unwanted and unpla

The patterns that did make sense – dimly glimpsed as they had begun to shift and sort out the night before – had shut him down for a while, that was all. It wasn't a reaction he was proud of, but there it was. He guessed his psyche, his body, whatever it was, had needed some time-out to adjust to the new truths, to get them organized. So he'd drifted off.

He stirred the tea, the phone's cradle tucked under his ear. If it came to it, he would need an ally, perhaps even a wedge; but other things being equal, he would rather go for a finesse. He wasn't at all sure that he was strong enough to win a direct confrontation.

Elaine Wager sounded exhausted, but after a beat of hesitation she agreed to see him – he could come over.

Since his discovery of the nature of Elaine and Chris Locke's relationship, as well as her mother's disclosure about the two of them, something personal had developed between Glitsky and Elaine. This was the first time he had ever seen her out of her lawyer's uniform. He thought of her not bothering to dress more formally… never mind it was Saturday… as something symbolic, she was open to him.

It might also mean nothing.

She wore black baggy pants cinched at the waist with a black nylon cord. She had tucked a purple scoop-neck sweater into the pants. Shades of her mother, she was barefoot. Her hair still wet, she stepped aside after opening her front door, letting him lead the way into the living room. She settled on one of the stools by the bar, crossed her legs.

He stood a moment, looking west out her windows. The day was clear and bright, the Pacific glittering in the distance. 'Have you heard from your mother?' Glitsky didn't turn around. The clarity of it all out there held his attention. He needed some clarity.

'Yesterday. We were… why, is she all right?'

'I think she's all right. Did you see her last night?'