39
BUNDLED UP AGAINST the wind and the chill off the bay, Burt Cushing and Adam Foster walked along the Embarcadero, where there was no chance of being bugged. Foster was the taller of the two by at least six inches, but in their body language, there was no question who was in command—Burt Cushing—and he was shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. “No,” he said. “No no no.”
“I don’t see what alternative we have, sir.”
“There are always alternatives, especially in light of the heat we’ve attracted over the past few weeks. We can’t afford any more attention at the jail until some of this has blown over. The deniability just won’t be there.”
“So what do we do about Luther Jones?”
“Frankly, I’m more worried about Hal Chase.”
Adam Foster waved that off. “I talked to him last night. He’s a good soldier.”
“He may be, but he’s not under fire yet.”
“Hal’s not going to talk.”
“Hal already did talk, didn’t he? To Katie.”
“Katie’s not saying much, either, is she? But Luther is. Or will. Unless we step in.”
Cushing walked on a few steps. “It can’t be at the jail, Adam. That’s what I’m saying. The jail is off-limits.”
“All right. It doesn’t have to be at the jail. There are other alternatives. I’m asking for some direction here, sir. Luther Jones called this woman. Something is going to happen, and soon, if we don’t stop it.”
“I’m worried about Wes Farrell. I hear from our people over there that he’s starting to feel like he’s got to do something.”
“Farrell’s a clown,” Foster said.
“He may be,” Cushing agreed, “but I hear that, for whatever reason, he’s gotten behind this thing—Luther and this woman. We got too much connection to the jail, and the plain fact is now we’re on the radar. Which means even a clown like Farrell can’t ignore it anymore.”
“So what do you propose we do? We’ve got to do something. And sooner rather than later.”
“I hear you, Adam. Do you think I don’t understand that? What I’m saying, my main point, is that whatever it is, it can’t get back to anything at the jail.”
“All right,” Foster said evenly, checking his temper. “You know there’s never been a problem getting it done, whatever it is, wherever it is. Just tell me how you want it to happen, and that’s what will go down.”
“I know that.” Cushing put a hand on Foster’s sleeve. “I’m not doubting you. And I think I’m beginning to see a way something could work.”
Foster gave him a solemn nod. “Just give me the word.”
Cushing nodded back. “All right,” he said. “Bear with me here for a minute, but this is how I see it . . .”
? ? ?
ON THEIR WAY back from dinner at Farallon on date night, a Wednesday-evening tradition over the better part of their marriage, Dismas and Frannie turned in to a cul-de-sac north of Lake, and Frannie said, “I don’t believe it. There’s never a spot this close.”
Hardy pulled into the parking space that yawned open directly in front of the Glitskys’ duplex. “The power of positive thinking,” he said. “I imagined a spot right here, and lo.”
She gave him a look. “Lo yourself.”
They were expected. Glitsky had called while they were eating, and when Hardy had called back as they’d left the restaurant, it turned out that Abe wanted to run a few things by Frannie as well as Diz.
“. . . so I thought it made sense to ask you, too, Fran.” Glitsky had pulled a kitchen chair into the adjoining living room and now straddled it backward. “Did she ever give you a name, a description, anything on this guy?”
Frannie sat next to Dismas on the love seat. In the past few months, Treya had taken up knitting—knitting?—and she sat on her rocking chair across the room, her needles clicking away, though she didn’t appear to be paying attention to them.
“She barely admitted the basic fact of it,” Frannie said. “She couldn’t believe she’d done something so out of character.”
Hardy canted forward slightly. “Not that I don’t appreciate your dedication, Abe, but even if you find out who this guy is, so what?”
“I know. That’s the song I’ve been hearing all day. Daniel Dunne asked me the same thing. Devin Juhle, too.”
Hardy’s eyebrows went up. “You talked to Devin Juhle?”
“Sure. We’re old pals, after all. He called me.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know what we knew. So I told him. Nothing. No, correct that. I told him about the affair, but it wasn’t news to him. He’d already heard it from Daniel Dunne.”
“How did Daniel get it?” Frannie asked.
“Katie told him. Evidently, they were close.” Glitsky shrugged. “He didn’t know who it was, either.”
“Not to break into another chorus of the same old song, but say you find out who it was, then what?” Hardy asked.
“Then I go talk to him, at least. The lover. See what he’s been up to lately. Maybe he’ll want to talk about Katie and tell us something we don’t know. Maybe it’s somewhat suspicious that he’s heard about her death and hasn’t come forward.”
Hardy nodded appreciatively. “I like the way you’re starting to think. Defense mode.”
Glitsky shrugged. “I’m just still assuming it’s not Hal. On your very clear instructions. And if it’s not Hal, the real killer is out there, and that’s who I’m trying to find. If I wind up helping with Hal’s defense, that’s incidental.”
Hardy held up a palm. “No, really,” he said. “I’m convinced.”
Treya stopped moving the needles and looked up. “So, the guy, if he’s married or prominent, and Katie was thinking about exposing him to Hal, as Frannie says . . .”
“That’s a motive,” Glitsky said.
“Everybody’s got a motive,” Hardy replied. “We need somebody with a gun.”
“Yeah, but there’s something about this guy, or the affair,” Glitsky persisted. “Something that’s nagging at me, that didn’t fit.”
“Such as?” Frannie asked.
“If I knew that”—Glitsky gave her a tepid smile—“then I’d know what it was.”
“Maybe something on her computer?” Frannie suggested.
“Nothing I recognized,” Glitsky said. “Mostly pictures of kids and other moms and her sisters and their kids. I’m pretty sure our timing was off on that, anyway.”
“Timing on what?” Hardy asked.
Glitsky told him about Frannie’s theory that Katie had started coming to counseling somewhere near the time that the affair had begun, about three months after the birth of the couple’s first child. Glitsky had reached the opinion that the affair must have begun much later.
“Why do you say that?” Hardy asked.
“Because while I was there, I also checked their phone records, and three months after Ellen was born, Katie was talking to Hal on the phone ten times a day.”
Frannie sat back into the love seat, her face a bit scrunched up in confusion. “When was this?” she asked. “These calls to Hal.”
Glitsky pondered a moment. “Early 2010. January, February, somewhere in there. When she started seeing you.”
“And she was talking to Hal ten times a day?”
“Unless she knew somebody else at the jail.”
“I don’t know about that,” Frannie said. “But I’d be shocked to hear that she was talking to Hal. That was one of the main reasons she started seeing me. She and Hal couldn’t communicate. She felt guilty and worthless all the time; he was mad and frustrated about Ellen and money. They’d pretty much given up trying.”
“Maybe that was later, too,” Glitsky said. “All I know is that in January and February—you can check it out—she was calling him at the jail every hour.”
“Or”—Treya came out with it first—“she was calling her lover at the jail.”