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CityTalk
by JEFFREY ELLIOT
District Attorney Wes Farrell has wasted no time filling the vacancy in his Investigations Division caused by the murder of brand-new investigator Maria Solis-Martinez. Yesterday Farrell announced the hiring of Abe Glitsky, a longtime veteran of the Police Department, as assistant chief of inspectors and, most recently, head of the Homicide detail. Mr. Glitsky will be inheriting Ms. Solis-Martinez’s caseload, but his first order of business, he said in an interview, will be an investigation into the killing of his predecessor, who was gunned down on Wednesday evening outside of her Mission District apartment’s lobby. Her assailant fled with her purse, and investigators from the Homicide detail have described the crime as most likely a murder in the commission of a robbery.
Sources close to the investigation have said that Maria was developing information on a case involving a death originally ruled accidental in the San Francisco jail. Ms. Solis-Martinez was allegedly investigating the possibility that the death was not accidental but, in fact, connected to another homicide, that of Katie Chase, which happened outside the jail. The DA has indicted Ms. Chase’s husband, a former jail guard, for that murder. Nevertheless, it appears the investigation has widened to include general allegations of corruption and wrongdoing in the jail.
No one in the District Attorney’s office would comment on the record that the investigation had taken that turn. However, they would confirm that Glitsky, who previously worked as an investigator for Hal Chase’s defense team, had obtained a waiver from his client so that any and all information in his possession, or garnered through future investigation, would be shared with police.
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DISMAS HARDY NEARLY spat out his breakfast coffee in shock and disbelief as he got to the end of the lead item in Elliot’s column.
“What?” Frannie asked him.
He was already on his feet, pushing the paper over in front of her. “Read that.”
They had a wall-mounted landline telephone in the kitchen, and he punched in Glitsky’s speed dial. It picked up on the second ring.
“What the hell are you doing?” Hardy asked in clipped tones. “What are you thinking?”
“Which one? Doing or thinking?”
“Either. Do you want to get yourself killed? Did you clear the interview with Wes?”
“No. I’m a grown-up, Diz. I can talk to the press if I want. Witnesses, too.”
“What did you hope to accomplish? What do you think you did accomplish, other than put yourself right in their crosshairs and tell them we were coming?”
“That’s not a problem.”
“No? Well, it turned out to be a little problem for Maria Solis-Martinez and Luther Jones, didn’t it?”
“Look, Diz. It’s not like they don’t get it. They see me in DA Investigations, they’re going to know exactly what I’m doing. The best thing we can do is stir this up and see if we can put some pressure on the people around them. Foster’s not going to crack. Not Cushing, either, but it’s got to make people working with them nervous when they start to kill people, especially cops. So far, the heat’s been all on us. Let’s put some on them.”
“Swell. And what about Hal?”
“What about him?”
“Well, he remains in jail, in Cushing and Foster’s care or lack thereof. What about him?”
“He’s in solitary under watch. Even Foster can’t touch him.”
“Except that you’ve basically given Hal yet another reason to have killed Katie. Because he was ordered to.”
“One more reason to have killed Katie doesn’t change this case at all.”
“So you think Foster killed Katie. How’d you pick him out of all the possibilities? Why not Cushing or anybody else who works for him?”
“Foster did Tussaint. That’s what Luther said the first time, and that’s what I believe. Cushing can’t have that many people under him ready to commit murder. I’m betting if Foster did one, he did the others, including Katie Chase.”
“That would be nice, but have you even checked to see if he has an alibi for any of the other killings?”
“Diz, the man makes up alibis out of thin air, complete with corroborating witnesses.”
“Maybe. But maybe he was with thirty members of his extended family and all his neighbors on Thanksgiving eve. Maybe last Wednesday was his bowling night. You ought to at least check those out.”
“They’re on my list. I promise.”
“Jesus,” Hardy said.
“Hey,” Glitsky replied. “Didn’t you tell me it wasn’t Hal? Didn’t you hire me to find the other dude? Well, I got him. It’s Adam Foster. I don’t see your problem. You ought to be doing cartwheels.”
? ? ?
HARDY HAD BARELY hung up when his phone rang. It was Wes Farrell, in fine fettle himself. “I never figured Abe as such a loose cannon, Diz. I’ve got to fire him. “
“You can’t.”
“Sure I can.”
“Not the day after you hired him, Wes. You’d look like a fool.”
“I already look like a fool for letting him run off like that. Now I’m going to be at war with Cushing and the mayor and probably half the judges in the building. Frank Dobbins, who, let us remember, is my own goddamn chief of investigations, is going to shit a brick. My idea was to go after this with a little finesse, and the first thing Abe does is go riding off the goddamn reservation. Christ, Diz. Stirring the pot might not even be a totally bad idea, but he can’t do shit like that without talking to me first.”
“He’s already been on the case a couple of weeks, Wes. He’s getting antsy for some results.”
“What case? He’s not on any case. I just brought him on.”
“Hal Chase.”
“Hal Chase? We’ve got no proven connection on that. It’s just a theory.”
“True. But it fits together as well as anything that’s turned up in Hal’s case, if not better. Now he starts digging, and I won’t be surprised if he turns something up.”
A silence descended on the line.
At last Farrell said, “You know, the really devious, nasty part of myself thinks that maybe you suggested I bring him back aboard so that he could undermine my case against Chase and nothing else.”
“That would be the incorrect part of yourself, too. The grand jury jumped too soon on Mr. Chase, which I believe I mentioned to you at the time. He’s going to wind up walking, you watch.”
“If Abe has any exculpatory evidence on him. And you will recall that an explicit part of this deal your client signed off on was that Abe was going to hand over any evidence in the Chase case, regardless of where it pointed. I hope his next stop will be Frank Dobbins’s office with that material in hand.”
“I hope that, too, Wes. But he seems to be off on his own mission.”
“I’m going to fire him.”
“Suit yourself. You’re the boss. But it’s a bad idea.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, sir. I couldn’t agree more.”