Pullios remained calm. ‘I am the homicide prosecutor here. What’s the issue?’
‘The issue is Art promised me this case.’ Hardy knew it sounded whiny, but it was the truth and had to be said.
‘Art was out of line there, Hardy.’ Locke could smile very nicely for the cameras, but he was not smiling now. He leaned forward, hands clasped before him. ‘Now, you listen. I appreciate your enthusiasm for your work, but we work in a hierarchy and a bureaucracy’ – he held up a hand, stopping Hardy’s reply. ‘I know, we all hate the word. But it’s a precise term and it applies to this office. Ms Pullios here has a fine record trying murder cases, and on Saturday’ – Locke pointed a finger – ‘you seriously jeopardized this investigation. The accused has an absolute right for an attorney to be present. You’re aware of that?’
‘I didn’t force her to say a word.’ ‘You shouldn’t have been there at all, is the point. Thank God you taped what you did get.’
Pullios swiveled on the leather seat of her chair. ‘Freeman could still make a case for procedural error.’
‘Shit.’ Hardy said.
‘I beg your pardon.’ If anyone was going to swear in Locke’s office, it was going to be him.
Hardy reflected on the better part of valor. ‘I don’t think he can make a case there.’
‘Regardless’ – Pullios was calm but firm – ’this should not be up for debate. I am a Homicide D.A., is that right, sir?‘
‘Of course.’
‘Art?’
‘Come on, Elizabeth.’
‘So I went up to Homicide and picked up a folder from Abe Glitsky, as I have done many times in the past. It happened, randomly, to be this Nash murder. There is a suspect in custody at this very moment, who was arrested while attempting to flee the jurisdiction. This is the kind of case I do.’ She wasn’t yelling. She didn’t even seem particularly excited. She had the cards.
Hardy gave it a last shot. ‘Elizabeth, look. I have put in some time on this thing. I found the hand. I’ve talked to the daughter, the victim’s lawyer and best friend. Now I’m not on the case. What’s that going to do to their confidence in this office?’
‘That’s irrelevant,’ Pullios said.
‘More than that,’ Locke, to whom public perception of the district attorney’s office was always the primary issue, spoke up, ‘it’s not for you two to haggle about. Hardy, you’ve made a small but real point there. I can see you think you’ve got a legitimate right to this case, but so does Elizabeth. So here’s what we do – you, Hardy, take second chair. Under Elizabeth’s direction you keep contact with people you’ve already interviewed and you keep her informed at every step. Every single step. When we bring this thing to trial, Elizabeth puts on the show and you get to watch a master perform close up.’ The D.A. crossed his hands on his desk and favored the room with his patented smile. ‘Now let’s cooperate and get this thing done. We’re on the same team here, as we all sometimes forget. Art, Hardy, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ve always got an open door. Thanks very much. Elizabeth, could you stay behind a minute?’
‘Talk about seeing a master perform close up.’
Drysdale was juggling in his office. ‘My good friend Chris Locke tries to make sure everybody wins.’
‘Win, my ass.’
The baseballs kept flying. ‘Pullios tries the case. You’re on it. My authority in giving you the case is upheld. The office looks good. Everybody wins.’
‘Who was it said “Another victory like this and we’re ruined”?’
‘Pyrrhus, I think.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ Hardy shook his head. ‘I can’t believe this. She doesn’t know anything about this case.’
Drysdale disagreed. ‘No, she knows, and I must say with some justification, that once a perp is arrested for whatever it might be, that perp is one guilty son of a bitch.’
‘How about innocent until proven guilty?’ Hardy felt silly even saying it out loud. He wasn’t sure he believed it anymore, after the tide of humanity that had washed across his desk in the past months, all of them – every one – guilty of something, even if it wasn’t what they were accused of. The temptation to get whoever it was for whatever they could, regardless of whether it was something they did, was something all the D.A.s faced. The best of them rose above it. Some didn’t find the exercise worthwhile.
That still didn’t make it a good argument for Drysdale. ‘Let’s tick it off,’ he said. ‘She had a sexual relationship with the guy. Okay, already we’re in most-likely-to-succeed territory. Two, what did Glitsky tell you this morning? She maybe benefits to the tune of a couple million dollars if the guy dies. This is a big number two. This is not insignificant.’
‘It may not even be true. And Elizabeth doesn’t know about it in any event.’
Drysdale kissed the air, a little clicking sound. ‘She will. Anyway, next, it’s her gun and a witness puts her at the crime scene and she doesn’t have an alibi for the day in question. Finally, she attempts to leave the country ten minutes after being warned to stay. It is not what I’d call farfetched to think she did it.’
‘I didn’t say she didn’t do it. I’m saying there’s no real evidence that she did, not yet.’
‘Fortunately, that’s the jury’s job.’
‘And Betsy’s.’
‘And yours.’ Drysdale raised a finger. ‘And I wouldn’t call her Betsy.’
‘Am I glad to be back working here?’
‘Is that a question? You’ve got your murder case, quicker than most.’
Hardy straightened up in the doorway. His name was being called over the hall loudspeaker. He had a telephone call. ‘Pyrrhus, right?’ he said, before turning into the hall.
The snitch was named Devon Latrice Wortherington, and he certainly seemed to be enjoying the moments of relative freedom away from his cell. Devon had been picked up carrying an unlicensed firearm and a half pound of rock cocaine the previous Thursday night, outside a bar near Hunter’s Point, and he had been in jail about twelve hours when suddenly he recalled his civic duty to assist the police if he knew anything that might help them in apprehending persons who had committed a crime. In this case a drive-by shooting that had left three people dead – including a small boy who reminded Glitsky of his son – and seven wounded.
He seemed to like Glitsky. Maybe he was just in a good mood. In any event, he couldn’t seem to shut up. ‘What kind of name is Glitsky?’ he asked while they were setting up the videotape for the interview. ‘I never knew no Glitsky.’
‘It’s Jewish,’ Abe said.
‘What you mean, Jewish?’
‘I mean it’s a Jewish name, Devon.’
‘Well, how you get a Jewish name?’
‘How’d you get the name Wortherington?’
‘From my father, man.’
‘Well…’
‘You telling me you got Glitsky from your father? How’d he get Glitsky?’
Abe was used to room-temp IQs. Still, he thought Devon might be close to the range where he wouldn’t be competent to stand trial. But he could be patient when it suited him, and now there wasn’t much else to do. ‘My father,’ he said, ‘got Glitsky from being Jewish.’
‘No shit? You shittin’ me?‘ Glitsky felt Devon eyeing him for some sign of duplicity. He kept a straight face.
‘We’re just about ready, Sergeant.’ The technician was a middle-aged woman of no looks and no humor. Maybe she dated the jail warden who’d accompanied Devon down and who now stood inside by the interview room’s door.
‘My father isn’t black,’ Abe said.
He saw Devon take it in, chew it around, get it down. ‘Hey, I get it. Your father is Jewish. I mean he is a righteous Hebe.’