Abe wondered about how his father Nat would feel about being called a righteous Hebe and decided he’d ask him the next time they were together. He sat down across the table from Devon and asked the first questions -name, age, place of birth.
‘Okay, Devon, let’s get to it. At about seven o’clock on the night of Sunday, June twenty-first, you were standing at the corner of Dedman Court’ – Glitsky loved the name – ‘and Cashmere Lane in Hunter’s Point, is that correct?’
Devon nodded, and Glitsky continued, running down his mental list of questions – establishing that Devon had been standing in a group of neighborhood people when a green Camaro drove up with two men in front and two in back. At the first sight of the car, someone at the corner yelled and a few people dropped to the ground. Devon had stayed up to see the barrels of guns poking out of the front and back windows. Another man appeared to be sitting in the backseat window, leveling a rifle or a shotgun over the roof of the car. ‘You have identified the shooter as Tremaine Wilson?’
‘Yeah, it was Wilson.’
Glitsky was wondering how Devon could have identified Wilson, since two other witnesses had said that the shooters had worn ski masks. ‘And he was firing from the passenger-side front window?’
‘Right.’
‘Did anything obstruct your view of him?’
‘No. He was only like twenty feet away. I seen him clear as I see you.’
‘I hear he was wearing something over his face.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, a ski-mask, a bandanna, something over his face?’
Devon stopped, his easy rhythm cut off. ‘It was Wilson,’ he said.
‘I’m not saying it wasn’t, Devon. I’m asking was there something covering his face.’
‘What difference that make?’
Glitsky nodded to the technician, and she stopped the videotape. Glitsky knew the tape recorder under the table was still going. ‘Okay, we’re off the machine, Devon. Was he wearing a mask or not?’
‘Hey, look. I’m telling you it was Wilson. I know it was Wilson. So I give him up and you let me go, that’s the deal.’
Glitsky shook his head. ‘The deal is, you give us some evidence we can use in court. He was wearing a mask, wasn’t he?’
Devon thought about it, figuring his chances, then shook his head, no. ‘No way, man. No mask.’
Glitsky sighed, then asked the technician to turn on the machine again. ‘Okay, Devon, for the record, was the shooter you’ve identified as Tremaine Wilson wearing anything over his face?’
‘I just told you no.’
‘Tell me again. Was the shooter wearing anything over his face?’
‘No.’
It was, at this point, no surprise. Still, Devon seemed to be telling the truth about knowing the shooter was Wilson, but if he couldn’t testify that he actually saw him pulling the trigger, it wasn’t going to do anybody any good.
‘Are you related to Wilson?’
Devon’s face was a question mark.
‘Cousin, half brother, like that?’
‘No.’
‘Is he related to anyone you know?’ Again Devon paused, but this time Glitsky didn’t wait. He turned to the technician. ‘Shut that down,’ he said. ‘Okay, Devon, how do you know Wilson?’
It took about a minute, but it came out that Tremaine Wilson had recently moved in with the woman Devon had lived with for the past two years, the mother of Devon’s child.
‘So Devon figured he could cut himself a deal and put Wilson away at the same time, get his old lady back. Slick, right?’
‘Très.’ Hardy had been sitting at Glitsky’s desk, cooling off after the altercation with Locke and Pullios. ‘But it came up Wilson did it?’
‘Yeah, sure. Devon thinks he was the target himself. That’s why he bought the gun we found him with on Thursday. Wilson wanted to take him out, but as they always do, they miss who they’re actually shooting at and kill a few folks standing around.’
‘So Devon’s back upstairs.’
‘No evidence, no deal. Devon’s sure Wilson was the shooter – he probably was. So big deal, we know one of the shooters. You want to try and sell Devon’s ID to a jury?’
‘Why don’t you cut Devon a deal, let him back on the street, give him back his gun? He goes and shoots Wilson, then we pick him up again.’
Glitsky smiled, his scar white through his lips. ‘It’s a beautiful thought.’ He gave it a moment’s appreciation. ‘Now how about you give me my chair?’
Hardy rose. He took the folder he’d been holding and dropped it in the center of Glitsky’s desk. ‘While we’re giving things back,’ Hardy said.
Glitsky spun the folder around, facing him, ‘How’d you get this?’
‘I got a better one – how did Pullios get it?’
‘I gave it to her.’
‘You gave it to her.’
‘Sure. Happens all the time. She comes in, says “Hi, Abe, what you got?” and I give her a homicide.’
‘Did it occur to you this might be my case?’
‘I told her you’d been working on it, and she said she knew that and she’d take care of it.’
‘Well, she did that. She’s got the case.’
‘You got the folder, though, I notice.’
‘Yeah, I get to be her gofer. I follow up.’
Glitsky leaned back, his feet on his desk. He dug a LifeSaver from his coat pocket and put it in his mouth. ‘So what’s the problem?’
Hardy could continue bitching about internal strife in the D.A.‘s office, but it would be wasted breath and he knew it. The best thing would be to do his job and wait for another chance. He settled against the corner of Abe’s desk. ’There’s no problem,‘ he said, ’but I was going over the file and you say you found the gun in the rolltop desk.‘
‘Right.’
‘Top right drawer? Maps and stuff like that?’
That’s it, so?‘
‘So I looked in that drawer on Wednesday, and there wasn’t any gun there.’
Glitsky took a breath, chewed up his LifeSaver, then brought his feet down off his desk. ‘What?’
Hardy told him about his own search of the Eloise.
‘But Waddell, the guard, he was with you, right? Hurrying you up?’
‘A little, yeah, but I checked that drawer.’
‘How close?’
‘I opened it, I looked in. What do you want?’
‘The gun was back a ways, Diz. How far in did you look?’
Hardy remembered back, remembered feeling pressure from Tom, the guard, to stop going through things. He’d pulled that drawer out, had seen the maps. He was sure -almost certain – he would have seen a gun. But to be honest – he hadn’t looked or felt around anywhere near the back of the drawer.
‘So you missed it,’ Glitsky said. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. It happens. That’s why we have a team go and look.’
The phone rang on the desk. Hardy got up, grabbed his file and walked to the back window, which overlooked the hole for the new jail and the freeway, on about the same level four stories up as Homicide. Traffic was stopped southbound. The sun was still out in a pure sky – day four of the hot spell.
Glitsky came up beside him. ‘That was Ken Farris,’ he said. This morning when I got in I faxed him a copy of the will, the alleged will – two million dollars, remember? I figured he’d be the quickest way to verify the handwriting.‘
‘And?’
‘And he says it looks like Nash’s writing, all right, but it can’t be real. Nash wouldn’t have done that.’
‘Why not?’
‘He just says he wouldn’t have. He let Farris handle all his legal stuff.’
‘But it’s his writing?’
‘Looks like. Could be forged, of course. No telling at this point. It’s also, if it is his, a legal form for a will. Blank paper, dated, nothing else on it. But legal or not, I’ll tell you something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m glad I brought the Shinn woman in. She almost pulled it off.’
Hardy kept looking at the stalled traffic on the freeway, the glare of the reflected sun. He felt a stabbing pain behind his left eye and brought his hand up to rub it away. ‘Almost,’ he said, ‘almost.’