But you kept at this long enough, you got a feeling about these things. Some cases were light on eyewitness testimony. Didn’t mean they weren’t any good. Prosecutors were always wanting a little more, a look under one more rock for that fabled smoking gun. Pullios had asked him how he really felt about the case against Shinn, and he told her he thought it was tight as a frog’s ass -watertight, but not airtight.
‘Airtight would be better,’ she said.
So here he was. And here was José, the morning guard, back from the pontoons, going straight to the coffee machine. Normally tea was Glitsky’s drink, but on less than four hours’ sleep he thought a little Java wouldn’t hurt him.
This was going to be another formal interview, another report, and he got José comfortable, sitting at his desk while he loaded a fresh tape into his recorder.
‘Three, two, one,’ he said. He stopped, smiled, sipped at his coffee, and listened to it play back. ‘Okay…’
This is Inspector Abraham Glitsky, star number 1144. I am currently at the office of the Golden Gate Marina, 3567 Fort Point Drive. With me is a gentleman identifying himself as José Ochorio, Hispanic male, 2/24/67. This interview is pursuant to an investigation of case number 921065882. Today’s date is July 1, 1992, Wednesday, at 9:20 A.M.
Q: You have said that when you arrived at work a week ago Saturday, June 20, the Eloise had already gone out.
A: Si.
Q: Had it been out the day before?
A: No. When I leave the day before, it’s at its place at the end of Two out there. Where it is now.
Q: And what time did you leave the day before?
A: I don’t know. Sometime normal. Two, three o’clock, but the boat was there.
Q: And it was back on Sunday morning when you came in?
A: Si.
Q: Do you get any days off here?
A: Sure. It’s a good place. I get Monday and Tuesday, but we can switch around. Long as it’s covered.
Q: But no one switched on the morning in question?
A: No.
Q: All right, José.
[Pause.]
During which Glitsky drank some coffee and tried to find another line of questioning.
Q: Let’s talk about Owen Nash and May Shinn. I have here a snap-shot of Ms Shinn. Do you recognize this woman?
A: Oh sure, man. She come here a lot.
Q: A lot? What’s a lot, José?
A: Last three, four months, maybe twice a month, three times.
Q: So you’ve seen her here at the Marina, a total of, say, ten times, twelve times?
A: About that, maybe more, maybe less.
Q: Did you ever see her at the helm of the Eloise?
A: Well, sure. She always with Mr Nash.
Q: I mean alone, guiding the boat in herself, like that.
[Pause.]
A: I don’t know. I try to remember.
Q: Take your time.
[Pause.]
A: Yeah, she take it out under motor one time, at least to the jetty. But that’s only like, you see, maybe two hundred feet.
Q: But Mr Nash wasn’t at the wheel?
A: No. I remember. He’s standing out on the bowsprit, laughing real loud. That’s when I look up. I remember.
Q: And she’s alone. May is alone, under power?
A: Si.
Q: And have you seen her since?
A: Steering the boat?
Q: No. Anytime.
A: Si.
Q: When was that?
A: I don’t know. Last week sometime. I remember, ‘cause, you know, you guys…
Q: Sure, but do you remember when? What was she doing?
A: I don’t know. She was out there, on the street. Walking back to her car, maybe, I don’t know. I see her going away.
Q: And you’re sure it was May?
A: Si. It was her.
Q: Are you certain what day it was? It could be very important.
[Pause.]
A: I think it was Thursday. Oh sure. It must have been. I remember, I got the note from Tom he’d locked the boat, which was Wednesday, right? So I go check it. It’s still locked. Thursday, I’m sure, si, Thursday.
26
‘I need to see you.’
Hardy felt his palms get hot. He leaned back in his chair at his desk. Without thought, he reached for his paperweight, cradled the phone in his neck, started passing the jade from hand to hand. There was no mistaking Celine’s husky voice. ‘Ken says you don’t think May did it.’
‘I’m sorry I gave him that impression. I do think May did it. I just don’t think it’s going to be easy to prove.’
‘What do you need?’
‘What do you mean, what do I need?’
‘I mean, what could make it more obvious?’
‘It’s obvious enough to me, Celine, but our job is to sell that to a jury -’
‘Your job,’ she said flatly. ‘It’s not our job. It’s your job.’
‘Yes, right.’
She was breathing heavily, even over the phone. She might as well have been in the room with him. It could be she was still worked up, just off the phone from Farris. There was no avoiding it, the principals – the victim’s circle – tended to talk among themselves.
‘What more do you need?’ she repeated.
Hardy temporized. ‘We’ve got more since I talked to Ken. We’ve got ballistics now. May’s gun did kill your father.’
‘Well, of course it did. We’ve known that all along.’
He didn’t know how to tell her they hadn’t known it, they’d just assumed it. That the assumption turned out right was fine for them but it hadn’t made the theory any more or less true before the ballistics report came in. ‘And her prints are on it. And no one else’s.’ Silence. ‘Celine?’
‘I need to see you. I need your help. I’m worried. I’m afraid. She’s out on bail. What if she comes after me?’
‘Why would she do that, Celine?’
‘Why did she kill my father? To keep me from testifying? I don’t know, but she might.’
‘So far as I know, Celine, we’re not having you testify, at least not about that.’
‘But I know she was on the boat.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘My father told me he was going out with her.’
‘That’s not evidence.’
He heard her breathing again, almost labored. ‘It is evidence, he told me.’
‘Your father might have intended to go out on Saturday with May, but that doesn’t mean he was actually out with her.’
‘But he was.’
How do you argue with this? he thought. The woman is struggling with her grief, frightened, frustrated by the system’s slow routine – he couldn’t really expect a Descartes here.
‘Celine, listen.’ He filled a couple of minutes with Glitsky’s saga of Tremaine Wilson, how the first witness had known he was in the car, holding a gun, using the gun. But he hadn’t actually seen his face. He knew it was Tremaine, he’d recognized him, ski-mask and all, but there was no way to even bring that evidence to a jury because it wasn’t evidence. It was assumption. It wasn’t until the next witness showed up and could connect the car, the murder weapon and – undoubtedly – Tremaine, that they’d been able to make an arrest. ‘It’s a little the same thing here, Celine.’
She was unimpressed with the analogy. She didn’t want an analogy. ‘I need to see you,’ she said for the third time.
She was fixating on him. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need any of it, common though it might be. His reaction to her was too unprofessional. Maybe on some level she knew that, was reacting to it, using it in her own desperation. ‘I’m here all day. My door’s always open -’
‘Not in your office.’
‘My office is where I work, Celine.’
‘That bar, the last time, that wasn’t your office.’
Hardy was starting to know how people got to be tightasses. It really was true that you gave people an inch and they took a mile – they expected a mile. You didn’t give ‘em the full mile and they felt betrayed.