Glitsky didn’t turn.
‘Ron has a situation that makes it awkward for him to get formally involved with the law or the courts. If he gets in the system, his kids suffer. That’s why Frannie couldn’t give him up. It’s what she couldn’t talk about. You heard what the supe in his building said, Abe. The guy’s a good father. Like you and me, right.’
Still no answer, but Hardy noticed that Glitsky’s shoulders rose and fell. He was listening.
‘I know, I know. Why didn’t I tell you sooner? Why’d I do things with Canetta? I don’t know. I didn’t know. I was trying to figure it out. If it’s any help, I paid my dues around it, wouldn’t you say? And the bottom line is Ron didn’t kill Bree.’
Finally, the lieutenant half turned. ‘Except if he did,’ he said.
‘He didn’t.’
Glitsky was a statue.
They both became aware of footfalls in the hallway, moving fast. Hardy turned just as an excited Asian man appeared in the doorway. He was slightly out of breath and tried to compose himself in the few steps over to them.
‘One of last ones I try, Abe. Sorry. But it match up.’
‘You got a match?’
‘Yeah. Same as on glass, whoever that was.’
‘From the prints in the penthouse?’
Ghattas nodded and nodded. ‘Definite sure.’
Hardy spoke up. ‘Kerry?’
Ghattas looked at him, then to Glitsky for permission. The lieutenant nodded. ‘Looks like.’
‘What is that?’ Ghattas asked. ‘The Damon Kerry?’
Glitsky nodded. ‘If you’re sure about the glass, he was at Bree Beaumont’s and said he wasn’t.’
‘Oh, definite sure.’
‘Then it was Kerry.’
‘Well, shit,’ Ghattas responded. ‘Very shit.’
‘My thought exactly, Paul. Good work. And thanks for coming down tonight. It was a big help. You need a lift home?’
‘No. I call my wife. Ten minutes, she’s here.’ He nodded and was gone.
Silence reigned again and Hardy waited. Glitsky chewed the inside of his cheek.
‘You’re probably remembering right now that it was me who picked up that glass,’ Hardy said.
27
Jim Pierce sat in the pilot’s seat on the flying bridge of his yacht, bundled against the weather. He was drinking rum neat from a metal cup and sucking on the butt of a Partagas cigar. The craft was plugged into the marina’s power source, and he had the small television going, although he wasn’t faced toward it – it was background noise, that was all. Laugh track. A brisk sea wind carried a load of wetness in through the open windshield.
He felt a movement in the boat, but didn’t turn.
‘Do you know what time it is?’
His wife was a vision as usual. Even more so now, as she was flushed from the cold and the slight exertion to get out to the boat. Her hair had gathered the fine drizzle and, backlit, turned it into a halo. ‘I would guess around nine o’clock,’ he said evenly.
‘What were you waiting for out here?’
‘You to come and get me? And look, now you have.’
‘The police have been around again.’
‘Well, when it rains, it pours. What did they want this time?’
‘There’s been another murder apparently. A policeman.’
‘And they came to see me?’
‘Apparently he was related somehow to Bree.’
Finally, he met his wife’s eyes. ‘Well, I’m not related to Bree.’ He took a pull of his liquor.
‘Don’t get hostile with me, Jim. Please. Where have you been?’
He kept looking at her. ‘Right here,’ he said. ‘I told you. Waiting for you to come and get me.’
‘And you came down here last night?’
He nodded. ‘You weren’t home from your party. I got stir crazy. What did they want?’
She threw a glance behind her as if worried that someone would hear. Then back to him. ‘They wanted to know where you were. I told them. Didn’t they come by here?’
He pointed with his cigar in the direction of the water. ‘I was out.’
‘In this fog?’
He shrugged. ‘Living dangerously. What difference does it make? So what did you do all day?’
‘I was home until noon, waiting for you to get back. Then I had lunch with my mother and brother. Then there was the Library do – the Sponsors’ Dinner?’
Jim Pierce slapped at his forehead in mock consternation. ‘That was tonight? And I missed it?’ He tossed her a dismissive look. ‘See,’ he said, ‘you had a fine time without me.’
‘Everyone wondered where you were. They said they missed you.’
‘I’m sure they did. And I them.’
She had her arms crossed, and now leaned back against the railing. ‘I don’t know why you’re so cruel, Jim. I don’t know when that started.’
He took a beat, carefully lifted his metal cup, and took a slow sip. ‘Oh, I think you can figure it out. You get rejected enough, it makes you bitter. Some people, they get bitter, they take it out by being cruel.’
‘I never rejected you.’
A stab of staccato laughter. No, he thought, you just made it impossible to ask anymore. But he said, ‘That’s right. It was me.’
A long, dead silence.
One of the channel buoys at the mouth of the marina chimed deeply, followed almost immediately by the forlorn moan of a foghorn. Jim Pierce tossed his cigar butt into the bay and reached over to flick off the television.
His wife looked as though she were waiting for him to say something, so he obliged her. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Nothing matters.’
‘You can’t do this!’ Valens was actually near to screaming. He had pulled Damon Kerry out on to the roof of whatever goddam hotel they were in after his talk to whatever goddam group it was. ‘You can’t do this with two days to go! You’re alienating people, don’t you understand? And you can’t do that and win.’
‘I’m being myself,’ Kerry said. ‘I’ve never lost an election and I’ve been myself in each one.’
‘Yeah, but Damon, you’ve never run for governor before! This is not a city supervisor job. This is high office, and that’s why I’m on board, remember? I do this. I keep candidates from being themselves, especially with forty-eight hours to go. I’ll tell you what – you want to be yourself, be yourself on Wednesday.’ He paced off a few steps and swore succinctly.
Kerry came up behind him. ‘I am not alienating my electorate. I’m trying to reach people, to tell the truth. People respond to that, to me.’
‘No,’ Valens said. He turned around, despising the law of politics that the tall guy always wins. Kerry had him by half a foot, and this close, Valens had to look up at him. But he was going to say his piece – uphill, downhill, sideways – and Kerry was going to have to hear. ‘No no no. Listen to me carefully. You are not trying to reach people or tell the truth or be yourself or any of that. You are trying to get yourself elected. That’s all you’re trying to do right now. And we’re running behind all day, missing meetings, you’re deviating from the script…’
‘There’s no script. There’s-’
‘No, Damon. The script is all that’s left at this point. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Smile, smile, smile. And keep moving, keep moving, don’t miss an opportunity to repeat repeat repeat.’
‘Except we missed a few this morning, didn’t we, Al? And why was that? Because you were late picking me up.’
‘You overslept, Damon.’
‘I depend on you, Al. I was exhausted and I’m getting sick. And what about you? The job of the campaign manager is get the candidate where he needs to be. That’s what he does. He doesn’t keep the candidate from being himself.’ He put a couple of fingers up to his forehead. ‘I really am getting sick,’ he said. ‘I’ve been sick for weeks.’
Valens was at the edge of the roof. Below him, he was aware of the gauzy glow of the city’s lights through the fog. He’d been in similar situations in nearly every election with which he’d been involved – the schoolgirl squabbling during the last leg of a campaign.