The Hearing

But he held up a hand. 'If anybody should know.' He turned back to his son. 'When I was about your age, Ike, I went out with Loretta Wager.'

'Who became the senator. Mom mentioned that you dated her. We all knew that.'

'Yeah, well, what maybe didn't get mentioned is that we were pretty serious.' He hesitated, then came out with it. 'Anyway, to make a long story short, a few years ago I found out I'd gotten her pregnant.'

'You didn't know back then? When it happened?'

'She never told me. Suddenly she dumped me and married Dana Wager.'

'But it was your kid?'

He nodded. 'Elaine. Yeah.'

Isaac ran a palm over his skull, looked around at the assemblage. 'Wow.' But Isaac was an intelligent young man, and the other ramifications began to kick in. Treya could see him beginning to process them. 'I mean-'

Footsteps and high-pitched laughter outside in the hallway stopped him. Then Rebecca exploded through the door at a dead run, a step or two ahead of her brother. 'I win! I win!'

Treya thought that the lawyer and his wife gave a damn good example of what zero tolerance for inappropriate behavior really was. It did her heart good, since she'd just about come to believe she was the last of the breed. With no hesitation, both of them were laying down the law in tandem. Unheard of. 'Beck! Hey! Vincent! Enough.'

'What are you doing? Don't you know people are trying to sleep?'

'This is a hospital, get it? Sick people.'

'Think! Use your brains! Have a little respect, all right?'

By the time they were through and had marched both kids over and had them apologize, Nat, Rita and the teenagers were back, and Frannie was up by the bed, bussing Glitsky's cheek. 'That's enough excitement for one night. We'll be back tomorrow, maybe without children.'

'It's date night,' Hardy said. 'Definitely without children.'

Treya was standing, too. Raney had come back over by her side, put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Visiting hours weren't officially over, but everybody was heading out, Rita and Nat shooing Orel over to his dad to say goodnight.

Although Isaac wasn't quite ready. 'What's the earliest I can get back in here tomorrow?' he asked.

'Morning might be tricky,' Abe said, mentioning angiograms and perhaps some other testing. 'But any time after that.' He turned his head. 'And Ms Ghent?'

'Treya, please.'

'All right. Treya then. About Elaine. If you get a little time…'

She nodded. 'I'll see what I can do.'

With all the bedlam, Glitsky found it hard to believe that Roy had gone to sleep. He'd pulled the sheet around his bed, though, and the light was off on his side of the room. More tellingly, so was the TV, which had been gently droning for the entire rest of the day. If it was off, Roy was sleeping.

He wasn't even slightly tired, but he turned the room light down, lowered the back of the bed slightly and settled himself against it. Nat had brought him a book by Patrick O'Brian called Master and Commander. According to his father, this was the first in a long series of seafaring tales that he was sure Abe would love. He'd loved Hornblower as a young man, and Nat thought this stuff was better, although Abe was skeptical. What could be better than Hornblower?

But the gift also delivered the subtle hopeful message that Abe would be around to read more books in the series, which had been running now for nearly thirty years. That Abe had never heard of it nagged slightly at him, but you set your priorities and he'd had other things he'd been doing. Reading was even among those things, but most of his reading over the years had been to improve his mind or to feed it more facts, which he consumed like the peanuts in his desk. The few novels he read tended to be mysteries and, with a few exceptions, more often than not he put them down halfway through, the law people who populated them bearing little or no resemblance to anyone in the real world of cops and killers in which he lived.

So books about the Royal Navy set a couple of centuries in the past? He couldn't take the time.

Now, holding this new book in his hands, he wondered why that had been so. He closed his eyes, remembering. He used to love stories like this one promised to be – pure adventure, with the fore't'gallant sails and the mizzenmasts, whatever they were, and the salt spray in your face as shot and ball peppered the quarterdeck.

'If Vincent were here, Mr Hardy would have to let him shave his head.'

He started back into awareness, on some level equally thrilled both at the sound of the contralto laughter that accompanied his surprise, and at the unexpected sight of the woman who'd produced it. 'I didn't mean to startle you,' Treya said. 'You looked so happy.' She pointed. 'I love those books. Are you just starting?'

Sheepish, he looked down at the book in his hand. 'I haven't read a page yet. I was remembering Hornblower.'

'And smiling.'

'And smiling, I suppose. Don't tell Hardy.'

'I won't.' She was sitting in the chair, now moved up close to the head of the bed. Her hand rested on the railing. 'Hornblower was great, too, wasn't he?'

'Still is, I'd bet.' He looked at her, a question. Why was she here?

'On the ice-cream run, your dad got the kids talking, even the teenagers.'

'Nat,' Glitsky said. 'The guy's a miracle.'

'Apparently. Anyway, it turns out my daughter and your son both play basketball for Washington. We, you and me, live about five blocks from each other. So I'm trying to work out with Raney when I could get back and talk to you about Elaine, and your dad overhears and asks me why don't I just stay now while I'm here. He'll take Raney home, make sure she's locked in.' She shrugged apologetically. 'It seemed like a good idea. I hope you don't mind. Were you going to sleep? I could come back another day if you're tired.'

'I'm not tired.'

'Good,' she said. She looked down. 'I also didn't really want to leave until I told you I was sorry. I mean, yesterday. And before even. I don't think I've been fair to you.'

'It's all right.'

'No it isn't.' She took a breath. 'I was sitting up last night, worrying about all this, not able to sleep. I told a little of it to my daughter, why I'd jumped all over you, and she said maybe you felt the same way Elaine had. Why she didn't feel she could come to you.'

'She felt like it wasn't her place. I was busy enough with my own life. I didn't need her in it mucking it up. If it was important enough, I'd come to her.'

'Right.'

'Genetics.'

Her mouth softened. 'Maybe that.'

'Funny how I've got all the excuses down pat.'

'It's like you practiced them.'

'Plus, there was always tomorrow. I could always just decide it was time. Maybe if I'd known that she knew…' He shook his head regretfully. 'How stupid we are.'

She let a moment go by. 'Can I ask you a question?'

'No.' At her reaction – a fractional clouding of her brow – he realized he'd hurt her somehow. He reached out his hand, touched hers on the railing, then withdrew it quickly. 'I'm kidding. I'm a great kidder, famous for it, in fact.' He met her eyes. 'You can ask me anything you want.'

'Your son mentioned you were on leave, but when you came by to interview me-'

'That was before.' He recounted enough of the story to give her the idea.

'They're not going to fire you, are they?'

'Unlikely. Maybe knock me down a grade, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Back to doing cases. Or transfer me out of homicide, which would be worse.'

'But you were investigating Elaine.'

'That was because it was Elaine. Normally I don't get involved with investigations.' A bitter chuckle. 'Which is for the best if the hash I made of this is any indication. They're all probably right. He just made a bad confession, but there isn't any doubt. He did it.'

'But you're not sure.'

Again, her eyes drew him. 'No, not that exactly.' Then, 'No. Not as sure as I want to be. In a lot of ways I just… I can't accept it.' He shook his head, stopped.