No light showed from within. It was still as death.
Finally, finally, she tapped on the glass three times with her fingernail, a sound infinitesimally small, tentative, gone. No one could have heard it, but that was all she would do. She'd wait here another little while and-
Something was moving inside the flat. The landing light came on. The door opened. Abe was barefoot, still wore his jeans, the black sweater.
'Does your doctor want you awake this late?'
'I'm bad with authority. You might as well get used to it. It's a little cold.' He backed up to let her enter.
'Where is everybody? Your boys?' she asked. Then, 'What's that noise?'
Glitsky listened intently for a minute. 'I don't hear…'
'There. That.'
'Oh.' His face softened. 'That's Rita. She snores sometimes. I'm so used to it, I don't even hear it anymore. She's behind that screen.'
'She sleeps in the living room?'
Glitsky gestured simply. It was a small place, homey, crowded with furniture. 'Only until we finish the guest wing.'
She grimaced. 'I'm sorry, Abe. I didn't mean…'
He touched her arm softly. 'It's OK. Anyway, the boys are out someplace. They made me swear on my mother's honor that I wouldn't budge. I was to sit and read my book, then go to bed, preferably early.'
'Which you haven't done.'
'I know,' he said. 'It's bad of me. That authority thing again. It's lucky I'm a boss. When I have a job, I mean.'
A long moment. 'So how's your book? The high seas. Good as Hornblower?'
'I think so. It's amazing how deeply he makes you feel it all.'
He was staring at her. She looked back at him. The silence settled.
Glitsky cleared his throat. 'Hardy says I should just ask.'
'What?'
'I should just say something, like I never did with Elaine.' He hesitated. 'I can't have anything like that happen with you.'
She waited.
'If you don't want to hear…' He took a breath, nearly choked out the words. 'I don't know what to do with this, but I need to have you in my life.'
Closing her eyes, she nodded. A sigh of what might have been relief. Then she looked at him again, and a smile played at the corners of her mouth. 'I was hoping that was it,' she said.
Then they were in each other's arms. Under his sweater, beneath the burns where they had shocked him back alive, his ribs ached with the pressure.
PART THREE
30
At 8 a.m. on Wednesday, February 17, Dismas Hardy stood at the head of the huge oval table in the Solarium and looked with satisfaction at his assembled team of investigators and associates. Three weeks ago, no one could have predicted this assemblage. Certainly, on the day of Cole's arraignment only two weeks ago, several people in the room would have counted themselves among Hardy's opponents. At that time, only he and David Freeman had been in Cole's corner, and even they were reluctant at best.
Now he still had Freeman, who would continue on as Keenan counsel if the death penalty case did in fact get to full trial, which Hardy desperately hoped it would not. But there was also Treya and Abe, the three musketeers, Jeff Elliot in his wheelchair. The team had also acquired another defense attorney, who simply wanted to be part of it. This was David's friend Gina Roake, who seemed to have her own slightly inarticulated bone to pick with Torrey and perhaps Dash Logan. The case had touched a lot of nerves in this room and around the city, and now they were within hours of the opening gavel.
The hearing was beginning with a high enough profile, and would have kept it because of Elaine's notoriety alone. Pratt's political posturing, which had led to Elliot's much-criticized reprimand and highly-applauded resignation, had raised the stakes. But the events of the last two days had brought things to a fever pitch.
On Monday morning, Inspector Sergeant Ridley Banks, the primary officer in the case, the man whose interrogation of Cole Burgess had led to his confession, was declared a missing person. The authorities suspected foul play, but no body had turned up – Ridley was still missing. As the last person known to have spoken to Banks, Hardy came forward with the information that the inspector had told him he was going on an interview related to both Cole Burgess and Cullen Alsop.
At this news, Gabe Torrey effectively withdrew the olive branch he'd extended to Hardy on the McNeil matter by calling a press conference covered by every print and television journalist in the city, and publicly accusing him of lying. There was no proof of this alleged phone call. This was one of the sleaziest defense tricks he'd ever seen. Hardy was stooping to new depths, obviously trying to use a missing, perhaps dead, man's voice to infer that the police had doubts about the man who'd confessed to the crime. There were no such doubts.
At the same time, Torrey chose to ratchet things up significantly by floating his own reason why the former chief of homicide had prematurely delivered prosecution evidence to the defense – and lost his job for his efforts. It wasn't really because he had any doubts about the guilt of Cole Burgess. No, Glitsky's defection and the subsequent betrayal of his fellow officers was merely a self-serving effort to avoid prosecution for police brutality himself. Torrey had several witnesses who would testify that the lieutenant had illegally manhandled the defendant on the night of his arrest.
In the meanwhile, the sidebars and other human interest stories kept up the heat. As promised, John Strout declared the death of Cullen Alsop an accident/suicide. An overdose on the day of an inmate's release was nowhere near unknown in the city. The police crime scene investigation unit found no evidence that supported any other finding.
And all the while, the seriousness of the crime itself lent a gravity to the case. This was murder in the commission of a robbery, a capital case. The headlines had screamed it anew just yesterday morning; the anchors chimed it throughout the day. The DA, as she'd promised, was going to ask for death.
Now, surveying the scene in front of him, Hardy felt that they had worked like galley slaves for the past week and done all that they could. They were not unprepared, but he remained a long way from confident. The probable cause standard of proof in a preliminary hearing, after all, was nowhere near the reasonable doubt standard of a jury trial. All the prosecution had to do was demonstrate enough to bring a 'strong suspicion to a reasonable mind' that a crime had been committed and that the defendant had committed it.
During all the time in the past week that he'd spent organizing the efforts of the rest of the people in this room, he'd been unable to completely shake the fear that his strategy – bringing out all his guns at the prelim rather than saving them for the trial – was misguided. What, he kept asking himself, was the hurry?
And indeed, one of the cliches lawyers spouted to their clients about why it was always better to delay – 'Look, if we put this off long enough, you never know, the cop who arrested you might die and won't be able to testify against you' – had already come to pass. If Hardy waited longer, maybe Torrey would die, Pratt would be voted out of office, someone else with a guilty conscience or a slight case of schizophrenia could come forward and admit to the crime. Anything could happen.
But he was committed now, and finally satisfied that his decision was the right one. Jury trials brought with them their own insecurities, and they were of a subtly different nature. With a panel of citizens in front of you, the proceeding inevitably became slightly less intellectually rigorous. This was not to say that both sides didn't need to cover their factual bases, but a human element always came into play, and thus there was an opportunity to play to emotion, to feelings.
A jury of twelve was going to hear an horrific litany of Cole's uncontested actions that night – ripping off the earrings, breaking Elaine's finger to get the ring, and so on. They would know that he'd fled from the police. He'd fired the gun – perhaps once, possibly twice. They would likely witness the videotape of the confession despite Hardy's motion. After all that, try as he might, and no matter how brilliant a defense he was able to mount, Hardy could not believe that any jury would acquit. It could simply never happen in the real world.