Nothing but the Truth (28 page)
Glitsky picked up another stapled group of pages. “Crime scene. Zip. No glass anywhere to match what was in her scalp.”
“Which was what?”
A flip of a page. “The theory is that it was from a leaded crystal wine or champagne glass. The Beaumonts didn’t have anything to match on hand.”
Hardy was into Griffin’s notes. “Here’s Jim Pierce again. Damon Kerry. Al Valens. How’d Griffin get these guys?”
“The grieving husband, your friend Ron. Wanted to help find whoever killed her.”
“And he thought one of these guys . . . ?”
But Glitsky was shaking his head. “He just gave Carl a bunch of names, Diz. People Bree had hung out with.” A pause. “Why did you say Jim Pierce again?”
“What?”
“You said ‘Here’s Jim Pierce
again
.’ ”
again
.’ ”
Hardy smiled. “That wasn’t me. It must have been somebody else.” Then, relenting, “It’d be neat if the odd slip of the tongue got by you once in a while. Anyway, I just visited him—Pierce—and his wife a couple of hours ago. You’ll be gratified to know that your inspectors had already been there.”
A nod. “Rattling his cage is all. He’s got a decent alibi.”
“Just decent?”
“Driving to work. Left home around eight, at the Embarcadero office forty minutes later.”
“Forty minutes? I just did it in fifteen.”
“This is Saturday afternoon. Try it on a weekday morning, rush hour. Coleman and Batavia did it last night and it took ’em an hour. And he was
at his desk
forty minutes later.” Glitsky shrugged. “Okay, anything’s possible as we know, but nobody’s put him anywhere near her place. He told my guys he hadn’t seen her in four months. They’re checking, but so far they hear the same thing. No contact.”
at his desk
forty minutes later.” Glitsky shrugged. “Okay, anything’s possible as we know, but nobody’s put him anywhere near her place. He told my guys he hadn’t seen her in four months. They’re checking, but so far they hear the same thing. No contact.”
“What about Damon Kerry?”
This time, Glitsky’s mouth tightened. “He’s running for governor, Diz. I just don’t think so.”
“I don’t either, but was he around at least?”
Glitsky nodded. “He was in town, shooting TV spots.”
“Seeing her?”
“Sometimes. Often.”
“Were they sleeping together?”
This almost brought a true smile, which for Glitsky was a rarity. “What a quaint way to put it. Let’s just say that for a married woman, she spent a lot of time with him, but it’s not like Kerry’s such a hot item that reporters are on him around the clock. His people quote resent the implication. She was a technical advisor on environmental matters. That’s the story.”
“On the payroll?”
“No. Another committed volunteer, which is what makes this country great.” He held up a hand. “I know, but Griffin never got to him and here four days before the election, without any physical evidence, you don’t just send two inspectors down to grill him.”
“Why not? I would.”
Glitsky liked that. “I’m sure you would, which is why you don’t work for the city anymore. No, what you do is what we’ve done—ask him to come down and give a statement and of course he’s promised full cooperation. As soon as he’s got a free minute, which ought to be by Christmas, he’s going to give it top priority.”
A weary sigh. “You know, Diz, you and I might have our good reasons for hoping it isn’t Ron, but it still might be. Really. He looks a lot better than Kerry, or Pierce for that matter, and that’s even before what’s in the mystery box.”
Hardy didn’t want Glitsky thinking this way. He was shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I like it that Kerry’s in election mode, he’s stressed to the max and this lady hits him with something that’ll derail his campaign. He’s got no time to think so he does the first thing that occurs to him and she winds up dead. Oops. Makes perfect sense to me.”
“He’s at her house?”
“Could have been. Do we know? You find his prints?”
“Prints, please.” Fingerprints were useful when they could be cross-checked against those of known criminals, but if someone hadn’t ever committed a crime, their prints would not be in the database. “We got prints from the door to the balcony and some dishes in the sink. Ron’s prints and the kids’, which we didn’t need to run ’cause we knew who they were. Then we’ve got a dozen, fifteen more, unidentified. Could be other kids, family friends, anybody. But no known criminals.”
“Maybe Damon Kerry, though.”
“We may never know and even if he was, so what?”
“It puts him at the scene.”
Glitsky rolled his eyes, his patience with amateur detective work growing thin. “Why wouldn’t he be at the scene at some point in the last few months? He knew her. So he went to her house? So what?
“Listen,” he continued, “I’ll tell you what.
You
get to Kerry, borrow his shoes, find some lead crystal residue on them. Then find somebody who can put him at Bree’s place or better yet, can prove they were doing each other, or stopped doing each other, or anything . . .” His voice wore down, his eyes came up. “The more I think about it, Diz, and I hate to say it—”
You
get to Kerry, borrow his shoes, find some lead crystal residue on them. Then find somebody who can put him at Bree’s place or better yet, can prove they were doing each other, or stopped doing each other, or anything . . .” His voice wore down, his eyes came up. “The more I think about it, Diz, and I hate to say it—”
Hardy held up a hand. “Then don’t.”
17
The Pulgas Water Temple sits in a peaceful and picturesque location among low rolling hills about twenty miles south of San Francisco. A semicircle of high white Ionian columns rises behind a reflecting pool and forms an elegant structure that commemorates the completion of one of the most famous (or infamous) engineering feats in California history, the Hetch Hetchy project. This marvel of architecture and city planning captured the plentiful water and snowmelt of the Sierra Nevada mountain range at Yosemite and delivered it, mostly underground over nearly two hundred miles, into a shallow valley that had once been Indian prayer grounds.
This once holy spot was now the Crystal Springs Reservoir, the source of San Francisco’s drinking water and, in fact, one of the principle reasons that naturally dry San Francisco was a major metropolitan center and not a quaint tourist destination with nice views and bad weather.
The sculpted grounds of the temple were a popular picnic destination and this bright, warm afternoon held a typical Indian summer scene—family blankets with food and drink spread on the grass, boats in the reflecting pool, dogs and kids and couples and a handful of bicyclists and solitary readers. Occasionally a sheriff’s patrol car from San Mateo County would cruise the lot, but there was no regular security presence at the site. There had never been any need of one.
The parking lot was nearly filled and the nondescript Chevy Camaro that pulled off the main road and into it had to park at the far northern end, nearly three hundred yards from the temple.
The two middle-aged men got out of the front seat and the two women from the rear. All of the eventual witnesses agreed that the group was dressed too warmly for the day, the women with scarves over their heads, the men with hats pulled low, but as they got out of the car they attracted no attention. Without exchanging a word, they congregated at the trunk, then two men and one of the women began walking toward the temple with a large picnic basket. The other woman got back into the car in the driver’s seat and rolled down the window.
From where they had parked, the three carriers hadn’t been able to hear a thing except the twittering of the birds and the casual noise of the picnickers, but as they got closer a low roar gradually became audible, then undeniable.
“Either of you guys ever jump in here when you were a kid?” the first man asked. He didn’t want an answer, was babbling out of nervousness, and neither of his two companions said a word. In any case, his story was drowned out in the sound of the water pouring out of the input pipes into the temple, but he kept right on talking. “When I was growing up, this was
the
thing to prove your manhood, let me tell you. I knew a guy broke a leg and almost drowned, but I rode it halfway down to the lake.”
the
thing to prove your manhood, let me tell you. I knew a guy broke a leg and almost drowned, but I rode it halfway down to the lake.”
He was referring to what had once been a popular rite of passage for teenagers on San Francisco’s peninsula. For years, males with testosterone poisoning would come down here with other guys or their girlfriends, mostly at dusk, and jump over the low wall of the temple down fifteen feet into the churning, ice-cold water, which surged at thousands of gallons per second into a circular, tiled pool. The flow would pick these kids up—or occasionally push them down and not let go—and shoot them out a fifty-foot submerged tunnel, then to the canal that led to the reservoir.
Now, in response to the occasional drowning, the state had installed a wide-meshed steel grate to cover the pool and jumping in was no longer an option.
As the three conspirators got to the low wall, the woman—she was by all accounts the leader—looked back and made sure that their car had pulled out of its space and was now idling, ready to take them out of here. There was a young couple on the platform with them, the boy’s arm around his girl, both of them mesmerized by the rushing water, unlikely to move away in the next five minutes.
A solo man, midfifties, in shorts and hiking boots, was climbing the low steps to the temple even as she waited, and behind him a family of four were getting up from their blanket, looking like they were walking this way.
The shorts-and-boots man caught her eyes for an instant, and she too quickly—stupidly—looked away. Guilt, guilt, guilt. He kept looking at her. She’d caught his attention, a critical mistake. He seemed to notice the picnic basket on the ground at her feet. His brow darkened, perhaps at the basket’s unlikely presence there, perhaps at the somewhat odd trio in scarves and pulled-down hats, jackets and heavy pants.
She cast another quick glance at the family behind them. Yes, they were coming here, too, up to the temple.
Their car was in place now, waiting. She couldn’t wait any longer, even if it had to get a little ugly. They’d planned for this contingency. They were ready.
She nodded to her two partners, jerked her head indicating the middle-aged solo hiker. In their planning meetings, they had decided that if fate handed them a situation like this, they would take full advantage of it. This would increase the profile of what they were doing. The public outcry was always vastly more satisfying if people got hurt or dead. That possibility made the game that much more meaningful. It also gave it a greater edge of excitement.
One of her men lifted the picnic basket to the edge of the railing while the other strolled casually over behind the man, who was now—apparently—transfixed by the show beneath them, the crashing water and noise and simple
power
of the spectacle. But then he looked up again, saw the picnic basket in its even more unlikely place. He started to raise a hand, began to speak so she could hear. “Hey, what’s—?”
power
of the spectacle. But then he looked up again, saw the picnic basket in its even more unlikely place. He started to raise a hand, began to speak so she could hear. “Hey, what’s—?”
It was time to move. Another nod and both men went into action. Her partner, who had once jumped into this temple to prove his manhood, caught the solo hiker from behind and flipped him over the edge as if he were a sack of flour. At the same time, her other partner had opened the top of the basket and taken out one of the buckets, dumping it whole onto the grate while she did the same with the other one.
And then they were running, the basket left behind, the teenage lovebirds left flat-footed, unable to decide whether to help the older hiker or chase the bad guys.
They skirted the approaching family on a dead run, piled into their waiting Camaro, and sped with squealing tires from the parking lot.
Hardy heard about it on the radio on the way to his office after his talk with Glitsky. The emergency news report was warning citizens of San Francisco to avoid using their tap water until the actual substance that had been dumped into Crystal Springs could be positively determined.
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