The Ophelia Cut (43 page)

Gina sat still for a minute. “Don’t get me wrong. This is interesting stuff, and we need to get it in front of the jury to give them something else to think about. But if we’re going down that road, we ought to decide which choice is better, so we’re not just pointing at people Jessup knew more or less at random, since he was evidently a prick to everybody. And, again, it wouldn’t hurt to have at least a shred of evidence to back up whatever we’re going to propose.”

“You don’t think it’s worth it to show what a son of a bitch Jessup was?”

Roake shrugged. “There isn’t anyone on the jury who doesn’t already believe he’s a rapist. How much do you want them to hate him?”

“With all their hearts. But I get your point. He can’t get more dead than he already is. More’s the pity.” Another thought struck him. “Hey, maybe it was one of Lo’s girls. One of the ones he beat up.”

“Diz, whoa. Maybe it was Bigfoot. You’re getting carried away. When in reality, guess what?”

“What?”

“Maybe it was Moses.”

F
OR REASONS TOO
karmic to explain, at least two of Hardy’s favorite lifetime moments had occurred at the front door of Abe Glitsky’s duplex.

One time Glitsky had opened the door holding his daughter, Rachel, at his shoulder. She had already puked down the diaper on his shoulder, and one of her pink booties had found its way to his ear, where it hung for at least thirty seconds before Abe became aware of it and ripped it off. Hardy’s visual of it could still make him laugh out loud.

The other time, when Hardy was many years younger and in the immature phase that had probably lasted far too long, he and Abe had been coming back from wherever they’d been, and it had been pouring rain.
Glitsky had thrown Hardy his keys—probably because in those days Hardy tended to take stairs two at a time—and Hardy had gotten to the door and let himself in, and then (proof that Satan was continually at work in the world) that darn devil had made him close the door and lock it in time for Glitsky’s arrival.

“Diz, you crazy person, what are you doing? Open the door.”

“Say ‘please.’ ”

“I’m not going to say ‘please.’ Just open the door.”

“Come on, Abe. Just say ‘please.’ ”

Through the peephole, he watched Glitsky stoically bear the burden, rain pelting down on his head, fat drops running down the lines of his face. After thirty or more seconds, Glitsky sighed and gave in. “All right,” he said at last through gritted teeth, “please.”

“Fuck you.” A jovial Hardy couldn’t say it fast enough. “Say ‘pretty please.’ ”

Over the years, Glitsky had tried to get him back in myriad ways any number of times, but try as he might to appear ferocious and unyielding, at base he didn’t have the streak of utter cruelty that Hardy kept in a special place close to his heart. Nevertheless, every visit to Glitsky’s door contained the tiniest germ of the possibility for adventure, revenge, and retribution.

Tonight Hardy’s stop wasn’t going to depend on fate. Glitsky had texted him that he’d be home by six, and about an hour after that, Hardy walked up the twelve steps that led to the landing and rang the doorbell.

No one answered.

Hardy rang again, heard the chime inside. Nothing.

He knocked, then put his ear to the door. Nobody home.

Swearing at the wasted precious time, especially when he was at trial, he turned and started down the steps. Abe didn’t usually propose a time and then not show up. Hardy hoped he was okay. The kids. Treya. Life with young children was endlessly uncertain. Whatever it was, he thought, Abe would have to tell him about it on the phone, or maybe they could meet somewhere in the morning. In fact . . .

Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, he got out his cell and was locating Abe’s number when the door opened above him and Rachel and Zachary called down at him: “Uncle Diz, Uncle Diz!”

“Hey, guys.” Wondering where they’d been hiding out, or maybe they’d just been in the backyard, he waved and started up the stairs, got to the landing, and saw the door was closed, so he knocked. “Guys!”

Behind the door, he heard both of them cry out in unison, “Say ‘please.’ ” And howl with laughter.

Now those jokester kids frolicked in the backyard while Hardy and Abe sat on the stairs and watched them. “No, really,” Hardy was saying. “That was great. I enjoyed it. Especially since I’m in trial and have nothing important to do with my time.”

“Your time.” Glitsky puffed out a chortle. “Maybe a minute and a half.”

“If I were Winston Paley,” Hardy replied, “that would cost you almost ten bucks.”

“Who’s Winston Paley?”

Hardy told him, then went on a bit about Brittany and her testimony.

“So it’s not going well?” Glitsky asked when he’d finished.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No? I read between the lines.”

“Actually,” Hardy said, “we may have had a little bit of a breakthrough. Wyatt Hunt found a couple of guys—you know them, Goodman and Lo—who hated Jessup and may have wanted to do him harm.”

“Did they have opportunity?”

“We’re working on that. Did you guys ever talk to them about this?”

“Us guys?”

“You. The police. Homicide.”

“You forget I was removed about that time.”

“I didn’t forget. I forget nothing. I thought it might have been before they got around to you.”

“Well. No.”

“Just thought I’d ask.” Hardy chanced a quick perusal of his friend. Clean-shaven, casually but nicely dressed, cop shoes on and laced up. In all, a significant improvement in a very short time. “But you had something for me, unless that was part of the setup for that laugh riot of a joke your kids played at the door.”

“No. That was separate.” Glitsky took a beat. “I heard back from Bill Schuyler.”

“This is turning out to be a fruitful day,” Hardy said. “What’d he know?”

“He knows your guy. Or rather, he knows the marshal who handles your guy.”

“Does he know his real name?”

“That was not happening. He’s sticking with Tony.”

“Tony’s okay,” Hardy said. “What’d he do?”

“He is evidently a cop, which we suspected. The other thing he did, though”—Glitsky drew a breath—“was kill people for money.”

T
ONY SAT WITH
a Sierra Nevada pale ale on the couch in Brittany’s tiny living room. She sat across from him, curled up in pajamas, a towel wrapped turban-style around her head, a glass of white wine beading onto the glass-topped coffee table. A reggae playlist pumped softly out of an invisible speaker. “I let myself off early,” he said. “I booked Lynne for my shifts for the rest of the week. She was happy for the work.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure I’m going anywhere. But they want me in court tomorrow, and I don’t know how long that will go. I thought I’d give myself some time. Also, I wanted to see how it went with you today. I missed you down at the bar.”

“I can’t go there for a while. After the riot the other night . . .”

“No. I hear you. Of course. I didn’t expect you. You mind if I’m here?”

“Not at all. You mind if I’m not feeling particularly sexy?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t be, either, if you saw my head.”

He grinned at her. “I bet I would. But we don’t have to test the theory. I actually like the turban look. But that’s not what I’m here for.”

“Pretty obviously.”

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” he said.

“So what
are
you here for?”

He paused, met her solemn gaze. “You, I suppose. Just you.”

“You probably think I’ve been stringing you along.”

“I probably think you got raped, is what I probably think. Anybody who doesn’t get that doesn’t deserve you.”

“Okay, but almost four months?”

He leaned back into the cushions. “Hey, if you’re trying to talk yourself into something, you won’t hear me complain. But I’m good. I’m a grown-up. I can handle waiting around for something that’s supremely worth it.”

“It might not be.”

“I’m willing to chance it.” He sipped at his beer. “So how’d it go today?”

“Pretty rough. Reliving it, I suppose. My uncle tried to ease things up a little, but he didn’t have much luck.”

“He’s a good guy,” Tony said. “Even if he isn’t much of a fan of mine lately.”

“Oh, I’m sure he is. He’s just working. He gets preoccupied.”

“Maybe.” He paused. “It’s like he doesn’t trust me.”

“Why wouldn’t he trust you?”

“Well, the Beck, for one. That was pretty shitty of me, though it never went anywhere. I just hadn’t met you yet.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I get it. I’m as guilty of that as you are. I think she’s over the whole thing, anyway. Ben’s great for her.”

“Still,” he said. “Her dad.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Maybe I’m feeling a little sexy after all.”

T
ONY DIDN’T HAVE
any clothes on. The covers were messed all around him. He lay back on Brittany’s bed, hands behind his head. “Did I say supremely worth it?”

She was curled up next to him, her head against his chest. “Yes, it was.” Bob Marley started singing “Stir It Up.” “This is going to sound weird,” she said, “but I’m glad we waited.”

“Not weird at all. This was the time. I love this song.”

“Me, too.”

“Three chords, five words. Go figure.”

“I know.” She boosted herself onto an elbow. “You really don’t mind my hair?”

“This just in,” he said, “you don’t have any hair. And I love it. If you did have hair, I’d love that, too. If you had a thick pelt of fur . . .”

She laughed and put her hand over his mouth. “Okay, okay, I get it.” She lowered herself back down to his chest. “So they subpoenaed you for tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“That must mean they’re going to ask if I told you.”

“I know. I figured that out.”

She stayed silent for a long moment. “Do we want to talk about this?”

“I think so.”

“What are you going to say?”

He breathed in and out a couple of times. “You know I’ve told you I used to be a cop? I have to be honest. It’s not going to feel natural to me to lie under oath.”

She went dead still beside him.

“I wanted to ask you to think about something,” he said.

“What?”

“About whether your dad really did this.”

“I’ve thought about that a thousand times.”

“And?”

“I guess he did. I can’t think of any other explanation.”

“What do you think the jury’s going to say?”

“I don’t know. My uncle says you can never predict.”

“If you had to guess?”

“If I were on the jury, I think I’d say he was guilty.”

“And why’d he do it?”

“We know that.”

“Do you think the jury’s going to know it?”

“I don’t see how they couldn’t.”

“Regardless of what you said today?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Or what I might have to say tomorrow?”

She breathed against him. “I see where you’re going.”

He chose his words carefully. “You saying it is betraying your father. If I say you told me you’d told him, it’s once removed. Plus, it’s hearsay. In the end, it’s not going to make any difference to the verdict. Unless you think it will.”

“I don’t know.”

“Nobody knows, Brittany. I won’t say it if you don’t want me to. I don’t want to be the person responsible for sending your father to jail. But you know I already talked to the police. If I change my story, they’re going to play that tape, and then they’ll know that I lied, and it’s more likely
that they’ll think you lied. It gets worse and worse. I think there’s a good chance your father’s going to jail anyway, but I can’t have what I say come between you and me. Especially not after tonight. I would lie if you asked me to. I would do anything you asked me to.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

“Maybe we could sleep on it,” he said. “Talk about it again in the morning.”

After a second’s hesitation, in a small voice, she said, “Maybe we could do that.”

I
F
B
RITTANY THOUGHT
that violently chopping off her hair would make her less interesting to photojournalists and television news crews, she was mistaken. Local and national media vans blocked two lanes of Bryant Street, and reporters and camerapeople were waiting three-deep on the front steps of the Hall of Justice, clogging the inner lobby. The day before, when it wasn’t clear to the media that she’d be there, much less be the first witness, the crush had failed to materialize. She’d entered the building with her shawl on to no fanfare, accompanied only by her mother, and no one had paid her any particular attention.

This morning, she and Tony had driven down together on his motorcycle and, after stopping by his apartment so he could change, parked two blocks away and walked up. Now they stood on the corner across the street. Seeing the mob, Tony said, “I’m afraid this is about you.”

She let out a sigh. “God, it gets old.” She was wearing an outfit similar to the one from the day before—men’s shoes, brown slacks, a bulky black leather jacket. Instead of the white shawl, she wore a Giants hat, which she pulled down low. “There’s a back way in,” she said. “You want to try that?”

“I’m with you,” Tony said.

They crossed Bryant at the corner of Seventh Street, half a block from the doors to the Hall, for all the world at that distance looking like a couple of guys minding their own business on their way to wherever they were going. Picking up their pace, they entered the employee and staff parking lot behind the building, then came around the monstrosity of the jail and onto the walkway leading past the jail’s entrance and the medical examiner’s office. No one was walking in front of them, though there was
a small knot of humanity lined up at the rear entrance, a simple glass door with a manned desk and metal detector just inside.

Tony put his arm around her, leaned in to her ear. “This was a good idea.”

She leaned in to him. He kissed the side of her head.

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t such a good idea. With Tony’s arm around her, they no longer looked like a couple of guys strolling along, passing the time of day. Now they looked like what they were, a couple, and several of the people lounging by the back door were ready for them, turning and snapping away with their cameras. Tony held out a hand to them. “Leave her alone! Come on! Show a little class. Let her by, let us in.” He pulled her closer to him, hiding her face with his hand, getting them to the door and inside, where the cop waved them through the metal detector and they made a run for the stairway.