Free John Lescroart by The Hearing Page A

anything, she exuded a kind of cold fury he’d seen before, which he interpreted as self-loathing and anger that she’d lost control.
    She sat at her desk and he’d pulled a chair around from someplace and straddled it backwards. So they were at about eye level in the small cubicle. “We do have someone in custody, yes.”
    â€œSo what does that have to do with me? Or with anything else that might have happened here?”
    More hostility. This woman, spooked by the police visit, shattered by a recent murder, didn’t want to talk about it. It should just all go away.
    â€œYou’re right. It may have nothing to do with anybody or anything here,” he replied in his professional tone.
    â€œWhat could there be? It was some bum, wasn’t it? She didn’t know him.”
    Glitsky’s lips tightened. “We’re trying to make sure of that.”
    â€œDidn’t I read that he confessed?”
    â€œYou may have.” The leak on that development hadn’t made Glitsky’s day, and his face showed it.
    â€œWell? That ought to settle that, don’t you think?”
    Glitsky crossed his arms on the back of the chair and purposefully looked away. Bringing his eyes back to her, he waited yet another moment. Finally, when he thought she was about to begin squirming, he spoke quietly. “It’s my understanding that you and Elaine were close.”
    The question deflected some of the anger. Treya bit at her lower lip, then nodded. “Yes.”
    â€œThen it would seem to me that you’d want to cooperate in any way you could with the investigation into her death.”
    â€œI do, but—”
    Glitsky cut her off. “Sometimes people confess to things they didn’t do.”
    â€œDid that happen here?”
    â€œNo.” The lieutenant drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But even with a righteous confession, we still need to collect all the evidence we can.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause when the killer gets a lawyer, which he will, he’ll change his mind and plead not guilty.”
    â€œAfter he’s confessed?”
    â€œIt happens. In fact, it always happens. What has he got to lose?”
    Treya sat back in her chair, digesting this. “Then what about the confession?”
    A grim smile. “Oh, the argument will be that it was invalid. It was coerced somehow. Or the police beat it out of him. Or his memory was impaired. Maybe it was a dream, or he just mixed up what had happened.”
    â€œMixed up that he killed somebody?”
    â€œYeah. You’d think you’d remember something like that, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t after saying they did.”
    Abe and Treya’s eyes locked in some kind of shared understanding across the small space between them. Not for long, though. Both of them, realizing it, looked away. “So,” Treya said, “you need evidence. Of what?”
    This was difficult for Glitsky to explain, for the truth was that he was grasping at straws. It was bad enough that Elaine was dead, but to admit that she’d died in such a senseless attack was almost too much for Abe to bear. She couldn’t have lived her interesting and committed life, done all she’d done, touched so many people, only to have it all wiped away in a completely random moment as though she were no more important than a bug.
    Although, of course, that’s exactly what did happen.
    But with his own daughter?
    He couldn’t fit it anywhere, couldn’t live with it. At least until he knew more—about Elaine, about her killer,the intersection where some meaning could be attached to it.
    It was important. It was stupid and made no sense. He had to do it.
    Again, he met the woman’s eyes. “If, for example, Elaine worked at all with the Free Clinic or Legal Aid, if she had any professional contact with junkies . . .”
    â€œThen she