Guilt

'How 'bout this, Art? I didn't get conned, either.' Jenkins' demeanor was severe as a sandstorm. 'Abe didn't get around to the duct tape.'

Silver duct tape had been used to bind Tania Willows's hands to the bed's brass railings, and on the inside, sticky part of one of the strips of tape, Glitsky had found a fingerprint that belonged to Levon Copes.

Drysdale sat back. 'I know about the duct tape, but again, so what?'

'So that proves Levon Copes did it.'

'And how exactly does it do that?'

Jenkins held her lips in a tight line. Furious at this inquisition, she held her voice in a monotone. 'Copes pulls the tape' – she was pantomiming his actions – 'and his fingerprint stays on the inside. This means not only was he in the woman's room, but he was in it when the tape got unwound, which was when she was tied up.'

Drysdale nodded. 'I was afraid that was the answer.'

Glitsky spoke again, again wearily. 'It's a good answer, Art. In fact, it's the right answer.'

But Drysdale wasn't hearing it. 'No. Sorry, guys, but how about if our landlord Copes came in to fix some pipes, started undoing this magical tape and left his fingerprint on it. Then he simply forgot to take the tape with him when he left. The next day, our perp comes in to do what he did, and there is the convenient tape. Why couldn't it have happened that way?'

God, it got tiring, Glitsky was thinking. There was always some other way it could have happened. He knew Drysdale was playing the devil's advocate. None of them doubted that Copes had left an incriminating fingerprint on the inside of the duct tape, but – the point – that wasn't good enough. Drysdale sat back, pondering his options. 'The tattoo is what screwed this all up.'

Glitsky, from a deep welclass="underline" 'The tattoo means he did it, too.'

'Which is where you guys went wrong. You don't start out knowing that.' He held up a hand. 'Hey, I believe with all my heart that Levon Copes is our man. I don't see how in the hell we're going to prove it, though.'

Suddenly, Glitsky let out a heavy sigh and stood up. 'I thought the duct tape was pretty good. You titans let me know how it all comes out. You need me at the trial, if it gets to trial, I'm there.'

The door closed silently behind him as he left the office. His co-workers sat, stunned, in the ensuing vacuum. Finally, Drysdale blew a little gust of air through puffed cheeks. 'Abe's having a hard time.'

'The duct tape is pretty good, you know,' Jenkins responded.

Drysdale started juggling again. 'You're dreaming,' he said.

Glitsky had to get out of the Hall, out on to the street. He checked in at Homicide – no messages – then walked the wind-blown back stairway out to the city lot behind the building. He always had half a dozen witnesses on other cases he could interview. It was the constant in the job.

So he was driving west through the fog, toward his home – vaguely – and the Bush Street projects where…

He didn't know what bothered him the most, that he'd almost lost his temper in the office, or that Drysdale had been right. You really didn't want to start with a certainty about who'd committed what crime. If you did, as Abe had done in this case, there was a temptation to lose sight of the evidentiary chain – that sense of link-by-link accretion which eventually became the working blueprint that a prosecutor would use to build a case that would convince a jury.

It was, by necessity, a slow and tedious process, where you questioned yourself- your own motives, your preconceptions, your work habits, every little thing you did – every step of the way. And it was best if the things you discovered led you to the only possible correct answer.

He slammed his hand, hard, against the steering wheel.

Glitsky couldn't say exactly why he stopped by the Rape Crisis Center.

There really was no official reason. Maybe it was a human one – maybe he needed to talk to somebody. He told himself he was fostering good community

relations, something the men in blue were always encouraged to pursue.

'Ms Carerra said she would like to be kept up on the progress of things.'

'She's not here right now,' Sam Duncan replied. 'But if it's not a secret, I wouldn't mind hearing about it. The progress, I mean. Would you like to sit down?'

He took the folding chair in front of her desk, turned it around, and straddled it backward. 'It doesn't look very good.'

Sam's shoulders sagged an inch. 'Why doesn't this come as a shock? What's the problem this time?'

'You've been through this before?'

It was not quite a laugh. 'I've been around rape and the law for about ten years. Does that answer your question?' She sighed. 'So another creep's gonna walk?'

Glitsky temporized. 'Maybe not. They might still go ahead. The prosecutor wants to put Mr Copes away, the Grand Jury did indict. I'm going to keep looking.' He paused. 'I think the problem was that I did my job backwards.'

She cocked an eye at him. 'That's funny. I thought I just heard a cop admit he might have made a mistake. What do you mean, you went backwards?'

He explained it all to her – Christina and the tattoo, the evidence that really wasn't admissible. Finally he wound down.

'So this Copes? There's no doubt he did it?'

'Not to me, but that's never the point, as you probably know. The tattoo can't be mentioned. It's hearsay.'

'This sucks. And of course he's got a million-dollar lawyer who's going to make a million more?'

'He's got Wes Farrell. He's good enough, but-'

She interrupted him. 'I don't understand these defense lawyers. I'm serious. I don't understand how any human being can take a case like this. I mean, this man Farrell, he's got to know his client did it, raped and killed this poor woman. Doesn't he? He knows about the tattoo, all of that…'

'Sure.'

'And he still-'

'Best defense the law allows. It's what makes our country great.' Glitsky shrugged. 'Maybe he needs the money. Maybe it's just a job. Murder cases pay.'

'But if he knows … I mean, if you really, truly know for sure, how can you…?'

'It's amazing, isn't it?'

'It blows my mind, Sergeant, it truly does.'

Whistling, Wes Farrell took off his white shirt and tie in the cramped unisex bathroom down the hall from his law office. Farrell often thought he was too easily amused by stupid things, such as the T-shirt he had been wearing under his suit all day – green with gold lettering that read: Take me drunk, I'm home.

Okay. So he was getting divorced, his kids didn't see him much, his career generally sucked, but his life wasn't all bad. He had his health, and that was number one, right? Give or take a few pounds, he still had his body. Lots of acquaintances. And at least one true and great friend, Mark Dooher. How many people could say that much?

Plus attitude. He had attitude in spades, and that's what pulled him through in the here-and-now – that positive attitude, the vision that day-to-day life itself was okay, even fun.

And now, thank God, he had Levon Copes. He loved Levon Copes. Levon was a lank-haired, slack-jawed, sallow-fleshed, hollow-chested, low-life, weak-willed, in-bred and brain-dead sociopath, for sure, but…

'All together now,' he said aloud into the mirror. 'DOESN'T MEAN HE ISN'T A NICE PERSON!!'

Except that Levon really wasn't a nice person.

But Wes Farrell was going to forgive him for that. He wasn't going to forget about the heinous crime he'd undoubtedly committed. But he had to admire one thing about Mr Copes – the man had a serious bank account.

Art Drysdale had not given up on the case, at least not yet. He'd told Farrell this morning that the District Attorney's office was planning a vigorous prosecution, as it did with all indictments, unless of course Farrell wanted to cop a plea.