Guilt

The world could change in a year.

On the third floor of the Hall of Justice, a gray-blue block of concrete and glass at 7th and Bryant, Chief Assistant District Attorney Art Drysdale was having a discussion with an assistant district attorney named Amanda Jenkins and Sergeant Abe Glitsky regarding a murder case: People v. Levon Copes.

Copes had a tattoo which did not, as it turned out, read Wendy, but, more prosaically, Levon.

Unfortunately for the cause of justice, Levon's arrest had come about after Glitsky had interviewed several residents of the building he owned and lived in (and where Tania Willows, his victim, had resided as well). He learned that Levon's tattoo was no secret – Copes talked about it all the time.

So Glitsky had a pretty good idea of the identity of Tania's killer from the beginning of his investigation. Finding other damning evidence hadn't been too hard. Fibers in Tania's bed that matched with clothes in Copes's closet; the same type of rope that had strangled Tania was in the building's basement, to which Copes had the only key; his hairs were in her bed.

So Glitsky had gone to the DA's office with his evidence. Normally Art Drysdale would have reviewed this and assigned a prosecutor. But Drysdale had been on vacation.

Which left Les McCann to handle administrative matters. McCann, a retired-on-duty drunk with seniority, had assigned the case to Amanda Jenkins, who was on record as saying that sex criminals were worse than murderers. In the Hall, it was common currency that she was perhaps not the soul of objectivity when it came to analyzing evidence in cases like Copes.

She had reviewed the file. She'd had a talk with Abe Glitsky. He told her about the tattoo, which had clinched the fact of Copes's guilt for her. Armed with that knowledge, she had gotten Les McCann's approval to go to the Grand Jury and seek an indictment, and Copes had been arrested.

This morning, though, Art Drysdale – home from vacation – got a call from Wes Farrell, who inquired if Drysdale had taken vast quantities of mind-altering drugs while he'd been away. Because based on the discovery Farrell had seen, there wasn't enough in the way of evidence to support a murder charge on Levon Copes.

What, Farrell wondered, was going on?

This was the question Drysdale now put to Jenkins. Her short dark-green skirt rode high over legs that, while heavy, possessed some indefinable quality that tended to stop male conversation when she sat and crossed them. They were uncrossed now, her feet flat on the floor, hands clasped tightly on her lap as she was explaining to her boss all about the tattoo and her witnesses and so on.

'Okay, but so what?' Drysdale asked. Feet up on his desk, effortlessly juggling three baseballs as he often did, he appeared calm, though Glitsky knew him better and wasn't fooled. 'I can't believe the Grand Jury indicted on this nonsense and I'm doubly disappointed in you, Amanda' – he stopped juggling long enough to point a finger – 'for getting conned into this.'

Glitsky, in a flight jacket and dark blue pants, leaned forward in his chair. His eyes flicked to Jenkins, came back to Drysdale. 'I didn't con anybody, sir.'

Drysdale palmed the balls in one hand and leaned over his desk. He knew all about Glitsky's home situation, was inclined to be sensitive on a personal level – but this was business, and Glitsky was, usually, one of the cops that the DA's office could count on. So he had a gentle tone. 'Figure of speech, Abe.'

'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.'