Guilt

'They know,' Glitsky said. 'They've got level heads. They know me.'

'This, Abraham, is malarkey. They don't know anymore, not for sure. Jacob tonight said you don't have the same rules as everybody else. Is that your message? Is that what you want to teach them?'

'He doesn't think that.'

'He said it. You gonna say he didn't mean it? It sounded like he meant it. He needed some answer for his friends saying you broke the rules, so that's what he came up with. You're allowed to – because you're a cop.'

Glitsky hung his heavy head. After a minute, he raised it again. 'Lord, Dad, I'm tired. When's this Dooher madness going to end? I keep thinking if I could just find more evidence, something that's not ambiguous… because otherwise, he's gonna walk. We're going to lose.'

Nat pulled a kitchen chair up in front of his son. 'So then he walks, Abraham. It's not the end of the world. It's one bad man, that's all.'

'But it will look like me, don't you see? It will look like all the accusations against me are true.'

'Which they're not. The people you work with, they know that.'

Glitsky barked a short, humorless laugh. 'That's a beautiful theory, Dad, it really is. But the truth is this could be the end of my credibility.'

'First, you won't lose your job, Abraham. Even if you do, you'll do something else.'

'But I'm a cop, Dad. That's what I do, it's what I am.'

Nat shook his head. 'Before you're a cop, you're a father. After you stop being a cop, you're a father. Your boys, especially now, they need a father.This is your main job. The rest,' he shrugged, 'nobody knows the rest.'

There was a rush to winning, no doubt about it.

Wes was still at the bar at the Yacht Club, pounding some more Yuletide cheer. Mark had prodded him into coming along. The public appearance would be important, he'd said, especially for after the trial.

Yesterday, after Wes had continued his onslaught against the prosecution, taking apart Emil Balian on the stand, the television news had picked up on him, on the 'brilliant' defense he was conducting. This morning's Chronicle headline had read: Key Prosecution Witness Founders in Dooher Case. The pundits were unanimously calling for a quick verdict of Not Guilty, and Wes was enjoying the celebrity.

Suddenly the world seemed to understand that Wes Farrell was in fact the champion of the underdog and a tiger of a defense lawyer. After five months of tedious trial preparation, hours upon days spent studying transcripts and analyzing evidence in his dingy office or his dirty apartment, after the breakup with Sam and the doubts about his friend, now at last he was getting some recognition for who he was, for what he did – the sweet, sweet, sweet nectar of success that had eluded him for so long.

It was nearly one o'clock and the party was basically over. The staff was folding up tables behind him. The band was breaking down. Wes was alone at the bar just enjoying the living hell out of his sixth or seventh drink, thinking that maybe it had all been worth it, after all.

Christina and Mark had taken the limo home, and he'd need to get a cab later, but that was all right. He wasn't quite ready to call it quits yet.

Mark – his old pal – had been right about coming down for this party. Mark and Christina might have opened a few eyes when they walked in, but it was he, Wes Farrell, who'd been the sensation. Everybody had read the paper today, watched the news over the past nights. Front page, thank you. Yes, it appeared he was winning, winning, winning. Kicking ass, taking names.

Jocko, behind the bar, had become his close personal friend. Imagine, Wes Farrell the working-class guy here all buddy buddy with the bartender at the St Francis Yacht Club. In his wallet, Farrell had at least half a dozen business cards of people he should call, who might know some people who'd need his services. Where had he been hiding, they all wanted to know.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and the Archbishop of San Francisco was asking Wes if they could have a nightcap together. Wes was finally, after a lifetime of mediocrity, moving into Dooher's circle. God, it was intoxicating!

And certainly one more drink, with Jim Flaherty, wouldn't hurt – a little more of that Oban single malt. They touched their glasses together. 'Great party, Your Excellency. I hope you raised a million dollars.'

'Three hundred and ten thousand in pledges,' he said. 'A new record. This is such a generous city.' Flaherty savored his drink. 'It looks like you had a pretty fair night yourself. I saw you holding court in here most of the evening. You're going to get Mark off, aren't you?'

'It looks like it. I don't want to jinx it, but we've certainly got them on the run.'

The Archbishop sighed. 'How did it even get to this?'

Farrell looked sideways at him. 'It's bad luck to make enemies in the police department. Glitsky's a bad cop.'

'Who just got promoted.'

Again, a sidelong glance. What was Flaherty getting at? He couldn't figure it exactly, so he shrugged. 'He's black. It's his turn.' Then, on a hunch, the new Farrell blurted it right out. 'You having doubts?'

'About Mark? Never. It's just the accusations. You can't help but have them affect your view a little, can you?'

'No, I don't think so. I've had a few myself – doubts – tell the truth. You wonder how many other cases, witnesses show up out of the woodwork who say they saw something, or heard it, or smelled it. What is it, power of suggestion?'

'I think it must be.' The Archbishop sipped his drink.

'Your Excellency,' Farrell said quietly. 'You're not getting cold feet about testifying for us, are you?'

'No, of course not.'

'Good, because I don't know if we're going to need you, but if we do, I wouldn't like to open the door and then have it close on us.'

'No, I understand.'

They both stared out through the rain-pocked glass. Faintly, they heard the wind as it pushed the cypresses nearly to the ground.

'Lousy night out there, isn't it?' Flaherty said. Then, 'You know, when this is over and Mark is found Not Guilty, we ought to try to make this up to him somehow. First he loses his wife, which is horrible enough, then the burden of this trial. He's been through the wringer. I don't know how he's surviving.'

'Well, Mark's a survivor.'

'Plus, he's in love again, I think.'

Farrell sipped his drink and nodded. 'You noticed,' he said laconically. 'Though I suppose if you've got to be in love with somebody, she'd do.'

'Although the timing could be better, couldn't it?'

Farrell agreed that it could. Sitting together at the bar, each harboring his thoughts, the two men sipped at their drinks. The ship's bell behind the bar chimed once, and Jocko said it was last call.

'No, I'm good,' Farrell said, and asked the bartender to call him a taxi.

Bill Carrera wasn't sleeping. His daughter's visit the previous weekend had brought to a head the fear that he had been living with since finding out she'd joined up with Dooher's defense team.

So now, downstairs, looking out over the few remaining lights that remained on at this hour in Ojai, he sat in his deep wingchair, the one he called his Thinking Chair. In spite of the fact that Bill was the kind of man who named things – his Bronco was Trigger, for example; his tennis racket was Slam – he was not without intelligence or insight.

And he was worried sick about Christina.

The light came on in the hallway and after a minute he felt a hand on his shoulder, Irene saying, 'You should have just got me up. How long have you been down here?' She came around and sat on the arm of the chair.

'Forty-five minutes, an hour.'

He was suddenly aware of the ticking of the grandfather clock, and then his wife said, 'She wouldn't be with him if she thought he did it, Bill.'