'I don't think so,' Glitsky said. 'A good chunk of what he said is just wrong. He said he crossed over to her. After she was shot. He remembered she was this lump on the ground.'
The lanky coroner figured it was time he got on the boards. Meeting the eyes of the men around the table, he stretched out his arms and cracked his knuckles, inserting his laconic drawl into the silence. 'She was shot with the gun right up against her hair. There wasn't no abrasions on her knees, legs, anywheres. She was laid down gentle as you please.'
Glitsky, the voice of reason. 'Burgess was drunk as a lord, Ridley. If he'd tried to hold her up and let her down easy, he'd have fallen with her.'
'Maybe he did,' the inspector replied. 'He fell under her, broke her fall.' He turned to Strout. 'No abrasions then, am I right, John?'
Strout cast a glance at Glitsky. 'It could have happened.'
Banks continued. 'I really don't see the problem, Abe. I didn't put a gun to this kid's head and make him talk.'
'He wasn't in withdrawal? He wasn't just agreeing to what you said?'
'Maybe. I don't remember exactly, it was a long day. But either way, nobody's gonna prove it. And even if he was, what of it? He could tell the truth and get the interrogation over with. So for once in his life the scumbag made a good decision.'
'The details are all wrong.'
'So his brain's fried. He gets things wrong. Big surprise. Let a jury work it out. We got plenty, more than enough to charge him. Isn't that what we do?'
Glitsky was unwilling to give it up. 'We can't get him this way. That's all I'm saying.'
Banks shook his head. 'Burgess was there, Abe. He took her stuff, he had the gun, he fired the gun, he fucking said he did it, all right? Jesus. So he changes his story when he starts feeling better? Who wouldn't?'
Batiste cleared his throat. 'Abe?'
The lieutenant raised his eyes.
'It's admirable that you wanted to protect your men when you thought you'd pushed them to excesses, but I don't see evidence that anything went too far here. I'm coming down with Ridley. Going back to Pratt at this point would be pointless. We're going to stand behind the confession. We're going to stand together on it…' He let that hang, the message clear.
Glitsky, defeated, scanned the faces around the table. 'Well,' he said, 'I want to thank you all for coming.'
11
Hardy checked his watch – 8:35. Cole was already supposed to have been delivered. After his experience at the jail three days ago, he was finding himself challenged in the patience arena regarding the jail's employees. But here in the hallway behind the courtrooms on the second floor of the Hall of Justice, he knew that five minutes was a unit of time that had no real meaning. Until somebody was at least fifteen minutes late, they were on time, so he cooled his heels outside the holding cell behind Department 11 and tried to ignore the show, which – given the traffic – was not all that easy.
The hallway, which ran most of the length of the building behind the courtrooms, hummed with life or, more precisely in Hardy's view, with lowlife. Defendants in their orange jumpsuits went shuffling and clanking along – handcuffs and sometimes chains – escorted by their bailiffs. This was the morning delivery from the jail next door to the courtrooms here, a steady and depressing parade.
It reminded him of nothing so much as a zoo, the inmates chained and moved from one cage to another by their handlers, who only forgot the dangerous nature of their charges at their own peril. Hardy had been here a hundred times, and it never failed to depress him, because in fact he knew that every one of these defendants was a human being who'd been born with rights, dignity, hope. Even, in most cases, a mother and perhaps a father who had loved them, at least for a while. Now, here, they were reduced to little more than animals – to be caged and controlled.
Sadly, he realized that this was pretty much the way it had to be if the system was to handle them. Because he didn't fool himself – nearly every inmate passing him had lost their hope, abandoned their dignity, forfeited all but their most basic rights.
He wished they'd hurry up and deliver Cole. He'd be ready for Prozac himself by the time his client arrived. So he leaned against the cell door, then went inside and sat. He put his briefcase on the concrete bench, intending to take the opportunity to get some paperwork out of the way, keep his attitude up.
But it wasn't to be.
He saw the whole thing, since he was just checking the holding cell for Cole's arrival one last time when it began. He heard the bell of the elevator and as the doors cracked open, the sharp command. 'Move it! Move it! Now!' From the tone, something was already going very wrong.
Looking over, he was watching as something huge filled the elevator door opening. Two bailiffs stood slightly behind and to either side of a gigantic Samoan. The man probably weighed three hundred pounds. The bailiffs had no room to move.
The man was handcuffed but not shackled. He wore a hairnet. The jumpsuit he'd been issued didn't even come close to covering the enormous flesh of his tattooed torso; the sleeves ended midway between the elbow and the wrist. Hardy didn't know what had been going on in the elevator, but by the time the doors opened, the inmate's face was a mask of rage.
One of the bailiffs prodded him – it didn't seem to Hardy as though it was the first time – and suddenly, with a true primal scream, the man slammed himself backwards into the bailiff. Then, with surprising agility, he shifted and body-slammed the other guard into the elevator's walls.
The two guards were both on the floor.
'Jesus Christ!' Hardy leaped back toward the holding cell, putting distance between himself and the Samoan, who was exploding out of the elevator in his direction.
But everyone on the floor had heard the scream, and now doors were opening all over the place, alarms going off, bailiffs appearing from courtrooms, judges from their chambers, other inmates – already under escort – starting to get into it.
A klaxon sounded and voices were yelling, 'Lock it down! Lock it down!'
The Samoan had obviously been in the hallway before and knew just where he wanted to go. He broke left in a shambling run, taking out another bailiff who was, stupidly, trying to pull his radio and perhaps try to fight it out in a hallway jammed with humanity.
Stopping the man was going to be a problem.
The Samoan had reached the end of the hall, bailiffs and other inmates hugging the walls lest they be crushed in the rush. But there was no real way out. The same alarm that sounded the klaxon effectively closed off the corridor, automatically locking the double doors at the end of it. By the time the Samoan realized he couldn't open them and turned again for another run at the hallway, three bailiffs stood in his way, as well as three uniformed officers with their guns drawn.
Hardy heard another scream, an anguished and rage-driven cry. Other bailiffs and cops were backfilling behind the original five until, in under another minute, a phalanx had formed, effectively sealing off any possibility of escape.
The Samoan turned back to the locked doors. Turned around again, held his cuffed hands out in front of him. 'Shoot me,' he screamed. 'Please, shoot me.'
Because of the incident, Cole was even later. He told Hardy that they'd picked him up at the hospital during the night, and this had obviously disturbed his beauty rest. In his orange jumpsuit, with his slack posture and unkempt hair, the boy appeared malnourished and pathetic. But Hardy thought his eyes were clearer than they had been the day before. That wasn't saying much, but it was something, and this morning Hardy would take whatever he could get.
He was still shaken by what he'd witnessed. A little more critical mass of inmates and it would have been a riot. Another rush by the Samoan and he would have been shot dead. Instead, he had finally gone terrifyingly quiet. He sat on the floor and let them come and shackle him and take him away, belted down to a gurney.