'Sixto?'
'We call him Six.'
'And who wouldn't?' Smiling, Jackman walked the few steps back from the window, put his haunch on the desk again, leveled his gaze at her. His expression grew serious. 'So, how is it going on the job front?'
She drew a quick breath, put on her brave face. 'Not too bad, sir, though it's only been a couple of days. I've still got a few weeks on Elaine's files.'
'But you do have some other work lined up?'
'Not quite yet. But I've put the word out. I'm sure it'll begin to trickle in before long. These things don't happen overnight.'
'No, I know that.' But Jackman easily read between the lines. There wasn't much, if any, firm work for her on the horizon.
'My first choice is to stay here.' Her expression revealed that she hadn't premeditated the remark, was somewhat embarrassed by it.
'Well, that's good news. It's refreshing to see loyalty in a person nowadays.' He threw a quick glance over her shoulder, but he wasn't looking at anything. His mind was working. 'Well,' he said matter-of-factly, 'I didn't want to step on the toes of any of my colleagues if they'd already claimed you to work, but since it appears they haven't, it happens that I might have a small project of my own if you could find some time. It's mostly grunt work, I'm afraid, an old civil case that's been on continuance for four years and now suddenly Judge Branard has decided he's ready to review data, all of which needs to be updated. It's probably five hundred deadly dull hours, but it would give you some billable hours until you can fill your book.'
Five hundred hours! He was giving her five hundred hours of work. Twelve weeks' reprieve! She struggled to keep her face impassive, and wasn't entirely successful. 'I'd be very interested in that, sir. I could start-'
He nodded genially, interrupting her. 'Next Monday will be fine. The files are still in storage and I've got to get them moved up here. And I wouldn't want you to give it all your time – say twenty hours a week -I know you've got Elaine's work to finish. But I must warn you again, this is a tedious job. You might want to look it over before signing on.'
She heard herself say that that was a good idea, although she knew that she would dance barefoot on hot coals if it meant keeping her salary and benefits.
'Let's say nine o'clock Monday morning, then?'
'Yes, sir. And thank you.'
He smiled at her. 'You might not thank me when you see what it is.' He turned to look at the rain hammering the window. Told her it was good to see the rain. They needed rain.
She didn't get up.
Perhaps she would like some coffee. He always had some in mid-afternoon – he tended to go all logy after lunch. He had his own espresso machine. She could bill the quarter hour or so to administrative.
When he'd made and poured it, he set the cups on the coffee table and gestured her over to the couch, where they sat on opposite ends, four feet apart.
It was excellent coffee.
Jackman took a sip, nodded with satisfaction, placed the cup back on its saucer. He stole a glance at her, waited while she tasted the brew, had put her own cup down. Apparently reaching some decision, he turned slightly toward her. 'I want to ask your opinion about something if you don't mind.' He took another moment, choosing his words with care. 'About Elaine.'
Treya came forward on the couch, put her elbows on her knees, levelled her eyes at him. 'You have concerns about the case.'
'I don't know if I'd go so far as to call them concerns. If it wasn't a politically-charged death penalty, I don't know that I'd have given it another thought. But since it is…' A shrug. 'I don't know. I ask myself what I would have thought if the police hadn't so conveniently found Mr Burgess leaning over the body, if the DA hadn't already crawled so far out on her public limb. What would you have thought, Treya? You knew her better than anybody else here.'
'If what, specifically?'
'If she'd been found shot with no suspects close at hand.'
She let out a long breath, remembered her coffee, and picked up the cup to get herself a little more time, held it in front of her mouth. 'But that wasn't what happened.'
'How do we know what happened?'
She had not asked herself why the hypothetical question had been so difficult for her. Maybe it was just easier having a ready answer to a painful question – she didn't have to keep coming back to it. Now, however, it looked as though it wasn't going to go away. 'When he talked to me, Lieutenant Glitsky wanted to know the same thing – if I knew anybody who might have wanted to kill her. I told him that no one who knew her could have…'
'Is that what you really think?' Jackman leaned toward her, onto something. 'This Lieutenant Glitsky,' he pressed, 'he's not a cop playing lawyer games, is he?'
'No.'
'Yet he had a confession and still wondered about if he had the man who'd actually killed her? That sounds like doubt to me.'
Treya shrugged. 'He said he'd need evidence even if it proved to be Cole Burgess. He told me he'd plead not guilty and they'd have to convict him at trial anyway. They could expect years of appeals. So if they could put Elaine with him at a clinic or a school or something, maybe they'd have a motive, and that would help.'
'But he was really asking about other people?' Jackman suddenly got up, paced a few steps with his hands in his pockets, turned back to her. 'What I'm getting at is what that woman said at lunch in the conference room, that everybody knew Elaine had enemies. And nobody really seemed to dispute it. I knew of a few problems, so I'm guessing you must have as well.'
Treya sat back into the deep cushions. 'I suppose I must be a little like Jonas. It was hard enough getting it settled in my mind, just putting the bare fact of it someplace…' She shook her head as if to clear it. 'I don't know why you brought this up exactly, sir. What do you think I should do?'
Jackman came back to the couch, sat again at the far end of it. 'I'm not completely sure myself. It's just that no one knew Elaine better than you did, so you of all people might want to keep an open mind about who killed her. Or why.'
Suddenly Treya cocked her head. 'So you're really not certain it was Cole Burgess?'
'I'm not saying it wasn't. Just…'
She was facing him on the couch now, her eyes burning into his. 'Just that maybe it wasn't.'
He shrugged. He didn't know.
And now, suddenly, neither did she.
As a result of his meeting in Chief Rigby' s office, for the first time in nearly thirty years, Abe Glitsky wasn't working as a cop. The powers had decided to place him on administrative leave for an undisclosed period of time. So he was relieved of his command of the homicide detail. They had not asked for his badge or his gun, but he had no trouble seeing that moment in his future. They gave him an escorted half-hour to clear the personal items out of his desk and file cabinet. It only took him fourteen minutes. He'd packed all his stuff into a battered black briefcase. None of his inspectors were around to say goodbye. He had the feeling that this was not a completely random event. Someone had passed the word to his troops that it would be better if they were gone while their ex-lieutenant cleared out.
Rigby said he would be getting in touch in the next week or so, after the preliminary investigation. Until then, Abe might want to prepare some defense; and if not that, lie low.
It was nearly six o'clock. Glitsky had it on the highest authority that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the darkest hour was not just before dawn.
It was right now.
Perversely, the halogen lights over the parking lot behind the Hall of Justice had not switched themselves on. Further proof, although Glitsky didn't need it, that even the inanimate world had entered into the conspiracy against him.