The Hearing

And Cole had – quite definitely – inflicted them.

He didn't remember that, either.

He'd gone through her purse, taking the money from her wallet, leaving the credit cards, apparently realizing, even in his stupor, that no one would mistake him for an Elaine.

Which led Hardy to the whole question of Cole's sobriety or lack of it during the commission of the crime. Everyone – the arresting officers, Banks, Glitsky – agreed that he seemed to be either drunk or stoned, but as he read over the documents, Hardy realized that there was no proof of that either. No one had given him a breath or blood test, and they'd sweated him long enough that by the time he'd been admitted to the hospital, his blood-alcohol level was about at zero. The prosecution could easily argue that Cole's apparent unconsciousness after his arrest in the police car was an act, and Hardy would be hard put to refute it.

Especially in light of Cole's flight when the arresting officers flushed him. His eventual crash into the hydrant notwithstanding, Cole had run swiftly and with determination away from the pursuing officer, so much so that he had been pulling away during the chase and, if not for the hydrant, nearly invisible on the dark night at street level, would quite possibly have escaped. He was not staggering, not speaking with any slur more noticeable than his usual drug-addict drawl.

After they put him in the squad car, he apparently passed out. Hardy could argue that the adrenaline had kicked in, then worn off. But it was not going to be an easy sell.

He closed the folder again, looked at his drink which had evaporated, checked his watch. It was ten thirty. He considered calling the hospital again, but realized he couldn't bear to hear it tonight.

If Glitsky were dead, he'd still be dead in the morning.

The alcohol hadn't touched him. It was time to go home.

Wearing his paper slippers and orange jail jumpsuit, a sullen inmate named Cullen Leon Alsop sloped into the visitor's room in the homicide detail. He got himself arranged in his wooden chair – leaning back as comfortably as he could with his hands cuffed, a slack-jawed smirk in place. It was the middle of the night, after lockdown, and he was alone here except for the cop who'd escorted him over from the jail, a black guy he incorrectly figured to be about his age. Cullen knew he was a cop but he couldn't have told from what he wore – a blue nylon windbreaker, black shirt with the top button loose, royal blue tie.

Across the table in the airless room, the cop adopted pretty much the same posture as Cullen, and the inmate found this disturbing. He was the one turning over important evidence in a murder case. They ought to be treating him with more respect, give him some donuts and coffee or something, at least get his cuffs off, and instead here's this spear-chucker yo-yo giving him 'tude. He had half a mind to call the whole thing off, but he had to get out of here and this was the only way, so he settled deeper into the unyielding wood and waited.

The cop finally came forward with a weary exhalation of breath. He withdrew a small portable tape recorder from a pocket and put it on the table. 'Sergeant Ridley Banks, Badge fourteen oh two. It's ten thirty on Monday, Feb eight, and I'm in an interrogation room on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice, San Fran, talking to…' Consummately bored, he consulted the folder in front of him. '… Cullen Leon Alsop, white male, twenty-five years old. Case number…' He rattled off a bunch of numbers.

Alsop had had enough. He'd been through this type of thing more than once, and this wasn't feeling right to him. He interrupted. 'Hey.'

Banks looked up, eyes dead. 'Quiet please.'

Cullen shook his head, made some 'I don't believe this' gesture, straightened up in his chair. 'Hey,' he repeated, 'I got a deal going here with the DA and you-'

Banks reached for the recorder and snapped it off. 'Did I just tell you to shut up? When I ask you a question, you answer me. Otherwise, I don't want to hear you. Do you hear me?'

Cullen shrugged.

And Banks came forward like an attacking animal, up out of his chair, slamming a flat palm with a noise like a gunshot on the table. 'THAT WAS A QUESTION! I asked if you could hear me? So if you're smart you say "Yes, sir". Do you hear that?'

Cullen decided to be smart. 'OK, yeah. Yes, sir.'

'Good.' Banks picked up the recorder, pushed the button again, resumed in his monotone. 'Now, Mr Alsop, for the record, you're in jail for selling crack cocaine, your fourth offense, is that correct?'

'Yeah.'

'But you were out on the street again. On probation.'

This seemed vaguely amusing to Cullen. 'Three probations, man. I mean, I don't know why you guys don't all talk to each other or something.'

'Who?'

'All you guys. Cops, DAs, the judges. Decide between you whether it's against the law or not to deal in this town.'

'OK, next time you're worried about it, here's the answer. It is.'

Cullen barked out a laugh. 'So tell it to some judge. I got three convictions in the last seventeen months – I'm talking convictions, man, not arrests. The judge says, "Hey, cut it out, really." I tell him OK, I promise, and he puts me out on the street that day, and tomorrow I'm back in business. Next time, it's "Hey, you promised". So I say I'm sorry and promise again. Then the third time, same thing.'

'Well, this time it isn't the same thing.'

A shrug. 'Maybe. We'll see. Anyway, it's why we're talking right now.'

'About the gun.'

'Yeah, that. The one I lended to Cole.'

'Lended?'

'Yeah. Lended. Something wrong with that?'

'He paid you money for it?'

'He was gonna. That was the plan.'

'When? After he got a day job?'

Cullen Leon Alsop conveyed his disbelief at Banks's stupidity, but saw something in the inspector's eyes, and cut it off. 'Here's the deal,' he said. 'We hang a lot together. Sometimes I get him stuff, you know, put him in touch. But Saturday he's got no money and he needs to score. I mean, bad, you know. And I'm out, too, or he woulda done me I'm sure, friends or no friends. But I got a hold of this little pop-gun.'

'How'd that happen?'

An evasive shrug, eyes all around the room. 'Somebody traded me one a few weeks ago.'

'Who?'

'I don't know. Some guy.'

'For what? What did you trade it for?'

'I don't remember. Something I had. You know, you got a big barter community out there.' Banks made an impatient face, and Cullen got back onto the point. 'Anyway, so I showed it to Cole.'

'And why did he want it, the gun? To rob somebody?'

Cullen flashed an empty smile. 'Hey, good, maybe you oughta be a cop. You got it all figured out.' Something in Banks's face backed him away, though, changed his tone. 'So he was gonna go score, bring me back the piece and fifty bucks on top for my trouble. But I didn't know he was going to kill anybody with it. He wasn't planning anything like that. That's not who he was normally.'

'So who was he?'

A shrug. 'A guy to hang with. Party. You know.'

'I don't know, actually. I understood he lived on the street. Most of those guys don't go to a lot of parties.'

'Yeah, but he lived with his mom. He could get his hands on some wheels when he wanted them. He just liked to party, that's all. Score, get high for a few days. Then maybe he wouldn't get home and crash somewhere else.'

Banks was digesting this, but not comfortably. 'OK, but you got arrested last time. When was that?'

'Maybe Tuesday morning. I don't know. You could look it up easier than me.'

Half an hour later, Ridley Banks was at his desk. His elbows were planted on the blotter in front of him, his hands steepled at his lips. A couple of times a minute he blew into them heavily. His eyes burned with fatigue. It had been a long day in the field and then, returning to the office after nine, he'd picked up his messages and heard about Glitsky's heart attack and also Cullen Leon Alsop, the purported source of the gun that Cole Burgess had used to kill Elaine Wager.