"The kid's saying that?"
"Yeah. And Kensing's cool. He's going, 'It's all right, Terry.' The kid. 'He doesn't know what happened.' Meaning me, you know. But I'm not letting the kid get near him." This, of course, was standard procedure because irate parents-especially fathers-who see jail time in their immediate future have been known to take their own children hostage in an effort to avoid it. "So I get in front of him and call for Jerry, who's gone back to the unit to put in a call for the paramedics. By this time, the wife's sitting up, holding the two girls. There's some citizens-neighbors-coming out to look. Time to put up my piece, which I do."
"Okay."
"Okay, so it's all slowing down. Kensing's cuffed and he asks can he turn around, slow, and I let him, and he tells his kid just stay put, don't worry, it's all going to work out. He tells me, calm as can be, that he's a doctor. He can help his wife. But I'm getting a funny feeling right about now anyway."
"About what?"
"About it's mostly always the guy, you know, sir. Doing damage."
"I know."
"But this guy. He's almost relaxed. Nowhere near the usual rage. He says she just slipped and I'm goin', 'Sure she did,' but he says, 'Look,' and nods down to this mark on the landing, where it's pretty obvious at least somebody slipped. A wet newspaper. And the kid goes, 'It's true. I saw her. She just slipped. He didn't touch her.'
"So I'm thinking, Shit, now what? I mean, we get to a DD and somebody's going downtown, right? I mean, usually the guy, but no way are we leaving without one of them. It's a real drag coming back two hours after everything was patched up fine with the lovebirds, except then one of them shoots the other one. You know what I mean?"
"I hear you," Glitsky said.
"But what am I going to do? I walk Kensing down the steps and put him in the back of the unit, locked up, and this time one of the neighbors comes up-I got her ID and everything, if you want to talk to her-and she tells me the same thing. She saw it all-Kensing was completely defensive, never hit her, she scratched him, came at him again and slipped." Page took a breath. "So Jerry and I have a little powwow and break up the two daughters and ask them about it-same story, it's the wife all the way. And by this time, the ambulance is here. The wife's groggy and can't walk on one foot. Plus she's going to need stitches in her head. So Jerry and I decide she goes, the guy stays home." In the course of the long telling, Page's voice had grown in confidence. Now he spoke matter-of-factly. "I don't know what else we could have done, Lieutenant. Four witnesses pegged the wife. The guy didn't do anything wrong."
Glitsky was tempted to ask Page if he realized that the man he hadn't arrested was the prime suspect in a homicide investigation, but why would the officer know that? And what point would it serve? And now for a while at least, Ann Kensing was safe. Unhappy and hurt, but safe. He'd take that. "So he's at her house now with the kids?"
"I don't know, sir. He might be at his home address, which I've got. Would you like to have that?"
"I've got it," Glitsky replied. "Maybe I'll go have a word with him."
"Sorry about not letting you in, Lieutenant, but I've got my children in here. They've seen enough cops for the day. One of 'em's already asleep and the rest of us are watching videos. It's been a long day."
"I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. It won't take fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen minutes? It won't take any time if I don't let you in. It seemed to me we went over everything already the other night and according to my lawyer, I shouldn't have talked to you then."
"That was before today. Before the fight with your wife."
"We didn't have a fight. Fighting takes two people. She attacked me."
"Why were you over there in the first place?"
"It was my day for the kids. I had Giants tickets. Pretty simple. Look, this really isn't a good time, all right? Now I'm being a father to my children, who are traumatized and exhausted enough." Kensing shifted to his other foot, let out a heavy breath. "Look, I don't want to seem like a hard-ass, Lieutenant, but unless you have a warrant to come in here, good night."
In his Noe Street railroad-style duplex apartment, Brendan Driscoll worked at his computer in the tiny room behind the kitchen all the way at the back. In spite of the beautiful day, he'd remained in the shaded, musty, airless cubicle, completely engrossed in his work, since an hour after he'd woken up, at 10:30 in the morning, with the worst hangover of his adult life.
Now, nearly twelve hours later, he stretched, rubbed his hands over his face, and pushed his chair back away from the terminal. In a minute, he was in the kitchen popping four more aspirin and pouring himself an iced tea when Roger appeared in the doorway.
"It moves," Roger said.
Brendan looked over at him. "Barely."
"How's the head?"
"The head is awful. The head may never recover. The rest isn't really that great, either. What's in a Long Island iced tea, anyway? And how many of them did I have?"
Roger shrugged, then shook his head. "You told me to stop counting, remember? But I know that was after the third one, when I mentioned it might be smarter to stop."
"I should have listened to you."
"This is always the case. So," Roger inquired, "with all the hours you've spent atoning for your sins in your cave today, is your penance served?"
"It isn't penance I'm seeking," Brendan said. "It's revenge." He went over and pulled up a chair at the kitchen table. "I just feel so betrayed."
Roger sat down with him. "I know. I don't blame you."
"That's my problem. I don't know who to blame." He sighed deeply. "I mean, do I blame Kensing, or his stupid wife for making Tim feel like he had to jog every day. That's what created the opportunity in the first place."
"Well, the jogging didn't kill him, Brendan."
"I know. But if he hadn't gone out…"
"He wouldn't have been hit, and he wouldn't have been at the hospital… We've been through all this already."
They had, ad nauseam, Brendan realized. He sighed, then squeezed his temples, wincing from the hangover pain. "You're right, you're right. It staggers me, though, that Ross thought he could buy me off and purge my files. Could he really think that I couldn't see this coming, that I wouldn't be prepared?"
22
Jackman was as good as his word, and on Monday morning, Hardy had two more binders of discovery on the Markham case ready for him when he got to his office.
He got himself a cup of coffee, settled down at his desk, and opened the first folder. Someone had obviously lit a fire under the transcribers, because already several interviews had been typed up, including Glitsky's with Kensing, with Anita Tong the housekeeper, Bracco's with Ann Kensing. He flipped pages quickly. Nothing was tabbed yet-that would be one of his more tedious jobs-but he was satisfied to see much of what he'd hoped and expected: the original incident report at the hit and run; the hospital PM, performed immediately after Markham's death; Strout's autopsy findings and official death certificate; the first cut of the crime scene analysis of Markham's home.
He'd been at it for over an hour, unaware of the passing of time. His hand automatically went to his coffee mug and he brought it to his lips. The coffee had gone cold. Suddenly he sat up straight with almost a physical jolt. He raised his eyes from his binder, almost surprised to see the familiar trappings of his own office. For a while there, with the taste of the bitter dregs of coffee on his tongue, caught up in the analysis of evidence, he was a DA again, putting on this case rather than defending it. The feeling was unexpected and somehow unsettling.