Read Online The Hearing by John Lescroart - Free Book Online Page B

was two. Twelve years, so long ago.
    Tom.
    She couldn’t let herself think about him, not now, about what they could have had if . . . It would all be so different now if it hadn’t been for the stupid red light, the stupid truck . . .
    Her awful, awful luck . . .
    The floodgates threatened to open. Nearly bursting with the effort to hold back tears, she finally turned the corner into her cubicle.
    A hard-looking man was leaning against her desk, his arms crossed, impatience etched on his face. He had a hatchet nose and a scar through his lips. “Treya Ghent?” he said brusquely, straightening up and holding out a badge. “I’m Lieutenant Glitsky, homicide. I’d like to talk to you about Elaine Wager.”
    She collapsed into tears.
    ***
    “I thought you’d already arrested somebody.”
    Nearly ten minutes had passed, during which time Glitsky waited at the workstation, allowing Treya to go to the bathroom to regain her composure. Now she was back with him, her emotions clamped down. If anything, she exuded a kind of cold fury he’d seen before, which he interpreted as self-loathing and anger that she’d lost control.
    She sat at her desk and he’d pulled a chair around from someplace and straddled it backwards. So they were at about eye level in the small cubicle. “We do have someone in custody, yes.”
    “So what does that have to do with me? Or with anything else that might have happened here?”
    More hostility. This woman, spooked by the police visit, shattered by a recent murder, didn’t want to talk about it. It should just all go away.
    “You’re right. It may have nothing to do with anybody or anything here,” he replied in his professional tone.
    “What could there be? It was some bum, wasn’t it? She didn’t know him.”
    Glitsky’s lips tightened. “We’re trying to make sure of that.”
    “Didn’t I read that he confessed?”
    “You may have.” The leak on that development hadn’t made Glitsky’s day, and his face showed it.
    “Well? That ought to settle that, don’t you think?”
    Glitsky crossed his arms on the back of the chair and purposefully looked away. Bringing his eyes back to her, he waited yet another moment. Finally, when he thought she was about to begin squirming, he spoke quietly. “It’s my understanding that you and Elaine were close.”
    The question deflected some of the anger. Treya bit at her lower lip, then nodded. “Yes.”
    “Then it would seem to me that you’d want to cooperate in any way you could with the investigation into her death.”
    “I do, but—”
    Glitsky cut her off. “Sometimes people confess to things they didn’t do.”
    “Did that happen here?”
    “No.” The lieutenant drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But even with a righteous confession, we still need to collect all the evidence we can.”
    “Why?”
    “Because when the killer gets a lawyer, which he will, he’ll change his mind and plead not guilty.”
    “After he’s confessed?”
    “It happens. In fact, it always happens. What has he got to lose?”
    Treya sat back in her chair, digesting this. “Then what about the confession?”
    A grim smile. “Oh, the argument will be that it was invalid. It was coerced somehow. Or the police beat it out of him. Or his memory was impaired. Maybe it was a dream, or he just mixed up what had happened.”
    “Mixed up that he killed somebody?”
    “Yeah. You’d think you’d remember something like that, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t after saying they did.”
    Abe and Treya’s eyes locked in some kind of shared understanding across the small space between them. Not for long, though. Both of them, realizing it, looked away. “So,” Treya said, “you need evidence. Of what?”
    This was difficult for Glitsky to explain, for the truth was that he was grasping at straws. It was bad enough that Elaine was dead, but to admit that she’d died in such a senseless attack was almost too much for