Read Online The Keeper by John Lescroart - Free Book Online

could pretty much guarantee that if you talk to him about what’s going on at the jail, about the culture of the place, you’ll get a few surprises. Anything Burt Cushing’s involved in probably has dirt sticking to it someplace.”
    This abrupt segue to the sheriff himself brought Glitsky up short. “Do we know that Hal Chase knows Cushing, other than he’s his boss’s boss, or something like that?”
    â€œNo.” Elliot sighed and pushed back his wheelchair again. “It’s probably wishful thinking on my part.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œThinking your guy Chase might be the way to get inside over there, to find out what’s really happening.”
    â€œAnd ‘over there’ is where?”
    â€œThe Sheriff’s Department. I figure there’s got to be a crack in the armor someplace, but three or four years now, I’ve been waiting and watching and hoping—you should see my files—and nothing ever seems to develop into a real story, which in my soul I believe is a big one. Have you met our good sheriff personally?”
    â€œCouple of times at law enforcement events. If I remember, he gravitated toward the political side. I never had a conversation with him.”
    â€œProbably just as well. He’s one of those guys, if his lips are moving, he’s lying. Anyway, I was thinking that if you’ve got a legitimate reason to talk to your guy Chase, he might say something about how things are going, in a general way, at the jail and environs. If he did that, and you thought it smelled funny, maybe you could relay some of that back to me.”
    Glitsky sat back and crossed his legs. “What are you looking for?”
    Elliot pointed at his computer. “Let me show you something. These files I’ve been keeping.” A few keyboard strokes, and he leaned in to read his screen. “Here’s last October. Another inmate, Alanos Tussaint, died of blunt force trauma to the head, suffered when he evidently slipped and fell in a holding cell at the jail. In a jail full of people, nobody noticed him on the ground, unconscious, for an hour. Mr. Tussaint’s death was investigated and apparently found to be accidental, since there was no follow-up story of any kind, and believe me, I looked.”
    â€œWhat were you looking for?”
    â€œWell, trauma to the head . . . what would you have been looking for?”
    â€œYou think he was beaten?”
    Elliot shrugged. “Another inmate talked to the SFPD and said some guards were involved. Later, he retracted that accusation. And nothing ever came of it. No prosecutions, no nothing. You want another one?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œOkay.” A few more keystrokes. “Back to August, three heroin ODs in one night, which leads to the question, ‘Where are these guys getting super-pure and therefore deadly black tar heroin if they are already locked up in jail?’ Do you think it’s remotely possible that guards could be smuggling drugs into the population? And if that’s the case, can the sheriff really be unaware of it?”
    â€œYou think Cushing’s part of all this?”
    â€œThe short answer is absolutely. Though he runs a very tight ship and nobody’s leaking. And that’s just stuff around the jail, not even counting the irregularities and problems with the evictions he’s in charge of.”
    â€œYou want to get him,” Glitsky said.
    â€œI think he’s a corrupt despot and a menace, Abe. But he’s got loyal people, I’ll give him that. Loyal as only fear can make you. And as you well know, the code of silence among the guards makes the Mafia look like a gossipy quilting bee.”
    â€œI’ve heard that,” Glitsky said. “But interesting and provocative as all this is, we’ve come a long way from Hal Chase and his missing wife.”
    Elliot broke a chagrined smile. “I know.