Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A Read Online Free PDF

going to just sit and watch 'em. I want them prosecuted—'
    'Where do we put 'em?'
    This was Dale Boles. His jail upstairs was already filled to capacity. If Aiken wanted the police to start arresting looters he was going to have to take responsibility for housing them.
    Aiken glared at him, chose not to respond and turned to Glitsky. 'What have you found out about the lynching itself? Was it random or what? Maybe we can get some handle on how to stop this thing faster if we know what started it.'
    Glitsky, in corduroys and a leather flight jacket, was sitting on a low filing cabinet at the back of the room. He had a hawkish nose and an old gash of a scar running through his lips, top to bottom, almost as though he'd had an operation for a cleft palate. He was a light chocolate color, wore his hair in a buzz cut, and had startling blue eyes. Answering Aiken, he nevertheless fixed a flat gaze on Chris Locke. 'Jerohm Reese,' he said, 'not that that's any excuse.'
    The mayor cocked his head. 'Who's Jerohm Reese?'
    'What's Reese got to do with this, Abe?' Locke said.
    'I said "who's Reese?",' Aiken repeated.
    Glitsky stood up and quickly told the story. The carjacking. Mike Mullen. The release. Glitsky looked at his watch, glanced at Locke – disdainful. 'Reese was released less than thirteen hours ago. We have a couple of witnesses, not to the lynching itself but they seem to think the mob came from the Cavern, a pub on 2nd and Geary.'
    'Okay,'Aiken said, 'And?'
    'And I was down there. I went into the Cavern myself. Place was empty except for a bartender named Jamie O'Toole who told me it had been dead all night. Slowest night they'd ever had. He'd heard the mob outside, of course, but got scared and didn't want to go out and check—'
    Locke interrupted. 'Jerohm Reese, Abe.'
    The scar between Glitsky's lips went almost white – perhaps he was smiling. 'On the back wall of the Cavern was a huge blown-up picture of a guy. I asked O'Toole who it was and he said it was Mike Mullen. He'd been the accountant for the place. Seeing as I was a homicide cop and all, maybe I'd heard of him.'
    Silence in the room, finally broken by Elaine Wager. 'You mean because Jerohm Reese was released ...?'
    Chris Locke answered everybody. 'I released Jerohm Reese because there wasn't going to be a conviction on him.'
    Glitsky looked at him. 'Well, some of these people seemed to take it wrong, sir.'
    Aiken rubbed a hand over his face. 'You're telling me that this mob happened because of the release of this Jerohm Reese?'
    'That's how I read it, yes, sir. Just the way some people took it wrong when they let off the cops who beat up Rodney King.' He paused and added, 'Again, in Los Angeles.'
    Locke wanted to get back to the nuts and bolts. 'Have we identified any of the mob?'
    'No, sir, not yet. We're working on it, but it's a stonewall out at the Cavern.'
    'We've got one.' Elaine Wager felt free to talk whenever she wanted. Glitsky thought it must be great having a U.S. senator for a mother. 'Have any of you seen the news tonight?'
    Glitsky nodded at her. 'Yep,' he said, 'we're working on him, too. Real hard.'
     

9
     
    Rolling over on his arm woke Shea up. It was still dark out, about the time the somnolent effects of the alcohol usually wore off. His mouth was dry. Unlike most mornings when the throbbing was an insistent dull pounding inside his head, today he lay in his bed immobilized by the pain.
    The pulse of the jackhammer in his skull made him fear to lift his head from the pillow – his ribs, his arms, his hips. He wondered for a moment if he was seriously hurt. This, he told himself, was not a hangover. Hangovers didn't feel like this. (Many mornings he would tell himself that he wasn't hung over, he was sure he hadn't drunk enough to make him hung over, he just hadn't had enough sleep.)
    He rolled to his side and bile came up on him. Staggering in the dark, he bumped five steps to the bathroom and barely made it, crumpling to the floor