The Hearing

10

CityTalk

By Jeffrey Elliot

In a highly-publicized talk before the Commonwealth Club yesterday afternoon, District Attorney Sharron Pratt put on a new hat and, like the others she's tried on in her bedeviled administration, this one doesn't fit her too well either.

Yesterday's reincarnation of our most chameleon-like elected official featured herself as the tough-talkin', straight-shootin', crime-stoppin' Avenger of Evil in our fair city. And about time, too. With a new election coming up this fall and her poll numbers at an all-time low, Ms Pratt needed something to perk up her fuzzy-headed liberal image and lackluster conviction rate.

Although she has gone to bat big-time for the interests of her political cronies and contributors, especially in the ongoing Gironde matter – at this rate we may never have a finished airport – this District Attorney has declined to prosecute any number of lower profile offenses, including prostitution, recreational drug use, vagrancy, trespassing, vandalism (especially graffiti tagging, which she terms a 'creative expression of under-privileged youth'), and many others, up to and including murder if it appears the death might have been motivated by the proper political position. If it's not Ms Pratt's kind of law, she's not going to prosecute anyone for breaking it.

Nevertheless, yesterday's talk marked a breakthrough, as it seemed to acknowledge for the first time that at least part of her job as the city's chief prosecutor is to put criminals behind bars. Actually, in a flurry of hyperbole, she took things rather farther than that, actually going so far as to ask for the death penalty for the young man who is accused – though note, not yet convicted – of killing former assistant district attorney Elaine Wager.

The man's name is Cole Burgess. He is my brother-in-law. He is twenty-seven years old, a college graduate, a homeless person, and a heroin addict. Though he has confessed to the crime, he does not remember committing it. He expects to plead not guilty, and a jury will have to convict him, then sentence him to death. To do so, it will have to ignore the man's blood alcohol level as well as the fact that he was suffering from heroin withdrawal. The jury will need to overlook that, except for drugs, Cole Burgess has little criminal history, much less a history of violence. He is no worse than two dozen other murderers where Ms Pratt has declined to ask for special circumstances, much less death.

And yet she has already passed her verdict on Mr Burgess, and has rendered her judgement. Politics dictate that she must call for the death penalty.

The District Attorney has chosen well the first victim of her war on crime. Cole Burgess isn't going to have many defenders. A straight white male, he is politically unconnected in our Balkanized burg. As a homeless man, he is already hated by the majority of San Francisco's citizens, who have grown weary of panhandlers and bums. As a heroin addict, he is confused, outcast, and without hope.

One is hard pressed to believe that Ms Pratt does not know all this, and has not considered it cynically. But it will get her votes, and she's going to need every last one.

She should be ashamed of herself.

Although it wasn't ten blocks from his own duplex, Glitsky had never before been to the home of the Chief of the Inspectors' Bureau, Captain Frank Batiste.

Now, still before eight this miserable morning, he found himself shrouded in fog, ringing the doorbell on the front porch of a charming Victorian house on Cherry Street. He'd passed from the sidewalk up through a trimmed yard. A couple of matching white wicker chairs claimed some proprietary spots on the porch, thriving plants sprouted out of pots all over the place. For a fleeting moment, he felt a stab of envy. Batiste had been Glitsky's immediate predecessor as head of homicide. Other cops whose careers had followed pretty much the same trajectory as his own, how could they live in such serenity? How did they get there? Not that his place was a dump, he didn't think so, anyway. It was clean, but…

The thought, unwelcome in any case, got interrupted by the door opening, Batiste's honest face, his hand outstretched. 'Hey, Abe. You're the first one here, come on in.'

'Sorry to bother you at home, Frank.'

A 'get real' look. 'Please. You want some coffee? No, I remember.' Batiste snapped his fingers. 'Tea. Earl Grey OK?'

'Better than that.'

'Good.'

They walked the long hallway to the back, Glitsky vaguely aware of the family pictures all along the wall, the dozens of sports trophies on a long, thin table. He'd known Frank for twenty years and was hardly aware that he was married, much less the father of what looked to be at least four kids.

In the kitchen, a huge black Lab lay sprawled by the back door. 'That's Arlene,' Batiste said, crossing over to her, petting her head. 'She won't bite. In fact, she probably won't move. She might be dead, I'm not sure.' He grabbed a handful of pelt and pulled it back and forth. 'Arlene, you dead yet?'

The giant old dog opened one eye and Batiste lit right up. 'Whoa! Arlene. Putting on a show for our guest, now, aren't you?' He turned to Abe. 'She must like you.' Then, an afterthought. 'Not dead.'

After he'd left Hardy's office the previous night, Abe had paid a call on his old, wise father, Nat. They'd shot things around awhile, and when they'd finished, Abe had called the captain. He and Batiste had served together in the homicide detail. They had a long professional history and understood each other, especially in their shared belief that politics sucked.

In the past couple of years, Glitsky had realized with certainty that in spite of his exalted rank, Frank was at odds with the movers in the department. The Chief, Dan Rigby, inhabited a different landscape, seldom venturing from the rarified air of policy – money, budgets, numbers, arrest rates, diversity issues. Rigby 'interfaced' with the other city departments – the mayor's office, the DA, all the crap for which Glitsky had no use.

And in this, he was sure that Batiste was still a cop's cop, and hence his ally.

Which was why he'd finally called him and laid out his role in this situation, clearly and without any excuses. He admitted that things had gone wrong in the Burgess case from the very beginning, and it had largely been because of him, his influence, his attitude.

Abe didn't feel he could do much in the way of correcting things until he'd first cleared the slate with his co-workers, with Batiste, Medrano and Petrie, with Ridley Banks. That matter of honor was his priority. After that, he could take his fight anywhere else he needed, but not without telling his men first. He also wanted the coroner, John Strout, to hear what he had to say.

So Batiste had suggested the early morning meet.

It was a modern kitchen and Batiste moved about it easily. He produced a genuine whistling kettle, then a teapot. He spooned leaves from a porcelain canister into a silver ball and closed it up, dropping it into the pot. 'Be a minute,' he said, then added, without missing a beat, 'So. This thing's going to heat up?' He wasn't talking about the kettle.

Arms crossed and face set, Batiste stood leaning against his kitchen counter. The rest of them had taken seats around a battered plank wooden kitchen table that had seen a zillion meals – the remnants of some recent ones still remained.

Glitsky finished his spiel and scratched at a petrified lump of ketchup, waiting for the reactions. Judging from the body language and the palpable air of tension in the room, they were not going to be positive.

Arlene, still not dead, groaned in the agonies of some dog dream.

Inspector Ridley Banks scraped his chair forward, straightening up at the table. His face was a dark mask, the voice strained. 'The man confessed, Abe. On tape, he admits he shot her.'

'That's right. And that's why we're here, Rid.' Glitsky didn't blame Ridley for his fury. He had given his lieutenant what he had wanted. Now because of it, he was screwed. 'The message here today is that the buck stops with me on this one. I'm taking the heat.'

'If we dump the confession,' Ridley said.

This, of course, wasn't the job of the police, but Glitsky knew what he meant. 'If we go to the DA, yeah…'

'And you want to run by me again why we want to do that?' Ridley's insubordinate tone would ordinarily have drawn a rebuke, but not today.

'Because of what I just told you,' Glitsky replied. 'There are problems matching what Burgess said with what apparently happened.'

'So what? There's always problems. The guy confessed. He had the GSR…'

As Batiste had noted, things were heating up. 'It's not about guilt, Rid. Nobody's talking about guilt. But there's going to be a hearing on the confession, and I'm going to tell the truth.'

Ridley glared. 'You're saying I'm not?'

'No. I'm not saying that.'

'You weren't in the room, Abe. I was.'

'I saw the tape, Rid. I know what I told you to do.'

'And I did it. By the book. It's my ass on-'

'Guys, guys. Easy.' This was Batiste, stepping in. 'I think the point is we're trying to get clear here on the confession. Isn't that right, Abe?'

Glitsky nodded.

'Excuse me, sir.' Ridley hadn't cooled off much. He was talking to Batiste, not Abe. 'I must be missing something. I got a confession from this dirtball. Anybody see on the tape where I'm telling him he gets some smack if he talks? No? No, I don't think so. What? I'm an idiot?'

'Nobody's saying that, Rid.' Glitsky again.

'No? That's funny. 'Cause it sounds like you're saying I made him lie, then tried to hide it off tape.'

'No. Only that he should have been cleared by the paramedics and I ordered otherwise.'

'Uh-uh, no.' Banks wasn't having it. 'You didn't sweat him. I did. It's me on the tape. And it's a righteous confession.'

'I don't think so,' Glitsky said. 'A good chunk of what he said is just wrong. He said he crossed over to her. After she was shot. He remembered she was this lump on the ground.'

The lanky coroner figured it was time he got on the boards. Meeting the eyes of the men around the table, he stretched out his arms and cracked his knuckles, inserting his laconic drawl into the silence. 'She was shot with the gun right up against her hair. There wasn't no abrasions on her knees, legs, anywheres. She was laid down gentle as you please.'

Glitsky, the voice of reason. 'Burgess was drunk as a lord, Ridley. If he'd tried to hold her up and let her down easy, he'd have fallen with her.'

'Maybe he did,' the inspector replied. 'He fell under her, broke her fall.' He turned to Strout. 'No abrasions then, am I right, John?'

Strout cast a glance at Glitsky. 'It could have happened.'

Banks continued. 'I really don't see the problem, Abe. I didn't put a gun to this kid's head and make him talk.'

'He wasn't in withdrawal? He wasn't just agreeing to what you said?'

'Maybe. I don't remember exactly, it was a long day. But either way, nobody's gonna prove it. And even if he was, what of it? He could tell the truth and get the interrogation over with. So for once in his life the scumbag made a good decision.'

'The details are all wrong.'

'So his brain's fried. He gets things wrong. Big surprise. Let a jury work it out. We got plenty, more than enough to charge him. Isn't that what we do?'

Glitsky was unwilling to give it up. 'We can't get him this way. That's all I'm saying.'

Banks shook his head. 'Burgess was there, Abe. He took her stuff, he had the gun, he fired the gun, he fucking said he did it, all right? Jesus. So he changes his story when he starts feeling better? Who wouldn't?'

Batiste cleared his throat. 'Abe?'

The lieutenant raised his eyes.

'It's admirable that you wanted to protect your men when you thought you'd pushed them to excesses, but I don't see evidence that anything went too far here. I'm coming down with Ridley. Going back to Pratt at this point would be pointless. We're going to stand behind the confession. We're going to stand together on it…' He let that hang, the message clear.

Glitsky, defeated, scanned the faces around the table. 'Well,' he said, 'I want to thank you all for coming.'