The Keeper by John Lescroart Page B

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.”
    “What were you looking for?”
    “Well, trauma to the head . . . what would you have been looking for?”
    “You 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?”
    “Sure.”
    “Okay.” 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?”
    “You think Cushing’s part of all this?”
    “The 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.”
    “You want to get him,” Glitsky said.
    “I 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.”
    “I’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. Sorry. I got wound up. It’s just I hear about any little tenuous connection to Cushing, and I start thinking this might be the big break I’ve been looking for.”
    “I’ll keep an open mind, but except for here, I haven’t heard a whisper about Cushing in any of this. If anything pops, I’ll let you know.”
    “You da man, Abe,” Elliot said. “And hey, welcome back.”

12
    H AL C HASE EASED himself into the comfortable chair that faced the sheriff’s desk. As always in the presence of his boss, he was somewhat nervous, and more so now because he had no idea why he’d been summoned. Adam Foster, the boss’s chief deputy and a hard-ass of the first order, hadn’t given him any hints to ease his mind while he’d waited in the outside office, although he came up with a few possibilities.
    Hal had had several interruptions in his workday yesterday, including: extra time off at lunch when he’d gone over and called on Dismas Hardy; the earlier interview with the Homicide people; Abe Glitsky’s appearance before his shift was technically finished. Burt Cushing wasn’t a big fan of flexibility in work scheduling. You were supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, and by God, that’s where he wanted you to be. To keep a jail full of animals at bay, you had to keep order, and a key element of order was punctuality. You were where your comrades expected you to be so that you could be counted on—for backup, for protection, for the power of numbers, and for simple safety.
    A relatively short, squat, powerful fireplug of a man, Cushing made up for his stature with an oversize personality. Hal found it difficult to read Cushing’s face and, until he knew why he was here, hardly dared to look at it. But he knew its features well: pitted pale cheeks, closely set dark eyes under a low brooding forehead, a brush-cut marine haircut, a cauliflower nose over a thin-lipped mouth that somehow managed to convey warmth with a frequent smile. Hal had heard the voice rumble in anger, had heard it command attention with a low-volume order. But today, when it came, the voice was solicitous and sincere. “How are you holding up, son?” he asked.
    “Trying, sir.”
    “Those Homicide people giving