board early. Better to have that covered before they arrest him.”
“They won’t do that until they find her body. Even with this affair in the mix.”
“No? How much you want to bet?”
“You really think so?”
Glitsky nodded. “They’ll find a way. Trust me.”
19
W ES F ARRELL ATTAINED his eminent position as the district attorney of San Francisco more or less by chance. As a lifelong defense attorney, he had no record as a prosecutor. In fact, his notoriety stemmed mostly from a high-profile case he had won years before, for the defense, getting—unbeknowst to him at the time—a guilty murderer who happened to be his best friend, off with a clean acquittal. Beyond that, he had gained a certain hip cachet as a lovable oddball because of the themed T-shirts he wore every day under his business suit—and showed off regularly to friends, associates, and reporters. Today’s shirt read: “Smiling on the outside, berserk on the inside,” and it was indicative of, albeit slightly less offensive than, most of the others. More typical in terms of general sensitivity had been yesterday’s: “I hate being bipolar. It’s awesome!”
When friends had persuaded him to seek the office three years before against a heavily favored rival, he’d gone on the ticket, half as a simple acknowledgment of their belief in him, and half to strike a blow for what he called moderation in the face of a super-lenient prosecutorial culture that had essentially given up on trials in favor of plea bargains and counseling in lieu of the most toothless of punishments. At least, Wes had said, he’d put some bite back into the system. In a Farrell administration, violent criminals would be tried and, if convicted, do prison time. (Almost anywhere else, this would not have been considered a particularly aggressive stance for a prosecutor, but in San Francisco, it was considered right-wing extremism, and his nastiest detractors had labeled him Fascist Farrell.) In any event, fate played into his hands when his front-running opponent died the week before the election, and Farrell was swept to victory by a whopping ninety votes out of three hundred and fifty thousand cast.
But a cultural shift had to start at the top, and in spite of his campaign rhetoric, Wes in his heart was a very long way from being a hard-core law-and-order guy. After a lifetime at the defense bar, his sympathies had always instinctively gone to the accused. He believed there were reasons, and usually good ones, why people went bad.
But more and more lately, he found himself not caring about that. His job was prosecuting miscreants. Whether or not he understood them or their upbringing played very little if any role in the process.
In his first months as DA, on a very public stage, he had to figure out who he was, what he really believed. What had begun more or less as a parlor game—what if he humored some of his buddies and actually ran for DA?—had turned into the marrow of his existence. Now he was San Francisco’s chief prosecutor. He had a job that the people in the city he loved had elected him—albeit narrowly—to do. And gradually (some said glacially), he began to think and act like a DA, to the point where he often found himself in the middle of a prosecutorial moment without having decided to be there.
In the grip of just such a situation, he walked down the hallway when his official workday was done at a little past six o’clock, pausing just outside the front door to the Office of the District Attorney, Bureau of Investigations. Here fourteen inspectors worked under his nominal supervision, although, like most of the DAs who’d served before, he never exerted direct authority over any of these people.
He continued down to the parking lot, backed his tiny Smart car out of his assigned parking spot, and drove over to Waterbar on the Embarcadero. Leaving his car with the valet, he entered the restaurant and saw Frank Dobbins, his chief of
“They won’t do that until they find her body. Even with this affair in the mix.”
“No? How much you want to bet?”
“You really think so?”
Glitsky nodded. “They’ll find a way. Trust me.”
19
W ES F ARRELL ATTAINED his eminent position as the district attorney of San Francisco more or less by chance. As a lifelong defense attorney, he had no record as a prosecutor. In fact, his notoriety stemmed mostly from a high-profile case he had won years before, for the defense, getting—unbeknowst to him at the time—a guilty murderer who happened to be his best friend, off with a clean acquittal. Beyond that, he had gained a certain hip cachet as a lovable oddball because of the themed T-shirts he wore every day under his business suit—and showed off regularly to friends, associates, and reporters. Today’s shirt read: “Smiling on the outside, berserk on the inside,” and it was indicative of, albeit slightly less offensive than, most of the others. More typical in terms of general sensitivity had been yesterday’s: “I hate being bipolar. It’s awesome!”
When friends had persuaded him to seek the office three years before against a heavily favored rival, he’d gone on the ticket, half as a simple acknowledgment of their belief in him, and half to strike a blow for what he called moderation in the face of a super-lenient prosecutorial culture that had essentially given up on trials in favor of plea bargains and counseling in lieu of the most toothless of punishments. At least, Wes had said, he’d put some bite back into the system. In a Farrell administration, violent criminals would be tried and, if convicted, do prison time. (Almost anywhere else, this would not have been considered a particularly aggressive stance for a prosecutor, but in San Francisco, it was considered right-wing extremism, and his nastiest detractors had labeled him Fascist Farrell.) In any event, fate played into his hands when his front-running opponent died the week before the election, and Farrell was swept to victory by a whopping ninety votes out of three hundred and fifty thousand cast.
But a cultural shift had to start at the top, and in spite of his campaign rhetoric, Wes in his heart was a very long way from being a hard-core law-and-order guy. After a lifetime at the defense bar, his sympathies had always instinctively gone to the accused. He believed there were reasons, and usually good ones, why people went bad.
But more and more lately, he found himself not caring about that. His job was prosecuting miscreants. Whether or not he understood them or their upbringing played very little if any role in the process.
In his first months as DA, on a very public stage, he had to figure out who he was, what he really believed. What had begun more or less as a parlor game—what if he humored some of his buddies and actually ran for DA?—had turned into the marrow of his existence. Now he was San Francisco’s chief prosecutor. He had a job that the people in the city he loved had elected him—albeit narrowly—to do. And gradually (some said glacially), he began to think and act like a DA, to the point where he often found himself in the middle of a prosecutorial moment without having decided to be there.
In the grip of just such a situation, he walked down the hallway when his official workday was done at a little past six o’clock, pausing just outside the front door to the Office of the District Attorney, Bureau of Investigations. Here fourteen inspectors worked under his nominal supervision, although, like most of the DAs who’d served before, he never exerted direct authority over any of these people.
He continued down to the parking lot, backed his tiny Smart car out of his assigned parking spot, and drove over to Waterbar on the Embarcadero. Leaving his car with the valet, he entered the restaurant and saw Frank Dobbins, his chief of
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