The Rule of Law

by John Lescroart

  “Some would say so.” He brushed his hands on his pants. “So what can I do for you?”

  “Really”—Hardy sat back in his chair—“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. Have you heard about Celia Montoya?”

  “Killing herself? Yeah. Awful stuff.”

  “And another connection to Jameson.”

  Elliott frowned. “I must have missed that. I heard she hung herself in her cell.”

  “Yeah, but why was she in a cell to begin with?”

  With another shake of his head, Elliott said, “I still don’t get it, Diz. She was in a cell because Immigration picked her up, right? To say nothing about being charged with murder. Either one of those will get you in a cell. What’s it got to do with Jameson?”

  “How about if she didn’t kill anybody? If the indictment was rushed and flawed?”

  “Do you have any proof that it was?”

  “Not yet. Maybe I will before too long. But in another sense it doesn’t even matter. Even if she did kill this Valdez guy. The way Jameson handled it all, forcing her to run, no real investigation. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Sure, and I’m not denying it’s sad as hell and bad luck for her. But getting all the way back till you blame it on Jameson—that’s a reach. Not that I don’t think the guy’s a cretin.”

  “He’s more than a cretin, Jeff. That’s my point. I think he’s ultimately responsible for this girl’s suicide, and I think you’ve got a real opportunity here to put it out there. It’s a hell of a story, don’t you think?”

  “If he were closer to it, maybe. But not the way you spun it right now. There’s no context. You’re just pissed at him.”

  “No. It’s more than that.”

  “All right. Then give me some more to tie it together. But right now it’s just your assertions and not much connection between them. If this poor girl hadn’t gotten herself caught in—where was it? Ukiah?—she’d probably be in Canada by now. It’s not Jameson’s fault she got picked up, is it? Could he have even seen that as a possibility and done something to avoid it? I don’t see how. And without that, she’s still alive.”

  Hardy sat all the way back in his chair, slumping, his hands crossed over his chest. “How about if I could prove that he fast-tracked the indictment?”

  “Doesn’t matter, Diz. Fast-tracked or not, he got a righteous indictment. Which means he had enough evidence for the grand jury. End of story.”

  “There’s more to it, I’m sure.”

  “Well, get it to me and I’ll see where it leads. You know my door’s always open for you and whatever lunch you happen to bring around. Or it would be if I had a door.”

  • • •

  BETH TULLY WAS waiting in the lobby when Hardy got back from Mission Street. After they’d gotten settled in his office with the door closed behind them, Beth finally let out a pent-up breath and extended her hand, which Hardy took, and they shook. “Nice to meet you at last,” she said.

  “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  “I just took a shot. Lied to my partner and cleared an hour or so.”

  “I appreciate that. But your partner’s welcome, too.”

  She clucked. “He’s a little . . . skeptical . . . about working with defense attorneys.”

  “But you’re not?”

  “Sometimes. Anyway, Ike basically doesn’t want to hear about it.” She shrugged. “Your friend Glitsky had some nice things to say about you.”

  “That’s always good to hear.”

  “I could never have an affair,” Beth said. “I told Ike I was meeting my daughter for lunch, and now I’m a wreck he’s going to be driving by when I leave here and find me out.”

  “You don’t want him to know you’re talking to me?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well, in case it’s ever needed, we’ve got a secret underground tunnel that runs from here down to the Hall of Justice, so you can just show up there and say you were in the bathroom or something.”

  “Really? Are you kidding me?”

  “Yep.” Hardy broke a grin. “No secret passage, I’m afraid.”

  With a look of chagrin, she said, “Glitsky didn’t mention you being funny.”

  “Well, you know his nickname?”

  “No.”

  “People Not Laughing. That’s because, wherever he is, he’s surrounded by people who aren’t laughing. That’s his true nickname, by the way. Not a joke.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever see him again. Meanwhile, you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes. I did.” His grin faded. “The woman outside the office here is my secretary, Phyllis McGowan.”

  Beth nodded. “Adam’s sister,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. He ratted her out, didn’t he?”

  “Well, he put her in the picture as Celia Montoya’s accomplice, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Accessory after the fact, if you want to get technical. And, based on what Adam told you, you then got a warrant to search her house and found the purported murder weapon. Is that about right?”

  “Not exactly. We didn’t do the search. That was DA investigators.”

  “Why was that?”

  “I think Lieutenant Juhle might have told you, the case went upstairs pretty fast. We hadn’t come anywhere near finishing our investigation, when suddenly it had become the DA’s case. His people searched her apartment and found the gun, then he took the case to the grand jury and got his indictment, and me and Ike, we were out of it.”

  “How’d you like that?”

  A bitter little smile. “About like you’d expect.”

  “So when you got called off—”

  “Excuse me, but it wasn’t exactly like that. We weren’t called off as in dismissed. When the indictment came down, that was just the end of it bureaucratically. Nobody actually told us to stop or back off. We had other cases.”

  “But you didn’t think the investigation was complete?”

  “Not even close, really. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “I know why this matters to me, but why does it matter to you?”

  “Well, a couple of reasons. The first one being Phyllis out there. If you, the inspectors assigned to the case, weren’t sure that Celia killed Valdez, why in the world would Phyllis have jumped to that conclusion? And if Phyllis didn’t think that, and if she didn’t have a reason to believe that Celia was going to be charged with murder . . . you see what I’m saying?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Okay, if Celia to her was just another immigrant who needed to get to Canada to keep from being deported and didn’t know anything about any murder or even the likelihood of Celia getting charged, then Phyllis is technically not an accessory after the fact. And if I can make a jury see that you and your partner—homicide inspectors, for God’s sake—had serious doubts about Celia’s guilt, or whether at the time of her flight she would even be charged, then certainly Phyllis wouldn’t have much of a reason to believe it, either.”

  “So at her trial you’d want us to testify that our investigation wasn’t complete?”

  “In a perfect world. That’s the general idea. When defense attorneys call cops to testify, it tends to be a bad day for the prosecution.”

  “After which I’d bet it’s often a bad day for those cops, isn’t it?”

  Hardy showed her another tight grin. “It might be at that. But that would tend not to be my problem. In any event”—he spread his hands—“all that is by way of explaining why I hoped to be able to talk to you—why this all matters to me.”

  “What’s the other reason?”

  Hardy cocked his head, a question.

  “You said you had a couple of reasons why it mattered to you. What’s the other one?”

  “Ahh.” Hardy met her gaze. “The other one’s more personal. You may be aware that I campaigned pretty hard for Wes Farrell in the DA race. So when Jameson realized that Phyllis, with a
little finessing, could be dragged into this case and that she worked for me, there was an opportunity for some payback and he was going to make it as humiliating as possible for her—and, by the way, she is a true saint—and at the same time rub my face in the shit. He wants to play that game, I’m going to take him down if I can.”

  Hardy stood up and walked over to the windows, where he held back the curtains and glanced down briefly to the street outside. Turning back, he said, “I understand that beyond getting dumped off Celia’s case, you’ve got some personal issues yourself with Mr. Jameson.”

  Beth hesitated, taking in the corners of the ceiling. Finally, coming back down to Hardy, she nodded. “I hate him,” she said. “I believe he’s lying in wait for a way to plausibly get me fired, if not worse. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Because he knows that you think he killed Peter Ash?”

  “I know he killed Peter Ash. And I know his wife killed Geoff Cooke. In fact, Kate—his wife—she might be the only thing keeping me alive, because as you pointed out, he’s a vindictive bastard without an ethical bone in his body. If it were up to him, I believe I’d be gone. And I don’t just mean off the force.”

  Hardy, back in front of her, boosted himself onto his desk. “Given all that, I can’t really thank you enough for sneaking down here to talk to me.”

  She shrugged. “This has got to end. Someone’s got to figure out how to bring this guy down.”

  Hardy nodded. “I’m assuming that you’ve heard about Celia.”

  “Of course.”

  “All right. Let’s pretend for a minute that she didn’t kill Valdez, and let’s say you’re not sure of that. Are you?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “So if that’s true”—Hardy pushing it now—“she’s another innocent victim in Jameson’s wake. He rushes the case, kicks off the regular inspectors, chases Celia out of town as the suspect, gets her in custody, and then she kills herself in jail. Doesn’t anybody else see this except me?”

  “I do. I completely agree with you. But again, what are we going to do?”

  Hardy gave it a couple of seconds. “This is me just thinking out loud,” he said, “but what do you think about the idea of reopening the investigation into this case?”

  Beth sat back, surprised. She, too, took a moment to pause. “You’re talking Valdez?”

  “Right.”

  “Well.” Another pause, the outrageous idea perhaps starting to resonate. “First, sir . . .”

  “Please. Dismas. Or even Diz.”

  “All right. What kind of name is that, anyway? Dismas?”

  “Dismas was the good thief, crucified up on Calvary next to Jesus. He’s the patron saint of thieves and murderers, which is handy if you happen to be a defense attorney. It’s always good to have a saint on the home team.”

  “I’d imagine so. It couldn’t hurt, anyway.” She ran her hand through her hair. “But back to reopening the case . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, maybe not so okay. I don’t really see how we could make that happen. There are procedures, as I’m sure you know. Celia was the indicted suspect and now she’s dead, so the case is technically closed, or on the verge of it. But beyond that, what would it accomplish in terms of Jameson?”

  “Those are good questions and reasonable objections, and I can’t say I’ve got any quick answer for either. But Jameson clearly interfered with you and your partner and the pace of your investigation, and the way it played out ended in tragedy. If you come up with another suspect—I mean the bona fide, convictable killer of Mr. Valdez—that you missed the first time because Jameson was in such a hurry, pulled you off the case, and screwed it all up, then his decisions and actions led to the unnecessary death of an innocent young woman, and the whole thing can be laid at his feet. At the very least, he’s seriously embarrassed. Definitely it’ll hurt him politically. He won by only a thousand votes, and this ought to eat those right up. And then some.”

  “Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

  Hardy shrugged. “It might be worth a look. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Beth nodded. “It might at that.”

  14

  IN DEVIN JUHLE’S office, the door closed behind them, Beth had barely started in on her pitch, when her partner cut her off. “Are you out of your mind? You want to what?”

  “I want to solve a homicide to my satisfaction. Which is, if I’m not mistaken, the job we both do.”

  “Except that we’ve already done that case.” Ike turned around and motioned to the whiteboard that covered the wall behind him. “Check it out, Beth. Devin’s even got it crossed out on the magic whiteboard. Valdez is done.”

  “And who killed him?”

  “Celia Montoya, indicted and now deceased.”

  “You’re not sure of that, and neither am I.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we believe . . .”

  Juhle, seated behind his desk, straightened up a bit and raised a finger. “Wait a minute there, Ike. It does in fact matter what you believe, to some extent. At least, to me it does. Do you have some real serious doubt about that case?”

  Ike huffed out a breath, looked across at his partner, came back to Juhle. “No case is perfect, Dev. We all know that. This one may be a little less perfect than others. But do I have real serious doubt? I don’t know. I do know that the grand jury indicted her. After that, traditionally it’s up to a trial jury to decide if she’s guilty. Not us. Am I wrong here? And if I am, tell me where.”

  “No,” Juhle said. “You’re right as far as that goes. But after today we’re not ever going to get to a jury trial on Celia Montoya, are we? So if there are some unanswered questions, I’m reluctant to formally close the case, even if it’s lost its place on the whiteboard.”

  “It’s not impossible she would have been cleared and we would have closed in on somebody else if we’d just had a little more time,” Beth said.

  “Who?” Juhle asked.

  “I’m going to say one of our eyewitnesses.”

  Ike all but exploded. “That’s the other thing. We got testimony from not one, not two, but three eyewitnesses, Dev.”

  Beth was shaking her head. “But none of them even close to rock-solid. Maybe mutually collaborative, but that’s one fifteen-minute conversation among the three of them. None of them said they actually saw her take the shot. So they agree on what they’re going to tell us, and lo and behold, amazingly, they all have the same story. Not too many details, but the same basic idea. And before we get the time to go back and ask a few of the hard questions, suddenly we’re off the case, so the grand jury only sees the first pass.”

  “So what do you want to do, Beth?” Juhle asked.

  “I think we ought to talk to these eyewitnesses again. See if the stories hang together like they did the first time, or maybe they start to fall apart. See if any of them decide they want to lawyer up before talking to us again when they see which way the wind might start to be blowing.” She turned to Juhle. “These are not people without their own agendas, Dev. One of them is fresh out of Avenal. The other couple—the bartender and waitress—it’s possible they had a little more to do with Valdez’s business than just with the bar, although we never really got around to asking about any of that. But when you’re talking rock-solid eyewitnesses, these people don’t spring immediately to mind.”

  “So why—” Juhle began.

  Beth was a step ahead of him. “Because Jameson took the case away. That’s my point. It never should have happened, but it did and left us strung out.”

  “And why are you only now getting around to this?”

  “Because before today, Dev, Celia Montoya was going to trial. There’d be more investigation and lots of it. And call me optimistic, but maybe the truth would have come out, and conceivably she could have even been cleared. And at least if she got convicted, we would know that she was guilty. Now, if the three of us don’t do something to follow up here, there’s a chance th
e real killer—if it’s not Celia—is going to walk. And that’s just something I’d prefer not to live with. It’s our case, and if we don’t do something now, we’ll never get another chance to close it.”

  Juhle scratched at a peeling piece of lacquer at the corner of his desk. “She makes a good case, Ike. What do you say?”

  “After all that,” he asked, “do I really have a choice?”

  • • •

  THE OWNER OF the building that housed El Sol was Miguel Maria Larson and he didn’t much care about who managed day-to-day operations at the bar, just so long as they made the monthly nut. Hector Valdez had held the job for a couple of years, and the way these things went, the position was probably overdue for a turnaround, although Miguel wouldn’t have necessarily hoped for Hector’s murder as the vehicle for the personnel change.

  But hey, what were you gonna do?

  Hector Valdez knew that the game he played came with its risks as well as its rewards. When he’d first come on, he was as low-profile as anyone could be, actually working the bar, dealing most of the common drugs right out of the back room. From that inauspicious start, he’d graduated to some protection work in the neighborhood, brought on his strong-arm partner Mel Bernardo, and Mel’s girlfriend, Rita. And soon enough realized that the money and possibly a little more of the fun was in girls. The building was perfectly suited to this endeavor, since its three upper stories were all divided into SRO (single room occupancy) units, which meant a place for up to thirty girls to stay while Hector shopped them around and Mel and Rita made sure they felt both secure while they were waiting and too afraid to try to escape.

  But again, none of that was Miguel’s business.

  And now, with Hector’s passing, apparently at the hands of one of his girls—Miguel didn’t care—he was having to negotiate terms with Mel and Rita, who were more than ready to step into Hector’s shoes. And he gathered he was supposed to somehow include this new guy, Adam, just out of the joint. And who, frankly, scared the shit out of Miguel.