The Rule of Law

by John Lescroart

  She had to get out of here and rethink what she was going to do.

  She was still going to do it, of course. That was not going to change. Not ever.

  But she wasn’t going to do it today.

  • • •

  WHEN HIS WIFE and daughter pulled out of the driveway and turned the corner, Ron placed the call he’d been waiting to make all day long.

  “Thank God,” Andrea said. “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “How could I be mad at you? I just got hung up here at home.”

  “You’re not still, are you?”

  “No. I just got freed up. I need to see you.”

  “I know. Me too. I miss you so much. I haven’t been able to think about anything else. When can you be here?” she asked.

  “I’m leaving now. Fifteen minutes?”

  “All right,” she said. “But hurry. Please.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  • • •

  YEAH, RON WAS thinking. So much for not getting it up. Today he’d pretty well made the point with Andrea that there was nothing wrong with him or his performance.

  No problem with that today. No problem twice.

  Lord, was she hot.

  And while he was at it, driving home from out here in the Richmond District, he hadn’t realized how close Andrea lived to Beth Tully.

  He didn’t know how he was going to do it exactly, but since he was already out here, he might profitably spend a few minutes getting the lay of the land.

  His original thought was that he’d show up when it was dark, then just knock on her door and wait until she opened it. This would probably be a fine way to go as long as he could guarantee that she would actually be home and not, say, in the middle of a party. One roommate opening the door was something he was sure he could handle, just in terms of the deed itself, but a second victim would probably complicate things. Things being equal, he’d prefer to avoid it.

  Another basic problem was that, since about ninety percent of the buildings out here in the Avenues were two flats, one on top of the other, she probably lived in that kind of place. And if that was the case, there would be some issues about getting away unseen. To say nothing of finding a parking space close enough to park and then drive away quickly.

  He turned north off Geary onto Seventeenth Avenue and slowly cruised down the street. She lived on the west side, about halfway to Clement, exactly the jam-packed environment he’d thought it would be. He couldn’t help but notice that there was no free curb space, no place to park on a random Sunday afternoon.

  He slowed down when he got to her address, which, except for the color it had been painted, was exactly the same as all of her neighbors’ buildings.

  He could, of course, simply call her and under some pretext ask her to meet him to talk about all these issues that had driven a wedge between Beth, Kate, and himself. She was wrong to believe that he had killed Peter, wrong to believe that Kate had killed Geoff.

  Couldn’t they just get together and have a civilized discussion? He could explain away all of her doubts.

  But calling anybody nowadays was always a problem. There would be a record of the call no matter what type of phone you used; it was unavoidable.

  And, as an experienced, dogged, and cynical cop, Beth would be aware that he was capable of turning a clandestine, private meeting in a remote place into an ambush.

  As the sun lowered, he tapped his hand with frustration on the steering wheel.

  How to actually do the killing hadn’t been so hard to figure out with Peter Ash, he thought. Peter was a trusting soul and, stupidly, had had no suspicions when Ron, whose wife he had slept with, suggested they go out on the bay in Geoff’s boat to smoke a cigar and drink some fine Scotch. To Peter, that had sounded like a good idea—a bonding moment, for Christ’s sake.

  The idiot.

  But Beth?

  Beth would not buy it or anything like it.

  And whatever he did, it would have to be soon. By roping the FBI into this long-dead investigation, she’d already done enough damage, and to think that she would stop there was simply not credible.

  She was in this for the long haul, and she had to be stopped.

  41

  FIRST THING MONDAY morning, just after he’d sat down with his coffee in his cubicle, Chet Greene looked up to see the eager young face of Don Hancock coming back through the office toward him.

  “Hey,” the young newcomer said cheerily.

  “Hey yourself. What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I came back to ask you. Any word on the DNA?”

  “Not yet. The clerk told me it might be three or four days.”

  “Four days!” Hancock couldn’t believe it. “They put the sample in the machine, if you got a match, it spits out an answer in about five minutes.”

  “I think that actually putting it into the machine is the bottleneck,” Chet said. “I was there on a fingerprint question last week and every single step took ten minutes. It took ten minutes for her to stir her coffee. I thought I was going to wind up killing her. Drag it out for ten minutes. See how she liked it.”

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  “I’ll let you know if they get something.”

  “Thanks.”

  Hancock hesitated.

  “Anything else?” Chet asked.

  Nodding, he said, “Do you get that kind of work a lot?”

  “What kind of work is that?”

  “You know. Kind of a close tail. Go to Sam’s. Eat a great lunch and then steal your target’s wineglass before the waiters can clear it. Then hang out while he smokes a cigar afterwards and so you’ve got to have one yourself.” He added with heavy irony, “Tough detail.”

  “Some people hate that kind of thing. Tedious and boring.”

  “Not for me. How does anybody hate that? It’s like playing hide-and-seek and capture the flag at the same time. You get any other work like that, you can give me a call anytime.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Though I’ve got to say, stuff like that doesn’t come up all the time. That was actually my first time pulling a sample like that.”

  With a show of disappointment, Hancock went on: “Well, anyway, I thought it was way cool. Your guy Hardy never made me, never even noticed I was alive. I just sat there eating my sand dabs ten feet across the way from him. And, by the way, the sand dabs were worth the whole day all by themselves. No matter how the scan comes out.”

  “It would be better if it comes out with a match.”

  “Well, sure. I didn’t mean—”

  Greene held up a hand. “No worries, Don. Something like it comes up again, I’ll give you a call.”

  “So if we do get a match, then what?”

  “Then Mr. Hardy’s going to find himself in a whole deep pile of shit. Like a murder rap.”

  Hancock’s mouth hung open for a second or two before he closed it. “Wow.”

  “Tell me about it,” Greene said.

  • • •

  THE THING WITH Andrea was out of control.

  Not that Ron was complaining.

  As soon as he’d gotten in, she came into the office and closed the door behind her, both of them knowing they couldn’t let it go too far right there and then, but laying the groundwork for as soon as they could get away with it.

  She’d gone back out and gotten behind her desk just in time. Two minutes later Chet Greene knocked at the hallway door and was standing in front of her with a satisfied look on his face.

  “He’s going to want to talk to me,” he said. “We got him.”

  Ron Jameson appeared in his office doorway. “Hey, Chet. Who do we have?”

  “Dismas Hardy.”

  “You’re kidding me. Really? After all these years?”

  Chet nodded. “I just got the call from the lab five minutes ago.” All enthusiasm, he outlined the surveillance and collection of Hardy’s DNA from the Sam’s glass and, mostly, the butt of the cigar Hardy had smoked
. “Bottom line,” he concluded, “we never had a comparison sample on him, essentially since nobody even looked. Can you believe that?”

  “I can, given all the guy’s pals in law enforcement. Nobody was motivated to a take a swab and just run it against the samples. This is some great detective work, Chet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And didn’t you say there was more than one? Unidentified sample, I mean.”

  “Yeah, there was one other one that wasn’t Hardy.”

  “Glitsky?” Ron asked. “Might as well run down all those rumors. If we had both of them together, it would be better. Not that it isn’t plenty good now. We’ve got Hardy at the pier; that’s huge. Although Glitsky would be a terrific bonus.”

  “We might try to run down a comparison sample on him the way we did with Hardy. Getting him to agree to a swab voluntarily is probably a long shot, to say the least.”

  “Well, if you ask him and he doesn’t cooperate, that’s something right there, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t he, if he’s innocent?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m saying that if we’re going to take this new information to the grand jury, it would be better if we had these two guys together in a conspiracy. And even without Glitsky, you’ve got something you can now use to press the shit out of Hardy. He says he was never on the pier. The DNA says he was. Hmm. I think the grand jury goes for the evidence, not the denial.”

  On a roll, Ron went on. “Plus, his alibi witnesses, all of whom work for him,” he said. “That’s a coincidence, huh? So we throw a little perjury threat into the mix and see if anybody remembers things differently. This is good work, Chet. Awesome work!”

  • • •

  KATE LEFT HER house at around 9:30, walked the block up to Fillmore, and had to kill a half hour at the Starbucks because the flower shop didn’t open until 10:00.

  The delay didn’t bother her in the least.

  She felt better—more connected and valued—than she had at any time over the past several months.

  Finally, she and Ron had had a good couple of days to clear the air about real stuff, the lack of communication that was driving them apart. They were back to being a team, having each other’s back, and most importantly, even enjoying each other’s company.

  Never mind the lack of success in the bedroom.

  He had so much on his mind, was living under so much pressure. And, truth be told, she had probably pushed him a little before he was truly relaxed and ready. They were out of practice, that was all. They’d weathered these storms before, several times. Next time she would just be more patient and maybe more creative, and their sexual life would go back to the way it had been.

  The worst was over.

  When the flower shop opened, she finally settled on an early spring bouquet of gorgeous Peruvian lilies in a clear vase. It was large enough that it was a bit awkward to carry, but again, that didn’t bother her. Nothing was going to bother her today. She wanted the present to be big enough to make a statement.

  When she got home, she went straight to the Audi in the garage and fastened the bouquet in place with the passenger seat belt. She checked her watch: 10:45.

  Right on time.

  When she’d asked him at breakfast about what his day today was looking like, Ron had told her he’d be stuck at the Hall doing all the paperwork that he hadn’t finished when he’d come in the day before.

  Which was perfect for her plans: surprise him with flowers to brighten up his office and his day. Then break him away for a nice lunch together. If he was too busy, she would understand, of course, but Patty Simmons was right: you needed to break up the routine if you wanted to keep things fresh in your marriage. In your lives together.

  And Ron had given her every indication that he was open to her being a greater presence in his life. Early in their marriage, they’d gone to lunch together at least once a week. Maybe, she thought, it was time to establish a new custom along those lines.

  The DA job didn’t have to be all that consuming.

  Between traffic and parking, it took her a half hour to get to the Hall and then another fifteen minutes to get through the metal detector line at the front door, up the world’s slowest elevator, and down the long hallway to the DA’s admissions window, where miraculously there was no line. She nodded in greeting to Linda Coelho, whom she’d met several times now.

  “Lovely flowers,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you want me to call your husband and tell him you’re here?”

  Though there was no one else around them, Kate leaned in and lowered her voice. “I was kind of hoping I could just walk in and surprise him. Would that be okay?”

  Coelho looked at the flowers, decided they posed no threat to the health and safety of either the DA or the staff, and pushed the button to unlock the door.

  The first door to Ron’s office was down the hallway to the right, but it was closed.

  Kate knocked quietly, received no reply, so she knocked again and finally turned the doorknob.

  Somewhat to her surprise, the door opened right up.

  Andrea was not at her station.

  Kate took a couple of steps inside and put the bouquet on the corner of Andrea’s desk.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  No answer.

  The door to Ron’s inner office was closed as well. Kate straightened up and heard what sounded like some kind of a thumping noise and then a groan.

  Crossing over to the door, she put her ear up against it and heard similar noises.

  They could only be one thing.

  She tapped on the door. “Ron.”

  The noises stopped.

  Then Ron’s voice: “Just a minute. Be right with you. Who is it?”

  “Ron. Ron? It’s Kate.”

  “Kate?” As though he couldn’t imagine how it was possible that she was there. “Just one second.”

  “A second’s up.” She banged on the door again. “Ron!”

  The door clicked as it unlocked, and then it opened and Ron stood in front of her, his shirt still somewhat untucked, the very picture of conjugal guilt. Inside the room, over Ron’s shoulder and behind his desk, similarly disheveled, Andrea stood looking downcast like a schoolgirl waiting to be scolded.

  “This isn’t what . . . I mean . . .” Ron began.

  But Kate would have none of it. She whirled around, reaching for the first thing that came to hand: the bouquet she’d brought in with her. Picking it up off the desk, without any hesitation, she lifted it high above her head and threw it down to the floor at Ron’s feet, where it exploded in the enclosed space with the sound of a small bomb.

  Kate then screamed in anger and frustration, took one last look at the damning tableau, and ran out the door and down the hallway.

  • • •

  BETWEEN THE CLEANING crew and trying to calm Andrea down, it took Ron nearly an hour to get down to his car and another twenty minutes to make the drive home.

  Kate’s car was already parked in front of the garage along the side of the house. Pulling up behind where she’d parked, he sat for a moment trying to collect himself, to plan an approach that might possibly undo even a little of the damage. He could tell her that she had misunderstood. That Andrea was having problems at home and that he . . .

  No.

  The less mention of Andrea, the better.

  Whatever card he played, the theme was apology. He was sorry. It would never happen again.

  She had come on to him and he had at first tried to hold her off and . . .

  Andrea again. Not a good idea.

  The important thing, he would tell her, was that he loved her. That was the fundamental truth between them. They were each other’s soul mate.

  Okay, he had fallen. He should probably admit that.

  He would make amends. Nothing like this would happen again.

  He was sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

  That’s how he had to play it.


  He had to keep her from letting their secret out to punish him. Had to make her promise to keep it sacrosanct between them. He would keep secret the truth about her and Geoff, too. They were still and forever bound in that tradeoff. That was the important thing.

  And other than that, he was sorry.

  Sorry was the ticket.

  Taking one last ragged breath, he opened his car door, got out, and somehow, shakily, made it to the side door that led into their kitchen.

  • • •

  AT HER DESK in their study, Kate turned to see Ron come to a stop in the doorway.

  “I thought I should come home,” he began. “I am so sorry.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “What are you doing there?” he asked.

  She turned back to the legal pad she’d been using. “Writing a letter.”

  “Who to?”

  “Beth.”

  “That’s not a solution, Kate. We can talk this out. Beth isn’t part of it. This is us.”

  No reply.

  “Tell me what you want, Kate,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Whatever it is, I know we can still make it work.”

  Another step.

  “Please,” she said. “Don’t come any closer.”

  He stopped. “Whatever you want. I promise. From now on. I’ll quit the job. Whatever. I am so sorry. So very sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Sure it does. We can make it work again. We just have to—”

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes, we can.” He took another small step.

  “Stay back there!”

  “I just—”

  “You just nothing.” She turned around to face him and lifted her hand from her lap. She held the gun she’d taken from their safe as soon as she’d come home. “How fucking dare you?” She pointed the gun at the center of his chest and pulled the trigger. Then pulled it again.

  Ron went down on his back.

  She waited to see that he was perfectly still, a little less than a minute. Then she put the barrel under her chin and pulled the trigger a third time.

  42

  To: Sergeant Beth Tully

  Inspector, San Francisco Homicide Detail

  Dear Beth: