The Second Chair

by John Lescroart

  “She had an accident. Somebody hit her.”

  “In the car?”

  “No, on the slope. Skiing.”

  “Is she okay? Where is she now? Can I talk to her?”

  “She says she’ll be okay, you know? You’re not supposed to worry. But you can’t talk to her. They had her on a backboard to the ambulance and now they’ve got her in the emergency room and the Beck’s waiting outside in case . . . Anyway, she said I ought to call you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The hospital in Truckee. By the emergency room.”

  “I’m on my way up. I’m on my cellphone the whole way.”

  “Okay. And, Dad?”

  “Yeah, bud?”

  “Hurry, huh?”

  Frannie was going to be okay. As Vinnie had said, nobody was going to die. But okay was a relative thing.

  They let him take her home on Sunday, but as soon as she got there, Hardy was to make sure she got in bed and stayed there until her local doctor told her she could get up. She’d definitely sustained a concussion. It was very much out of character for Frannie, who didn’t like to acknowledge physical pain, but she didn’t argue with him at all. She’d be wearing a neck brace and sporting an arm sling for at least six weeks. After that they’d do some more tests and have a clearer picture of what, if any, further damage had been done to her spine and/or neck. She’d also cracked two ribs on her left side and sustained a Ping-Pong-ball fracture of the left shoulder socket in the course of dislocating it.

  By the time he had fed her some soup and settled her into bed, it was full dusk, but the Beck still hadn’t made it home. She’d been driving his hot little sports car, following close, but they’d lost sight of her in the traffic just outside Sacramento, and now they’d been home for almost an hour and still no sign of her.

  For dinner, Hardy and Vincent cooked up two cans of corned beef hash—the black pan again, but without any romance—and quartered a head of iceberg lettuce with a mayo and ketchup thousand island poured over it. They amused themselves, and kept the unspoken fear about the Beck at bay by inventing tortures for the person who’d run into Frannie on the slopes, who of course didn’t even slow down and had never been caught.

  Finally, they heard the front door. Hardy put down his fork and prepared himself not to speak harshly. He’d almost been unable to swallow for the second half of his meal, as the minutes had passed. His beautiful, smart, clever seventeen-year-old was never late, and if anything had happened to her, too . . .

  She stood at the end of the dining room. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I got a flat tire in Sacramento, and you had both cellphones with you, and I wasn’t anywhere near a gas station. And then I couldn’t figure out where they put the spare . . .”

  “It’s under the rug in the trunk,” Vincent said.

  “Thanks, dear brother, I know that now. And I even know how to change a flat tire. But, Dad, look, I pulled over and some guy stopped and . . . I mean, an older guy, and he helped me, but then he asked for my number, and I got . . . Anyway, I didn’t think . . . I thought if he followed me . . .”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Hardy held up a hand. “Did he follow you?”

  “No. I don’t think so. But I was afraid when I was parking . . .”

  He stopped her again. “Are you okay now? Is the car okay? Good. Are you hungry? Sit down, I’ll make you something.” He stood up, put his arms around her, kissed the side of her face, the top of her hair. He kept his arms around her, tight around her back. “I love you. Everything’s all right. Your mother’s upstairs sleeping. Thanks for driving my car down. I’m sorry about the flat tire. They happen.”

  They separated and she looked up at him. Getting her bravery together. “But, Dad,” she said, suddenly breaking a smile, “what a great car!”

  Finally, finally, the kids both relatively calmed and catching up on their weekend’s homework, he got to the Sunday paper. While they’d been gone, things had developed rapidly in the double homicides, and by this morning, “Executioner Stalks City Streets” was the banner headline. Ballistics had confirmed that both victims in the Friday night shootings had in fact been shot by the same weapon. Because of the nature of the attacks—the execution-style, point-blank shot to the heart—Marcel Lanier of homicide had told some reporters that he was afraid that what we had here was some type of executioner, and judging by the headline, the idiotic name looked like it was going to stick.

  Hardy never even looked at his answering machine until the kids were asleep. He hadn’t had a drop to drink since at least Thursday night, and was somewhat surprised to see that he hadn’t missed it a bit. Still, now he thought he could use a beer. He opened a Sierra Nevada and, turning off the overhead, finally noticed the blinking light on the far end of the kitchen counter.

  Salarco, getting back to him.

  It was 11:15 on a Sunday night. The gardener undoubtedly got up at or near daybreak. Hardy wouldn’t be doing himself or Salarco any favors by calling back this late.

  For a minute, he cursed himself for all he’d absolutely had to do this weekend that he’d left unaccomplished. His client’s hearing was now only two days away, and he’d made no progress of any kind. It had been through no fault of his own, true, but he knew that other lawyers might have found a way to proceed on the case even through two such difficult days. They might have called in partners or associates, hired private investigators, even pled hardship to the judge. He might have thought to do something, but all he’d been able to think of was the suffering of his wife, the worries of his children, the needs of his family.

  “So sue me,” he said aloud. Put down his unfinished beer. Went up to get some rest.

  22

  Hardy got the phone before it finished its first ring. Next to him, Frannie moaned but did not wake up. It seemed to be sometime in the middle of the night, pitch out the window.

  “Hello.” His sleep-edged voice cracked. He cleared his throat and said it again. “Hello.”

  The voice was urgent, yet controlled, the words hastily strung together. “Sorry to wake you up, sir. It’s Amy. I just got a call from the YGC. Andrew’s tried to kill himself.”

  “Give me a second.” He was up, moving to the bathroom, where he closed the door behind him and turned on the light, blinking in the glare. “What do you mean, tried? Is he alive? What happened?”

  “All I know is they called me about ten minutes ago. They said he tried to hang himself in his cell, but the guard heard something and got to him in time to cut him down. Or maybe the shirt he used ripped, it wasn’t clear. It doesn’t matter.”

  “So where is he now?”

  “They were bringing him to SFGH.” San Francisco General Hospital. “I’m on my way down now.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Dressed now in the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday, and Saturday before that, down in the kitchen, he stopped to write a note to Rebecca and Vincent, telling them where he was going. They’d been getting themselves ready for school, making their own breakfasts, their bag lunches, for some time now. Beyond that, Hardy didn’t know the Monday morning routine, but he was confident they could work it out themselves. He reminded them to check on their mother upstairs, make sure she got some food and liquid and her pain medication. He’d be back home, hopefully, by mid-morning if he could. Again, he’d be on his cellphone. Call with any questions or problems.

  He grabbed his briefcase, glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. 4:30.

  Outside, he paused in thin fog at the sidewalk just outside his gate, realizing that he didn’t know where Rebecca had parked his car last night. Well, fortunately they had two of them. Now if he could only remember where he’d parked the 4Runner. After a minute’s reflection, it came to him and he turned up toward Clement. Half-jogging now, he covered the two blocks down to Thirty-second, then turned right—the car was about midway down the block, under a burned-out streetlight.

  The front seat was dew-drenched and cold.
Inside the car, in fact, it seemed exceptionally cold, but the reason for it didn’t really register until he turned to look over his shoulder as he put it in reverse so he could pull out. The backseat window on the passenger side wasn’t there anymore. Neither, he suddenly realized, were the skis they’d left the night before.

  Now in a flash, his actions last night came back to him. Double parked in the street right out front of his house, he and Vincent had helped get Frannie inside. Then he’d gone on the daily search for a parking place, finding this spot a couple of blocks away—not too bad, considering. In his rush to get back to his wife, he’d locked up, of course, but hadn’t unpacked this car, thinking to return soon with his son. But then the Beck hadn’t shown up, and . . .

  Knowing what he’d find, he got back out of the car and walked around to where the broken glass covered the sidewalk, crunching under his feet. He opened the door and peered over the backseat into the storage area in the back and verified that they’d not only taken the skis, but the poles and boots and luggage bag they used for the rest of their stuff—gloves, goggles, extra clothes, everything. The deck was bare, cleaned out.

  Sick at the world, he got back in behind the wheel, started the engine, put on his lights and pulled out into the still-dark street.

  Wu wore a dark blue jogging suit and tennis shoes, a black and orange Giants warm-up jacket, no makeup. Her hair was back in a ponytail. Hardy thought she could have passed for about Andrew’s age. “ . . . because it’s my fault, that’s why,” she was saying.

  “How could it be your fault?” Hardy had had enough of hospitals over the weekend with Frannie to never want to see one again, and yet here he was now, outside the emergency room at SFGH, aptly nicknamed the San Francisco Gun & Rifle Club by the law community. He and Wu sat on red molded-plastic chairs and he was drinking vending machine coffee from a paper cup.

  “I spent almost all day yesterday with him, going over the criteria, ways we might be able to beat them. It wasn’t too heartening. By the time I left, he was pretty down.”

  “Did you tell him about our plan to call witnesses on the crime itself?”

  She nodded. “Sure, but by that time we’re on number five. He figured we couldn’t win on any of the first four, either, not after his short story got out. So he was going up, that was his opinion. We couldn’t do anything to stop that.” She hung her head wearily, came back up to Hardy. “I keep thinking if only I wouldn’t have gone in to talk to him, it wouldn’t have come to this. But what was I supposed to do? Who else except Andrew could have . . . ?”

  A young Asian woman in bloodstained blue scrubs and a stethoscope was approaching them. Wu stopped talking and they both stood up.

  “The officer who brought him in told me you were with the hanging victim,” she said. “He’s going to have trouble talking for a while, and he’ll be in some discomfort, but fortunately whatever he used—evidently his shirt—couldn’t hold him and the fall didn’t break his neck. He’s going to live. The officers want to take him back to the YGC, but I told him we’re going to hold him here for observation for at least a day.”

  “Thank you,” Hardy said. “Under the circumstances, I’d make it a close watch.”

  “We will,” the doctor said. “Do you know where his parents are, by the way? Does he have parents?”

  “They’re in Palm Springs, I believe. At a tennis tournament,” Wu said. Then, including Hardy: “But I’m concerned about his sister. The YGC called his home first and there was no answer at all. They called me next.”

  “So no parents,” the doctor said. “And people wonder where kids go wrong.” The young woman’s face was set in frustration.

  “Can we talk to him?” Hardy asked.

  She shook her head no. “He can’t really talk. Also, I’ve got him sedated for now. He’ll be out for a couple of hours. And he really won’t be able to talk normally for at least a few days.” A pause, then a gentler tone. “Do you know why he might have tried to do this?”

  “He’s got a hearing coming up soon,” Wu said. “He thinks he’s looking at years in prison.”

  The doctor nodded. “What did he do?”

  “The charge is murder,” Wu said. “But there are questions.”

  This was the first time Hardy had heard Wu say something like that, and he shot a glance at her.

  Wu nodded back.

  Hardy and Wu were walking across the parking lot. Out in front of them, the sun still hadn’t cleared the hills across the bay, and wisps of fog still hung in the air, but the chill had already gone out of it. Overhead the sky was a clear blue and there was no wind.

  “What did you mean in there? There are questions—which hasn’t exactly been your mantra since you got on this case. I was wondering if something had happened.”

  “Nothing specific. I just decided that I needed to adjust my attitude if I wanted to keep on defending him. His position hasn’t budged—he’s innocent.” She shrugged. “So I guess I decided to try on believing him, see what it felt like. At least it’s got me thinking that it might be possible after all. Otherwise, why would he persist in all these insane contradictions? Until I read his short story, I thought he just might not be too bright, but we know it isn’t that.”

  “No. We know it isn’t that.”

  “Right. So now I’m kind of leaning the opposite way, thinking he’s just too smart to have made up so much dumb stuff. He wouldn’t have shot them and left the gun on the table, for example. Period. He just wouldn’t have done it. Anyway, once I decided maybe he wasn’t lying about everything, it gave me some hope.”

  “That’s funny.” Hardy told her that some similar thoughts had been surfacing for him since he’d started to consider the fact that the upstairs neighbor, the state’s prime witness, hadn’t said he’d heard any gunshots. But as soon as he’d said it aloud to Wu, he immediately backpedaled.

  “It’s nowhere near certain,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to him again. Salarco. About the gun. What it looked like. If it had any kind of silencer on it, he would have had to notice. But if not, then I’ve got to find out if the cops found any kind of muffling agent at Mooney’s. Maybe the shooter shot through a pillow or something.”

  They’d both stopped walking. Wu faced him. “There’s no indication of that from the crime scene pictures. I didn’t see anything in discovery.”

  “I know. I double-checked them myself. And Salarco probably would have mentioned something like a silencer if he’d seen one. It’s a big old protruding tube stuck on the end of the barrel, you know. It’s not something you’d miss.”

  “So what are you saying? If all of this gets borne out?”

  “Well, the simplest interpretation, which is always the best, is that if Andrew’s gun didn’t have a silencer on it, and he didn’t use anything to kill the sound, then that gun—the purported murder weapon—never got fired that night.” Hardy’s eyes were bright with the possibility. “It’s not quite exactly the other dude that I must say there’s no sign of, but Andrew’s gun is a big part of the picture. If I can get Johnson to listen, or get Salarco to testify that he got a good gander at the gun and it looked normal . . .”

  “. . . then . . . wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Well, being devil’s advocate, Andrew could have used a silencer, killed Mooney and Laura, then taken the silencer off and ditched it before he came back to call nine one one.”

  “Then got rid of the gun? A second trip? I don’t see that happening. I can’t see Andrew doing that.”

  “I don’t either. But Jason Brandt will see it, and the argument’s then refuted and we’re back where we started.”

  “No. Not exactly,” Hardy said, “at least I’m not.”

  “What would be the difference?” Wu asked.

  “You mean if everything is just as I described it to you now? Salarco didn’t just miss the two shots? No muffling agent in the house, no silencer on the gun?”

  “Yeah. What then?”


  Hardy’s eyes were out of focus while the idea worked itself into something like resolution in his mind. The matter settled, he came back to her. “Then I’m pretty sure I don’t have to pretend to myself anymore. If Salarco didn’t hear the gun, then Andrew didn’t shoot it. And you know what that means? What I’ve got to believe?”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s innocent. Somebody else killed them.”

  PART THREE

  23

  Hardy’s medical business with Frannie—taking her to the doctor, getting her back home, into bed and fed—trumped any interaction he might have had with Juan Salarco, and took up a good portion of his morning. Rebecca, the dear, had told her mother that since Dad had taken the regular car, she had no choice but to drive herself and Vincent to school in the convertible. So after he’d changed into his business suit, then called to speak with the principal at Sutro, he swung down to their high school, found the S2000 in the lot and switched cars on her, leaving a note about the broken window on the 4Runner so she wouldn’t think it had happened at school.

  He drove by Salarco’s, saw that the truck was nowhere to be seen, and realized he’d have to come back after the workday. As far as he knew, Juan’s wife Anna spoke only Spanish. Beyond that, he doubted if she would know the precise residence where her husband was working at any given moment. Anxious though he was for Salarco’s information, he had to pass for now. He had other questions, and precious few answers.

  It wasn’t far to Sutro and he made it there by the end of the school’s lunch hour. The outer administration office was empty, but Hardy knew where he was going and went right to it. The principal was in his office, behind his desk doing some paperwork, and stood when Hardy poked his head in. “Mr. Wagner? Sorry to barge in but time is short and there isn’t anybody out front. Dismas Hardy. Andrew Bartlett’s attorney?”

  Wagner, portly and slightly foppish with a bow tie and suspenders, reached a hand out over his desk. “Certainly. How’s he doing?” In his earlier call, Hardy had told him about the suicide attempt.