Nothing but the Truth

by John Lescroart

  It threw him to see it, but even now in this stressful environment, both remained obviously well-cared-for children, newly bathed and wearing pajamas.

  “Are you here to help us?” Cassandra asked. She turned to her father, explaining. “Rebecca says that’s what her dad does. He helps people. He’s a lawyer.”

  Ron didn’t seem as impressed with it as his daughter was, but the statement seemed to play into his plan and he didn’t miss the opportunity. “That’s right,” he responded easily. “He’s here to see if he can help us out.” A sideways glance, tacitly asking Hardy’s complicity at the outset, which Hardy couldn’t think fast enough to deny.

  “He’s trying to get us back home. It’s time you guys turned in, okay?”

  A couple of minutes of small talk finally dwindled down before Hardy got strong handshakes from both of them as they were heading off to bed. And—the acid test—they both looked him in the eye.

  It was a bit disorienting for Hardy to realize that these were well-adjusted children who appeared to love their father. If they were a bit reserved, Hardy had to remember that it was near their bedtime, they were in strange surroundings, and their stepmother had been murdered only four weeks before. He wouldn’t have expected giggling high spirits.

  But he didn’t pick up any scent of people-fear, either of him or of their father, and that was always the inevitable companion to abuse.

  It threw him off his stride. Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this cozy domestic scene with father and loving children.

  The gun rode heavily inside his belt, a stupid, clumsy, macho pretense. What had he been thinking? Shifting uncomfortably, pulling at his jacket to cover the gun, he felt a wave of disgust for himself.

  Who was he kidding? He wasn’t some kind of gun-slinger. It had been two decades since he’d been a cop. Now he was a lawyer, a paper pusher, a persuader. Words and strategy, the tools of old men like David Freeman.

  And now Dismas Hardy.

  All this was the thought of an instant, though. Ron was keeping things moving. “Okay, you’ve told Mr. Hardy good night enough times. Now march!” Firm, good-natured, in control.

  Amazingly, there was no argument. Chez Hardy, bedtimes were often the most difficult time of the day. Impatient, depleted parents struggling to get their exhausted children to admit that they were even remotely tired. The exercise would wind up turning into a war of wills that left all sides defeated.

  But Max and Cassandra were up and moving. Another polite good night, stalling for that last precious second, both of them telling Hardy they were so glad he was here.

  For the first time, Hardy noticed that they were in a suite, with a separate room for the kids, and Ron said he’d be back in five minutes, after he’d tucked them in, gotten them settled. But Hardy hadn’t come all the way down here only to have Ron and the kids slip out another door. So, feeling foolish, he nevertheless went and stood in the doorway to the bedroom, where he could watch in case the good father decided to bolt and run with his children.

  But the bedtime rituals made it immediately obvious that this wasn’t on the night’s agenda. Apparently Ron had decided to accept Hardy’s unexpected presence and work within these new parameters.

  Hardy finally went back to the other room, sat in the chair at the desk, and half listened to the familiar good night noises.

  The gun remained an uneasy presence, the unyielding pressure in his side. His stomach roiled with the unspent rage, the tension and hunger. A rogue wave of fatigue washed over him so powerfully that for a moment, snapping out of it, he was disoriented.

  Out over the Bay, the huge planes on their airport approach floated down out of the darkling, cloud-scudded sky.

  “So what do you intend to do?” Ron had closed the door to the kids’ room and pulled over a wing chair. “You want some coffee? A beer? Anything? The room’s got everything.”

  “I don’t want anything except my wife out of jail.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.” Ron sat. “Look, I don’t blame you for being mad. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but nobody could have seen this coming.”

  “You saw it enough three days ago that you left your apartment, took your kids out of school.”

  “That was when I learned they were going to talk to Frannie.” Hearing his wife’s name used with such familiarity rekindled some of the flame of anger. Hardy fought it—it wasn’t going to get him what he needed, not now. But Ron was going on, explaining, rationalizing how none of this was entirely his fault. “That’s when I realizedthe investigation was coming back to me. I couldn’t hang around and let that happen.”

  “No. It was better to let them come after Frannie.”

  “I didn’t foresee that.”

  “You just said you knew they were talking to her. What did you think was going to happen?”

  “I had no idea. I told them I had been drinking coffee with her. I thought they’d probably want to make sure.” He leaned forward in the chair. “I don’t know if you realize it, but the grand jury had already questioned me. I answered everything they asked me.”

  “But obviously lied about fighting with your wife.”

  Suddenly the floor seemed to hold a fascination for Ron. Finally, he raised his eyes. “What was I supposed to do, put myself on their A-list?”

  “The theory is you tell them nothing but the truth. That’s the one Frannie went with. You might have told her she could tell your little secret.”

  “I thought all they wanted was corroboration on the alibi. You’ve got to believe that. The other stuff, I never thought it would come up.”

  “Well, it did.” But this was old news and Hardy was sick of it. “So why didn’t you just take off when you knew they’d started looking? You had three days. You could be in Australia by now.”

  “The kids uprooted again. No insurance income from Bree’s death. The police after me.”

  “They’re after you now.”

  “That’s not what I hear. Not yet.”

  Macho or no, Hardy almost reached for the gun, put an end to this stupidity. Take the man in and let the chips fall.

  But then he remembered the three innocent, shackled children from Judge Li’s courtroom. An example of what could happen—something similarly terrible almost inevitably would happen—to Cassandra and Max. Furious as he was, he couldn’t be responsible for putting them into the criminal justice system. Not yet, anyway. Not if there was any other way.

  Ron was leaning forward, tight-lipped and earnest. His elbows were on his knees and his hands were gripped, white-knuckled, together in front of him. “Look, I know this is bad for you. Horrible. But my first responsibility has to be to my guys in there. I know you understand that.”

  Hardy couldn’t say anything. It galled him, but the fact was that it was true—he understood it completely.

  Ron was going on. “And we’re not absolutely committed to running away either, not yet anyway. If this passes, the kids are back in school next week with a little unscheduled vacation and no one thinks a thing about it. The original plan was we’d take a few days off, see which way the wind was blowing.” He let out a deep breath. “Maybe we wouldn’t have to go after all.”

  “Go where?”

  “Wherever. Anywhere.”

  “And do what?”

  Ron hung his head again for an instant, brought it back up. “Start over. Again.”

  If this was a not-so-subtle play for sympathy, it was misdirected. Hardy snapped out. “And meanwhile what happens to Frannie?”

  “I release her. She gets out.”

  Hardy didn’t like the sound of that, either. “You release her?”

  A nod. “From the promise.”

  “I got an idea, Ron. Why don’t you do it now? Like right now, this minute?” Hardy’s voice had picked up some heat. He snatched up the pen and telephone pad from on the desk, held it out to him, once again considering the gun.

  Ron was shaking his head no. “The minute
she talks, we have to run—we have to relocate. Don’t you see that?”

  Hardy looked around the suite. “What do you call this? This isn’t running?”

  The pen was still out there in the air between them. Ron stood up slowly, took it, sat at the desk, and wrote for a minute.

  When Hardy had read what he’d written, though, it didn’t strike him as nearly enough. The note was brief and specific, telling Frannie that the next time she went before the grand jury, she should feel free to reveal his secret if she felt she needed to. But Hardy’s problem was that the grand jury wasn’t meeting until next Tuesday morning, which left Frannie exactly where she was right now. In a cold fury, Hardy raised his eyes and spoke. “What the hell kind of good does this do?”

  Ron sat on the edge of the bed and spoke with a desperate calm. “My understanding from the television—am I right?—is that poor Frannie’s in jail down there for four days no matter what happens with me.”

  Hardy nodded. “That’s how it looks, but—”

  Palm out, Ron stopped him. “Please. May I? So my hope is that I won’t have to do all this again, move my family, start over. I’ve already done it once, as you know. But the idea of doing it again . . . ’’ He drew in a breath. “I’d rather avoid that, and maybe I can.”

  “How’s that?”

  “If they find who did it.”

  This was what Frannie had suggested only a few hours earlier, but Hardy was damned if he was going to make the same argument he’d made to her. He could be a lot more straightforward here. He heard his volume going up. “And what if they don’t, Ron? How about that?”

  “Then on Tuesday, me and the kids, we go. And Frannie can talk.”

  “She can tell the grand jury you’ve kidnapped your kids?”

  “I don’t see it that way, but yes.”

  “Put the FBI on your ass?”

  A weak smile. “They’ve been there before. They won’t find me.”

  “And Frannie gets out of jail? She tells them everything?”

  “Yes. You have my word. Meanwhile, if Bree’s killer is found”—he indicated the kids’ bedroom—“those guys maybe get to go back to a normal life. That’s all I want, really.”

  And here was Frannie’s impetus in deciding to ask her husband to help her maybe-lover. Save some lives, she’d said, and he’d let himself be persuaded that she was talking about their own family.

  But no.

  Again, it was Ron. His kids.

  Hardy knew nothing of the truth about Ron and Frannie, about Ron and his earlier marriage, the custody battle, Bree or her life or any of the political issues surrounding it. Three days wasn’t enough time, even if he had an entire police department working with him, even if he was motivated to do it.

  Which he wasn’t.

  He couldn’t use his cop friends, his lawyer connections, any of his personal channels because he’d sworn himself to secrecy. Finding a likely suspect for Bree’s murder was a ridiculous notion. And why would he want to anyway? Ron Beaumont might not be anything he appeared right now. It might all be an act.

  Help the man? Hardy still didn’t feel as if he’d completely ruled out killing him.

  Hardy glanced at the note a last time, folded it over and jammed it into his pocket.

  Ron, seeing this, picked a bad moment to comment. “We can do this,” he said, all sincerity.

  And Hardy suddenly lost all his patience, slapping a palm loudly on the table in front of him, raising his voice in a rage. “What is this ‘we’ shit? There’s no ‘we’ here. There’s me and what I need to do for my family. Then there’s you. And don’t kid yourself, they’re nothing like the same thing!”

  Not trusting himself to keep his anger checked any further—he might pull that gun out after all—he got up and abruptly strode across to the door.

  “You’re not leaving?”

  This wasn’t Ron’s voice and Hardy’s surprise at the sound of it whirled him around. It was Cassandra, standing in the doorway to the suite. It was obvious that she had been crying, though now she had gotten herself back under control. “Please, Mr. Hardy, you can’t leave.” At her father. “We do need help, Daddy. He can help us. Rebecca says that’s really what he does. That’s why he can almost never be home, because he’s helping other people.”

  The innocent, unintended stab slashed across Hardy’s insides. But Ron kept to the point, not the subtext, answering his daughter calmly. “I think he can, too, honey, but it’s not my decision.”

  There was a tentative knock from the children’s door and now Max stuck his head through the crack. “I’m sorry. I covered my head with the pillow, but I still couldn’t help hearing you yelling.” He looked from Hardy to Ron. “Are you all mad at each other?”

  Cassandra reached back and put her arm around her brother. “We’re scared, Daddy. What’s going to happen?”

  “It’s all right, hon, there’s nothing to be scared of. Daddy’s right here.”

  Ron cast a glance at Hardy and went to stand up, but his daughter had advanced a step into the room, trailed by Max, who now held on to her hand. The little girl’s face was set with determination. Another step and she spoke right to Hardy. “Mr. Hardy, didn’t you come here to try to help us? Is that true?”

  Hardy stammered. “Well, I . . .”

  “Because we can’t go back to Dawn. They can’t make us do that. Even Max remembers . . .” The tears had begun again. “We just want to stay with Daddy and have everything be like it was again.”

  Max piped in through his own tears. “And Bree back, too, please. I want Bree back.”

  “Oh, guys . . .” Ron went to stand up.

  But Cassandra didn’t move toward him. She had her eyes on Hardy. “Do you have to be our lawyer to help us? Is that how it works? How do you become our lawyer?”

  Hardy crossed over near her, went down to one knee, tried a tired smile. “It’s not that. It’s that I don’t know what I can do, Cassandra. It’s complicated. Rebecca’s mother’s in a lot of trouble, too, and I’ve got to help her. She’s got to be my first priority. You can understand that.”

  But the girl was persistent. “Maybe you could do both, though? And Daddy isn’t sure what to do right now.”

  Ron reached out to her. “Oh, sweetie, come here. Both of you guys.” Ron was holding out his hands and the kids went to him. He enveloped them both in his arms, in a strong and soothing fatherhood. “Come on, now, come on. There’s nothing to be scared of. Let’s say good night to Mr. Hardy and go back to bed. It’ll all look better in the morning.”

  But Cassandra turned. “Please, Mr. Hardy, if you can.”

  12

  It was Monday, October 5th, less than a week after Bree Beaumont’s death. In fact, it was the day she was to be buried. Baxter Thorne, a portly man with a gray goatee, a soft-spoken manner and a gentle disposition, nervously paced the floor behind his computer banks in his office on the thirtieth floor of Embarcadero Two. Outside his inoperable windows, it was a gloriously clear day, with boats on the Bay and Treasure Island a nine-iron pitch across a mile and a half of blue water. But Thorne had no use for the view. He’d told the cop—Griffin—he’d be here first thing in the morning. He had no idea what the man might have found, but the fact that he knew of Baxter Thorne’s existence at all was a very bad sign.

  The sign on Thorne’s door announced that these were the offices of the Fuels Management Consortium, FMC. In fact, the organization was the center for the lobbying efforts of one of the country’s two multinational farming conglomerates. Spader Krutch Ohio, “SKO,” along with its chief competitor, Archer Daniels Midland, “ADM,” was one of the country’s leading producers of ethanol. But while ADM was colloquially known by the benign nickname of “Supermarket to the World,” SKO’s reputation was somewhat less savory.

  SKO had been having a rough time in the last several years, and Thorne had been assigned to California to direct a campaign on behalf of its interest—he’d proven himself as a crea
tive media consultant.

  SKO might be Thorne’s biggest client, but the quiet, well-mannered gentleman with the goatee worked to please himself. He had a persuasive way with words, true, and could sway opinion with his pen. If his clients believed that his silver tongue and lucid prose alone were converting the multitudes, Thorne was happy to let them. But in reality, he knew better.

  Sometimes, to be effective, you simply had to shake things up.

  And this was his real love—operatins, wet work. It had lots of names. Thorne got his own personal jollies by pursuing an extralegal agenda all his own. And it was far more extensive and dangerous than anything any of his clients would ever order or even, if they became aware of it, tolerate.

  For example, two years before, SKO had been getting a lot of bad press. The company’s CEO, Ellis Jackson, was fighting off charges of illegal campaign funding, gift-giving, and influence peddling. Because of this, the senator from Kansas got cold feet and—reluctant to be identified with SKO—threatened to renege on his support of ethanol subsidies. This support was finally guaranteed by a donation of a million dollars to the senator’s campaign fund, but without Thorne it is doubtful that the senator would have found a way to accept the gift.

  On his own, Thorne had discovered the man’s weakness for other young men. Then, Thorne had seen to it that one of these men had been on the corporate jet on the junket to Hilton Head. Finally, Thorne had decided precisely where to position the cameras.

  But while Thorne loved his own covert operations more than anything else on earth, he didn’t shrink from his nuts-and-bolts work—information management and spin control. In fact, the Fuels Management Consortium produced reams of paper every month for dissemination to radio shows, newspapers, think tanks, consultant firms, lobbyists.

  In addition, Thorne’s company produced campaign leaflets for political candidates who supported ethanol, or opposed MTBE, which amounted to the same thing. The most prominent of these was Damon Kerry, running for governor of California.

  Unfortunately, in Thorne’s view, Damon Kerry was a man who did not appreciate the big picture. Like the senator from Kansas, he didn’t want to be publicly associated with SKO, with its questionable lobbying history. Damon Kerry was prure—he wasn’t proposing the use of ethanol. He wasn’t being bought by any special interests, no sir. He was merely opposed to the cancer-causing alternative, MTBE.