Nothing but the Truth

by John Lescroart

  Canetta cut a completely different figure in his uniform. With the three stripes on his arm, his handcuffs, bullet belt, gun, and nightstick, he was definitely a cop through and through. He appeared more substantial than he’d been the other night—heavier, older, thicker in the chest.

  Hardy had arrived at what might be considered early lunchtime, and Canetta obviously wanted to get away from the station if he was going to talk about any of this.

  They stopped at Molinari’s Deli so Canetta could get a sandwich—mortadella and Swiss with the waxy sharp pepperoncini Hardy loved and usually couldn’t resist, although today he did. He bought a large Pellegrino water instead.

  They walked up Columbus to Washington Square. A few minutes of small talk—an update on Frannie—brought them to an unoccupied bench directly across from the twin spires of SS. Peter and Paul. Coit Tower presided over the row of buildings to their right. In front of them, a barechested man with gray hair in a long ponytail was trying to train an Irish setter to fetch a Frisbee.

  Canetta unwrapped his sandwich and Hardy started talking. Somebody had been in the penthouse and at least erased the tape. Perhaps they’d taken something as well.

  The sergeant let a few seconds pass, looked sideways at Hardy, fiddled with his sandwich wrapper. “That was me.”

  Hardy tried not to show his surprise. “You went back? After we left last night?”

  A bite of sandwich. A long time chewing. Then a nod. “I already had who’d called, right? Wrote ’em all down.” He patted his back pocket, where he kept his notebook. Then he went on, explaining. “My answering machine at home, it only takes nine messages. I figured his might be the same. And if somebody else called him, I didn’t want the machine full up.”

  “Makes sense,” Hardy said, although that wasn’t what he thought. But it was a done deed. And in any event, Canetta was going on. “You know, they always say it’s the husband.”

  Hardy nodded. “I used to hear that a lot when I was a cop. Now I’m not so sure it’s true.”

  “You were a cop?” Canetta looked him over with new eyes.

  “It’s been a few years, but just after ’Nam, before I went to law school, I walked a beat. Glitsky was my partner, matter of fact.”

  A moment’s reflection while this settled. Then a question. “So the head of homicide’s your old buddy, and you’re coming to me?”

  “I’m the one whose wife’s in jail. Glitsky’s got two guys on the investigation, but it’s four weeks old now and they don’t have a thing.”

  “And you think you can help them?”

  “No. I think I can help me.”

  Canetta liked that and smiled. “Little slow for you are they, huh? The suits?”

  And there it was again, the animosity between the street police and the inspectors. Hardy had picked up a trace of it the first night and, not looking directly at it, it had seemed he might be able to get something out of it.

  But he had to play the hand close. “The way I see it is this. They’re holding my wife because of something she knows about Ron, right?”

  “Okay.”

  “Because Ron’s their suspect?”

  Another nod.

  “So if I can give them somebody else, anybody but Ron, the heat’s off Frannie. They’ll let her go, since what she knows isn’t part of a murder.”

  He could see that the idea appealed to Canetta. The strategic considerations were provocative enough, but suddenly there was something more—the chance to show up the inspectors downtown. If Canetta was any part of the solution to a homicide, he’d get a hell of a lot of print and even more prestige. “I told you the other night and I’ll say it again: I think it’s Bree’s work. And you’re saying you’d start with the phone messages?”

  Hardy nodded. “Ron had calls from both of Bree’s camps? So I’m asking myself why they’d call Ron. What was in those files one of them talked about?”

  “You’re saying that was why she was killed.” His sandwich now forgotten, Canetta was already digging for his notebook.

  “Not exactly. I’m saying if it wasn’t Ron—and for my own reasons I’d prefer it wasn’t—then this is the next rock to look under.”

  “Valens and Jim Pierce?”

  “Yeah. What?”

  Canetta’s eyes had narrowed. He was staring out across the park. “Nothing really, except I know Pierce a little—that freelance security work I told you about.”

  “And?”

  A shrug. “I don’t think I should talk to him about any of this. He knows I’m not in homicide and he’d bust my sorry ass.”

  This made sense, and Hardy agreed easily enough. “But how about some of these others? You still in? This Marie, for example. Who’s she?”

  Canetta answered with a guarded enthusiasm. Clearly he still wanted to be part of this, but he wasn’t going to show how much. “The insurance guy would probably be the easiest one to get ahold of,” he said. “Bill Tilton. If he’s local, he’s probably listed.”

  Hardy had his own notebook out now, and was copying the names. He planned to see Ron later today and get many of these answers, but Canetta could be useful—a badge in his service. “Okay, we’ve got one other person with a last name, this woman Sasaka, with the mystery appointment.”

  A thought struck Canetta. “Ron knew a lot of women, didn’t he?”

  Hardy didn’t want to pursue that. Ron wasn’t going to be his focus. Tapping his fingers on his pad, making a show of thinking, he finally looked up. “What was the security work where you met Bree?”

  “Hotel stuff. Bunch of suits down from Sacramento, lobbyists, politicians, one time the Vice-President, Secret Service yada yada.”

  “So what was your assignment? Did you guard individual people?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Canetta obviously didn’t like the work. “Stand at the doors, take your hardware, be a presence. You know, these guys, they like to make a show. How important they all are.”

  “But even at these meetings, Bree was somebody?”

  He nodded somberly. “Oh yeah. She stood out. I mean, first was the looks thing, especially in this bunch of geeks and wonks. But then she’d always give some talk and bring down the house. She had this . . . sincere quality, a lot of . . . passion, I guess.” Canetta was stumbling over himself, trying to make Hardy see. “Like she really believed in things. I mean, she got to people—you know what I’m saying?”

  At least, Hardy was thinking, she got to Canetta. But now the cop, his eyes far away again, seemed to be considering something. His next words nearly decked Hardy. “Couple of other times, you know, I talked to her.”

  He kept his voice neutral, but it was an effort. “You mean personally?”

  Canetta still wasn’t completely committed to revealing this, but after a beat he nodded. “Coincidences, really, the way it started. I was doing traffic duty a day or two after one of these shows.” A pause, deciding to keep talking. “I don’t know, three four months ago. It’s early evening, I pull her over for speeding about a block from her place. It’s obvious she’s had a couple.”

  “She was drunk?”

  “Maybe.” A quick exhale, letting some of the tension go. Hardy suddenly understanding a little about why Canetta didn’t want to talk to him at the station house. He was already involved here. “I’m alone in the cruiser. I recognize her of course. I don’t cite her. She’s not like out of her mind, a little beyond tipsy is my guess. Long story short, she gets in and I drive her home.”

  She got in his cruiser? Hardy wanted to ask if anything else had gone on. In his line of work, it wasn’t uncommon to hear about some cop pulling over a pretty woman because the tread on her back tires was worn down, so he could meet her, be charming, and find out if she was available.

  Much more seriously, if less common, was that it wasn’t unknown for a cop to get a woman’s address off her driver’s license and start stalking. Hardy was sure it was because he’d established his credentials as an ex-cop, a me
mber of the club, that Canetta was telling him that he’d broken every rule in the book with Bree.

  Still, it was unsettling.

  And it wasn’t over. “So anyway, little while later, I’m passing by where she lives and she’s standing out on the sidewalk. I stop and ask her does she need a lift someplace, but no, she’s waiting for somebody to come pick her up. We talk a minute.”

  “What about?”

  A shrug. “She just thanked me for not writing her up. Said she didn’t usually drink too much. She’d just been under a lot of pressure recently. Job stuff. I tell her I heard her talk a couple of times. It seems to me she’s doing some real good with her work, making a real difference. But she shakes her head. ‘It’s all a mess,’ she says, then like stops, not wanting to say anything else. Says she’s sorry. I ask her for what, and she says like everything.”

  A silence.

  “Did you tell any of this to Griffin?”

  “‘Who?”

  “Carl Griffin, the inspector who got the case.”

  A sideways glance. “He didn’t ask me. I’m just a station cop, what could I know?” The sergeant had gotten himself hunched over, elbows on knees, during the telling. Now, suddenly, he sat back up as though surprised at where they were. He remembered his sandwich and took a bite, his jaw working furiously.

  Hardy killed a minute with his water. “You married, Phil?”

  “Eleven years,” he said evenly. “We got a son just turned twelve. Sometimes you think if things were different, if you could have a choice . . .”

  Hardy clearly heard what he didn’t say—you meet someone like Bree and you wish you wish you wish, but the option isn’t there anymore.

  “But you’d meet with her, with Bree?”

  “Nothing that arranged. I’d pass by the same time of day and she got so she’d be there sometimes. We’d say hi, how’s it goin’, like that. Tell the truth, the feeling I got was she wanted to be reassured that I was there, like her protector.” He took in a ton of air, let it out slowly. “And then she gets killed on my watch.”

  15

  Jim Pierce lived in a three-story Italianate structure set behind a wraparound high white stucco wall. The property was in what Realtors would call a serious neighborhood, on North Point, a block from the Palace of Fine Arts. On this lovely Saturday in the early afternoon, the tourists and even what appeared to be some locals were out in droves, enjoying the Marina district, escorting hordes of children through the Exploratorium, eating gourmet picnic items and feeding the ducks in the lake with the leftovers.

  All of which Hardy got to see in his seven-block walk back to North Point from the parking space he finally located after circling the lake four times. As he went, Hardy found himself considering the possibility that the ducks were inadvertently being fed bits of duck from Chinatown, the odd smear of duck pâté, maybe some seared duck cracklings, or breast slices from someone’s salad, and that this cannibalistic feeding would someday give rise to the dreaded Mad Duck Disease, which wouldn’t be discovered yet for another twenty years, by which time it would be too late. Today’s trendy duck eaters would be dropping like flies.

  He’d let his mind wander as a defense against the sense of intimidation he’d felt when he’d first identified the house from the address Canetta had provided. But now he was here, before the imposing black solid-metal gate, and there was nothing to do but push the button. A pleasant, contralto, cultured female voice answered. “Yes. Who is it?”

  Hardy told her. Said he was afraid it was about Bree Beaumont again. He was sorry. Keeping his role vague, since he really didn’t have one.

  She hesitated, then asked him to please wait. For a moment he thought he might have gotten lucky, and he put his hand on the knob, waiting for the click as it unlocked. Instead, an impatient male voice rasped through the speaker. “Who the hell is this? I’ve already talked to you people half a dozen times. I’ve talked to the grand jury. When are you going to let me have a little peace? I swear to God, I’m trying to cooperate, but I’m tempted to ask for a warrant this time. This is getting a little ridiculous.”

  But the gate clicked, and Hardy pushed it open.

  For all the imposing nature of his house, and even with the impatient tone in his voice, Jim Pierce came across as a nice guy. He opened the front door before Hardy was halfway up the walk. “Do they change investigators downtown every five minutes nowadays? No wonder you people aren’t getting anywhere.” Hardy squinted in the bright sunlight. Pierce wore a white polo shirt with a colorful logo over the left breast, a pair of well-worn but pressed khakis, tassled loafers with no socks. “I’m just watching the game. Notre Dame, USC? The Irish are eating them for lunch. You like football?”

  “I used to like Notre Dame back when Parsegian coached,” Hardy said. He was on the porch stairs and Pierce was already a step into the dark interior of the house. “You ought to know I’m not with the police.”

  Pierce stopped and turned back. “I thought Carrie said it was about Bree . . . oh, never mind.” It was his turn to squint. Hardy stayed outside, framed in the doorway. “So what can I do for you? What’s this about?”

  Hardy introduced himself as a lawyer doing some work for Bree’s husband, Ron. “You called him last week.”

  A flash of surprise. “I did?”

  “Yes, sir, I believe so.”

  The expression held as—apparently—he tried to remember. “All right, then, I must have. Did I say what it was about?”

  “You asked him to call you back. Something about Bree’s effects. Did you ever hear back from him?”

  Pierce didn’t have to think about it. “No.”

  “Can I ask you what you wanted?”

  The nice guy image was fading slightly. Pierce was getting tired of fielding questions about Bree. “One of my duties involves community relations,” he said. “I think she took a lot of boilerplate with her when she left. It would be helpful to have it back.”

  “So why didn’t you ask her for it when she was alive?”

  “I did. She wasn’t very well disposed toward the company after she left. I thought Ron might be a little more . . . malleable.” By degrees, Pierce had moved back to the doorway, and now stood perhaps two feet from Hardy, his hand back on the door, by all signs ready to say goodbye.

  But something stopped him. “Now how about if I ask you one?”

  “Sure.”

  “As a lawyer, what are you doing for Ron? The police don’t have suspicions of him, do they?”

  “They’re eliminating suspects right now and he’s one of them. Maybe I can find something to get them off him.”

  “So you don’t think he killed Bree?”

  Something in his tone set off bells. Hardy cocked his head. “You do?”

  “No. I didn’t say that.”

  “That’s funny. That’s what it sounded like.”

  “No.” He sighed again, this time the weariness unmistakable. “Lord, where will this end? I don’t know who killed Bree. I’m still having a hard time believing anyone could kill her, that someone purposely ended her life.”

  Hardy suddenly noticed the pallor under Pierce’s ruddy cheeks—lack of sleep, time spent indoors. The darkened house. He put it together that, like Canetta, Pierce was in a kind of mourning. Another guy laid out by Bree’s death.

  The woman certainly had cut a swath.

  “If you had to guess, Mr. Pierce, why was she killed?”

  A blank look, his mind no longer on Hardy. “I don’t know.”

  “I realize that you can’t talk about what you told the grand jury . . .”

  Suddenly Pierce seemed to realize they were still in the doorway. “I’m sorry. Where are my manners, keeping you standing out here? Come on in.”

  Hardy stood a minute inside, his eyes adjusting. Now that he’d asked him in, Pierce seemed uncertain what to do next. He motioned to a large bowl on a table next to the door. “Help yourself to some candy, if you’d like. Almond Roca. The best.�
��

  Hardy thanked him and took a couple, unpeeling the gold wrapper on one of them as Pierce led him back through the foyer. It wasn’t just the Almond Roca—“the best” seemed to be the underlying theme of the place. Formal living areas, one-of-a-kind furniture, ten-foot ceilings. They bypassed the winding staircase. The televisiondroned in a small room and Pierce poked his head in. “Half time,” he said, and kept walking.

  The last door on the right opened into a modern kitchen, where a woman sat at the island counter. Facing away from them, reading a magazine, she half turned as they entered.

  “Excuse us, Carrie. Mr. Hardy, my wife.” Then, explaining, “He’s not with the police after all. Mr. Beaumont’s attorney.”

  She got off her stool and stood, extending a cool, firm hand. A nod of the regal head, holding on to Hardy’s hand an instant longer than was customary. Mrs. Pierce was no child, no recent trophy wife—she appeared to be just to either side of forty—but Hardy decided immediately that she was not just very attractive, but almost disturbingly beautiful. Widely set, startling blue eyes dominated the face of a northern Italian goddess. He estimated she was wearing two thousand dollars’ worth of tailored casual wear that emphasized the slim waist. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe style that highlighted the sculpted bones of her face. Simple designer gold earrings dangled from what seemed to be designer earlobes and a wide gold necklace graced a flawless expanse of finely pored honey-toned skin over the rise of a deep and dangerous cleavage. “Have they charged Mr. Beaumont?” she asked in her cultured voice, a pretty frown clouding her perfect brow.

  “Not yet.” Hardy hoped he wasn’t stammering. “I’m trying to keep that from happening. I was just asking your husband why he thought Bree Beaumont was killed.”

  “Or why he’s a suspect.” Carrie Pierce said it matter-of-factly. “He was Bree’s mentor from the beginning, that’s why. They worked closely together and of course people talked. People tend to be jealous, not to believe that men and women who work together can be friends without . . .” A brief look of distaste. “I mean, the world doesn’t really turn around sex, after all.”