Nothing but the Truth

by John Lescroart

  “That’s my guess.”

  Jeff fidgeted in his chair, came to his decision, nodded.

  “Have I mentioned the off-the-record thing?”

  Hardy was dying to learn what Jeff knew, but it never helped to show it. He broke an easy smile. “Once or twice.”

  He waited.

  “The thing about Kerry is that he’s really a good guy, especially for a politician. I’ve been with him more than a few times, in press rooms, after the odd banquet, off the record—much like you and me right now, and he’s decent. Plus he plays straight with us.”

  “Us?”

  “Reporters, media, like that.”

  “Okay.” And . . . ?

  “Okay, so a guy like that, sometimes a guy like me finds out a fact and kind of unofficially decides it doesn’t have to be in the public interest.”

  Hardy’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me. I thought I just heard you say that the media could show some restraint.”

  Jeff acknowledged the point with a wry face. “I’m talking personal here. Me. It’s not something I brag about, but it happens. Sometimes.” At Hardy’s skeptical look, he spread his palms wide. “Okay, rarely. But the point is, Kerry’s not married—he can date anybody he wants. As our President has pointed out, it’s his private life. It’s not news.”

  “But Bree was married.”

  “And maybe they didn’t do anything let’s say carnal. Maybe she just hung around a lot and it was purely the campaign and business.”

  Hardy leaned forward. “But you know otherwise?”

  “Did I catch them in flagrante? No. But I know. My opinion is they were in love with each other.”

  This took a minute to digest, although Hardy had come to suspect it.

  But Jeff was going on. “She only lived a half-dozen blocks from him, both of ’em up on Broadway, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know about him. I knew she did.”

  “Well, Kerry, too. His place is that little thirty-room shack just up from Baker. You’d remember it if you saw it, and you have.” Jeff seemed almost relieved to be able to let his secret out. If he’d promised not to print it, telling somebody who in turn couldn’t tell was next best. “Anyway, couple of months ago I was pushing Damon for an interview—as I said, we go back a ways, too—and he said meet him at his place after hours, he’d dig up something for me. He was coming in from Chico or someplace, was going to be alone, which meant without Valens. Except when I got there, who opens the door but Bree Beaumont.”

  “Dressed?”

  Jeff chuckled. “You’ve got a dirty mind. Let’s go with casually attired. Casually and very, very attractively.” He paused, remembering, then blew out a rush of air. “Very. Low green silk blouse, linen pants, barefoot. I distinctly remember she forgot her underwear on top. Believe me, it was the kind of thing you noticed, especially on her, even if you weren’t a trained reporter like me, alive to every detail.”

  Hardy wanted to keep him going. “I keep hearing how pretty she was.”

  “A couple of miles beyond pretty, Diz. In any event,” he continued, “here’s a bottle of champagne in a bucket on the coffee table, and otherwise the house is empty. So ask me, do I feel like I’m intruding? Moi?”

  “So what was it?”

  “Evidently she was planning to surprise him with a little welcome homecoming after the road trip. So he shows about ten minutes after I arrive, opens the door and it’s like, uh, ‘Hi, Bree, fancy you being here. Now, how ’bout them gas additives?’ Call me a genius, but I saw right through it.”

  “You’re a genius.”

  Jeff nodded. “Somebody has to be. So anyway, they were together, and I knew it, and they knew I knew it. And I told them I’d keep a lid on it.”

  “I’m just curious, but why would you do that?”

  He shook his head as though mystified himself. “I don’t know, Diz. I like the guy. I like his politics. It meant a lot to them.” He met Hardy’s eyes. “Bottom line is I just decided. It shames me to say it, but I might even do the same for you.”

  “You don’t have to,” Hardy replied. “I wasn’t sleeping with Bree. But after she was killed, weren’t you tempted to talk to the police?”

  “Why? Nobody’s saying Damon’s a suspect.”

  Hardy looked a question. “At the least, Jeff, she’s murdered and you know he’s her lover. That’s got to be relevant to the homicide investigation. Maybe even crucial.”

  “It’s also relevant to Damon’s campaign, maybe even crucial. He didn’t kill her, Diz. There is no way. Plus, I want to see him get elected, and I sure as hell don’t have to tell the cops what I know. Maybe if some inspector would have come and made some connection, asked me directly . . . I don’t know, I might have been tempted. But nobody did. Nobody has.”

  “But as you say, Jeff, it is all connected. It’s got to be.” For emphasis, Hardy patted the desk between them. “So today’s bonus question is who did the water? What’s the Clean Earth Alliance?”

  Jeff shifted again in his wheelchair, brought a hand to his tired eyes and rubbed them. Glancing at his watch, he looked up suddenly to see that outside a sepia dusk had settled. “When am I going to learn not to work on weekends? Why did I come in here on a Saturday?”

  Hardy leaned forward. Jeff knew something else and was wrestling with how much to reveal. Hardy kept it low affect. “You were going to write some graphs on Frannie.”

  Which brought it all back home. Jeff sat still a moment, then wheeled himself around to a low file cabinet. Back at the desk, he laid open the thick file folder, began turning pages. “The Yosemite Militia. The Valdez Avengers. Earth Now.” He looked up. “And today’s Clean Earth Alliance. Get the picture?”

  “They’re all related?”

  “Let’s say I’d bet their headquarters is some cabin in Montana.”

  “So who runs them?”

  “Well, this is a matter of some debate.” Jeff pulled pages and ran down a synopsis of damage these groups had done, most of it in the realm of nuisance—vandalism and graffiti—but in two cases something much more serious.

  The Valdez Avengers had claimed responsibility for a pipe bomb explosion at an Exxon gas station in Tacoma, Washington, that had killed four people and injured twelve. Jeff looked up from the page. “They didn’t want people to invest in Exxon. That daring raid killed a little girl, six years old. Boy, that showed her.”

  More recently, at the huge refinery in Richmond, just across the Bay, three guards had been severely beaten in a thus far unclaimed attack. The refinery’s statement was that nothing had been taken, and that the rest of their security team had driven off the five assailants, although they’d been unable to capture them. “But you want my opinion,” Jeff concluded, “that’s when these clowns got their hands on the MTBE.”

  “But couldn’t they just as well have gone to the gas station, pumped it out at a buck twenty-nine a gallon?”

  “Sure, but what’s the fun in that? Diz, these people are thugs. They get their rocks off shaking things up, making the Big Statement. Like today.”

  Hardy leaned back, crossed a leg. “And you’ve got all this stuff in one folder.”

  “Right. Like Bree and Frannie and Damon, it’s all connected somehow. And now this stuff”—he motioned down to his pile of paper—“it’s part of that, too.”

  “So who’s behind it? I had a Caloco guy today tell me that SKO funded this kind of activity.”

  But this didn’t fit Jeff’s worldview. “No, I’d be surprised at that. SKO’s big. These independent bozos seem to hate big.”

  Hardy pointed at the folders. “You got any stories about attacks on ethanol producers or distributors?”

  Jeff didn’t have to look. “No, now that you mention it. And that’s a good point.”

  “Maybe these groups don’t know who’s bankrolling them. Maybe SKO’s got a front.”

  Jeff nodded. “But that means . . .” He stopped, the idea germinating. “Why would they . . .
?”

  “I’ve been using this mantra all day,” Hardy said. “You ought to try it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Three billion dollars. Say it a few times. It’ll grow on you.”

  19

  David Freeman was not asleep and he wasn’t reading anything. But he was completely still, his feet propped up on the table in his Solarium, which was the nickname for the conference room just off the main lobby in his building. He wasn’t wearing shoes, and one of his argyle socks had a hole in the toe. His cigar spiked the room with its rich odor and left the air with a blue tint, although there was no sign that Freeman was drawing on it, or even was aware of it, stuck there in the front of his face.

  Hardy tapped once on the open door.

  Not a muscle moved. Freeman sighed. “I was just thinking about you. How you doing?”

  “I’ve been better.” Hardy pulled a chair and dropped himself into it. For a long moment, neither man said anything. Eventually, Hardy started. “I just called home for my messages. Did you know it’s Halloween?”

  “What is?”

  “Tonight. It’s Halloween.”

  For the first time, Freeman favored him with a glance, went back to his cigar, blew a long plume. “You forgot. Your kids are upset.”

  It sounded like a chortle, but there wasn’t any humor in it. None at all. “What the hell am I . . . ?” He laid a hand on the table with exaggerated calm, drummed his fingertips. Da-da-dum, da-da-dum. “I’ve got a meeting here in ten minutes, David. lt’s possibly even an important meeting, having to do with my wife being in jail, trying to get her out. Maybe I’m wrong, but this seems like something I ought to spend some of my time on.”

  Another moment. Freeman had nothing to say, which was just as well. Hardy needed to vent.

  “So we got a killer I’m trying to find without any help from the police. We got the city’s water supply on hold for a couple of weeks. We got their mother rotting over downtown, have I mentioned that? And all these are somehow related and I’ve got no idea how. And do you know what the real problem is? I mean, the really big goddamn most important thing wrong with the world right now tonight?” The drumming had picked up in tempo. “You want to know?”

  Humoring him, Freeman nodded imperceptibly. “Sure.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you. It’s that I am such a shitty father and care so little about my children that I forgot the most important holiday in their young and precious lives. It never hit my radar all day. Can you imagine? What else could I possibly have been thinking about?”

  Freeman nodded again. “It’s the nineties. Guy like you, you can’t not be an insensitive cretin. Nothing to do but ignore it.”

  Freeman was right. There wasn’t any point bitching about Hardy’s priorities. They were what they were.

  He was that 90s pariah, the linear, logical, fact-burdened, classically trained human. Even worse, some wiring flaw had predestined him to be more oriented toward justice than mercy. The rest of his San Francisco world was sensitive and child-centered and politically correct and of course the children’s fun on Halloween was much more important than any work Hardy might ever have to do.

  He would just have to get over it.

  In some places, say Kosovo or Rwanda, Hardy was pretty sure many fathers didn’t take time out every day to play with their children. Their goal—and he felt the same about his own—was simple survival. He wondered if kids in these countries considered their fathers insensitive.

  The soul-wrenching truth of it was that Hardy cared more about his wife and children than about any job. Than about anything, for that matter. But this—today, what he was doing—was not some job. This was real life—his and Frannie’s and the kids’ real lives in a real crisis. Just like Ron Beaumont’s kids and their lives.

  And yet somehow both of his kids had assumed he’d zip on back to the Avenues and take them out trick-or-treating.It frustrated him beyond his ability to articulate. Young they might be, but could they really be unaware of the gravity of this situation? Of how much he treasured them? Of the reason behind every breath he took? Could they be that blind?

  If they were, where had he failed them?

  The old man swung his legs down to the ground, put his elbows on the table. “What did you mean? You know they’re related but don’t know how? This water poisoning and Frannie? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Hardy was accustomed to Freeman’s brain—it tended to take leaps in any direction that looked promising—but even so, it took him a second. And the segue, though abrupt, was a good thing. It put him back on his work, on what he had to do, and the feeling part of it be damned.

  When he’d made everything safe and secure again, it would have been worth it, and they could either understand why he’d done it and the way he’d done it or not. But either way, it would be done.

  He nodded at Freeman. “And while we’re on it, possibly the election this Tuesday.”

  Out in the lobby, they heard a harsh buzzing sound. “That would be Canetta,” he said. “My appointment. You want to stick around, I won’t kick you out.”

  “Are you kidding me? You couldn’t if you tried.”

  “Bill Tilton was, in fact, listed.”

  They had gotten settled back in the smoky, dim room. Introductions made. Freeman brought up to speed. The landlord’s presence, Hardy sensed, only grudgingly accepted by Canetta. But the sergeant had information and he wanted to show off what he’d found. “This isn’t so tough,” the sergeant said. “I could do this.”

  “Sounds like you already did, Phil.” Hardy would give Canetta all the strokes he needed to keep him pumped up.

  But Canetta seemed to be motivated on his own. “He’s an agent with Farmer’s Fund Life Insurance. I called from the station so when he called back he’d know I was legitimately the police.”

  “Smart,” Hardy said. He raised his eyes to Freeman, silently told him to shut up. “And he did call back?”

  “Wasn’t even an hour. So I asked him direct. Told him this was a murder investigation and we needed his cooperation. What’d he call Ron about? He said the company was a little sticky with the payout on Bree, her being murdered and all. On the side, Tilton tells me the claims guy doesn’t want to send a check—we’re talking two big ones—until it’s pretty damn clear Ron didn’t kill her. So I kept him yakking and he said it’s the first time he’s had this situation and it’s made things ugly around his office. Now, this next, you’re going to like this.”

  Hardy waited, then realized Canetta needed some response. “I give up.”

  Another second of suspense, then a smile. “His secretary quit over it. Marie couldn’t believe Tilton could be such a shit to Ron, who was the nicest—”

  “Marie?” Suddenly Hardy heard it.

  Canetta smiled. “That’s what I said. And Tilton goes, ‘Yeah, Marie Dempsey.’ ”

  “The Marie from the phone messages?”

  “As it turns out.” Canetta was almost beaming with childlike pride. “Marie is, was, his—Tilton’s—secretary.”

  Hardy nodded in satisfaction. This was good. Two names to cross off. Insurance business. “You know, Phil, you really can do this. You want, I’ll put in a plug to Glitsky.”

  “Naw. Fuck Glitsky and the suits. I don’t want to join ’em, but I wouldn’t mind beating ’em.” Suddenly Canetta pointed to Freeman, who’d been uncharacteristically silent, to his cigar. “By any chance, you got another one of those things?”

  Freeman nodded, said sure, got up and disappeared back into the dark lobby.

  “You sure he’s cool?” Canetta asked.

  “Cool” was about the last word Hardy would ever use to describe Freeman, but he knew what Canetta meant. “He’s the smartest guy you’ll ever meet, Phil.”

  Canetta threw a glance over his shoulder. “Maybe the ugliest, too.”

  Hardy, keeping his voice low, had to grin. “Well, all of us can’t have everything. But you can trust him—that I
guarantee. You don’t have to kiss him.”

  A shudder traveled the whole length of Canetta’s body. “I’ll try to restrain myself. I bet I can.”

  “Can what?” Another of Freeman’s many talents was his ability to appear out of nowhere. He had a handful of cigars, a bottle of red wine and glasses, all of which he kept a supply of in his office. He laid the cigars on the table. “Help yourself, Sergeant. I should have offered sooner. What did I miss?” He put down the glasses, started to pour all around.

  But Hardy had a hand out. “None for me, David. I’m working.” And Canetta took the same road.

  Freeman shrugged. He was working, too, but it was Saturday night. He could have a glass of wine—hell, a bottle of wine—and his brain would still hum along nicely, thank you, maybe even a little better than it was now. So would Hardy’s and Canetta’s, but David had learned long ago that you couldn’t tell anything to baby boomers. They were working. Working was serious. They couldn’t mix any fun in or they might—what? die? Christ, no wonder they all burned out.

  But he sipped his wine and listened as Canetta went back to what he’d found. At least he’d lit his cigar, Freeman was thinking, although that, too, of course, would kill him. The sergeant was reading from his spiral notebook. “Kogee Sasaka has a massage place. Hands On. That’s the name. I checked with some guys at the station. Legitimate. No busts, no complaints. She gives massages, if you can believe it. Anyway, that was the appointment she called Ron about.”

  Canetta flicked at his pages. “That was it. Tilton, Marie, and Kogee, wasn’t it? And you did Pierce, right?”

  “And Valens, as it turned out.” Hardy filled him in on the hotel interviews, ending with Valens’s interesting fib about having called Ron.

  “But Valens did call him.”

  Hardy agreed. “Unless someone was doing a pretty damn fine impersonation.”

  “So why’d he lie about it?”

  The question hung while Freeman swallowed his wine. Finally, he spoke up. “That’s where you push,” he said simply. “Was the call about anything, or did he just leave his name?”