Nothing but the Truth

by John Lescroart

  Hardy hated to acknowledge it, but it did.

  “This is God’s truth. I’ve never heard of Rita Browning in my life. She owns nine-oh-two?”

  “Maybe. That’s the name on the mailbox, on her checks. David Glenn—your supe?—he says he’s never seen her.”

  “How long has she been there?”

  “Five years, a couple of months longer than you have as a matter of fact.”

  “David came on after us,” Ron said helpfully. “A coupleof years later, I think. It’s not impossible, I suppose, that he hasn’t met her . . .”

  “She makes her mortgage payments for the year every January.”

  “For the year?” Ron went quiet while he considered this. “You think I’ve been paying for two apartments in that building for five years?”

  “Let’s say I don’t think there’s a Rita Browning. All your aka’s have the initials RB—”

  “Yeah, but I’ll tell you something about those accounts, those lines of credit. If you studied them at all, you realized I never carried any balance in them. They were in case things here went to hell. A thirty-day parachute, maybe forty-five, to give me time to start out someplace else. That’s all. Just out of curiosity, though, how in the world did you find out about those?”

  “Bree’s files from Caloco. Somebody over there shipped them to the DA to make it look like you’d premeditated this and planned your escape.” Hardy noted Ron’s reaction—unfeigned, frightened. “I didn’t see any Rita Browning in those records, it’s true. But I don’t think anyone’s living in nine-oh-two.”

  “Can you find out? Have somebody check it?”

  “Sure, eventually. With a warrant. They could take the place apart and might get lucky if that’s where Bree . . . if that’s where it happened. But any of that will take time and”—Hardy consulted his watch—“that’s in short supply right about now. We’re in court in forty-five minutes.”

  Ron swirled his mug a couple of times. His eyes met Hardy’s. “Bree,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “She set up my accounts for me. It would have been cake to do one for herself.”

  “Even if this one wasn’t a credit card?”

  Ron lifted his shoulders. “Same thing, basically. Bogus numbers, false identity. There’s nothing simpler, especially if your base account is a trillion-dollar multinational like Caloco. Banks are lining up to help you out.”

  “But what would she have needed another apartment for?”

  The answer came to both of them as Ron spoke. “Love.”

  “She met men there?”

  “Why not? It’s perfect when I think about it—discreet, close by, no hassles . . .”

  “But for this, for the mortgage, there had to be real money somewhere. Did Bree make enough—”

  Ron was saying no before Hardy finished. “Up until this year, she made a lot, but not enough for that.”

  “How much would it be?”

  “In our building, the one-bedrooms go for like four-fifty. Our place was seven hundred and fifty.”

  Hardy whistled.

  “Tell me about it. But she got enough bonuses to just cover us.” He hesitated. “We’re still house poor, to tell you the truth. And after she left Caloco . . .” He stopped, stalled with the coffee. “You might as well know. Maybe you do already. We were going to have to move.”

  “And did you fight about that?”

  Ron sighed wearily. “I’ll tell you, by the end, we fought about everything. It was terrible.” He hung his head for a long moment, then looked up. “I’m just so tired.” His voice was almost gone. “So incredibly tired.”

  Hardy leaned over the table. “Did you kill her, Ron? Did you kill Bree, maybe by mistake?”

  Ron raised his head, his eyes reflecting the depth of his resignation and loss. “You know, I didn’t. She was my sister. I loved her. The kids loved her—she was their mother. I never would have even hit her, much less killed her. I didn’t kill her. I really didn’t. Even by mistake.” His hands imploringly crossed the table. “I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t even there.”

  Even with Freeman making sure at the bar, it made Hardy nervous as hell to leave Ron alone at the Greek’s. He told him to have himself another cup of coffee or something and be at the back door to the Hall, by the entrance to the jail, at nine-twenty. Hardy was marginally confident that he’d boxed him in adequately. Having come this far, with Cassandra held hostage, Ron wouldn’t run now.

  He hoped.

  It was unusual, but Hardy had persuaded Glitsky to use some juice with the bailiffs so that they would allow Frannie to wear a respectable outfit for the hearing. So he had to get it delivered to her in time for her to change from her jumpsuit. Protocol, appearances, details.

  But he couldn’t have it both ways. She could take the time to change into pleasant civilian clothes that would subliminally humanize her to Marian Braun, or they could take a last few tense, private moments together in the attorney’s visiting room.

  There was no choice. After she was free, they’d have time to visit. Time for everything.

  It left him with nearly a half hour and he was tempted to go back to Lou’s and sit with Ron. But no. He’d worked that through. Ron would be at the back door at the appointed time. He had no other option.

  Setting his heavy briefcase on the hard wooden bench just inside the entrance to the jail, he once again un-snapped the clasps, once again lifted his pages into his lap. He’d been through every scrap he carried at least once, except the final pages that Glitsky had delivered last night.

  But now, unexpectedly, maybe he had just enough time to get through the rest of it, not that he thought he would discover anything. But if nothing else, he prided himself on his thoroughness. He wouldn’t lose this thing out of sloppiness or fatigue. He would be prepared for his hearing when he walked into the courtroom. Scott Randall wasn’t going to surprise him with something he should have read, should have noticed, should have figured out.

  So he started where he’d left off—Canetta’s autopsy.

  And this time, he saw it. Went back and reviewed Griffin. Crossed the corridor to the coroner’s and made sure. And then, finally, knowing where else to look, went back and found it.

  Glitsky was in his office when Hardy called upstairs. He had sent his task forces out on Thorne’s search warrant, which left him free until after the hearing, which he would be attending.

  Hardy didn’t want to say anything over the phone. He’d see Glitsky in five minutes and if they could get any privacy, he’d tell him then. In the meanwhile, they’d meet at the back door to the Hall.

  As Hardy came out of the jail he gave a surreptitious nod to Freeman, now loitering in the corridor that led to the morgue, and continued to the employee’s back door to the Hall. The plan was that Ron and Hardy were going to take the little-used rear stairway to the second floor and make a break for Braun’s courtroom, Department 24, when they got out into the hallway.

  Glitsky opened the door for them. When Hardy introduced whom they would be escorting, it wasn’t a pleasant surprise. But the lieutenant seemed to accept the situation, silently leading the way up the stairs until they reached the landing before the door into the main hallway. When they got there, though, he turned and faced them both. “You guys just run into each other out front? Was that it?”

  “Not exactly.” Unruffled, Hardy had guessed this moment was coming. He was ready. “This time yesterday I had no idea where he was.”

  “How about when I came to your office last night as a courtesy? The last time we talked, say?”

  “Was he a suspect then?”

  “Close enough, and you—”

  “By the time you left, though? Honestly?”

  The scar was tight on Glitsky’s face, but Hardy had him. He kept pushing. “Okay, he’s not a suspect. Had you ever seen him before now, a minute ago? Talked to him?”

  “You know I haven’t,” he growled.

&n
bsp; “Right. Listen to me. And you had no idea that I had had any communication with him, ever, did you?”

  “So what?”

  “So when our dear pal Scott Randall asks you, maybe under oath, whether you have colluded with me and/or Ron here in any way, what are you going to be able to say?”

  A vein stood out on the side of Glitsky’s forehead, but gradually his expression relaxed, though not quite into calm serenity. “For the record, I still don’t like it.”

  “Okay, noted,” Hardy responded crisply. “But also for the record, you’re going to thank me.”

  Glitsky glared another second or two, then turned and pulled open the door. The three men stepped out into the open hallway together just as Randall, Struler, Pratt, and several of her minions rounded the corner from the elevator in a phalanx. The two groups nearly ran into each other.

  “Well, well, well.” Randall made no effort to disguise his reaction. In a voice dripping with disdain, he adopted a theatrical tone. “Lieutenant Glitsky, Mr. Hardy, the elusive Mr. Beaumont. How interesting that you should all be arriving together here at court.” He turned to Pratt, a portrait of smug satisfaction. “Case study, Sharron,” he said. “Exactly what we expected.”

  Normally, in the minutes before the ascension of the judge to the bench, courtrooms pulse with a certain energy—attorneys and clients are getting settled at their tables, the clerks and bailiffs knot up, talking shop and trading banter, the court recorder warms up. If there is a jury, its members read the newspapers or study their notes.

  In the gallery beyond the bar rail, the spectators and media types, if any, jockey for space with potential witnesses, with friends and relatives of victims or alleged perpetrators. There is a constant, low hum of many unconnected conversations.

  But generally, above it all hovers some small but palpable sense of restraint. Outside in the public hallways, hordes of unwashed and unruly animals would often put on their raucous circuses, but once they were inside the courtroom doors, order often seemed to impose itself over those assembled within.

  Not this morning, though.

  Many of the witnesses Hardy had summoned to this hearing had brought with them reinforcements, and they’d all apparently had time to get to know each other a little, to talk, to vent, finally to boil over.

  As soon as Glitsky pushed the door open—Scott Randall and his team of prosecutors sniping behind them all the way—a wave of boisterous anger seemed to break over them. For the first time in his career, Hardy physically had to push his way through a mass of hostile humanity clogging the central aisle. Glitsky stayed with him, holding Ron Beaumont’s arm above the elbow, moving them all forward.

  Hardy pressed his way through, feeling no need to respond to any of the barbs he was hearing. He was sure that this was a staged demonstration either from Baxter Thorne, whom he recognized leaning against the side wall, or from the Kerry camp. Possibly both.

  Scott Randall was a different story. He wasn’t anybody’s paid actor, and he was angry in his own right for having to put up with this frivolous hearing, for being jerked around by an arrogant defense attorney who was probably a criminal himself.

  Well, Hardy would deal with Scott Randall when the time came. He’d deal with all of them. He wasn’t being drawn into a shouting match with a bunch of enraged witnesses and their friends.

  Glitsky got them all through the bar rail and gave the high sign to the bailiffs, who came forward to ensure that the inviolability of the courtroom proper remained intact. David Freeman had somehow already gotten himself seated at the defense table and was watching the proceedings behind him with an amused and tolerant expression. The theater of the law! He loved it.

  “Good morning, Dismas,” he intoned. “Looks to me like you might just have hit a nerve.”

  And at that moment, the blessed voice of the clerk rose above the clamorous din.

  “Hear ye, hear ye. Department Twenty-four of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, is now in session, Judge Marian Braun presiding. All rise.”

  Since most of the people assembled were already on their feet, the judge’s entrance didn’t do much except provide a break in the hubbub. Braun, catching the tenor of what was transpiring below, refrained from taking the bench, preferring instead to remain standing. She reached for her gavel and tapped it several times.

  Scowling down at her clerk, she whispered sharply, “Mr. Drummond. The members of the gallery will find seating in precisely two minutes, after which I shall return to the bench and mete out consequences to those who are unable to do so.”

  When she returned, Braun adjusted her robes and sat. Hardy was next to Freeman at the defense table. Glitsky and Ron Beaumont had found seats directly behind them, in the first row of the gallery. Turning in his chair, Hardy recognized Valens and Kerry and they recognized him. If looks could kill . . .

  Freeman whispered to Hardy, “Are all the players here?”

  “Except one.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jim Pierce,” Hardy replied. “Caloco.”

  “You think he’ll show?”

  Hardy’s face was set. “He’d better.”

  When Braun returned to the bench, only one person remained standing. Sharron Pratt was in the aisle in the center of the gallery area.

  “Madame District Attorney. Good morning,” Braun intoned. “Do you have business before this court?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. May I approach?”

  “Mr. Hardy has a hearing scheduled. I’m—”

  “May I approach to discuss that hearing, Your Honor?”

  Braun frowned at being interrupted. “All right. Mr. Hardy?”

  Hardy knew exactly where this was going. After the groundwork he’d laid down, which he believed would predispose Braun to a favorable ruling, he had gone a long way toward precipitating it himself by serving his papers on Pratt and Randall. Hardy was, in fact, so primed that he had to work to keep his face straight.

  He stood up. “I have no objection, Your Honor, but I presume my client is in the holding cell behind your bailiff, and I wonder if the court would call the case and allow her to enter the courtroom at this time, before we take up Ms. Pratt’s request at sidebar.”

  Frannie wore a tailored pair of tan slacks, a dark brown V-necked sweater. The deep green malachite necklace and tiny matching earrings heightened the beautiful shade of her eyes, and she had pulled the long red hair back, tied it at her neck, and let the rest hang halfway down her back.

  When the bailiff opened the door to the holding cell, she stepped out and gave Hardy a nervous, embarrassed smile, then let the bailiff escort her to the defense table, where she sat next to him. He kissed her on the cheek. “I love you. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Then he stood and approached the bench.

  Scott Randall got himself insinuated into the proceedings on Pratt’s figurative coattails, and the two of them now stood before the bench with Hardy and Freeman. Randall was doing the talking, passionate and persuasive as always, and Hardy was content to let him dig a hole as deep as he wanted. Normally, no one would be permitted to discuss the internal workings of the grand jury, but today Randall would have to put his cards on the table to justify continuing Frannie’s contempt citation.

  “The grand jury is in session in this very building as we speak, Your Honor, considering evidence surrounding the death of Bree Beaumont as well as those of two policemen who were involved in the investigation into her murder.”

  “Two policemen?” Braun, of course, had heard about the deaths of Sergeants Griffin and Canetta, but the news of their connection to this case was clearly a surprise.

  “Yes, Your Honor. The state believes that there are three homicides related to the Bree Beaumont case currently before the grand jury. Because the homicide department under the direction of Lieutenant Glitsky has systematically refused to disclose evidence relevant—”

  “Your Honor.
” Hardy was mild. “This is a habeas hearing whose only purpose is to vacate the contempt citation levied against my client. The homicide department’s handling of what might be other aspects of this case has no place in this proceeding.”

  But Randall wasn’t buying that. “With respect, Your Honor. No part of this case belongs in this courtroom. This is a matter for the grand jury to decide. We shouldn’t even be discussing it outside of the grand jury room.”

  Braun’s eyes were taking on a telltale flash that Hardy liked to see. “If you want me to keep someone in jail, Mr. Randall, you have to give me a better reason than your say-so.”

  “With all due respect, Your Honor, you need no more reason than the witness refusing to answer material questions.”

  Next to Hardy, Freeman’s elbow twitched against him, and he cast a quick acknowledging glance at his old ally. They had maneuvered Randall into this spot and now he had just played into their hands, belittling the jurisdiction of Braun’s courtroom, to which she would surely take offense.

  And she did. Her eyes burned down at the young prosecutor. “I’ll decide what issues and what cases get resolved in my courtroom, Mr. Randall. Do you understand that?”

  Pratt decided to step in. “Your Honor, perhaps we could adjourn to chambers?”

  The judge directed her displeasure toward the DA. “We’ve only just gotten started here, Ms. Pratt.” She lowered her voice. “I’m sure you noticed that we’ve got several important people out there—among them possibly our next governor—and I’m not inclined to take any more of their time than is absolutely necessary. Anything we could say in chambers, we can say right here.”

  But Randall, true to form, couldn’t seem to let it go and after a short nonverbal exchange with his boss, he piped right up. “We’ve got a very unusual set of circumstances here, Your Honor. I am at this very moment preparing grand jury subpoenas for Mr. Hardy and Lieutenant Glitsky to testify on matters related to his case. They, themselves, may be open to criminal charges.”

  Hardy shook his head, derision all over his face, but he remained silent.

  “Additionally,” Randall continued, “the DA’s office has repeatedly requested an arrest warrant for Mr. Beaumont, who is seated behind us in the courtroom today even as we speak.”