Dead Irish

by John Lescroart

  Hardy grabbed at another straw. “Any chance that someone who didn’t drive to work was in the building?”

  Cruz waited, as though he expected Hardy to say more. “Slim, I would say. Gossip being what it is, I imagine it would have gotten around by now. Still, if it will help, I’ll be glad to circulate a memo.”

  Hardy had noticed that the corner of the Cyclone mesh fence had a gaping hole in it. “Is this new?”

  Again there was that pause. “No, we’ve been meaning to fix it for months. I assume some kids did it to get to the canal. Saves going the long way.”

  Hardy dutifully noted on his pad, thinking, What kids?

  The gravel and asphalt had been recently and carefully raked, obliterating any possible sign of struggle. Hardy walked to the edge of the building and peered along its mirrored surface. He squatted for a different angle, then walked along the length of the building, running his palm along the glass, to the side door. He turned to Cruz. “Well, we’ll try not to bother you again.”

  Cruz’s first smile revealed a perfect set of teeth, too perfect to be real. He held out his hand. “If I can be of any more help . . .”

  Hardy asked, “Did you, by any chance, know Ed?”

  The pause, when it ended, was clipped. “Who?”

  “Ed Cochran, the guy who died.”

  “No,” Cruz said now without missing a beat. “No, I’m afraid not. Should I have?”

  At his car, Hardy looked back and saw that Cruz had returned to the hole in the fence and was standing, hands in his pocket, shaking his head from side to side.

  Hardy hadn’t gone to the Cruz Building for any other reason than to see the site in daylight, and within a couple of minutes had found himself talking to the president of the company. No wonder his questions, he thought, had been so random.

  At Blanche’s, a rickety canalside café and art gallery, the Campari umbrella offered shade from the sun but couldn’t do much about the glare coming up off the canal. Hardy sipped at a club soda, not bothering to turn away from the canal’s glare, and thought about this guy Cruz’s obsessive concern over his parking lot and his obvious lie about not knowing Ed Cochran.

  Hardy wiped the sweat and squinted into the city’s early-afternoon haze. A small breeze carried on it the smell of roasting coffee and burning engine oil, and Hardy wondered what the fuck he was doing.

  Carl Griffin stood by the one window that afforded a view of the building across the way and, four flights down, of the alley that ran between the parking lot and Bryant. Yesterday, he and Giometti had dealt some more with the wife and the kid’s family, then Cruz, then driven down to Army Distributing, which looked like it was close to going out of business.

  They didn’t have a locked-up reason for Cochran to have killed himself, but neither did anything much indicate a homicide. There had been two empty chambers in the gun, but he’d encountered that before—one shot where you jerk the gun away just as you fire before you get up the guts to go through with it the next time.

  It was a drag—a young guy acing himself—especially dealing with the relatives. But it happened a lot. More often younger guys than anybody else.

  He pushed some papers off to one side of his desk. Where the hell was Giometti now? He was hungry. He tried, but wasn’t having much luck getting himself motivated to think about this guy Cochran. What difference did it make? He could solve the Murder of the Century and all he’d get for it would be a “Good job, Carl. Want to do another one?”

  He decided to fuck waiting on Giometti and go downstairs and have a hero sandwich. Out of habit he grabbed for his windbreaker, which he wouldn’t need, just as his phone rang. He picked it up.

  “Carl,” Joe Frazelli said, “I got a friend of Glitsky’s here, got some questions about the Cochran thing. You got a minute for him?”

  That’s what he needed, he thought. He needed to help out a friend of Glitsky’s on one of his cases. “I was just going down to get a sandwich.”

  “Thanks, I’ll send him over,” Frazelli said, hanging up.

  Swear to God, Griffin thought, if I’m ever looie I’m not going to do shit like that. He threw his windbreaker on its peg and turned back to the window. It looked like a nice day out there, even a hot one. He pushed at the windowsill, trying to open it an inch or two for some sea breeze, but it was painted shut.

  “Inspector Griffin?”

  He turned. It was the guy from the other night. They shook hands, the guy introducing himself, and Carl offered him a seat, asking what he could do for him.

  “I’m kind of a representative of the family,” the man began.

  “The family?”

  “Ed Cochran’s. His wife’s, actually.”

  “You private?”

  The man shook his head, smiling, almost rehearsed, resting his elbows on his knees, very relaxed. “I’m a bartender.”

  “You’re a bartender,” Griffin repeated.

  “The Little Shamrock, out on Lincoln.”

  “Okay,” Griffin said.

  “Anyway, Ed Cochran’s brother-in-law owns the place and I work for him. That’s the connection.”

  “Good, we got a connection. What are you representing them for?”

  Hardy sat back, crossing one leg over the other, pulling a cuff down. “They’d just like to make some official request that this be investigated as a possible homicide.”

  “It is being investigated as a homicide. This is the homicide department. I’m a homicide inspector.”

  “I realize that,” Hardy said, “but I know it looks like a suicide, like it was a suicide—”

  “Initially,” Griffin said.

  “But maybe it wasn’t.”

  Griffin moved a few more papers, trying to cover his impatience. “Maybe it wasn’t. You’re right. That’s my job, finding out if it was or wasn’t. You got anything to make me think it wasn’t?”

  “Nothing specific.”

  “Specific’s what we like,” Griffin said. “How about general?”

  “You had to know the guy, I guess.” That called for no response, and Griffin waited it out. “His wife . . . I mean, he wasn’t the kind of person who kills himself.”

  “He wasn’t?” It was hard to keep the sarcasm out. Griffin had seen suicides from derelicts to socialites, from healthy beautiful teenage girls to terminally ill wheelchair patients. “I’ll note that in the file,” he said.

  Hardy uncrossed his legs. “It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds,” he said, not defensive, as though he at least understood how it sounded. “Some people get depressed, you know. Life gets ’em down. There’s some warning. I thought it might help to know that Ed—on the outside—was a positive guy.”

  “Look, Mr. . . .”

  “Hardy.”

  “Mr. Hardy. We go on the assumption—”

  “I know the routine, Inspector. I used to be a cop. I was hoping you might go a little beyond the routine in this case.”

  Griffin felt his face getting red. Go beyond the routine for a friend of Abe Glitsky’s who’s implying I’m not doing my job well enough? Go beyond the routine when no matter how good I am I won’t get promoted over any black or Latino or woman or fucking police dog if they had any constituency in the city? And was Glitsky somehow tied in to this, siccing a cop on him?

  “I don’t really like the implication there,” Griffin said.

  “I’m not implying anything, or don’t mean to be.”

  “Seems to me you’re saying my routine won’t get the job done right.”

  “I’m saying that knowing what kind of guy Ed was might put things in a different light, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, it might. I’ll keep it in mind.” Griffin stood up. So did Hardy. “So how’s Glitsky involved?”

  Hardy shrugged it off. “I just know him. I started with him.”

  “Yeah, well, this is my case. So you can tell Abe if he wants it he can go through channels.”

  Hardy held his hands out. “Look. Abe’s got noth
ing to do with this. I’m a citizen. I’m here with a reasonable request. That’s it.”

  Griffin studied the guy’s face. No sign he was lying, which might mean he was a great liar. “Okay, but you got no evidence.”

  “I know.”

  “So unless we get something more that points to murder, it’s gonna go down as suicide.”

  “That’s why I was hoping maybe we could go over what you’ve got.”

  “Just go fishing, huh? Afraid I’ll miss something?” Griffin couldn’t stop himself. The anger just kept resurfacing.

  Surprisingly, the guy didn’t rise to it. Instead, he took it in for a beat, then offered a smile and stuck out his hand. “Nope. I’m sure if something’s there, you’ll find it. Thanks for your time.”

  Griffin leaned his butt back against his desk, watching Hardy walk across the office. Fucking watchdog, he thought. He didn’t know what Glitsky wanted out of this, but if he wanted to find something so bad, let him find it himself. And on his own time.

  So official cooperation wasn’t likely to be forthcoming, Hardy thought as he drove out to the Mission District. And also, which he didn’t understand at all, it seemed to be getting to be a better bet that they’d come up with a suicide, which would be a further disaster for Frannie. The fact that there was no apparent motive obviously wasn’t making Griffin, at least, lose any sleep. In the city with the Golden Gate Bridge, suicide must not seem like all that much of an aberration.

  7

  FRANNIE AND ED’S PLACE was a large corner flat with a rounded window jutting out from the living room over the steep street.

  Hardy knocked at the door, straight in from the sidewalk without a stoop of any kind. It was four p.m., already a long day, and by far the hottest one of the year.

  He barely heard the “Who is it?”

  Frannie hugged him for a long time in the doorway. She was barefoot, wearing a white nightgown. She’d obviously been taking a nap. Her long red hair was a wreck, the skin around her eyes nearly black, her lips puffed like a wound.

  She led the way to the living room and left Hardy there. The first thing he did was open two windows to let in some air. It didn’t make much difference.

  He heard Frannie somewhere behind him.

  The room was a friendly mixture of Goodwill and teak. A stereo and some small but, Hardy knew, excellent Blaupunkt speakers, two mismatched, upholstered chairs, a couch, and two bentwoods, on one of which Hardy sat.

  Hardwood floors reflected the late-afternoon sun onto clean painted walls. There were three framed works of art on the walls: one of Hockney’s “Pools,” a view of San Francisco from the Marin side of the Bay, and one of Goines’s Chez Panisse posters. A coffee table was pushed into another corner, and on it was a small television set. Homemade bookshelves held an impressive collection of books and some records.

  He sensed more than heard her approach. Still barefoot, barely five feet tall and ninety pounds tops, Frannie had tried to comb her hair and put some red in her cheeks, but she needn’t have bothered. Dressed now in jeans and a T-shirt, what she really wore most noticeably was the loss.

  He stood. She stopped in the doorway, not moving. “Sorry for the . . .” she whispered. “I’m just . . .” She tried again. “Would you like something? Beer? Coffee?”

  To give her something to do, Hardy said a beer would be good.

  She came back a minute later with two cans of Bud and a chilled mug. “Ed always liked me to keep a mug in the freezer.” She poured expertly. “But you know that.”

  “You ought to work for Moses.”

  She tried to smile, but it didn’t work.

  Hardy took a drink. “You feel like you can talk? I know the police have probably gone over—”

  “And over and over . . . I’m okay.”

  “Did Moses tell you why I . . . ?”

  She nodded, and he decided to plunge right in. “Ed left the house when, roughly?”

  “About seven-thirty. We finished dinner and talked for a while.”

  “And he just decided to go out for a drive?”

  She hesitated, perhaps remembering, perhaps hiding. “No, not exactly.” She looked at her lap, biting her lip. “Not exactly.”

  “Frannie, look at me.”

  The green eyes were wet.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing, just household stuff, you know.”

  “Did you fight?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Frannie?”

  “No, not really.” All strength seemed to leave her. Her hands went slack and the can of beer fell to the floor. Hardy jumped up and grabbed it, righting it and letting the foam overflow.

  “I’ll get a sponge,” Frannie said.

  Hardy put a hand on the tiny, bony shoulder to keep her from rising. “Forget the beer, Frannie. Did you have a fight or not?”

  She slumped back, staring at Hardy as though she wanted to ask him a question. She looked about fifteen years old. Then she started crying, just tear after tear rolling silently down her made-up cheeks. Hardy, his hand still on her shoulder, felt the suppressed sobs.

  “What about?” he finally asked.

  The voice, now husky and nearly inaudible, came. “I’m pregnant. I told him I was pregnant.”

  Her eyes held on the floor between her feet. She whispered. “Ed always just said to go ahead when I was ready. That was the way he was. He said we’d deal with it when it came up, and if we waited ’til he was ready in advance, he might never be.”

  “And you’d just found out?”

  “That day. I thought he’d be happy.”

  She looked up at Hardy, the tears still flowing. “But it really wasn’t a fight or anything. I just wanted him to stay. I was all emotional, you know.”

  “But he went out?”

  She shook her head, slowly, back and forth. “He went out.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “That’s the thing,” she said. “That’s the thing I hate.”

  “What?”

  “Just seeing him go off, not even talking, and then”—she swallowed—“now he’s gone.”

  The thing Hardy hated, he told himself, was being in this position, the inquisitor. After a minute he told her as much.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “At least you believe me.”

  “Who didn’t believe you?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I got the impression the police had a hard time with it. I mean, me not knowing why Eddie had gone out, or where.”

  “Maybe he just wanted . . . ,” Hardy began, then rephrased it. “Maybe he needed to think about being a father.”

  “Maybe,” she said, unconvinced.

  “Except what?”

  “Except he’d been going out a few times lately. I think it had to do with his business.”

  Uh-oh, Hardy thought. But he said, “Didn’t you talk, you and Ed?”

  “We talked all the time, about everything. You know that!”

  “But not this?”

  She shook her head, then punched her little fist into her other palm. “It made me so mad, I could’ve killed him.” The hand went up to her mouth. “Oh, I mean, I didn’t mean that. But we always shared everything, and this was like he was protecting me or something, like I couldn’t handle what he was doing.”

  Okay, that was possible, Hardy thought. “So this night, Monday, after you told him about being pregnant, did you have a fight?”

  “Not a real fight. More a disagreement. I wanted to snuggle, have him tell me it was all right, that he wanted to have it.” She sighed. “But he said he had to go out.” Again, Frannie shook her head back and forth. Her knuckles were white, clamped on her lap.

  Hardy watched the beer she’d spilled spread slowly over the hardwood.

  “See?” she continued. “His job was almost over anyway. I thought it was stupid.”

  “His job?”

  She bit her lip, thinking. “I mean his concern with trying to s
ave the business. I think he got tired of arguing with me about it, and just went ahead on his own, not wanting to bother me or fight anymore about it.”

  Hardy drank some beer. “I’m afraid you’re losing me.”

  “I’d better get a towel.”

  She brought another beer back for both of them. “God, it’s hot,” she said. “Eddie always loved hot days, all two a year.”

  She sat this time in the deep chair in front of the window. More composed now, getting used to it, she started talking on her own.

  “You know we were going down . . . He’d gotten into the MBA program at Stanford and we were going down there in September. His job was so . . . arbitrary. It wasn’t a career. He just wanted to actually work a couple years so grad school wouldn’t all be book learning, you know? So he got this job after college with Mr. Polk over at Army, because he wanted to get into distribution eventually.” She looked out the window. “This seems so stupid now. Why am I talking about this?”

  “Talk about anything,” Hardy said.

  “Then last Thanksgiving or sometime there, Mr. Polk got married and at the same time they heard they might lose the La Hora account.”

  “La Hora? That’s Cruz Publishing.”

  Frannie nodded again. “I know, that’s where he . . .” She tightened her lips and continued. “Anyway, the police said they’d check that. If there was a connection.”

  “If ? There’s gotta be.”

  “It sounded crazy to me, but one of the policemen said it could have been like a protest, Eddie maybe killing himself in the parking lot as a protest against Polk, like a Buddhist burning himself or something. I don’t know if he was serious.”

  Hardy swore at that, shook his head.

  “I know,” she said, “but at least it does put him there—”

  “So would a meeting with someone who wanted to kill him.”

  She didn’t answer. Hardy felt a wisp of a breeze, and Frannie sat back in the deep chair. She turned her head to the window, away from him. He saw her wipe her face with the back of her hand, as a small child would.

  “Oh, damn,” she said.