The Fall

by John Lescroart

  “He’s the CASA for her twin brother. So they got to know each other over the last couple of years.”

  “Platonically?”

  Waverly made a face. “Unknown.”

  “Really?” Juhle looked over to Yamashiro. “Ken? You hear anything different?”

  “When they went out, they called it a date night. They had their secret spot where they met up. He signed the picture of him ‘All my love.’ ”

  “Figures of speech,” Waverly said. “He wouldn’t have used those terms if he was trying to hide anything. He was very matter-of-fact about it.”

  “But the fact remains,” Juhle said, “he took this seventeen-year-old girl out for a dinner alone, just the two of them. The same one who, according to her diary, was going to tell him that she loved him. And then, as far as we know, he’s the last person to have seen her alive.”

  Showing some frustration at this direction, Waverly shook his head. “Dev. That was like three hours before she went over the tunnel.”

  “How do we know that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how do we know he wasn’t with her until she went over?”

  “His statement is that when they finished, he left her to go shopping.”

  Yamashiro asked, “He just left her in Chinatown on her own?”

  “She was seventeen and wanted to go shopping. Why not?”

  “Not saying it didn’t happen,” Juhle said, “but do we know what he did when he left her off?”

  “He says he went home.”

  Juhle prodded, “Anybody see him? Does he have a roommate?”

  Waverly shook his head. “You heard everything I got, Lieutenant. He doesn’t have an alibi. Do I have to say again that this was a cooperating voluntary witness?”

  “No, I got that, but I’m not sure we’re looking at what we know the same way. You want to hear my equally plausible explanation of the facts as we know them? Probably not, but here goes: We’ve got a young male in a relationship with an even younger female, taking her out on what he calls a date night. They meet at their special spot, and he takes her out to a nice sit-down dinner in Chinatown. The very second the girl’s death makes the television, he happens to be with a defense lawyer—hell, two defense lawyers.”

  Waverly said, “Who let him sit in the back with me and say whatever he wanted.”

  Juhle held up his hand, acknowledging the valid point: Most experienced defense attorneys were reluctant to let their clients talk much during interviews with the police. But he wasn’t finished. “Finally, for all we know, Mr. Treadway was the last person to see the victim alive. My point isn’t that I think this guy’s a slam-dunk suspect. It’s more that there are a few real reasons to think he’s simply a good citizen trying to help us out. He wouldn’t be the first guy to try that head fake. And given our time frame here, it would really piss me off if we fell for it and lost a couple of days without looking any further at Mr. Treadway. If in fact he was our guy.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Waverly said. “I don’t believe I’ve heard anything about a specific time frame. So you’re saying we’ve got one?”

  “Essentially, yes,” Juhle said.

  “What is it?” Yamashiro asked.

  “Fast,” Juhle said.

  •  •  •

  A KNOCK ON Max’s door.

  It had to be his auntie. She was the only one in the apartment with him. But he had come into his room because he didn’t think he could deal with anybody, even Juney.

  How would he deal with anybody or anything ever again?

  He still didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what, if anything, he was supposed to do, or feel, or think, or imagine.

  Anlya was dead.

  It had been only a couple of hours since they’d found out, but he didn’t feel anything like the same person he’d been up until they’d gotten the news, Sharla calling Juney in hysterics right in the middle of supper. He’d sat there, getting the gist from Juney’s side of the conversation, the meat loaf and gravy congealing on his plate, tears just flowing, then stopping, then flowing again, without any sound, with no passage of time. He didn’t know he was crying, or when he stopped, or when he started again.

  He looked up. Juney had gone off somewhere. She knew him enough to let him be. Nothing she could say would make any difference, and she knew that, so said nothing.

  After a block of empty time, he somehow made his way the few steps from the kitchen to his bedroom and closed the door behind him. Over on his desk, there was Anlya’s school picture in the frame he’d bought for it only a few weeks ago, she wearing that big heart-warming smile. Turning the picture facedown, he crossed back over the room, turned out the light, sat on his bed, and pulled the blankets up over his shoulders.

  When the knock came, he was lying down, the comforter pulled up over him, so he must have gotten that way somehow, but he had no memory of it.

  Another knock. “Max.” She turned the knob and let in a sliver of the hallway’s light.

  He heard Greg’s voice, a whisper. “It’s all right, Juney. I’ll come back later.”

  Max sat up. “No,” he said, “it’s all right. Just a second.” He stood up and walked out into the hall.

  Greg stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms at his sides, his face drawn and slack. His head moved back and forth almost imperceptibly. Like Juney, Greg knew enough not to try to say anything when there was nothing to be said.

  Max walked up and put his arms around his advocate. In Greg’s tight embrace, for the first time since he’d gotten the news, he let a sob escape.

  13

  AT A LITTLE after ten A.M., Yamashiro and Waverly started where Bush Street met Grant Avenue, a couple of blocks from the murder scene, an intersection that, due to the ornate Gate of Chinatown archway over Grant, marked the more or less official southern boundary of Chinatown. At that time of the morning, business was getting into full swing, and most of the shop doors were open.

  The inspectors had a picture of Anlya from her CPS file, and her school photo, which they’d gotten from Nellie Grange at the McAllister Street home. They had shown these to the workers in every place they walked into, and no one could say for sure whether the girl in the photographs, or any other black girl, had been in their shop on Wednesday night.

  But when they got to the Imperial Palace, Fred Liu remembered the mixed-race couple perfectly. Fred was the maître d’ for the restaurant’s most busy time, which was the breakfast/brunch they were coming out of right now.

  “Nights,” he said, “it’s just me and the chef, and I’m on tables. We’re all about the dim sum here, which is morning. Nights are cheap Chinese food for the tourists—Kung Pao shrimp, hot and sour soup, General Tso’s chicken, chop suey—and we are so slow, usually, it’s almost not worth keeping the place open. But we’re not open, we make no money at all, right?”

  “You remember this couple?” Waverly asked.

  “Hard to miss ’em,” Liu said. “They were about the only customers. Plus, especially at the end, they were squabbling something fierce.”

  “Squabbling?” Yamashiro asked.

  Liu nodded. “Fighting. Quietly, you know, intense. But you could tell. They were not happy. At the end, she was crying, then threw down her napkin and got up so fast she knocked her chair over and left it.”

  The inspectors looked at each other. “You mean left the chair on the floor?” Waverly asked.

  “Yes. I came and set it back up.”

  “Did she come back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, back to the table.”

  “No. The man, he paid and said he was sorry about the scene. His girlfriend was upset.”

  “He called her his girlfriend?” Yamashiro asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  Fred Liu looked at Waverly, squinted as though thinking hard, remembering. “Maybe he just said, ‘She was upset.’
And I said something like ‘Girlfriends,’ and he said, ‘Yeah.’ ”

  “But,” Yamashiro asked, “you had the impression that they were a couple? A romantic couple?”

  Liu shrugged. “Well, they were holding hands, at least before they started fighting.”

  “And she never came back after she knocked over the chair?” Waverly asked.

  “No.”

  “For sure?”

  “This time for sure. He paid the check, cash, and then left on his own.”

  “Thank you,” Yamashiro said. “You’ve been a big help.” He turned and let Waverly fall in beside him. He held up his tape recorder, which, with Mr. Liu’s permission, had captured the entire interview. “Got him,” he said.

  •  •  •

  AT 1:07 BY his desk clock, the intercom buzzed on Dismas Hardy’s desk.

  The only person who ever used the intercom was his secretary/receptionist, Phyllis. Hardy always purposefully paused for a second or two before he punched the “reply” button; this afternoon he asked himself for the millionth time why he even had a receptionist. Surely he could pick up his own telephone when it rang, or open his office door when a client arrived. But the role of Phyllis and her place in the organization’s culture had been set in stone long before by David Freeman, the firm’s progenitor. That crucial role was controlling access to the managing partner, in this case Hardy, either by telephone or in person.

  Fully nine times out of ten, perhaps more often, Hardy replied by saying, “Yo.” He could tell from Phyllis’s exasperated tone, every single time, that she hated this—it was not the serious tone one expected from a managing partner. And Hardy was just immature enough to keep on saying “Yo” forever, so long as he got that response.

  But this afternoon, he pushed the button and said on a wild hair, “Yes, Phyllis, how can I help you?”

  Her flustered pause while she dredged up an answer was its own reward. “Um, it’s— I mean, your daughter would like to see you if you have a moment.”

  “My daughter, Rebecca? That one?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As if Hardy had two or nine daughters. “Well, as it happens, I do have a moment. But Phyllis?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I believe I’ve mentioned that when The Beck wants to come in and see me, except if I’m with somebody else, she gets to knock directly on my door and come on in.”

  “I told her that, sir, and she said she wanted to make sure she wasn’t interrupting you.”

  “Some would call the intercom itself an interruption.”

  “I’m sure they would. Should I send her in?”

  “That would be nice, thank you.”

  Even after all that, The Beck knocked twice quickly before she opened the door.

  “Come in, for God’s sake,” Hardy all but bellowed. When the door opened, he said, “People have an easier time dropping in on Obama, I bet. Am I that terrifying a personage?”

  Rebecca sat herself in one of the nicer chairs at the formal seating area in front of his desk. “People who use the word ‘personage’ instead of ‘person’ when referring to themselves sometimes project an aura of authority that can make them appear frightening.”

  Hardy broke a grin. “Well stated. It’s nice to know all that law school money wasn’t wasted. So what’s up?”

  “Greg Treadway.”

  “Ah, I had a feeling . . .”

  The Beck was shaking her head. “Not that.”

  “It sure seemed there was some of that.”

  Now she shrugged. “The spark kind of went out the night when he learned about Anlya.”

  “As well it should have.” But. “He didn’t ask for your number?”

  “No. But I gave him my business card, and maybe a good thing I did, too. He was on my voicemail when I got back from lunch. Inspector Waverly and his partner wanted to come by and ask him some more questions.”

  “After his taped interview last night? What about?”

  “Evidently, stuff Waverly had forgotten to ask.”

  Hardy’s hackles went up at the ominous portent.

  “What?” his daughter asked.

  “Maybe nothing, but Waverly didn’t get to Homicide by forgetting to ask things.”

  “You’re saying he thinks Greg might be, what, a person of interest here?”

  Hardy shrugged.

  “But that’s not possible.” Rebecca’s voice carried an edge of concern. “He was devastated by the whole thing.”

  “Could he have been faking that?”

  “Daddy, Jesus!”

  “No, then?”

  “Not a chance in the world. How can you even think that?”

  “We’re in the criminal law business, Beck. If you don’t think that, you’re not doing your job. And he called you as a lawyer, I gather. Didn’t you say that?”

  “For advice, anyway.”

  “That’s as a lawyer, don’t kid yourself. So what did Homicide want? Did the inspectors get to come by to see him?”

  “I don’t know. He just left me the message, and nobody answered when I called him back. Maybe I should put my cell number on my business card if people need to reach me outside of hours.”

  “You could do that if you want, of course, but I believe you’d wind up working every waking minute every day for the rest of your life, not counting when clients woke you up in the middle of the night.”

  She laughed. “I already work all the time.”

  “Yes, but you’d work even more. Maybe better to just write your cell number on your card once you’ve decided the potential client won’t abuse it and call you every fifteen minutes, which some of them will, believe me.”

  “You mean physically write it down in ink?”

  “Ink, pencil, Magic Marker. Whatever.”

  “Daddy, you are so old-fashioned.” Her laugh tinkled again. “Ink? As if.”

  •  •  •

  BACK IN HER office, Rebecca called Greg’s number again. “I should have said this on my first message,” she said to his voicemail, “but you might want to think about if you really want me there if these inspectors come to interview you again, if they haven’t already. Last night I wasn’t your lawyer. I was just another person you knew from the bar who happened to be an attorney. If I come to be with you, even to hold your hand next time, that’s going to be a more difficult sell.

  “The basic rule is the same: If you’re being questioned about your involvement in a crime, even if you didn’t have any part in it, you generally don’t want to talk to the police without a lawyer in the room. Of course, I’m a lawyer. That’s my perspective, and I would say that. But the plain fact is that the police agenda is almost never going to be the same as yours, and it’s smarter to cover your bases. The foregoing advice,” she added in a lighter tone, “is given gratis and should in no way be construed as an advertisement for my legal services. If you’d like to talk more before you make any decisions, I’m here.”

  Hanging up, she pulled over the hard copy of the motion she was working on, booted up her computer, and was about to get back to her daily work—to be filed today by four o’clock!—when her telephone rang. She gave it a ring, then two, unsure whether she should pick up or let it go to voicemail so she could actually do something billable. God! the pressure! “Shit,” she said matter-of-factly, and grabbed at the receiver. “Rebecca Hardy.”

  “Hey. This is Greg Treadway. Thanks for getting back to me. I’m on my afternoon break at school and just now got your messages.”

  “So did you talk to Waverly again?”

  “No. I told them I was at work. We made an appointment for after school.”

  “At school?”

  “Sure. We’ve got a conference room. It’s private.”

  “Did they say what it was about?”

  “No. They just had a few more questions. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Maybe I know something more than I’m aware of. If it’ll help them find who killed Anlya
. . .”

  This was pure naïveté on the hoof, Rebecca thought. “Have you thought of anything that you didn’t mention last night?”

  “Not really. But maybe something new will come up and prove to be important.”

  Or maybe, she thought, you’ll tell them something that will hang you. “So, not to be aggressive, but what I said on my message, it’s the truth. We know from Liam Goodman’s little speech on TV yesterday that they’re looking for a suspect—”

  “They can’t think that I’m—”

  “They absolutely could, Greg. That’s what I’m saying. My father just brought up the same point ten minutes ago in his office. If nothing else, they can use you as a placeholder until they focus on the real guy, but in the meantime, in the eyes of the public, you’re the real guy. You will not enjoy that experience, I promise you.”

  He hesitated. “You’re telling me I shouldn’t talk to the inspectors?”

  “Not necessarily. Then you’re not being cooperative, and why would that be if you have nothing to hide?”

  “So what am I supposed to do? What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest,” she said, “that you get yourself a lawyer and have him or her there with you.”

  “How about ‘her’ as in ‘you’?”

  “I’m not pushing for the job here, Greg. I’m swamped with my regular work, though I appreciate your confidence in me. I could recommend—”

  “But to whoever that is, I’d be a bona fide suspect, wouldn’t I? I mean, a regular client who probably did it.”

  This, Rebecca knew, was the unvarnished truth.

  “I don’t think I’d like to start off on that foot,” he said.

  She sighed and said, “You’d really want me?”

  “You might not have been trying, but you sold me. How expensive are you, by the way?”

  “Too. Meaning too expensive, not two hundred an hour. But I’d cut you a deal just to be a presence, at least until they decide they’re going to leave you alone and move on. Say a hundred for this first interview, maybe two-fifty an hour if it goes any further.”

  “Two-fifty an hour. I can’t do two-fifty for an hour.”