The 13th Juror

by John Lescroart

  “Moses lives close.” Hardy was running with it. “We could visit them all the time.” He sipped at the cold gin, so smooth it almost wasn’t there.

  “Speaking of visits . . . ”

  Hardy shook his head. Jennifer again. “I don’t know, Fran. I don’t see what good it would do, what the point of it is.”

  “It would just set my mind at ease. That’s doing some good.”

  “You don’t really think she’d try to get at me, do you? I mean, we went through the same thing with Andy Fowler.”

  “I knew Andy, Dismas, or at least who he was. A judge, your ex-father-in-law. Plus you got him off. This woman”—she shivered, brought her glass to her lips—“all I know about her is what I’ve read, which is she’s a money-hungry, cold-blooded, drop-dead beautiful—”

  “She’s not that pretty—she’s nowhere near as pretty as you.”

  Frannie leaned into him, mocking the flattery. “Well, then, she’s the most photogenic not-pretty woman on earth. But what she isn’t, to me, is a real person, somebody I shouldn’t be afraid of, worried about.”

  “What if she won’t see you?”

  “Then she won’t see me.”

  She was right. If Jennifer wouldn’t agree to see Frannie that would be the end of it. The gin that almost wasn’t there was telling Hardy’s body that oh yes, it was, too—the evening had taken on a soft edge, a benign glow. He told her he’d ask, see what he could do. It was a small enough request. If it made Frannie feel better . . . How could it hurt?

  When he had tried to contact Nancy DiStephano earlier in the day asking her to call him back for an appointment, Hardy had not known what his schedule would be like, so he had given her his home phone number as well as the one in his office.

  She called at a little after nine, her voice a whisper, hoarse, nearly inaudible. “Mr. Hardy?” She told him where she was, would he please come and see her now? There might not be another chance. When he told Frannie he was going, she did not do cartwheels.

  Ulloa Street was dark.

  Hardy had had his one martini, switched to cranberry juice, and the earlier glow had dissipated with the warmth. The DiStephanos’ house was in the 4500 block, two blocks from the cold Pacific. He pulled up in front of the number.

  She was wrapped in a jacket, wearing jeans but barefoot, sitting in the dim porch light on her stoop. When Hardy got out of his car, she walked unsteadily down the cement walk that bisected the lawn, meeting him halfway. She touched Hardy’s sleeve, then immediately pulled her hand away as if it were burned. “He won’t hear us here. Not that he would anyway. Thank God he’s passed out.”

  She was shaking. Hardy wondered if she was drunk. “Who’s passed out?”

  “Phil, of course.” She laughed, low, nervously. “Who do you think? Listen, I’m sorry about tonight, our appointment.” She wasn’t slurring. “I thought we might . . . but Phil . . . ”

  Hardy waved it off. His eyes were adjusting—a sliver of moon gave a little light. There was a lot of Jennifer in her face—haunted but still attractive. It was unnerving.

  She stepped in place, foot to foot, seemingly unaware of it. “But I thought it might somehow help my girl.”

  “It might. I don’t know. Are you all right?”

  She leaned again in an unnatural way, gripping her side. “Maybe we should sit down?”

  Without waiting for him, she went back to the entryway. It wasn’t a full porch—more a jutting, covered portico enclosed by a low stucco wall. She leaned up against one of the posts.

  “Mrs. DiStephano?”

  She held out her hand for him to be still, breathing her way through whatever pain she was enduring. When she could handle it, she tried to straighten herself and half-turned back to him. Her eyes were wet but seemed way beyond tears.

  Summoning something—the effort was palpable—she pulled herself straight, then turned all the way to face him head-on. Raising her head, she inhaled deeply, making her decision, and pulled open the jacket she’d been wrapped in. Under it, she was naked.

  Her body—her breasts, her ribs, her stomach—was bruised and welted in half a dozen places. He stood transfixed, two feet away from her, feeling his body begin to pulse in anger. Fist-sized blotches, splashes of broken capillaries, the rake of handprints over torn skin. He stepped toward her, grabbed the sides of the jacket and gently pulled it closed around her. Lightner had been right about Jennifer’s abusive father . . .

  She leaned back against the portico’s post and let herself slump to the tiles, hugging her arms to herself.

  “I told Phil, I told him it was for Jennifer, it might help Jennifer. I wasn’t sneaking out. He said how come you didn’t try to talk to him.”

  Hardy held his head in his hands. This was twisted beyond his imagining. “Jennifer suggested I talk to you. If she would have said him, I would have agreed.”

  “I know that. I told him that, or tried to.”

  “I didn’t mean to put you in this.”

  She touched his arm again. “No, no, it’s not you. This is just what happens.”

  Hardy raised his eyes. “You should get out of this. You’ve got to report this.”

  Nancy DiStephano shook her head. She was still hugging herself, still moving her body to ease the shifting pains. Her look said Hardy didn’t know what he was talking about. “Where would I go? What would I do?”

  “Go anywhere,” he said. “Do anything. But don’t live with this.”

  She kept shaking her head. “But Phil would never let me. Never. He wouldn’t even let me see you.”

  “You could move away.”

  “I’ve tried that, but you know, I always come back. It’s a tough world out there, Mr. Hardy. Here at least I know somebody cares about me—”

  “Someone who cares about you wouldn’t do this to you.”

  “It’s not so very often. I understand—he’s mostly afraid he’ll lose me. I tell him no but he’s so jealous . . . I wouldn’t have called you, maybe shouldn’t have, but if it could help Jennifer . . . ”

  “Did Phil ever do this to her?”

  “Jennifer? No. He wouldn’t ever lay a hand on her. I think if he did I would have left him and he knew it. He couldn’t stand me to leave him. No, all this”—she gestured downward—“this is all between me and him. It has nothing to do with Jennifer.”

  Hardy stared at the ground, at the sliver of moon—this woman defending the man who had just beaten her. “He’s so jealous . . . ”

  He tried to clear his head. “So what now, Nancy?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t even mean for you to know about this. It’s nothing.”

  “Okay, it’s nothing.”

  “You wanted to talk about Jennifer, if this hadn’t happened . . . I suppose I shouldn’t have told Phil and just snuck out to see you. It’s really my fault.”

  The reprise, the repetition, the denial. “It’s really your fault. That’s it, huh?” Was it the same for Jennifer?

  Nancy nodded, apparently grateful that he seemed to understand. “So we can forget this and just talk about what you wanted before. Can’t we just do that?”

  Hardy tried. He sucked a lungful of the now-chilled night and tried to organize himself enough to talk to her about Tom. He couldn’t.

  18

  As he sometimes did, Abe Glitsky arrived unannounced at the front door. When Frannie opened it for him, he stepped back and whistled. “My, my, my.” Frannie was wearing a blue skirt and a plain white blouse, low pumps, nylons. She had touched her cheekbones with subtle highlights they scarcely needed. Her eyes were malachite set into the alabaster of her skin. The red hair, softly styled, fell to just below her shoulders. “Whatever it is,” he said, “you’ll do.”

  Frannie curtsied, smiling. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

  “You panning for gold? Playing soccer? Mudwrestling?”

  Frannie looked serious. “No, I’m meeting somebody.”

  “I think for meeting somebody
you’re on safe ground.”

  They were walking to the kitchen. It was a smallish railroad-style Victorian house—one long hallway with openings to the living and dining rooms off it to the right, a bathroom to the left. In the back the house opened up into a pod of rooms—airy skylit kitchen, Hardy and Frannie’s bedroom with another bath, Rebecca’s room (Hardy’s old office) off that to one side, Vincent’s nursery to the rear.

  Hardy was coming out of the bedroom, a mug of steaming coffee in his hand. He was wearing the slacks to one of his better suits, a white shirt, a silk Italian tie.

  Glitsky stopped in the kitchen doorway. “I must have the wrong house. Where are the kids?”

  “We’re taking a day off,” Frannie said. “Their grandmother came and got them. I’ll be back in a minute. You want some tea?” Frannie disappeared into the back room.

  Glitsky was getting the hot water. “Who are you meeting?”

  Hardy was still shaken by Nancy DiStephano. He’d told Frannie about it when he’d gotten home, then sat up alone in the living room, not able to sleep for a long time.

  And now here was Abe, dropping in, wanting to know who Frannie was meeting. Abe wouldn’t approve of Frannie going to get acquainted with Jennifer Witt. If you were smart and in any aspect of law enforcement, you didn’t mix your job and your family life. The problem was that Hardy didn’t feel like getting into a defense of why he was going along with Frannie’s idea when he knew it wasn’t a smart one. “I thought I’d drop Frannie off downtown and later we’d go someplace nice for lunch. What brings you around?”

  It slid right by—Glitsky wasn’t in his investigator mode, when very little got past him. “I’ve got to go see this couple about a gun they left laying around for their kid to find and play with.” He tightened his lips; the scar shone white. He didn’t need to say more—Abe was in homicide and homicide meant that somebody wasn’t alive anymore. “It’s out this way so I thought I’d stop by here and liven up your morning. You back with Jennifer Witt?”

  Frannie and the three of them talked for twenty minutes while Glitsky finished his tea, Hardy and Frannie another cup of coffee. Hardy never mentioned the three-minute difference in times between the ATM machine and 911. By this time, he was convinced that it was evidence in a murder investigation, and if he revealed that it could be part of the defense’s case, Abe the policeman would be bound to report it to the prosecution.

  “But who are you?” Jennifer, in her red jumpsuit, looked through the Plexiglas window in the public-visiting area at the women’s jail.

  Frannie was no longer sure about this. The woman across from her was certainly no threat to anyone at this moment. Nearly anorectic, with bruises on her face, her hair chopped at different lengths, her eyes skittish. Here was a woman, Frannie thought, who doesn’t trust a living soul.

  “I’m . . . ” Frannie, her mouth dry, tried to swallow. “I’m with Mr. Hardy.”

  “I know. You’ve already said that. That’s why I came out here. But then how come we’re not in the visiting room?”

  Frannie didn’t know—she thought they were in the visitors’ room. She didn’t know that this long counter with folding chairs, Plexiglas windows, the telephones to talk through, wasn’t where Hardy and Jennifer had their interviews. “I’m . . . I guess it’s just I’m not an attorney, so this isn’t official or anything.” Suddenly she understood why Hardy hadn’t come with her to introduce the two of them. What could he have said? “Hi, my wife just wanted to come down and check you out to make herself feel better. She was a little worried you’d get out of jail someday and try to kill me.”

  She felt like a fool and she felt angry.

  Dismas had humored her to teach her a lesson—a cruel one that he might have argued her out of.

  But then she realized that she wouldn’t have let him do that. She could be as strong and bullheaded as anyone. She had decided she was going to meet with Jennifer and, by God, she wasn’t going to back down—that had been her position and now she was stuck with it.

  Jennifer waited, her eyes now fixed on Frannie. Pained eyes. Frannie suddenly thought of the son Matt. What if this woman hadn’t killed anybody? She had lost her son? And then got raped and beat up in a Costa Rican jail?

  “I know this is unusual,” she said. “I’m Mr. Hardy’s wife. Frannie. He’s told me what’s happened to you and I just wondered if I could do anything to make things easier?”

  The city-run Mission Hills Clinic was about midway between the Hall of Justice and the Yerba Buena Medical Group cluster on Mission Street but not particularly close to any hills.

  Hardy stood across the busy thoroughfare and watched for nearly ten minutes. Judging from the signs people carried, there were, he decided, two separate picket lines—one protesting the abortions that took place here, the other comprised of public-health workers who were being laid off due to cutbacks in the city budget. The groups orbited in their own spheres, which warily circled each other, moving from one front door of the building to the next one and then back again. The dance almost appeared choreographed.

  In the months Jennifer had been, at large, Hardy had remained subliminally aware of the ongoing escalation of the antiabortion activists. Since he’d had his discussion with Glitsky, a city worker in the Sunset Clinic had died when she’d had the bad fortune to be working after hours. Probably the people who’d left the bomb hadn’t intended anyone to be there when it exploded, just trying to make a point, they’d say. The unlucky worker wasn’t any less dead for the good intentions.

  A doctor and a nurse had had their homes vandalized—windows broken, threats tied to rocks or tagged—graffitied—on stucco. There had been at least six reports of muggings of public-health workers after they had finished their shifts, although no one was saying whether these were typical late-night random acts of violence or related to the clinics.

  Larry Witt had done volunteer work here, performing—Jennifer guessed—between two and five abortions per week. It was something Jennifer said he believed in—people shouldn’t have unwanted babies, the biggest problem the earth faced was overcrowding, a child born to poverty and neglect would most likely stay there.

  It was tragic and Hardy believed all of it, but the moral dilemma of when life started and—beyond that—the value of human life itself wasn’t going to go away soon for an Irish ex-Catholic. He strongly believed that people ought to be able to choose, but he also didn’t particularly approve of abortion on demand as a form of birth control. At the very least, he thought, people ought to make a decent effort to remember what they forgot last night. But people should also make a decent effort to remember not to shoot each other, and that didn’t seem to be happening with any great frequency, either.

  He crossed the street, feeling overdressed in his suit. There wasn’t another coat and tie on the block. The people in the picket lines—male and female—wore jeans and T-shirts, 49ers and Giants jackets, running shoes, boots and Birkenstocks. Timing his approach, he crossed both lines and entered the building without incident.

  Inside, the clinic was along the lines of what he’d expected and not seen at YBMG—yellowing tile, glaring fluorescence, that old hospital smell.

  In the main office lobby he waited in a line for twenty-five minutes and got sent to talk to the secretary to the clinic administrator. When she returned from her break and discovered that Hardy wanted to talk about abortion records, she told him he could have called and found out that they released no records whatsoever, and no information on what might be within them. As Hardy surely could understand, these files were completely confidential.

  Frustrated, and with another hour until he was supposed to pick up Frannie, he paused outside in the cavernous main lobby, then followed the signs down a long echoing hallway to OB-GYN.

  There were eight young women in the room. All seemed to be under twenty years old, a couple closer to fifteen. Two sat next to—maybe—their boyfriends, holding hands. One, crying, was flanked by her parents.
Five sat alone, empty chairs between them—popping gum, flipping through magazines, listening to Walkmans. Bored and unconcerned? Scared and withdrawn? It was hard to tell which.

  The receptionist at the window was a cheerful and cooperative young black man with a neatly trimmed beard and Afro. He wore a white smock with a Gay Pride tag that said “Sam.” Hardy handed him a card, introducing himself, asking if Sam might direct him to someone who could tell him a little about Dr. Witt.

  “You can ask me. I remember him pretty well. Too bad what happened.”

  Hardy agreed, saying that’s what he was trying to get clear on.

  “I thought his wife did it.”

  “That’s what they’re saying.”

  “You think she didn’t?”

  “She says she didn’t, so I’m just turning over rocks—maybe find a snake.”

  “Here? At the clinic?”

  “Seems like there’s a lot of angry people out there on the sidewalk.”

  Sam waved that off. “The pro-lifers? No, forget them. Those people live there on the street.”

  “People have been killed, Sam, beat up leaving work at these clinics.”

  Sam kept up a confident smile. “What about grocery checkers or bus drivers? They get beat up, too. Welcome to life in the big city.”

  Hardy tried another tack. “All right, maybe it was personal. Someone on the staff? I don’t know. Maybe Dr. Witt had a run-in with somebody?”

  “No way, no way. This isn’t a social club here. These volunteer docs come in and put in their time and leave. And Witt more than most. Nobody’s billing anybody here—no reason to hang out.” He gestured at the waiting area behind Hardy, lowering his voice. “This is not fun city west.”

  Hardy recognized the gospel when he heard it. He pointed at his card lying on the window ledge between them. “If you do think of something personal—anything at all—would you mind giving me a call?”