The 13th Juror

by John Lescroart

  “It wasn’t that short.” Stone sat back, apparently relaxed, and crossed his legs. “Doctors tend to be fairly literate people, Mr. Hardy. They can read. But like everybody else, often they don’t act until they have to. So you give people a deadline, it moves things along. Besides, remember that this was a twenty-dollar investment at most. Twenty dollars. Not the kind of decision you’d have to discuss with your wife or lawyer. It was straightforward and everybody had an opportunity.”

  “But not everybody bought.”

  Stone shrugged, nodded. “If you see a conspiracy in that, I’m afraid we have to part company there.”

  It would have been easier if Stone had shown the slightest sign of defensiveness, but he was sitting so comfortably, speaking so moderately, and, worst of all, making such perfect sense.

  Hardy leaned forward. “Ali Singh said only thirty doctors bought.”

  Stone agreed. “Perhaps forty. I’m not exactly sure. Certainly less than wish they had now.” He spread his arms, palms up, apologetic. “But that’s the nature of these things. Who doesn’t wish they’d bought Apple when it opened, or even McDonald’s?”

  “But Dr. Witt complained even before the windfall.”

  “Do you know that he complained? Who did he complain to? Maybe he just wanted to ask for an extension. Maybe he had a quick question. Maybe anything. I didn’t know Dr. Witt personally, so I have no idea.”

  This interview was taking on a sense of déjà vu— Villars had had the same objections. Hardy just didn’t know. He was surmising and hoping but he didn’t have a fact. Another wave of nausea hit him and he leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.

  “Mr. Hardy?”

  “I’d better be going,” he said. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Taking Hardy’s arm, Stone walked with him across the room, through the door to the hallway. “You know,” Hardy said, “I’ve got one more question if you don’t mind . . . What happened to the shares no one bought?”

  This was just another administrative detail, and Stone was forthcoming about it. “Some of them are in an escrow account, part of the Group’s assets. Others we gave as bonuses. Some we traded for services.”

  “Such as legal fees?”

  Stone smiled. “As a matter of fact, yes. Mr. Bachman pulled quite a coup on that. And we thought we were getting a very good deal, an incredible deal, in fact.”

  They had come to the door. Stone was still enjoying Bachman’s cleverness. “Crane normally hits us for two-fifty an hour, and Bachman suggested he handle the paperwork on the turnaround for fifty thousand shares. We figured it would be a hundred hours of legal work and the shares were worth twenty-five hundred dollars—at the time. It was a steal. So the Board took it. And actually it turned out to be more like three hundred hours, so we thought we’d done very well indeed.”

  “Fifty thousand shares?”

  “At a nickel a share, remember. It was peanuts. Of course, now . . .”

  Hardy waited.

  “Well, we all made out well. I shouldn’t begrudge Mr. Bachman. He put in a lot of work and he’s made us all much wealthier. Is that a sin?”

  “How much did he wind up getting?”

  Stone pursed his lips, smiled. “I suppose it’s in the public record. I can tell you—a little over seven million dollars.”

  Hardy repeated the number. Slowly. Out loud.

  Stone agreed it was a great deal. “Now you’d better get home and get in bed. Take aspirin every four hours.”

  “Drink lots of liquids,” Hardy said.

  The doctor smiled. “Right. Then send me fifty dollars.” The smile broke into a wide grin. “Sorry, forget the fifty dollars. Force of habit.”

  But he didn’t go home.

  David Freeman was up and about, conducting a classical concert—Hardy wasn’t familiar with the piece—in his living room. Hardy threw his briefcase onto the floor and sank heavily onto Freeman’s couch, pulled a couple of stuffed pillows over him for warmth, and watched Freeman—baton in hand—direct his symphony.

  He dozed.

  When he woke up the fog still clung to the windows. Freeman had thrown a blanket over him. It was quiet and the older man was working over his kitchen table, reading a file, taking notes.

  “What time is it?” Hardy’s bones were too heavy to lift his wrist.

  Freeman looked up. “After two. I usually get sick after a trial, too.”

  “I can’t be sick.” Hardy tried to straighten up. He wasn’t entirely successful. “Why did I come here?” he asked, half to himself.

  “Why are we here? What is life? The great questions. That’s why I like you. You feel like lunch? I’m starving.”

  “I don’t think I can eat.”

  “Okay.” Freeman, however, went to the refrigerator and started rummaging around.

  “I remember.” This time Hardy got himself pulled up. He wrapped the blanket around him. “Jody Bachman made seven million dollars.”

  The sound of rummaging stopped.

  “Fifty thousand shares,” Hardy said.

  Freeman’s head appeared above the refrigerator door. “Which was it?” he asked.

  “It was both.”

  “You mean he got seven million dollars plus fifty thousand shares of stock?” He shook his head. “We’re in the wrong business.”

  “No, he got fifty thousand shares of stock, which turned out to be worth seven million dollars.”

  Abandoning his foraging efforts, Freeman crossed the small living room and sat at the end of the couch. His face was suddenly troubled. He scratched at his stubble. “He took stock as payment? Is he the managing partner down there?”

  “Yes, he took stock. No, he’s not the managing partner. Why?”

  Freeman sat back. “What were the shares worth?”

  “A nickel each,” Hardy said. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking maybe you’ve found something.”

  “I thought that, too.” Hardy knew exactly what he thought but he wanted corroboration. He’d flown off too many times without getting his facts nailed down. It wasn’t going to happen again. “I’m not sure I know what it is, though.” He waited.

  The thought, the argument, seemed to be blossoming in Freeman’s head. He stood up and went to the window, studied the fog. Hardy rode out another bout of the shakes, then realized he’d broken a sweat. He threw off the blanket but then the chills started again.

  Turning around, Freeman’s face showed distaste. “You look like hell.” That said, he moved right on, coming back to the couch, sitting close to Hardy, and explained his reasoning.

  Large corporate firms like Crane & Crane did not usually allow associates and junior partners to trade essentially worthless stocks for eminently liquid billable hours. Jody Bachman, young and ambitious, had somehow put together a deal with PacRim, or knew PacRim might be a viable marriage with YBMG. Freeman said he wasn’t sure of the details—who could be?—but Bachman then sold his contingency stock idea to the Group.

  All of which might have been fine except for Simpson Crane, the managing partner of Crane & Crane. Bachman was putting in hundreds of hours of billable time and not bringing in a dime for his efforts. His utilization stunk. Simpson might have called him on it, or Bachman might have gone to Simpson and asked permission for the contingency. But if Simpson Crane made a habit of accepting stock with a maximum face value of twenty-five hundred dollars in lieu of a guaranteed fee of seventy-five thousand dollars in cash, he wouldn’t have a law firm for long.

  He would have said no. And that would have ruined Jody’s plans—both for his advancement in the firm and for his own fortune. It might have even jeopardized his engagement to his millionaire socialite girlfriend Margaret Morency.

  If Simpson Crane were the only thing standing in the way between Bachman and everything he’d worked for and wanted in his professional and personal life, and if Simpson had threatened to pull the rug, might that be worth killing for?
Simpson might even have threatened to fire him outright. Freeman certainly would have.

  “So. There it is,” Freeman concluded. “How do you like it?”

  Hardy’s eyes were burning now and his mouth was parched, but he had been paying attention throughout the recital. It was close enough to the scenario he had imagined. Now all he had to do was prove it.

  “I give it a nine,” he said. “My girlfriend can dance to it.”

  Freeman looked at him as though he were a Martian. Hardy was getting delirious and Freeman told him he’d call a cab to take him home. He left him sitting on the couch and went to the kitchen to make the call.

  In spite of everyone’s well-meaning advice, there were no odds in going home. He didn’t have time to go home. He was seeing Villars on Tuesday morning and if this didn’t work out, he had to spend Monday getting his last-ditch motion prepared.

  But this was his best chance. This might work.

  He called Frannie from the San Francisco airport and endured the expected anger. She had every right to be angry. He hadn’t been much of a father or husband in the past months. But he was going to make it up to her, to the kids. This trial had taught him something. A lot. It was an insane life and he had fallen into it. But he was going to get out. Do something else, or do this some other way. As soon as this was done.

  First, though, he was going to finish this.

  When she cooled off she’d understand. She wouldn’t, in fact, expect any less—she was the one, after all, who had insisted he do all he could to find the truth behind Larry Witt’s murder. And Matt’s. For Jennifer’s sake. And now, sick or not, unless he died trying, that was just what he was going to do.

  51

  The plane was scheduled to land in Burbank an hour before dusk. He was sleeping in a window seat, covered with a blanket, when the pilot came on announcing their descent. He opened his eyes, taking in the view. Two or three times its normal size, the sun shimmered through a red haze out over the ocean. Looking down, Hardy picked up the maze of freeways winding through the Valley, the Hollywood jammed even now on an early Saturday evening, the Golden State also packed heading downtown. The Pasadena wasn’t yet a parking lot, at least not from the air.

  Feeling wasted with fatigue and fever, he closed his eyes again until they came to the famous complete stop at the gate.

  This, he told himself as he tried not to stagger walking to the nearest rent-a-car booth, was a dumb idea.

  But somehow he made it to Pasadena. He had taken a couple of DA training classes at an Embassy Suites there and had a vague memory of where he was going. Within an hour of landing, he had registered, showered, left a message for Frannie that he’d made it and passed out under the covers.

  He slept fourteen hours and woke up in soaked sheets feeling he had a chance to survive. It was close to noon, Sunday, October 24. After another shower, still shaky, he called home again, and again no one answered. He left another message. He was feeling better, which wasn’t saying much. He’d try again tonight.

  Restoffer picked up after three rings. The greeting was cordial enough, but when Hardy started to brief him on why he had come down here, he hadn’t gotten out two sentences when he sensed a change, an almost ominous reserve.

  Restoffer interrupted him. “You gotta leave this. Or at least leave me out of it.”

  An unwelcome surprise. Last time they’d talked, Restoffer had told him he’d be around if he was needed. Now he was backing out.

  “Did something else happen?”

  “Nothing else happened except your prosecutor called my chief.”

  Silence. But nothing else needed to be said. Hardy had made some serious problems for Floyd Restoffer in the months before his pension was going to kick in. He didn’t want any more. “I’ve got to go.”

  The line went dead.

  Hardy squeezed the receiver. “Now we’re having fun,” he said to no one. He went into the bathroom and took three more aspirin, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. “Nice eyes.” Backing up a step, he realized the rest of him matched his eyes—he needed a shave, clean clothes, another fourteen hours of sleep. He didn’t have the courage to take his temperature.

  After pacing the room for fifteen minutes, he ordered breakfast from room service, then called Restoffer again. “Margaret Morency is engaged to Jody Bachman, you know that?” There was a long silence and Hardy said: “I’ve got to start somewhere, Floyd. I’m down here. I need a little help. Please?”

  Restoffer’s breathing echoed on the line. Hardy waited. “Believe it or not, Morency is in the book. I checked.” After another moment the cop said “San Marino,” and hung up.

  Hardy left a message for Jody Bachman at Crane & Crane. He was sure it was just an oversight because he was so busy, but Bachman had never gotten back to him on the Larry Witt matter. Now he was down in LA today and tomorrow. Maybe they could get together sometime, perhaps for lunch. He left the number of his hotel if Bachman wanted to call him back. Also his room number.

  His luck ran out. Yes, Clarence Stone had been able to see him. Freeman had come up with pretty much the same conclusion. The plane had had an open seat, the hotel a vacant room.

  That was it—that had been the run of it.

  Now Restoffer wouldn’t talk to him, Frannie wasn’t home, Bachman wasn’t at work on a Sunday and Margaret Morency’s phone apparently didn’t even have an answering machine.

  Steeling himself for the shock, Hardy drew the shades back. The San Gabriel mountains rose sparkling in front of him. Closer in, squatting along the Rose Bowl parade route on Colorado Boulevard, he noticed the low buildings were waging a losing fight with graffiti. He pushed open his window. The air was fragrant and warm with a late-summer softness to it.

  A new rush of dizziness came over him and he was tempted to yield to the inertia, to lie down, call it a mistake and fly home this afternoon when he woke up. Sitting on the bed, he flopped onto his back, closed his heavy eyes.

  Suddenly, anger forced him up. He was disgusted with himself, with his weakness, with being sick. If he was going to sleep fourteen hours he could have done it at home. He hadn’t come all the way down here to catch up on his sleep, to let a run of bad luck do him in.

  The sitting up cost him another hit of dizziness. He knew the fever hadn’t broken but he’d done a lot yesterday feeling even worse. He picked up his shirt, soggy and wrinkled. It wouldn’t do. He had to get some clothes. He had to keep moving . . .

  Clarence Stone’s home in Seacliff had been a nice, human-scaled, run-of-the-mill mansion. Margaret Morency’s place in San Marino put things in perspective. Hardy was getting a lesson in the investment community—there were the very comfortable, then the rich, and then there were the people who had houses that weren’t visible from the road. The drive, through the double iron gates, wound back into a forest of scrub oak up over the crest of a small knoll and disappeared.

  It hadn’t been as hard to find as he had expected. The Huntington Library was open on Sundays (after noon) and they carried back issues of the city’s weekly society sheet. In the past year there had been several charity events at Margaret Morency’s.

  Pastille was on Swan Court. Pastille was the name of her place. After those French breath candies. Maybe that’s how Ms. Morency thought of her home—a trifle, a confection to soothe the spirit.

  Hardy pulled his rent-a-car up to the gates. He had to get out of the car to ring the bell. No one had answered the last time he’d tried the telephone but that had been nearly an hour before. Something might have changed. If it hadn’t, he’d try Bachman again, then come back here. Something.

  A deep young female voice spoke through the box.

  “Yes?”

  “Ms. Morency?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t feel he could launch into a long story. He had to see her. “I couldn’t reach you on the phone,” he said.

  She laughed. “I know. I just let it ring. I don’t know why I keep the thing. Wh
o is this?”

  Hardy took a gamble. He was an acquaintance of Jody’s.

  “Oh, just a minute.” There was a whirring sound and the gates began to open. “I’m back by the pool. You’ll find it.”

  “I give the staff Sundays off.”

  They sat on thick-cushioned picnic chairs under an umbrella. Two sweating pitchers—iced tea and lemonade—sat on a serving platter on the table. She had taken crystal glasses from the bar at the gazebo near the head of the pool and poured lemonade for them.

  It was crude, he knew, but Hardy’s first reaction, shaking her hand, was that he had seen better heads on beer. Orange Court debutante or not, she had one of those faces that didn’t quite work—a jaw that was almost merely strong, but it jutted. A trace too much down clouding her cheeks. Her forehead reached her hairline a half-inch too soon. Being mega-rich could cover a multitude of sins.

  She had also apparently perfected the art of diverting attention from her face. Blond hair hung shining to her shoulders. She wore black bikini bottoms and a white top tied halter-fashion over her breasts. The top was diaphanous. A gold chain hugged her flat, tan waist. She was barefoot with long, tapered legs; another discreet chain encircled one ankle. Hardy noticed the top of the bathing suit draped over some flagstones by the flower bed on the opposite side of the pool. She had obviously been swimming, lounging, topless.

  “I like being here alone.”

  They were certainly alone. No other houses were visible. Only trees, the pool, the manicured garden and rolling lawn beyond, the mansion behind them, the perfect blue sky. A jet flew high overhead.

  “How do you know Jody?” she asked.

  Hardy’s every bone ached. He could feel sweat gathering between his shoulder blades as the fever began to spike again. He sipped the lemonade and smiled weakly. “I’m afraid I’m another lawyer.”

  She had, he thought, a great laugh—deep, full-throated, uninhibited. She threw her head back, seemingly delighted. “Lawyers aren’t afraid of anything,” she said. “That’s what Jody tells me.”