Hard Evidence

by John Lescroart

  Hardy slid in next to Frannie and kissed her.

  “John Strout is a funny guy,” Glitsky said. “I was just telling Frannie.”

  “When did you see our fine coroner?”

  “I see him too much as it is, but this morning I thought I’d do you a little legwork.”

  “Abe does a great Southern accent,” Frannie said.

  “Wha thenk y’all, ma’am. Jest tryn’ ketch the good doctuh’s flavuh, so to speak.” Abe switched back to his own voice. “You may have got him mad, Diz, but he looked at the hand. I figured it would be easier for me to ask about it than you. Just routine. Is it a likely homicide or not?”

  “And what’d he say?”

  “He said the guy might have done some karate, maybe some board breaking. There were calcium deposits on the knuckle of the middle finger and the little finger had two healed breaks. Oh, and the pad opposite the thumb was a little thick.”

  “That all?”

  “That’s a lot, Diz. Plus he did die recently. Rigor had come and gone, but Strout thought it was still a fresh hand.”

  “I love it when you guys talk shop,” Frannie said.

  Hardy took his wife’s hand. “It’s a glamorous profession. Nothing else could have lured me back.” Then to Abe, “It wasn’t a cadaver, then?”

  Glitsky shook his head. “Strout’s checked all the local med schools.” He looked at Frannie. “Every couple years some med students steal a body and play some games. This doesn’t look like one of them.”

  “So it’s a homicide?” she said.

  “A homicide’s just an unnatural death,” Abe said. Rebecca was starting to get restless and Glitsky moved her onto his other leg, bouncing her. “And we don’t even have that officially until Strout says it is, and he won’t say till he’s positive, which means more tests to see if the hand is really fresh, which he thinks it is. Finally,” Abe said, “even if it’s a homicide, a homicide doth not a murder make, much as our man Dismas here might like to try one. We’ve still got three options on cause of death—suicide, accident and natural causes—before we get to murder.”

  Rebecca began to squirm some more and suddenly let out a real cry.

  “Here, let me take her,” Hardy said. He reached across the table and Abe passed the baby over. Immediately she snuggled up against his chest and closed her eyes.

  “The magic touch,” Frannie said. “I’ll go get some lunch.”

  She got up, and the two men watched her for a second as she headed toward the steam tables. Hardy stroked a finger along his baby’s cheek. “You want to do me another favor?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s not much,” Hardy continued, “a phone call.”

  Hardy cleared seven cases in the two hours after his lunch: three DUIs with priors, a shoplifting with priors lowered to a misdemeanor for a plea, one possession of a loaded firearm by a felon, and two aggravated assaults—a purse snatching and a soccer father beating up his son’s coach. None of these cases would have to go to trial and further clog the court system, and he was glad about that, but this plea bargaining was demoralizing and tiring.

  Glitsky appeared in his doorway just as Hardy finished taking care of the weapons charge—his toughest case of the day. If you were convicted of carrying a gun without a license in San Francisco, you went to jail. So people facing time in the slammer tended to prefer a jury trial where they perceived they’d at least have a chance to get off. But in this case Hardy had persuaded the guy’s attorney to plead nolo contendere and take weekend jail time. A sweet deal for both sides, all things considered.

  Glitsky perched on the corner of the desk. “So who am I talking to?” he asked.

  Most of the prosecutors shared a room with one of their colleagues, but since Hardy had come on as an assistant D.A., his roommate had been on maternity leave, which suited him fine.

  Glitsky got up to close the door behind them and went and sat at the other desk. Hardy got through to Farris’s office, then Glitsky punched in so Hardy could listen. The receptionist told Glitsky to hold, and they waited through five of the beeps that signified the call was being recorded.

  Glitsky identified himself, referred to Hardy’s earlier call and told Farris about the new information from the coroner. As soon as Glitsky said the word karate, they knew they were onto something.

  Farris was silent a long moment. Then he quietly said, “Shit.”

  “Mr. Farris?”

  Again an interval. “I’m here. Give me a minute, will you.”

  Glitsky waited, fingers drumming on the desk. Beep. Beep.

  “It might not be Owen. Lots of men do karate.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Friday around noon, lunchtime. He wasn’t wearing a jade ring then, just the wedding band. At least, I suppose he had the band on. I would have noticed something different, I think.”

  “But Mr. Nash did practice karate?”

  “He was a black belt. He started it a long time ago, when we were in Korea.”

  Glitsky’s brows went up. He glanced at Hardy. “A bone in the little finger had been broken and healed twice,” he said.

  Farris swore again, waited. Glitsky whistled soundlessly. Beep.

  “I think I’d better come up,” Farris said.

  Hardy almost forgot his appointment to apologize to the police chief, Dan Rigby. Glitsky was going down to Strout to see if he would be amenable to having Hardy around when Ken Farris arrived to inspect the hand. Frannie had called to tell him that at her next Ob/Gyn in a month they could expect to hear the new baby’s heartbeat, and would Hardy try to get the time off so he could go with her? Did he want to know if it was going to be a boy or a girl? She wasn’t so sure, herself, if she wanted to know. Also, she was so young the doctor didn’t recommend an amnio, and she hadn’t had one with Rebecca and she’d turned out fine. What did he think?

  Hardy, answering her questions, enjoying her excitement, idly flipped his calendar page and saw the note: Rigby 4:00.

  It was 3:55.

  He got to the chief’s office on the dot and waited outside for twenty-five minutes. He didn’t want Farris to have come and gone by the time he got out, but he couldn’t really push things too much here. The sergeant/ secretary had made it clear yesterday that he was not one of Hardy’s fans, and by extension neither was the chief.

  The intercom finally buzzed on the sergeant’s desk. He looked over at Hardy and pointed a finger at the double doors.

  Dan Rigby sat back in a leather chair, still talking on the telephone. He had a boxer’s face, red and lined, and gray hair that was nowhere longer than a quarter inch. Hardy knew he often wore a business suit, but today he was in his officer’s uniform. It was meant to be impressive.

  Hardy stood on the Persian rug before his desk, trying to hit on a suitable opening. Rigby, listening into the telephone, scrutinized him as he walked in. Hardy waited another minute. Then Rigby hung up and squared his shoulders as though they caused him pain. “You used to be a cop, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. I worked a beat about three years.”

  “Then went to the law, right?”

  “Yes, sir.” Here it comes, Hardy thought.

  Rigby relaxed his shoulders, sunk back into his chair. “I often wondered about going the same way, though of course it’s worked out well enough, I guess. But getting away from the police end of it—I suppose there just wasn’t enough action anywhere else.”

  “The law’s not so bad,” Hardy said.

  Rigby laughed hoarsely. “Naw, the law’s all pleading and bullshit. The difference is most of the time we all know, we damn well know, who did it, but you guys, you lawyers, have got to prove it. Us, we know who did it, we catch ’em, our job’s over, just about. So I figure the thing about this incident yesterday, you got your hats mixed up. You get good training as a cop here, and it sticks with you, you think like a cop. Even when you’re over on the law side. Locke’s got a hair up because I called him a
nd he does hate to be bothered with his department.But you and I got no gripe. You get a murder out of this, or a suspect, you just do us all a favor and keep us informed. We’ll go get the collar, and then you can do your job.”

  The phone rang again. Rigby picked up the receiver and listened for a moment. “I don’t care what his constituency is, he does not get a police escort to . . .” Rigby looked up, surprised to see Hardy still there. He waved him out of the room and went back to his call.

  Ken Farris stood next to the nearly leafless ficus by the window that looked out at the parking lot, his hands crossed behind his back.

  He had just come from the cold room, looking at a barely recognizable thing that had four appendages—the index finger was missing—and he went instinctively to the window, as though for air, although the window was never opened.

  Farris was a broad-shouldered, slim-waisted sixty. His light brown $750 suit was perfectly tailored, lined with tiny blue and gold pinstripes. The light yellow silk shirt was custom made; so was the tie. The alligator cowboy boots added an unnecessary two inches to his height.

  Glitsky and Hardy sat on the hard yellow plastic couch in the visitor’s room of the morgue. John Strout had pulled up a folding chair and sat slouched, his long legs crossed.

  Farris turned around, fighting himself, still somewhat pale. “Well, that was a wasted exercise.”

  Strout reached into his pocket and extracted a small, plain cardboard box. “Maybe this will jog something.” He held the box up and Farris came over and took it.

  It was a jade ring—a snake biting its tail—with a filigreedsurface. Hardy leaned forward for a better look; he’d only seen it on the hand. Farris held it awhile, then put it over the first knuckle of his ring finger.

  “This wouldn’t have fit Owen,” he said. “He had bigger hands than me.”

  “The ring was on the pinky,” Strout said.

  Farris moved the ring over and slid it down onto his little finger. It was an easy fit. He removed it just as quickly. “Well, that still doesn’t make it Owen.”

  “No, sir, it doesn’t.” Strout was agreeable, genial, professional. Hardy sat forward, arms resting on his knees.

  Abe Glitsky sat back comfortably, watching, his legs crossed. He shifted slightly, enough to bring attention around to him. “You and Owen—Mr. Nash—were close, is that right?”

  “Could we not say were just yet? He’s been missing before.”

  “Long enough for you to call the police?”

  “Once or twice, I suppose, but I didn’t.”

  “What made you do it this time?”

  Farris shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. A feeling. Last time he ran off with no notice was maybe ten years ago. That much time, you figure a man’s habits have changed. I can’t fathom his just taking off anymore. Back then I could.”

  “Where did he go, that last time?”

  Hardy spoke up. “What’s all this running away?”

  Farris looked around the room, found another folding chair, and moved it over next to Strout’s. He put the ring in the box and handed it back to the coroner. Then he sat down heavily.

  “Good questions. You think he might have gone back to the same place?” He shook his head. “No, no, I don’t think so. Once he went to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. But it turns out that time he took his daughter, Celine. So they were both gone, and we figured they’d taken off somewhere together. Back then, it was in character.”

  “But not now?” Hardy asked.

  “He’s mellowed. Or I thought he’d mellowed. You know how it is.”

  Glitsky was gentle. “Why don’t you tell us how you mean it?”

  Farris sat back. He took a deep breath and blew out a stream of air. “Time was, used to be every six months or so Owen would do something to make you hate him, or hate yourself. He was like this, this force, where he’d get a notion to go do something and goddamn if anything was going to stop him—not his friends, not his family, not his responsibilities.

  “He had his devils, so I never got inclined to try and stop him. His wife, Eloise, died in a fire in their house back in the fifties. He couldn’t get back in to save her, barely pulled out their child.” Farris paused, remembering. “So he had this guilt over that. From time to time he didn’t feel worthy of all his success and he’d duck out from under it, leave it all for me to run.

  “Other times, just the opposite, he’d figure, ‘Well, goddamn, here I am, the great Owen Nash, and if I want to go to Bali for a month, let the mortals handle it. They’ll appreciate me more when I get back.’ ”

  But Glitsky wanted to keep to his line of questioning. “So he went once to New Orleans, another time to Bali . . . ?”

  “But that’s just it. He didn’t have a favorite place, at least one that he ran to. We’ve got this place together outside Taos, no phones, no heat, that’s served us the last five or six years, but I was up there—flew up on Friday night—and he wasn’t.”

  Strout pulled his long legs in under him and sat up straighter. “ ’Scuse me,” he said quietly, “but it seems the only thing tyin’ this here hand to Owen Nash is the karate.”

  Farris scanned the room. If he was looking for comfort, it was the wrong setting—the yellow vinyl couch, the institutional green walls. A near-dead plant and some artificial ones. “I don’t know if he ever broke a finger. I doubt he’d say if he had.”

  “You mean doing karate, breaking a board, something like that?” Hardy asked.

  Farris nodded. “That circus stuff, breaking boards, that’s Owen. If he was showing off for some woman . . . hell, for anybody, he could break his whole hand and never mention it. One of his conceits was he didn’t feel pain like the rest of us.”

  Hardy sat forward at the change of tone. This guy might love Owen Nash, but that wasn’t all he felt.

  “The little finger on this hand had two obviously healed breaks,” Strout said, “that were never set.”

  “That sounds more like Owen.”

  Strout straightened up in his chair, laced his fingers and stuck his arms out until knuckles cracked. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “this doesn’t move me any further along in the line of identification. We could run a DNA scan, but without a sample of what we know to be Mr. Nash’s tissue, it wouldn’t prove anything.”

  Everyone sat in silence, all but Strout back in their seats. Farris still sat forward, eyes turned inward, trying to come up with something to settle the question. There was a knock on the door, and Sixto poked his head in. “There’s a Celine Nash out here to see Mr. Farris.”

  The woman’s startling blue eyes were red and puffed, dark circles under them as if she hadn’t slept in several days. Her mascara had run over too much makeup. In a black suit, black nylons, black gloves—even black onyx earrings—she was elegantly turned out, but she’d run her hands through her ash-colored hair too often, and it straggled in uneven shanks to her shoulders.

  She came forward and hugged Farris, choking back a sob, and he held her for half a minute, patting her back. “It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. We still don’t know.”

  She pulled back slightly, took Farris’s pocket handkerchief out and dabbed at her eyes. She briefly held herself to him again. Hardy saw her close her eyes as though gathering her strength. Then she turned to the other men. “Is one of you the coroner?”

  Strout stepped forward. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m sorry, but I thought Ken said . . .” She looked around as though lost. “I mean, when I heard coroner, I just assumed . . .”

  “No, ma’am, we just don’t know yet. You might see if you recognize this.” Strout proffered the small ring box.

  Celine stared at the ring for a moment. “What is this?”

  “It was on the hand,” Strout said.

  She took it from the box, looking at him quizzically. “But Daddy didn’t wear this ring. Ken, Daddy only wore Mom’s ring, didn’t he?”

  “I already told them that.”

&nbs
p; The handkerchief went back to her eyes. She held it there a minute, applying some pressure. “Are you all right?” Hardy asked. He moved forward.

  Celine had gone a little pale. She gave Hardy a half-smile, but her eyes went back to Strout. “Well, then, this couldn’t be my father.”

  Glitsky, in his softest voice, asked her when the last time was she had seen her father. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and Hardy thought he saw a flash of resistance, perhaps even fear. “Why? I’m sorry, but who are you?”

  Farris broke in and introduced everyone, after which Glitsky explained, “He may have gotten the ring after you’d seen him.”

  She nodded, accepting that. “I don’t remember exactly. Two weeks ago, maybe. But he didn’t have this ring on then—he wouldn’t have worn it anyway. This just isn’t him.”

  Farris, up beside her, looked at it again and shrugged. “He wasn’t much of a jewelry person.”

  “All right,” Strout said. “It was worth a try. Thank y’all for your time.”

  After he’d escorted them to the door, Strout shambled back, hands in his pockets, to Hardy and Glitsky. “It might be Owen Nash,” he said simply. “Off the record, but it might be. I’ll keep y’all informed.”

  9

  The garage had Glitsky’s car repaired and ready to go for him, so Hardy found himself walking alone through the parking lot at five-forty-five, ready to head for the Little Shamrock, where he was meeting Frannie. The fog, which had clung to downtown all day, had lifted, or moved west with the breeze off the Bay; the sky overhead was a cloudless evening blue.

  Most of the staff at the Hall of Justice had gotten off at five, and the lot was about half empty. Two rows down from where Hardy was parked, Ken Farris sat in the driver’s seat of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible with its top down. Hardy slowed down and finally stopped.