Hard Evidence

by John Lescroart

  So Fowler’s ruling had alienated Locke, the sixteen officers who’d taken part in the operation, Chief of Police Dan Rigby and the mayor, in whose brain the original germ of the idea had hatched in the first place.

  For a short while Fowler became somewhat the darling of the media—the Sunday Chronicle’s Calendar/ Style section did a piece on him, further alienating the Hall. Esquire liked his wardrobe. Rolling Stone asked his opinion on Roe v. Wade. People had a little squib on him in “End-Notes,” calling him a “crusading justice.”

  Fowler laughed it off as his allotted twenty minutes of fame, and most of it blew over after a while. But it did leave a bitter residue, especially on a young female D.A. named Elizabeth Pullios, who didn’t like to lose and who’d been prosecuting Blakemore.

  Now, on this sweltering morning, Fowler had listened to a half-hour of opening statements by Chief Assistant District Attorney Art Drysdale, making a rare personal appearance in a courtroom. The case was The People v. Charles Hendrix et al., and Drysdale was here because Locke had asked him to be.

  There were eight sitting judges in San Francisco, their cases assigned by one of their number, a rotating calendar judge, in Department 22, starting at nine-thirty every Monday morning. When People v. Hendrix went to Fowler, Locke knew he was in trouble—Hendrix was another entrapment. In this case, the SFPD had set up a phony fence, a warehouse to receive stolen goods. After word got out, they had videotaped twenty to thirty suspectsa day, waiting for a big score or a connection to a major dope deal, before they’d made some arrests. This, Locke suspected, wasn’t going to fly in Andy Fowler’s courtroom.

  “. . . And I want to see prosecuting counsel in my chambers immediately.”

  Fowler, recovered from his illness of the previous day, left the bench and had his robe off before he left the courtroom. He told the bailiff to bring one of the fans into his office.

  A minute later, Drysdale was knocking at his open door. “Your Honor.”

  The bailiff brushed by Drysdale with the fan and plugged it in so it blew across Fowler’s desk.

  “How many of these turkeys are we likely to be seeing here? Come in, Art. Sit down. Hot enough?”

  Drysdale crossed a leg. “With all respect, Your Honor, I think a flat dismissal is out of line as a matter of law.” Fowler’s eyes narrowed, but Drysdale ignored the obvious signs, reaching into his briefcase. “I’ve got a brief here—”

  “You’ve got a brief already? Before you knew my ruling?”

  “Mr. Locke had an . . . intuition.”

  Fowler did not smile. “I’ll bet he did.” He laced his fingers and brought them up to his mouth. “Why don’t you just give me the sense of it?”

  Drysdale hadn’t written a “memorandum of points and authorities”—a paper laying out current law based on past decisions in other courts, law-review articles, recognized lawbooks—in about eight years, and when Locke asked him to figure out a way to get by Fowler he thought this was as good a time as any to try one.

  Entrapment was generally frowned upon in the 1st District Court of Appeal, San Francisco’s district, but there was a lot of leeway granted police, depending on how the sting was set up. In this case, Hendrix, and in the many others sure to follow from the phony warehouse, the police were not arresting the suspect at the scene. Rather, they were using information gathered by videotape at the scene to identify the suspect, after which they tailed him to see what he was up to. This approach had resulted in righteous convictions that held up under appeal in several states, and Drysdale laid it all out in a nutshell while Fowler sat back in his chair, eyes closed, letting the fan blow over him.

  When Drysdale had finished, Fowler opened his eyes. “Let me tell you a story, Art. This kid is sitting on his front lawn, minding his own business, and one of his neighbors comes by and tells him there’s a warehouse down the street paying top dollar for any goods brought to it, no questions asked. The neighbor shows him a roll he just got for a car stereo and two bicycles. Another neighbor comes by, flashes another wad of dough. This goes on for a week, and pretty soon our boy is thinking he’d be some kind of fool not to take advantage of this opportunity like all of his neighbors.

  “See? There’s two parts to stealing—taking and fencing—and both are risky, but now one half the risk is eliminated. So, and this is important”—Fowler leaned forward over his desk, out of the flow of air from the fan—“it is the impetus of this sting operation that causes our boy to go and commit a crime.”

  “Excuse me, Your Honor, but these people are already committing crimes. They’re going to fence them somewhere.”

  “But by making it easy to fence them, Counselor, we are encouraging them to steal more.”

  Drysdale sat back. He knew Fowler’s argument. He just didn’t agree with it. But he was only the running footman. “Mr. Locke doesn’t agree with you, Judge. Neither does Mr. Rigby.”

  Fowler allowed himself a tight smile. “Well, now, that’s what makes this country great, isn’t it?”

  Drysdale leaned forward himself. “The cops have put in a lot of time and money on this already, Judge. So have we. We’re taking these guys off the street—”

  “Shooting them would also take them off the street, Art. And shooting them is also illegal.”

  “This isn’t illegal.”

  Fowler finally sat back, breaking the eye contact. “You know, it’s funny, but I’m the judge. It’s my courtroom and if I say it’s illegal, you and Mr. Locke and Mr. Rigby and anybody else will just have to live with it.”

  Now Drysdale sat back. He realized that he was sweating and wiped a hand across his forehead. “I’d like to at least leave the brief,” he said.

  “Fine, leave the brief. I’ll read it if I get the chance.”

  “The son of a bitch! The arrogant, pompous, liberal son of a bitch!”

  “Yes, sir.” Drysdale stood by the window in Locke’s office, hands held behind his back. The air conditioner seemed to be working better on the third floor.

  “This was a righteous bust. We didn’t take Hendrix in dumping the goods—we caught him in the act.”

  Drysdale turned around. “An act he would not have been drawn to commit had we not set up our fence.”

  “Oh bullshit!”

  Art shrugged. “It’s not my argument.”

  “Hendrix does this for a fucking living. He steals things. You know that as well as I do. He breaks into your house or my house or his fucking honor Andy Fowler’s house and takes things that aren’t fucking his. He is not coerced into doing this by finding a good place to unload it.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  The warehouse was an ongoing operation that had been in business for about four months. The police department had already brought in over forty suspects and had collected some $2.5 million worth of contraband, a good portion of which they had returned to its owners. It was a successful tool that they felt was working. Arrests were up, convictions should follow. And Locke was damned if he was going to let some commie judge screw it up for everybody.

  He sat down now, played drums with a pencil on his desk. Shave and a haircut, six bits. Shave and a haircut, six bits. “Who’s on Calendar this month? Maybe we’ll get lucky in another department.”

  “I think Leo Chomorro’s taken up permanent residence.”

  “Poor bastard.”

  Art lifted his shoulders. “He asked for it. If he rides with us, maybe we can ease him out of there. Maybe he’s ready.”

  “Find out, would you? Find out if he’ll play, keep any of these away from Fowler. Rigby’s going to have a shit-fit.”

  “Yes, sir,” Art said.

  Locke looked at his watch. “God, how could it be lunchtime already? I just got here. I’ve got an appointmentin ten minutes, Art. You want to fill Rigby in? No, I’ll do it. He’s gonna shit! What are we going to do about Fowler?”

  Drysdale shrugged. “He’s a judge, Chris. He’s in for the duration, I’m afraid.”

&nb
sp; Locke was moving around his desk, straightening his tie. “I’d like to get a crack at him, I’ll tell you that. Son of a bitch could ruin my career.”

  Drysdale, who’d been around and seen it all, was about to tell his boss that Andy Fowler was an okay guy, good on a lot of other issues. It was just his interpretation of the law, nothing personal. But he bit his tongue—he knew better.

  It was personal. If it didn’t start personal, it got that way in a hurry. To the people who practiced it—even a seasoned veteran like Art Drysdale—everything about the law was personal. There were egos, careers, and lives wrapped up in every yea or nay, every objection sustained or overruled, every conviction, every reversal. If you didn’t take it personally you didn’t belong there.

  Andy Fowler wasn’t just interpreting the law. He was stepping on toes, big toes. Although he was loyal to Locke, Drysdale had always gotten along well with Fowler, and he hoped like hell the judge knew what he was doing. If he slipped up, he was going to get squished.

  16

  “You love this, don’t you?” Frannie asked.

  Hardy hadn’t stopped grinning since he’d told the cops in the elevator to rebook Rane Brown. He had just told his wife the story. “It has its moments, I must admit.”

  “So who are you nailing this afternoon?”

  Hardy looked at the folders on his desk, still a formidable pile. “The afternoon looms large before me,” he said. He noticed Andy Fowler’s jade paperweight and picked it up, cool and heavy in his hand. “Maybe I’ll shoot some darts, eat lunch . . .” His feet were up on his desk, his tie loosened. Abe Glitsky appeared in his doorway, knocked once and sat down across the desk from him. “On the other hand, I’m sure Abe says hi. He just walked in.”

  “I’ll let you go then.”

  “Okay, but guess what?”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  “Okay.” Saying they loved each other in code.

  Glitsky had come directly to Hardy’s office from the evidence locker room. The telephone receiver wasn’t out of Hardy’s hand yet when Glitsky said, “And as you astutely predicted, Diz, the Eloise was clean.”

  Hardy was tossing the jade from hand to hand. “Well, I didn’t think—”

  “Except for a gun, a slug, a bunch of blood, some other stuff.”

  Hardy put the jade down, swinging his feet to the floor. “I’m listening.”

  Glitsky filled him in. He had bagged the Beretta for evidence. You could still smell the cordite. He would bet a lot it was the murder weapon, although Ballistics would tell them for sure by Monday. On deck, they had found what looked like blood on the railing where Nash might have gone overboard. “Whoever shot him, whoever brought the boat back in, must have washed down the deck, but they missed the rail.”

  “The gun registered?”

  “I’m running it now. We’ll know by tonight.”

  “Any word on May Shinn?”

  “I was thinking you might have something there. Maybe Farris?”

  Hardy shook his head, told him a little about how he’d spent his morning, about Rane Brown. Glitsky nodded. “You ever notice how just plain dumb these guys are?”

  It had crossed Hardy’s mind. “So what’s my excuse to talk to Farris again? Maybe you want to talk to him. Till you give me a suspect, I’m not really in it.”

  Glitsky was firm. “You’re in it, Diz. You already know the guy. Tell him we need Mr. Silicon and we haven’t located Shinn. See what he’ll tell you. He’s probably handling disposition of the body, too. Although maybe the daughter . . . no, probably him.”

  “I’m on it,” Hardy said.

  Hardy passed on his lunch. It was too nice a day to stay cooped up, so Hardy called, got directions and made an appointment, then drove with the top off his Samurai around the Army Street curve down 101. He got his first view of the Bay as he passed Candlestick Park—remarkably blue, clear all the way down to San Jose, dotted with a few sailboats, some tankers. The Bay Bridge glittered silver a little behind him and the pencil line of the San Mateo Bridge ran over to Hayward. You could see it every day, Hardy thought, and the beauty still got to you.

  He exited the freeway at South San Francisco and drove north and west through the industrial section. Owen Industries spread itself over nearly two acres of land at the foot of the San Bruno mountains, a bunch of white and green structures that looked like army barracks. Hardy was issued a guest pass at the guard station after he’d had his appointment confirmed. These folks were into security.

  He drove a hundred yards between two rows of the low buildings, then turned left as instructed and came upon the corporate offices, which showed signs of an architect’s hand. A well-kept lawn, a cobbled walkway bounded by a low hedge, a few mature pines, relieved the drab institutional feel of the rest of the place. A flag flew at half-mast. The corporate office building itself was fronted in brick and glass. It, like the surrounding compound, squatted at one story.

  Inside, red-tiled floors, potted trees, wide halls with modern art tastefully framed, gave the place an air of muted elegance. An attractive young receptionist took Hardy back to Farris’s office and explained that he would be back in a moment and in the meantime Hardy could wait here.

  The door closed behind him and for a moment after turning around, Hardy was struck by an intimate familiarity.

  The walls were painted lighter and the view outside the window was certainly different, but otherwise Farris’s office was strikingly like Hardy’s own at his house. There was a fireplace with its mantel, the seagoing knickknacks, even a blowfish on the green blotter that covered the desk. There was no green-shaded banker’s lamp, but the file cabinets were wooden, the bookshelves contained business stuff but also some popular books. Finally, there was a dartboard studded with two sets of what Hardy recognized as high-quality custom darts.

  There were differences, of course. This room was twice the size and altogether brighter than Hardy’s. The floor was of the same red tile that had been in the lobby, partially covered by three Navajo throw rugs and a couch.

  Hardy walked to the desk, felt the grain of the wood, moved to the bookshelves, then to the dartboard. He removed three of the darts and stepped back to the corner of the desk.

  After throwing all six darts, Hardy sat on one of the stiff-back wooden chairs, crossed one knee over the other and waited. In under a minute, the door opened.

  “Hardy. Dismas, how are you? Sorry to keep you waiting. Something came up.” A somewhat forced smile in the handsome face. Again, impeccable clothes—a charcoal business suit—with the personal touch of cowboy boots. Hardy thought he looked exhausted. He went around his desk, arranged some papers and sat down. His eyes went around the room. “You’ve thrown my darts.”

  “That’s an impressive bit of observation.”

  Farris brushed it off. “Party trick,” he said, “like Owen breaking boards.” He explained. “You’re around Owen, you better have something you can do better than he can. I got good at details.” He seemed to slump, remembering something.

  “You all right?” Hardy asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll live. This is a bitch of a blow, though. I’m not much good pretending it isn’t.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “With you, okay. But out there”—he motioned toward the door he’d just come through—“I set the tone. People out there see me panic, then it starts to spread, right? I just put the word out we’re closing up for today. Maybe things’ll look better on Monday.”

  Hardy gave it a minute, then thought he might as well get down to it. He briefed him on Glitsky’s discoveries on the Eloise, which Farris took in without comment. Then he got the name, address and phone number of Mr. Silicon—Austin Brucker in Los Altos Hills. Finally he got around to May Shinn.

  “I wanted to be clear on May, though. Wednesday when you called her, you left a message?”

  Farris nodded. “That’s right. You were right there.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m a little con
fused, though, because Sergeant Glitsky tried to call her this morning and no one answered.”

  “How’d he get her number?”

  Details, Hardy thought, this guy is into details. He lifted his shoulders an inch. “Cops have access to unlisted numbers.” He hoped.

  Farris accepted that. “But the machine didn’t answer?”

  “Ten rings.”

  “No, it picked up after two, three for me.” He thought a minute. “Maybe it got to the end of the tape.”

  “You’d still get her answering message, wouldn’t you?”

  “I think you would.”

  The two men sat, putting it together. “She’s alive then,” Farris said. “She unplugged it.”

  “Would she have had a reason to kill Owen?”

  “May?”

  “Somebody did.”

  Farris shrugged again. “I don’t know. I didn’t know her. I wouldn’t know her if she walked in here.”

  “But did Mr. Nash—?”

  “Owen liked her.” He paused. “A lot. More than a lot.”

  “So how about if he stopped liking her?”

  “So what?”

  “So might she have gone off, something like that?”

  Farris shook his head. “I just don’t have any idea. The last I knew, Owen liked her. But, I mean, the woman’s a prostitute, right? She kills a john over his dumping her? Even if it’s Owen, I don’t see it. And I don’t think he was dumping her.”

  “So where is she? Why hasn’t she returned your calls?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a good question.”

  Hardy finally had to let it go. “What are you doing about the body?” he asked.

  Celine was going by the coroner’s this afternoon to sign some papers. The autopsy was supposed to have been done this morning. So they planned to have the cremation Sunday morning, scattering his ashes over the Pacific that afternoon.

  Farris looked hard out the window. He had a minimum view of the sun behind the low green buildings, some grass, a couple of pine trees. He put his hand to his eyes and pushed against them, then pinched the bridge of his nose.