Hard Evidence

by John Lescroart

  Turkel glanced at Fowler and shrugged theatrically. Chomorro slammed his gavel and told him to refrain from the gestures and answer the question.

  Turkel sighed. “I say, ‘Hey, I’m doin’ nothin’ the next couple weeks, I could use a vacation, fly out there, do this guy.’ The judge said, ‘No, thanks. If I want the man disposed of, I’ll do it myself.’ ”

  “That’s clear enough,” said Moses McGuire. “No jury would buy that—”

  “You never know what juries are going to think,” Hardy told him.

  “Yeah, but Turkel was right. People talk like that all the time, it never means anything.”

  “Except when it does.”

  It was Wednesday night. Not exactly date night, but Frannie had invited her brother over. When Hardy got home at seven-thirty she poured him a beer, told him she was giving him a special dispensation on his no-alcohol-during-the-week policy and guided him to his chair in the living room. He would be a better lawyer if he could recharge for a while. Moses would be around in a minute or two. They were having a fancy leg-of-lamb dinner and he was going to sit and eat it.

  His plan had been to keep reading, reading, reading— the dailies would be in later tonight, probably also May Shinn’s transcript. He wanted to go over every word Turkel had said—Chomorro had called it a day when Pullios finished with the private investigator and Hardy would start cross-examining him tomorrow.

  Suddenly he realized enough was enough. Frannie was right, he was too beat to think. He finished his beer and lit the fire, turned on the Christmas-tree lights and listened to John Fahey play some seasonal guitar.

  And now Moses was here. Frannie was humming, bustling around between the kitchen and dining room, setting a fancy table. He was having another beer. The claustrophobic feeling that had enveloped him for the past two days was letting up. So was the fatigue.

  “The real problem,” he said, “is that Turkel’s in it, period. It’s not so much his testimony, although that’s bad enough, but the fact that Andy hired him at all.”

  “What’s the matter with that? He wanted to find out what had happened, why May dumped him.”

  “So he hires a private eye? Would you hire a private eye?”

  Moses shrugged. “He was a working judge. Maybe he didn’t have the time personally, I don’t know . . . what did he tell you?”

  “That’s what he told me. But what am I supposed to sell to the jury? I mean, we’ve all had relationships end, right? Do we go three thousand miles for a private eye to keep chasing it?”

  Frannie was in the archway between the living and dining rooms. “I would chase you to the very ends of the earth,” she said. “Meanwhile, dinner is served.”

  She’d gone all out. The soup was a rich consommé with tapioca and sour cream. The lamb, stuck with garlic and rubbed with rosemary and lemon juice, was served with potatoes and a spinach dish with nutmeg and balsamic vinegar. She even had a half glass of the outstanding Oregon Pinot Noir. They talked about Christmases past, Moses’s memories of his and Frannie’s parents, Hardy’s memories of his. The trial wasn’t there.

  After Moses left, Hardy and Frannie cleared the table and did the dishes together, catching up on each other, trying out names for the new baby, getting back to some teasing.

  “Would you think I was a terrible human being if I didn’t work tonight?” Hardy asked.

  Frannie’s eyes were bright. “I don’t think I could forgive that.” She put her arms around him.

  “How about if I got up early?”

  “How early?”

  “Real early.”

  Frannie gave a good imitation of thinking about it. “So what would you do instead? Of working, I mean.”

  “Maybe go to bed, get a little sleep.”

  “Which one?”

  53

  Real early turned out to be four o’clock, but he woke up refreshed, the growing sense of panic he’d been feeling somehow dissipated. He got into some running clothes—long sweats and a thermal windbreaker—and chugged his four-mile course.

  By quarter after five he had showered and dressed and was at his desk with yesterday’s dailies and the transcript of May Shinn’s tape with the D.A.’s office.

  It was every bit as bad as he’d feared.

  Q: You had stopped seeing Mr. Fowler by this time, isn’t that right?

  A: Yes, I think it was early in March. He just caught me at home. Normally I screen my calls but I was expecting Owen so I picked it up.

  Q: And what did Fowler say?

  A: He said he was worried about me.

  Q: Why?

  A: He said he’d heard I was seeing Owen. I guess he’d heard bad things about him or thought he had. He said he wanted to make sure I was all right.

  Q: What did you tell him?

  A: I mostly tried to say he was being silly. Look, I didn’t want to hurt him. Then he said if Owen ever hurt me in any way I should come to him, I could always come to him. So, you know, I was trying to keep it light, I told him, if anything, Owen made me feel safer than he ever had. At least Owen had taken the gun.

  Q: Which gun, Ms. Shinn?

  A: The gun. I never liked to keep it around and I’d asked Andy to take it home with him—I hated it in the house. But he wouldn’t do it, being a judge . . .

  Q: Then what?

  A: I told him we put the gun on board the Eloise in the desk right next to the bed in case there was an emergency and I needed it, but at least it wasn’t at home anymore. It made me feel safer. Q: And what did the judge—did Mr. Fowler—say to that?

  A: Nothing, really. Then he asked me why I had stopped seeing him. It was really hard, but I told him I . . . was in love with Owen.

  Q: How did he react to that?

  A: He said he thought I’d been in love with him. I told him I liked him, that he had been very important to me. He asked what if Owen weren’t in the picture anymore, did I think I could see him again?

  Q: And what did you say?

  A: I said I was sorry but I just didn’t think so. Owen had changed me, or I had changed myself. I just wasn’t the same anymore, I was a different person. He said if Owen wasn’t there maybe I would be—the way I was, feel toward him the way I had. I thought Owen was always going to be there . . .

  Q: It’s all right, Ms. Shinn, it’s okay, take your time.

  A: I said I didn’t know.

  Q: Didn’t know what, May?

  A: What I’d do if Owen wasn’t there. I couldn’t think about that. I believed him, Owen I mean. He wasn’t going to leave me. Then Andy . . . the judge . . . said what if something happened to Owen. What would I do then?

  Q: And what did you say to that?

  A: I think I said I didn’t know. I didn’t even want to think about something like that.

  Hardy ran into Glitsky under the list of fallen policemen in the lobby of the Hall of Justice. It was 9:20. Court went into session in ten minutes and Andy Fowler had not yet arrived. Jane was calling his home, as she already had done twice since nine o’clock; there had been no answer either time.

  Hardy told Abe a little about May Shinn’s damaging testimony.

  “Maybe Fowler just decided to cut and run.”

  “He wouldn’t do that. He put up a million dollars’ bail, Abe. He surrendered his passport.”

  Glitsky, more knowledgeable in such matters, smiled. “You want a new passport? Give me ten minutes. Cost you fifty bucks.”

  “He wouldn’t do it.”

  “A million dollars doesn’t stand up against a life in the slammer. And for a man like Fowler . . . you know how long a judge’s life is going to be once he gets there? That’s the good news—he won’t suffer very long. The bad news is he’ll suffer real hard.”

  “He’s not going there, Abe.”

  “Right. I forgot.”

  Jane came up, shaking her head no.

  “You know,” Hardy said, “your dad is making me old before my time.”

  “He’ll get here.”


  “So will Christmas, Jane.”

  Glitsky looked at his watch. “Contempt time starts in about three minutes.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hardy?”

  “Your Honor, Mr. Fowler called from a gas station about twenty minutes ago. He has car trouble. He was taking a cab from where he was—it shouldn’t be more than a half hour.”

  Chomorro spent a minute rearranging things on the bench. He tried not to betray how angry he was and was not entirely successful. “Ms. Pullios?” he asked.

  “What’s our choice, Your Honor?”

  The judge tried to smile at the jury. Hardy knew this was another prosecution bonanza. Guilty and late. Thought he was still a big shot . . .

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen, why don’t you all go out and have yourselves another cup of coffee.” The smile vanished. “Mr. Hardy, if Mr. Fowler is not here at ten-o-one, I’m going to cancel his bail and put him back in custody—is that understood?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  To say nothing, Hardy thought, of his own contempt if it turned out that Andy had left the country or taken off—it wasn’t recommended procedure for attorneys to lie to the court, as he had just done. But what was his option?

  He got up from the defense table and went back through the swinging door to the gallery, where Jane was sitting next to Glitsky, who had stayed around to view the proceedings.

  “What if he doesn’t show?” Abe said.

  “Thanks, Abe, the thought never occurred to me.” He looked at his ex-wife. “Any ideas?”

  “About what?” Pullios had left the prosecution table and was standing at the end of the aisle, from where she just happened to overhear.

  Hardy turned quickly around. “Lunch,” he said. “We’re trying to decide between Chinese and Italian.”

  How much had she heard? Whatever, she gave no sign. “It’s going to be a long day,” she said. “Chinese, you eat it and a half hour later you’re hungry again. I’d do Italian.” Her eyes left Hardy and went to Glitsky. “Hello, Abe. I almost didn’t recognize you at the defense side.”

  The sergeant nodded tightly. “The other side was filled up,” he said.

  Pullios decided against whatever she was going to say, then moved crisply back through the gallery.

  “Bitch,” Jane said.

  Hardy said nothing. He crossed one leg over the other, looked at his watch and waited.

  “Your car broke down—the clutch went out. You called me from out on Lombard and took a cab.”

  It was 9:58. Andy Fowler strolled up the center aisle as though he had the world by the tail. He shook Hardy’s hand and kissed his daughter on the cheek. Hardy thought he’d give him the short version and fill it in later.

  “My car is out in the parking lot. How about if I had a flat and they fixed it?”

  Hardy sometimes wondered if the reason he hated to lie was because once you started it got so hard to remember exactly what you’d said. Had he told Chomorro it was the clutch? Or was it just car trouble? He knew to keep it simple. He probably kept it simple. “All right, it was a flat. Jesus Christ, Andy, where the hell were you?”

  Fowler had an embarrassed look. “May’s,” he said quietly. “I finally went to see May.”

  Before Hardy could react, the clerk was calling the court to order. The jury, by and large, hadn’t left the box. It was precisely ten o’clock.

  Hardy didn’t hope to get much out of Turkel. The private investigator was wearing a turtleneck and a lime-green sports jacket. After he was sworn in he again made himself comfortable in the witness chair, making eye contact with the jury.

  Hardy let him perform awhile, wasting time pretending to read his notes at his desk, then went to the center of the courtroom. “Mr. Turkel,” he began, “when Mr. Fowler first called you, back in February, how did he sound?”

  “Objection. Conclusion.”

  “Sustained.”

  Hardy tried again. “Can you recall any of the conversation you had, exactly?”

  Turkel still had eyes for Pullios, but she seemed to have antagonized him somewhat by pushing yesterday— the private investigator hated rinky-dink testimony— especially being forced to give it by the rules of the court. He was now giving Hardy his full attention.

  “Well, the judge said, ‘Hi, Em,’ asked if I was busy and I said ‘Yeah, a little,’ like I always do.” He smiled at the jury. “Trade secret.”

  Pullios spoke up. “Your Honor . . .”

  Chomorro leaned over. “Just answer the questions.”

  “Sure, Your Honor, just like I did yesterday.”

  Chomorro, not getting it, nodded. “That’s right.”

  Hardy thought he did get it . . . a prosecution witness deciding he might be able to do something for the defense. Cover your ass two ways to Sunday. “Go on,” he said.

  “All right, then the judge said—”

  Chomorro interrupted. “Mr. Turkel, please refer to Mr. Fowler either as Mr. Fowler or as the defendant.”

  Reasonable, Turkel agreed. “Sure, Your Honor. Sorry again.”

  “Let’s start again, shall we?” Hardy said. “How long have you known the defendant?”

  “Your Honor? Relevance?”

  Now Hardy looked to the jury. “Your Honor, I’d like to have Mr. Turkel be able to get in a word of testimony at some point during this cross-examination. His relationship with the defendant is relevant if we’re to understand the context of the actual words used in their discussions together.”

  This, of course, directly related to the testimony yesterday about Andy saying he’d in effect kill Nash. But Hardy was beginning to think if he could get Pullios running she might trip on her own feet. Chomorro overruled her and Turkel got to answer.

  “About four years. I’ve known Mr. Fowler about four years.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “Mostly professional. Referrals, like that. But we get along okay. We played golf together a coupla times.” Turkel looked at the jury again, explaining. “He saw me wear this nice green coat in court one time, figured I’d won the Masters.”

  This time Chomorro said nothing. Good, Hardy turned around. Fowler was smiling, some of the jury would notice that.

  “All right, so the . . . defendant was rather more than a professional acquaintance but less than a friend?”

  “Objection, Your Honor, leading the witness.”

  “You’re allowed to do that on cross, Ms. Pullios. Overruled.”

  Hardy took a breath and held it. Here was an eccentric on the stand, clearly liked by the jury, and for some reason he was being thoroughly harassed by the D.A. “One moment, Your Honor.”

  Hardy went back to his table and pretended to read more notes. There really wasn’t any testimony of Turkel’s he believed could help his case. The bare facts were pretty damning—Andy had hired him to find out why May had left him, then Turkel had found out and told him about Owen Nash. And you didn’t simply get information for the hell of it. Once you had it, at least the temptation was to do something with it . . . not, he thought, too much of a stretch for someone to believe that what Andy had done was to identify his enemy, and why would he do that if he wasn’t planning on acting against him . . .

  Still, at this moment, Turkel on the stand somehow had made Hardy feel—and perhaps the jury as well—that Andy was a good guy and that the powers arrayed against him were nitpickers and bureaucrats and maybe worse. Leave it at that. He turned around and spoke from the defense desk.

  “I have no further questions of this witness.”

  As it turned out they went for Chinese. Andy said he was buying—which he always did. Hardy, Jane, and her father caught a cab outside the Hall and got to Grant Street, the center of Chinatown, in about eight minutes.

  All the way up, Hardy sat silently. He didn’t know how long he could keep this up. The effusive, charming Andy Fowler, his client, was wearing him down.

  “I had to see her,” he was saying. “I was certain she’d see me, tell
me why she would want to testify against me.”

  “What did she say?”

  The answers were all there. “You know how they get you,” he said in the voice of reason. “She lost sight of what the prosecution, the D.A.’s office—what they were doing.”

  “What were they doing?” Jane said.

  “They had held back a lot of her valuables from the Eloise and they put things to her so that the point seemed to be that coming down to be a witness was essentially a formality so that she could get her things back. They’ve been inundating her with paper. I just didn’t want her to be taken in, misled. She told me she did not have anything to say against me—she, of course, knew I hadn’t killed Owen Nash, so what could be the problem? But now she’d promised them . . .” He shook his head. “So I explained to her the appearance of the connection about me knowing the gun was on the boat . . .”

  The cab arrived at the restaurant and they got into a booth with a curtain. The dim sum began to arrive—pork bao, shark’s fin soup, pot stickers. Hardy tasted none of it. Finally he had to say something. “You realize, Andy, that if Pullios finds out you tried to influence May’s testimony, all of this will come out, making you look even worse than you do now.”

  Andy seemed unfazed. “May and I had a good talk. She understands now. Why should it come out?”

  “A better question is why do you think you can keep it locked up?”

  Fowler spooned up some soup and said to his daughter, “This man is too pessimistic,” and then to Hardy, “Listen, Diz, she’s a good woman. I don’t care about her background. I know her . . . she is not out to get me. To the contrary, she is very upset with the prosecution people.” He continued popping morsels of food. “This is an eye-opener for me, you know. When I was on the bench I liked to believe that we not only had an efficient crew out there but that there were certain established rules. We differed on the propriety of what I considered entrapment, which didn’t make me a prosecutor’s favorite, but by and large there was a community of the legal system. I’m finding the generally accepted rules don’t apply, at least not in this case. They’ve misled May about the gist of her testimony, and they were pretty slipshod, too.”