Hard Evidence

by John Lescroart

  Hardy asked what they had done.

  “You’d think that since they were trading it for her cooperation they would check the inventory and make sure she got everything back. But evidently someone with the police had stolen the most important thing to her. So even without my intervention she’s not inclined to help them anymore.”

  “She’s already talked, Andy. I read the transcript this morning.”

  Fowler shrugged. “She won’t say the same thing on the stand—”

  “She’ll perjure herself to help you?”

  Fowler took a sip of tea. “She’ll say she was coerced at the interview, which in effect she was, and that under oath she just can’t remember—”

  Hardy cradled his forehead in the palm of his hand. “Lord help me.”

  “What did they steal?” Jane kept to the essentials.

  “Her favorite coat,” Fowler said. Tightening his face . . . “Nash had given it to her. She said it was like a work of art, full-length goosedown. He got it in Japan for her. Remarkable design, colors . . .”

  Hardy had to get back to business. “So what’s she going to say when they call her?”

  “Diz, relax, it’s completely understandable. Think about it. They’ve got to know she’s potentially a hostile witness anyway. She’s suing the City, for God’s sake. They won’t pursue it.”

  Hardy wasn’t at all certain of that, but there was no arguing now—the deed had been done. If Fowler’s scenario transpired—an enormous if—then possibly he’d helped his case. But at what risk!

  “So what now? If you’re going to start seeing her again, do me a favor and at least wait until after the trial.”

  “We didn’t even discuss that.”

  “How did she behave with you?” Hardy asked.

  Fowler looked unhappy. “Well, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very heartening, but, well, it was still good to see her, even if it seemed like the old feelings were gone, for her. As though the whole experience had just worn her down. Everything, she said, had gone wrong for her, so it shouldn’t have been a great surprise that they’d stolen her coat, lied to her . . . She gave me the impression that . . . that she thought going on at all with her life was a waste of time. The whole question of her testimony didn’t seem to matter much, but if I thought it would be a help she’d try.”

  “Maybe she’s looking for something again,” Jane said. “Maybe when this is all over . . .”

  The judge nodded. “I suppose that’s what I’ve got to hope for. And that’s why I was late,” he said, turning to Hardy. “I just couldn’t leave her that way, feeling so down. I . . . we just talked. I tried to convince her, especially if her money comes through, that there is a future.”

  Hardy reached behind him and pulled the curtain, signaling for the check. “We’d better get back,” he said.

  Hardy thought the afternoon would have made a root canal look like a walk in the park.

  In furtherance of her consciousness-of-guilt theory, Pullios called a succession of witnesses—including two Superior Court judges, several community leaders, a city supervisor and Fowler’s own clerk—and all of them testified that Andy Fowler had told them after the May Shinn trial had been canceled but before his own indictment that the first he had heard of Owen Nash, other than reading about him in the newspapers from time to time, was after his death. He had told one and all that he had no idea that Nash had been seeing May Shinn.

  The only one Hardy saw fit to cross-examine was a Pat Shields, the silver-haired president of the Olympic Club, who had intimated that Andy Fowler and Owen Nash, as fellow members of the Club, must have known each other.

  Hardy had whispered to Fowler at the defense table. “Please tell me you really never knew Owen Nash.”

  Fowler said he hadn’t, and Hardy, hoping at last he wasn’t being lied to, stood up.

  “Mr. Shields,” he said, “how long has Mr. Fowler been a member of the Olympic Club?”

  “I’d say forever. Certainly longer than myself. He’s second generation.”

  “And Mr. Nash?”

  “We’d been recruiting him for years. Quietly, of course, but . . . in any event, he joined about a year ago.”

  “So he was in the club for how long?”

  “A few months.”

  “A few months. He died in June and he joined in, when, November or December?”

  “Yes, I believe so. Around there.”

  “And did he come into the club every day?”

  “Well, we have two locations, you know, downtown and the golf course, so I couldn’t speak for both. But as to downtown, I’d say no, perhaps once a month.”

  “Six times?”

  Shields lifted his shoulders. “Let’s say between five and ten. I didn’t count.” He smiled affably. “It’s not like we keep tabs on members.”

  Hardy turned friendly. “Of course not. The times Mr. Nash came in downtown, did he come in for lunch or dinner, or to work out, or what?”

  “Mostly I’d say lunch, although that’s just an impression.”

  “All right. Well, let me ask you this. Did you ever see Mr. Nash having lunch with Mr. Fowler?”

  “No.”

  “Do you recall ever seeing Mr. Nash and Mr. Fowler in the club having lunch at the same time?”

  “No, not specifically.”

  “Not specifically? Do you mean you might have and you don’t remember? You just have an impression?”

  “No . . . I mean I didn’t see them together or at the same time.” He glanced at the jury, showing signs of nerves. “It was just a figure of speech.”

  “Of course. How about sports? Squash, golf? To your knowledge, did Mr. Nash play either of these with Mr. Fowler?”

  “Not to my knowledge, no.”

  “Well, isn’t it a fact, Mr. Shields, that the prosecution here asked you to check your reservations cards for both the golf course out by the ocean and the courts at the downtown location—tennis and squash—to see if Mr. Nash and Mr. Fowler had reserved time together?”

  Shields frowned. Apparently this smacked of keeping tabs on the members. Even if one of them was on trial for murder, members were presumed to be gentlemen and were not to be checked up on. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “And did you do that?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I did that.”

  “And did you find any record that Mr. Nash had ever played any of these sports with Mr. Fowler? Or even in an approximate time span?”

  “No . . .”

  “In fact, Mr. Shields, isn’t it true that you have no indication whatever that Mr. Nash and Mr. Fowler knew each other or spent time in each other’s company in any way at all?”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  Hardy said he had no further questions.

  Of course, it still didn’t prove Fowler had not lied to Shields about when he had known Owen Nash. Or if he had known Owen Nash at all. In fact, Hardy thought, here he had danced around with this man for the better part of a half hour and hadn’t really challenged his essential testimony in a substantive way. What was there to challenge? Like the other afternoon’s witnesses, Shields was a good man who no doubt was telling the truth. Fowler was a man charged with murder who was known to have lied in the past. Hardy could throw up smoke, but he doubted he could obscure that fact from the jury.

  54

  Glitsky came up through the gallery, pushed open the swinging door and strode into the courtroom proper. He was a well-known and respected police officer and his entrance, in itself, was not unusual. That he came to the defense table was, though not unprecedented, very much out of the ordinary.

  Pullios was standing in what had become counsel’s spot in front of the bench. She was beginning to question Gary Smythe, Andy Fowler’s golf partner, fellow Olympic Club member and stockbroker. They certainly had done their homework—witnesses were coming out of the woodwork.

  Glitsky leaned over, putting a hand on Hardy’s arm. Looking up at him, he thought he
’d never seen the sergeant so drawn. There was a pallor underneath the pigment of his skin. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing, and Hardy was reminded of cases of shell-shock he had witnessed in Vietnam. “Get a recess,” he whispered. “We’ve got to talk, now.”

  Abe Glitsky wasn’t given to histrionics. If he said, “now” he had a good reason. Hardy nodded. “Excuse me,” he said, interrupting Pullios, who had been in the middle of a question. She turned to face him, her expression unpleasant.

  “Yes, Mr. Hardy?” Chomorro said.

  “Your Honor, an emergency has come up. I wonder if the court would grant a short recess.”

  “Your Honor,” Pullios fumed, “I’ve just begun with this witness.”

  “Ten minutes, Your Honor.”

  Pullios gave Glitsky a questioning look.

  Chomorro checked the wall clock. “If I give you ten minutes now we won’t have time on direct here.” He took in the jury and gave them a weary smile. “How about if we call it a day today and pick up with Mr. Smythe tomorrow?”

  “No,” Glitsky said sotto voce to Hardy. “Don’t let them do that.”

  Hardy stood. “That won’t be necessary, Your Honor. A couple of minutes will do.”

  Which annoyed Chomorro. “Well, which is it, Mr. Hardy? Do you want a recess or not?” He directed himself to Glitsky. “What’s this about, Sergeant? Care to share it with the court?”

  Glitsky was clearly torn. It was ingrained that cops didn’t work with the defense, even if there was a personal connection, such as he and Hardy. It got to be too much. He shrugged at Hardy, as much to say he tried. Then, to Chomorro and Pullios, “With counsel?”

  The judge motioned them all forward and they clustered in front of the raised bench. Glitsky still looked pale. “This is unofficial, Your Honor, and I apologize for interrupting, but I’ve just come down from Homicide.”

  “Yes?”

  Glitsky took a breath. “It seems May Shinn is dead.”

  “Jesus Christ!” from Hardy. Pullios hung as if poleaxed. “What?”

  “And we got two neighbors—independently—who read the papers, watch some TV.” Glitsky turned to Hardy. “Both of them say they saw your man there this morning.”

  “Fowler?” Pullios nearly yelled.

  Glitsky turned back to her and nodded. “The same.”

  At that moment, Peter Struler pushed open the outer doors and started up the aisle, almost running. “I think this might make it official,” Glitsky said.

  NASH MISTRESS FOUND DEAD

  Homicide Not Ruled Out In Apparent Suicide

  By Jeffrey Elliot

  Chronicle Staff Writer

  May Shinn, who for a short time last summer was the prime suspect in the murder of Owen Nash, was found dead in her apartment this afternoon, apparently a suicide victim. The body was discovered by Special Investigator Sergeant Peter Struler, who had had an earlier appointment with Ms. Shinn following a statement she had given yesterday in the murder trial of former Superior Court Judge Andrew Fowler.

  In spite of the appearance of suicide, spokespersons for both the police department and the district attorney’s office refuse to rule out homicide as the cause of death. Following the discovery that Mr. Fowler had visited Ms. Shinn in her apartment this morning, jurors in his trial have been sequestered and Mr. Fowler himself has been placed into custody.Mr. Fowler had been late to court this morning and had initially told the court he’d had car trouble.

  As this paper goes to press the exact time of Ms. Shinn’s death has not been determined. Her body was discovered slumped over a makeshift altar in her apartment, dressed in the ceremonial white robes of the Japanese ritual suicide known as seppuku, or more commonly, hara-kiri. Most other essential forms of that ritual were carried out as well, according to police sources (see box on back page). The altar had been strewn with papers from litigation Ms. Shinn had been involved in related to charges brought against her by the grand jury and the district attorney’s office last summer.

  Ms. Shinn’s attorney, David Freeman, said he was “terribly shocked and saddened” by the death of his client. “May Shinn has become another victim of the lack of due process in our courts,” Freeman said. “Her illegal, premature arrest following the death of the man she loved put her into a downward spiral of depression from which there was no escape. One can only hope she has now found some peace . . .”

  As Jeff Elliot was typing the last words into his computer, Dismas Hardy was drinking what must have been his twentieth cup of coffee. He sat, no place to go, on a yellow bench in the windowless visitor’s room at the morgue.

  Strout was still inside, personally doing the autopsy on May Shinn. Locke himself had put in an appearance, as had Drysdale, Pullios and, of course, Struler. Glitsky had come in around eight-thirty and stayed to keep him company for a while. Hardy was not responsive.

  He was still reliving the scene in Chomorro’s chambers after Struler had come in with the official word.

  They were in Andy Fowler’s old office but all vestiges of Andy’s old WASP effects had been decorated away. The gray Berber wall-to-wall had been lifted and hardwood shined up beneath it. Inca or Aztec rugs lay under stuffed furniture in bold Latin designs. Photographs of Reagan, Bush, Quayle, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson shaking hands with Leo Chomorro covered the back wall. The desk was heavy and black and, unlike Andy’s, nearly bare on its surface. Chomorro sat behind it, elbows on it, hands together.

  Pullios leaned, arms crossed, against the bookshelves. Struler straddled a fold-up chair, and Glitsky stood by the doorway. Drysdale sat in one of the chairs next to Hardy, who tried to appear calm.

  Chomorro addressed himself to Hardy.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you knew Fowler had been to Shinn’s this morning when you told me he had car trouble?”

  “No, Judge, not then. He told me at lunch—”

  “And how long were you planning to withhold this information?”

  “I don’t know.” It was the truth.

  “You don’t know. Your client is suborning, threatening, possibly killing a prosecution witness—”

  “We don’t know that, Your Honor. There’s no hint of that—”

  “Not yet,” Pullios said.

  “In any event, you thought you could keep this to yourself? At the very least, Mr. Hardy, I’m going to have to report this to the State Bar.”

  “He did not threaten her,” Hardy said, “and Struler here says she killed herself—”

  “It appeared she killed herself,” Struler said quickly.

  “Fowler didn’t kill her.”

  Pullios looked at him. “Like he didn’t kill Nash, right?”

  Hardy kept his voice flat. “That’s right, Bets. How about, as a change of pace, we wait for the coroner’s report? Get a fact or two and find out what we’re dealing with before the accusations start.”

  Chomorro broke it up. “Regardless of what Mr. Fowler did or didn’t do, you’ve got a defendant going to visit a prosecution witness. At the very least, her testimony’s going to be no good.”

  “She’s not giving any testimony,” Pullios said. “She’s dead.”

  Chomorro shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m inclined to think we’ve got a mistrial here. Maybe we ought to start over fresh.”

  “I’d agree to that,” Hardy said quickly. He could barely admit it to himself, but the thought still wouldn’t go away . . . Had Andy killed May?

  But a mistrial wasn’t to Pullios’s liking—she thought she had the thing won now. Hardy couldn’t say he blamed her.

  “I’m sorry, Judge, I don’t agree.” She went on to argue that May Shinn was only one witness and that her testimony hadn’t, in the event, been suborned. “If Mr. Hardy will stipulate to the fact that the defendant had known the gun was on board—”

  “Not a chance,” he said.

  “I’m sure you discussed it in his daughter’s presence,” Pullios said. “I’ll call her.”

  �
��She’d never testify against her father.”

  Chomorro’s black eyes glared. “She’d better or I’ll hold her in contempt and put her in jail until she does . . .”

  And so it had gone. Hardy couldn’t have Jane get on the stand for any reason—by some incredible stretch she might mention having known—biblically—Owen Nash. What was worse? The jury knowing about Andy’s pre-awareness that May’s gun was on board, or another reason he might have had to want Nash dead?

  In the end, Chomorro had decided on his strategy to keep Fowler in custody at least until it had been determined that May Shinn had or had not killed herself. The jury, which up to now had been allowed to return to their homes under the stricture that they not discuss the case with anyone, were to be sequestered in a hotel until that question was settled so that this development would not prejudice them against the defendant.

  Glitsky finally saw fit to interject a thought—Fowler’s clothes should be tested for fibers, hairs, semen and blood. He was a homicide cop—if there had been a killing he didn’t want the evidence to get thrown away this time. Pullios told him that was a good idea and he told her he knew it was. Investigating murders was what he did when people let him.

  55

  The door to the visitor’s room opened. It was after ten-thirty and Hardy looked up, half-expecting to see Strout coming in to tell him that May had in fact been murdered, that the knife wounds were inconsistent with what could be self-inflicted. Instead, he looked into the basset face of David Freeman, who asked politely if he could sit down.

  “Ah, Mr. Hardy. Just came to pay my respects,” he said. In the past months Hardy had had two interviews with Freeman in his office regarding the testimony he was going to give for the prosecution. Nominally adversarial, the two men both had maverick streaks, which they recognized in each other and which Hardy felt formed a bond of sorts that, at this point, was still unacknowledged. “Strout still in with her?” Freeman asked.