by The Hearing
The private eye fussed with his jacket. He took another moment, then shrugged. “I told him he oughta go easy on that stuff. That it could kill him.”
Behind Hardy, the gallery hummed again, but this time there wasn’t any laughter.
“So we talked like a minute, five minutes, I don’t know. He seemed like a good kid. He told me he’d just got out of jail, and the first thing he did was get hooked up. He knew he should get straight, but couldn’t seem to do it. So I told him just why didn’t he take that bag and flush it right then. Start now. And you know, for a minute I thought he would. I think he really thought about it. But then he just said he couldn’t do it, not yet.” The big man let out a convincing sigh. “It was that close,” he said sadly.
To keep his temper in check, Hardy walked across the courtroom, then to his table for a sip of water. Freeman got his attention, mouthed, “Let him go.” The old man sensed that Hardy was going to go after him some more, with no idea even of what questions he was going to ask, much less the answers to them. But Hardy ignored Freeman, and by the time he came back to the witness, he had himself under control. “Mr. Visser, did you talk with the police regarding this matter?”
“Yes, I did.”
“When was that?”
Visser made a show of remembering. “I don’t know exactly, last Wednesday or Thursday, I think. I told the inspector the same thing I told you.”
“You talked to an inspector?”
“Yeah. Black guy, right? Banks? He had me at Jupiter with the kid, too. He came by there the next day after the boy died, asking questions then.” A nonchalant shrug. “He was just following up.”
“Where did you see him?”
“He came by my office, which is down on Pier 38. I was working late there and he caught me. He asked me the same questions, not so specific about the Baggie maybe—I didn’t know I had a print on it—but the same basic idea.”
“And then what happened?” Hardy was so angry, he couldn’t stop himself.
“What happened when?”
“Next,” Hardy snapped. “After you’d finished?”
Visser lifted his shoulders, let them down theatrically. “I don’t know. He left.”
Hardy raised his voice. “Are you telling this court that you don’t know that Inspector Banks has been missing from that night on?”
The witness sat back in dismay. “Missing?”
Behind him, David Freeman exploded into a coughing fit. Evidently he’d choked on some water he was drinking, and now was hacking with a devastating and awful severity. He knocked his glass over on the table. There wasn’t a person in the courtroom who didn’t believe he could be choking to death. Cole was up, patting him on his back, the bailiff was moving over. Hardy remembered the judge, asked to be excused for a moment, then hustled over.
Freeman seemed to be recovering. He looked up, caught Hardy’s eye, put a finger on his legal pad, upon which he’d written and underlined a question.
The dog! Hardy thought. The sneaky, brilliant dog. Slowing him to a stop, getting him back into focus. He couldn’t blow it now because he had been baited into losing his temper.
Hardy stayed a moment longer to make sure that David was breathing again. Finally, Freeman stood and apologized, and Hardy returned to the witness.
“Mr. Visser.” Hardy was speaking too loud now, standing too close to the witness. In desperation, Freeman had given him a question that probably broke his own cardinal rule, but phrased in such a general way that there could be no wrong answer, and maybe, just maybe, a very good one. “Have you ever had occasion,” Hardy asked, “to enter the evidence room in the basement of the Hall of Justice?”
The change of direction wiped the complacency from Visser’s face. “Yes.”
Hardy successfully kept the exultation out of his voice, although he thought he’d just hit the jackpot. “And when was the last time you did this?”
Visser tried to keep up the show of nonchalance, but it wasn’t as convincing as it had been. “I don’t know exactly.”
“You don’t know?” Hardy pressed. “We can find out in five minutes by calling downstairs, Mr. Visser. Would you like us to do that, or do you think you can remember? You have to sign in upon entering down there, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I don’t know,” he repeated. “A couple of weeks ago, maybe. Maybe less.”
“A couple of weeks ago,” Hardy repeated. “Maybe less.”
He caught a glimpse of Hill out of one eye. The judge had straightened up in his chair and was now leaning in toward the witness. A keen intensity had galvanized him.
“Now, Mr. Visser, it is my understanding that a private citizen cannot be admitted into the evidence locker unless they are accompanied by a lawyer or police officer. Isn’t that correct?”
“I think so.”
“Were you so accompanied the last time you were there? In the last couple of weeks,” he couldn’t help repeating.
“Yeah, I usually go with some lawyer I’m working with, something like that.”
“And two weeks ago, who was that?”
For the first time, the facade weakened. Visser looked to the floor, then drew a nervous hand over his jawline. “I think . . . it probably must have been Dash Logan,” he said.
“You think? Are you sure?”
Another pause. “Yeah. I’m sure. It was Dash Logan.”
“Mr. Logan,” Hardy began. “When you went to the evidence locker within the past couple of weeks with Mr. Visser, what was your purpose?”
Logan spread his hands, turned in the witness chair and faced the Cadaver. “This is ridiculous, your honor. What is this all about?”
“Just answer the question,” Hill shot back.
Hardy had a sense that he was on to something. The current had finally begun to flow in his direction, and he was going to ride it as far as it could take him. “Mr. Logan,” he said. “Would you like me to repeat the question?”
“No.” Where Visser had used confidence to blunt Hardy’s attack, Logan thought he’d go with arrogance. His eyes were shining with ill-concealed anger. His jaw was set. “I was there, in the locker, to review evidence in one of my cases. That’s why you go there, Mr. Hardy, to review evidence.”
But Hardy didn’t rise to the bait. A cool detachment had settled over him. He even allowed himself a cragged grin. “Thank you for that information, Mr. Logan. I’ll keep it in mind. Now, the specific case you were working on, how would you classify it?” This was another question for which Hardy didn’t know the answer—except that by now the answer had become all but a certainty.
“I don’t classify my cases. I work for my clients. I don’t understand your question.”
“Well, for example, was your client being charged with robbery? Murder? Rape?”
“No. None of those.”
“How about traffic in narcotics?”
“That’s privileged information,” Logan said. “I don’t have to discuss the nature of my cases with you or anybody else.”
Hardy turned to the judge. “Your honor?”
Hovering almost over the edge of his podium, Hill had never looked more cadaver-like. “Your cases are public record, Mr. Logan. Tell the court what this one was.”
Logan cast his eyes from side to side. Seeing no escape, he sat back in the chair, crossed one leg over another, adopted a wounded air. “Yes. It was a narcotics case.”
“And you were there with Mr. Visser?”
“Yes.”
“And afterwards, did you both go together to Jupiter?”
“All right, so what?”
Pratt, who’d been little more than a bystander for the past hour and a half, finally rose to her feet. A simmering anger scalded her voice slightly, but she managed to keep it under a lid. “Your honor, if the court please, there can really be no relevance here between Mr. Logan’s and Mr. Visser’s visit to the evidence locker less than two weeks ago and the death of Elaine Wager more than two weeks ago. She was already
dead when these events that Mr. Hardy is so interested in transpired. I understand the latitude that you’ve given defense in this case, but none of this can possibly matter. He’s allowed to go there. So is Mr. Visser. So what if he’s got a drug dealer for a client? Almost every criminal defense attorney does. The whole thing is just a smoke screen, a desperate, unethical smoke screen.”
Sharron Pratt half turned now, aware that she was also playing to the gallery, which had come to life behind her. Perhaps she took the judge’s silence for forbearance. Whatever drove her, she took another deep breath and forged ahead, her voice becoming louder and more shrill as the volume behind her in the courtroom increased.
“This hearing is about the actions of Cole Burgess, your honor. Not Dash Logan and Gene Visser. They are not the criminals here. Let’s not lose sight of that fundamental truth in our zeal for fairness here.” And suddenly she was all but screaming, turning to the defense table, pointing her whole hand. “That boy there is a cold-blooded killer. He killed Elaine Wager. There can be no doubt. Look at the facts, your honor. My God, this is insanity. Look at the facts.”
She stood at the prosecution table—firm, proud of herself for having spoken out, for having put the judge on notice. She, not Hill, was controlling the agenda at this moment. The judge might have the power of the bench, but she had the power of righteousness. The people had elected her to do what she was doing now—driving the appeal to higher ground, toward justice and away from these lawyers’ tricks. Enough was enough.
The Cadaver sat back in what Hardy took to be a state of disbelief, even awe. He held his gavel in his right hand, inches from the top of the bench, and did not lower it, but instead let the noise in the room subside for what seemed an eternity, although it probably wasn’t more than forty seconds. Finally, when the silence was complete, Hill placed the gavel carefully in front of him and spoke in a moderate whisper.
“Because of your elected position, Ms. Pratt, I’m going to do you the courtesy of not throwing you into jail. I do, however, find you in contempt of court for that outburst and order you to pay the sum of one thousand dollars to the clerk of the court before noon tomorrow. In accordance with the business and professions code, you will report this incident to the state bar.”
The buzz began again, and this time Hill didn’t hesitate a second, but slammed his gavel three times rapidly in succession, until once again he addressed a tomb. “Let there be no mistake that this is a court of law. It’s not a soapbox upon which to make election speeches. Now,” he continued to the courtroom at large, “Mr. Hardy will proceed with this witness until he is finished or for the next twenty-five minutes, whichever comes first. After which we’ll adjourn for the day.” He stopped speaking for an instant, then raised his head and started again. “And for the record, Ms. Pratt and Mr. Torrey, I am quite persuaded to this point that the testimony elicited from the past few witnesses, as well as the evidence presented to the court, will pass any relevance standard you’d like to propose. So I’d prefer to let this direct examination continue with a minimum of objection for a while. Am I making myself understood? Ms. Pratt?”
Hardy had been facing her through all this. Now, her eyes glistening with anger, she stared at the judge, mute. Was she daring Hill to make her respond? If so, it wasn’t her best idea. But Torrey, sensing the same thing and hoping to avert further crisis, put a hand on her arm and stood up. “Of course the People reserve the right to object, your honor.”
An evil apparition, the Cadaver glared down at the prosecutors, held his expression, then at last nodded crisply. “Of course,” he said. Left unsaid, but clearly stated nonetheless, were the words “Make my day.” The judge gave it a last beat, then handed the witness back to Hardy.
He turned back to Logan. If Sharron Pratt thought the last set of questions was irrelevant, she would go ballistic over what he intended to do next. But the judge had just given him free rein, and if he was ever going to get it in, now was the time. “Mr. Logan, last year were you yourself involved in a traffic incident at the corner of Fifth and Market?”
The witness shifted in his seat, nervously cleared his throat. “Yeah. Somebody cut the brakes in my car. I nearly got killed.”
“You also nearly hit two pedestrians running a red light, did you not?”
“I couldn’t stop. What would you expect?”
Hardy didn’t reply to that. Instead, he asked, “When this incident occurred, were you under the influence of drugs or alcohol?”
Logan sat up self-righteously. “Absolutely not. And nobody charged me with anything.”
But Hardy had an answer for that. “Isn’t it true that after you were arrested and booked by the police, all charges related to this accident were dismissed by the district attorney?”
“Well, yes, that’s . . .”
“And you’re aware that Mr. Torrey personally made that decision?”
“There weren’t any . . .”
Hardy raised his voice. “Yes or no, Mr. Logan?” Notching it up again. “Yes or no?”
“Okay, but . . .”
Hardy jumped in again. “That’s a ‘yes,’ for the record, is that right?”
Logan hated it, but was afraid of what Hardy knew or might be able to prove. “Yes.” He spit it out like a bitter seed.
“Thank you,” Hardy said. Having now tied Visser to Logan to Torrey on the record, Hardy was at last ready to bring it all back home. He glanced at Hill and thought he imagined an almost conspiratorial nod from the judge—surely, he thought, he must be getting tired. “Mr. Logan, did you know the victim in the case, Elaine Wager?”
“Yes, I did. Professionally, not personally.”
“In other words, you knew her as another lawyer here in town?”
“Excuse me. Mr. Hardy?” The judge, interrupting. “I’m gratified to see the beginning of a line of questioning that relates to one of the principals in this case, and this might be a good time, if the People don’t object,” he added pointedly, “to call it a day and resume tomorrow. It’s been a long session and I’m sure we could all use the time to reflect on the day’s events. Are there any objections?” There were not. “All right, then. Court’s adjourned.”
37
Glitsky didn’t wait around for Logan’s testimony. As soon as Gene Visser was excused, after he heard him say on the stand that Ridley Banks had been to his office on Pier 38 on the night of his disappearance, he hightailed it out into the hallway and up to the homicide detail.
Half of his troops were in the room and looked up. They greeted him warmly as he entered. It came to him with a sense of satisfaction that his people here weren’t really the most respectful-of-authority group in the known universe. They were a lot like him, in fact, trying to do their very dangerous jobs the right way in spite of the barriers erected by the media, the politicians, the brass. And suddenly he didn’t care any longer if he was supposed to be there or not—let them try to fire him, just so long as right now nobody tried to get in his way. There was police work to be done, Elaine’s murderer at last to be found. It was a sacred and very private debt, and he was going to pay it off.
“What are we looking for?” Paul Thieu asked him as he filled out the search warrants on both Visser’s and Logan’s offices. Hardy, who had delivered Elaine’s letter to Judge Thomasino that morning, along with Jeff Elliot’s Examiner article and an earful of what he surmised, had told him that he thought the judge might sign off on the warrants. They were trying to discover what had happened to Ridley Banks. If a homicide inspector now needed to take a good look at any of these offices and connect the dots to three murders, he was sure Thomasino would want to cooperate. And since Logan was now a suspect, not an innocent custodian of records, no special master was required.
“Basically,” Glitsky said, “everything. Guns, drugs, canceled checks, evidence of struggle. Take the damn places apart. Visser may have shot Ridley where he sat, and if he did there’s splatter.”
Thieu looked up in a
state of high excitement. From another desk in the detail, Marcel Lanier came over to join them. Glitsky nodded at him. Here was Jorge Batavia, too. Sarah Evans, listening in. Until now the unit hadn’t been particularly aware of all the ramifications of Glitsky’s clandestine investigation. Now it was beginning to dawn all around that this was a cop killing. Their colleague Ridley was part of this. “We’re talking the full drill here then?”
“Everybody you can round up,” Glitsky said, bringing them all in. “And as soon as you can. The two of them will be moving as soon as court’s out. Bet on it.”
“Are you coming along, Abe?” Jorge asked.
If Vincent Hardy had been there, his father definitely would have had to let him shave his head. “I’m not here at all,” Glitsky said. “This isn’t happening.”
What was happening was that Glitsky was going to go on an errand of his own, armed with the picture of Elaine that he’d kept in his desk.
The musketeers had already accumulated notes on sixty-seven eating or resting establishments around Maiden Lane, and Glitsky either had to assume that his theory was mistaken or that they had been asking the wrong questions.
He chose the latter.
Elaine had left Treya at Rand & Jackman at five-thirty to meet someone she knew for an appointment. She was walking back to her place of business when she got shot. And she wasn’t walking alone. Maiden Lane was a walking street, and she was far enough down it for Glitsky, even without taking into account the condition of the body, to preclude the possibility that someone had dumped her out of a car. He stood by the side of his desk and studied the city map that he had put up as wallpaper when he first made lieutenant. The red-tipped pin was still stuck in the wall at the site of Elaine’s death.
He felt like an idiot, as though he’d wasted a lot of unnecessary time sending the kids out with his clever ideas about the area surrounding where she’d gotten shot. Because now, reading the map, it was obvious that it hadn’t been a circle at all. She hadn’t been out taking a leisurely stroll. It was after midnight, and she had been coming back by the most direct route from a specific location that probably, he now realized, was more or less in a straight line defined by two coordinates: Rand & Jackman’s offices on Montgomery and Bush, and the corner of Maiden Lane and Grant Avenue.