Hardy 04 - 13th Juror, The

by John Lescroart

"Yes."

  "And as a mother, your response to your son's crying was to leave the house?"

  "I tried to stop it by leaving."

  "Yes, I see that, but how did you try to comfort your son? Did you hug him? Tell him you loved him?"

  "No, not then. I thought when the fight between Larry and me stopped, he'd stop—"

  "And that was the point, wasn't it? To get him to stop?"

  "Well, no. I mean, he would."

  "So you just walked out on him?"

  Hardy stood up. "Asked and answered, Your Honor." Disastrously.

  Powell withdrew the question before Hardy could be sustained. He stepped closer to the witness box. "All right, Mrs. Witt. On another subject — you've mentioned that you and your husband had this fight about money — family budgets, the kind we all have, is that right?"

  "Yes."

  "And your husband, Dr. Witt… was looking over your family budget before coming down to breakfast?"

  "Yes."

  Powell had something, Hardy realized. Relaxed, taking his time, he went back to the prosecution table and took a document from Morehouse. He walked back to the center of the courtroom. "Your Honor, I have here a copy of a statement of an account of Mrs. Witt's from Pioneer's Bank. I'd like to introduce it into evidence as People's 14." Jennifer visibly tensed.

  Hardy's stomach tightened. As Powell came over to his table to show him the bank statement, he decided to buy her some time. "Your Honor, sidebar?"

  The judge, scowling, motioned Powell and Hardy forward. "What is it now, Mr. Hardy?"

  "Your Honor, this document wasn't on the People's evidence list." During discovery, counsel for both sides were supposed to present the other side with complete lists of witnesses they intended to call, and physical evidence they intended to present. Neither witnesses nor evidence had to be used, but if they were not listed beforehand they normally could not be used. In theory, at least, the courtroom was not a place to spring surprises — in practice, attorneys loved it when it worked out that way. "I object to its introduction now," Hardy said.

  "Counsel is mistaken, Your Honor."

  Powell was now holding up the thick sheaf. "These are the papers, a complete copy of which we presented to defense counsel on" — he paused, checking another page — "August 1."

  Hardy and Freeman had, of course, received this package. It was undoubtedly somewhere in Hardy's office among the seven book boxes filled with statements, interviews, police reports. Because Powell hadn't seen fit to introduce it in the guilt phase, Hardy had allowed himself the faint hope that Powell hadn't noticed it in the mass of documents. No such luck.

  The financial package Powell now held was three-and-a-half inches thick and contained nearly five-hundred pages of the Witts' past tax statements, insurance forms, bank accounts, IRAs, stock records, copies of canceled checks, receipts for most of their household items. None of it was in any order and there was no index — a ton of camouflage for the one thing that was going to hurt Jennifer — the one page statement revealing the existence of her secret account. Powell was flipping through the pages upon pages of photocopied copies of canceled checks until he found it, hidden among them. "Here it is, Your Honor."

  Villars leaned over, adjusted her reading glasses, nodded. "There it is, Mr. Hardy."

  It was entered into evidence and Powell descended on Jennifer. "Now, Mr.s Witt, take a look at People's 14 here. Is this your account?"

  The clear look in her eyes was gone. Panic had taken up residence there. And Hardy was not much help — he felt it himself. Jennifer nodded. "Yes, that's my account."

  "Did your husband know about this account?"

  Jennifer swallowed. "Yes, of course."

  Hardy knew that perjury wasn't much compared to murder, but he hated to hear the lie, anyway, even though he understood why she told it.

  "Mrs. Witt, would you read to the jury the address on that statement?"

  Jennifer glanced at the copy she held. "P.O. Box 33449, San Francisco, California."

  "A post office box? Statements from this account weren't sent to your home?"

  "No."

  "And why was that, Mrs. Witt?"

  Wide-eyed, Jennifer turned to Hardy. "I don't know."

  "You don't know! Powell's voice rose and grew deeper. "You don't know?" he repeated. "Isn't it true, Mrs. Witt, that your husband had no knowledge of this account?"

  "No—"

  "… land that he had discovered that something was wrong with your family budget. What he'd discovered was that you had been lying to him about money."

  "No, that's not true—"

  But as Hardy knew, it was true.

  And Powell wasn't finished. He backed up a step, lowered his voice again, came at her from another direction. "Mrs. Witt, have you received any money yet from your late husband's insurance?"

  Thrown by the change in tack, Jennifer might have thought for a moment that Powell was easing off. She said she hadn't.

  "Did you and Larry have a large savings account?"

  "No, not really. I think about twenty thousand, something like that."

  Powell turned to the jury. "Some people might call that large, Mrs. Witt, but I'll take your word for it."

  "Then we had Matt's college fund." Jennifer, not knowing where he was going, was trying to be helpful. "That was about another twenty."

  "And what about the house?"

  Hardy jumped up. "Your Honor, where is this going?"

  Powell turned to him, then back. "I'll tell you where it's going, Your Honor. It clearly demonstrates that these murders happened because of greed." He held up the Pioneer's Bank statement again. Wound up now, Powell turned back to Jennifer. "Mrs. Witt, this account of yours that got mailed to a post office box, how much money did it contain when you were arrested for these murders?"

  Jennifer studied her hands.

  "I'll tell you how much it contained if you don't remember. It's here in these statements. It's a little over three-hundred-thousand dollars, Mrs. Witt. Money you had been stealing from your husband for almost seven years. Money you embezzled from your own household!"

  Jennifer lost it, voice shrill. "We never went out! Don't you understand that? He never let me do anything. You don't know what it was like, what he was like. He never even missed it—"

  "But he did that morning, didn't he, Mrs. Witt? And your beloved Matt was in the way, too—"

  "Objection!"

  "You didn't grab the gun in the heat of the fight— you had planned the basics for some time—"

  "Your Honor, objection."

  "You went upstairs to get the gun—"

  "Objection." Hardy's voice had gone up several octaves. Villars banged on her gavel. Powell rolled over both of them, at the top of his voice, moving closer to Jennifer.

  "Now, suddenly, this became the moment when you must act. He said he was taking his money back, isn't that it?" Finally, in her face— "Isn't that why you killed him?"

  Exploding out of the witness chair, nearly knocking it over, Jennifer lunged at Powell, her face distorted. "No. I didn't kill him, you son of a bitch!"

  "Sit down, all of you. Mr. Powell…" Villars slammed her gavel.

  Jennifer, out of control, was screaming.

  "Order! Order! Bailiffs!"

  But even the bailiffs stood back, letting Jennifer wind down until, spent, she pulled the chair upright again and lowered herself back into it.

  Powell stared at her. His shoulders sagged. "I just don't understand why you had to kill Matt," he whispered. Turning, he said he had no further questions.

  * * * * *

  It took the jury two ballots, two hours and seventeen minutes. It was, as the law prescribed it had to be, unanimous. And it was for the penalty of death.

  Part Five

  50

  Hardy woke up sweating, gasping for air, the green room closing in around him as the almond-scented, corrosive gas burned its way down his windpipe, into his lungs, exploding them inward, leavi
ng him in mute agony — in his dream, the scream woke him. In life, in this style of death, the scream would be silent, choked off the instant it was born.

  It was all right. He was in his bedroom, Frannie curled in sleep next to him. The clock next to the bed said it was a little after three o'clock — he'd been asleep almost two hours.

  He got up and went naked into the bathroom to throw water on his face. He'd been sweating — his hair was stuck to the side of his head. Gulping water and aspirin, he pulled at the skin around his eyes — the blackened circles under them didn't smudge away.

  At the front of his house, still undressed, he sat in his armchair. It was cold, colder than it ever got. After a couple of minutes he heard footsteps and Frannie was next to him.

  "Bad dream?" She sat on his lap, her arms around his neck. "You're all clammy," she said.

  He couldn't talk. Her hands moved over his head, smoothing his hair. He had his arms around her and held her tight against him.

  "I'm going to get a blanket."

  When she got back he was shivering. He couldn't stop. She put the blanket over him, then went to get another comforter. When she returned he was out again, breathing heavily. She tucked the extra blanket around him, rubbed a hand across his damp and burning forehead and lay down in the windowseat under an afghan, her head on a sitting pillow near her husband's knees.

  * * * * *

  He woke up again. It seemed to be a long time before dawn.

  Still in the chair, he listened in the darkness, trying to hear something beyond the sounds of his quiet house — Frannie breathing on the windowseat beside him, the aquarium gurgling away in the back, in their bedroom.

  Something — he thought it might have been a noise — had gotten into his consciousness.

  A chill shook him, bringing with it a sudden jolt of fear. If he was on to what he thought he was, suppose there was someone trying to make it impossible for him to tell what he might know?

  He didn't remember getting into bed. He didn't remember getting to this chair, or why Frannie was here. Throwing off the blanket, he realized he must have come in, taken off his shoes and collapsed.

  His guns!

  His guns from his cop days were locked in his safe. When Rebecca had moved into what had been his office he had moved the safe out behind the kitchen, on the top shelf over his workbench. Now, woozy and stumbling, he forced himself up, back through the house, turning on lights as he went.

  The safe was untouched.

  He opened it. The guns were still there. He really was losing it. No one was coming for him. Not here. Not at his home.

  And then it occurred to him that maybe Larry Witt had thought the same thing. And so had Simpson Crane. And both had been shot with their own weapons in their own houses—

  Ridiculous.

  The .380 in his hand, shivering, he decided he'd finish making sure. There wasn't much of the house left to check. Vincent's room, Rebecca's, his own bedroom. He passed back through the kitchen, dining room, living room, back up the long hallway, turning lights off behind him. Nothing. He was crazy.

  He looked at the loaded gun in his hand, knowing that this was how domestic accidents occurred. A half-dark house, a wife or child walking in unexpectedly while the husband holds a loaded weapon, thining he's heard somebody break in, that somebody might have a reason to.

  He went back to the work room. As he was putting the damn thing back in the safe, it came to him suddenly. His legs went mushy on him. No, it was too grotesque to consider. He had to sit.

  Larry had finally hit Matt. And more than once. Maybe Matt had come in during the fight and taken sides with his mother, pulling at his dad to leave his mom alone, and Larry had lost it entirely with the boy, smashing the gun he was holding into the side of his face. And then realizing what he'd done, that this couldn't be covered up or undone. The boy, maybe with a broken jaw, a living indictment of what Larry had become, of who he really was. His career would be over, his carefully ordered, totally controlled life… And in a beat, as Matt lay on the floor by the bathroom and Jennifer begged him to stop, the only solution had come to him. Destroy the evidence of what he'd done. A bullet would erase any sign that he'd ever hit his son. They could never say that.

  And then there would be nothing left, no point in continuing your life, so you turn the gun on yourself.

  But before he does, he turns to Jennifer and says, "This is all your fault." And, being who she is, she at that moment, and beyond, believes him.

  Hardy, on the floor in the workroom, followed it through to the end. But of course it couldn't have happened that way. The gun being gone eliminated that possibility.

  Except if Jennifer, blaming herself as she always did for the fight and everything it precipitated, removed the gun herself, took it to the dumpster? That way it wouldn't be Larry's fault. The precious reputation of Dr. Larry Witt would be saved. And she — Jennifer — she'd get what she deserved for having started it, for being who she was.

  It was too twisted. It couldn't have been that.

  And yet some of it did fit — Jennifer's unyielding denial that she had killed her son and husband. And, more chillingly, he thought, it fit her profile — self-hatred, guilt, the need to be punished. Because, in fact, her immediate feeling when it was done was her guilty joy that Larry was dead. She'd hated him, hated everything he'd done. Though she almost couldn't physically bear the loss of Matt, it didn't — in that first instant flush — diminish her overriding happiness that Larry was gone. That she was free of him at last.

  And if she could feel that way right after losing her son, then she had to feel she truly was without a sould and deserved whatever punishment society gave her. In fact, she would help it. She had helped it. She was doing this to herself.

  Hardy leaned back against the wall, feverish. This wasn't what happened. It couldn't have been what happened. He had other ideas he had to explore and they made a lot more sense. He was delirious.

  * * * * *

  "You can't do it today."

  Hardy's fever had leveled at 101, which was also the age he felt. He was on his third cup of black coffee, having forced himself to down some hash, toast and orange juice. "The appointment's at nine. I've got to go. I've only got three days."

  Three days until Villars, the thirteenth juror, gave the final ruling on the verdict — Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.. Hardy had his automatic motion to set aside the verdict due at that time and, in spite of everything, thought he still at least had a chance to reduce the sentence to life in prison. If oly he could find something to bring Villars to it, something she could find admissible.

  After the verdict he had spent half the night with Jennifer talking about options. He held back his trump — on his own he had decided that he would at least lay out the battered-woman issue to Villars if it was the only thing that could mitigate death. But in the meanwhile, he had filled Jennifer in on the YBMG situation and she had authorized him to go wherever he had to and do whatever was needed to get any proof he could. At least she now wanted to live.

  His first step — at eight on a Friday night — had been calling the chairman of YBMG. Dr. Clarence Stone lived in San Francisco, and, persuaded by Hardy's urgency, had cleared an hour in his home on a Saturday morning for him. So flu or no, Hardy had to go.

  Rebecca and Vincent were playing with Leggo's in the nursery. Frannie said, "Look, you're sick. You've been working around the clock. You haven't been home in a month. You've got to take care of yourself."

  He tried to smile through the haze. "That's my plan. I will. Soon. Promise."

  Vincent let out a wail and Frannie rushed to the back of the house. Hardy slowly got up and, more slowly, grabbing handholds as he passed them so he wouldn't fall down, made his way to the nursery door. Vincent had caught his finger in one of the joints of the stroller and Rebecca had sent up a sympathetic wail. Turning his head away from her, he picked her up and bounced her in his arms.

  In a minute or so, the kids in thei
r arms, they bundled back to the kitchen. Frannie, holding Vincent, was getting a piece of ice cream from the freezer to put on the pinch. "Can't you just appeal like everyone else?" she said.

  "Peel what?" Rebecca asked. "Banana peel?"

  Vincent looked over Frannie's shoulder for the banana peel, repeating it. They started to chant. "Banana peel, banana peel." It continued, getting louder. His kids were some comedians. It was great that they loved each other, had the same sense of humor. This banana peel game was funny funny funny, a real laugh riot.

  Hardy thought his head was going to levitate without him attached. Now, of course, the kids wanted bananas and, predictably, they were out of bananas.

  "You feel good enough to go out, why don't you take them to the store and buy some?" He knew she was justified to some degree in feeling this way, but that didn't make him appreciate her at the moment. "Both of them," she continued. "Mommy needs a break."

  * * * * *

  Clarence Stone live in a mansion in the Seacliff area, geographically less than a mile from Hardy's house and psychologically in another galaxy. The short walk from the head of the circular drive to the front door wiped Hardy out. He took nearly a minute getting his breath before he rang the doorbell.

  A bona fide butler admitted him and they walked a long hallway, their footfalls swallowed by the thick Oriental runner. The butler ushered him into a library/office, where a white-haired man with a clipped mustache sat at a desk that rivaled the one in Freeman's office for expanse. He wore a maroon silk robe and was writing with a fountain pen. When Hardy was introduced he finished writing, put down the pen, stood — he was wearing black slacks under the robe — came around the desk and offered his hand.

  "You don't look good, son."

  Hardy didn't doubt it — he also didn't feel good. He'd had chills driving over. The thick fog seemed to insulate against any warmth or even light. The heater in the car had been turned up high, blasting him, but it hadn't helped.

  "Touch of the flu," Hardy said. "That's all."