The Dismas Hardy Novels

by John Lescroart

  “What did you mean in there? There are questions—which hasn’t exactly been your mantra since you got on this case. I was wondering if something had happened.”

  “Nothing specific. I just decided that I needed to adjust my attitude if I wanted to keep on defending him. His position hasn’t budged—he’s innocent.” She shrugged. “So I guess I decided to try on believing him, see what it felt like. At least it’s got me thinking that it might be possible after all. Otherwise, why would he persist in all these insane contradictions? Until I read his short story, I thought he just might not be too bright, but we know it isn’t that.”

  “No. We know it isn’t that.”

  “Right. So now I’m kind of leaning the opposite way, thinking he’s just too smart to have made up so much dumb stuff. He wouldn’t have shot them and left the gun on the table, for example. Period. He just wouldn’t have done it. Anyway, once I decided maybe he wasn’t lying about everything, it gave me some hope.”

  “That’s funny.” Hardy told her that some similar thoughts had been surfacing for him since he’d started to consider the fact that the upstairs neighbor, the state’s prime witness, hadn’t said he’d heard any gunshots. But as soon as he’d said it aloud to Wu, he immediately backpedaled.

  “It’s nowhere near certain,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to him again. Salarco. About the gun. What it looked like. If it had any kind of silencer on it, he would have had to notice. But if not, then I’ve got to find out if the cops found any kind of muffling agent at Mooney’s. Maybe the shooter shot through a pillow or something.”

  They’d both stopped walking. Wu faced him. “There’s no indication of that from the crime scene pictures. I didn’t see anything in discovery.”

  “I know. I double-checked them myself. And Salarco probably would have mentioned something like a silencer if he’d seen one. It’s a big old protruding tube stuck on the end of the barrel, you know. It’s not something you’d miss.”

  “So what are you saying? If all of this gets borne out?”

  “Well, the simplest interpretation, which is always the best, is that if Andrew’s gun didn’t have a silencer on it, and he didn’t use anything to kill the sound, then that gun—the purported murder weapon—never got fired that night.” Hardy’s eyes were bright with the possibility. “It’s not quite exactly the other dude that I must say there’s no sign of, but Andrew’s gun is a big part of the picture. If I can get Johnson to listen, or get Salarco to testify that he got a good gander at the gun and it looked normal . . .”

  “. . . then . . . wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Well, being devil’s advocate, Andrew could have used a silencer, killed Mooney and Laura, then taken the silencer off and ditched it before he came back to call nine one one.”

  “Then got rid of the gun? A second trip? I don’t see that happening. I can’t see Andrew doing that.”

  “I don’t either. But Jason Brandt will see it, and the argument’s then refuted and we’re back where we started.”

  “No. Not exactly,” Hardy said, “at least I’m not.”

  “What would be the difference?” Wu asked.

  “You mean if everything is just as I described it to you now? Salarco didn’t just miss the two shots? No muffling agent in the house, no silencer on the gun?”

  “Yeah. What then?”

  Hardy’s eyes were out of focus while the idea worked itself into something like resolution in his mind. The matter settled, he came back to her. “Then I’m pretty sure I don’t have to pretend to myself anymore. If Salarco didn’t hear the gun, then Andrew didn’t shoot it. And you know what that means? What I’ve got to believe?”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s innocent. Somebody else killed them.”

  PART THREE

  23

  Hardy’s medical business with Frannie—taking her to the doctor, getting her back home, into bed and fed—trumped any interaction he might have had with Juan Salarco, and took up a good portion of his morning. Rebecca, the dear, had told her mother that since Dad had taken the regular car, she had no choice but to drive herself and Vincent to school in the convertible. So after he’d changed into his business suit, then called to speak with the principal at Sutro, he swung down to their high school, found the S2000 in the lot and switched cars on her, leaving a note about the broken window on the 4Runner so she wouldn’t think it had happened at school.

  He drove by Salarco’s, saw that the truck was nowhere to be seen, and realized he’d have to come back after the workday. As far as he knew, Juan’s wife Anna spoke only Spanish. Beyond that, he doubted if she would know the precise residence where her husband was working at any given moment. Anxious though he was for Salarco’s information, he had to pass for now. He had other questions, and precious few answers.

  It wasn’t far to Sutro and he made it there by the end of the school’s lunch hour. The outer administration office was empty, but Hardy knew where he was going and went right to it. The principal was in his office, behind his desk doing some paperwork, and stood when Hardy poked his head in. “Mr. Wagner? Sorry to barge in but time is short and there isn’t anybody out front. Dismas Hardy. Andrew Bartlett’s attorney?”

  Wagner, portly and slightly foppish with a bow tie and suspenders, reached a hand out over his desk. “Certainly. How’s he doing?” In his earlier call, Hardy had told him about the suicide attempt.

  “He’s alive,” Hardy said. “Which is good enough for now.”

  Wagner swiveled in his chair, looked out the window behind him at the play yard, still packed with students. “This has been a terrible tragedy for the school,” he said. “To think that he was coming here every day for weeks after . . .” He sighed. “Our counselors are a little overwhelmed, you know. Students realizing they’d been walking around, or even taking classes, with a murderer.”

  “An alleged murderer,” Hardy said.

  “Alleged or otherwise.” Wagner spun back around, gave him the man-to-man. “Mr. Hardy, please. Do you really think it’s possible Andrew is not guilty?”

  “Yes. Possible. Although proving I’m right may be a different story.”

  “I must say it’s refreshing to hear someone say they don’t think he’s guilty. Pretty much all I heard after the arrest was that it was open-and-shut.”

  “I’d heard the same thing myself. I keep hearing it, in fact.”

  Wagner moved some papers around on his desk. “You know, it would be so wonderful for the school if that weren’t the case. It’s bad enough that the two victims were members of the community. But if somehow Andrew were found innocent, it might go a long way toward starting the healing.”

  “Well, you know, sir, that’s the reason I came by here today. I’ve got a hearing for Andrew scheduled to begin tomorrow and I wondered if I might ask you a favor. I understand his sister goes here, too.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I know it’s unusual, but I’ve got some questions for her, and for the two other people that were in the play with Andrew, that really might be of some use. I know I could wait and see all of them at home with their parents”—and maybe their lawyers, he thought—“tonight, but I’m in a time crunch of major proportions. Would it be possible to borrow a room here in the office and pull those three people out of class for a few minutes?” When he saw that Wagner had a problem with the idea, he added, “Mr. North assured me that I would have your complete cooperation in the defense of his son.”

  Wagner considered a moment. “I’m sure we can do that.” A bell rang and he looked up at his wall clock. “Fifth period,” he said. “Together or separately?”

  “Separately would be better,” Hardy said.

  But it wasn’t to be that simple. Wagner’s desire to see Andrew cleared because it would benefit Sutro might have blinded him to the fact that he should not under any circumstances be allowing his students to talk to an attorney without parental permission. But obviou
sly he couldn’t let Hardy be alone in a room with one of his students, either.

  Hardy was obliged to let him sit in. He couldn’t help but think that this changed the dynamic dramatically—he had been planning a gloves-off discussion with each of the kids, but he had no choice. If the meetings were going to happen at all, they’d be in Wagner’s office with the principal in attendance.

  Alicia breezed in first. Hardy had heard next to nothing about her, either from Wu or from Andrew. His only preconception was that she was probably the model for the sister in Andrew’s short story, locked in her room listening to death music and smoking dope. His first look at her—very pretty with beautiful long dark hair, clear skin and eyes, designer clothes—was a bit of a shock and brought him up short. Andrew’s story, he reminded himself, was fiction. If the judge wound up having trouble with that concept, Hardy thought he could bring in Alicia as a witness and win the point without any further debate.

  She took a few confident steps into the office, threw at glance at Hardy—a stranger to her—and spoke to Wagner. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  “Alicia, this is Mr. Hardy. He’s one of the lawyers representing Andrew. He’d like to talk to you for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

  Her face grew serious, and she nodded first at Wagner, then at Hardy. “Sure. Okay. Why would I mind? Although Andrew and I aren’t exactly what I’d call close.”

  “Why not?” Hardy asked.

  “Well, I don’t know. He’s just . . . We don’t have that much in common, I suppose.”

  “So you don’t know much about what’s happening with him?”

  “Just of course the basics. What Dad and Linda have told me. I thought it must be some misunderstanding or something that Dad would have to work out.”

  Hardy found that an interesting turn of phrase. He asked her, “Would you be surprised to hear that Andrew tried to kill himself this morning?”

  She stared. All the vivacity drained out of her face. She looked to Wagner. “Is that true? Is he dead?”

  “No, but Mr. Hardy was at the hospital this morning.”

  “He tried to hang himself,” Hardy said. “He didn’t succeed.”

  The news derailed her for a beat. Without asking permission, she went to a chair and sat. “I guess I could see him doing that,” she said. “He’s just always so intense and so unhappy. And then when Laura . . . was killed, it got so much worse.” She turned and faced Hardy full on. “But I don’t think he killed her. You don’t think he did, do you?”

  Hardy shook his head no. “There might be some facts about that night that don’t work if Andrew did it.”

  “See? I didn’t think he did either.”

  Hardy hadn’t quite said that, but he’d take it. He stood up, hands in his pockets, and began to pace the room. “But the problem I’ve got is that I don’t know what else was going on in Andrew’s life, something that might have had some connection to Mr. Mooney or Laura and given someone else, perhaps, a reason to have killed them.”

  “Surely not another student here,” Wagner said.

  “I’m not implying that. There’s no evidence implicating anyone else here at Sutro.” Hardy came back to Alicia. “But you’re his sister. You may have heard Andrew say something that didn’t seem to mean anything at the time, but now when you think back on it, it might have been important.”

  He thought that given the different crowd Alicia hung out with, the odds were against her providing some alternative theory of the crime, but at least she might start thinking about her brother’s situation differently. In Hardy’s experience, schools—like companies and coffee groups and men’s clubs—always had secrets. If Andrew hadn’t killed Mooney and Laura, then the person who had done it might have had some connection to Sutro. At least, from Alicia or one of the other students, he might get some rumors, something to wave in front of a judge or jury, as opposed to what he had now.

  Which was nothing.

  Nick and Honey are the character names of the young couple in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? who become foils for the vitriolic outpourings of George and Martha as their relationship implodes. Mooney cast Andrew and Laura as the leads, with the secondary couple’s parts going to Steve Randell as Nick and Jeri Croft as Honey.

  If Alicia North was the norm for the “popular” look at Sutro, Jeri was something else again. She’d dyed her hair a dark henna, rimmed her eyes with black kohl shadow. Waif-thin, the pajama bottoms she wore hung low enough on her hips to reveal a hint of pubic hair on her belly under the black T-shirt. In addition to the silver rings adorning both of her ears, she’d pierced her nose, eyebrows and tongue. When she got to the office, she greeted Wagner and then Hardy with an ill-disguised wariness. She tugged her pajamas up an inch or two. “So why again am I here?”

  Wagner went through the explanation for a second time. The girl scanned Hardy up and down, clearly pegged him as another meddling adult in the Wagner mold. Suit and tie. A dork who started out by saying, “I’m trying to get at the truth of what happened that night.”

  She rolled her eyes, an actress all right. “I don’t think so,” she said. “If you’re Andrew’s lawyer and you’re any good, you’re trying to get him off, whether it’s the truth or not. So give me a break, all right? And that night? I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there.”

  “Okay,” Hardy said. “Thanks for coming down, then.” Dismissing her. Two could play at that game.

  She threw a confused glance first to Hardy, then at Wagner. “That’s it?”

  Hardy, stonewalling, shrugged. “You obviously don’t want to talk about it. I want to help Andrew and I’m sure there are other students here at Sutro who feel the same way I do. So why waste each other’s time. Sorry to have interrupted your class.”

  She shifted her weight, hip cocked. “Who said I didn’t want to help Andrew?”

  Hardy, giving her nothing, looked up from scribbling on his legal pad as though surprised she was still there. “I got that impression. It’s not a problem. Thanks again.” He went back to his notes, spoke to Wagner. “Let’s try Steve Randell.”

  “Wait a minute! Steve doesn’t know anything either.”

  Patiently, Hardy said, “Well, if that’s true, I’m sure he’ll let us know.”

  “What could he tell you? He wasn’t there either.”

  “I don’t know, Jeri. What do you know, say, about Laura?”

  “You mean she and Mooney?”

  “We can start with that, sure.”

  “Well, the main thing, they didn’t have anything going. Sexually.”

  “But Andrew thought they did?”

  “Maybe. I mean, yeah, sure, the first couple weeks of rehearsal, Laura got a crush on him. So did I, you want to know the truth. He was just so there, you know?”

  “This is Mr. Mooney now?” Hardy ventured an encouraging smile. “Just keeping the players straight. Mr. Mooney was so there, you said. You want to talk about that?”

  A sigh. “Have you met Laura’s parents?”

  “No. They wouldn’t see me.”

  “There you go. They wouldn’t see her much either. I’m going to sit down.” She folded herself down onto the floor. “The thing about Mike—Mr. Mooney—is there was no . . . like barrier, you know. I mean, at school he was a teacher and all, but when you got acting, you were with him. Just completely equal. He’d get inside your space and you’d just want to stay there. It was just total acceptance.”

  “Of what, though, exactly, if you can say?”

  She paused, thinking. “Of who you are, of what you were doing.”

  “And Laura? How did she react to that?”

  “What do you think? Like a desert to water. She bloomed, man. Everybody did.”

  “And this is when Andrew became so jealous?”

  Jeri didn’t answer right away. “Okay,” she finally said, “let’s get this part straight. At first, yeah, Andrew kind of freaked. But you’ve got to remember that this was like in November
or something, four months before the shootings happened. Four months. You know how long that is? That’s half the school year.”

  “All right. But you said Andrew freaked? What do you mean by that?”

  “First, though, you had to know Laura.”

  “Were you and she friends?”

  “Like, best.” On the floor with her legs crossed, Jeri bent over at the waist, stretching, came back up. The movement seemed unconscious, but it bought her some time to get her emotions in check. “You know she was seriously depressed?”

  “No. I hadn’t heard that.”

  “That’s the key, though. She’d been in therapy forever. She tried to kill herself two years ago. Did you know that?”

  Hardy and Wagner exchanged glances, and Wagner gave a small nod, acknowledging it.

  “Do you know why?” Hardy asked.

  “A million reasons. The world, you know? But mostly the home scene sucked.”

  “What sucked about it?”

  “Basically, clueless parents. They’re heavily into the social thing here in town, you know? The Wrights? Wright-Way Components? Anyway, she had this whole wing of her house that was all hers? So she comes home from school, goes to her room and gets loaded, listens to all, like, you know, metal and death music.”

  “Like who?”

  Jeri shook her head. “You wouldn’t know them. They’re not playing for guys like you. Let’s just say the music’s dark. So anyway, she’s popping valiums and ludes and anything else she can get her hands on, but nobody notices. I mean, her parents see her every day, right? And Laura’s fine, she’s pulling A’s and B’s. And Mom and Dad are all, ‘Whatever, as long as you don’t bother me, ’cause I’ve got a party.’ You know? Same as Andrew.”

  “You mean with the drugs, too?”

  “No. Andrew’s uptight about drugs, but the home thing. Gone parents. That’s how they connected.”

  Hardy found himself working the fictional angle again—the sister in “Perfect Killer” hadn’t been based on Andrew’s sister, Alicia, but on his girlfriend Laura. He made it up.