The Dismas Hardy Novels

by John Lescroart

  But now the room was empty.

  “Where is everybody?” Glitsky asked.

  “They’re all downstairs,” Lanier said. “They got the case number on Welding five minutes after you called. Finding the physical records isn’t so easy. It may be a while. He wasn’t in your original four hundred, you know.”

  “So he didn’t get out in the last two months,” Glitsky said.

  “Where’d they keep him?” Hardy asked.

  “Corcoran, according to the computer.”

  Hardy threw a glance at Glitsky, came back to Lanier. “And he’s out now?”

  “Pretty much got to be if he’s killing people, don’t you think?”

  Glitsky took Hardy’s silent cue. “We call, tie it up. If it turns out this guy is the Executioner, we want to know everything about him. The warden gets a wake-up.”

  Hardy and Lanier followed him around the corner to his office, where he flipped through his Rolodex and picked up the telephone. After a short wait, he identified himself by name and rank and said he needed a record on one of the prison’s inmates immediately. It was urgent.

  Glitsky listened for a while, then said, “Yes, I realize that. But if he’s the only one with that access at this time of night, then I need to talk to him.” Another pause while the scar in Glitsky’s lips went white. Then: “Could I get your name and rank, please? Thank you, Sergeant Gray. Listen, I could have the mayor of San Francisco call again in five minutes, and possibly even the governor after that, but that seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  Glitsky spelled his name, left his badge and telephone number, hung up. “I guess the warden likes his beauty rest,” he said.

  They heard the elevator and the scuffle of feet, and in a minute the small army of twelve volunteers had gathered again in the computer room. They’d brought up two large gray rolling trolleys, each about four by six feet wide and three feet high, and on them were piled what looked to be about twenty cardboard boxes. The lead guy, who was in uniform, saluted Glitsky. “This is the case, sir, or as much of it as we could find. Lucas Welding. Eighty-six. There’s no room and worse light down there, so we thought we’d bring it up. What are we looking for?”

  “The jurors,” Glitsky said. “Also, just to be thorough, let’s make sure Allan Boscacci tried the case.”

  Everyone, including Hardy, took a box and started going through the paper—endless, endless reams of paper, the complete record of a California murder trial. The boxes contained everything from the initial police reports to the autopsy and forensics information, to witness interviews, as well as all discovery, prosecution notes, expert witness testimony and background, the transcript of the trial itself. After fifteen minutes, one of the workers said, “I’ve got Boscacci. Here’s the what-do-you-call-it, the front page.”

  “The caption page,” Hardy said, although nobody looked up or seemed to care.

  Glitsky jumped, though, and was looking at it. “Okay. So far so good.” He flipped through a few of the following pages in that document, then closed it and handed the whole thing back. “Let’s keep going,” he said.

  A long twenty-five minutes after that, Lanier’s easy delivery broke the silence. “Here we go.” He was sitting across the table from Glitsky, and slid the document across, while everyone else—some from out in the reception area—stopped what they were doing to look.

  Glitsky read for a moment, then put a hand to his scar and pulled at it. “He’s the one,” he said in a hoarse and strangled tone. Then, clearing his throat, he read aloud. “Philip Wong, Michael Mooney, Edith Montrose, Morris Tollman.”

  “What about Elizabeth Cary?” Hardy asked.

  Glitsky looked down, nodded. “Elizabeth Reed. That was her maiden name.”

  “Jesus Christ,” someone whispered.

  “I doubt it,” Lanier said. “He wouldn’t have come back for a murder trial.” To a titter of nervous laughter.

  But Glitsky was already punching numbers into the phone on the desk, a muscle working in his jaw. While he was waiting, another phone rang in his office. “Diz. That’s the warden. Get it,” he ordered. “Tell him I’ll be right there.” Hardy jumped.

  “Marcel.” Glitsky handed Lanier the conference room phone he’d been using. “That’s Batiste. When he picks up, tell him what we’ve got and that I’ll be right back. Now or sooner we’re going to need eight teams at least, at least, to protect the people who are left.” He was moving back to his office. “And when you’re done, put out an all points on Welding ASAP.”

  In his own office, Glitsky strode in and grabbed the phone from Hardy. “Warden Fischer,” he said. “This is Glitsky. Thanks for getting back to me. I don’t know if you’re familiar with these Executioner killings we’ve been having . . . Okay, great. In the last hour or so, we’ve developed a tentative ID on the suspect and believe he was staying at your place until recently. We’re going to need all the information you have on him immediately—last known address, next of kin, the works. He went up in ’86, LWOP. I know. I wondered about that, too. Welding. W-E-L-D-I-N-G. Lucas. Yeah, I’m sure. Why?”

  Hardy watched Glitsky’s face, already hard, turn to stone. The eyes narrowed, the lips went tight, the jaw muscle by his ear quivered. His hand went to his side and he pushed in as though trying to reposition his intestines. Then, for a long frozen moment, he ceased to move entirely. Finally, he asked, “You’re sure?” Then, “Yes, of course, I see. Thank you.”

  He hung up, raised his head, saw Hardy standing there. “Lucas Welding is dead,” he said.

  For the next half hour, Glitsky was a dervish. Other people might still be at risk. Knowing that there had to be a connection between the Executioner and Lucas Welding, he sent people to find the names of all of Welding’s visitors at Corcoran; correspondents, cell mates, people who put money on his book; everyone who had ever met the guy. He assigned the other half of his volunteers in pairs to track down the other jurors from Welding’s trial. Check phone books and reverse listings. Get unlisted numbers from the phone company. Go online—somebody had to know how to locate individuals by name and get their address. Be aware of the maiden name issue. Leave messages with DMV and any federal agency they could think of. Wake up anybody they needed to, the jury records people. He didn’t know precisely how the connection fit yet, but he knew that it did.

  He ran down the hall to homicide and stopped Lanier from issuing the APB.

  Back in his office, he briefed Batiste on the general situation and told him he wanted to assign protection officers to the jury people—to have teams of two standing by to deploy as soon as he could locate the jurors. Then they had to reschedule other officers to fill the affected shifts. Everyone’s time would be on the Boscacci event number, if that met with the Chief’s approval, which it did.

  Hardy listened in, picking up the information secondhand. “He died two months ago in the infirmary in Corcoran,” Glitsky told the Chief. “Fischer remembered specifically because it was a bit of a deal—he’d just been cleared on appeal. DNA. It looks like he really didn’t do it. But then the cancer got him first.”

  “If that’s true, it’s ugly,” Hardy said as he hung up. “They put away an innocent man?”

  “Looks like.” From the expression on his face, Glitsky wasn’t happy about it either. “The Executioner seems pretty upset about it, too.”

  “I can’t say I blame him.”

  Glitsky’s look went black. “You don’t?”

  Hardy held up a palm. “Easy. For what he feels. Not for what he’s doing.”

  “He does what he’s doing, I don’t care how he feels.”

  This certainly wasn’t the time to discuss it, and Hardy wasn’t sure he disagreed so much anyway. Injustice happened, he knew, and sometimes—perhaps with Welding—even innocently. Revenge and violence wasn’t going to make anything better. At least, that was the theory. “So who is it?” Hardy asked. “Did he have a kid maybe? Some other relative?”
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  Glitsky, still in “do something” mode, snapped his fingers and picked up his desk telephone again. “Fischer”—the warden—“will know that. Where are you going?”

  “Home.” Hardy looked at his watch. “It’s twelve-thirty and I’ve got a hearing this morning.”

  “You don’t want to know how this comes out?”

  “I know how this comes out, Abe. For my client.”

  Glitsky had certainly already known this on some level—Hardy had given him the first inkling of it the night before on the telephone, and tonight the Mooney connection through Catherine Bass had all but cinched it—but suddenly it hit him fresh. He put the phone down on the desk. “And the girl, too.”

  Hardy nodded. “Laura Wright. She just happened to be there.”

  32

  At 9:40 on Wednesday morning, Dismas Hardy stood up at his place at the defense table and addressed the juvenile court for the first time In the Matter of Minor: Andrew Bartlett.

  “Your honor,” he said. “Before we begin argument and witnesses today, I think it will save the court considerable time and trouble if counsel meet in camera for a few minutes.”

  Johnson, perhaps sensing shenanigans, considered for a long moment. “We just got out here, Mr. Hardy. I’d like to get a little work done before we take a break.”

  “We may not need to do the work, your honor. There is new and pertinent information about this case, critical evidence that will, I believe, be persuasive to the court and perhaps even lead to dismissal of all charges against Mr. Bartlett.”

  The courtroom, as always, was nearly empty, but his words still created an audible buzz from the Norths, who sat behind Hardy, and even from the bailiffs, the clerk and the recorder. Brandt, who sat to Hardy’s right, at the prosecution table, pushed his chair back and stared with frank amazement.

  Johnson pulled himself up to his full height in his chair behind the bench. “As I mentioned to you at the outset, Mr. Hardy, we’re not here to consider the criminal charges against Mr. Bartlett. The purpose of this hearing, and it’s only purpose, is to determine where Mr. Bartlett gets tried—here or in adult court. Not whether.”

  “Of course, your honor, I understand that. Nevertheless, the import of this new information is rather extraordinary and I believe the court will want to have heard it.”

  “To save the time that is obviously so important to you?”

  “To prevent a grave injustice, your honor. I’m talking perhaps ten minutes, maybe less.”

  Johnson wore his reluctance like a shroud, but finally, shaking his head in disgust, he turned to Brandt. “Does the petitioner have any objection?”

  “Nothing substantive, your honor.”

  “All right. I’ll see counsel in my chambers.” Johnson stood. “Ten minutes.” And he left the courtroom by the back door.

  Johnson, his arms crossed over his chest, stood in his robes in the middle of his room, so that when the three lawyers trooped in behind him, there really wasn’t anyplace for them to go. After Brandt closed the door behind them, they stood with their backs to the wall, their faces to the intractable judge. “All right, Mr. Hardy, we’re in chambers. As you can probably tell, I’m not in much of a trifling mood, so let’s hear what’s so important.”

  Hardy nodded. “Thank you, your honor. I’ll cut to the chase. Andrew Bartlett didn’t kill Mike Mooney and I have information which I believe rises to the level of proof, and I think you’ll agree.”

  But Johnson was already shaking his head no. “I won’t agree because I won’t hear it.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I can’t imagine, Mr. Hardy, how I could have made it more clear to you that this seven-oh-seven is not about Mr. Bartlett’s guilt or innocence.”

  Hardy, striving for equanimity, inclined his head an inch in deference. “Yes, your honor, I understand, but this—”

  “You say you understand, and follow it with a ‘but.’ That sounds like an argument coming up. Do you hear yourself?”

  “Your honor, forgive me. I’m not trying to be argumentative. I’m trying to present information that you will, I’m sure, find compelling.”

  “About your client’s guilt or innocence?”

  Hardy knew the wrong answer, and tried to avoid it. “About the circumstances of the crime. Which would make it fall under criteria five.”

  “All right, but be careful.” Johnson cocked his head. “We’re getting a little obscure here, Counselor.”

  “I’m talking about the person they’re calling the Executioner.”

  “What about him?”

  Brandt got on the boards. “Excuse me, but wait a minute. This sounds to me like we’re getting back to who committed these murders.”

  “It does to me, too,” Johnson said. “Mr. Hardy, you’re not going to imply, I hope, that some unknown serial killer might be guilty of the crimes for which your client is charged.”

  “Your honor, with respect, it’s not a question of might. I was in the Hall of Justice last night with Deputy Chief Glitsky. He identified a defendant in a seventeen-year-old case with connections to Allan Boscacci as well as to all the so-called Executioner victims . . .”

  “And you’re saying the victims in this case . . .”

  “I’m saying Mike Mooney and Laura Wright were killed by the Executioner, yes.”

  “Excuse me,” Brandt said again. “Did I miss something? Have they caught him?”

  “No.”

  “Has someone confessed?”

  Hardy came back to Johnson. “That’s not the point, your honor. Glitsky knows who he is, but hasn’t been able to identify him yet by name.”

  Johnson barked a note of derision. “So he’s known but unidentified, whatever that means. It seems we’ve gotten to quite a long throw from whether or not Mr. Bartlett is an adult.”

  “I’m getting there, your honor.”

  “You are? You know, Mr. Hardy, I don’t believe you are. Is Mr. Bartlett somehow related to this known but unidentified Executioner?”

  “No.”

  “May I ask how you can know that one way or the other if you don’t know who the man is?” The judge gathered himself for a moment, then pointed an accusatory finger at Hardy. “This is exactly the type of alternative theory hocus-pocus that I warned you against at the outset, and warned you again before we came back here to chambers.”

  “But this isn’t hocus-pocus, your honor. You can call Deputy Chief Glitsky and—”

  Johnson finally raised his voice. “I don’t have to call anyone! If there is strong enough evidence to warrant revisiting the charges against Mr. Bartlett, I’m sure Mr. Brandt will hear about it from the district attorney. Mr. Brandt, have you gotten any calls today on this topic?”

  “No, your honor.”

  He turned to Hardy. “Then this court is going to assume, Mr. Hardy, that the current charges are still in effect. If Mr. Bartlett is demonstrably innocent of them, I’m sure that Mr. Jackman will drop them and let Mr. Brandt know as soon as he can. But in the meanwhile, until I hear otherwise, Mr. Bartlett is in the middle of an administrative process to determine where he gets tried. That’s all that’s happening here. Enough of this!”

  Hardy, in a bit of a fury of his own, took a step forward, moving into the judge’s personal space. “To the contrary, your honor, with all respect. There has not been enough of this. If it’s your decision to refuse to hear what I’ve got to say, then when we get outside I’m going to open up by making a representation to the court and getting it on the record.”

  Johnson glared at him. “Talk all you want, Mr. Hardy. Sooner or later you’ll have to stop and we’ll get on with it.”

  “If it please the court.” They were all back in the courtroom. Hardy didn’t even sit down, but got back to his table, turned and spoke. “Last night, acting on information received from a classmate of Andrew Bartlett, I spoke to a woman named Catherine Bass, who was at one time the wife of Michael Mooney.” Because proceedings in juvenile court w
ere kept confidential, Hardy could bring up the bare fact of Mooney’s sexuality here if he needed to and still keep it out of the public record. But now he realized with some relief that there was no reason even for that. “She informed me, and subsequently I have verified it as true, that in 1984, Michael Mooney served on a jury here in San Francisco in the case of People v. Lucas Welding, a murder case. The prosecutor in that case was Allan Boscacci. Other members of that jury included”—Hardy looked down and checked his notes—“Elizabeth Cary, born Elizabeth Reed, Edith Montrose, Philip Wong, and Morris Tollman. All of these people, the jurors I’ve mentioned and Allan Boscacci, have been murder victims in the past three weeks.”

  Next to him, he heard Andrew—his neck brace gone now—whisper to Wu, “Is that true?” Even within the bullpen, he saw the bailiffs exchange glances with each other and then the court recorder. Johnson picked up his gavel, then put it back down. It was the first time that he was hearing all of this in detail, and Hardy hoped that the recitation would make an impression.

  “Upon receiving this information, I immediately called San Francisco’s deputy chief of inspectors, Abe Glitsky, and subsequently met him at the Hall of Justice, where he discovered that Lucas Welding, who had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, had recently won a reversal of his conviction based upon DNA evidence that had not been presented at the original trial. He had been ordered released from prison, but during the course of his appeal, he had developed cancer and ultimately died at the infirmary at the Corcoran Penitentiary before he could be released.”

  Hardy stopped, wondering if that was enough. It certainly had been plenty for him and Glitsky. He threw a look over to Brandt, but the prosecutor was sitting slumped in his chair, his head down, his hands clasped on his lap. Johnson himself appeared to be waiting for more, and if that door was open, Hardy thought he should walk through it.