Hardy 10 - Second Chair, The

by John Lescroart

  But Andrew was shaking his head. "Still, no way they can prove I did this," he said. "I haven't told that many lies. Maybe some small ones."

  "You mean like your car? You call that a small one?"

  He threw a glance at the ceiling, then leaned onto the back legs of his chair. Lifting then dropping his shoulders, he stared into emptiness.

  Wu found her place in the documents, read silently, then raised her eyes to his. "When the police arrived, Andrew, you told them you'd walked to the rehearsal that night. You remember that? You don't call that a lie?"

  "I couldn't have them go look at the car right then. I went down to it after I called them."

  "You mean after your nine one one call?"

  "Yeah. To get away from the scene. I already told you I couldn't stand being in the room with them."

  Wu clasped her hands in front of her. "So instead of waiting just outside Mooney's door for the police to arrive, you walked— what, a block or two?— back to your car."

  "That's right."

  "And why, again, did you do that?"

  He moved his hair out of his eyes. "I already told you, I . . ."

  Bam! She slapped down hard on the table between them. "Cut the shit, Andrew! Right now!" She raised a finger and pointed it at him. "You went to the car to get rid of the gun and you lied to the cops because you didn't want them to look where you'd hidden it. Isn't that it?"

  He stared at her, openmouthed. Wu had truly frightened him now. For the truth was that she hadn't read anywhere in discovery that Andrew had ever mentioned the gun that night. She had read nearly all of the eyewitness testimony and had come to the conclusion that he'd just gotten rid of it. And now his terrified visage verified that she'd guessed right.

  Andrew's hand again went to his forehead. "How do you know about that?"

  "The same way the police do, Andrew. They know there was a gun left in the room after the shooting, and—"

  "But how could they know it?"

  "The upstairs neighbor told them."

  "Who's he? How did he know about any gun?"

  "His name's Juan Salarco. Another witness the cops managed to talk to. Also, you might like to know, he's the man who picked you out of the lineup."

  "I don't even know the guy."

  She pulled some copied and stapled pages from one of her folders, held them up for him to see. "You want to read his statement to the police, or should I just give you the highlights?" But it wasn't really a question and she didn't wait for an answer. "He and his wife happened to hear the shots and right after they both saw you leave—"

  "They saw me leave? Right after the shots?"

  She nodded. "Both of 'em."

  "Then they're lying. They've got to be lying."

  She had him running now, badly scared, and this served her purpose. Time to hit him again, make him begin to see how really bad it was. "Lying or not, the fact remains that Mr. Salarco did call nine one one from the phone at Mooney's place"— she looked down at the pages—"exactly six minutes and forty seconds before you called from the same phone. And he later told Sergeant Taylor that while he was there making the emergency call, he saw a gun on the coffee table, which wasn't there when the first police unit arrived."

  Now she leaned forward, her eyes boring into his. "Do the math, Andrew. Only one person could have taken and hidden the gun, and that's you. You took it to your car to get rid of it later, and that's why you had to lie. And that's not a small lie. It's a whopper."

  * * * * *

  Ray Nelson escorted Andrew back to his cell, while Cottrell led Wu down the corridor in the other direction. At the door to the cabins, he held the door open for her.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "That turn out all right?"

  She stopped in mild surprise.

  "You weren't in there too long before you wanted out," he said. "Sometimes that's a bad sign."

  "We just had to establish a few ground rules," she said. "After that it went fine."

  He was walking next to her on the short path that led down to the razor-wire gate. "He doesn't want to admit, does he?"

  They'd come to the gate and she stopped and turned to face him. The walkway wasn't very wide. She looked up into his face. "I can't really discuss that, you know. I'm sorry."

  "Sure. I understand." He unlocked the gate, pulled it open for her. "That's the hardest part, realizing you're really in. You're not getting out and going home with Mom and Dad."

  "Yes, well . . ."

  He held up a hand, perhaps an apology, if one was needed, that he'd made her uncomfortable. "Just making conversation," he said. "Have a nice day, Ms. . . . ?"

  Wu realized that she didn't need to be such a hard-ass. She extended a hand, offered a smile. I'm sorry, my mind's still back in there. Amy Wu."

  "Nice to meet you."

  "You, too. Well, I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other."

  "I'll watch out for your boy."

  She briefly met his eyes. "I'd appreciate that," she said. "He might need it. Thank you."

  6

  Am I interrupting?" Wu asked.

  Hardy looked up from the billing and utilization numbers report, one of several similar management tools that Norma gave him every week for his review and comments— good enough numbers, but numbers nevertheless. He jumped at the opportunity to leave them, closing the folder, motioning with his hand. "I was hoping you'd make it back today."

  "Actually, I've been back awhile, hunkered down in my office." Wu motioned behind her. "I waited until Attila abandoned her post out there."

  "Probably a good idea." He pushed his chair back from his desk, stood up and stretched, moved toward the bar counter. "You want some coffee, a beer, water, a rare old Bordeaux?"

  "No, thanks. I'm fine."

  "Just as well," Hardy said. "I don't have any rare old Bordeaux. David did, though. About this time of day, I'd often come down and he'd be halfway through a bottle of something outrageous."

  "You miss him a lot, don't you?"

  Hardy opened the refrigerator, then straightened up. He turned to her and nodded. "Yeah, I do." Then, shrugging with some awkwardness, he reached down and grabbed a bottled water, turned back again. "So how'd it go?"

  Wu lowered herself onto the couch. "Not perfectly, I'm afraid. The judge— Johnson— detained him."

  "No surprise there. It was murder. They always detain."

  "I know, but I thought maybe with his age and no previous record, plus Hal North's money if they asked him to pay for a private security guard for Andrew . . . Anyway, it doesn't matter— I never even got the chance to argue that." She paused again. "Jason Brandt— the prosecutor?— he came out swinging and got all histrionic. I guess it worked."

  "How'd the clients take it? They fire you?"

  She broke a bare smile. "Not yet, but every call I got this afternoon when I got back here, I thought I'd throw up."

  "Thanks for sharing." But he grinned, softening it. "So what's the status now?"

  "Well," she said, "if there's any silver lining, it's a loud wake-up call for Andrew. The continued detention blew him away. He thought North would somehow take care of it like he always has. But when Andrew realized that wasn't happening, it gave me the chance to acquaint him with a few hard truths."

  "Like?"

  "Like the evidence." Suddenly animated, Wu came forward on the couch. "It might have been the first time he actually realized why they arrested him. So I went through what little discovery I'd seen, which was a good start, since it placed him at the murder scene with the weapon, for example."

  "He didn't already know that?"

  She shook her head. "He thought he'd gotten rid of the gun without having mentioned it to anybody. Which in fact he did. But— bad luck— a witness saw it first. I surprised him with what he must have done, and sure enough, he admitted it. And this is to say nothing of five or six other evasions and outright lies, or the ID."

  "He didn't know he'd been ID'd?"

>   "Not the specifics. Though by the time I left him I believe he was getting a clue."

  Hardy sat back in his chair. "And how, again, is this a silver lining?"

  "Well, it is," she said. "It really is."

  "I want to believe you, but traditionally it's not good news for the client when the DA's got you nailed."

  "It is this time."

  "And why is that?"

  "Because Andrew finally sees that they can put him away for life."

  "And that's good news? Maybe it's semantics," Hardy said. "The meaning of 'good.' "

  "It is good. It means Andrew's on his way to admitting."

  "I would hope so, given the fact that you've already made a deal to that effect with Mr. Boscacci, haven't you? I didn't imagine that whole thing, did I? Boscacci filing juvie? All of that?" Hardy chewed on the inside of his cheek, added ruminatively, "Although I still can't imagine why Boscacci went for it."

  Wu curled a leg under herself on the couch. "Because it's all about numbers. The public understands convictions. Jackman's gearing up for reelection. If Andrew admits, Jackman gets not one, but two murder convictions on the books, instead of a long messy trial with a sympathetic teenage defendant and a wealthy stepfather with ties to the media. You would have done the same thing."

  "Maybe, but that's me. And I'm notoriously softhearted."

  "Right. Anyway, I reminded Allan how hard it is to get convictions, San Francisco juries, blah, blah, blah. I told him it was possible North might even be monetarily grateful at some time in the future for saving his son the extra fifty years in the slammer, perhaps a slight exaggeration on my part."

  "I hope slight," Hardy said.

  Wu shrugged that away. "I don't think Allan bought it anyway. But he did buy the fact that this was a young man's crime of passion. By the time Andrew's twenty-five, he'll be a different person, rehabilitated by the juvenile system instead of hardened by the hard time. And so on."

  "In other words, you snowed him."

  "Maybe I did pile it on a little. But this is such a classically good move. It's actually got some moral underpinnings."

  "Alway a plus." Hardy drank from his bottled water. He put the bottle down on his desk, took a deep breath, let it out. A longer silence settled in the space. The plantation shutters over the office windows weren't drawn, and outside the shafts of early evening sun suddenly seemed glaringly bright in contrast to the muted office lighting. Finally Hardy spoke. "I bet you can guess what's going through my mind."

  Her face tight with tension, Wu nodded, but answered confidently enough. "I'll be seeing Andrew first thing again tomorrow morning and tie it up tight. Believe me, he definitely got it by the time I left today. He sees it."

  "He'll admit?"

  "I'm sure he will."

  "You're sure he will. But Allan Boscacci thinks he already has? Is that right?"

  "No. Not that he already has. Just that he will."

  "But Boscacci's acted on that. And he'll expect you to do what you promised in return?"

  "And I will. Andrew will. He'll see there's no other real option. He already sees it, I'm sure."

  "You're sure." Hardy cast his eyes at his ceiling, brought them down and ran a hand over his cheek. Now he looked over at his young associate. He knew that she was still suffering over the loss of her father, laboring under who knew what other pressures. The last thing Hardy wanted to do was kill her initiative or micromanage her cases to death, but for a moment he was tempted to have her call Boscacci right there from his office. Clear the air with the DA's office, at least. Let the chief assistant know that the deal might not be as solid as he'd been led to believe. Later, privately, Hardy could even plead Wu's pain and suffering to Boscacci, and this might somehow mitigate the consequences if things went wrong, which according to Murphy's Law they must, since they could.

  On the other hand, he didn't want to send a no-confidence message to one of his bright young lights. He himself had carved his own niche in San Francisco's legal world by being somewhat of a loose cannon, taking risks beyond those which, he knew, any responsible boss would have approved. He strongly believed in the advice of Admiral Nelson, "Always go right at 'em." Ask permission later. That's what victorious sea captains— and winners in general— always did.

  Didn't they?

  Hardy gave his associate a last, ambiguous look that mingled worry and hope, and she responded with a quick bob of her head. "Don't worry, sir. It'll happen."

  "I tell you what, Wu," he said. "I'm sure hoping you're right."

  * * * * *

  Hardy parked on Bryant Street across from the Hall of Justice. Traffic was light and curb space, so precious during the workday, was everywhere. Behind him, the sun was going down with a gaudy splash. The usual sunset gale had started up off the Bay and it whistled by the windows of his car, throwing pages of newspapers, candy wrappers, random grit and other debris through the long shadows in front of him.

  He checked his watch. Glitsky was ten minutes late.

  Hardy had paged him, their signal, before he'd left his office. He wasn't thrilled at having to wait. It gave him too much time to think about what Wu had done. He pushed the knob in his dash, turned up the latest Fleetwood Mac, who'd somehow managed to lift themselves off the oldies heap and get back in the game again.

  Wu's situation? It would play the way it played.

  "Sorry I'm late." Glitsky opened the door and slid into the seat beside him.

  Lost in the music, Hardy hadn't seen him leave the Hall or approach the car. Now he found himself mildly surprised by the sight of his friend in full uniform. In the nearly dozen years during which Glitsky had been the lieutenant in charge of the homicide detail, he hadn't often worn his blues, preferring instead the more informal look of khaki slacks, usually a shirt and tie, and almost invariably a flight jacket, faux fur collar and all.

  Now Glitsky was the picture of proper police protocol. He wore the uniform, his shield and decorations, gunbelt and gun. He held his hat in his lap at the moment, and the rest of him and his gear seemed to take up more space than he had when he dressed more like a civilian. Hardy thought it interesting that even the face looked more at home and, ironically, less threatening, with the uniform under it. Law officers were supposed to look authoritative and tough, and Glitsky, with his hatchet nose, cropped graying hair and the distinctive scar that ran through both lips, looked like a working cop, not like a scary citizen.

  Now the working cop, fixing his seat belt, shot a look across the seat, saw Hardy's eyes on him and said, "What?"

  Hardy turned the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, started rolling. "Just admiring the fancy figure you cut in your uniform. I can't seem to get used to it. You catch the peanut thief?"

  "He wasn't a thief. He just changed the drawers."

  "Somebody goofing with you."

  "Maybe," Glitsky said, "knowing I'm such a big fan of practical jokes."

  "You are? And to think that all this while I understood you favored the death penalty for practical jokes."

  "I do." Glitsky squirmed in his seat, getting himself arranged. "These seats are too small for normal people, you know that?"

  "Wouldn't one have to have a nodding acquaintance with normal to make that statement? And if so, how could you?"

  Glitsky sat, not exactly squirming, but shifting in his seat. After a bit, he seemed to be probing with his right hand into the left side of his torso. He took in a big breath and released it, looking ahead, quiet, frowning.

  "You okay, Abe?"

  Glitsky sucked in a breath again, settled into his seat. In another minute, he sighed heavily. "My guts," he said.

  They drove another block or two in silence. "Me, I keep waking up." Hardy spoke without any preamble. "It's not like I don't go to sleep. After I drink myself into oblivion, I do, but then a couple of times every week I have these dreams, always different but always with the same theme, like somebody's closing in on me and I've got to shoot them, but there
's no bullets in the gun, or the knife disintegrates in my hand, or the cage they're in, the bars melt, and then they rush me and I wake up."

  "I don't dream at all," Glitsky said. "But my guts hurt."

  Another block and they hit a light. "You ever think about seeing somebody? Maybe talk about it?"

  "Nobody can talk about it." His tone made it clear: this was Glitsky's last word on the subject.

  The subject, of course, was the shoot-out.

  Since then, each of the four survivors were suffering, dealing in their own respective ways with the psychic toll of what they'd had to do. Gina Roake, who'd been engaged to Freeman when he died, spent most of her time exercising in martial arts or shooting at the range. Her earlier and lifelong passion for defense work had all but dissipated and she came into work only sporadically. She had completed a few hundred pages of a legal thriller that, she said, was going to expose the rottenness of the whole system.

  Hardy's brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, previously a heavy but controlled social drinker, had descended into a deep fog of alcohol. He wasn't yet drinking in the mornings, but Hardy hadn't seen him close to sober in eight months. He'd gained thirty pounds. He hadn't shaved or trimmed his beard and his hair hung down to his shoulders. He and Susan were having problems in their marriage.

  Hardy knew all about his own dreams, his problems with motivation, his feelings about the system he worked in, the cynical machinations he orchestrated nearly daily, the bibulous lunches, then dinners, then late nights. He figured his problems, too, would pass. In some ways the shaken foundations of his life seemed all of a piece with the world in general, the terrorism and war and madness that were now part of the daily fabric and that, for him at least, hadn't existed since he'd been in Vietnam, and that since those long ago days, he'd naively allowed himself to believe would never exist again.

  And now Abe and his guts. "Nobody can talk about it," Glitsky repeated.

  "I heard you the first time," Hardy said. Then. "You worried somebody's going to find out someday?"

  "You're not?"

  "It crosses my mind from time to time."