The Hearing

by John Lescroart

  Logan gave Visser an almost imperceptible nod, and the witness answered, 'I'm sure.'

  'I wonder, then.' Hardy adopted an exaggerated calm. He was about to take a calculated risk, a pure bluff, but it seemed necessary. The two guys were slick enough not to give anything away. He had to get one of them running, startled into a false first step. 'I wonder how you explain the presence of your fingerprints on the bullets in the weapon.'

  Visser swallowed visibly, answering too quickly, grabbing at a police trick he did know. 'I'm sure they transferred the print from the tape on the heroin bag. It's the easiest thing in the world.'

  'Really?' Hardy smiled coldly and kept pushing. 'How do they make a thumb turn into an index finger?'

  'I don't know. They…' A flush was creeping up Visser's face. His panicked eyes flicked again to Logan, who suddenly had nothing to say. 'All right, but I-'

  'All right?' Hardy almost jumped at him. 'All right you took the gun from the evidence locker? Is that what you're saying now, Mr Visser?'

  'Big deal,' Visser snapped.

  Finally Logan, a step too late, seemed to realize that Visser had been tricked. 'Don't say any more, Gene.' Then to the judge, 'Your honor, my client will refuse to answer.'

  Hardy stepped quickly up to the stand, his voice urgent now. 'Mr Visser, let's go to the murder weapon in this case. Did you get it the same way?'

  The witness didn't answer. Hardy followed his desperate stare, and turned to see Torrey with his head lowered, looking down at the prosecution table. Logan stood tongue-tied next to him. His allies were all abandoning him. 'I never…' he began to blurt out.

  'Gene!' Logan warned him.

  'After you stole it, Mr Visser, did you treat that weapon with Armor-All as well so it wouldn't hold your prints? Is that your standard practice?'

  Visser's jaw was working under his jowls. It was far from warm in the courtroom, and yet sweat had broken on his high forehead. 'I didn't take that gun. You can't prove that I did.'

  'I can't? I think I just did,' Hardy replied evenly. He really didn't care. He'd gotten what he wanted. Visser could deny until he was blue in the face, but he knew that the Cadaver was with him on the murder weapon. Now all that was left was to get that gun to Maiden Lane on February 1. 'Your honor, I may need to recall this witness once again, but for now I'm through with him.'

  Hill gave Hardy a surprised look, then asked Pratt if she had any questions in cross-examination. She did not.

  Visser and Logan hadn't even gotten to their seats when Hardy turned back to the bench. 'The defense would call Estelle Gold.'

  The sprightly Mrs Gold was pushing sixty. She dyed her hair bright red to match her lipstick and nail polish. She combed it back, held by large clips, to show off the gaudy costume jewelry earrings she favored. Wearing a simple cotton housecoat under a down overcoat and no-nonsense walking shoes, she got up from her chair in Glitsky's row and marched in a slightly bow-legged fashion past the last witnesses and up into the bullpen, while the gallery hummed with conjecture. Who the hell was she?

  Hardy wasn't going to keep them waiting long to find out. 'Mrs Gold, can you tell us your profession, please?'

  'I'm a waitress, honey, and proud of it. Been a waitress for forty years and hope to go another twenty if my legs hold up, and I don't see why they wouldn't.'

  'I'm sure they will, Mrs Gold. Can you tell the court where you are working now?'

  'David's Deli.'

  'On Geary Street?'

  'That's right, honey. Same location for about a hundred years. David's on Geary.' She nodded, adding, 'Across from the ACT.' The American Conservatory Theater.

  'Yes, ma'am. That pretty well nails it down. And were you working there on Sunday night, January thirty-first, of this year?'

  'Yes I was. I always work Sundays. Better tips than you'd think.' She played a bit with the back of her hair, shifted for comfort in the witness chair.

  'Mrs Gold, did you personally know Elaine Wager, the deceased in this case?'

  Her face clouded over. 'I certainly did.'

  'How was that? Was she a regular customer?'

  'Yes, sir. Never went more than a couple of weeks without she'd stop by for something. And always asked for me,' she added with pride.

  'And did she come to David's on Sunday, January thirty-first?'

  Mrs Gold nodded. 'She was there most of the night in the very back booth.'

  'Most of the night?' Hardy repeated. 'Was she eating alone?'

  'No, sir. I don't think she even ate much at all. Just drank a lot of tea. She was having some serious talk. Real serious, it seemed to me.' She frowned at a memory. 'She even told me to stop coming by. She'd come get me if she needed something. She was never like that usually.'

  'So you'd say she acted upset?'

  'Yep. Impatient, like. Frustrated.'

  'But she stayed there most of the night, is that right?'

  'Right.'

  'Until what time, would you estimate?'

  'Well, we'd already closed up the rest of the back room, so it was after midnight. Say twelve thirty?'

  'Twelve thirty on the night she was killed,' Hardy repeated, glancing up at Hill. 'And was she there with another person the whole time?'

  'Yes, sir. They met at the front door and came back together.'

  Hardy stepped away to the side of the witness box. 'Now, Mrs Gold, I'd like to ask you to take your time and look carefully and tell me if you recognize that person – the person who sat arguing with Elaine Wager on the last night of her life. Is that person in this courtroom?'

  'Yes, sir,' Mrs Gold said with no hesitation, raising a hand and pointing. 'Right there, at that table. The woman, not the man.'

  'Mrs Gold, are you pointing to Sharron Pratt, the District Attorney of San Francisco?'

  'Is that her name? Yeah, whatever, that was her.'

  40

  Stunned by Estelle Gold's testimony, the courtroom collectively seemed to suck in its breath. Pratt herself opened and closed her mouth several times, until she finally got to her feet and managed to speak. 'I did not kill her,' she whispered. Then repeated, more strongly, 'I did not kill her.'

  From his spot in the middle of the courtroom, Hardy spoke gently. 'No, I don't think you did, Ms Pratt.'

  'But then…' Hill all but stammered up on the bench. 'Mr Hardy?'

  'The defense calls Gabriel Torrey.'

  In spite of everything, the Chief Assistant gave no sign that he was beaten yet. He sat straight-backed in the witness chair, his face set but by no means fearful. If anything, he appeared ready for a fight.

  Hardy stood squared off five feet in front of him. 'Mr Torrey, did you meet with Elaine Wager on the night she was killed?'

  'No, of course not.'

  'No? Was that because you were, in fact, out with Ms Pratt the entire evening?'

  'No. I wasn't out with Ms Pratt.'

  'That's right, you weren't. If you had been, Estelle Gold would have seen you at David's Deli, isn't that right?'

  'I guess she would have, if she saw Sharron, as she said.'

  'But just this morning, didn't you tell my associate David Freeman that you specifically remembered that you had spent the entire evening of Elaine Wager's murder with Sharron Pratt?'

  For the first time, there was the slightest hesitation. 'So what if I told him that?'

  'So it's not true?'

  'No.'

  'It was another lie, you mean?'

  A sardonic snort. 'When did I stop beating my wife, is that it? The answer is that I wanted to get rid of him. He's a pest. I told him whatever would serve that purpose.'

  'All right.' Hardy cast a glance at Judge Hill, then came back to Torrey. 'Will you then please tell the court, and truthfully, what you were doing on the night of Elaine Wager's murder?'

  'I was at my apartment, alone.'

  'And what is the address of your apartment?'

  '564 Bush Street.'

  Hardy repeated the number. 'And how man
y blocks is that from Maiden Lane?'

  Torrey shrugged. 'I don't know. I've never counted them.'

  'Interesting,' Hardy said. 'I'd have thought you would have. I did this morning. It's three blocks.'

  Puffed up in his arrogance, Torrey turned to the bench, queried the judge. 'Your honor? Was that a question? This is ridiculous. I'd like to be excused.'

  But Hill wasn't buying that. 'I don't think so, Mr Torrey. Mr Hardy, continue.'

  'Thank you, your honor.' He came back to his witness. 'So you spent the entire night at your apartment three blocks from Maiden Lane, is that correct?'

  'Yes.'

  'You never left your apartment, not even once?'

  'No.'

  Stymied, fighting his frustration, Hardy took another tack. 'Isn't it true, Mr Torrey, that Mr Visser supplied you with a firearm?'

  This brought an actual laugh. 'Absolutely not. I don't own any firearms. Never have.'

  'You did not get any weapon from Mr Visser, is that so?'

  'That's right.'

  'You realize that your friend Mr Visser is going to give you up for immunity, don't you?'

  This wasn't any kind of reasonable question, but no one objected, and Hardy had had enough. He wanted to bring this all home to Torrey.

  And in fact, the reality of Hardy's point did slow him down. It showed on his face.

  Hardy didn't let up. 'Visser was in on the Gironde scam, too, wasn't he? And Logan? Once they're charged with conspiracy to kill Ms Wager-'

  'Get a grip. They were both in LA that night.'

  Hardy turned and faced the DA. 'Well, that would only leave Ms Pratt, then, wouldn't it? She was with Ms Wager…'

  Torrey considered a beat, then he shrugged. 'I don't know about that. I doubt it.'

  Hardy's eyes stayed on Pratt as the truth hit her – if he had to, and it looked as though it had come to that, her Chief Assistant, lover, and political mentor was prepared to give her up.

  And this, finally, was more than she could bear. She came to her feet. 'You doubt it?' she all but screamed. 'No, you know about that, Gabe. You know it wasn't me.'

  Torrey looked straight ahead with all the expression of a dead man. As Hardy watched, Pratt's face first broke then hardened as she finally came to accept what she'd obviously feared and denied for all this time. In ten seconds, before Hardy's eyes, she aged a decade.

  He spoke to her. 'You telephoned Mr Torrey sometime during the night, didn't you, Ms Pratt, while you were arguing with Elaine at David's Deli? After it became clear that things weren't going well. You weren't going to be able to convince her to let it go, were you?'

  'It was Gironde.' Pratt hung her head and now she raised it. 'The minority contracts. That part was sacred to her. That's what she couldn't forgive Gabe for manipulating.'

  Torrey snapped at her, 'Shut up, Sharron. For God's sake.' He was coming up off the witness chair, 'Don't be a fool.'

  A brief bitter laugh before she reassembled her face. Now she faced her betrayer calmly. 'Were you going to let them pin it on me, Gabe? Do you think I'd sit here and let you do that?'

  She came back to Hardy, to the judge. 'He lied. It wasn't gambling debts with Logan – it was kickbacks from Gironde's competitors. When Elaine came to him the first time – because she'd once liked him – and called him on it, he told her he'd call off the harassments, which turned out to be another lie. That's when she came to me.'

  'Sharron, you can't-'

  She ignored him, dead eyes on the judge. Nothing could stop her now. 'He wasn't at his place when I got there that night. He told me that when I called him he'd gotten upset and gone out for a walk to clear his head-'

  'Sharron!' Torrey not giving up. 'Stop. Don't you understand? There's still no proof. There's nothing tying me to the gun…'

  Withering him with a long stare, she finally spoke without any inflection. 'Visser gave you the gun, Gabe, and everybody in this courtroom knows it.'

  There's nothing-'

  She cut him off. 'You know how it works.' She shook her head miserably. 'They'll find all the proof they need now. They'll go through your clothes, match fibers to something on Elaine. There'll be blood on your shoes.'

  Pratt looked to the bench, stopped talking.

  In the stillness, Hardy walked solemnly back to the defense table, behind his client, and rested his hands on the young man's shoulders. 'Your honor,' he intoned, 'the defense rests.'

  41

  He must have dreamed it, but so often the left hand didn't know what the right was doing that it had the force of epiphany.

  Glitsky, alone, woke up completely alert in his bed on Saturday morning. Before his eyes were really open, he reached for the telephone. Sergeant Ridley Banks hadn't signed out on a city-issued vehicle on the night he drove out to see Eugene Visser in his office on one of the piers. He'd taken his own car. Glitsky's dream, or whatever it was, had Ridley pulling into an open spot a block off the Embarcadero. On his first call, Glitsky got the license plate number of Ridley's personal vehicle, then he called the city tow lot.

  Yep, they told him, they had the car. Cost him a hundred and twenty-five bucks if he wanted to get it out.

  Glitsky, Hardy, Thieu, a crime scene investigation team, the drag line dredge unit, and half a dozen uniformed officers made it a substantial party, but nobody was happy. Contributing to the gloom, a cold storm had blown in overnight, bringing with it a steady rain driven by winds gusting to twenty-five.

  Thieu was down by the dredge, wanting to see how it all worked. Glitsky had satisfied himself on that score years before on a body they'd pulled out of Lake Merced. Now he stood silently by the railing along the walkway above the bay, his hands in his pockets, the collar of his raincoat up around his ears. Hardy the boy scout had thought to bring an umbrella, but it had already blown itself inside out once and now wasn't working as its manufacturer had intended. He, too, was watching the dredge line, the water, silently waiting to see what they might pull up.

  The quiet was in itself unnerving. But the increased noise by the dredge – they'd hooked up with something – didn't lighten up anyone's mood.

  Glitsky threw a look at Hardy. It was the type of assignment where you mostly wished you would fail, and they both started moving forward, but slowly. Ridley Banks had a favorite black leather jacket, and that's what Abe saw first as it came clear of the murky green water. The scar tightened through his lips.

  By the time they got to where Thieu stood, the body was hung up on the line at about the water level. They stood a moment, heads hung, sick in their hearts.

  'How did you know?' Hardy asked.

  Rain was dripping down Glitsky's face, although he paid it no mind. He motioned behind him. 'He left the car he used parked back over there. We knew he'd been to Visser's, but nobody knew where he'd gone from there when he left. Once I found where the car had been towed from, I realized he hadn't gone anywhere.' A look down over the railing. 'Except there.'

  Hardy had a hard time taking his eyes off the body. 'I don't get it,' he said after a while. 'Visser didn't need to kill him.'

  Thieu shrugged. 'So? He didn't need to kill Cullen Alsop either. Maybe he found out he liked it. Maybe Ridley told him more than he had to and he felt threatened.'

  'Easy, Paul,' Glitsky said. The sight of his colleague's body had put the young sergeant on edge. 'I've got a theory,' Glitsky added. 'Anybody want to hear it?' He didn't wait. 'These three guys – Torrey, Logan, Visser -they're splitting up some good money working together, more or less as equals. Everybody's got their own part in the various scams. Torrey's using his office. Logan's scouting up the business. Visser's the muscle.'

  'All right so far,' Thieu said.

  Glitsky nodded. 'When Elaine came to Torrey the first time, he thought he'd convinced her to forget about blowing the whistle on him, on them all. Maybe even bragged about it to the other two. I'd bet he did.' Glitsky stopped, his eyes following the activity at the water. The crew down below were working to unt
angle the body from the drag line. From this distance, he couldn't make out what damage had been done by the sea and its creatures, but the body was now recognizably, undoubtedly, Ridley's. He pulled his gaze back up, tried to gather his thoughts.

  'Torrey bragged to the other guys,' Hardy said, helping him out. Although he, too, was captured by the drama unfolding on the dredge.

  'Yeah,' Glitsky said, 'OK. So they all knew Elaine was on to their scene. But mostly she was a threat to Torrey, on all kinds of levels. If he got exposed, they were all screwed, but he had the farthest to fall. In any event, when she turned up killed, Visser's no dummy, he knew it was Torrey.'

  'How did he know that?' Thieu asked.

  Glitsky blew rainwater away from his mouth. 'At the very least, because he'd given him the gun. But then they already had this perfect suspect – I'd given him to them – and Torrey had a history of working the system to all of their advantages, so Visser decided he'd wait and see what happened. Maybe it would all work out. But the other thing that really changed everything was that Visser knowing about Elaine gave him heavy leverage on Torrey.'

  Thieu didn't know the players as well as his lieutenant did, and wanted to get it straight. 'Wouldn't Logan have it too?'

  Glitsky shook his head. 'I doubt if Logan knew.'

  Hardy added to that. 'All he would have cared about was that Elaine was out of their lives. They could keep partying. That's who he is.'

  'Anyway,' Glitsky continued, 'Visser's got this leverage and Torrey makes a mistake. He brokers the deal with Cullen Alsop.'

  'Why's that a mistake?' Thieu again.

  'Because from Visser's point of view, Torrey got an unreliable junkie involved who's got a better than good chance to screw up an already locked-up case. Maybe Visser even knew Cullen, knew he'd renege, break on cross, something. So anyway, now the new Visser is thinking he's smarter than Torrey, who before has always been the brains. He decides he knows the best way to save them all from Torrey's stupid mistake…'

  Hardy picked it up. 'Is to make sure Cullen doesn't testify.'