The First Law

by John T Lescroart

  Hardy launched into his conspiracy theory that led through Silverman and Creed, Terry and Wills, and on up to the arrest warrant that had been issued for his client.

  Jackman's scowl had grown darker as the recitation progressed. By the time Hardy finished with the suggestion that the DA convene a grand jury to investigate Panos's company—he was sure they'd find something tying at least his employees to these murders—Jackman finally lost his temper, albeit in his quiet fashion.

  "In other words, your client didn't kill these people.

  Panos did. Now he's a murderer."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And what about the police, about the evidence they've collected, the witnesses they've talked to?" The DA kept talking. "If I'm not mistaken, Diz, when you defend people, it's often not because they didn't do something, but because no one can prove what they did do, isn't that right?"

  "Yes, but ..."

  "... but without proof of any kind, you're telling me you know your client is innocent and that in his place Wade Panos is guilty. Am I stating your position accurately?"

  Hardy spread his hands. "I'm saying it's worth looking into, that's all."

  "No, that's not all, as a matter of fact. You want me to use the power of this office to investigate a private citizen who happens to be your opponent in a lawsuit ..."

  "Clarence, that's neither here—"

  But Jackman raised a finger. "Please, let me finish. And at the same time you accuse this same private citizen of the very crimes your own client stands accused of. And all in the name of what? Of David's mugging, is what it comes down to, and the rage I feel about that. If I didn't believe I knew you so well, I might be tempted to think you were a cynical lawyer trying to manipulate the DA to harm his adversaries."

  "That's not any—"

  But again, Jackman stopped him. "Let me tell you something, Diz. If one of your clients suggested you try something like this to me, you'd laugh at him. If you were Wade's lawyer and I called you in to talk about any of these charges, you'd laugh at me. Where's the proof?

  Where's any sign of proof?"

  "I'm betting it's out there."

  "Well, if it is, apparently neither you nor the police have found it. And what they have found seems to implicate your client. Rather strongly, from what I hear." He crossed back and took the chair next to Hardy, where he leaned forward with some intimacy. The vitriol seemed to have passed. "Diz, look what's happened to you today. It's got you shook up. What you're telling me is that sometimes the process doesn't work—you and I both know that."

  "No one's looking in the right direction, Clarence."

  "I'm sure the police are looking where the evidence leads. That's what they do."

  "And they're never wrong, are they?"

  And this, finally, was the wrong note.

  Jackman's shoulders fell and, sighing heavily, he stood up and went over behind his desk. "I encourage you to make sure the report on what happened to you and your client today is complete. I will talk to Chief Rigby and try to make sure that Inspector Blanca gets a team out to Coit Tower before every trace of what happened to you is gone."

  "Thank you." He was standing up. The meeting was over.

  But Jackman stopped him a last time before he got to the door. "Diz."

  Hardy turned back. Jackman was pointing a finger for emphasis. "I want to be crystal clear here. If we ever do get to the point where we can charge Panos with something, and there's any suggestion that the criminal charges were brought because you're my friend rather than because there's evidence sufficient to convict, this case won't just go down the tubes, it'll embarrass us both. Capisce? "

  "Capisce."

  "So we won't ever have to talk about this again, right?"

  More than anything else, Hardy wanted to go home. He knew he looked a mess; his ribs ached; his whole left hand throbbed anew. But it was already early Friday afternoon, and though he might get lucky with Blanca deciding to pull weekend work, his luck wasn't something he wanted to count on. Not today.

  Again, the inspector for General Work was in. When Hardy gave his name and they called Blanca, he said to bring Hardy back to his area. But when Hardy got there, Blanca looked right through him until Hardy spoke. "Sergeant Blanca."

  Blanca's eyes settled on him. Recognition dawned. "Mr. Hardy? Sorry. I thought I was waiting for a man in a business suit. What the hell happened to you?"

  "That's why I'm here."

  "Well." Blanca got halfway out of his chair. "Come on back where we can talk."

  He got Hardy settled, brought him some water, picking up some of the details as he did so. The smashed windshield. The report he'd be getting from the responding officers on the Coit Tower shooting today. Blanca wrote the names down, made a note to look them up. Finally the sergeant got seated in his chair. "So you're thinking it was the same person who shot at you ..."

  "Two people, at least," Hardy said.

  "Okay, two, maybe three. And you say these might be the same people who beat up Mr. Freeman?"

  Hardy nodded. "I've got no proof, none at all, as Mr.

  Jackman just reminded me. But yes, I'm let's say morally certain it's the same guys."

  "Last time you didn't want to give me a name."

  "But I did tell you about a lawsuit we were preparing ..."

  "Sure." Suddenly, his eyes alight with possibility, Blanca pulled the yellow legal pad he'd written the officers' names on up in front of him. "You also said that in twenty years or so of practice, you hadn't ever seen anybody take it out on the lawyers."

  "True. But I'm seeing it now."

  Blanca quickly took in his disheveled appearance again.

  "So you got a name now?"

  "Wade Panos."

  Blanca reacted almost as if he'd been struck. "The Patrol Special? Actually, the king of the Patrol Specials?" He put his pencil down.

  "His people. Especially a thug—I think he's Wade's nephew—named Nick Sephia."

  Blanca didn't need to consult any notes. "I've heard of him."

  "I'm not surprised. When he worked for his uncle, his specialty was planting dope on working girls, but he's been known to hit people, too. Now he's muscle for the Diamond Center. A real sweetheart." Finding a receptive official audience a nice change of pace, Hardy leaned back in his chair. "Jackman tells me you got a partner to help with the Freeman investigation."

  "Yeah," Blanca said, "but what investigation? We don't got witness one to interview and Freeman still isn't telling us anything." He looked up with some real sadness. "Anyway, even with CSI going over the place a second time, we got nothing, and I mean nothing. So unless somebody walks in off the street and confesses, the investigation as you call it is closed."

  "I was thinking maybe what just happened to me might reopen it. If there were two of you, maybe you could shake a tree or two. At least see if Sephia's got an alibi."

  Blanca shook his head skeptically. "That's an awful cold trail, and if he had partners, they'd cover each other anyway."

  "Okay, but I'm not a cold trail. Somebody shot at me in the last two hours. Sephia's someplace to start. Maybe you can find out what he was doing."

  "No maybe about it. But you didn't see him?"

  Hardy shook his head. "I saw the car. Gray sedan, late model. Then the gun, which I'm afraid took all of my attention."

  Blanca chuckled. "Yeah, they tend to do that."

  "I guess I just wanted to put what's happened to me on your radar as part of Freeman. Which, of course, I can't prove. But if you could find anything, either up at Coit Tower or talking to Sephia ..."

  "Hey, I'm hearing you. I'm on it."

  It wasn't the kind of story he was dying to tell his wife. In a fair, just, and kind world, she wouldn't have been home in the middle of this Friday afternoon, and he could run upstairs, shower, change into a new suit or even some hang-out clothes—"Oh, with David out of the office, there wasn't much to do, so I thought I'd spend some extra time with you and the darlings
." He could bury his ruined clothes under something in the garbage can, explain away his scrapes with a humorous anecdote about one of his client's vicious cats.

  Except that Frannie was sitting on some cushions in the bay window in the living room, studying, and saw him when he got up on the porch. She made it to the door and opened it before he did. "What happened?"

  "It's not as bad as it looks," he said.

  Twenty minutes later, he was soaking in a hot bath upstairs. Aside from the scratches on his hands and his face, the upper right quarter of his back was badly scraped and already swollen. Frannie sat on the edge of the tub, twisting a towel anxiously as they talked. "I must be missing something, then," she said. "So who shot Silverman?"

  "That I don't know. Not specifically. Maybe Sephia."

  "Which gets you to Panos?"

  "Right, maybe, if he even knew about it." He let out a breath. "But there were three of them. And another problem. I've got the same people killing Silverman and Creed, right?"

  "Okay."

  "So why did Creed have to get killed?"

  "So he wouldn't get to tell the homicide cops he wasn't sure about identifying John and his friends."

  "Right. And who does that benefit?"

  "The real killers, whoever they might be."

  "Exactly. So then they decide—actually, they probably decided at the same time as Creed—if they do away with Terry and Wills, it's going to look like John. It's got to.

  The cops still were working with the three names and there's nobody else left. So they plant the Silverman/Creed gun and some of the Silverman loot in both places and bingo."

  "But they really don't want John arrested."

  "No. They want him dead. Then all the questions stop because there's nobody around to ask them. It's just lowlifes purging each other from the gene pool. It's a tightly wrapped, self-contained case, and everybody involved is dead."

  "Not exactly. There's still you."

  He looked up at her, shaking his head. "They had us both there for a minute ..."

  "But how could they have known about that? That you'd be together?"

  "I don't know for sure, but I'd bet they figured John would eventually come to my office, or I'd go to him, so they just decided they'd tail me for a while. And everything worked like a dream. Except I saw them in time."

  "So if it isn't about David's case after all, why did they attack him?"

  "Or us, for that matter, with the windshield. Maybe it's both."

  "That seems like such a reach, Dismas. I'm sorry, but it really does."

  Hardy nodded ruefully. "Those were Jackman's exact words, I believe."

  "And planting evidence in two apartments? Does that really happen? Are you sure John wasn't at Silverman's?"

  He hesitated, then shook his head. "No."

  "Or that this Nick Sephia was?"

  No answer.

  Frannie asked, twisted the towel some more, stood up and walked over to the door. "I mean, I can't imagine John killing anybody either, but ..."

  "He sure didn't kill his bartender and his boyfriend, Frannie. Not that way. I don't believe that."

  "Okay. I can't see that either." She turned back to face him. "Maybe you could talk to the man who's got Abe's old job."

  "No. That's not going to happen."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he's got a suspect and I'm the guy's lawyer. My only function is to deliver John so they can arrest him. As I mentioned to you the other night, as a defense attorney, I have no interest in justice, only in getting my client off."

  "But Abe used to talk to you about cases."

  "And it's one of the things I always loved about him.

  But it got him in trouble more than once and he's already told me he won't talk about this one."

  "He might, though, when he finds out they shot at you.

  That might make it different."

  He shifted in the tub and an involuntary groan escaped.

  Finally, he got through the pain. "It's worth a try, I guess," he said. "I've got to do something."

  She was over by him again. She sat on the edge of the tub, put a hand gently on his shoulder. "You're not going to want to hear this, but maybe you should consider dropping this lawsuit. See what happens to David, then take it from there."

  He gave it a minute of real consideration. "It might get to that anyway. I can't afford to keep it going by myself, although I might be able to talk one of the big firms into taking it on. It would be a big payday."

  "If you win."

  "There is always that. But what I'd really like is to try to bluff them into making another settlement offer at least, pay for expenses and the time I've already worked. Although I can't believe this thing this morning was about that. With Freeman out of the way, the thing's going to pretty much dry up on its own anyway. So I'm thinking it had to be mostly about John."

  She rubbed her hand over the skin of his shoulder. "You want to hear another hard one?"

  "From you? Anything."

  Unhappy, she came out with it. "You could always drop him, too, Dismas."

  He sighed, hung his head. "No," he said finally. "It's tempting as hell, and maybe he deserves it, but that I can't do."

  "And meanwhile, someone's trying to kill you."

  "Maybe. Maybe me or maybe John. Probably not me."

  "Notice the clever rationalization. Even though they broke your windshield and shot at you, they're not really after you."

  He smiled at her. "I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely. Besides, I've finally got this Sergeant Blanca looking at Sephia. If he finds anything, and I bet he will, then suddenly it all falls into place. I'm talking Silverman and the rest, the murders."

  "It all falls into place? How does it do that?"

  "Inevitably?" Hardy going for the light touch, but he couldn't quite pull it off. "What do you mean? How does it do what?"

  "How does it go from you and David getting attacked to the murders? I mean, what's the point of contact that connects them? Because from where I sit, I must tell you I only see one."

  "And what is that?"

  "John Holiday."

  Blanca had what he considered a legitimately hot lead and wasted no time after Hardy left. He picked up the phone, got information, and found the number of Georgia AAA.

  He endured the usual runaround for a few minutes until he was finally connected to the Diamond Center's Chief of Security, who told him that Nick Sephia was off today. He was taking a three-day weekend.

  A good sign, Blanca thought. If he was off, it left him free to drive around in a gray sedan and cause mischief.

  So, all right. He knew where Sephia wasn't. The trick now was to find where he was.

  The obvious answer was WGP—Panos's company—and sometimes obvious worked. The efficient-sounding woman in the Panos office said she had no idea where Nick Sephia was—he no longer worked for the company—but she took his number and said she'd try to reach Wade and have him call back. Three minutes later, his phone rang, and it was the man himself. His tone was relaxed. "Do you mind, Sergeant, if I ask what this is about?"

  "Not at all. I wanted to have a few words with Nick Sephia. I tried where he works, but he's taking a day off."

  "And you think I know where he might be?"

  "I understand he's your nephew."

  "That's right." Panos paused. "And you think I might know where he is? How many nephews do you have, Sergeant? Do you know where any of them are? If he's not at work, he's probably at home, and I don't know his address offhand, somewhere near Gough, I think. Maybe we've got it or his phone number in some files back at the office, though. He worked for me for a while, but you probably already knew that."

  "Yes, sir."

  "But you know, my little brother Roy hangs out with him sometimes. I could page him and see. He's on the beat today."

  "I'd appreciate that."

  "Good. But you still haven't told me what this is about."

  "I thought
I did. I wanted to have a few words with him."

  Panos chuckled. "Excuse me, Sergeant, but as one cop to another, you can cut the bullshit, okay. The question is what do you want to have a few words with him about?"

  Blanca thought for a minute. "His possible involvement in a crime. A violent crime."

  After a rather long hesitation, Panos spoke in a heavy tone of sadness. "I hate to hear that. I was hoping he was doing better. I heard he was, what with the new job and everything. He's got a temper, sergeant, but he's a good boy."

  "This wasn't temper," Blanca said, "and whoever did it wasn't a good boy."

  Panos sighed. "God. Poor Rosie, his mother. What that woman's been through." He sighed again. "Why don't I page Roy, see if he can help you? Oh, but one thing ..."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm curious how you knew that Nick used to work for me, or that he was my nephew for that matter."

  "Somebody I talked to knew him," Blanca said.

  "Oh yeah? Was the guy's name Hardy, by any chance?"

  "It was just a witness. I can't give out the name."

  "No, of course you can't. But you might like to know, not saying it was him, that this guy Hardy and I are involved in some big litigation—he's a lawyer; in fact, he's a sleazy lawyer if you want to know the truth—and he's not going according to Hoyle." Panos spent a minute or so outlining some of the salient points of the lawsuit—the plaintiffs and some of the issues and money involved.

  He concluded earnestly, "Look, the truth is the guy makes things up if he needs to, if things aren't going his way. I'm not saying he has anything to do with your questions about Nick—Nick's a hothead all right. But this Hardy is well known for being unethical. Seriously unethical. Do yourself a favor and ask around. Only if it was him you heard about Nick from, of course. Anyway, there's my warning for what it's worth. And you can probably expect a call from Roy any minute."

  It came as advertised, and Roy told Blanca that Nick and a friend of his had gone up to Nevada last night to spend the weekend gambling—he was a serious poker player—before the crowded and crazy snow season began next month. Roy was planning on going up and joining them tonight when he got off work. He expected they'd probably be just hanging around the cabin they rented during the day—they hit the clubs at night. But Roy had the cabin's number if the sergeant would like it.