The Rule of Law

by John Lescroart

  Glitsky let a silence build on the line.

  Finally, Hardy said, “Look, Abe, your lovely wife mentioned yesterday that you were perhaps a little bored with your retirement, and I thought it wasn’t impossible that you’d like to go for a ride-along just for the thrill of it all.”

  After a pause Glitsky said, “When were you thinking of heading out?”

  “How fast can you get here?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Great. I’m still at the office. I’ll meet you out front.”

  • • •

  HER APARTMENT WAS a flat on Silver Avenue, near the south edge of the city. From the street, it looked to be a twin of Glitsky’s own two-unit building, with an exposed stairway on the left beside the garage leading to a second-floor entrance to the apartment proper. When they got there at 7:25, Glitsky pulled up to an open space at the curb directly across the street. “This can’t be the right address,” he said. “The parking place is way too close.”

  “Divine intervention,” Hardy replied. “It’s a sign we’re supposed to be here.” He pointed out across Glitsky’s chest. “That would be her apartment above the garage, I think.”

  “Pretty dark.”

  “It is.” Hardy let out a breath, then another one. “Well,” he said, suddenly opening his passenger door, “you coming?”

  The street was light on both car and foot traffic and featured about half residential flats like Phyllis’s and half commercial storefronts: a body shop, an electrical supply store, a laundromat, a nail salon, a mom-and-pop grocery store at the corner, a few empty windows. Streetlights cast their feeble glows intermittently.

  Hardy, his breath vaporing in the chill, stopped and shined his cell phone flashlight at the mailbox built into the stucco at the bottom of the stairs. As Glitsky came up alongside him, he said, “This is her, all right. McGowan.”

  Glitsky leaned in to verify. “McGowan. Check. Okay, now what?”

  “Now we knock on the door.”

  A minute later they’d done that to no avail and Hardy had also called her landline number. They stood on the cold outside landing and listened to the phone ring inside the apartment until it stopped and her voicemail picked up.

  “Well,” Glitsky said, “this has been a treat. I’m glad I got to know a new place.” He started back down the stairs.

  “Abe.”

  Continuing down for a step or two, he finally stopped and turned. “Now what?”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  Glitsky said nothing. Sighing, with a pitying expression he shook his head, then looked up at his friend.

  Hardy went on. “This woman has worked for me for over twenty years. Before yesterday, she has perhaps three times called in sick. She doesn’t have a family member or any next of kin in her HR file. In fact, she doesn’t have an alternate contact at all. This flat is the only address we have for her. So where can she be? Where did she go?”

  “Someplace. It’s just possible she’s developed a life, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe, but unlikely. No sign of it until yesterday in any event.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “You might not like it.”

  “Well, there’s a promising start.”

  • • •

  A FEW MONTHS before, Wyatt Hunt had had occasion to break into the apartment of a murder suspect, and what he found there had led to that man’s arrest and a dismissal for Hardy’s client. After the dust had settled on that case, Hardy had begged and pleaded and finally persuaded Hunt to give him a few lessons in lock picking. Just for fun. It wasn’t as though he was ever going to use the information, but what a cool thing—Hardy had argued—to know about.

  Now he and Glitsky stood inside the front door, which Hardy had carefully closed behind them. Turning on the main room lights, he folded his burglar’s tool kit back up and dropped it in his pocket. Grinning like a fool, he said, “That was way easier than I thought it would be.”

  Glitsky didn’t share his enthusiasm. “This is just wrong on so many levels.”

  “You’re right, of course. But since we’re here . . .”

  “We make sure she’s not dead, Diz. That’s why we’re here, even though it’s no excuse for us being inside her apartment. If she’s not here, then we get out fast.” His face clouded with a new thought. “But even so, if she is here and dead and we call it in, how do we explain . . . ?”

  “She gave me a set of her keys long ago for just such an eventuality. She’d basically invited me to come in and check if I got worried about her.”

  “Did you just come up with that?”

  “Situations like this, it’s better if you have a plausible story.”

  “Sometimes you’re a little scary, you know that?”

  “I like to think more than sometimes, but thank you.”

  The front door opened directly into the living room and now Hardy crossed the room and turned into another doorway, flicking on more lights in the kitchen. “I’ll take this side,” he said.

  Leaving Glitsky to his own devices, turning on lights as he went, Hardy went into the kitchen, where several dishes and mugs were neatly arranged on a counter drying rack. Turning left out of the kitchen, Hardy entered a short hallway, checked out a tidy bathroom with a glance, then got to what obviously was Phyllis’s bedroom.

  The queen-sized bed was neatly made up, with some flounce pillows at the head and a quilt of bright yellow sunflowers. Two matching mahogany nightstands with reading lamps flanked the bed—the left one held a stack of six paperback books, A Man Called Ove on the top. Pulling the sleeve of his dress shirt over his hand so he wouldn’t inadvertently leave any fingerprint or other trace of his presence, Hardy reached down and opened the drawer and was surprised to see a semiautomatic handgun that he had to force himself not to pick up or even touch. He closed the drawer just as he’d found it.

  Across the bed, the other nightstand was bare except for a doily under the reading lamp. He went around the bed and, still careful with his fingers, opened the other drawer, but this one contained only a Costco-sized bottle of ibuprofen.

  The small clothes closet held no surprises, nor did the six-drawer dresser or its surface. Everything was as he would have predicted from what he knew of Phyllis and her personality and habits. For a last couple of seconds, he stood at the doorway looking back into the bedroom for something he might have missed, and then, marginally satisfied, switching off the lights as he passed them, he headed down the hallway back to the kitchen, then into the living room again, where there was no sign of Glitsky.

  Hardy took a few steps down the other hallway, which led off toward the back half of the apartment. “Paging Dr. Glitsky?”

  “Down here.”

  Hardy got to the second left door and, looking in, saw Abe leaning over a desk, scowling. “I’m trying not to touch anything,” he said. “But it’s a challenge.”

  “I had the same experience in her bedroom. She’s got a gun in a drawer next to her bed. What do you got?”

  “Envelopes addressed here, this address, to Adam McGowan.”

  “Her brother?”

  “Or maybe cousin? You want more?”

  “Always.”

  Glitsky reached behind him and opened the closet in the opposite wall, which contained some men’s pants, a pair of men’s shoes, a few hanging shirts, and a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. “This is a guy’s room. Adam’s. Who, I might add, might come home at any moment, and that would be awkward, to say the least. I’ve heard a rumor that an unlawful-entry beef might cost you your bar card.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.” Hardy, his adrenaline suddenly pumping, took a quick last glance around the small second bedroom: a thrift store dresser, a single unmade bed. “You’re right,” he said. “We need to leave.”

  But when they got to the front door again, Glitsky told Hardy to wait a minute as he walked across to the nearer of the two couches. Removing the cushions, he nodded with s
atisfaction, then leaned over and lifted out the fold-a-bed, this one casually made up with a sheet and a plain green blanket.

  For a second or two he seemed to be studying the room in this new light. Reaching over, he pulled all of the magazines out of the leather rack next to the fold-a-bed and flipped through them, then put them back as he’d found them. Folding up the bed, he replaced the cushions as they’d been, then went to the couch across the room.

  At the open front door, Hardy stood waiting. “Anytime today, huh?”

  Ignoring him, Glitsky held up his index finger, then turned back around and directed his attention to the second couch. Once again removing the cushions, he found himself looking at another fold-a-bed, which he didn’t bother to open out. Instead, in an obvious hurry now, moving quickly, he put the cushions back, gave the room a last look, and strode over to where Hardy had already stepped outside.

  “Lights,” Hardy whispered.

  Nodding, Glitsky hit the switch, checked to make sure that the place was completely dark and that the doorknob, locked from the inside, wouldn’t turn. “Relock the dead bolt?” he asked.

  “I think not. Let them believe they forgot to lock it going out.”

  “Fine by me.”

  At the bottom of the steps, the quiet street remained deserted. Hardy stepped onto the sidewalk, swung around to his left, and checked the shoulder-high window in the garage door. “Nobody home,” he said, “but we already knew that, didn’t we? Are you having a heart attack?”

  “Pretty close,” Glitsky said.

  “Me too.” Hardy had his car keys out and started jogging across the street. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  3

  WHEN HARDY ARRIVED at the office at 9:00 the following Monday morning, Phyllis was fielding phone calls, typing at her computer, and otherwise being her usual multitasking self behind the low oval wall that delineated her space in the firm’s main lobby. On Sunday she had called and with no further explanation left a message on Hardy’s office line that she would be back at work at the start of the week—just to let him know. So he wasn’t so much shocked to see her at her workstation as surprised that she appeared none the worse for wear.

  When she saw him, she was talking into her headpiece, but held up her index finger in greeting—she’d be with him in a minute—and then spun away from him to continue her conversation. Hardy paused as he came up to her, took a beat, then shrugged his shoulders and continued around to his office.

  He’d barely gotten into his chair, getting some papers out of his briefcase, when his intercom buzzed. Thinking that he might as well follow Phyllis’s lead and get back to normal, he said, “Yo,” which drove her crazy, because this was not the mature response she expected of a professional attorney like himself. Then he doubled down. “What up?”

  He noted her gratifying sigh of frustration before she said, “Mr. Farrell would like a moment.”

  “Well, then, by all means let’s give him one. Is he out there now?”

  “He is.”

  “Send him on in. Oh, and, Phyllis . . . ?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  “Good. But I did want to mention that if you get a few minutes later on this morning, maybe you could stop in for a minute or two. Say hello.”

  After a split-second hesitation that he might not have even recognized except that he was so attuned to her rhythms, she said, “Of course.”

  “Maybe after I finish up with Wes. How’s that sound?”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “I think I do. Let’s call it a plan. Meanwhile, you can send Wes on in.”

  “Yes, sir. He’s on his way.”

  Five seconds later Wes knocked and then pulled open the door. “I want to have Phyllis guard my office like she guards yours.”

  Hardy shook his head. “Can’t do it, and even if I could, beware what you wish for.”

  “People always say that. I don’t really get it. I don’t wish for something if I don’t really want it. So what’s to beware of?”

  “Unintended consequences. Phyllis stands guard outside your office, she scares away clients, and next thing you know, you go broke. Or you get your million dollars and lose your friends because you don’t share it enough and they think you’re selfish. Or you get elected DA and you prosecute some guy whose mother hates you and unexpectedly shoots you in the head.”

  “Oh yeah, stuff like that happens all the time.”

  Hardy grinned. “Just sayin’. Unintended consequences. So what can I do for you?”

  Wes cocked his head, sparrow-like. “Give me a minute. All that philosophy derailed my train of thought. It’ll come back to me. Meanwhile . . .” Plopping himself down onto one of the chairs in front of Hardy’s desk, he put an ankle on his knee and brought a hand up to his chin.

  “Something to do with the office?” Hardy prompted him.

  “Probably.” Suddenly his eyes lit up. “Ah. Got it. Treya, not Phyllis. I’m thinking about bringing her on board here as my assistant. She’s been with me eight years and I don’t really think she’s ready to retire. She doesn’t think so, either, I believe. She just felt like she couldn’t work for Ron Jameson.”

  “She’s joining a big club,” Hardy said.

  “Not big enough. And I’m not saying that because I was the greatest DA in history—I made a lot of mistakes—but at least I tried to be fair and do the right thing most of the time. I don’t think Jameson gives one little tiny shit about any of that. I still can’t believe the whole office didn’t walk out when he won by a whopping nine hundred and seventy-two votes.”

  “They’ve got jobs they need, Wes. They’re waiting for their pensions. They’re choosing to believe it won’t be so bad.”

  “They are wrong, you know. It’s going to be that bad. The guy’s a true menace.”

  “Well . . .”

  “You’re just thinking this is me being a sore loser.”

  “Not at all. And by the way, even if you were, you’d have every right. He probably scared away twenty thousand people, and certainly nine hundred and seventy-two, who would have voted for you if he hadn’t convinced them that having their name and address on the ballot rolls might attract attention to their families and have their grandparents or parents or siblings, or even their friends, turned over to ICE” —Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as la migra—“and sent back to Mexico or El Salvador or wherever.”

  “And all the while pretending he was on their side, just trying to protect them. Don’t vote and stay safe. It makes me sick.”

  Hardy shook his head, then straightened up behind his desk. “But, hey, we’ve been through this ad nauseam, haven’t we?”

  “And then some. I know. Sorry. It’s just so damn hard to accept.”

  “Yeah, but on the bright side, you can run again in four years and then go back and get him arrested for everything he’s done wrong—which, believe me, by then will be a lot.”

  “Ha! If he doesn’t have me killed first.”

  “I doubt that. Let’s not go there.”

  “No? Really?”

  “I know the rumors, but I don’t think he’s quite down to that level, Wes.” The rumors were that Ron Jameson had killed his wife’s purported lover, another attorney named Peter Ash, a couple of years before, and then framed his law partner, Geoff Cooke, for that murder . . . before killing him, too, and making it look like a suicide. In spite of the rumors, no charges had ever been filed, and the whole affair got written off to dirty politics. “The guy’s an asshole,” Hardy said, “but I don’t believe he’s an actual killer, and—no offense, Wes—when you bring that up, you sound just a smidge paranoid yourself.”

  “Just ’cause you’re paranoid—”

  Hardy held up a hand. “Don’t go there. Especially when you’ve got a bunch of real, verifiable, awful things the guy’s done. The election being one. But thinking he’s actually
capable of murder, that just undercuts your legitimate concerns, is all I’m saying.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Hardy scratched at his desk for a long moment.

  “What?” Wes asked. “You’re pissed off at me.”

  Hardy shook his head. “Not really. Just trying to pull the reins on you wasting your time. You got beat, he probably cheated or at least played unethically, and that really sucks, I agree, but it’s done and he’s not going to come back at you.”

  “He might if I come after him.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  “So I can beat him in four years.”

  “Okay, but this campaign’s over. Beating Ron Jameson is just not your job anymore.”

  Wes considered, then let out a heavy sigh. “All right. You win. But it really is just a bitch.”

  “I hear you, and I’m not trying to win anything. But it’s ugly enough out there, Wes. No reason for you to add to it, not when you’ve got good work you can do here, make a little money, lick your wounds. Life’s good, or can be. Our job is to spread the word.”

  “All right, all right.” Wes was up on his feet. “So, back to the point: How do you feel about Treya?”

  “I love her,” Hardy said. “And always have.”

  “I mean working here.”

  “You’re a full partner here, Wes. If you need her, you need her. Bring her on. It’s entirely your call.”

  “I like that answer.”

  Hardy broke a small grin. “What’s not to like?”

  • • •

  “YOU WANTED TO see me, sir?”

  “I did, Phyllis. Come on in. Have a chair.”

  “Thank you.”

  Hardy’s secretary/receptionist was sixty-three years old. She cut her hair short and did not dye it, nor did she use much makeup. Tall and slender, she wore wire-rim glasses and no-nonsense footwear. She favored pale dresses and skirts that reached below her knees and the tops of those dresses or blouses or sweaters around her neck. He’d never seen her in pants.

  At one of Hardy’s earliest office Christmas parties, just after he’d come on as an associate in the firm, Phyllis—in tasteful makeup, eye shadow, and mascara—had arrived in low heels, a fashionable dark green and red dress revealing some cleavage, and a stylish shoulder-length haircut that showed off the blond highlights in her lovely tawny hair. At first glance Hardy had thought she was one of the new young secretaries he hadn’t met yet, and a cute one at that.