The Rule of Law

by John Lescroart

  “Yeah, or close enough to it. Evidently I was part of the Dockside Massacre, blasting away at a bunch of Russian mafia guys. Or something.”

  “Don’t forget me,” Hardy said. “I was there, too. Either shooting my client or helping him get shot by somebody else. Maybe Abe.”

  “He’s saying Abe was in it, too?”

  “Yep.” Gina nodded.

  “How was he allegedly involved?”

  “Because he wanted to get his job back in Homicide, so he had to kill Barry Gerson.”

  “Seriously?”

  “That’s their story and they’re stickin’ to it. But fortunately nobody will ever really know about it, because I made up a story that alibis him for the time in question. We were together picking out David Freeman’s funeral suit while all the shooting was going on.”

  “And you weren’t in fact doing that?”

  “Of course we were. David had just died that day, for Christ’s sake. Abe and I spent the whole afternoon at his place. Mostly me crying and him picking out shirts.”

  Farrell boosted himself off the desk and paced over to the window, then turned. “Honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is that I should withdraw from the firm. That ought to take the pressure off of you both for your connection to me.”

  Hardy shook his head. “I think it’s too late for that, Wes. Like it or not, we’re all in this together. Jameson’s got the big lie going and he’s going to keep telling it until it starts sounding like the truth to a lot of people—even without any evidence. If you started your own firm, he’d just find another way to try to put you in the mix and bring you down. The only way out, if you want my opinion, is that you retire from the practice of law, and even that probably wouldn’t work. And somehow I’ve got the feeling that’s not what you had in mind anyway, is it?”

  “Not really, no. I thought I’d go another lap or two.”

  Hardy nodded with approval. “There’s my man.”

  “So what do you think the next move is?” Gina asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Hardy replied. “Since we’ve seen him do it before, I don’t think we can rule out the grand jury. He goes in there and spins his magic web of a fairy tale, and maybe we find ourselves indicted.”

  Gina whispered. “Jesus Christ, Diz. Are you talking for murder?”

  Hardy bobbed his head. “Check it out. Barry Gerson was head of Homicide when all of that went down. So the massacre was, at the very least, a cop killing that has never been solved. He can ride that one a long way.”

  “I don’t know,” Farrell said. “I like to think that I’m a pretty cynical guy, but that’s going pretty far. I mean, he can’t really believe that you guys were part of a gang shoot-out that killed a cop, not to mention a few other people, and that you walked away from it scot-free.”

  “He can believe it,” Hardy said, “but he doesn’t really have to if he wants to move ahead. Remember, most recently, they had approximately zero in terms of evidence on Phyllis, and they indicted her. Why? Jameson decided it would be politically expedient, that’s why. So imagine how much more he could get out of bringing us down for colluding to kill and actually killing another cop. If Jameson brings those people in—that would be us—and convicts us after all this time, he’s a fucking hero. He doesn’t even have to convict us. Just putting us on trial ought to do the job for a lot of people.”

  “Except,” Wes countered, “that the whole thing is indefensible. The entire idea of it.”

  “He’s not on the same moral grid as most people,” Hardy said. “I think we’d be smart to keep that in front of us at all times. Beth Tully—you may both know Inspector Tully—believes that in actual fact he’s got his own bona fide murder on his résumé. I’m talking in-your-face, one-on-one, first-degree murder.”

  “Who’d he allegedly kill?” Wes asked.

  “Peter Ash. I’m sure you remember.”

  “Sure, but I thought that was . . . what was his name? Jameson’s law partner, right?”

  “Geoff Cooke.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well, evidently, according to Tully, it wasn’t it. It was Jameson.”

  Gina finally spoke up again. “So wait. Tully says Jameson literally killed Peter Ash?”

  “Yep. Although she can’t prove it, and she doesn’t have a grand jury to make her case to. But she’s certain.”

  Gina looked from one partner to the other. “Holy shit.”

  Farrell let out a breath. “Maybe you ought to take a rain check on submitting your recusal motion, Diz. Give things a little time to cool down instead of forcing him to think about doing something stupid or reckless or both.”

  “Good idea,” Hardy said, “but too late.”

  22

  ON WHAT MIGHT have been another planet in a completely different universe, Beth Tully and Ike McCaffrey sat across a pockmarked wooden table from Rita in a laundromat around the corner from El Sol. The witness had just finished telling her story for the third time, and this time she had wavered anew on the whole question of where Adam McGowan had been when she’d heard the shot. She seemed to have forgotten whether she’d earlier said he was standing up or crouching down by the cash register. Neither did she remember if Adam had responded to Mel asking if everybody was all right or if she just imagined the whole thing.

  Clearly it was nerve-racking. Rita was starting to realize that she should not have agreed to come back for another interview without Mel nearby. They’d already done this, hadn’t they? They must be suspecting something, trying to break her testimony. Rita picked little splinters from the table in front of her and cast her eyes hopefully first to Beth, then to Ike, as though seeking approval for the job she had done.

  From the expressions on the faces of the inspectors, that approval would not be forthcoming.

  A study in disappointment, Beth raised her eyes and held Rita’s gaze. Sadly. She shook her head ever so slightly, looked over at Ike, shook her head again, then finally came back to Rita. “Okay, on another topic, Rita, roughly how long after the shot was it before Celia came out of the office with the gun?” she asked.

  “After the shot?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t know for sure. Pretty much right away, I think.”

  “A couple of seconds, maybe?”

  “Something like that. Two seconds. Or three.”

  “So. Hardly time for Adam to get from behind the bar and back into the office.”

  “Right.”

  Ike was suddenly all impatience. “You’re saying he didn’t go into the office?”

  “I never said he went in until after Celia left.”

  “That’s what you said. He was either crouching behind the bar or standing there.”

  “One of them, yeah.”

  “Rita,” Beth whispered gently, “what if I said that Adam told his sister that he went into the office before Celia left?”

  This news clearly rocked her. She sat back in her chair, at a loss. “He said that? When did he do that?”

  Beth kept up the soft press. “We talked to him the other day and the story he told us doesn’t match what you told us. Or what Mel told us, either, for that matter.”

  “No,” Rita said. “That was what happened.”

  Beth didn’t try to hide her disappointment. “Rita,” she said, “you’re digging yourself a hole here that’s going to be too deep to climb out of. And then we won’t be able to help you.”

  “But I didn’t do nothing wrong. Mel neither.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Beth said. “The way it looks now is that the three of you—Adam, you, and Mel—you’re all in this together, trying to cover each other’s stories. But they’re not hanging together, Rita. So what somebody’s been telling us isn’t the truth. What that leaves is that all three of you were in it together, deciding to kill Hector and put the blame on Celia.”

  “No.” Although it was decidedly cold in the laundromat, Rita ran a hand over the shee
n developing on her forehead. “That’s not how it was. We didn’t plan it, me and Mel. That wasn’t us.”

  “Well, you’re going down for it just as much as if you planned it all out together,” Ike said, “unless you want to tell us what really happened. Then we tell the DA that you’re a cooperating witness, not a suspect or a defendant.”

  Beth picked up that thread. “You understand what it looks like right now, don’t you, Rita? With you and Mel each sticking to your two different stories. It looks like you’re both, independently, covering for Adam and what he did. Which makes each of you just as guilty as he is in the eyes of the law. When we arrest him, we’ll be bringing you and Mel in at the same time. Just as though you all planned it together.”

  “Unless,” Ike added, “you tell us what really happened.”

  “And then what happens to Mel?”

  “Well,” Beth said, “if he comes clean and corroborates your story—and this time, telling the truth, he’ll do a better job at it—then you’ll both be witnesses for the prosecution, not co-defendants with Adam. That’s a huge difference.”

  Rita hung her head as though it were hanging on by a thread. Closing her eyes, she sighed, then looked up at the inspectors again. “It was just . . .” she began. “I mean, after it was done, there wasn’t any choice. We had no idea what Adam was going to do before he just did it, but afterward, when he came out with Celia and the gun, and Hector dead in the office . . . he told us how it would all be good if we just stuck together. And then, when Celia ran, it seemed to everyone—even you police—like she had killed Hector in a fight between them and it all would work out for us.”

  • • •

  IN SPITE OF, or maybe even because of, Gina Roake’s near-violent reaction to his accusations and offer of immunity, Chet Greene felt that he had hit a nerve: the woman might not have been actively involved in the Dockside Massacre—or even given a false alibi in the Moses McGuire case—but he felt that she was sure as hell guilty of something.

  Back in his cubicle in the Hall of Justice, the inspector spent about an hour googling whatever he could find about either of the two cases, and found the pickings surprisingly slim. The Chronicle’s coverage of the Dockside Massacre pretty much hewed to the party line that it had been a turf battle between some private security guys and a bunch of Russian mafiosi who’d been particularly adept at covering their tracks. Even Sheila Marrenas’s original take in the Courier hadn’t been able to find a connection that had any traction with anyone in the local legal community. In none of the articles in either newspaper he read did Greene so much as come across any accusations against Hardy, Glitsky, Roake, or Freeman, to say nothing of McGuire.

  At least the McGuire trial coverage, most recently, acknowledged Roake’s connection to the suspect, his shocking and unexpected alibi, and his eventual acquittal. And of course his representation by Dismas Hardy. However, since McGuire was Hardy’s brother-in-law and Roake was Hardy’s sometime law partner, those connections were hardly earth-shattering or even provocative.

  Still, Greene had convinced himself that there must be something here. And he thought he knew where he could go next to find out what it might be.

  So, for the second time in two days, he found himself at the Courier’s building, walking down the long and empty hallway to the office of Sheila Marrenas, whose door was open. Chet stood outside for a few seconds watching her in profile as she worked on her computer. She struck him as even more attractive than he remembered. Stepping forward, he tapped on the door and she jumped slightly—fetchingly—at the interruption before breaking into a welcoming smile.

  “Inspector Greene,” she said. “Tell me you found something.”

  He smiled back at her. “Chet,” he said. “And not much. But I thought I’d take the chance and see if you were free for lunch, where you can tell me where I could’ve looked but didn’t.”

  She stole a glance at her monitor, paused a second or two, then hit a few keys on her keyboard. “I’ll have to be back in an hour to get this done by my deadline,” she said.

  “An hour’s doable,” he said. “If you’d prefer, we could stay here, but I thought lunch might be nice.”

  “No question. Lunch is nice. And the best Thai place in the world is just down the block, if you like Thai.”

  Chet raised his hand as though taking an oath. “Thai is my absolute favorite.”

  • • •

  “OKAY,” CHET SAID, “let’s count it off. The Thai iced tea is the best ever, the shrimp curry is the best ever, the satay is the best ever, and the pad thai is tied for the best ever.”

  Marrenas popped a shrimp into her mouth. “Told you. What a nice idea to have lunch. I don’t do much lunch lately. I should make it a point.”

  “Well, with this place this close, I know I would.”

  “But maybe you wouldn’t if you were going out of business.”

  Chet swallowed. “That sounds depressing enough.”

  Marrenas shrugged. “You live with it day-to-day. But that possibility is pretty much a constant for the past few years. If I’ve still got the same job a year from now—and that’s with twenty-five years of columns behind me—I’ll be shocked. Or, frankly, even if there’s still a physical newspaper every day. Our readership is already sixty percent online, so the end is definitely in sight. Sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer, but it’s why I don’t do a lot of lunches anymore.”

  “Well, then I’m doubly glad we did this one.”

  “And we haven’t even gotten to what you really wanted to talk about, have we?”

  Chet looked at his watch. “I guess we had a lot of that other real-life stuff to cover. I’ve really enjoyed it.”

  “Me too.”

  “And you still don’t have to be back for fifteen minutes.”

  Truly surprised, Marrenas looked at her watch. “Well, damn. So what can I tell you?”

  “How about some of the background on these cases involving Gina Roake?” He went on to tell her about his interview with Roake that morning, then his follow-up checking on the two cases on his computer. “But there was next to nothing on the people we talked about yesterday—Hardy, Glitsky, Roake,” he concluded. “Except you seemed to have a lot, though little of it made the papers.”

  “That’s because back in the day—even as recently as McGuire’s trial—we weren’t supposed to run a story unless we had a credible source for it. So a lot of this stuff, in my opinion, was real as a heart attack, but we couldn’t run it because it was hearsay or rumor or somebody else’s opinion, but it wasn’t viewed as hard news.”

  “Actually,” Chet said, “that’s exactly what I was hoping. When we talked yesterday, it seemed like you knew a lot more than whatever made it into the paper, and, that being the case, you might still have a record of it.”

  “No might about it.” She reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. “I probably should have given you a little more guidance about where to look, but I figured Gina Roake was as good a place as any. At least, to get a feel for what you might be up against.”

  “And she was good for that. But she wasn’t into giving me any more context. Period. She knew nothing about nothing.”

  “That’s Gina all right. Tough as fucking nails.”

  “So who else should I talk to?”

  “Let’s get back to my office,” she said, “and I’ll give you whatever I’ve got. On one condition, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you get your hands on something real, I’m going to want the scoop.”

  Chet broke a big smile. “Do you guys still really use that word, ‘scoop’?”

  She grinned back at him. “Absolutely.”

  “Well, then, you’ll absolutely get the scoop as soon as I get one.”

  “Deal.”

  • • •

  DEVIN JUHLE SAT behind the desk in his office with the door closed. Across the room, he had a large whiteboard mounted on the wall. Nin
e of the sixteen lines were filled in with active homicide cases, with the names of the victims and the inspectors who reported to him and had been assigned to those cases. This was about the average number that he lived with, although he’d had it go as low as three and as high as all sixteen.

  Now he was trying to figure out what he was going to do with the new information he’d gotten from Beth Tully and Ike McCaffrey. It was one thing, he knew, to talk to his troops out of the office and wax philosophical about some of the moral, ethical, and logistical issues that made up the lives of homicide cops. It was another thing altogether to assign inspectors to work a case that technically was already closed. Because that meant that somebody had screwed up and had arrested the wrong person, or at least hadn’t arrested the right one.

  And when the person who had screwed up happened to be the short-tempered, autocratic, egomaniacal district attorney—the highest-ranking and most powerful lawyer in the city—the pressure was even greater this time to get it right. Because to get it wrong again would be perceived as a definite slight against a man who did not brook much in the way of criticism.

  In fact, almost undoubtedly, if his inspectors weren’t right this time, Juhle could see himself becoming embroiled in what would become a political battle, as though he were taking sides against the new DA when in fact all he was doing was trying to run his department efficiently, to identify and arrest the guilty, to avoid rushes to judgment, and to live by the rule of law.

  As if Ron Jameson cared.

  No: for the DA, all that would matter was that Juhle had supervised an investigation that should have already been closed because he’d declared it to be so, and that explicitly called into question the DA’s decision that Celia Montoya had killed Hector Valdez.

  Except that—uh-oh—it sure was beginning to look as though it hadn’t been her at all.

  It had been an ex-convict named Adam McGowan.

  Just today, his two inspectors had gotten statements from two eyewitnesses that all but eliminated doubt about whether McGowan was the killer of Mr. Valdez. The inspectors were pushing to make an immediate arrest of McGowan based on the new developments. They were motivated to move quickly, because they realized—probably rightly—that their two witnesses were themselves in imminent danger from McGowan. If he even got a whiff that they had changed their stories to implicate him in the murder, he might very well kill them, too.