The Mercy Rule

by John Lescroart

  That was her story and she was sticking to it.

  28

  Hardy’s official workday the next morning carried over the tension from his kitchen. He’d finally fallen asleep after one o’clock and was up at five-thirty, going over his notes, trying to second-guess what would happen in the courtroom that day.

  Frannie did not get up to make his coffee.

  He was out of the house – he had to be out of the house – by seven-thirty, just as the kids and his wife were getting to the breakfast table. Kiss the kids good-bye – all he was doing anymore with them. Eyes from Frannie, no words in front of the children. Tonight maybe.

  Then, at the Hall, waiting and waiting for his partner and co-strategist, David Freeman, who hadn’t arrived by the time the bailiffs brought Graham into the holding cell, surfer hair combed back neatly. He was putting on his civilian coat and tie at a few minutes after nine o’clock.

  ‘Where’s Yoda?’ Graham had christened Freeman after the Star Wars gnome. Hardy thought it a fairly astute characterization.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably doing a little cold-fusion work, keep his hand in.’ Studied nonchalance. In truth, though, Freeman’s absence left him with a low-voltage sense of unease – a good-luck charm misplaced. As though he needed any more bad vibes. But there was no point harping on it. Other matters pressed.

  Hardy looked around behind him, lowered his voice. ‘You talk to Sarah this morning? She came by my house last night. She wants to go after your brother.’

  ‘I know. We talked about it.’ Graham’s massive hands were making confetti from the edges of a yellow legal pad. ‘I don’t think it’s a bad idea.’

  ‘You don’t? You did last time I asked.’ In the early days, when Hardy was gearing up for his ‘some other dude did it’ defense, he’d questioned Graham about George’s motives and opportunities. Graham had laughed at him; there was no chance his brother could have been involved. Now he was singing a different tune.

  Graham looked as though he’d eaten some bad cheese. ‘Maybe I’m finally getting pissed off. I’ve been thinking about me, you know, my situation here’ – he motioned toward the door to the courtroom – ‘all this. But you know what?’

  The eyes seemed to reach all the way into his soul. This was no act, or if it was, it was one Hardy hadn’t seen before in nearly five months of daily contact.

  ‘What?’ Hardy asked. ‘But quiet, okay?’ He raised his eyes, suddenly aware of voices from the courtroom, from the jury box, which was haphazardly filling up.

  Graham leaned in toward him. ‘Somebody did kill Sal, Diz. That’s the thing. With all this concentration on getting me off, we kind of pushed that under the rug. Now I think about it, I want the son of a bitch, I don’t care if it’s Georgie.’

  ‘And you think it is?’

  ‘I’d like to make sure it isn’t, let’s put it that way. You know what I think? You know how I told you if Leland pays you, he gets something for it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What he’s getting here is keeping you off his favored son.’

  Maybe on more sleep, with Freeman at his side and his wife not mad at him, Hardy would have reacted more coolly. But he felt a rush of blood, heard a pounding of it in his ears. He clipped it out. ‘I hope I’m not hearing you say you think I’m in Leland’s pocket.’

  ‘Easy, Diz. I don’t think you meant to be.’

  ‘I’m just too stupid to see it, right?’

  Part of it, of course – suddenly clear – was that it could have been true, and Hardy in fact hadn’t seen it. By paying Hardy’s bills for Graham’s defense, Leland Taylor had effectively defused any investigations Hardy might have otherwise considered pursuing within the Taylor family.

  Graham shrugged. ‘It’s an obvious stone and it’s unturned.’

  ‘There’s no way to turn it.’ Hardy’s voice echoed in the holding cell. ‘Glitsky won’t look at it. Sarah risks her job if she…’ He shook his head. ‘You know this. There’s no way.’

  Graham remained calm. For one of the very first times Hardy got a glimpse of the legal mind that had gotten his client his federal clerkship. ‘There’s no way without alienating Leland, that’s true. And he’s set us up so we won’t. It’s subtle and it’s sweet, and that’s the way my stepfather works.’

  ‘You think he’s protecting George?’

  Another shrug. ‘I know from Mom that he doesn’t know where George was. I know it worries the shit out of him. And Leland thinks a couple of other things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘One, there’s bettable odds you’re going to get me off, so there’s no real risk anyway, just a few more months of my already wasted life. I’m a pawn he’ll risk losing to save his bishop.’

  ‘What’s the other one?’

  ‘Sal’s death wasn’t any great loss. He was old and feeble and a pain in the ass. If Georgie killed him, it wasn’t like a real murder. More like putting down a dog. Sal was a nonentity when he was alive. He didn’t count, not to Leland. And he would be dead anyway in a couple of months. What does it matter?’

  Hardy sat back in his chair, ran a hand through his hair – shades of Dean Powell.

  ‘Tell him,’ Graham said. ‘See what he does.’

  ‘Tell who?’

  ‘Leland. Tell him you’re going to be looking into George’s alibi. See if he cuts off the money or, even better, offers you more if you don’t. Then at least we’ll know.’

  ‘We won’t know about George.’

  ‘But we’ll know for sure why Leland’s in. This is money, after all, thicker than blood. Georgie’s the heir apparent to the bank. If he killed Sal – hell, any scandal… good-bye line of succession.’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ Hardy said. He dug his thumbs into his eyes, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. He suddenly wondered if he wouldn’t be wise to plead some kind of personal crisis -toothache, migraine, chest pains – and ask Salter for a one-day continuance.

  But this was only day two of the marathon that was the trial proper. It was unimaginable, but he knew he’d be more fatigued than this before it was over. If he was going to beg a day off – highly frowned upon – it should at least be when the danger of dropping dead from exhaustion was a real possibility.

  But he couldn’t give in to any of this – it was the devil. ‘I might as well tell him we’re looking at Debra too.’

  ‘My sister?’

  ‘Debra’s a big reason you’re here.’

  Graham shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Believe it,’ Hardy said. ‘I was reading Sarah’s reports this morning getting ready for her testimony. First phone call she made on the case was to Debra.’

  ‘And what did Debra say?’

  ‘She told Sarah you were probably lying. You couldn’t be trusted. She was the one who brought up the baseball cards, before anybody even knew about the money. She got Sarah looking at you, Graham. That’s what started it.’

  ‘She’s so stupid,’ he said flatly.

  ‘She also works at a vet’s, right? She gives shots to animals? My guts tell me a lethal injection is more a woman’s way to kill than a man’s. Debra needs the money more than anybody else.’

  Graham had his head in his hands. ‘No no no. That’s not it. It’s nothing like that.’

  ‘What’s it like, then? You tell me.’

  Sitting back, crossing his arms, Graham came back to Hardy, his voice low. ‘Deb and I were close until I was out of law school. She didn’t buy into the Taylor magic the way Mom and Georgie did, so we were on the same team. Then she married Brendan.

  ‘So two years after she’s married I’m at this nightclub and I look over and here’s Brendan flossing the tonsils of some babe who is not Debra. So I go over a little closer, make sure. Yep, it’s Brendan. He’s cheating on my sister.

  ‘So what do I do, the good brother? First I kick Brendan’s ass, then I go tell her.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘So she’s got two options, right? She
either believes me and confronts Brendan, or she wimps out and tells herself some other story, like her brother’s lying to her instead of her husband.’

  ‘But why would you lie to her?’

  ‘I never liked Brendan. I didn’t think he was good enough for her, which, P.S., he isn’t. I’m trying to ruin her marriage.’ He spread his palms. ‘So anyway Brendan got home before I went to tell her and made up his own story first. He told her I’d been drunk and just teed off on him for no reason. So she blew up at me for beating up the son of a bitch, threw me out of her house, called me a liar. I wasn’t happy in my life and couldn’t stand it that she was.’

  ‘So that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it. I’m a liar. Brendan’s a good husband who loves her. End of story.’

  Promptly at nine-thirty Salter pointed again at Soma, and he rose at his table. ‘The People call Sergeant Philip Parini.’

  David Freeman still hadn’t made his appearance.

  This was the first Hardy had seen of the Crime Scene Investigations specialist who’d drawn the Russo case, although he’d read his reports. The man himself was slight of build and precise of movement. His tailor had done a very good job on the dark blue suit. Parini parted his wispy crown of black hair in the middle of his head. A ramrod in the witness box, he rested his folded hands on the wooden railing in front of him.

  From the middle of the courtroom Soma was ready once again to try to establish that a murder had taken place. ‘Sergeant Parini, was your unit the first to arrive at the scene – Sal Russo’s apartment at the Lions Arms?’

  ‘Oh, no, not at all. Judge Giotti was there. We also had paramedics, a couple of uniformed officers who had secured the scene, and inspectors Lanier and Evans.’

  ‘And can you tell the jury what you found there?’

  Parini cleared his throat, but there was no sense that it was out of nerves. He wanted to be clearly understood, that was all. ‘First, I double-checked with the officers that nothing had been disturbed. The paramedics had arrived a few minutes after the officers and had been apprised of the DNR situation. The victim was clearly deceased. The lead EMT told me that the body had already cooled perceptibly by the time they arrived.’ This was hearsay, but Hardy didn’t object; it wasn’t the issue.

  ‘And would you describe the body, then, as you found it?’

  Parini ran his pro-forma description, which he then verified against the photograph that was People’s One.

  As this was going on, Freeman pushed open the swinging section of the bar rail, patted Hardy on the shoulder, and sat down at the defense table, on the other side of Graham. Hardy shot him a questioning look and Freeman mouthed, ‘Later.’

  Soma, in the center of the courtroom, didn’t even notice the minor interruption. He was back at the witness. ‘So, Sergeant Parini, based on your training and experience, did the position of Sal Russo’s body look like a suicide to you?’

  ‘Objection.’ Hardy remained seated. ‘Speculation.’

  From his bench Salter was a bit of a ramrod himself. ‘No, this is informed opinion, Mr Hardy. Your objection is overruled. Sergeant Parini, you may answer the question.’

  Parini nodded. The drill of the witness stand had its own rhythm, and the sergeant was familiar with it. He waited while the court reporter reread Soma’s question and then picked it right up. ‘Yes, my initial impression, from the body – not just that it was on the floor. Its position was unnatural.’

  ‘Unnatural how?’

  ‘It seemed to have been dropped there.’

  Soma did some light pantomime, sharing the import of this fact with the jury. ‘Did you find anything else, Sergeant, that led you to conclude that this was a homicide?’

  ‘Yes, I did. There was a whiskey bottle – Old Crow bourbon – on its side on the floor under the table. Its cap wasn’t on tight and quite a bit of the whiskey had seeped out onto the floor.’

  ‘And what was the significance of that, in your opinion?’

  Hardy thought he could object, but he’d be overruled again. In the view of the criminal courts Crime Scene Investigations inspectors – so long as their training and experience was ritually invoked – had nearly the authority of expert witnesses. They were allowed a wide latitude in what would otherwise be speculation.

  So Hardy kept quiet and listened to the words, all the more damning because he thought the theory they supported was what had, in fact, happened.

  It just hadn’t happened with Graham.

  Parini went ahead with the confidence of someone who’d thought it all through carefully. ‘I think the most reasonable explanation was that it was either knocked over in a struggle or perhaps kicked over in an assailant’s haste to get out of the apartment. It was still dripping slowly when I got there.’

  ‘Did you find the syringe, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes. It was right there on the top of the coffee table, capped, along with an empty vial.’

  ‘In other words, the needle was not in the victim’s arm, was it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what did you do with this syringe and vial?’

  ‘I bagged it and sent it to the lab for analysis, fingerprinting, and so on.’

  ‘And can you tell us, Sergeant, what the lab found?’

  ‘That the vial had contained morphine, and that there were fingerprints on both it and the syringe.’

  ‘And did you identify these fingerprints?’

  ‘Yes, we did. They belong to the defendant, Graham Russo.’

  Parini stayed on the stand for the better part of two hours. He described the chair on the floor in the kitchen, the scratches on the cabinetry, the safe, Graham’s fingerprints all over the place, even on the DNR tube. Soma entered the vial, the syringe, the bottle of Old Crow, the tube and sticker, into evidence. It all took time, and Salter called a halt for lunch before Hardy could begin his cross-examination.

  Hardy gathered his papers, asked Graham what they wanted to order for lunch. Freeman was uncharacteristically silent, brooding, leading the way for the three of them back to their holding cell behind the courtroom. When they got there, Freeman waited and let them both pass, then told Hardy that maybe he ought to sit down.

  Graham took off his coat and was twisting his body back and forth, exercising. Hardy cricked his own back. ‘I’ve been sitting all morning, David. What’s up?’

  Freeman shrugged. It had to come out anyway, and if Hardy wanted to stand, so be it. ‘I got a call at the office. One of the associates in crisis.’ He paused. ‘Michelle, as a matter of fact.’

  Hardy made a face. Some kind of blow-up with Tryptech had been bound to happen sooner or later, they’d been in wait-and-delay mode for so long, some judge had probably decided enough was enough and set a hearing date in the next couple of weeks. But then another thought occurred. ‘Why didn’t she call me?’

  Freeman blew out a breath. ‘Well, she feels a little awkward.’ Graham stopped his calisthenics, listening. Something in Freeman’s tone…

  ‘You know Ovangevale Networks?’

  This was like asking Hardy if he’d heard of Disneyland. Ovangevale had come from nowhere and grown like ragweed in the last five years with its internet applications. They were the new kids on the block and a powerhouse in the industry.

  Hardy swore. ‘They stole her, didn’t they?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  Graham looked over at Hardy. ‘I love the way Yoda strings it out, don’t you? You want to go out for the sandwiches, David, let us have a guessing game till you get back?’

  ‘What?’ Hardy asked simply.

  Freeman rolled his eyes. ‘They’re buying Tryptech,’ he said.

  ‘No, they’re not. That’s impossible.’ Hardy flatly didn’t believe it. ‘Not with this lawsuit hanging, they’d-’

  ‘Their own lawyers did some back-door contingency deal. They got the Port of Oakland to go along if Tryptech would settle for twelve five.’

  ‘Twelve five!’ Hardy’s voice echoed in
the tiny space. ‘We can get close to thirty and they’re-’

  Freeman held up his hand. ‘It’s an albatross, Diz. They don’t care about the short-term loss, they just want it out of the way. Get on to new business, move ahead.’

  ‘So how long has Tryptech known about this?’ He whirled with nowhere to go. ‘I’ve got to call Michelle. Why didn’t she call me?’

  Although he knew at least one reason why: he hadn’t been there for her over these last months.

  ‘Well, that’s the other thing,’ Freeman said. He took in a breath. ‘The tender offer’s at fifteen a share. She’d been getting paid now for four months in discounted shares, as you knew.’

  ‘Yeah, I knew.’ Hardy’s head was going light. He’d turned down the same offer, but Michelle didn’t have a family to support. She could afford to take the risk. He found himself sitting down finally on the concrete bench.

  Freeman was going on. ‘One and a half,’ he said.

  ‘One and a half what?’

  ‘The discounted share price. The original talk was two, you remember, but it finally went out at one and a half. Michelle’s got over forty thousand shares.’

  Hardy was still trying to make sense of this. Sluggishly, his brain tried to compute the numbers, but the zeroes slowed him up and Graham had him by several seconds. ‘That’s six hundred thousand dollars,’ he said.

  Never looking more like Yoda, the infinitely kind, infinitely wise, infinitely sad Freeman met Hardy’s eyes. ‘She feels really bad about this, Diz. She wanted me to break it to you.’

  A sense of unreality hung over the afternoon. One part of Hardy realized that of course he was standing in the middle of the courtroom in Department 27, asking Parini questions. Most of him, though, felt as if it were floating somewhere in the ozone, disembodied, the precious silver astral cord snapped forever.

  Six hundred thousand dollars for four months’ work!

  ‘Sergeant, does the fact that you found Graham Russo’s fingerprints on many surfaces in the room mean that he had been there on that day?’