The Mercy Rule

by John Lescroart

  Sit in the chair in his living room in the dark. And still, with everything he’d suffered, he’d been lucky. The leg wound had passed cleanly through his calf muscle. His doctor assured him that he’d be able to jog his four-mile loop again within six months, although his long-jump career was probably effectively over.

  Concentration, although improving, was still a problem. He would be sitting with Frannie or the kids and suddenly go blank, seeing the gun leveled at him, the perfect black little o.

  He saw it now, at nearly noon on a Tuesday in the middle of October, and he jerked his head up. He was in the Solarium trying to follow an article in one of the law journals about some new ‘natural death’ hospice care facilities that were apparently operating within the law in Oregon and Montana and maybe several other states. He was making notes on arguments that might help his doctor clients here in San Francisco, although it was beginning to look as though Dean Powell was going to accept very reasonable nolo pleas – fines and light community service, which Hardy’s clients were doing anyway – for most of them.

  Hardy had checked with the licensing board and already had a promise that the doctors would be allowed to continue to practice. Freeman had told him that under the circumstances, Hardy might even do better. ‘Hell,’ he’d said, ‘you could probably get a letter of apology.’

  But neither Hardy nor his doctors, some of whom had recently discovered that political grandstanding had consequences in the real world, were willing to push their luck.

  Hardy liked to think that the trial of Graham Russo had made the attorney general rethink his hard-line position on assisted suicide. If nothing else, Powell had come to realize that his earlier push for prosecution of these doctors was politically unpopular. And if it wasn’t going to win votes, the AG wasn’t interested in it.

  Hardy was sitting up straight with his back against his chair. He told himself that the bandages around his chest were good for his posture. Any slouching was intolerable. There was a comforting and familiar buzz in the lobby behind him – associates coming and going, phones ringing. He looked out through the glass into the enclosed garden area where some pigeons were enjoying the sunshine.

  Hardy was going to be all right, except that now his chest was an agony of itching from where they’d shaved him, where the last scabs were falling away. He tensed his calf and felt the familiar stab of pain. It, too, was healing, he supposed, but it wasn’t done yet. He went back to his article.

  David Freeman, brown bag in hand, knocked at the Solarium lintel, walked right in, and began unpacking. He pulled out a couple of wrapped sandwiches, a large bottle of Pellegrino water, little plastic glasses, and a jar of marinated artichoke hearts. ‘I took the liberty,’ he said, unwrapping the white butcher paper. ‘Mortadella, sourdough, provolone. Brain food.’

  Hardy pushed his journal to the side. ‘I thought that was fish.’

  ‘Fish too,’ Freeman said. He had finished unwrapping the sandwich, spreading the paper out under it, making it neat. Pushing it over in front of Hardy, he poured some Pellegrino into one of the glasses and placed it in front of him too. This kind of solicitude from Freeman was unusual, and Hardy glanced over at him. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘What what?’

  ‘Don’t give me that, David.’

  Freeman left his own sandwich unmolested, still wrapped in front of him. He sat back. ‘They cut a deal with the judge’s wife. Pratt accepted a plea.’

  Hardy threw a disbelieving glance at the old man. ‘What do you mean, she accepted a plea? What plea?’

  ‘Manslaughter on Sal Russo, three years. Assault with a deadly weapon on you, three years concurrent, no additional time for the gun.’

  For a second the room tried to come up at Hardy.

  ‘Diz?’

  ‘Assault with a deadly weapon? It was attempted murder, David, she tried to kill me. She did kill Sal Russo. And what do you mean no additional time for the gun?’

  Freeman let out a long breath, cracked a knuckle. ‘It seems Mrs Giotti’s been under a lot of stress lately, imagining that Russo was a threat to her husband’s career and that you somehow were part of this giant conspiracy.’

  ‘Imagining? She told me her husband and Russo had started a fire that killed a fireman. She told me she’d killed Russo to shut him up. She told me she was going to kill me so I couldn’t talk about it.’

  Nodding, Freeman went along with him. ‘Yes, indeed, my son. Quite mad, wasn’t she, imagining all these terrible things about her husband and some fire?’

  ‘But Giotti-’ Hardy stopped himself. He couldn’t say, and that realization choked him.

  ‘What? The judge denies everything and her doctors confirm that she’s imagining it, so we all know it never happened. Except, of course, for some nasty-minded columnists.’ Freeman eyed Hardy shrewdly. ‘Unless someone knew something admissible that could actually pin the arson on Giotti. You wouldn’t know anybody like that, would you, Diz?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought not. If you did, I’m sure at the very least you’d want to tell your old pal David?’

  But Hardy knew he could never tell Freeman or anybody else what Giotti had told him under the seal of the attorney-client privilege. It had been the worst five dollars he’d ever earned. ‘I don’t know anything, David.’

  The old man nodded. ‘I believe you. But you know, with Pratt not exactly being in love with you to begin with, the fact that you couldn’t provide any more information on Giotti didn’t make her want to throw the book at his wife. After all, the judge still has some influence. You cross him at your peril. Pratt knows that. You’re lucky she didn’t charge you for trying to kill her.’

  ‘Maybe the fact that it was her gun, that she brought…’ Hardy made a face. ‘Never mind that. What about Powell? Won’t he do anything?’

  Freeman shrugged. ‘Why would he? And anyway he can’t. Double jeopardy’s still a no-no. Both crimes – you and Sal – they both happened in Pratt’s jurisdiction and she’s charged and prosecuted them. End of story.’

  Fingertips to his temples, Hardy was trying to make his headache go away. ‘So what’s she going to serve, Giotti’s wife?’

  Freeman shook his head in commiseration. ‘You haven’t heard the best part. The judge has just stayed her delivery to the prison system, postponed it.’

  ‘I know what stayed means. But how, for how long?’

  ‘Indefinitely. She’s going to do her time in the county jail, close to home.’

  Hardy finally exploded. ‘Jesus Christ, David! This wasn’t some shoplifting spree! No judge could do that!’

  ‘Well, this one must know Giotti, and he just did, and since Pratt thinks it’s a swell idea, no one’s going to object.’

  ‘Well, I damn well object.’

  ‘But you, my son, are the proverbial person that nobody asked. I hate to mention it, Diz, but you’ve made a few enemies. You’re not even the player to be named later.’

  Hardy took it stoically. It wasn’t too great a shock. But he was curious about Pat Giotti’s sentence. ‘So how much time you really think she’ll do?’

  ‘A couple of years plus or minus…’ Freeman trailed off. ‘She’s going to be a model prisoner, get an early release.’

  ‘So what about all this?’ Hardy vaguely indicated himself. ‘What did I do this for?’

  Freeman took a huge bite of his sandwich and chewed awhile thoughtfully. He drank some Pellegrino water. ‘You won your case. Your client’s free. You got yourself a passel of new work.’

  This wasn’t much satisfaction. Hardy had to ask. ‘So I’m shot twice and almost killed and the person who did this gets a few months in the country club? That’s it? What happened to justice here?’

  Freeman nodded, took another sip of water, shrugged. ‘Justice? I think it went on vacation.’

  Stagnola’s was packed with the Thursday lunch crowd.

  October was high season for tourists in San Francisco and Fisherman’s Wharf swa
rmed with them, getting off the ferries, walking up from Pier 39, down from Ghirardelli Square.

  Mario Giotti had been overwhelmed with his wife’s legal troubles over the past weeks. It had shocked and dismayed him to learn that she had killed Sal, but certainly once it became clear that she had, the next order of business was damage control. Which, given his influence and connections, hadn’t proved too difficult.

  The community, his brethren, had closed ranks around him, as he knew they would. Pat – and thank God she was still alive – had even come to agree with his decision about their story. She’d been under too much stress with the accusations Sal had been making against her husband and had cracked under the pressure.

  There had been a fire at the Grotto, certainly, but nothing like a cover-up, nothing that could come back to haunt the judge and mar his reputation. In fact, if anything, the judge’s anonymous contributions over the years to the family of Randall Palmieri were signs of his generosity and beneficence.

  Throughout his attorneys’ negotiations with Sharron Pratt, Giotti had feared that Dismas Hardy would step up and ruin everything, but evidently he’d put the fear of God into the man. Should he take it upon himself to abuse the attorney-client privilege, the state bar would rise in righteous indignation and lift his license to practice law. Giotti never considered that Hardy was simply a man of honor – that he had entered into a contract and would keep his word.

  Giotti did wonder if Hardy had leaked something of their privileged discussion to the columnist Jeff Elliot, but he had no way to prove it, and no way to accuse Hardy of anything without implicating himself. Elliot had come pretty close to what had happened, but hadn’t gotten it exactly right, and that in turn made Giotti think that Hardy had kept it close to the vest after all.

  The reporter had dug and gotten lucky, but didn’t have all the pieces. So the rumors had flown for a few days, but they died down. He hadn’t even deigned to issue any kind of formal denial.

  Everything was going to work out fine. This was his city; he belonged here. People loved him and always would.

  And now here was his old friend Mauritio at the front door, greeting patrons as they filed in. Because of all the troubles, then having to decide some cases on the circuit in Idaho and then Hawaii, Giotti hadn’t been to his old psychic home, back to his roots, in nearly a month.

  Now he arrived at the door.

  ‘Hey, Mauritio!’ His hale and voluble welcome.

  His old friend – his old employee – drew himself up. The smile fled from his face. ‘Good afternoon, Your Honor,’ he said formally.

  Giotti cocked his head to one side – a question. He still wore his smile. ‘Mauritio. What’s the matter? You look like you seen a ghost.’

  ‘Maybe I do, Your Honor.’

  Giotti knew it felt wrong, but tried to make a joke of it. ‘Well, invite him in. He can sit at my table with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, your table?’

  ‘Hey, my table.’ He started to push his way by, but Mauritio stepped in front of him.

  ‘You got a reservation, Your Honor? We got a packed house in here today.’

  Giotti raised his voice. ‘What do you mean, you got a packed house? I’m talking my table, what do you…?’

  He noticed that people had started to gather behind them, to notice. He couldn’t have that. He calmed himself. ‘No. I don’t have a reservation.’

  Mauritio clucked. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, Your Honor, maybe some other day. Maybe you call first, couple of hours ought to hold one. Meanwhile, you might try next door, but they’re pretty crowded too. In fact, Judge, maybe you gonna have trouble finding fish anywhere on the Wharf. Since Sal Russo died, maybe you gonna have trouble finding good fish anywhere around here.’

  Stiffly, Giotti stood a moment. Then he nodded and turned away.

  Behind him he heard Mauritio barking to a knot of tourists. ‘Hey, how you folks doin’? Come on in, come on in. We’re saving a table just for you.‘

  The wind was high off the ocean, rushing up the cliffs and inland across the peninsula, bending the cypresses nearly to the ground. A chill autumn sun was sinking into the water out at the horizon, and a young couple stood before a grave site at the ridge of the Colma cemetery. The man wore a baseball uniform.

  Graham had played in the season’s last tournament down in Santa Clara during the day. The Hornets had gotten beaten on their third game, so Graham was finished early. He and Sarah had decided to drive over to the coastal town of Santa Cruz and have a late lunch, then up the coast on Highway One. And then, suddenly in Colma, they’d made the turn into here.

  Graham had distributed the proceeds from the sale of the baseball cards and the fifty thousand dollars to Jeanne Walsh and her sister in Eureka, and in spite of the reactions of his brother and sister, felt he’d discharged a debt of honor. He’d gotten a letter from Leland’s lawyer on behalf of the other heirs telling him he couldn’t give away their inheritance and that the Singleterry offspring had no legal claim. Graham had told them to go ahead and sue him and distributed the money in cash anyway.

  It was perhaps something neither Debra nor George would understand, but that was going to be their problem and their burden. Afterward, to her credit, Debra had called to tell him it was okay – she wasn’t going to be part of any lawsuit George might bring. Graham saw hope here.

  He had no similar illusions about his brother or his mother. George and Helen would live and die in Leland’s camp at a level of physical comfort and social constriction. That was their choice.

  It wasn’t his. He went to one knee and smoothed at the grass over where his father’s remains were buried. He’d taken his spikes up with him, wearing them over his shoulders with the laces tying them together. Now, as though they were a holy necklace, he removed them, over his head, and placed them by the headstone on the grass.

  ‘Don’t say maňana if you don’t mean it,’ Sarah said softly. She was quoting from an old Jimmy Buffett song, one of the cuts on a CD they’d been playing ever since the verdict: ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise,’ ‘Cowboy in the Jungle.’ Themes of freedom and rebellion, rum and sunshine. After his time in jail, the tunes seemed to help Graham with normalcy. He’d get there.

  But hanging up the spikes was a different symbol, a different type of commitment. He stood looking down for a last moment. ‘I mean it,’ he said.

  Hand in hand Sarah and Graham turned to walk down the hill. Sarah sighed. ‘There’s one thing I still don’t understand, even after all of this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All the paper, the notes, the names.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, I must have made a hundred calls, maybe more, following up, checking addresses, trying to break the code. I reached maybe half a dozen people who remembered your father at all. And none of them were involved in fishing or baseball or gambling or anything else that related to anything. I just don’t get it. All those names Sal wrote down, all those numbers.’

  They’d gotten back down to the parking lot, and Graham’s steps slowed, then came to a stop. Sarah waited.

  ‘It was everybody he ever knew. He didn’t want to forget.’ The wind gusted, stinging his eyes. ‘He thought if he wrote it all down…’ He stood motionless, overcome with emotion.

  Sarah took a tentative step and put her arms up around him.

  Sal sat at the kitchen table, writing furiously in the margins of the newspaper in front of him. One of the obituaries was Earl Willis, and the name had started a trail of connection. Sal had already been to see Finer and he knew what was coming. He wasn’t telling anybody what he knew. He wasn’t going to have anybody pity him, no, sir.

  The kid who’d sat next to him in third grade was named Earl Willis. Was he the guy that had just died? A non-Catholic. Earl Willis, that was his name.

  Sal remembered. Now who sat behind Earl? He had to remember, what was her name? Dorothy something, that was it. Blake. Dorothy Blake.

  Closing his eyes,
he tried to envision his old classroom – the map of the world tacked above the blackboard. Miss Gray! That was it. His teacher, Miss Gray. Now, how about his other teachers? He wasn’t going to forget those names. He was going to have them right here, written down, in case anybody asked, in case he forgot.

  And his assistant coach on Graham’s Little League team – the Jaguars? Yep, Jaguars. Sal remembered the guy: smoked like a chimney, always had a cigarette tucked in his ear, a pack in the arm of his T-shirt. What was that name? He knew it. He knew he knew it, it just wasn’t coming, but he had that pad of paper by his bed in case it came to him tonight. He’d write it down then. No one would know that he was forgetting. He’d have it all right here.

  But wait. What about the other kids on Graham’s team? He remembered the shortstop, Kenny Frazier, good glove no hit.

  He was out of newspaper margin – Miss Gray, the other teachers, the Jaguars. But, aha! – here was a brown bag from the grocery store. He pulled it over, writing fast. His and Helen’s first phone number – the house on Taraval. He had to get that down.

  But then the rest…

  The rest of everything.

  The afternoon sun poured in over him and he scribbled until the light was gone, thinking that if he wrote it all down -everybody and everything from the beginning – maybe he would be able to retrieve it all when he needed it. Maybe his life wouldn’t all go away.

  Maybe he would live forever.

  John Lescroart

  JOHN LESCROART, the New York Times best-selling author of such novels as The Mercy Rule, The 13th Juror, Nothing but the Truth, and The Hearing, lives with his family in northern California.

  ***

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