The clerk shook the box. ‘It’s not fragile, is it? Sounds like keys or something.’
‘That’s what it is,’ Hardy said. ‘Somebody lost some keys.’
* * * * *
He read about it on the day his son, Vincent, was born. He was still in St. Mary’s hospital, on the top of the world. He had spent the night coaching Frannie, breathing and yelling and pushing with her until nearly dawn when the head had come through and then, five minutes later, the doctor told them they had a boy.
Frannie had pulled Hardy into the bed with her and the doctor lay the baby between them. The two of them looked in wonder at the life they’d produced. Vincent cuddled into both of them.
That afternoon Uncle Moses brought Rebecca by. He also brought the day’s newspaper. After Moses had gone, Frannie had gone to sleep with Rebecca on the bed. Hardy started reading the Chronicle. On page 3, Jeff Elliot had written a brief story outlining the stabbing death of Celine Nash, ‘the daughter of the late financier Owen Nash,’ at a rough trade hotel in the Tenderloin District. There were no suspects yet in connection with the slaying and it was presumed that the victim, who had a past history of occasional prostitution, had simply gotten unlucky with a John.
Hardy closed the paper. Out the window of the hospital room, the day was fading into an overcast dusk.
A while later, they brought Vincent in for feeding. Hardy gave Frannie a distracted smile, then looked back out at the falling night.
‘Are you all right?’ Frannie was nursing the baby, studying him. ‘What is it?’
Hardy shook himself away from his thoughts. He got up from his chair and came over to her bed. Lifting the sleeping Beck onto him, squeezing in next to Frannie, he said, ‘Nothing. Just the world out there, I guess.’
‘You know what,’ she said. ‘That’s not the world. The world is on this bed right now.’
Frannie laced her fingers in his hand. Hardy felt his daughter stir against him and his son made some contented sounds. He tried to blink the room back into focus, but it didn’t work, so he brought his hand up to his eyes.
THE END
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Hardy 03 - Hard Evidence Page 54
