A Plague of Secrets

by John Lescroart

  Finally, with an intake of breath, she met his eyes. “I suppose I wasn’t exactly the same person then as I am now.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Hardy said. “That was what? About ten years ago?”

  “Close enough.”

  “So you’re saying that you and Dylan wouldn’t have been friends if you met him now?”

  She shook her head. “Not the same type of friends, certainly.”

  “And what type was that?”

  “Well,” she said, “we were a little wild, I guess. This crowd of us who just kind of found each other and got into doing stuff together, partying. Drinking, pranks, you know.”

  Hardy had an idea of what she was talking about. “Dope?”

  “Mostly just weed,” she said, “but, yeah. Some cocaine, too, once in a while, when we could get it.” She picked up her wineglass and drank half of it down. “Hell, why am I sugarcoating this to you, Mr. Hardy?”

  “Dismas, please.”

  “All right. Dismas. We would try anything we could get our hands on. Weed, coke, Ecstasy, alcohol, mushroom, pills—uppers or downers or whatever. It was funny,” she went on, “it wasn’t like we were all stoned all the time. I mean, we had classes and most of us generally did okay in them, I think, but then we’d get together on weekends and just kind of blow it all out. It was really stupid.”

  “And you’re afraid, now that the police have this dope connection to Dylan, that somehow all this you did way back then is going to come back and bite you?”

  Her expression of gratitude and relief at his understanding made Hardy realize how seriously she was taking all of this. “I really didn’t want to know about him selling dope through the shop, but if they find out about the way we were in college, they’re not going to believe me, no matter what I say. I don’t know if I’d believe me.”

  “Belief isn’t the point,” Hardy said. “Is there anything on your books from the shop that might make it look like you were somehow profiting from his dope business?”

  “No. There couldn’t be. I wasn’t.”

  Hardy sat back, consciously pausing. He had no intention of getting answers from his new client relating to the facts of her guilt or innocence, but that’s where this discussion seemed to be leading them. He put on what he hoped would be a neutral expression. “Well, as I said earlier, given your connection to Harlen and the mayor, Bracco isn’t going to be looking to open a can of worms investigating you.” And then, in spite of himself, in an effort to give her a touch of comfort, he broke his own lawyer’s rule and added, “Not unless he’s got something tying you to Dylan’s murder.”

  She took this as a question and, evading it, swallowed, tried a smile, met his eyes, and quickly looked down.

  Hardy, who’d been about to stand up and walk her out with a figurative pat on the head, checked himself and settled back into his chair. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not really. But I’m just afraid it might look . . . I’d so really rather not talk to the police again. It’s Joel too.”

  “Your husband?”

  She bobbed her head. “He didn’t know me back then. I met him after that time was over. I haven’t been able to make myself tell him about too much of it. He thinks . . . well, he’d never think that I could have been the way I was. I don’t think he’d have an easy time accepting it. We’re the Townshends, after all. He’s got investors who count on that. So there’s a certain expected”—she sighed—“behavior. He’s always wanted me to sell the shop, you know.”

  “Why was that?”

  “It just wasn’t the kind of business he felt comfortable with. I think the bottom line was that he really just didn’t like Dylan, didn’t trust him, didn’t understand why I kept him on and wouldn’t let go of the place.”

  “Why wouldn’t you? If you didn’t need the money, and I presume you didn’t.”

  “No. It wasn’t the money.” She hesitated, then finally came out with it. “But the shop was my own. It made me feel like I was contributing. I just couldn’t ever convince myself that there was a good enough reason to give it up.” She let out a breath of pent-up frustration. “Anyway, Harlen told me you could be there with me if the police want to talk to me again, just to make sure I don’t say something wrong.”

  “I could do that,” Hardy said, “and of course I will do that.” He leaned forward in his chair and leveled his gaze at her. “But you and I both know you don’t need a lawyer to keep the police from asking you about the hijinks of you and your friends in college. And practically speaking, no one’s really going to think you were skimming from Dylan’s dope business. If anything, people will feel sorry for you that he was abusing your confidence the way he was.”

  “So you’re asking why I told Harlen I needed a lawyer.”

  “Never that,” Hardy said with a small smile. “Everybody needs a lawyer all the time. That’s my motto. But in this case, from what you’ve told me, maybe not so much.”

  “You don’t think I’m telling you the truth,” she said.

  “It’s not what you’ve said. Maybe it’s what you haven’t.” He pointed down at her hands and added gently, “That’s a fragile glass. If you squeeze it any harder, I’ve got to warn you, it’s going to break.”

  For a long moment, her eyes glazed over and she sat utterly still. Finally, a small tremor passed through her body, she blinked, and a tear spilled onto her cheek. “Dylan called me the night before and said he had to see me first thing the next morning. That it was an emergency. So I went down there.”

  “You mean Saturday morning?”

  “Yes.” She closed both eyes, trying to regain her composure. “I went into the alley and saw him. He was already dead.” Meeting Hardy’s eyes, she went on in a rush. “I didn’t know what I should do, other than I knew I didn’t want to be there. I got back in the car and left. I mean, there was nothing I could do for Dylan. That was obvious. But then, when the police came to question me at my house, I told them I’d been at Mass, which is where I did go afterward, except I was very late, after communion, and somebody might remember that. And then I thought, what if somebody had seen me and they described me or my car to the police?”

  Hardy let her sit with her words for a moment. Then, “What was the emergency?”

  “He didn’t say. Just that he had to see me.”

  “In person?”

  “I know. I didn’t know what to do with that—it didn’t seem to make much sense—but it was the first time he’d ever called with a message like that, and I thought I ought to go.”

  Hardy placed his wineglass onto the small table in front of him. Suddenly things had turned serious. She had lied to the police about her alibi for the time of a murder. Her reason for wanting him to represent her in the event of another interrogation was now not only rational but powerful. Given a lack of other quality suspects, that fact alone might be enough to give her prominence in their investigation.

  Whether or not she was politically connected.

  “Plus,” she went on.

  He waited.

  “If they check his phone records—and I guess they do that, don’t they?—they’re going to find out he called me, and they’ll want to know about that, won’t they?”

  Hardy shrugged. “He managed your store. That wouldn’t necessarily be incriminating.” He sat back again. “How about this? When Bracco calls again, if he does, let me know right away and we’ll see what he wants to talk about and then decide if we’d be well served by telling him you were there. If not, we won’t. How’s that sound?”

  She attempted a shaky smile. “A little scary, really. I just want this to go away. Not have Joel and the kids have to find out the way I was.”

  “I don’t know,” Hardy said, finally getting up, taking one of his business cards out of his wallet, and handing it to her. “People surprise you. They might all understand and then you’d never have to worry about it again. And, you know,” he added, “we were all in college and not all of
us were saints. Maybe not even Joel.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “You don’t know him.” She’d followed him up and now crossed over to his desk, taking her own wallet from her purse. “I’m afraid Harlen didn’t mention what this would cost. Do you bill me or do I pay as I go?”

  “Whatever you’d prefer,” Hardy said, willing in this case to break one of the major rules of defense law, which was get your money up front. But Maya was Harlen’s sister and he thought a little professional courtesy wouldn’t be out of order. Going to the file drawer behind his desk, he withdrew his standard contract and handed it over to her.

  She scanned it quickly. “How does three thousand sound as a retainer?” she asked, opening her checkbook.

  “That’ll probably get you a refund when this is over,” he said.

  She handed him the check, and then they were standing facing each other by the office door. “So it’s okay. I can call you?” she asked.

  “Anytime, day or night.” He pointed at the card. “All the numbers in the world where I can be reached.”

  The gratitude flooded back into her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

  And he opened the door to let her out.

  About twenty minutes later Hardy picked up the phone on his desk.

  “Yo.”

  “Yo yourself.” The voice of his partner Wes Farrell. “What are you doing?”

  “When?”

  “Right now.”

  “Many things all at once,” Hardy said. “Breathing, talking to you, figuring out our talented pool of associates’ utilization numbers for the third quarter. Why?”

  “Because I wondered if you might have a minute.”

  “Are you upstairs?” Wes worked alone on the third floor one level up, in an office that had once in a different world been Hardy’s. “You could always just come on down like you usually do.”

  “I could, but then I’d have to pass the Phyllis test and I don’t know if I’m up to it.” Hardy heard something in the voice. Wes was nearly always upbeat, but he wasn’t now. “If I’m really not interrupting you at something important, you want to come up for a minute?”

  “Sure,” Hardy said. “I’m on my way.” As he passed the reception area, Phyllis raised her eyebrows and attempted a smile that nevertheless seemed somehow accusatory. Hardy pointed upward. “Just going to see Wes,” he explained. “Firm business.”

  This was the password, he knew. Hardy was doing what she thought he ought to be doing, managing the firm. Phyllis graced him with an approving nod and swirled back to face her switchboard. Over the years Hardy had developed a faint and grudging affection for his receptionist/secretary, but as he mounted the stairway at the far end of the lobby, he wondered how sad he would actually be if she were, say, mercifully and swiftly executed by a large truck running a red light.

  Farrell’s door, festooned with left-wing bumper stickers, yawned open and Hardy knocked once before crossing the threshold. The office, such as it was, gave only the merest nod to the legal work Farrell supposedly did there. No desk, no files, just a couple of couches, a coffee table, some random easy chairs, a flat-screen TV on one side wall, a Nerf basketball hoop on another, a library table with more functional wooden chairs scattered roughly around it. One of the chairs was on its side at the moment.

  Gert, his dog, slept in a corner.

  In another corner by one of the windows Farrell did have a modern computer he never turned off, and he was sitting at that now, though facing away from it and toward him as Hardy came in. As usual when he wasn’t going to court, Wes wasn’t dressed much for success. Today he wore a pair of wrinkled tan Docker pants and wingtips that hadn’t been shined since Watergate. And of course he sported his usual T-shirt, which today took Hardy more than the usual quick glance to read: “Haikus can be easy./But sometimes they don’t make sense./Refrigerator.”

  Hardy had to break a smile, pointing to it and saying, “That might be one of the best.”

  Farrell looked down. “Yeah. I thought it’d get Sam laughing, but no.”

  “You guys okay?”

  The shoulders rose and fell. “We’ll probably get over it. I hope so.”

  “What?”

  “This stupid argument. Or maybe not so stupid if it might really break us up. Which I’m starting to think it’s got a chance.”

  “What about?”

  Farrell rolled his eyes. Sitting in his ergonomic chair, he slumped. His thick brownish-gray hair was unsecured and fell all around to the top of his shoulders. Hardy thought he looked about twenty years older than he was. “She thinks I don’t care enough about the homeless.”

  “What about the homeless?”

  “We shouldn’t tell ’em it’s cool to come here and then start making them go to shelters and stuff. We should respect them as individuals. Jesus. That’s how it started, anyway. Now it’s all she’s not sure she knows who I really am or if she still wants to be with me.”

  Normally, Hardy would have asked why she wanted to be with him in the first place, but this wasn’t the time. So he asked, “Because why, exactly?”

  “I think in the last fight, I used the word vagrant, or maybe bum. Or maybe both. I probably did both, knowing me when I’m arguing. Anyway, somehow I betrayed my terminal insensitivity to the plight of . . .” He gestured in little circles with his hand. “Et cetera, et cetera.” Farrell let out a long breath. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, Diz. And that’s not it, anyway. What I wanted to see you about.”

  Hardy pulled the fallen wooden chair upright and sat on it. “I’m listening, but I hope you’re not going to tell me you’re quitting, because Glitsky just told me he’s quitting and if you both quit on the same day, I’ll start to feel like all my friends are old, which would mean I’m old, and that would be depressing.”

  Farrell’s head came up. “Glitsky’s quitting?”

  “Maybe not,” Hardy said. “I might have talked him out of it. He probably didn’t even mean it. He’s having a bad time.”

  “Maybe we should start a club.”

  “You don’t want to be in his club. His kid’s in the hospital with a head injury.”

  “Shit. How bad?”

  “Bad enough, but alive at least. For now.” Hardy let out his own sigh, met his partner’s gaze. “So. What do you want to talk about?”

  Farrell came forward, elbows on his knees, his hands linked tightly in front. “There’s this coffee place out near my house,” he said. “Bay Beans West, maybe you read about it this weekend. The manager, this guy named Dylan Vogler, got himself shot on Saturday. Sam, in fact, discovered the body. Well, I just got a call on my cell from Debra Schiff, you know her?”

  “Sure.” Hardy nodded. “Homicide. Why’d she call you?”

  Farrell hung his head for a minute. “Because Vogler sold weed out of the shop, and he evidently kept a list of his regular clients on his computer at home.” He raised his tortured eyes. “It’s gonna get out, Diz. Hell, it’s probably already out. What I’m wondering is if you think it would be better for the good of the firm if I resigned.”

  9

  Schiff couldn’t let go of what she felt was Maya Townshend’s crucial slip of the tongue: “There’s no real reason to keep the place.” Although admittedly slim pickins, she felt it was worth pursuing. Bracco and she agreed, however, that they could do their fishing elsewhere first, before coming back if necessary and taking on Maya head-to-head.

  To this end, in the midafternoon, maybe ten other people in the shop, they were sitting up near the bakery products area of BBW with Eugenio Ruiz, who’d been one of the assistant managers under Vogler, and who’d opened the place this Tuesday morning and was currently functioning as the manager.

  Eugenio was in his early twenties, small, wiry, and highly strung. He wore his thick black hair in a ponytail and had a couple of days of dark beard growth covering the acne scars. Today he was wearing black slacks, sandals, an incongruous button-down pink shirt, and a vest that looke
d like it came from South America. A diamond sparkled in his right earlobe. Though not handsome—not with the prominent and crooked nose and the gold-crowned front tooth—he had a confidence and a straightforward warmth that Schiff thought gave him some appeal.

  She must unintentionally have been conveying that fact somehow, because even though she had at least ten years on him, he was definitely hitting on her. “She’s okay,” he was saying of his boss Maya Townshend, “nice enough, but not as pretty, say, as you.”

  Schiff did her best to ignore not just the comment but Bracco’s quick smirk. “But you haven’t really talked to her that often?” she asked.

  “No. The longest conversation I had with her ever, really, was yesterday when she asked me if I would take over the place for a while until she could get a new manager. I told her I wanted to be the first to formally apply, and she said she appreciated that, she’d keep it in mind.”

  “So she’s planning to keep the place open?” Bracco asked.

  “I hope so. I haven’t heard not. Why? Have you?”

  But Schiff the cop was there to ask questions, not answer them. “How would you characterize Mrs. Townshend’s relationship with Dylan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how did they act together? Like friends? Or more like boss and employee?”

  Eugenio scratched at the corner of his mouth, a smile playing around his lips. “Boss and employee, but maybe not the way you think.”

  “We don’t think any way,” Bracco said. “That’s why we’re asking you.”

  Schiff shot her partner an unappreciative glance and came back at the witness, softening the rebuke. “What are you trying to say, Eugenio?”

  “Well, just that if you didn’t know and you saw them together, you wouldn’t think she was the boss.”

  “You’d think he was?”

  “Most people, I think, yeah.” A quick shrug. “When I started here, the first time I see her come in, she’s back in the office, doing some books or something and it’s cooking out here—I mean, we got a line out the door and everybody’s in high gear. So she comes to the office door and calls for Dylan and he’s taking the orders and doing his schtick and he just waves her off, he doesn’t have time. Makes a joke about accountants when we’re the actual bean counters—get it, coffee beans . . .”