Hardy sat on a red crushed velvet settee drinking an old tawny port from a cut-crystal wineglass. “I figured we owed ourselves about four date nights, call it twelve hours minimum. The trial can live without me a day—this is primarily Freeman’s phase, anyway, remember.”
Frannie stood at the window, arms crossed, her hair up, taking in the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the back window of the California House, an old Victorian on Upper Divisadero Street that had been refurbished and reincarnated as a bed-and-breakfast. They were in the Gold Rush Suite, complete with stocked bookshelves, Jacuzzi, fireplace, port and sherry with crystal service and, of course, The View, which added eighty dollars to the room charge.
He had made the reservation from the Hall of Justice as soon as they had recessed for the day. Erin had told him it would be no problem to come by, get the kids, feed them their dinner. Hardy had the feeling that if Erin simply showed up with a plan there’d be less chance that Frannie would demur. A cab came to their house and picked her up at 6:15. And now here they were.
Hardy still wasn’t sure Frannie was altogether thrilled with the surprise. Her arms stayed crossed. Her face was set. He didn’t think it was anger—in spite of the distance she hadn’t been acting as though she were mad at him. Her jaw was tight, her eyes alert and thoughtful, inward looking—as though she were bearing up under some physical pain she didn’t want to burden him with.
His fear was that the pain was the result of some change, that she’d realized that she didn’t want him and their life together anymore. Her eyes came to him from across some chasm. A half-smile. “Hi.”
He realized he’d been holding his breath, watching her, literally afraid to breathe. If he didn’t breathe, maybe the moment would stop and he wouldn’t have to find out what the next one held. He put his port on the end table and let out his breath in a rush. “So how’s life, Frannie?”
“How do you think?”
“I think not good. I’ve had a stomachache for a month. Since you stopped smiling. I thought maybe you’d like to talk about it.”
She turned back to The View, her face in profile to him. He saw the muscle working in her jaw. He wanted to get up, go to her, but something—perhaps the knowledge that if she pushed him away now, didn’t let him gather her in and hold her, then they might not get it back, not ever—something rooted him to the chair.
The words came out mumbled and he told her he hadn’t heard what she’d said. They took a minute to come again.
She turned to face him directly and met his eyes. “Secrets.”
He digested the word, and as the most obvious interpretation hit him, his stomach churned. He felt his head go light, as though he were going to faint. “What secrets?” It was the only thing he could think of to say.
She stood in the same posture, facing him straighton, arms crossed. “Secrets are what you don’t tell.”
Hardy leaned forward in his chair. He lifted the glass of port next to him and took a drink, then put it back down. “Okay,” he said.
“It’s not just that,” she said.
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“That’s right. You don’t.”
Hardy brought his hand up to his forehead, squeezed at his temples. “Okay, Fran, but I’ve got to know.” His palms found their way together. Praying. “Is it another man? Can you tell me that?”
He saw her shoulders settle, her eyes close. All her body language said that some crisis had just passed. Her arms uncrossed, untangled, came to her sides. She moved toward him, kneeled in front of him.
“What are you talking about, another man? There’s no other man. There couldn’t be another man.” She had her hands on his face, her eyes into his, searching, outlining his features with her fingertips, her arms then around his neck, pulling him to her, against her. He felt himself shaking under her. It was all the emotion he so much tried to keep in check, to control.
That was why he’d married her. Because he trusted her enough to let her see him like this, see who he really was. She was part of him, the catalyst that let him be whole again.
She rocked him, his head in her hands, holding him, feeling the waves of emotion coming out of him, surfacing.
She held him as tightly as she could.
This was her man and he needed her. If he could do this, trust her with what he’d call his weakest self, she didn’t have to worry. She could lay herself out for him—her own doubts, her own failings, inadequacies. He wasn’t going to leave her for them. He wasn’t going to leave.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”
“I probably don’t, but I try.”
“You expect life to be perfect all the time and—”
“I don’t.”
She shushed him, a finger to his lips. It was full dark now, later, the bridge lit out the window, a candle by the bed.
“I didn’t want to let you down,” she said, “and I was just so damn sad. And it wasn’t you, it was me. It was my sadness. It was Eddie, my so-called youth, everything. I guess it just caught up to me.”
Hardy lay there, quiet.
“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want it to hurt you.”
“I think I know life’s not perfect, Frannie. God knows, I know that.”
“But you want ours to be, our home life, don’t you? Sometimes you even think it can be.”
“Don’t you? Don’t you think that’s something to shoot for?”
“I don’t know. I thought I did. And then this, this whole thing, feeling trapped, all of it . . . ” She shifted in the bed, moving her head from the pillow to the crook of Hardy’s shoulder, her leg over his middle.
“I didn’t try to trap you into this, Frannie. Into being married. I thought you were happy . . . ”
“It wasn’t you, Dismas. I can see now it wasn’t you. It was my life. All of a sudden, I don’t know what it was—it all just came back at me. And then I felt so much like I’d failed—I mean, I wasn’t happy and I should have been and whose fault is that?”
“I generally blame a consortium of Arab investors.”
“So do I, usually, but this time it didn’t work, and I couldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be fair with your trial coming up and all, and then I began to resent that . . . that I couldn’t tell you, and then I convinced myself that you wouldn’t care anyway, that this was just all stupid female stuff that isn’t very linear anyway and can’t be—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . what is that? Stupid female stuff? We didn’t invite any stupid females to this party.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know what you mean. And linear?” He turned up on his elbow, looking down at her. “I don’t know what you mean,” he repeated. “Really.”
Frannie closed her eyes for a breath. “I saw Jennifer.”
“I know you did.”
“No.” She shook her head. “More than once. I snuck out. I left the kids with Erin and went and saw her.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. Three or four.”
“At the jail?” He answered himself. “Of course at the jail.” Hardy sat all the way up, pulling the sheet around him. Frannie put a hand on his leg.
“The first time . . . I guess we connected. Then I didn’t think you’d approve, or I didn’t want to ask for your okay . . . ”
“Frannie . . . ”
“But then I talked myself into being mad that I felt like I had to clear it with you every time. That didn’t seem right, that I had to ask permission.”
“She’s my client, Frannie.” He was shaking his head, trying to fit this in somewhere.
“I know, I know. I should have talked to you, but it . . . it all seemed to fit in with the other stuff, being so depressed, feeling like I was trapped. Jennifer . . . well, she listened to me.”
“Jennifer listened to you? Jesus.” Hardy threw the sheet off and swung his legs off the bed. He walked to the window, not to see The View but because it was the on
ly destination in the room. He stood stock-still, then, without turning, whispered, “You talked to Jennifer about you and me? What’s she got on us now?”
He heard her voice, small behind him. “It wasn’t like that. Don’t be mad at me now. Please.”
He stood another minute, trying to piece it together. The images out the window—the lights on Union Street far below, the Golden Gate, the Presidio evergreens blurring the western horizon—they were piling up, falling over each other kaleidoscope fashion. Turning back, he sat again on the settee. “This was the secret?”
Frannie was at the edge of the bed. She paused, framing an answer. “All of it was a secret. It was all connected.”
Hunched over, Hardy had his hands crossed in front of him, his head down.
“Dismas?” She was off the bed now, on the floor, on her knees in front of him again. He felt her hands on his legs.
“I’m not mad,” he said. “Let’s get that straight. I’m not mad at you and I’m glad we’re talking about this. But did it occur to you that she might be using you?”
“She wasn’t. I just told you it wasn’t like that. At least I didn’t think it was like that—”
He jumped at the difference. “You didn’t think it was like that then, but you do now? You think it might have been?”
Frannie got up, grabbed the blanket and drew it around her, then sat on the edge of the bed. “No, I didn’t say that.” She took a deep breath and reached out again, the space between the bed and the settee. “I wish you wouldn’t interrogate me. I want to talk about this, Dismas, but when we get into it like this I feel intimidated. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t get us anywhere.”
“Where do you want us to get to, Frannie?”
“I want us to be able to talk again. I’m trying to tell you how it was.”
In the candlelight her face was an amber cameo. He found he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He nodded. Her arm was across the space between them, touching his leg, reaching out. He put his hand over hers.
This was not the time to argue, to tell Frannie that Jennifer might have had an agenda far removed from the one she’d led Frannie to believe. He came over next to her, pulling the blanket around both of them. “You’re right,” he said, kissing her, holding her against him, “I’m sorry. Talk to me.”
“She told you Larry beat her?”
“Everybody has beaten her. She couldn’t believe you never hit me, or Eddie never hit me. She didn’t believe me, I could tell. Like the idea is completely outside her experience.”
“It probably is.”
They were still huddled together at the edge of the bed. “Let’s not ever hit our kids, okay?” Hardy said.
“We don’t.”
“I know. Let’s not start.”
Frannie leaned into him. Muffled night sounds came up through the closed window—a truck’s brakes squealing as it inched down the north Divisadero escarpment, a girl’s carefree laugh from outside one of the clubs on Union.
“I still feel a little like I’ve abandoned her. Jennifer, I mean. I just . . . it got to feeling wrong somehow.”
“Well, I haven’t abandoned her, so I guess it’s still in the family, right?”
“I know, but—”
“Shh. Look. Maybe just hearing your story—some woman who doesn’t get hit—maybe that’ll give her hope that it’s possible.”
“If she believes it.”
“And if she doesn’t, you seeing her more isn’t going to make her, is it?” He held his wife against him, breathing in her scent. The candle sputtered briefly. Hardy looked over and saw a thin rope of wax snake its way down the crystal holder, pooling on the dresser’s surface. “I’m not trying to talk you out of anything, you know. If you want to see her some more, just tell me, okay? Let me know.”
“I won’t.” She sighed. “There’s some things . . . it’s just too wrong.”
“You said that. But if you’re not going behind me . . . ”
“No, that’s not what’s wrong. It’s her, really, Jennifer. First I thought we . . . you know, we were two women . . . we could talk. But then she cut it off. She was about to tell me something important and then closed up, said I didn’t want to know. I began to wonder if maybe . . . ”
“If maybe she’s guilty?”
“Maybe. I couldn’t handle that. Except I don’t believe she killed Matt, even accidentally, or Larry. Maybe her first husband, I don’t know. And if she did, I don’t know whether I could handle it. If, I said. But she told me, why did I think she was fighting this thing so hard. The answer is she didn’t kill them.”
“Although Larry beat and abused her?”
“Please don’t cross-examine me, Dismas. She told me Larry beat her. But she also said she didn’t kill him, or Matt—not by accident or mistake or any other way or for any other reason.”
Hardy looked at her, wondering if she was trying to convince herself. He certainly knew how that felt.
31
No one seemed to know where the storm came from, but rain slashed almost horizontally in gusts around Bryant Street, the temperature was in the low fifties and the gray paint on the Hall of Justice seemed a bruised and burnished blue as Hardy ran, raincoat flapping, from his parking space to the courthouse steps.
It was 12:42 when he entered the building. He knew they would be at recess, which was how he had planned it. He wasn’t going directly to Villars’ department anyway.
Freeman and Jennifer were having lunch in an abandoned office back behind the courtrooms.
Hardy nodded at the bailiff standing watch outside the door, then waited, getting his breathing under control from the run through the rain. He watched them through the wire-lined glass window in the door, talking, chatting really, at opposite sides of a pocked old green metal desk. He pushed open the door.
Freeman, his mouth full, raised a hand. “Greetings. We’re killing ’em, Diz. Their feet are up, I swear to God.”
Jennifer was pushing some three-bean salad around her white tray with a white plastic fork. He was struck again by the figure she cut—demure yet sophisticated, innocent and unattainable. It was as if she were Freeman’s creation now—clay-molded by an artist.
Hardy had unbuttoned his dripping trench coat and now pulled a chair around backward and dropped himself over it. A gust delivered a fresh torrent of rain, slapping at the window in front of them hard enough to make everybody stop and look.
“More good news. The drought’s over again.” Freeman shoveled some tubular pasta in a glutinous red sauce. He mopped his mouth with an already spotted napkin. “Hey, Diz, listen up. I’m kicking some serious tail in there. I’m thinking about what I’m going to say in there.” He pointed back behind him to the courtroom. “That’s where I live—you hear me? You want some advice? No? I don’t care. I’ll give it to you anyway. You want to give good trial, that’s where you’ll live, too.” More milk, another swipe of napkin. “It doesn’t get in there, Diz, it doesn’t count. And that’s the truth. The truth is also we’re winning right now.”
A long moment went by while everyone looked at one another. More rain got flung against the window. Over downtown, lightning arced into a rod on a hotel rooftop, and seconds later the crash of thunder rolled through the room.
Jennifer, kitty-corner to him, put her manicured hand over his. One part of him registered that it was cool and dry, so he thought it was odd that it seemed to burn where she touched him.
“Jennifer never admitted to Harlan Poole that Ned was beating her. In fact, she always denied it. His opinion that she was being battered is totally speculative,” Freeman said. “He can say he and Jennifer were having an affair. He can say he had atropine in his office. Period. I filed an early 1118 yesterday after we crucified Strout. And Poole is turning into a bigger disaster than Strout.”
The 1118 is a motion for a directed verdict of acquittal, by which the judge is asked to rule that no reasonable jury could convict the defendant, that as a matter of law th
ere isn’t sufficient evidence to prove guilt. If the motion was granted, the charge would be dismissed and could never be retried.
“I’d bet Villars grants it after the recess.” Freeman’s eyes seemed to glow. He put a hand on Hardy’s other sleeve. “He maybe can chew gum and walk, but I don’t think Powell can run a campaign and a trial at the same time. This thing’s going south for him.”
The bailiff knocked and entered. Judge Villars was coming out of her chambers. Trial was going back into session.
Hardy sat listening as Powell tried to find some wedge to introduce Harlan Poole’s testimony.
The dentist was a wreck. It was hard to imagine that this portly, balding, bespectacled, sweating man had ever been Jennifer’s lover. Also, the “low profile” that Terrell had promised him had turned out to be impossible to maintain. Like it or not, and he obviously hated it, Poole was a central figure here, one of the prosecution’s star witnesses in a capital murder trial. From his eyes, the role was playing havoc with his life.
“Dr. Poole.” Powell was recovering from another sustained objection. Freeman had jumped up as he liked to do, and Villars criticized Powell for again referring to the fact that Ned had beaten Jennifer, which they hadn’t been able to establish because it was hearsay.
In his frustration, Powell was walking in circles, facing the bench, then the jury, back to the defense table, then his own table, all the way back around to Poole. “Dr. Poole,” he said, “you have testified that you were intimate with the defendant?”
Poole studied the ceiling, avoiding his wife in the gallery. He wiped a handkerchief across his eyebrows. “Yes.”
“During your intimate moments did you have occasion to see the defendant naked?”
“Your Honor! Objection!”
But Powell had given this some thought. “Your Honor, at your insistence, we have to take this testimony out of the realm of hearsay. This is not a direction I would have chosen to go, but it is relevant and it is not hearsay.”
Villars had her mask on. Eyes straight ahead, unmoving, she could have been a mannequin. “Let’s have counsel up here.”
The 13th Juror Page 27
