Hard Evidence

by John Lescroart

  While Hardy had designed and built the back room for Rebecca, Frannie had painted and redecorated the front rooms, brightening them up in white with dusty rose accents. Hardy’s nautical theme pieces, such as they were, were banished to his office. Now, on the mantel in place of the dusty old blowfish, was an exquisite caravan of Venetian blown-glass elephants. A framed da Vinci poster, a study of horses, graced the wall to the left of the fireplace. On the right, Frannie had filled the built-in bookshelves with hardcovers from Hardy’s office—Barbara Tuchman, Hardy’s complete Wambaugh collection, most of Steinbeck,Márquez, Jack London. Four new lamps filled the corners with light.

  Hardy took it all in—the plants, the dark sheen of the cherry dining-room furniture, his baby girl. It seemed nearly impossible to him that all of this was so comfortable now, so right. Frannie came through the dining room and stood leaning against the doorpost. Her long red hair glinted in the light from the fire. She wore jeans and a Stanford sweatshirt, white Reeboks.

  “You were so quiet,” she said.

  Hardy rested a flat palm against Rebecca’s stomach, feeling the heart pumping. “I don’t think I was home once this time of night when I was bartending.”

  “You miss it?”

  “Bartending?” He shook his head. “No. It’s funny. I used to think I was addicted to it—you know, the noise and the action. Now I’m sitting here, the fire pops and that’s plenty.”

  She came over and sat down Indian-style across from him. She ran a finger up her daughter’s leg, left her hand there. “Aren’t you tired? Did you sleep at all last night?”

  Hardy shrugged. “As Mr. Zevon says, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  Frannie didn’t like hearing that. Rebecca’s biological father, Eddie Cochran—Frannie’s husband—had been killed just about a year ago.

  Hardy sensed it. He put his hand over hers. “In truth, I am severely fatigued.”

  As Frannie got up to pull the curtains over the bay window, the doorbell rang. “We don’t want any,” Hardy said.

  “I know.” Frannie went to the door.

  Jeff Elliot knew news when he saw it, and if a human hand turning up in a shark’s belly didn’t deserve more than a graph on the back page, he’d eat his press card.

  He knew that a good percentage of all the great stories—Watergate, Lincoln Savings, Pete Rose—had begun as tiny drops in the vast pool of information that came to a paper every day. And what made those drops congeal to a trickle that became a flood had been the reporters who viewed the news as their canvas. News happened, sure, but what made the news a story was what excited him. You couldn’t make things up, but you could manufacture interest, an angle, a hook. That’s what made a good reporter. And Jeff knew he had the gift— his bosses just hadn’t seen it yet.

  So things weren’t moving as quickly for him as he’d hoped. In college in Wisconsin, he’d been the editor of the paper, then three years at the Akron Clarion, and finally his big break, the San Francisco Chronicle. But now he’d been on the coast for seven months, and he was amazed that even here in the big city, so little came in via the police incidence reports—the IRs—that was even remotely sexy.

  And that’s what he’d been doing—the lowest dog work, checking over the IRs, looking for a lead, a grabber, a story. And then, today, finally, the hand.

  He balanced his crutches against the doorway to ring the bell. Almost immediately, the door opened to a very pretty redhaired woman in a Stanford sweatshirt. The house smelled of oak and baking bread. He gave his little waif grin.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but is this where Dismas Hardy lives? I’m Jeff Elliot with the Chronicle and I’d just like to ask him a few questions.”

  “It’s interesting you should ask that,” Hardy said. “It came up just today downtown.”

  “What came up, the homicide question?”

  They’d moved into the dining room, and Frannie had poured a black and tan—Guinness and ale in two layers—for her husband. The reporter, really not much more than a kid with a pair of bad legs, had a cup of coffee. Frannie, pregnant, had a glass of water and sat quietly nursing Rebecca, listening.

  “Well, the odds are good that whoever it is, he’s probably recently dead. It could be a straight drowning, but we had to consider the fact that somebody killed this guy and dumped him in the ocean.”

  The reporter had his dictaphone on the table between them.

  “But,” Hardy said, “we’re still a long way from knowing that. I don’t believe the coroner’s even had a chance to examine the thing yet. At least he hadn’t by the time I left the office.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Well, if there was a body to go with it, he’d have done something I’m sure. But we haven’t got anything from Missing Persons, at least not yet. They’re checking other jurisdictions, I’m sure.” Hardy shrugged. “It’s a process, that’s all. They’ll get to it.”

  Frannie finished nursing and went to the back of the house to put down the sleeping infant. When she got back, Dismas had finished his beer and she could tell by his look that he was fading. He hadn’t slept, after all, in two days.

  They were talking about Pico Morales pulling out the hand, back at the Aquarium. Frannie went around behind Dismas, massaged his shoulders and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid this news conference has come to an end. I’ve got a tired man here who’s too macho to admit it.”

  “Oh gosh!” Jeff Elliot looked at his watch, flicked off the tape machine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you. I’ve got to get this story written and filed, anyway.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not much new as a story.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just got a feeling about this one. It’s somebody’s hand, for gosh sake.”

  Hardy nodded. “You got a card? I’ll let you know if we find something.”

  5

  D.A. CALLS MYSTERY HAND A HOMICIDE

  by Jeffrey Elliot

  Chronicle Staff Writer

  An assistant district attorney conceded last night that the grisly find on Sunday of a human hand wearing a jade ring was a homicide.

  The hand was discovered in the stomach of a great white shark—the same animal featured in the movie Jaws—that had been delivered alive to the Steinhart Aquarium over the weekend.

  Assistant District Attorney Dismas Hardy, who coincidentally had been present at the aquarium when the hand was discovered, said the D.A.’s office was looking into the matter. “Somebody killed this guy and dumped him in the ocean,” Hardy said.

  To date, there are no leads on the victim’s identity. Hardy acknowledged that authorities were checking with other jurisdictions in the area.

  Although the coroner has not yet performed any tests on the hand, Hardy appeared confident that the victim would soon be identified and an investigation into the probable murder begun.

  “It’s a process,” Hardy said. “They’ll get there.”

  Christopher Locke was fifty-two years old and the first African-American ever elected district attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. Locke thought his job essentially took place in the rarefied air of policy. He lobbied hard for the death penalty, for example. He determined whether there would be a crackdown on graffiti prosecutions, on gay bashing in the Mission district; he worked with the police department on coordinating the work of the Gang Task Force. He went to a lot of lunches, spoke both inside the city and around the state on issues involving law enforcement.

  Locke’s longtime ally and best friend (to the extent it was possible to have one) was Art Drysdale, with whom he entrusted much of the day-to-day running of the office. Art was fair and firm, too outspoken to be a political rival, a good administrator and even better lawyer. The last thing Locke had time for, or wanted to do, was interact with his junior staff.

  But here he was this Tuesday morning awaiting the arrival of Dismas Hardy, four months in the office. Hardy’s file lay next to the Chronicle, open on his desk in
front of him.

  It didn’t seem to Locke to be much of an article, but it had evidently been enough to prompt a call from some homicide lieutenant to the police chief himself, Dan Rigby, who in turn had deemed it important enough to call Locke at home before he’d had his coffee. Then, fifteen minutes later, he’d gotten another call from John Strout, the coroner, asking what the hell this homicide business was all about.

  Drysdale had thought he’d just run down and tell Hardy to button it, but Locke had promised Rigby he’d handle the matter personally, so here he was.

  Dorothy buzzed, and a minute later Hardy let himself through the door. Locke remembered him from when he’d welcomed him to the office—a formality about which Locke was punctilious. At the time, Locke had briefly wondered how Drysdale had found an opening on the staff for a male Caucasian.

  Hardy wasn’t a kid by any means. This was his second time around with the D.A. He should know better.

  “Don’t sit down, Hardy. This won’t take long.” Locke busied himself for a moment with Hardy’s file. Without looking up, he said, “I notice you’ve got seventeen specially assigned prelims”—preliminary hearings—“you’re supposed to be prosecuting.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s about right.”

  “That’s exactly right, according to your file. Am I missing something?”

  “I hadn’t counted them.”

  “Perhaps prelim work isn’t worthy of your time.”

  Hardy stood in the classic at-ease position. “This is about the article.” It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s right. It’s about the article.”

  “The quote was out of context.”

  “It happens all the time. I’m wondering why you found it proper to be discussing this matter with the press at all.”

  “I found the hand. I thought the reporter was going for something a little more human interest.”

  “It doesn’t appear he was. It appears you got yourself sandbagged.”

  “Yes, sir, it does.”

  “So I’ve instructed Mr. Drysdale to send a little more prelim work your way. The way we do it, we like to have our attorneys work on the cases they get assigned, is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Mr. Drysdale will be doing the assigning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And it would be good policy and a good habit to acquire if you prefaced any remarks you ever make to a reporter with the words ‘This is off the record.’ Understood?”

  Hardy nodded and agreed until he was dismissed.

  Though Hardy didn’t like him, Aaron Jaans was a decent, even well-respected, attorney. In response to what he considered Hardy’s outrageous offer he had requested that they talk to a judge in superior court rather than municipal court, before there was even a preliminary hearing to determine whether Hardy’s offer would be made to stick. As a courtesy, Hardy had complied with the request.

  Now they were in Judge Andy Fowler’s courtroom and Esme Aiella stood before the bench, next to Aaron Jaans. She was wearing a skin-tight blue tube that began an inch above her nipples and ended four inches below her crotch. Her hair had been straightened and dyed a shade of red that did not occur in nature.

  “Ms. Aiella,” the judge was saying, “the facts of this case seem to speak for themselves, but before I make any ruling whatever, I want to hear from you that you are not interested in reducing grand theft, the charge against you, from a felony to a misdemeanor.”

  Esme stood silent, her hand to her mouth.

  “Ms. Aiella!”

  “I don’t believe you asked her a question, Your Honor.”

  Fowler glared at Aaron Jaans, threw a glance at Dismas Hardy, who was standing to Jaans’s right, then spoke again, looking directly at Esme. “Ms. Aiella, the court directs you to speak up. Can you hear me clearly?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Would you please use words? Can you hear me clearly?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your Honor, my client—”

  Fowler held up his palm. “Mr. Jaans, I am speaking to your client directly, is that clear?” Without waiting for a response, the judge continued. “Now, Ms. Aiella, you are in a bad situation here. I must tell you that the charge of grand theft is very serious. If you are convicted, there will not just be a fine, there is the possibility—the very real possibility—of going to prison. Do you understand?”

  The hand came away from her mouth. “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you care about that?”

  She shrugged. “It don’t matter.”

  “Going to prison doesn’t matter?”

  Esme shrugged again.

  Fowler looked over at Hardy. Clearly, it didn’t matter. Lecturing, arguing or threatening wasn’t going to make any difference. The judge’s eyes roamed the back of the courtroom for a moment, then he brought down his gavel. He indicated that Hardy follow him to his chambers. “The court will take a brief recess.”

  “There’s no hope,” the judge said. It was a statement so atypical of Andrew Bryan Fowler that Hardy couldn’t immediately reply. There was nothing about the judge that suggested he could ever think there was no hope. He looked, as always, terrific. His thick black hair was peppered with enough gray to suggest wisdom, but not at the expense of advanced age. As a teenager he’d modeled for the Sears catalog, and his tanned face still had those fine all-American lines. His gray-blue eyes were penetrating, chin strong, teeth perfect, nose straight.

  Andy’s handmade blue dress shirt was wrinkle-free, even under his robes, and the gold cuff links customized with his initials, ABF, provided just the right tone for a judge.

  The cuff links were often visible as Fowler sat on the bench, his fingers templed at his lips, listening to an argument he would later recall nearly verbatim. The cuff links added to what the Romans had called gravitas—the nearly indescribable quality that rendered a man’s acts and judgments significant. On the bench, His Honor Andy Fowler possessed gravitas in spades.

  Here, in his chambers or at home, it was different, but not so very different. Hardy hung out around the house in jeans and a sweatshirt—in his bartending days, he’d been happy in tennis shoes, old corduroys, t-shirts. Even now, in one of his three new suits, Hardy was aware of the knot of his tie at his Adam’s apple. Andy, by contrast, would arrive at a Sunday barbeque in pressed khakis, tasseled cordovan loafers, dress shirt and blazer, sometimes with a tie. When Andy played tennis, which he did well and often at the Olympic Club, he wore whites. Hardy guessed he slept in tailored pajamas and wore a bathrobe and slippers to have his coffee alone in his kitchen.

  Hardy picked the paperweight off the desk. It was a strange and beautiful piece of light green jade, nearly translucent, oddly shaped, with sea birds and whales etched in light relief on the highly polished surface.

  Fowler was hanging his robe in the corner. He turned around. “I don’t like to do this to you, but even without this girl’s cooperation, we’re not going with felony grand theft on this.”

  “We’re not? Why not?”

  “Because this kind of entrapment will not wash in my department, Diz. Chris Locke knows this. Art Drysdale knows it. I don’t know why they keep sending these turkeys up here to Superior Court.”

  The judge was getting to be infamous around the Hall for his views on entrapment. His popularity, once very high, had suffered for it, but he was opposed to putting people away for crimes he thought they wouldn’t have committed without a push from the police.

  “The woman,” he said, “picks up a john in Union Square and they go to his hotel room. The television set in the room is, surprise, really a video camera, and when our boy goes out of the room to the bathroom, we get a lovely picture of Esme Aiella taking his wallet, which happens to contain just enough American dollars to constitute what the law calls grand theft.” He shook his head in disgust. “Because I like you, I run a bluff like I just did. Who knows? Maybe she’ll give up her pimp. But she’s not going to give up her
pimp—there’s no way. So now this goes back to what it is—a misdemeanor prostitution that should not take up time in my courtroom.”

  “She did steal the money, Andy.”

  “Diz, they all steal. Why do you think prostitution’s illegal in the first place?”

  “So we just fine her and forget it?”

  Fowler’s shoulders sagged. “Every single day of the year we fine ’em and forget ’em. There’s just no hope,” he repeated.

  The heft and balance of the paperweight felt incredibly good. Hardy sat down with it, passing it back and forth in his hands. The judge walked to one of the two windows behind his desk and crossed his hands behind his back.

  Hardy got up, put the paperweight back in its spot and went and stood next to the man who’d been his father-in-law for five years. “Andy, are you all right?”

  The judge sighed. “Sure, I’m fine.” He flicked his smile back on. “See?”

  Fowler didn’t talk about there being no hope, but if he didn’t want to talk at the moment, Hardy wasn’t going to push it. “So what about next time with Esme Aiella? Don’t we ever get the hammer?”

  The judge stared at nothing out his grimy window. “Cure her, you mean?” His laugh was more a bitter snort. Fowler parted the shades of his window as if looking for something. Not seeing it, he moved back to his desk, into his red leather chair. “A girl like Esme, all the girls like Esme, they’re turning tricks because nothing matters anyway. Their pimp is their father. He beats them and sleeps with them.”

  “You think Esme’s father was sleeping with her?”

  Fowler reached for the paperweight now himself, nodding. “Or her brother, or uncle, or all of the above. Women in the trade, they were broken in at home. And on the flip side, if their daddy was screwing them, even if they don’t go into it full-time, they’ll turn a trick or two. It’s cheap psychology, but it’s in every profile.”