Hard Evidence

by John Lescroart

  Hardy shook his head. “Can’t do it.” He pocketed the man’s bill and led Jane up to the bar.

  “What do you want me to do, Jane?”

  “I want you to see him, I want you to help him.”

  “How?”

  She didn’t know how. Hardy had been unemployed for three months. He had put on thirteen pounds. Under the guise of improving his dart game and preparing to play in some big tournaments, he was drinking about six Guinnesses every day between one, when the Shamrock opened, and about five, when he went home. The latest Guinness arrived.

  “Daddy needs you,” Jane said. “It’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t kill anybody, Dismas, you know that.”

  Hardy said nothing. He didn’t know that, nobody knew that.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’ll think of something. You’re the lawyer.”

  “So’s he, so are all his friends.” Hardy shook his head. He’d think of something; he liked that. “I’m sure he’s already got a lawyer.”

  “But he needs somebody he can count on, not just somebody he’s paying.”

  “I’m not a lawyer anymore, and even if I were, I’m not a defense lawyer, I’ve never defended anybody in my life.”

  “Look, I’m only asking you to see him. He’s done you favors, more than one. You owe him.”

  In a way, maybe so. He still felt bad—justified but bad nonetheless—about Andy’s early retirement, guilty that he’d forced it so quickly when the whole thing had proved unnecessary. Since their meeting at the fern bar, Hardy and Andy hadn’t spoken. “I didn’t leak it, Jane.”

  Jane narrowed her eyes. “But you were the only one who knew about him and May. It had to be you.”

  Hardy shook his head. “From the phone records. I didn’t know anything about the bail. The Chronicle guy, the reporter, he’s the one that found the bail story.”

  “Daddy thought it was you.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. And if he did, why would he want to see me now?”

  “He didn’t exactly say he did. I’m saying it. I think it would be good for him, for both of you.”

  Hardy sighed. Jane wasn’t going to go away. Besides, he wasn’t doing anything else. How could it hurt?

  Hardy followed Jane in his own car.

  It was a warm October day, Indian summer in San Francisco. The top was down and there was plenty of time to ponder. He found it nearly impossible to imagine that they had arrested Andy Fowler for the murder of Owen Nash. He knew that Locke personally disliked the man and that Pullios was capable of carrying a grudge of impressive proportions, but all that aside, you needed evidence to indict a man, a former judge, for murder, even more to convict. Hardy hadn’t heard about any new evidence turning up, and he was sure he would have.

  He still saw Glitsky once a week or so, talked to him every few days. By the time he and Frannie had gotten back from Hawaii, the Nash case had faded from the newspapers, but Glitsky had come by the house, filling Hardy in.

  Apparently Ken Farris had made an honest mistake about the last time he had seen Nash. In fact, it had been on Thursday. People made mistakes. He had flown to Taos on Friday, ate out in restaurants in Taos on both Friday and Saturday nights, flown back Monday morning.

  Austin Brucker, Mr. Silicon Valley, had vacated the presidency of the company Owen Nash had set him up in and started a new venture of his own—something to do with ceramic fibers—down in San Jose. With a staff of five engineers he’d been in his shop all day every day for the months of April, May and June, and according to all sources, would remain there until next Groundhog Day at the earliest.

  Glitsky, being thorough, had even looked into Celine. Her fingerprints had been all over the Eloise, which was to be expected—she said that she had often gone sailing with her father. The friends she had visited in Santa Cruz were an unlikely trio of two gay bodybuilders and one of their mothers, all of whom verified that Celine had spent the weekend with them, helping with the remodeling of their old Victorian house.

  The one surprise was that Celine’s fingerprints had shown up in the arrest database. If you had never been arrested, your fingerprints might be on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles, but by far the most accessible record to the police, and thus the first place they looked, was the database of people who had been arrested.

  “Celine was arrested?”

  “Twice. Shoplifting when she was twenty, reduced to reckless trespass, dismissed. And prostitution.”

  “Prostitution?”

  “I know, like she needed the money, right. Anyway, it was fifteen years ago. I questioned her on it. It’s not what you would call one of her favorite memories. She says it was a misunderstanding. She also says it was just after her first marriage ended, and she was having a bad time.”

  “Which was it, a bad time or a misunderstanding?”

  “I know, that was a little iffy. Either way, it never got charged. When your father’s Owen Nash . . .”

  “Money keeps talking, doesn’t it,” Hardy had said, and Glitsky said he believed it did.

  So with Farris, Brucker and Celine accounted for, only one righteous suspect was left, and that was Andy Fowler. But—and what had plagued this case from every angle since it began—Glitsky could find no evidence linking him to Owen Nash, or to the Eloise.

  Andy had been out of town, hiking in the Sierras, though apparently he had seen no one. But he hadn’t known Owen Nash—there was no record of their having met. While Hardy was in Hawaii, it had come out that Andy Fowler had had a long-term relationship with May Shinn but that it had ended about the time she met Nash.

  “I don’t think that was a coincidence, Abe.”

  “No, I don’t either. So what? Fowler swears he never heard of Nash until he read about him in the papers.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “There’s nothing to contradict it. Nothing to put him on the boat. What’s the motive? Eliminate a rival, get her back. Oldest one in the world. You’ve got to understand, Diz. People do think Fowler might have done it. Locke wants his ass in a big way. But if he did do it, he did it right. There’s no way Locke or Rigby or anybody else is going to make a move until we’ve got more than we had with Shinn, which we sure as hell do not.”

  “So is he—Fowler—seeing Shinn again?”

  “No sign of it, and believe me, people are looking. She seems to be laying low, trying to collect her money, suing me and the City and County. Freeman’s bill must be approaching the national debt.”

  Those had been Glitsky’s facts.

  To satisfy his own curiosity, Hardy had done some checking himself. He had the telephone records. Andy Fowler might have convinced himself that before Owen Nash came along he had May Shinn all to himself, but her telephone records included three other numbers, called with about the same regularity as those to Andy Fowler.

  Hardy tried all three numbers. One was to a switchboard of the main office of the Timberline Group, a timber-lobby consulting firm with an address on Bay Street. Hardy thought it unlikely that May Shinn was doing a lot of lumber work.

  When a woman answered at the second number, Hardy, feeling a little foolish, pretended to be taking a demographic survey for the Nielsen ratings. The woman said that she and her husband, who worked out of the house (he was in software), were both in their midfifties. She didn’t want to be too specific, but their income was in the low six figures. He let it go.

  The third number was to the private office of an affable millionaire in the garment district.

  So . . .

  It seemed May had three other clients before Owen Nash came along. Four including Andy Fowler. And, from the phone records, she’d dropped them all around the beginning of February. Did Nash pay her more, or had she, as she contended, truly fallen in love with Nash?>

  Of course, he knew nothing that tied any of these men to Owen Nash. Not yet. Hardy spent a day wondering if he should mention them to Glitsky,
then decided against it. He had promised Andy he wouldn’t bring up the phone records if he didn’t have to. The originals were there in the file downtown if anybody wanted to look at them.

  It wasn’t Hardy’s job anymore, but it didn’t take immense reserves of gray matter to realize this discovery would open things up again. If the motive they had all ascribed to Fowler, killing a rival, applied, then it applied as well to May’s other three clients/lovers. But then, the D.A.’s office wasn’t arrayed in a vendetta against any of these guys, as it was against Fowler.

  Still, Andy must have made a mistake. Some evidence must have turned up, but where did they get it? Hardy was sure Glitsky would have called him with anything at all, so it hadn’t been him. And if Glitsky didn’t have it, who did? He was the investigating officer. It didn’t make sense.

  Hardy hadn’t set foot in the Hall of Justice since the day after he was fired, when he went in to pick up his personal effects, his dartboard, the paperweight.

  Now, coming up the front steps with Jane, he found it hard to believe that he’d been talked into returning. The false accusations, the unnamed informer, the politics of the lifers—the gut reaction still kicked in.

  He and Jane rode in the crowded elevator up to Booking. He didn’t have much of an idea what he was going to do. It was late in the afternoon, and he thought at least he’d get the lay of the land. At the desk, the sergeant looked up and nodded.

  “Hey, Hardy, taking the day off?”

  It took him a minute—Hardy was in casual clothes. The sergeant thought he was still working there.

  “Where you been, on vacation or something?”

  “Or something. Listen, you got Andy Fowler processed yet?”

  “Yeah, I think so, I’ll check. Can you believe that? The judge?” He got up from his chair and disappeared for two minutes, during which Hardy devoutly hoped no one would recognize him. When he came out again he pointed to his right and told Hardy he could go on in, they’d be bringing the judge down.

  He and Jane were admitted, then ushered into Interview Room A, the same room where he had first seen May Shinn.

  Jane sat uncomfortably. “How’d we get in here?”

  “I think under false pretenses. Now listen, when your father gets in here, be cool in front of the guard. Don’t jump up and yell or anything. Since they think I’m working here, let’s let them think you’re my assistant, okay?”

  But it wasn’t so easy. Her father just didn’t look the same in a yellow jumpsuit. Four hours before, in his pinstripes, Andy’s handcuffs had been the ultimate indignity. Now Jane realized she hadn’t known the half of it.

  The judge played the game, entered cooperatively, nodded at both of them and sat down across the table. Hardy thanked the guard and told him to wait outside. As soon as the door closed, her father said, “Good. How did this happen?”

  Dismas inclined his head a fraction, his hand to his mouth. “I cheated. How are you doing, Andy?”

  “Badly. How about you?”

  “All right.”

  The two men tried not to look at each other. Jane wasn’t going to let this go bad. Or worse. “Dismas didn’t leak your story, Daddy. About you and . . . May.”

  Her father didn’t look beaten. In fact, he looked ready to fight. “You didn’t?” Directly at Dismas.

  “I said I wouldn’t, I didn’t.” He shrugged. “I figured you had other things on your mind. So did I. I got fired over it, for example.”

  “I heard about that.” More waiting. Jane realized she was squeezing her fingernails into her palms. She didn’t understand this silence—the two men who’d been closest to her jockeying for something.

  “I guess I just got a little tired explaining how I didn’t do whatever it was somebody thought I did. It gets old.”

  “I’d imagine it would.” Her father was inside himself, settling something. “Sorry, Diz, I just assumed . . .”

  Jane’s ex-husband had his hands folded on the table. He opened them. “I lived through it. What are you doing here?”

  “Somebody thinks I killed Owen Nash.”

  “I know that. But who’s representing you? You ought to be out of here already.”

  A tight smile. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? One of Locke’s little object lessons. No bail until the arraignment.” He paused. “At least.”

  “That Locke, he’s a swell guy.”

  Fowler kept on. “I called David Freeman. He thought it might not be wise for him to represent me because of May. He intimated he’d put out the word. Meanwhile, it appears that I’m to stay locked up.” Another tight smile. “Lousy pun.”

  “Daddy, they can’t do that.”

  “They can, honey. How many times have I had a defense lawyer tell me his client had to get out of jail, wouldn’t survive one night there, it was life and death. And I told them it would have to wait until the morning. Judicial process . . .”

  “We can’t let this happen, you can’t stay here. Dismas can do something.”

  Hardy nodded. “I could try, Andy.”

  “Why would you want to do that? What would you try?”

  “I don’t know, I got me and Jane in here to see you, didn’t I? I could try walking you downstairs and out the door.”

  Her father pulled at the jumpsuit. “Don’t you think the outfit’s a little conspicuous?”

  “Goddamn it,” Jane said. “Will you two cut it out.”

  “You’re right, I’ll have to think of something else.”

  The judge got serious. “You’d really do something? Why?”

  Hardy shrugged. “At least until one of Freeman’s wonders shows up. At least you’d be represented. I could pass it off after you decided who you wanted.” Hardy straightened in his chair. “Not to mention, I wouldn’t mind getting in the face of a few of these people here— they seem to have pissed me off.”

  “Can you get him out tonight, Dismas? On bail or something?” Jane looked at her father. “You cannot stay here overnight.”

  Fowler reached out and patted her hand. “It’s all right, honey. I spent a night in jail once before—voluntarily, I admit—and it wasn’t so bad. I wanted to see what we were putting people through. I’ll survive, I promise you. Besides, I might as well get used to it. It could be longer than that if bail is denied.”

  “They couldn’t do that!”

  Her father and Hardy shared a glance. The guard outside the door gave a knock.

  “I’ll call Freeman, keep him on it,” Hardy said. “And I’ll be there tomorrow . . . You sure you want me representing you, even temporarily?”

  Andy appeared, for really the first time, to consider it. “Maybe more than that.”

  “Why, Andy?”

  The judge looked around the tiny room, then at his daughter, as though looking for verification of something. He knew he’d written Hardy off too easily before, when he thought he had betrayed his trust. There had been a mistake. He knew Hardy and he hadn’t blown any whistle on Andy Fowler. Hardy didn’t betray trusts and he didn’t give up. “The devil you know?” he said, smiling.

  40

  He left Jane at the fourth floor. Getting out of the elevator, he walked down the hallway and turned into Homicide. If Glitsky was in maybe they could stop in at Lou’s for old times’ sake. But he wasn’t around. Hardy leaned over his desk and was writing him a note when he heard some heels on the tile and looked up.

  Pullios stopped in the door.

  “Hi, Bets,” Hardy said. “Getting any . . . exciting cases?”

  Her smile was glacial. “How are you, Dismas?”

  “Great,” he said. “I’m writing my memoirs.”

  She didn’t react. Her eyes searched the back of the open room. “Anybody seen Lanier?” she asked. One of the guys said he thought he was downstairs having some coffee with a witness. She came back to Hardy. “Well, take care of yourself.”

  She started to turn and Hardy spoke. “I hear Judge Fowler’s been arrested.”

 
She stopped. “My, news travels fast.”

  “Tribal drums. We’re kind of family.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right.”

  “You really think he killed Owen Nash?”

  “The grand jury thought there was enough evidence to issue the indictment.”

  Hardy folded his arms, leaning back against Glitsky’s desk. “I have it on good authority that if the D.A. wanted, the grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”

  Pullios nodded. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you.”

  Hardy caught up with her out in the hallway. He turned conversational. “I guess there’s some new evidence, huh?”

  Pullios stopped. “Are you representing Fowler?”

  “I’m merely a curious citizen who wonders what you’ve got new since Shinn?”

  “Quite a bit. I’m sure it’ll be in the newspaper.”

  She started walking again.

  Hardy found himself planted to the floor with roots of rage. It just came up over him. His stomach turned over and he heard his blood pulsing in his ears.

  Don’t do it, he told himself. Don’t say any more. Don’t chase her through the halls. Nothing to be gained.

  He watched her elegant figure disappear around the corner of the elevator lobby. Where had the air gone? Feeling as though he’d stopped breathing, he sucked a strained lungful. He needed a drink.

  Or four. Or five.

  On top of the three Guinnesses he had had before Jane had arrived at the Shamrock. He had the first couple of Irish whiskeys at Lou’s, but then the guys started showing up. Guys that knew him, that wanted to know what he was doing, how he was getting along.

  Yeah, he was busy, working on stuff, was looking into opening a second bar maybe, even a restaurant. No, he didn’t want to go into private practice, wind up defending a bunch of scum.

  Leaving Lou’s, he remembered that he had forgotten to call David Freeman. He’d call him from the next place. And Frannie too. He couldn’t forget to call Frannie. She would worry. She’d been worried for a couple of months now—worried about him, about them, their future, her baby, the pregnancy. Everything. Their wavelengths had ceased to coincide somehow. It worried him too, made him doubt himself. Sometimes he thought it was making him sick. Drinking seemed to cure it.