The Oath

by John Lescroart

  "What was it?"

  "Well, you know she plays soccer. She's at practice right now, in fact. But she also runs cross-country, so she gets up early every morning and runs down to the greenbelt on Park Presidio and then up to the park and back the same way."

  "Okay."

  "Well, we were talking about Tim's accident, me just being a bitchy mom trying to remind her how dangerous the streets could be, even when you were paying attention. And she said she didn't need me to remind her. On the same day that Tim had gotten hit, almost the same thing had happened to her, only a couple of blocks away."

  Fisk was snapping his fingers at his partner, indicating he ought to pick up the other line.

  Mrs. Rath was continuing. "It had scared her silly. She'd just turned off Lake onto Twenty-fifth, coming back home, and was crossing the street. She saw this car coming, but there was a stop sign and she was in the walkway. Then suddenly she heard the tires screech and she looked over and jumped backward and the skid stopped just in time. Lexi was standing there with her hands on the hood, just completely flipped out. She said she yelled something at the driver, to watch where she was going, then slapped at the hood and went back to running. But I didn't have to tell her how dangerous it was. She knew."

  "Did she say anything else about the car? What color it was, for example?"

  "Oh yeah. It was green, which I guess is what made me think about Tim. Didn't I read that the car that hit him was green?"

  Bracco butted in. "What time does your daughter get home from soccer practice, Mrs. Rath?"

  * * *

  Lexi sat between her mom and dad, Doug, on the couch in their living room. She'd been home long enough to have showered and changed into jeans, tennis shoes, and a light sweater. She was a tall and thin fourteen-year-old with braces and reasonably controlled acne. Her long brown hair was still wet. She was holding both of her parents' hands, nervous at being the center of attention, at talking to these policemen who were sitting on upholstered chairs facing her. "It wasn't really that big a deal. I mean"—her eyes begged for her mother's understanding—"I had this kind of thing happen before while I've been running. Maybe not this close, but almost. People just space out when they drive, but I know that. So I pay attention when I'm out there."

  "I'm sure you do," Fisk responded. "And paying attention the way you do, did you notice anything unusual about the car that almost hit you?"

  Lexi threw her eyes up to the ceiling in concentration, looked from Jamie to Doug, back to the inspectors. "I really only saw it out of the corner of my eye. You know, there was a stop sign. I saw it coming up the street and thought it would stop, so I didn't break my stride. I guess she didn't see me until I was right in front of her."

  "So it was a woman? The driver?"

  "Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, sir. Definitely."

  "Was there anybody else in the car?"

  "No, just her."

  "Did you get a good look at her?"

  She nodded yes. "But only for a second."

  Bracco had been letting Fisk take the interview. He'd crowed all the way out here about the car, the car, the car. Jamie Rath had called him at the detail, or at least he'd answered the phone. He knew all along that the car would be part of it. Bracco didn't mind—Fisk tended to be good when gentleness was called for. But Bracco thought that sometimes he didn't hit all the notes. "But you did get a good look at her for that second, is that true? Do you think you could recognize her again?"

  "I don't know about that. Maybe. I don't know."

  Doug patted her reassuringly on the leg. "It's okay, hon. You're doing good."

  "You are doing good, Lexi," Fisk seconded. "What we're asking is maybe we could send an artist out here to try to draw her face as you remember it. Would that be all right with you?"

  She shrugged. "I could try, I guess."

  Bracco asked her about the time, wanting to narrow it down.

  "I know just what time it was because when I stopped, when she almost hit me, and then I started running again, I checked my watch to see how much time I'd lost. It was twenty-five after six."

  This perfectly fit the timetable for Markham's accident. "So let me ask you this, Lexi. Would you close your eyes for a minute and just try to visualize everything you can think of about the car or its driver—I know it was only a second—just tell us what you see."

  Obediently, she leaned back into the couch, scrunched between her mom and her dad. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. "Okay. I was on Lake, just running like, and then I usually turn up Twenty-fifth and cross over, so I got to the corner and there was this car maybe, I don't know, a ways down the street, but coming to the stop sign, so I thought it would stop."

  "Was the car speeding, do you think?" Bracco asked.

  "I don't know. Probably not, maybe, or I might have noticed it more."

  "Okay."

  "But then I was off the curb like one step, and I heard the brakes go on, or the skid, you know that sound, whatever it's called. So I turned and she was going to hit me, so I jumped backwards and was facing her. Luckily she stopped just as I was reaching out. You know, in case she hit me."

  "All right," Fisk said gently. "So you're leaning on the hood of the car. Is it damaged at all? Crashed in a little?"

  "The light, yeah. I guess it would be the front, my left. I remember because I didn't want to cut myself on the broken headlight."

  "Front right then, on the car."

  "Okay, I guess so." She opened her eyes and seemed to be silently asking her parents if she was doing all right. A couple of nods assured her, and she closed her eyes again, but shook her head uncertainly. "I was kind of shaking then. It was pretty scary. But then I just got really mad and slammed my hands down on the hood again, really hard. I screamed at her."

  "Do you remember what you said?"

  "You almost killed me. You almost killed me, you idiot. I said it twice, I think. I was really mad and screamed at her."

  "Then what?"

  "Then she held up her hands, like it wasn't her fault, like she was sorry."

  "Lexi," Bracco said with urgency, "what did she look like?"

  It was almost comical the way Lexi screwed up her face, but there was no humor at all in the room. "Maybe a little younger than Mom, I think. I can't tell too good about adults' ages. But dark hair, kind of frizzy."

  "Any particular hairstyle?"

  "No. Just around her face. Frizzy."

  "What race was she?"

  "Not black. Not Asian. But other than that, I couldn't say."

  "How about what she wore? Anything stick out?"

  "No. It was only a second." She was showing the first signs of defensiveness. "We just stared at each other."

  "Okay, that's good, Lexi," Fisk said. "Thank you so much."

  But Bracco wasn't quite done. "Just a couple more things about the car, okay? Would you call it an old car or a new one? How would you describe it, if you can remember?"

  Again, she closed her eyes. "Not a sports car, but not real big, you know. Kind of like a regular car, maybe, but not a new one, now that I think about it. The paint wasn't new. It just looked older, I guess. Not shiny." Suddenly, she frowned. "The back lights were kind of funny."

  "The back lights?" Bracco asked. "How were they funny? How did you see them?"

  "I turned right after I started running again. They kind of went out from the middle, almost like they were supposed to make you think of wings, you know?"

  "Fins?" Fisk asked.

  "Like on Uncle Don's T-Bird," Mrs. Rath volunteered. "You know how they go up in the back. They're called fins."

  But she was shaking her head. "No, not just like that. Lower, kind of along the back, where you'd lift up the trunk. Oh, and a bumper sticker."

  "You are doing so good, Lexi," Fisk enthused. "This is great. What about the bumper sticker?"

  She closed her eyes again, squeezing them tight. But after a minute, she opened them and shook her head. "I don't know what it said. I
don't remember. Maybe it wasn't in English."

  * * *

  At the day's last light, the two inspectors made one last stop, at the stop sign at Lake and Twenty-fifth. They had already decided to send a composite artist specialist out to the Raths' to work with Lexi. Fisk had a book at home with front and back views of every car made in America for the past fifty years, and he was planning on bringing that by, as well, to see if Lexi could give them a positive identification on the make and model.

  They got out and walked from the stop sign back to the first streetlight. There was no sign of a skid mark, from which Fisk hoped to get something, perhaps a tire size. And then Bracco remembered. "The storm," he said. "We can forget it."

  * * *

  Kensing reached Hardy on his cell. It sounded as though he was in a restaurant somewhere. Jackman had already talked to him. He'd phrased the subpoena as a request. They wanted to proceed with dispatch on investigating Kensing's list, and without his testimony, the grand jury would be left in the dark. Hardy thought cooperation here wouldn't hurt them, and he'd okayed the new deal. But he wasn't nearly as sanguine when Kensing told him about the search warrant. "Glitsky was there tonight? Looking for what?"

  "I don't think anything really. I think it was just to scare me, although they did take some of my clothes."

  "Why did they do that?"

  "They said they were looking for blood. They probably found some."

  "Christ on a crutch."

  * * *

  Hardy had meant to turn off his cell phone when he and Frannie had left the house on their weekly date. It was one of their rules, but he'd forgotten and then of course it had rung and he'd answered it, telling her he'd just be a sec. That had been nearly five minutes ago. Once he had Kensing on the line, he wanted to grill him at length about the discrepancy between Judith Cohn's account of Tuesday night, when he hadn't gotten home by at least one o'clock, and his own, which would have put him there by about 10:30.

  But they wound up talking about the search, and then about tomorrow's grand jury appearance. Then their waiter came up and gave him the sign and Hardy realized he really ought to hang up. They frowned upon cell phones here. Hardy did, too. Just not at this precise moment.

  He squeezed in one more sentence. "But we really need to talk before you get to the grand jury."

  If either Glitsky or his inspectors talked to Cohn as Hardy had done, they'd get the message to Marlene Ash and Kensing's appearance tomorrow in front of the grand jury wouldn't be pretty. With his multiple motives and Glitsky's animus, the squishy alibi might just be enough to get him indicted. At least he ought to know his girlfriend's story, or he'd get bushwhacked.

  So they were meeting tomorrow at Kensing's at 8:15.

  Now Frannie raised her glass of chardonnay, clinked it with his. "That sounded like a pleasant conversation," she said.

  Hardy ostentatiously turned off his cell phone, put it in his jacket pocket. "Honest mistake, I swear," he said. "Which is better than the one Kensing made when he talked to Abe, or when he lied about when he got home last Tuesday."

  Frannie stopped midsip. "I don't like to hear about clients who lie to you."

  "It's not my favorite, either. In fact, as a general rule, I'd put lying in my top ten for what I'm not looking for in a client."

  "And Abe just now searched his house?"

  Hardy dipped some sourdough bread into a shallow dish of olive oil, pinched sea salt over it all. "I got that impression."

  "Last night Abe seemed to think it might not be Kensing after all."

  "Right. But last night we were all hot over Mrs. Loring, and we knew for a fact that Eric wasn't around when she was killed, so it looked like he was completely in the clear. But today, unfortunately, it turns out that these other deaths at Portola might have nothing to do with Markham or his wife. Basically, it looks like nobody in the universe that could have killed Mrs. Loring even knew Carla Markham, much less went to her house. In which case, they're unrelated."

  "In which case, your client gets back on Abe's list."

  "If he ever really left. But you know Abe. He likes to start with a big list, then whittle it down."

  "You're saying he's got a lot of other suspects?"

  "Sure. It's still early."

  "How many?"

  "Two, maybe three others."

  Frannie whistled softly. "Big list. Anybody else Abe likes as well as Kensing?"

  Hardy held his menu and looked down at it, then up at her, grinning. "But enough about the law. I'm going with the sand dabs tonight. There is no fish more succulent than a fresh Pacific Ocean sand dab, and they do them great here. Lemon, butter, capers. Out of this world. You really ought to try them."

  32

  Kensing was in a business suit, sitting at his kitchen table. He had poured some coffee for both of them, but the cups sat cool and untouched.

  Hardy sat between the table and the sink. He had pushed himself back a little so he could cross his legs, and now his ankle rested on its opposite knee. "So you told Glitsky this last night, too?"

  "Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I? It's the truth. Jesus Christ, Diz, why do we keep going back over this? There's nothing to talk about!"

  Hardy drew a breath, collected himself, let the breath out. It was possible, he supposed, though doubtful, that Judith had remembered the wrong night. "As a matter of fact, there is, Eric. The reason I can't get over it is that you never told me that Dr. Cohn was here that night, sleeping over. This is hard for me to fathom since she could have corroborated your alibi." His voice grew harsh. "And then we could just leave it. Or is it time to find yourself another lawyer?"

  Kensing's eyes did a quick dance, came to rest. "She was asleep when I got home." He paused, scratched his fingernail across the table. "As it turns out, I didn't wake her up. So she wouldn't have known I was there. I wanted to keep her out of it."

  Hardy waited to see if Kensing would ask the obvious question, but when it didn't come, he supplied it. "Aren't you interested in how I found out she'd been here?"

  No answer.

  "I talked to her and I asked her, how about that? Last night. And she was asleep when you got home, you're right. Although it wasn't ten thirty, was it? It was after one in the morning. Are you going to tell me she's lying?"

  Kensing ran a bluff for about five seconds; then all the air left him in a rush. His shoulders sagged, his head hung down. He stood up and walked over to the sink, out of sight behind Hardy, who didn't turn to keep an eye on him and suddenly felt the hair on his neck stand up. A selection of kitchen knives hung off a magnet strip on the wall back there. Kensing could pull one off and slash with it before Hardy could move a muscle.

  He whirled.

  His client wasn't even facing him, and Hardy felt a moment of something like shame. Kensing was leaning with his hands on both sides of the sink, staring out the window. He finally spoke in a hoarse whisper. "I've been clean and sober for seven years, Diz. Seven years, a day at a time. You know how long that is?" He chuckled bitterly. "The answer is you don't. Nobody does. So last Tuesday, the man who ruined my marriage and took my kids from me shows up in my unit, and three hours later he's dead. Just dead. An act of God as far as I know. Finally some justice, finally something fair. But then between Carla and Driscoll, there's bedlam in the hospital. Then Ann comes to see me and she's raving, talking about me killing him, and for a minute I actually wonder if I didn't do all I could to keep him alive."

  He stopped, ran water into a glass, drank it off, and wiped his mouth with his hand. "Anyway, somehow I made it through the rest of that day, going over to Carla's, trying to find a place for this this thing that had happened. Then that cop, Bracco, outside at Carla's, and more talk as though somebody had done this to Tim. But then I was gone, free from it, driving home at last. I even got all the way here, parked just up the street a ways. I saw the light on and knew Judith was here."

  A deep sigh. "Then I walked down to Harry's and had a drink. A double ac
tually. Scotch and soda. Just sitting there savoring it, the most delicious thing I'd tasted in forever. Then another one, drinking to the good Mr. Markham's health, the beauty of it. God, it was so beautiful." He came back to the table and sat. "Then another one, this one for all the lost nights and my babies and Annie and all the shit I'd taken from her. And a couple more for Parnassus and what my life had turned into, a sham of healing people with minimum care, pretending that I was some paragon of virtue and knowledge. One more because the whole thing's a lie and I'm a fraud. Then the rest because I'm a drunk and a loser and that's all I am. So finally, when I try to order one more, the bartender, God bless him, cuts me off. It's closing time. He'll even give me a lift home if I need it."