The Oath

by John Lescroart

  "Oh no." Rajan's eyes were wide at the accusation. "I did not kill him."

  "But you did kill the other ones?"

  "No! I have told you. No."

  "Rajan," Glitsky said quietly. "Listen to me. We're not going to go away. We're going to keep on this until we find the proof we need, and we will find it. When you murder ten or more people, I'll tell you for a fact that you've left a trail somewhere, either when you checked out the drugs or someplace else. Maybe you've got vials of it stashed somewhere. Maybe you confided in one of your bridge partners. Or another nurse. Whatever it is, we're going to keep looking until we find it. We're going to ask your friends and the people you work with. It will be very ugly and eventually, after all your efforts to hide it, it will come out anyway. You have to understand that. It will come out."

  Bracco: "Or you could just tell us now."

  "Do yourself a favor," Glitsky said. "It could all end right now. I know it must be bothering you. I know you need to explain why you had to do this." He stood up, motioned to Bracco. "Let's give him a few minutes alone, Darrel."

  * * *

  Glitsky wasn't going to leave a message at Hardy's conceding his mistake with Kensing. If he'd been wrong, and it looked like he had been—well, he'd been wrong before and would be again. But he wasn't going to give Hardy a tape recording of himself admitting it. His friend would probably run a loop of it and make it a part of the outgoing message on his answering machine. So he'd called once, left his usual, cheery, "Glitsky, call me," and waited.

  The callback came at a little after 3:00. "I've got a question," Hardy said.

  "Wait! Give me a minute. Fifty-four."

  "Good answer. Unfortunately not the right one."

  "You weren't going to ask how old I'd be when my child is born?"

  "No, but that's an awesome fact. Fifty-four? That's way too old to have new kids. Why, I'm not even fifty-four myself, and my children are nearly grown and out of the house."

  "So are mine," Glitsky growled. "So what was your real question?"

  "Actually I have two. I had kind of thought we'd agreed on the idea that you'd inform me when you were moving on my client."

  "Is that a question?"

  "The question is, why'd you choose last night to search his place and not tell me about it first?"

  "I won't dignify the second half. As for why we picked yesterday, we wanted to know what we might have with him before he got in front of the grand jury. It would have been embarrassing if he had a floorplan of Markham's home with X's where the bodies were found, and Marlene didn't know about it when she was asking him questions. Know what I mean?"

  Hardy did and it made complete sense, as did the lack of warning. If Glitsky had told him in advance when they were searching, Hardy would have gone there first and removed any shred of anything that could have been construed as incriminating. He decided to move on. "The second question is easier. Have you talked to your two cowboys or know where they are now? We were going to get together again and I thought I'd set it up."

  "They're out talking to somebody about the hit-and-run vehicle—hey, we don't call them the car police for nothing—but they ought to be back before five. Inspector Fisk has an aversion to overtime, whatever that is. You want to drop by here on your way home, they'll probably be around. I can congratulate you on getting your client off."

  "You got the word, did you?"

  "Marlene, just before lunch."

  "Which leaves you where with the rest of it?"

  "Real close."

  Hardy chuckled. "Good answer."

  "Why do you care, if it's not your case anymore?"

  "It's still my case, Abe. I just don't have a client." A pause. "We had a deal. I may have found out a few things."

  Glitsky decided he liked the sound of that. "See you in a couple of hours," he said.

  * * *

  The last time Hardy had just picked up and without any warning decided to pay a call on a working doctor at the Judah Clinic was when he had tried to convince Kensing to talk to him while he was scheduled to see patients. That hadn't worked out so well.

  But after two plus hours with Jeff Elliot's documents down in the windowless Chronicle basement, Hardy couldn't abide the thought of returning to his office. When he told Cohn what his unscheduled visit to the clinic was about, he was confident that even if she was busy, she would see him.

  But maybe not. He waited outside with his brain on full speed for a little more than twenty minutes and still she hadn't appeared. He would give her another ten before he went inside again and made a stronger demand. It was the sixth consecutive day of sunshine, and he was going to get as much of it as he could before the June fog slammed the city again.

  "Mr. Hardy?"

  He squinted up, got to his feet, extended his hand. "Guilty."

  Judith Cohn's mouth was set in worry, the cause of which immediately became apparent. The same question she'd asked first thing on the phone yesterday. "Is it Eric? Is he all right?"

  "He's fine. In fact, he's better than he's been in a couple of weeks." He explained only that his grand jury testimony had made them decide that he was no longer a suspect. He said nothing about the actual alibi, the stop at Harry's bar. If Kensing wanted to tell her about that, it would be his call.

  "So he's clear?"

  "Looks like."

  "Oh God." She put a hand histrionically over her heart, smiling now broadly at him. "That is such a great relief. I am so glad." Then the smile faded. "But you didn't come here to tell me that, did you?"

  "No, I didn't."

  Her hand was still on her heart. "What?"

  He started at the beginning, his call to her yesterday, which had revealed that she did not have any corroboration for where she had been at 10:45 on that Tuesday night. Then the Lopez case. Her problems with Markham. Over-sleeping the morning Markham had been hit. "I'm not saying that I think you've had anything to do with any of this, but the police may not feel the same way if they find out. With very few other people on their radar screens, it's likely that they will. It would be better if you were prepared for their questions."

  She'd listened intently and now her face clouded over with dismay. "But I I was at Eric's. I never thought I'd have to prove that."

  "Did you talk to anyone else, see anybody in the hallway? Do you remember if anybody might have seen you?"

  She was continually shaking her head, stunned by this development, how it might play. "And so they'd think I could have killed Mrs. Markham and their children?"

  "It would not eliminate you. That's the point. And they're going on the assumption that the same person killed Tim."

  "At the hospital?"

  "Yes."

  For a moment, Hardy thought she might panic. Her eyes locked on his, then combed the street in front of them, as though looking for an avenue of escape. But then, almost as suddenly, the strain bled out of her expressive face. She reached out her hand and placed it on Hardy's sleeve. "Then this would only matter," she said, "if I had been in the ICU within a few minutes or so of Tim's death, right?"

  "I don't know exactly. Enough time for the potassium to work."

  "So let's even say fifteen minutes outside, and that would be a hell of a long time. That's when I would have had to be there, right?"

  "Right. But it was my understanding—you told me last night, in fact—that you were there right after the code blue—"

  "I was, but not right before. Right before—a half hour before, at least, maybe more—I was in the ER, putting some stitches in a baby's lip. She dropped her bottle, then fell on it. What a mess. But I had my nurse with me, and the baby's mom. Everybody, in fact. Everybody knew I was there. When they called the code blue, I was just washing up after the stitches and I turned to my nurse and said, 'I've got to go see if that's Mr. Markham.' She'll remember."

  * * *

  When Hardy walked into the homicide detail, it was Old Home Week. Though Bracco and Fisk had not yet arrived, eight out of the
fourteen homicide inspectors were at or near their desks. Hardy thought it had to be close to a record for the room. The hazing of the new guys continued, he noticed—a Keystone Kops children's toy, two soft police dolls hanging from a paddy wagon, sat in the middle of their combined desks by the stoplight. While Hardy waited, three separate inspectors pointed out to him that if you squeezed the wagon, it went "oogah! oogah!" When he declined to try it for himself, they all seemed disappointed. Adding to the party atmosphere, Jackman had stopped by with Treya at the close of business and, hearing of Hardy's imminent arrival, had decided to wait around. Marlene Ash had finished up with the grand jury for the day. She wanted to get Glitsky's debriefing of Rajan Bhutan, as well as whatever late-breaking news he might have on the still-live Markham suspects, whoever they might be. Glitsky's office couldn't have held the crowd, so everyone had moved over near the first interrogation room, and that's where Hardy joined them.

  After taking the expected grief from Jackman about the merits of the deal they'd made about his client, Hardy listened with growing interest as Glitsky went on about the second proven Portola victim, Shirley Watrous, and Rajan Bhutan. The consensus seemed to be that the two series of multiple murders were unrelated, and that Bhutan remained the prime suspect for the people on Kensing's list. They'd talked to him at length this afternoon, and Glitsky had sent two inspectors over to his home shortly after that with a search warrant.

  The inspectors sent up a rousing huzzah when the rookies arrived. Glitsky turned and glared at the world in general, then motioned Fisk and Bracco over to talk with the big boys.

  Darrel and Harlen, in Hardy's estimation, had accomplished quite a lot in a very short time. Since they'd just arrived from Markham's old neighborhood and their investigations about the car, Glitsky let Fisk expound on that topic, although his skepticism was evident. He proudly showed off to the assemblage a composite sketch of the car's driver. Hardy was glad to note that the woman bore no resemblance to Judith Cohn except for a halo of unkempt dark hair.

  As the composite went from hand to hand around the room, Fisk then announced that their witness, a teenage girl named Lexi Rath, had tentatively identified the make and model of the car that had nearly hit her, and presumably hit Tim Markham. It was a Dodge Dart, probably a model from the last year of the sixties or the early seventies. Fisk had already contacted the DMV and discovered that there were only twenty-three such cars registered in all of San Francisco County. When he'd told Motor Vehicles that they were investigating a homicide, they faxed him the names right away. He now had addresses and registered owners for each of the cars, and with luck, by tomorrow he'd have seen most of them.

  "Any of the names look familiar, Harlen?" Glitsky asked. "Related to Parnassus or Markham in any way?"

  "No, sir."

  "Well, good try anyway. If we get the car, that's something all by itself. Keep looking."

  Hardy knew Glitsky well enough to see that he was humoring Fisk about his supposed detective work, but he didn't want to ruin his inspector's day, or dampen his enthusiasm. The man had put in a decent amount of effort, and perhaps it still might all lead someplace. Hardy thought a show of interest on his own part wouldn't be out of place. "Could I get a copy of that list, Inspector?"

  Fisk looked the question over to Glitsky, who nodded. But it was clear the lieutenant's real area of concern lay elsewhere, in the alibis for the time of Carla's death. "Darrel," he said, turning to Bracco, "did you get anything more on Driscoll?"

  "I don't think Harlen was quite done, sir."

  His patience straining, Glitsky yielded the floor back to Fisk. "I thought I'd try to make amends for my giveaway to Dr. Ross. So I called my aunt Kathy—Kathy West," he explained to the rest of the room, "and told her what I'd done and what had happened."

  "Which was what, Harlen?" Glitsky prompted him, much to Hardy's satisfaction.

  He outlined the story briefly—Ross and his wife and his alibi. Then he went on. "I asked her—Aunt Kathy—if she could get in touch with Nancy Ross, just as a friend, and find out if her husband had called her and asked her to change her memory."

  "But it doesn't matter. The wife would never testify any way," Marlene Ash objected, repeating Glitsky's earlier argument.

  Jackman added to that. "Your aunt's testimony would be hearsay anyway, and probably inadmissible in any event. Isn't that right, Diz?"

  But Hardy was no longer interested in parsing the law. He wanted answers and information. He saw that Fisk had begun to wilt under the heat of the lawyer's questions. He wanted to keep him talking, to find out what had happened. "So what did she say anyway, Inspector? Your aunt."

  "That Ross had called his wife and told her she was mistaken about that night. He'd been home by ten. She had to remember that. It was important." He looked around the room again. "But Nancy told Aunt Kathy that in fact he hadn't been home by ten, although of course she'd back him up if it was important to Malachi. It was probably some big hush-hush business deal. But she was sure that he hadn't gotten home until way after midnight, which is when she'd gone to sleep."

  "Still," Glitsky said, "all that means is that he didn't go straight home." Hardy was reminded of Eric Kensing and all the variables on that score. "Is there any sign that he went to Carla's, though? Have you got any evidence or testimony or hint of anything putting him there?"

  Fisk's face fell. "No, sir."

  Glitsky threw him a bone. "I'm not saying it's not something, Harlen. And it does make up for the morning, okay. Keep on it. Now, Darrel, how about Driscoll?"

  "He did make that phone call, all right. I talked to Roger—the roommate—and got the phone bill. Forty-eight minutes, beginning at nine forty-six."

  Everybody worked it out in their heads. Glitsky said, "So he couldn't have made it to Carla's?"

  Bracco seemed to agree. "He would have had to fly."

  * * *

  It was the bottom of the fourth inning and Hardy was standing in the third base coach's box at Pop Hicks Field in the Presidio. It was a great field in terrific condition in a city starved for playgrounds, but in typical San Francisco fashion, the Little League was probably going to get kicked off it before too long. They might be forced to relocate to a field on Treasure Island, in the middle of the bay. This was because someone had raised the issue that there might be toxins in the dirt. Though none had been found to date, every news story on the issue had pointed out that the Presidio had been a military base for years, after all, and who knew what those military types had dumped where. Probably there was poison everywhere—mustard gas, anthrax, battery acid. Hardy considered it foreordained that they'd shut the field down.

  But tonight, it was still a wonderful venue for kids' baseball and Vincent had just opened the Tigers' half of the inning by doubling to the gap in left field—his second double of the night. He was now dancing down the baseline, trying to draw a throw from the pitcher.

  Hardy's mind was not as much on the game as it could have been. After the meeting in homicide had broken up and Fisk and Bracco had left, he'd stayed around jawing with Glitsky and Treya, Marlene and Clarence for a few minutes. Marlene seemed to be excited about the prospect of getting her hands on Brendan Driscoll's computer disks, but since Hardy had spent a good portion of the afternoon reviewing those printouts to no avail, he didn't quite share her enthusiasm. He still had copies of Markham's cryptic notes in his briefcase—he thought he'd work on those puzzles over the next few days in his free time.

  And in fact, he was doing it now, though still going mostly nowhere.

  Clarence, obviously frustrated at the pace of the investigation so far, announced that he had heard from the mayor. His Honor had gotten wind of the second verified homicide from Kensing's list and wasn't much impressed with the DA's subtle approach to Parnassus and its troubles. The HMO was a major contractor with the city and their business practices were seriously suspect. Clarence was now of a mind to go and seize all of its records for the grand jury's perusal and forget about avoi
ding a possible panic among city workers. People were already beginning to panic—the mayor's office was fielding about fifty calls a day. It was high time to put Parnassus in receivership and turn the grand jury and another team of homicide inspectors concurrently onto this second set of homicides. Whether or not there was any relation between them and the Markham deaths, they were a big deal in their own right.

  The mayor was adamant that there had to at least be the appearance of progress—he mentioned creating a special task force if there weren't some results soon. Everybody knew what that would mean. Meddling by amateurs, political deals, compromise, and quite probably no resolution ever. The message was clear: If Jackman wanted to get any credit for fixing this mess, this was his chance and he'd better take it.