The Dismas Hardy Novels

by John Lescroart

  Treya looked up from her desk to the wall clock. She broke a genuine smile and rose from the chair. “Dismas Hardy, Esquire, three o’clock, right on the button. Clarence is expecting you, he’ll be right with you, but he’s got someone in with him for just another minute. Are you coming from upstairs?” she asked. Meaning Glitsky’s detail.

  “No.”

  “So you haven’t talked to Abe?”

  “Not yet. Frannie told me he called last night, but I got home late.”

  “He really wants to talk to you.”

  “And I him, of course. Maybe you could make us an appointment?”

  “Isn’t he coming down for this one? I know Clarence asked him.”

  This didn’t strike Hardy as good news, but he covered his reaction with a smile. “Good. Maybe we can chat afterwards.”

  He sat and waited, aware of his nerves and his still-smoldering anger. He’d spent countless hours here in the DA’s office—from back when he’d been a young assistant DA himself through his recent trials as a defense attorney. In well over ninety percent of those hours, there’d been conflict between himself and the person on the other side of that door. Since Jackman’s appointment as DA, that had changed. Now in a few minutes, he knew he was about to go back where he belonged, on the defense side. It was perhaps going to be a subtle shift, and hopefully cordial, but a real one nonetheless.

  Jackman’s door opened. Marlene Ash was inside. Now that he thought of it, he should have expected that Jackman would have asked her, too. She was, after all, going to prosecute Parnassus and, in all likelihood, his client.

  “Diz, how you doin’?” Jackman boomed. “Come on in, come on in. Sorry we’re running a little late.”

  He came through the door, smiling and smiling. “If you and Marlene aren’t finished,” he began, giving them every chance, “I don’t mean to rush you. I’m sure Treya and I can find some way to pass a few more pleasant minutes.”

  Jackman smiled back at him. Everybody was still friends. “Marlene thought she might want to stay a while, if you don’t mind. There were a couple of things she wanted to run by you. Did Treya tell you I’ve asked Abe to stop by? And here he is.”

  Glitsky and Hardy sat on either end of the couch—neither words nor eye contact between them. Marlene still sat in her chair, Jackman pulled another one up. A nice little circle of friends around the coffee table.

  Hardy got right down to it. “I understand that in the wake of Mr. Markham becoming a potential murder victim, you’ve decided to convene a grand jury. I hear that they are investigating not just Markham’s death, but the whole Parnassus business situation. In fact, I think it was even my idea, originally, before anybody died. I just wanted you all to know that I really don’t expect any huge public display to recognize my contribution here, although a tasteful bust in the lobby downstairs or a small commemorative plaque in the corner at Lou’s might be nice.”

  Glitsky’s scar was an unbroken line through his lips. “The man could talk the ears off a water jug.”

  Sitting back, Hardy extended an arm out along the top of the couch, affecting a relaxed pose that he didn’t feel. “As my friend Abe points out, I’m a believer in communicating.” He directed a pointed glance at Glitsky, then came forward on the couch. “I understand what some of you would like to happen next. I talked to Dr. Kensing about an hour ago. He told me that his wife now claims he admitted killing Markham.” Hardy finally faced Abe. “I figure that’s what you must have called me about, to give me a heads-up that you were bringing him in.”

  Glitsky said nothing.

  Hardy continued. “But of course, since you interviewed my client despite my explicit request that you not do so, perhaps you were prepared to dispense with a courtesy call, too.”

  A muscle worked in Glitsky’s jaw. The scar stood out in clear relief.

  He went on. “I think the only reason he’s not already in jail is because you decided to wait until Clarence was ready to sign the warrant.” The expressions around the room told Hardy that he’d pegged it exactly. “But that’s not why I’m here,” he said. “I’m here to keep my client out of jail.”

  Glitsky snorted. “Good luck.”

  “I’m not going to need luck. If all you’ve got is the wife’s story, you don’t have any case that’ll fly in front of a jury. You must know that.”

  Marlene took this moment to get on the boards. “According to Abe, we’ve got plenty to go with, Dismas. If the man’s killed five people, he shouldn’t be on the streets.”

  “Marlene, please. Let’s not insult each other’s intelligence. Dr. Kensing had no motive in the world to harm the family.”

  “That you know,” Glitsky said.

  Again, Hardy turned directly to face him. “Am I to assume that means that you have discovered one?”

  Jackman cleared his throat and answered for Glitsky. “We assume, Diz, that the murders of Markham and his family are related. I think you would agree with that as a working hypothesis, wouldn’t you? But that’s really not germane. Dr. Kensing has plenty of motive for Markham. Plus means and opportunity.”

  “But no evidence, Clarence. No real evidence. It’s mostly some motive.”

  “Don’t shit a shitter, Diz,” Marlene said. “First, we don’t have some motive, we’ve got a ton of motive and nobody else has any. Second, we know when Markham was killed and Dr. Kensing was right there. Moreover,” she went on calmly, “Markham got killed by drugs administered through an IV, and your client is not exactly a janitor. He’s got access. So we’ve got motive, means, and opportunity and not the slightest doubt about these facts.”

  Hardy repeated his mantra. “But no physical evidence. No direct evidence. Nobody saw him do it and no physical evidence shows he did it. You can prove that maybe he did it, but maybe he didn’t, and that, I need hardly remind you, is reasonable doubt.”

  “His wife says he admitted it,” Glitsky growled. “That’s evidence. Kensing told her he pumped him full of shit a day before the autopsy, before anybody knew he was murdered. Oh, you didn’t catch that detail yet?” Glitsky cleared his throat. “I called you last night. I thought maybe we could talk about that. Maybe you didn’t get the message.”

  “I told you not to interview my client,” Hardy shot back. “Maybe you didn’t get my message.” Hardy fought to control his temper. This wasn’t the way to get what he wanted. He turned to Ash. “So his wife, who hates him, says he killed her lover. That’s it? You’ll never convict on that.”

  But Ash remained calm. “I believe, with the rest of the evidence, that in fact I might, Dismas.”

  “‘Might’ is not particularly strong, Marlene.”

  “You want to help us do better, is that it?” Glitsky’s tone was glacial.

  “As a matter of fact, I have a suggestion that might have that effect,” Hardy said. “I won’t pretend that Dr. Kensing isn’t my main concern. I know you’re about to arrest him. Hell, maybe you’ve already got your warrant.” Hardy waited, but no one admitted that. Which meant maybe it wasn’t too late. He sucked in a breath. It was party time. “I’m going to do a little preamble,” he began.

  “Surprise!”

  Hardy ignored Glitsky, made his pitch directly to Jackman. “Look. Let’s say you bring in Kensing and charge him with murder. Abe could arrest him today. I’ll even grant you that the wife’s statement would almost certainly get you an indictment if you put her before the grand jury. In either case, you’d have to give me discovery, of course.”

  Discovery included everything about the prosecution—physical evidence, exhibits, testimony, police reports, and so on. The defense had the absolute right to the prosecution’s case. This was Law 1A, but Hardy didn’t think it was a bad idea to remind everybody that one way or the other he was going to see all the evidence they had anyway. It was automatic.

  “But you haven’t arrested him yet,” he continued, “or brought him before the grand jury. So he’s not been charged, and therefore there’s no
compulsion for you to share anything with me yet.”

  “Is the preamble over?” Glitsky asked.

  Hardy didn’t even acknowledge the interruption. He kept his eyes on Jackman. “What I propose is a horse trade.” He pressed ahead quickly. “What you really want is Parnassus, Clarence. You know it, I know it, everybody here knows it. You want to find out where the rot is and cut it out, but you’ve got to be careful you don’t cut it so badly that you kill it. If Parnassus goes belly up, the people who’ll take the biggest hit by far are the city employees. Now this would be legitimate bad news for a lot of good people, but it’s the worst possible political scenario for you, Clarence, if you want to keep this job and continue the good work you’ve started.”

  Jackman’s mouth turned down slightly in distaste. Hardy didn’t think it was only over his brownnosing. He’d hit a nerve, as he hoped he would.

  “All right. So how does your client fit in?” Jackman asked.

  “He fits because everything’s mellow over at Parnassus only so long as you’re looking for whoever killed their CEO. They’re all expecting you to do that. So the corporate types won’t see your people showing up and go rushing out to shred their files, and whatever other obstructions they’ll come up with. But once you arrest Kensing, you’ve got no pretext.”

  He stopped to let the notion sink in, but Marlene didn’t have to wait. “With all respect, Diz, that’s bullshit. The grand jury can look anywhere they want, anytime they want. It’s got nothing to do with your client.”

  “I’m not arguing with that, Marlene. You can arrest him and continue to investigate at Parnassus. You have every right. Still…” He went back to Jackman. “Here’s the city’s health care provider, already reeling from near bankruptcy, terrible cash flow problems, subzero morale, and now the loss of its chief executive. If word gets out that you’re trying to shut the place down—”

  “That’s not our intention,” Marlene said.

  But Hardy shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. If you arrest Kensing and then continue poking around, that’s what it’s going to look like. Which means the shit’s going to hit the fan. You all know this town. Everything gets exaggerated. Everything’s an issue. What’s going to happen when it looks like lots of city workers aren’t going to have medical care? It will not be pretty.”

  All this was well and good and possibly true, but Glitsky wasn’t buying it at all. “And the way we avoid this potential catastrophe is we don’t arrest your client?”

  “Only until the grand jury can do its job. Say thirty days.”

  “Thirty days!” Glitsky was apoplectic. “Are you out of your mind? If he killed Markham, and my evidence says he did, he likely killed his whole family, too. I don’t care if it brings down the whole federal government, the man belongs in jail.”

  Hardy turned to Ash. “The case sucks, Marlene. You arrest him and you know what’s going to happen. Parnassus goes in the toilet and after it does, if Kensing beats the case at trial, you guys all go with it.”

  But with all the arguing, Jackman still hadn’t lost the thread. “You mentioned trading, Diz. You’re asking us to give you thirty days…”

  “And your discovery,” Hardy added.

  Glitsky threw up his hands and stood up. “How ’bout a chauffeur, too? Maybe some massage therapy?”

  Hardy kept ignoring him.

  The DA’s face was lost in concentration. “All right, for purposes of this discussion, and your discovery—”

  “Not a chance! No way we do this, Clarence. I’ll go bring him in on a no-warrant before that happens.”

  Jackman filled his large chest with air. He had Glitsky by an inch or two and thirty pounds and all of it was never more visible than it was now, when it was clearly so tightly controlled. His voice, when it came, was a deep bassoon of authority. “That you will not do, Lieutenant!” He took another slow breath, then continued in a conversational tone. “You’ve had ample time before this to arrest Dr. Kensing without a warrant, Abe. But you’re the one who brought me into this decision loop, and now it’s mine to make. I hope that’s abundantly clear.”

  Glitsky couldn’t find his voice. He stared around the room in open disbelief if not downright hostility. Jackman ignored him and turned to Hardy. “Thirty days and discovery in return for what?”

  “In return for his testimony in front of the grand jury.”

  The sense of anticlimax was palpable. Glitsky was shaking his head in bewilderment that Hardy had wasted all of their time and effort for so little. Marlene’s face reflected a similar reaction. Even Jackman folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head to one side. But his eyes, at least, still probed.

  Hardy felt the topic wasn’t closed. “Look, Clarence, as it stands now, when you get Kensing in front of the grand jury, I’m going to tell him to take the Fifth. You’ll be lucky if you get his name. This way, you’ve got Marlene here—” He turned to her. “Imagine this. You’ve got your primary murder suspect answering any question you might have without his lawyer there. It’s a prosecutor’s dream.”

  But she was unconvinced. “It’s not my dream, Diz. You’ll just have more time to give him a story, which he’ll stick to.” She looked to her boss. “This won’t work, sir. He’s not offering anything, really.”

  “But I am, Marlene. Think about this. I’m offering an insider’s look inside Parnassus, exactly what you all need.”

  “We can get that anyway, Diz.”

  “Where? From who? Everybody else who works there is going to be covering for themselves or their employer. Even the other doctors.”

  “That’s not true. The grand jury will protect them, no matter what they say in there. That’s exactly what it’s for, Dismas. So people can talk freely.”

  “It’s what it’s designed to do, right, Marlene. But it doesn’t always work that way. You won’t find too many doctors who are going to want to help you in your efforts to cut off the source of their paychecks. But even if all you want is to go after my client on Markham, you’ve got him all to yourself for as long as you want. No relevance issues, no inadmissibility, no defense objections, total open season.”

  Marlene’s stare was unyielding.

  Glitsky had moved over to the doorsill and was leaning against it, a sullen statue. “What if he kills again?” he asked. “His own wife, for example. I’d feel pretty bad if she died. Wouldn’t you?”

  Jackman broke in between them. “It seems to me he’s had ample opportunity to kill his wife if he wanted to, Abe.”

  “But now, with her statement, he’s got a better reason to.”

  “So we protect her,” Jackman said. “Or move her. Or both. And it seems to me that Dismas has a point. If only out of self-preservation, Kensing isn’t going to do anything while he knows that he is our chief suspect in another murder.”

  Hardy knew that in some ways, Jackman’s inexperience was showing. Murderers rarely acted rationally. But, he thought cynically, that’s what politics was about. The inexperienced taking control. He’d take some self-serving self-deception if it kept his client out of jail.

  Jackman turned again to Glitsky.

  “Marlene and I were talking about these very issues before Dismas got here, Abe. We agreed then that the Parnassus investigation will take on a very different cast as soon as we make an arrest on Markham. And we were trying to strategize to address the problem. It seems to me now that Diz’s solution might have merit.”

  Glitsky’s scar was a tight, thick rope down through his lips. “The man’s a murderer, Clarence.”

  Jackman wasn’t going to fight about it. If anything, he was judicious and calm, nodding patiently. “He may be, of course. But as we’ve said here, I really don’t believe he’s a danger to the community. Now I don’t want to close the door to revisiting that assessment. Daily, if need be. But in the meanwhile”—he turned to Hardy—“I’m inclined, Diz, to accept your assessment on Parnassus. I don’t want them spooked. I don’t—”

  Th
e concession speech was interrupted by the door slamming—hard—behind Glitsky as he stormed out.

  Beyond his client’s freedom and the prosecution’s discovery, Hardy had originally intended to make yet another request to the DA. It was normally supposed to be Jackman’s call, and by asking his permission, Hardy might continue to succeed in his little charade that cooperation was, in fact, his middle name. But Glitsky’s abrupt withdrawal had cast a pall over those who’d stayed, and he decided that to ask for more would be pushing things.

  But the other item of business remained. And the more he thought about it, the less it seemed to matter if he asked Jackman’s permission first. He needed an answer and needed it now. His client was still in big trouble. And he wasn’t really going behind anybody’s back by asking John Strout. If the medical examiner found anything as a result of Hardy’s request, he would report it to Glitsky and Jackman anyway.

  Hardy wasn’t hiding anything—his motives or his actions. Or so he told himself.

  He walked out the back door of the hall along the covered outdoor corridor that led to the jail on the left and the morgue on the right. The air smelled faintly of salt water, but he also caught the scent of flowers from the huge commercial market around the corner. He was feeling as though he’d accomplished quite a bit during the day. When he was done with Strout, he’d try to remember to buy a bouquet for his wife, even his daughter. It was Friday evening. The weekend loomed long and inviting, and maybe he and his family could fashion some quality time together if they worked at it.

  It turned out that Strout was cutting up someone in the cold room at the moment, but the receptionist told Hardy he shouldn’t be too long. Did he want to wait? He told her he thought he would.